APRIL is a time of many religious and cultural celebrations. As many of us come together to celebrate our different faiths, some have questions about how we can see our loved ones, without passing on coronavirus.
Riyadul Karim, assistant director of primary care, Enfield, at NHS North Central London CCG, outlines practical steps that health professionals recommend to reduce the risk of infection. He also explains how it is important to get advice from health professionals for Muslim readers around the Ramadan fast.
In the past few weeks, we have wished Thai people a happy and peaceful Songkran, Tamil people Puthandu Vazthukal, Sikhs a healthy Vaisakhi, Jains Mahavir Jayanti, our Jewish neighbours a peaceful Passover, and wished Christians a happy Easter. And for Muslims, Ramadan continues. This is a holy month of prayers and fasting.
Can every Muslim fast during Ramadan?
It’s important to remember that sometimes, Muslims are advised not to fast, but to practise their faith in other ways. For example, Islamic scholars maintain that where fasting could make an existing medical condition worse, or affect a treatment, their continued good health must be a priority.
The Qur’an says we must not act in a way that harms our body. Your imam can advise you about fasting and valid alternatives to fasting during Ramadan. If you have a medical condition, please talk to the health professional who helps you to look after your health. Ideally, you will have already had this discussion at least a month before Ramadan started, but if not, it’s still advisable to get advice as soon as possible.
Health professionals recommend that prescribed medicines should ordinarily be taken during Ramadan. They also recommend that the timing or dose of your medication (including any injections) might need adjusting to ensure they continue to be as effective as possible. Islamic scholars agree medicines and injections are not nutrition and therefore won’t invalidate your fast.
If you have a condition such as diabetes, your health professional will discuss your type and how well-controlled it is, as well as the risks posed by fasting on both the management of diabetes and any other conditions you might have.
With your health professional you can also discuss what is best to eat and drink before and after your fast, and whether the timing, dose and type of your prescribed medication and any insulin needs to change. Your health professional will also advise you on when and how frequently to check your blood sugar levels, ensuring you know what to do if your blood sugar is too low, and signs and symptoms to be aware of.
If you get poorly and/or symptoms of Covid such as fever during Ramadan, this could lead to fatigue and dehydration and health professionals would advise to stop fasting until you are fully recovered.
Celebrations during the pandemic
Since the outbreak of coronavirus, many celebrations have been scaled back in size. In the UK, we have seen places of worship closed, parades cancelled and restrictions on how many people from outside our household we were permitted to meet. While most restrictions have now been lifted, Covid is not over, and we have a personal responsibility to our loved ones and neighbours, to come together safely.
If you have symptoms of coronavirus or respiratory infection, you are asked to try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people. The virus affects people individually. If it is mild for you, it doesn’t mean it will be mild for someone else. In fact, it could be fatal or lead to long Covid which can, for example, mean extreme tiredness or difficulty sleeping.
Vaccinations are the best line of defence against Covid-19 (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Other steps to celebrate safely include wearing a face covering/mask in public or enclosed spaces, opening a window when guests visit your home or business, continuing to wash hands regularly and thoroughly, and catching all coughs and sneezes in tissues before throwing them away. It is also important to have your Covid-19 vaccinations. This is our best line of defence and has reduced both deaths and hospitalisations from Covid-19.
More than 121 million Covid-19 vaccination doses have been given in England alone. Whether you are coming for your first, second or booster vaccination, you will be welcomed by staff. Please talk to staff if you have questions about the vaccine or a phobia of needles, so we can give you the help you need.
The vaccines used in England have been supported by scholars from across many different faiths, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity and Islam. They do not contain any animal products and any alcohol is less than that found in a banana or slice of bread. As already mentioned, an injection is not nutrition, so you can be vaccinated during Ramadan, and it won’t invalidate your fast.
A second booster – or spring booster –is offered to people aged 75 and over, people living in care homes for the elderly and those aged 12+ who are immunosuppressed.
Vaccinations for your child
All children aged five and over can now get the Covid vaccine too, to increase protection for them and their families. To find out more and book online, visit www.nhs.uk
It’s also important that children are up to date with their routine NHS vaccinations to help protect them against a range of serious illnesses such as polio, measles and whooping cough. Find out more about what vaccinations are offered at what age by visiting www.nhs.uk and typing ‘NHS vaccinations and when to have them’.
If your child has missed any routine vaccinations, you can check your child’s red book or contact their GP practice.
When your child is at secondary school they will also be offered vaccinations through their school, including a booster to protect against diseases like tetanus, diphtheria and polio as well as a vaccine to help protect against human papillomavirus, which in some cases can lead to certain types of cancer, so we would strongly encourage them to have these vaccinations too.
Of course, even as an adult, if you think you may have missed some of your childhood or adult vaccinations, it’s never too late to check. You can speak to your GP practice about what you might need.
For more information about coronavirus see https://www.nhs.uk/coronavirus
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5