With every festival comes a list of mandatory purchases, gifts to be given away and a wishlist that is more gratifying than the last year. But all of it is not that easy to basket, since every family has to work around constraints, some budgetary allocations under which the wants are prioritised. Every family waits for this celebration, praying for prosperity and hoping that the next festival is better than the pervious.

A.Shabiroun (60), a housewife defines Ramzan as a festival of giving. ‘All that I want to do is help students who can’t afford to fund their schooling and give the poor clothes on the occasion of Ramzan. If one has not donated on the occasion of Ramzan, the essence of the festival is lost,’ she says. While her husband Mr Abdullah says that this festival is like paying tax to the poor.

But even Shabiroun who believes in giving than celebrating says she can’t afford to give to her heart’s content. ‘My husband goes out to shop for wheat, rice to be given at the Mosque without me so that he can travel by bus and not auto,’ she says, regretting being a burden on her husband rather than a helping hand. A mother of three daughters and two sons, who are all settled now, Shabiroun does not make anything special for her Eid lunch, just idly with khurma.

‘It is only sacrifice and prayer that make a person humane and successful, I needed a cataract surgery on both my eyes recently, but just after the operation on my right eye was completed, my servant maid needed money to get her daughter married, I sacrificed the surgery on my left eye and gave the money to her,’ she says recounting her sacrifice.

Shabiroun only hopes that she can make Ramzan more memorable for others by helping them tide over their troubles, but for a tight budgeted condition like hers, it is at the cost of an eye.