I'm back in Bahrain right now waiting for my transfer back to Chennai. I had a completely interesting conversation with a young Lebanese guy on the way here about all the things that Lebanon has to offer. He has an incredibly interesting take on Lebanese politics and loves history the way I love geography. I started getting ready to give my compare/contrast talks of Lebanon and India and realized I'm not ready to go back to India. Upon arriving into Bahrain's airport I saw several things which were to be expected, but you can't see unless you're in the Persian Gulf.
A) The sunset over Bahrain. This is a completely gorgeous site. I've never seen the sunset behind enormous buildings and architectural masterpieces in the desert. I'm glad this is the first sunset of the year that I'll witness.
B) Huge numbers of Indian and Arab people. I've the last two weeks showing off how Indians do their head bobble and had sort of begun to believe it was a thing of my past. Within 5 minutes of walking around I saw an Indian guy bobble his head as a response of "yes" to some young arab man who probably has more money than sense barking out some order for him to pick up trash or something along these lines. Really both parties spoke such bad english I couldn't make out what was truly said, but the Arab guy seemed to be complaining and motioning a broom and pointing somewhere. Response: bobbling head nothing said.
Right now I'm watching a Chinese muslim couple walk around looking for their flight. You don't see that too much in Lebanon or south India.
I think the Persian gulf must be the only place in the world in which these two cultures meet in such full force. It's really a sight to see. I'm chatting with two Tamils and I'm making funny mistakes because I'm trying to say things in Tamil, but Arabic is in my immediate consciousness and so I'm left speechless. I think I will have to readjust to India.
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ReplyDeleteThe Lebanese detour was interesting to read about, although from the lack of photos I'm not entirely convinced that you didn't imagine this whole trip as a way to escape from the reality of Kingfisher. Still, I learned some things I might not know about otherwise.
Reading Indian and Arab in the same sentence made me think of Naveen Andrews, the actor of Indian descent who plays an Iraqi character on Lost. I've wondered whether there's possibly a distant tie between the two ethnicities or whether both cultures laugh at the idea of an Indian passing himself off as an Arab.