From waking up to the sound of the ‘dhol’ to being woken up by an alarm clock

April 1st, 2022, 3:45am - After hitting the snooze button on my phone, I was contemplating whether I should get up or sneak in an extra 15 minutes of sleep while laying on the living room couch of my parent’s apartment in Brooklyn.

Suddenly my sister opened the curtains in front of me, the bright yellow and green lights seared through my eyes. I groan, turn towards the back of the couch and pull the blanket over?my face. Everything is once again dark and quiet until my younger sister squeals, breaking the silence. “They decorated the streets for Ramadan this time.” My eyes pop wide open underneath the blanket, I throw the blanket to the side of the couch, rush towards the window, and see a crescent moon made out of green LEDs. It's hanging in the middle of the street among smaller yellow bulbs all attached with a string that is tied across the two streets. A smile spreads across my face and as the smell of curry on the stove makes its way up my nostrils, sounds from the Q&A segment of the Ramadan transmission playing on the TV screen start to slowly fade away in the background, and? suddenly I am back in the only bedroom on the 1st floor of my parent’s house in Pakistan.

September 6, 2007, 5:25pm(few days before Ramadan) -? The AC is blasting at the highest speed, my sisters and I are gathered around the computer screen placed in the middle of the bedroom on the 1st floor of my parent’s house in Pakistan, switching between watching episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, and That’s So Raven. My mom and dad are sitting in the living room, talking while a cricket match plays on the TV. As the sounds of That’s So Raven’s theme song fills up our bedroom, and the sound of “Chakka '' fills up the living room, the doorbell rings. Thirty seconds pass by, and the doorbell rings again, and again, and again, until the sound of the TV in the living room lowers, and my dad calls from the living room, “drawazay per dehko kon hai” (see who’s at the door). Annoyed, I tell my sisters to stop the episode, climb off the chair, put on my slippers, run past my parents in the living room, and towards the main door. Before opening the door, I? loudly ask, “Kon hai” (Who’s there?”) and a man from behind the closed door, starts explaining how he and some of his friends are collecting money from all the houses in the neighbourhood to put up decorations on the streets to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan. Personally, at that moment, I thought, that man was trying to scam us out of money because I have never seen the streets around our house decorated. Still not having opened the door, I told him to wait and that I would send my dad to the door. I rushed back to the living room, told my dad what the man had said, and started rushing towards the bedroom even before he could say he would take care of it. As soon as I am back in the bedroom, I tell my sisters everything I know. Within the span of a minute and a half, we all went from ready to press play on the computer screen to huddled around the bedroom window, staring at the street where the strange man, and my dad were talking. We saw our dad hand him a note of 500 rupees, and come back inside the house. Before I could question what I witnessed,? I heard the click of the mouse, my sisters had already rushed back to the computer to get the seat with the best view, and?I followed.

September 8, 2007, 8:30pm - I step outside the main gate and start walking towards where my dad? is waiting for me in front of the park across the street from the house so we can go on our daily walk. As I walk towards him, I notice the path between the main gate and the park is surrounded by two huge yellow rectangles on the asphalt. Before I know it, I am running towards the yellow rectangle on the right side of our house, rather than my dad. As soon as I am in the middle of the yellowish shadow on the asphalt, I slowly turn my gaze towards the sky. I was standing there for what felt like an hour, with a huge smile on my face and my eyes fixed on the lights hanging by a thread, attached to both sides of the street, before I felt my dad’s hand on my shoulder.

Sep 12th, 2007, 3am - I am woken up by the sound of the dhol, and a strand of light peaking?through the partially closed bedroom door. I notice that 2 of my older sisters aren’t next to me. I quickly get up, and walk towards the half open bedroom door, and call for my mom. I slowly open the rest of the door with my left hand, while rubbing my eyes with my right. It takes some time for my pupils to adjust to the light in the room but once they do, I see my parents, and my older sisters sitting around the dastarkhwan, eating. Before the door behind me gets a chance to close, my eyes well up with tears, and next thing I know my mom is right next to me while I am asking her why she didn't wake up for sheri, even after I specifically told her that I wanted to fast today. After a good 10 to 15 minutes of us going back and forth about how my mom thought I was too young to fast and me explaining how I can handle it, we finally came to an agreement. I quickly rushed to the bathroom to freshen up, ate, and continued to guzzle glass after glass of water waiting for the adhan to go off on the speaker at the masjid few blocks away from my house.

April 1st, 2022, 4:07am - I am pulled back to my parent’s apartment in Brooklyn, by my sister?saying “Bro, can you freshen up, and come eat. You are not going to have enough time to finish your chai”