Balana means invitation system is one of the most primitive part of Eid activities in Pushtoon communities. At present Balana exists in very rare villages of the province, that depends on the valoium of mob and numbers of households in the premises of a village.
The “Balana” system is; when all the people of the village wearing new dresses, offer Eid pray, soon after outside the mosque or (Eid Gaah) the people embrace to wish each other Eid-ul-Fitar or Eid-ul-Adha. After termination of Eid greetings, the people as hosts of each home of the village in age wise groups give attendance in every house of the area, where they are being offered rice (Chicken Pulao) yogurt and other traditional dishes. Participation in each house table is considered mandatory for the villagers.
The crowd after have been treated with various delicious and traditional foods, meet the aged persons or those ailing in the house who are unable to move to the mosque in order to wish them eid festival.
Then the cluster of persons start towards another house repeating the practice and thus the whole village is nocked out by the mob.
The “Balana” system is the most enjoyable practice of rural territories.
The locals said that some selfish elders of few villages at District upper Dir had once tried to convince the villagers to give up the practice onward as they deemed it an unnecessary activity. However according to locals the young blood of these areas sustained the Balana at Eids by inculcating to religiuos schollars and elder that Balana was one of the sign of unity and mutual affection among the community. According to youngsters they referred those elders that the Religion Islam repeatedly emphasises unity and mutual affection amongst muslims.
The local youth were able to sustain the tradition and still being practiced in rare spots of Dir and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to dwellers, the people most of workers who work in various far off cities rushing to village before every Eid to participate in Balana with thier community people.
Comments are closed.