Why men sleep through Eid and feel absolutely no guilt

I do not think it’s a hyperbole to say that there is tangible joy on the morning of Eid. You feel that “specialness” despite being woken up at 6 AM by your folks so that you can shower and be ready for the Eid prayer (and of course it HAS to be the first jamaat according to your father).

So, what's in store for me on Eid day? I go to pray, come home, hug my parents and collect my first salami. Then it's a waiting game, as friends plan out the day. Once that's done, it's go-time. We roam around food joints, and near the afternoon, we head for Wonderland Park in Gulshan and hit the arcades, and we wrap up the day meeting everyone else at Movenpick, a hub where all the cool kids gather. But, as I head out of the ice cream parlour, everything goes dizzy and then black. Did I just eat something weird and am now passing out in front of all these kewl people?

I open my eyes to a dark room, my own, to the sound of Govi playing in the background. I realise, after coming back from Eid prayer, I fell asleep and was just dreaming of Eids past. I check the clock, and it's 9 PM. As I come out, I get an earful from the folks on sleeping through the entire Eid day!

I check the phone, thinking surely other people had a more exciting day. Turns out, most of my friends were sleeping as well. We laugh, and that has me thinking: Does going past 35 have some sort of male programming override where we give up the hopping for napping? And if so, why?

Well, for one thing, being adults, things like vacations are now fairy tales we see children indulging in. That means we hardly get a chance to just do nothing, which usually entails sleep.

"But you sleep every other day. Why do it on Eid?" I hear you ask.

Well, once again, answering for my brethren, there's just a special kind of peace on Eid day. Everything is off, there is no risk of an unexpected work call, and no task that needs us. There's no describing how much peace that brings to the mind, and the following depth of sleep.

And there's also an “economic” benefit to being out cold all day. Remember, we are now on the giving side of salamis. And in the same way we preyed on our relatives, their children now employ those same tactics on us. And so, when they encounter a sleeping mama/chacha/cousin, their tricks have to take a backseat.

Cheap shot? Maybe. But then again, these brats do not understand inflation. If they did, they would come to pat our backs in consolation before quietly seeing themselves out.

Which brings me to the married men. I say this because if sleeping through Eid is an art form for single men, for married men, it is a contact sport.

Nahid, a newly married 39-year-old, thought he had shared enough disclaimers with his wife that she would have been prepared for it.

"She had been briefed. Thoroughly! I sent her voice notes. But what does she do? She wakes me up so that I stay near the kitchen so that I can taste test everything she makes. Didn't she tell me during our early days that she was an excellent cook? If that is true, why does the korma need a second opinion? And if it is not true, why am I only finding out now, ten minutes into Eid morning?"

Eid life's not much better for Ashik, who's been married to his wife for the better part of a decade. "She likes going out every Eid. Fair! We worked out a system: we would go socialise after 7 PM. Great! Except she wakes me up at 3 PM to start getting ready. But it’s not me who needs to put on foundation, put lipstick on, try 17 different dresses and then 36 pairs of shoes to go with said dress, and then try on 100 different earrings, before she considers herself looking “natural.”

I have one panjabi, one sandal, one watch, and one wallet. It takes me five minutes to leave the house, so why not wake me ten minutes before that?" laments Ashik.

Hearing all this in the group chat made me realise that the irony of getting married is that even though you are now old, you have to pretend to be young again. Except now, you switch the venue from Movenpick/Westin to other people's homes, talking about rising costs of onion and oil, and whether anyone has plans for World War III.

As for me, I consider sleeping on Eid a milestone of age and maturity, and understand that the power to see the magic of Eid and truly enjoy yourself existed when you were young.

Now, the best gift you can give yourself is a drawn curtain, a silent phone, and the kind of sleep that asks nothing of you. I just wish my fellow man a peaceful nap this Eid — and may your relatives assume you are deeply, unreachably asleep!