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Middle
Eastern memories Nirosh, my friend my idol - she is living most of my daydreams - picks me up at the Dubai airport. Slim and smart, with a stylish hair-cut, wearing tight-fitting pants and a T-shirt, she looks at my faded cotton shirt, denim pants and massive cloth hold-all (which has everything in it from sheets of paper and pens, to Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, several diaries, a bottle of water and even an umbrella) with eyes which show anything but approval. I know instinctively that during my stay here Nirosh will try to persuade me to go to the hairdresser and the manicurist to none-of which I will consent. She never seems to realise that I am absolutely happy the way I look. She dangles the key of her BMW and begins to walk towards the car park. I stumble behind her, dragging my bag and feeling like a descendant of Enid Blyton’s Mr. Muddle. Nirosh and I are so different. Perhaps this is why we get on well together. Swoosh! The moment we enter the main road, I clench my hands and try not to grab the dashboard. I have never seen cars move so fast, all on the wrong side of the road in all my life. Date trees, round-abouts covered in different colours of petunias, men almost always dressed in long white garb reaching their ankles, women always covered from head to foot in black walking on the pavements, whiz past me as if someone has pressed a fast-forward button. Within half an hour, we are in Ajman. Nirosh deposits me in her two roomed apartment and returns to work. Today is “meeting day” and so, she will be coming back at about eleven in the night. I’m left to my own devices. I open the rice-cooker to find it filled with fried rice. A note tagged on the door of the fridge says there are several curries inside. By the time the clock chimes eight, I’m in bed with a well stuffed stomach, fast asleep and not snoring, I hope. Nirosh works as the Recreation’s Manager in a hotel in Sharjah. At 27, she is probably the youngest around. My days with her are spent in maximum idleness. When Nirosh is at work, I stay inside the apartment, watching videos with Sir Tobias and Lady Catherine, her two cats. Nirosh forbids me to walk the streets of Ajman on my own. I submit to her command meekly, because on my first day here, I discover that crossing the road is suicidal. I had kept looking the wrong way and crossed to the other side thinking all was clear and nearly got run over. There are other hazards too. The second day I am here when I go for a walk on my own a man shouts at me from a security hut. I had done nothing wrong - simply walked past a huge house, once stopping to marvel at its magnificence. When I tell Nirosh about the incident, she says I was lucky the man had not shot me. “Shot me? “For doing what?” For lingering in front of the house. It belongs to the ruler of Ajman - the Sheik. I resolve never to gaze at houses, magnificent or not, ever again while I am here. Wednesday afternoon is safari time. Nirosh takes me on a package tour to the desert. Our driver cum guide takes the huge Land-cruiser jeep over sand dunes at 140 miles an hour. Sometimes the angle of a dune is almost 90 degrees. I keep saying “shaa”, “shaa” till the driver looks at me in the rear-mirror winks, and begins to say “shaa”, “shaa” too. The desert sand is red. I step on it and exclaim, “This is like being inside a huge bowl of pol-sambol”. “Pol-sambol?” Nirosh frowns and asks, “Why do you always use food as metaphors?”. I protest. “This is the first time I had thought of food. Besides, I had used pol-sambol not as a metaphor but as a simile.” Nirosh waves me off with her hand and goes to master the arts of sand skiing. We spend the night in a Bedouin camp where I get my arms tattooed (But to my dismay, the paint peels off before I could horrify my mother with the two black scorpions on my arms) and learn to belly-dance. This is the first of my two great Arabian nights. The second is sadder, though just as beautiful. On Saturday night, five hours before I catch my plane home, Nirosh’s staff arranges a farewell party for me on the beach. We light a bonfire with driftwood, barbecue marshmallows, tune the guitar and sing popular Sinhala songs. At 12 midnight, everyone gathers round the fire and sings the last song - something for me, because I will be leaving for home soon. “Me punchi lowe, Kawada ho... (we’ll meet someday somewhere again...). The tears in my eyes are due to the smoke from the now smouldering fire, I tell them as I wave good bye. And, “Alhamadullilah!”after my seven days with Nirosh. Next time I roam the Middle East, I intend to get the word right. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Alhamadullilah!
I never get to learn how to pronounce it in one go. I never get
to know the exact meaning of the word either, except that those
who live in the land of golden sands, date trees, camels and oil
rigs say so when they feel mighty good about something. So, Almala,
Alhamaludi... no, Alhamadullilah! after my seven days in Dubai,
Sharjah and Ajman.
