Today is the Mexican Day of the Dead. I realized this only after I bought this chocolate, like the spirits were directing me to honour ancestors. They do it differently from my culture - with colours and streaks of exclamatory emotions instead of what I'm used to, solemn, black-clad mourning. My mind travelled back to my trip to Oaxaca where I first had Mexican hot chocolate, a version that's spicy and surprising. Travelling is a way of finding out that the way you've always done things or what you've been taught to do  isn't necessarily the only or right way. I enjoyed Oaxaca a lot even though they lost my luggage and I had to wear the same outfit for three days and had the weird experience of buying underwear at a state-run shop (pointing to a numbered sample on the wall - it feels like a dream now.) What came back to me of that warm, sun-filled trip (amid a police curfew following a violent teachers protest) was that visit to the hot chocolate shop. The man running the place was curious about me and my wife and how we met. After I told him where we lived now and where we came from, he nodded then mimed two planes flying from different destinations and landing in the same place to make sure he had gotten it right. I nodded and smiled at him and he smiled back. We were all where we wanted to be.