Observant Muslims the world over have been expecting the announcement of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting this week. Fasting, (Sawm in Arabic) is one of the five ‘pillars’ (or essential tenets) of Islam.

The ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar is significant because it is believed to have been the month when the Qur’an was revealed. Able-bodied Muslims abstain from food, drink and other physical desires from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, and are also expected to make a greater effort at piety with special prayers and charitable work.

Ramadan’s health benefits, if the fasting and feasting are followed correctly, have been approved of by the medical fraternity as well.

In an era where one part of the world’s population is going hungry without choice, the other is becoming morbidly obese due to an overabundance of food. Ramadan offers a chance to reset the balance between hunger and fulfilment, and shows us how we don’t always have to be slaves to our wants.

In the Middle East, where Ramadan is a much-cherished month, this year’s fasting is definitely going to be a challenge. For one, the weather in Qatar and in much of the Arabian Gulf, is going to be hot and humid, placing a greater stress on adequate nutrition and hydration for those undertaking the fast. In addition to this, the political unrest in the Arab Spring nations has affected many of the Arab expatriates who are working in the Gulf countries.

July also happens to be the month of the Olympics, and questions have been raised about how Muslim athletes will be able to participate in sports activities while fasting.

However, as every year’s Ramadan’s ritual fasting shows, the fear of starvation and deprivation is actually greater than its actuality. By voluntarily abstaining, those on a fast get to relish the triumph of the spirit over the flesh.

It also manages to rise above the new culture of politicians and public rabble-rousers to undertake ‘fasts’ as a sign of protest over an issue just for earning dubious kudos from the people.

Bollywood loses its first superstar

Rajesh Khanna, the man for whom the word ‘superstar’ was first coined by an Indian media still in the infancy of its entertainment addiction, has died. With his passing away in Mumbai, at the age of 69 of an undisclosed illness, the last of the trio (with music composer R D Burman and singer Kishore Kumar) that raised the bar of Hindi cinema up to the 1970s before it became Bollywood, is finally consigned to history.

Khanna did not have the pumped-up machismo favoured by the action heroes who followed him. But his charisma bequeathed him a remarkable innings at the box-office.

Perhaps because his fame was siphoned through the old media of print, television and radio, his stardom has become preserved in the amber of celluloid, less diffuse than today’s social networking-savvy and somewhat bland denizens of Bollywood.