There is a festive atmosphere before sundown in Chawkbazar market in Dhaka as makeshift stall owners and itinerant vendors sell food items to customers during the month of Ramadan.
Every day since the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on July 11, thousands of people from all walks of life have been visiting the market to buy food items for Iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast.
The market, located in old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar area, carries more than 100-year-old tradition of being Dhaka’s largest and most popular market for items for Iftar. In the afternoon of each day during the Ramadan, makeshift shops in the Chawkbazar market sell unique and traditional Ifter items like giant slices of beef, chicken roasts, marinated minced meat and mutton.
Various types of seasonal fruit and local drinks are also being sold at the Chawkbazar market.
To dwellers in this old part of the city, it is part of their family tradition to buy every day at least a few Iftar items from this market.
Najmul Islam, one customer who religiously follows the family tradition, said that without an item from Chawkbazar, his family does not feel like having Iftar. “I come here every afternoon to buy some delicious Iftar items since this is already a part of our heritage,” said Islam.
Hundreds of Iftar sellers display a great variety of items, almost all of them taken from beef, mutton and chicken.
Ali Akbar, a middle-aged stall owner, said that his family has been selling Iftar food items for several generations now.
Akbar sells the most popular Iftar delicacy, locally called Boro Baper Polay Khay, a mixture of chickpeas, beef-mutton brains, minced-meat, potato, flattened rice, eggs, chicken, spices and butter. “I have to deal with about 300 customers every day. I can sell Iftars worth more than 30,000 taka ($400) a day,” Akbar said.
Chawkbazar is also well known for fried snacks locally called Beguni (fried eggplant fritters), Piaju (onion lentil fritter), Alur Chop (potato fritters), and other delicacies.
Haji Abdullah, another makeshift shop owner, said that this year’s business is better than last year.
He said that despite an increase in the price of almost all the items, their sales did not go down.
Abdullah said that their customers come to their stall every Ramadan because their Iftar items are of high quality besides being delicious.