Eid eve shopping reaches feverish pitch in Srinagar

SRINAGAR: Eid shopping continued in the Kashmir Valley for the second day on Sunday at a feverish pitch as congested streets, markets overflowing with shoppers and children jostling for new clothes, firecrackers, and toys added to the festivity.

All markets in Srinagar city and other major and minor towns of the Valley presented a festive look as roadside bakeries, garment and shoe vendors, sweetmeat sellers and others did brisk business. Mutton, poultry, bakery, and garment shops attracted the maximum number of customers during the day. Women carrying loads of packets filled with Eid eve shopping items dotted markets in uptown Srinagar city. Traffic moved at snail's pace as roads remained jammed at many places in the city during the day. With shopkeepers spreading their goods on to the pedestrian malls, roads across the city were choked.

Traffic cops at many places gave tickets for wrong parking and violation of one-way traffic, but despite their hectic efforts to streamline the movement of vehicles on main arteries of the city, chaos remained the order of the day. Children thronged garment, firecracker and toy shops while parents emptied their purses to keep their wards smiling. Shopkeepers seemed to dictate prices of essential items of life and readymade garments in the absence of market checking squads of the government. From one market to another, even the prices of mutton and poultry kept varying. Since nobody wants to get into an argument during the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, shoppers appeared to have willingly given themselves up to the whims and dictates of the shopkeepers.

Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated after the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and because of this Muslims throughout the world look forward to choice food and sweet dishes to return back to routine eating after 30 days of fasting. This year the Eid festival is being celebrated in the Valley after nearly two years of pandemic restrictions. People have, therefore, decided to return to markets in large numbers with a rebound this year. Right since the morning, almost every family in the Valley remained busy making preparations for the Eid festival.

Homes are usually given a facelift on Eid eve in uptown and old city areas of Srinagar where women attend to housekeeping in a grand manner. Men lend a helping hand while women decide the colour of new curtains, floorings and furnishings in well-to-do families. Even after sunset, the queues of shoppers outside bakery, mutton and poultry shops remained unending in most parts of Srinagar city. IANS

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