Blessed Eid 2016, as celebrated.

         

Few weeks ago, I was reading up on the similarities shared by the Christian and Muslim religious respectively. I got to learn how Christianity and Islam share a lot, from both their identical versions of the creation story, to their accounts of Abraham's existence. I thought had seen enough until I was surprised by the Qur'an's account of Jesus Christ's extraordinary splendour, mentioned as Isa. I learnt a lot from Wikipedia and the whole Internet that day, but I had, yesterday, realized that,  there was one very important fact, Wiki didn't share. That is, both Christians and Muslims are God's children, we all crave for the same things, a good life here on earth and better life after death, and we all love celebrating.

However, I just envy my Muslim brothers and sisters sometimes, for the many times they get to celebrate religious ceremonies  in a year and the public holidays we get to enjoy,  as they make merry. You know we are getting to a point in the world where some new or weird thing, is always expected happen, and this time it was the moon that decided to rub on some traits of a typical Nigerian and turn up at African time. Notwithstanding the moon-situation,  turn up Eid Mubarak, was turned way up, as the atmosphere yesterday was filled with plenty of glitz and glamour accompanied with beautiful smiles, a touch of fashion that never goes out of vogue. Even the sun knew that yesterday wasn't a day to be harsh with it's rays, instead it shimmered down pleasant rays to bless the celebrations.

It is true that some Nigerians are still livid about the extra public holiday declared by the government thanks to the Moon's lateness. Some things were said, some things were heard, words that pricked my soul, words that raised eye brows and questions alike. Things that tears us apart more than they bring us together,  words like "has there being anytime Christians were given an extra day of public holiday? ". Some questions that deserve no reply, questions that are born from stereotyped beliefs and repugnancy.  We must learn to know and then love one another more, this is the reason why we live, this is my reason why paragraph is, to show us we have more in common than we know.

Yesterday, I didn't share in the eating and drinking because Mami failed to send my share. However, I didn't miss out on the merriment of emotions that filled the air yesterday, as I clicked away at the different postures they made for my camera. Some Muslims were very elated for the blessings they got or are to get after religiously seeing to the end of another month of Ramadan, while some were just happy that fasting is over and they were back to their regular or irregular eating schedule. I thought it would have taken me some vigorous show of my genuity as a writer before people would permit me to have there pictures taken and have them written about. However, to my pleasant surprise it didn't take much convincing for a man to leave his food and pose for my camera.  I loved it, i took almost 250mb worth pictures yesterday, and am keeping them all, as souvenir of Eid Mubarak (Blessed Mubarak) 2016. My career as a photographer might as well have kicked off... Lol. Happy celebrations people. One last question tho,, abeg where una see banger this time of the year???

P. S: SOME OF THE PICTURES that APPEAR HERE WERE CULLED FROM FACEBOOK, WHATSAPP, INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER WITHOUT THE OWNERS PRIOR KNOWLEDGE. IF ANY ONE FEELS IRRITATED ABOUT THIS, I TENDER MY  UNRESERVED APOLOGY, PLEASE contact CT MR CHINYERE 47 VIA WHATSAPP ON 08157570279 OR 47TIMEZ@GMAIL.COM SO THAT WE TAKE IT DOWN. special THANKS TO, ESTERR BABY FOR THE morale, NMA LAWAL, TALK ISLAM, TOHEEB OLANIYAN, OMONEMI DAUDU, MS MARYAM DAUDU, NASIRU TEJAN JNR, OLAPADE LEKAN FARUQ, YISAN ISMAHEEL, MUSTAPHA LATEEFAT for the pictures and all other bodies that posed for my camera.





                                         Chukwuemeka U. Chinyere.