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amadhan and the ensuing Idul Fitri holiday is a time for self-restraint and self-introspection, and simultaneously a time to celebrate.

By the look of things, however, the Islamic holy month in big cities like Jakarta is more about celebration, plenty of it, and hardly anything at all about self-introspection.

For the entire month, we are supposed to indulge in fewer worldly activities and be more spiritual or heavenly. That means no eating and drinking '€” and no sex '€” from dawn to dusk. We must also restrain ourselves and control our emotions, even as we go about our daily activities like work.

Many who practice this to the letter would testify that these activities reinforce one another. Enduring hunger and thirst leads to more control over your emotions. Add prayers at night and during the day, then it'€™s a perfect month to cleanse oneself and become like a newborn person.

And that certainly calls for celebration.

Trouble is, for most of us, the celebration comes early. We don'€™t wait until Idul Fitri, the day of victory that comes after the month of Ramadhan is over. The feast begins on Day One of Ramadhan.

Look at the lavish food laid on the table for breaking of the fast events at home, in offices and in restaurants. People have their meal together to mark the end of the long fasting day. Your favorite restaurants have done away with reservations. Just come early if you want a table, so we'€™re told.

Bukber, short for buka puasa bersama (breaking of the fast gathering) is now the in-thing. Hardly a day goes by without a bukber invitation from friends, colleagues, business relations, and old friends from schools and college reunited by Facebook. At weekends, it'€™s bukber with our extended families.

The declining number of people who go to mosques for taraweh, the long evening prayers, as Ramadhan progresses tells us that fewer people engage in the heavenly or spiritual activities at night. Most are too stuffed to move. With Jakarta traffic being what it is, many come home late from bukber. Traffic has now become a convenient excuse for missing appointments, even with God.

School economic textbooks tell us that prices should fall when demand is weak. No one today sees the irony that food prices in Indonesia always hit the roof during Ramadhan, even with government market intervention to ensure a plentiful supply of rice, meat, sugar, eggs, cooking oil and other staples.

For more evidence that we eat more '€” a lot more '€” during the fasting month, look no further than our waistline, or hit the scale. Not only are we gobbling far more food, we stop exercising the entire month.

Some of us have been heard to pledge that the diet begins once Ramadhan is over. But wait, what about Idul Fitri, when the real feast happens? And what about halal-bihalal, the post Ramadan gatherings with lavish lunch or dinner, yes with friends, colleagues, business relations all over again?

Okay, okay. One month after Ramadhan, perhaps.

Maybe I'€™m being overly and unfairly cynical. Surely, feasting aside, people do become more spiritual, tolerant, compassion ate and better able to control their emotions as they fast during the day for a whole month.

Maybe.

But if you follow the news on TV, murders, harassment against minorities, corruption, etc. still fill up the half-hour programs. Politicians and government officials continue to attack one another in the same harsh tones. And we learn from the news that in some other predominantly Muslim countries, terrorism and killings in the name of Islam continue.

And have you checked social media? There is even less self-restraint on Twitter and Facebook. In their defense, people could claim that they post their updates at night, when apparently it'€™s okay to be rude and discourteous.

Living in big cities, the real meaning of Ramadhan and the characteristics that we should be crafting '€” the self-restraint, the compassion to feel what it'€™s like to be poor by going hungry for a few more hours than usual, the humility and many others '€” are almost lost. It'€™s a sad reality because if people can rediscover and strengthen these qualities, then they can maintain them for the remainder of the year until the next Ramadhan.

And Indonesia would be so much better for it.

If anything, today Ramadhan is business as usual, but only slightly more so than usual.

'€” Endy M. Bayuni