Winter Wonderland

Most people in the West attend Christmas parties and call them holiday parties.
Consequently the gifts they exchange are called holiday gifts.

Living in Pakistan our family receives many cards that give us the "Season's Greetings."

What's all this about anyway? I haven't come across anyone on the face of this earth who sends and receives season's greetings on the blessed seasons of autumn, spring and summer. Then why is winter so ostentatiously celebrated? Season's greetings! Let's join hands in a Communal Icicle Freeze!

It's at times like these that I feel drained just thinking of our ready assimilation towards festivities mainly created by card and gift companies for their personal prosperity. So much that we tend to not think of our two Eids with its due reverence. There is a chand raat for Eid ul Adha ignorantly on the day before Eid even though the moon was sighted nine days before.

MCB's marketing scheme for Eid ul Fitr made my blood boil. What's the big idea behind pressuring people to take out personal loans to buy "more than bangles" or "go designer this Eid?"

It's almost as if we're apologetic about the fact that our Eids are not as glitzy as other occassions strewn all over billboards and Expos at the Expo Center.

What's so enlightening or liberating about assimilation? Albeit towards an idea, a festival or even a sentiment?

Speaking of assimilation, I will write about the KaraFilm Festival soon insha Allah.