Ramadan at Kovai.co
It was scary for me, to be honest, there were times where I even felt maybe I should not try to force my religion on a company (even more difficult if nobody has approached or done this at the office and you are the first person) or the other way around if I should take a serious decision to put Work over Faith. With everything going on across the country, with so much self-doubt and of course being the procrastinator myself, also key point being me spending the last two years at home completely. This was difficult for me to take and did not know how I should go about it. People at home including my parents were worried about me not getting enough sleep or rest for a month. During the month we as Muslims fast during the daylight and spend most of the night in prayers hoping for a better here after and for prosperity and happiness for people all around the world.
On the eve of my first Roza, I knew I had to just go with the flow. I knew there is no point in procrastinating things and expecting everything to be served on my plate. I knew things would fall in place, but like the ancient saying goes “Trust God but tie your camel”, it conveys the simple fact that you can trust God, but you cannot expect things to happen just because you pray and hope for it. So that is what I did. I just hoped for good things to happen and manifested that everything will turn out alright. Just as I hoped for, and for me I was taken aback by the fact that most of my colleagues were so welcoming and had so many questions about why and how we the Muslims do this for a whole month.
“Not even water”, asked a shocked colleague.
I could only smile.
“This is actually good, maybe we should also try”, said another who was as you would have already guessed a fitness freak.
“Can you bring all the warm porridge, the Badam Kheer, and the Kebabs the next day, maybe?” said one who for sure had a lot of Muslim friends.
Amidst all this, I noticed something that came as a realization for me this time around. I was having even more determination and my focus doubled to prioritize my time as efficiently as possible. I gently had to request my P&C team, if I could use any of the available free meeting cabins to pray the daily obligatory prayers, and again Kovai.co literally brought me to tears to be really honest, the next day the colleague who happens to be my Foosball partner 😊, was so humble enough to come into my workspace and let me know that I could use any of the meeting rooms available to pray and that he had got the necessary permissions for the same. He was kind enough to ask me if I needed anything else during the month.
I have always been a very open, very transparent, and easy-going person, so as people in the company already would have known, it would literally take me a day to get close to you and vibe with you. So, as you would expect, my team went out of the world to help me go through this month easily and as seamlessly as possible, they always made sure they confirmed it with me, before booking meetings. They handled calls for me when I quickly went in the evening to break my fast. A colleague cum friend in the team even ordered Shawarma to break a fast one day. All this made me go back to the quote from the Prophet, it goes
“Do you know what is better than charity and fasting and prayer during Ramadan, it is keeping peace within yourself, among people around you, and good relations between people, as quarrels, gossip, and bad feelings destroy mankind”.
In the end, this is all that matters. And Kovai.co you sure did make my Ramadan as beautiful as it could be. Thank you. And I hope the Ramzan biriyani was as beautiful as it was for me by sharing it with people, I spent most of the time this Ramadan 😊
I look forward to even more Ramadan’s with you. To more power. To more biriyanis.
#TogetherweGrow
