“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 fasting. I like to believe in thinking of the most absurd and lame thoughts which might occur to people whenever I try to exercise my imagination in such matters. I have a creative free rein in my mind, after all.
“Yup, the food is safe from me. Try me at another time of the year, and I won’t fail to shame myself with a display of gluttony that would make the dead guy in the opening sequence of Se7en seem bulimic.”
To be fair, the guy had been very considerate. To the extent of offering me to join him for dinner since I had been working at his site all day.
“But you know what, it’s kind of rare to find people your age fasting. Normally I know people who will be as non-observant as can be during their younger years, and once they get into their thirties, get married and have kids, they will immediately start looking around for the closest mosque.”
Not an exactly acute sense of observation. That’s how the world functions, what with that age old association between cats, mice and Hajj. But I didn’t know whether to feel happy that he didn’t think of me to be in my thirties. Again, the grays in my hair didn’t do justice to my age, although in this instance the injustice perpetrated itself in the opposite direction.
Slipping into the comfort of Deer Park which was a short walk away, I found a quiet spot on a secluded bench. The quaint sounds of the evening, interrupted by the muffled pants of a jogging fitness enthusiast and the heavy plodding feet of those who had been forced by their doctors to pay heed to signs of diminishing health, filled the wilderness of green and brown which was getting masked by gray turning soon into black.
The sound of the azaan from a distant mosque, melded with the babble of birds and the silence of young couples, wafted in to conclude another day. I think I did make an effort not to chomp noisily.