Memories and savouries of Shab-e-barat

Shab-e-Barat is the night when our fate is said to be decided by the Almighty. It's a night of worship, forgiveness and rewards for devout Muslims all over the world.

Apart from the religious aspect, Shab-e-Barat is also about socialisation, especially in Asia. People share sweetmeat, bread, ruti made of rice flour and etc with destitute people, relatives and neighbours.

In my childhood, we used to celebrate it as a festival. As I grew up in a big, joint family, preparation for an occasion used to be huge. So, 3-4 days before Shab-e-barat, my mother and grandmother along with their domestic helps used to start preparation for different types of haluas, barfis and ruti and many other traditional foods.

Back then there were not that much sweetmeat items to buy from shops. Most of the delicacies were prepared at home.

On the day, the elderly women in the family – mothers and bhabis -- engaged themselves in the preparation since morning. Some of them used to fast. In the morning, I used to see my mother cooking beef curry in one stove for having those with chaler ruti while the other stove remained busy in preparing haluas like cholar daler halua, peper halua, narkel er barfi, caroot halua and many others. Sometimes they also cooked biryani and payesh.

The domestic helps used to make dough of rice flour, which they kept wrapped in wet cloths to contain moisture so that the rutis, made later in the day, would be soft.

Since morning, beggers would buzz the doorbell of the house for the hulua-ruti. They were also given money as charity.

In the afternoon, the domestic helps were sent to the neighbouring houses with trays full of gourmet goodies covered with embroidered cloths or decorative lids. And the kids of the houses used to accompany them.

People had to rush only to some specific places, including Bailey Road and Old Dhaka, if they wanted to buy sweetmeats and breads or paratas.

All the members would return home early that day and get prepared for going to mosque for the special prayer for Shab-e-Barat.

At our home, after Maghrib, everyone would sit together and have ruti with beef curry. My grandfather, grandmother, uncle and his family also joined us.

By this time, our caretaker and driver would return home after distributing food items at the relatives' houses. All distribution usually ended before Esha prayers.

The male members of the family, mostly with white payjama Panjabi, would be seen going to the mosque holding prayer mats. The women mostly used to pray at home.

From the evening, children would start popping fire crackers and lighting tarabati inside lanes or rooftops. The practice wasn't as notorious as the present day.

All the mosque would distribute sweets among the devotees and our male members used to bring those at home as they knew that we would be waiting for the savories. The items might not anything special -- mostly jilapi or amirti – but it always tasted heavenly.

All of us used to pray at home till Fazr prayer. After that, we all would go to sleep.

But the nature of socialisation centring Shab-e-barat has changed these days.

Life has become more hectic. People do not have that much time for the making the sweetmeats at home. And all types of haluas, sweetmeats and breads are available at markets across the capital.

Even if we want, it's now has become impossible to send foods at our relatives' houses due to traffic jam.

Moreover, we now don't allow our kids to go to the neighbouring houses without supervision. The children mostly stay at home.

But Shab-e-Barat is Shab-e-Barat. Still, we do celebrate the day with great enthusiasm and religious fervor. It gives us pleasure and remind us that the holy month of Ramadan is at the door, which would be followed by the Eid-ul-fitr, one of the biggest festival of Muslims.