The Indian Supreme Court judge was impressed by his colleague’s determination to fast and said he admired the ability to go without food for whole days.
The exchange took place when the counsel asked for time to file some papers as the month of Ramadan was going on and he had been waiting since morning for the matter to be called by the bench.
That’s when the judge expressed his admiration of his colleague, who he noted fasted “without a drop of water”.
No one never ever expressed their admiration for me doing the same, but people sure did raise the matter of not drinking water. One colleague had said to me, ” I can understand not eating anything, but not drinking water. Do you know what the temperature is?” she would say.
“Can you smoke? ” she would ask, as an afterthought, not able to fathom the idea as to why anybody would want to willing starve when it was “Biryani Day” at the office canteen.
“You should try it. It is better than intermittent so-called fasting your trainer pushes on you,” I would say weakly. “It really cleans you up inside and gets rid of all the toxins and without resorting to silly juice diets.”
When I was working in a certain Gulf country, all the eateries and restaurants, even in Five-Star hotels would stop serving food and I found that everyone was fasting along with me.
“This is my first time at fasting and I am enjoying it,” said a Westerner colleague, who looked like he was going to float away at any moment.
There were some smokers who just could not stop smoking and you would find they were visiting the washroom much more often during the fasting month.
“So, how is the fasting going?” I would ask one of those unfortunate addicts, just to be mean, though one is supposed to do good acts and stop being mean to your fellow human beings during the Holy Month.
“Good, good,” was the usual reply. “You know one hardly feels the fast in this air-conditioned office. When I am home ( in India, Pakistan or Indonesia) the fast is much tougher.”
“So, what did you have for your early morning meal?” I would ask, continuing to be mean, knowing fully well the first thing he reaches out when waking up, is usually a cigarette.
You cannot really tell a good lie when you are not prepared for it.
My colleague would look at me blankly for a few moments and say something vague like, ”Oh, I grabbed some dates and a glass of water. I had got up late and did not have much time before the break of dawn.”
The person then had the temerity to ask, “Are you inviting me for ‘iftar ?’ (the meal at the breaking of the daylight fast).
Another colleague told me the best way to find out a shirker, who is pretending to fast, is to ask them to show their tongue.
“I learned this at school,” she said. ” if you are fasting, the tongue is always pale and white.”
I looked it up later and found that the tongue is covered with papillae and these have cells. The papillae are usually removed when you eat. But when you are fasting the tongue does not know that and still keeps producing the cells. These cells accumulate on your tongue and turn it white.
Anyway, nobody ever told me to show me my tongue or said that they admire me for my ability to fast the whole day, “without drinking any water”.
Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi