Small talk and bulging tummies make a good iftar

Igot all excited when a diplomat based in Dubai sent me an email inviting me to joim him for iftar. I couldn’t help boasting about the invite to my colleague.

“Oooh, make sure you go early,” she told me. “Yeah,” I replied. “It’s always better to go early to such events. You can meet people, network …”

She cut me short. “Who goes to an iftar party to meet people? I meant that if you go early, you can find a good table and be served your soup and snacks before everyone else.”

I thought she had a point. No one goes to an iftar to make small talk, not even a journalist. After a 15-hour fast, everybody has only one thing on his or her mind — food!

I went early to an iftar once and encountered a bunch of very quiet, but bright-eyed people at my table. We all

By M a h m o o d S a b e r i Senior Reporter

folded our arms and rested them on our bulging tummies and waited for the evening prayer.

Suddenly, a line of waiters streamed out from behind a door, balancing huge platters in their hands. They waltzed towards our tables and placed them in front of us.

It is said that the last 15 minutes before iftar seem like an eternity and time comes to a screeching halt.

That day there was still a long time to go before the iftar cannon went off to announce the ending of the day’s fast, but the waiters had already laid out succulent bite-sized kebabs, various kinds of dates, dried apricots and figs, mouth-watering kibbeh, cheese manakesh and sweet liquorice juice.

Desperate measures

To avoid looking at the food in front of me and going all faint, I turned to my neighbour and tried to make small talk. “So, is this your first Ramadan in Dubai?” I asked cheerfully. The man opened his eyes, turned towards me and slowly looked me up and down.

“I was born here,” he said, before looking away.

There were still 12 minutes to go and my system was undecided whether to go into standby mode or not. My brain meanwhile was conjuring visions of nutritious and high-calorie food.

Suddenly, my smartphone vibrated in my pocket. It was a message from my wife. “Don’t forget to pick up milk for your suhoor tea,” it said. This merely served to create a craving for a nice hot cup of tea.

Back to the diplomat’s invitation. I left the office late and arrived just a few minutes before iftar at the venue, a five-star hotel. I knew the route to the hotel well and had been to it for press conferences many times.

In fact, the first time I went there I took a wrong turn and suddenly found myself driving off to Al Ain, the UAE’s garden city.

In any case, I arrived at the hotel. A pretty Arab girl scanned a list she was holding, but could not find my name.

I started to panic. Did I come to the right hotel? What will I do now? How was I to end my fast? I can’t go snatching dates from people’s tables! These were some of the crazy thoughts going through my mind.

Behind me the line of guests was growing. Desperate, the girl called out to another harassed-looking woman, who gave me one look and asked me to proceed to a vast hall to my right.

I walked in, found myself a table and looked around. There was not a soul I recognised. There were no journalists and I didn’t know who the person going from table to table and wishing everyone was.

Then it suddenly dawned on me that I was at the wrong iftar party.

The person next to me asked, “How’s business?” and for the whole evening I had to improvise.