Chronicles during the month of Ramadan
“Assalam alaikum. Arey, yahaan kaise?” “Bas Iftar ka iraada se aaj Nizamuddin aaya tha. Aap Iftar kahan kar rahe hain?” “Yahin aage mera kamra hai, Dilli jab bhi aata hoon, yahin rehta hoon.” “Toh phir saath hi Iftar kar lete hain?” I’d met him in person for the first time a few weeks back, although…
Image courtesy: Sidharth Kuruvila This is a guest post by Francesca Recchia. You can find her at @kiccovich. Bangalore, 30 July 2012 During Ramadan the call for prayer in Bangalore seems louder, it seems more present and becomes an integral part of the rhythm of the day. And so does the transformation of the roads…
Basements evoke a sense of refuge. Hidden. Away from the public eye. Deeper than the proverbial six feet. Places of worship give a sense of refuge as well, of a different kind though. What I’m certain about is that the notion of places of worship being a refuge takes a hit while becoming more of it…
“Roza rakhne ki himmat dene wala toh Allah hai.” (It’s Allah who gives us the courage to fast.) The auto driver didn’t see much reason for my fascination with his observance of fast. Not that I don’t know people who fast while maintaining their daily affairs and seeking of livelihood in the same matter-of-fact manner…
(Shhh. I went for a birthday party. We aren’t supposed to celebrate birthdays, isn’t it? I think there are more than a couple of fatwas out there which say so. There was cake too, which was cut to the accompaniment of the birthday song and clapping hands. Pagan traditions, I tell you! But the cake…
“I see that you’ve had something to eat now.” Quite an acute sense of observation, I thought to myself. As I photographed food all day at the fine dining restaurant which he was opening up in Delhi’s boho district, he may have had many thoughts running through his head when he learned that I was…
The effects of the back to back trips to Old Delhi for consecutive meals was becoming evident. (I’m not sure how apt the usage of the term ‘consecutive’ would be in context of the fact that the meals were separated from each other by a period of 15+ hours of waking.) Guilt was trying to…
Q: What’s the difference between a hipster and a guy fasting during Ramadan? A: The guy who’s fasting will eat the food after Instagramming it. Browse through Instagram or Facebook or any popular photo sharing platform, and all you see these days is people putting up pictures of what they are having for Iftar: dining…
There just isn’t enough sleep to be had during Ramadan. Given a choice, the best time to simply crash would be right after Iftar. But there’s the question of Taraweeh prayers, and by the time you are done with them, the hour of Sehri starts looming. C’mon, if you’ve got just about 3 hours to…
Day One, and I did nothing today. Nothing. So much for all my plans of going out to visit a mosque and break my fast in the company of others. Not that I didn’t want to. After all, I spent considerable time planning things over the past couple of weeks. Over the past couple of…