After two days of breaking the fast in a ‘non-Iftar-dastarkhwaan’ setup (first day of the shoot, and the Azaan alarm on the phone app went off as I was pressing the camera shutter, while on the second day, I was in the middle of evening hour office traffic searching for an auto to take me some place for Iftar when the phone app told me of the futility of my intent), it was but fitting that I had an Iftar invitation.
A cosy gathering at a friend’s studio apartment, and it must be said that he had made ample arrangements to make sure that ‘Iftar essentials’, an assortment of deep fried goodies, were present on the dastarkhwaan and flanked impressively by jugs of Roohafza. We were in a part of town that is best known as the resting place of Delhi’s best known Sufi, and which has a sizable concentration of mosques, something which offset our dependence on phone apps that evening.
As is customary, we broke our fast with dates.
Thought: striking up a correlation between dates and namaaz, and how both of them are, mostly, forgotten during the rest of the year.
Something like: All that’s left is the seed of the date, but then that is what’s needed for a new plant.
(Outrageous metaphor.)