Ramadan might seem like a daunting month. Fasting every day from dawn to dusk for 30 days isn't most people's idea of fun, but it was the only time I spent quality time with my family when I was growing up in London's East End.

Although my Bangladeshi Muslim parents kept their traditions hot and alive, we still suffered the modern maladies of being too busy or too alienated from one another to spend time as a unit.

My father was always busy. I grew apart from my brothers and they grew apart from each other. We moved into a huge house with three floors and seven bedrooms, and we confined ourselves to different corners of the house.

Family meals may seem like a simple affair, but they are scant in my memories. There were six of us and we each dined alone. My mother cooked a variety of dishes, which were available to us to reheat as individual hunger dictated.

But all that was put on hiatus during Ramadan.

For a whole month every year, all of our activities pivoted around the meals we would eat together. We met at dusk to break our fast and also before dawn for a pre-fast breakfast. I was groggy and bleary-eyed at 4 a.m., but these were happy occasions. Even when I was too young to fast, I still tried to come to as many of these gatherings as possible.

Ramadan was like a magnet that pulled us out and dropped us into our seats around the hearth, headed by the pater familias himself — with dad making a rare appearance. This is as close to "The Waltons" as we got, that exotic American television series depicting the warmth of a large family during the Great Depression.

And I loved it. Dates, watermelon, mango, jackfruit, samosas stuffed with spiced meat or vegetables, fritters using eggplant or potatoes in a chickpea batter, homemade yogurt, sweet fried dumplings made with coconut, an array of South Asian desserts — voluptuous delights made with pistachios, cardamom and buttery milk and cream. And those were just the appetizers.

I once spent Ramadan in Bangladesh, where the whole town felt like a party every evening. There were dinner invitations aplenty that often spilled into the small hours — by which point it was time for another meal.

Ramadan is a time that brings communities closer — even if it's just for a month. It taught me that eating around a table with people we love is one of the most precious things.

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Shazna Nessa is asap's interactive editor.

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