New Delhi, Sep 18 - Jamia Nagar is dazzling with lights. Roads are lined with kurtas, as shopkeepers try to lure customers. Hawkers are busy selling vermicelli and dry fruits. Markets here have been hit by a heavy rush of customers who are on a buying spree as the festival of Eid is barely a week away.

The majority of the shoppers are women who are busy buying special utensils and ingredients like dry fruits to make Eid's Dastarkhawan, a sheet where food is spread, impressive. In contrast, male customers are flocking to the kurta pajama, sherwani and kolhapuri chappal shops.

Eid or Eid-ul-Fitr is one of the most important festivals for Muslims that marks the end of Ramzan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning 'festivity', while Fitr means 'charity'; and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. It is celebrated on the first day of the Islamic month of Shawwal.

'I have bought nuts, almonds, raisins and other ingredients for sheerkhorma because Eid is quite near and many things are still left,' Naghma Khan, a homemaker shopping at Johri Farm, told IANS.

The other shopping hubs are also bustling with enthusiastic people buying things.

Sarojini Nagar in South Delhi is one such market that is teeming with shoppers.

'It's like a battle won, if you get to choose your stuff and buy it.