Text by Shirin Mehta. Photographed by Mallika Chandra
At 4 p.m. every afternoon, an alarm goes off in my head. Snack time! This is the only hour in days broken by three meals that I reach for well, anything that lies in jars, boxes and packets. Biscuits, banana chips, Lay’s, dry bhel, chaklis – all the things that made work afternoons at the office more meaningful, preferably over a mug of hot tea and invigorating conversations with colleagues. I recall that the best days were those when some kind soul decided to microwave popcorn in the office pantry, the aroma drifting through the entire space as the white bag moved crunchily from hand to impatient hand and work-related tensions dropped momentarily.
Oh for those pre-pandemic days of communal snacking…. And yet, even as work-from-home has become a thing, the mid-afternoon alert never fails me. Connecting me to that sense of camaraderie, of purpose and well-being. I reach for…
