CAIRO — A few hours before the break of dawn, Mohammad Boota leaps out of his bed, wears his traditional outfit, takes his drum and heads to the streets of in the New York’s borough of Brooklyn to wake Muslims for their last meal before another day of Ramadan fasting.
“They’re waiting for me,” Boota, a Pakistan immigrant, told the New York Times on Sunday, September 13.
During the holy fasting month, Boota turns at night from a limousine driver to the traditional Ramadan drummer who wakes Muslims for suhur, the pre-dawn meal.
Every night, while his wife, Mumtaz, prepares their family’s suhur, Boota dons a billowy red Pakistani shalwar kameez and a matching red turban and drives his car along the short stretch of Coney Island Avenue where he lives.
His first stop is usually in front of Bismillah Food, a small Pakistani grocery store.
After greeting everyone he meets, Boota stands in the sidewalk penumbra of the shop’s fluorescent light and begins to play on his drum.
“He’s a very popular man here,” one of the men said.
Ramadan, the 9th month of the Islamic lunar calendar, started in North America on Saturday, August 22.
In Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.
Most dedicate their time during the holy month to become closer to Allah through self-restraint, good deeds and prayer.
Just Pakistanis
For Boota, who immigrated to the US in 1992, drumming during the nights of the holy month is not only a Ramadan tradition, but also a family tradition.
He is a seventh-generation ceremonial drummer and is now training his 20-year-old son, Sher.
Boota, who began waking Brooklynites in 2002, says not everyone is thrilled with his drumroll wakeup call.
“Everywhere they complain,” he said.
“People go, like, ‘What the hell? What you doing, man?’ They never know it’s Ramadan.”
People would throw open their windows and yell at him, or call the police.
As the years went by, he and his barrel drum were effectively banned from one neighborhood after another.
Eventually, Boota now restricts himself to the Muslim-majority Coney Island Avenue, where many Pakistanis live.
To avoid bothering some non-Muslims in the neighborhood, he has even modified his approach, playing at well below his customary volume, for only about 15 to 20 seconds in each location.
“I don’t want people unhappy,” Boota asserts.
“I don’t want to bother other communities’ people. Just the Pakistani people.”
