Thursday, 11 April 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
With Eid-al-Fitr just a day away, the people belonging to the Muslim community thronged the markets on Wednesday in large numbers. The scene was the same in the city’s major markets, including Paltan Bazaar, Dilaram and Jhanda Bazaar, with the shopping buzz having peaked.
The shops, selling Eid essentials like clothes, mehendi designs and sweets, were nearly chock- a- block with the last-minute Eid shoppers. The shop owners look happy as the customers swell.
Asked how she was feeling while doing the last-minute shopping for Eid, a local resident Nazama Khan smiled and said that she had started her shopping a week before the festival. “I am in the market again today as there are still many things to buy. Besides, the application of mehendi on my hand as part of Eid ritual has not yet been done. The celebration of this festival is incomplete without sweets. So I have to buy a variety of sweets.” Another shopper Sana Ibrahim said while talking to this correspondent that Eid for the women is all about wearing good clothes, eating delicious food and receiving Eidi from elders. “Every Eid, I prepare multiple festival dishes for our family members and friends. This year too, I will do the same and I am now busy buying the ingredients for the special dishes to be served as part of celebrating the festival,” she added.
A cloth shop owner Ashutosh Saini said that they have been witnessing the Eid shopping buzz for the past few days. “But today the shopping spree has peaked,” he said and added that the Eid sales this year have surpassed the volume of sales seen last year. “It seems that the people’s normal festival spending boom has returned. Things were grim for some years when the Covid-19 pandemic paralysed life. I am happy to see again the hordes of women shoppers out to buy clothes for them and others,” he said.
Notably, this year, the holy month of Ramadan began on March 12 and ended on Wednesday. During this holy month, the faithful abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset, beginning their fast before sunrise with Sehri and continuing it throughout the day till sunset.
