Qatar

 After a week of giddy packing up my life of 2 years plus in an apartment that was as close to home as anything had been in DC and handling a million other things that seemed to have fallen into my lap all at once, I was desperately looking forward to being with my family and enjoying my time off! Only this time, my family and me were meeting up in Qatar a tiny peninsula of a country dwarfed by Iran and Saudi Arabia in a part of the world I wasn’t too excited to be in! For starters until I got on the plane and looked at the maps I wasn’t even exactly sure where Qatar stood on a world map minus the vague knowledge and stories I had heard of it from my dad and my heightened sense of not flipping through articles in newspapers and the National Geographic on Qatar but actually reading them!

This tiny nation with a population of 500,000ish people run with the help of a million plus expats has fascinated and disturbed me simultaneously in a way that is hard to explain. Being in one of the richest countries on this planet truly had its bonuses. You don’t have any poverty staring you in your face but instead Fendi and Chopards are everywhere and people are driving around in a disproportionate number of SUVs and 8 cylinders (my disgust for gas guzzlers definitely multiplied by the minute this trip).

My first impression of Doha was that it was another city in the making quite in its own fascinating way. Having already read a lot about labor abuse in Gulf nations seeing active construction everywhere made me my mind instantly race to the darker side of things. 

Driving into West Bay one of the most upscale spiffy hoods in Doha one sees a hotchpotch of skyscrapers all fighting to dazzle you with their changing lights and asymmetric shapes. The sufi Capped scraper was my instant favorite if I had to pick one. Driving through the road that necklaced the water and watching the Dhow’s parked for the night and women everywhere covered in headscarves confused my usual sense of assimilating a place on my first visit to it. One is constantly faced with oxymorons and contradictions everywhere. You feel like you simultaneously exist in a world that is racing a 100 years ahead despite being a 100 years behind. It is truly fascinating to see how religion and culture manifest in every aspect of life there, from the prayer calls at the crack of dawn to the last one in the evening.

The Doha Skyline and West Bay neighborhood as seen from the Corniche. Spot the Sufi Cap..

Dhow's littered across the Bay

My fathers apartment had almost surreal views of the Corniche where my sister and me just sat glued to the big windows taking in the changing shades of the beautiful bay every hour of the day. Blue, azure and beautiful was how I would describe all its shades. My first real stop was the Islamic Art Museum, a beautiful building that almost looks medievally postmodern surrounded by beautiful gardens, water and a really nice cafe with a view. Seeing the sunset while sitting on sun chairs surrounded by white sand and water felt truly magical. The museum while not intense in its collection has beautiful artifacts and an amazing interior that would take a few hours to go through. In my 3 weeks there we covered a lot of ground.

Sunset by the Islamic Art Museum

Cafe with a view at the Islamic Museum, white sand to the left (not seen) and water ahead! Good times :)

View from one of the windows at my fathers apartment!

Central atrium of the Islamic Art Museum

The Souf Waqif was my absolute favorite place in Doha, walking into it instantly transported me back to Jerusalem minus the fact that the Knafeh was definitely not its selling point. The Souq definitely had a heart of its own reflecting the old and the new in all simultaneousness. From rabbits, exotic macaws and fancy cafe’s it had them all. Its alleyways had a hundred different smells and small shops all selling everything from perfumes, spices, beautiful turkish lamps and carpets to dolls that amused me to no end. Having roasted chestnuts was the next best thing to sitting with my family on a nice terrace having tagines over long conversations all of us sitting in the same time zone and across from each other separated by a table not 3 different computer screens. Sitting there made me realize the deep happiness in small things, laughing at old jokes, making fun of each other and just talking to the 3 people you love the most on this planet. Definitely a priceless feeling and the best way to enjoy a beautiful souq on a nice windy evening.  

Seeing these birds and other animals at the Souq was very disturbing, they looked sad and tired for the most part!

These dolls everywhere amused me so much..

The ‘karak’ chai at Katara, a heritage village sitting by the water was another very hearty experience. Katara has a beautiful coliseum which almost makes you want to hear Yanni while walking through it and a beautiful mosque, cafes and some really beautiful art galleries one of which had an on-going National Geographic photo exhibit. That definitely stole my heart instantly apart from its beautiful performing arts theatre.

Coliseum at Katara the heritage village in Doha

Women strolling by the water at Katara with a view of Pearl Qatar an upscale neighborhood with designer stores, car showrooms, yacht parkings and cafes.

Any trip to a Gulf country would be incomplete without a trip to the dunes and yes off course dune bashing, the most amazing thing ever. Doing reverses and going up and down steep dune’s gives a different kind of adrenaline rush and at the edge of the dunes and amongst them were surprisingly beautiful beaches quite untouched by people and very very pristine. Jelly fish were washing up to our feet at one of the beaches and that experience will quite stay with me.

One of the only 2 camels I spotted on my trip! Mandatory pseudo desert picture!

One fish, two fish ..... The hill across the water is Saudi Arabia!

A small waterbody between the dunes!

As my three weeks came to an end, I was still learning to balance my likes and dislikes for this tiny nation. While a lot of things still remain to be said leaving the country made me want to continue making memories around the world more than ever.

Sigur Ros!

It was a rainy day, the kind where all the trees droop from the heavy gloominess in the air and the occasional drizzles of snow flakes just added a weird serenity to the dark kind of beauty that sometimes envelopes March. For a change, I did not mind the sudden tricks the sun was playing on the generally improving weather or the fact that I had to travel close to 90 minutes to get to the middle of nowhere to watch the band that has seen me through it all, undoubtedly the one and only in my life- SIGUR ROS!

It was last November that one of the many concert Sigur Ros listservs I am on, said Sigur Ros was coming to town and reading that almost made me pass out with joy. Sigur Ros has meant soo much to me through the years, they have been my companions for any and all kinds of moods, up's and down's, break up's and make up's, churning out papers while pulling all nighters, reading my favorite books, writing, ranting and just musing over life and above everything while simply walking home on all kinds of days because their music to me is a superior state of mind that fits and engulfs everything deep in life, my thoughts and nature.

Opening my mailbox mid-November to find their tickets and feeling them in my hands sent multiple chills down my spine. It was just one of those moments that no one could probably make sense of, as Sigur Ros meant way too much to me.

So yesterday was an evening that is definitely etched in my heart forever and one of the most historic experiences for me, one I will definitely talk about when I am 70.

So Jonsi came on stage, surrounded by a weird ass curtain on all 4 sides, and for one song that curtain was his face, it kept blowing out larger than life images of Jonsi and Georg. Seeing Jonsi's ox-bow being used on his guitar was priceless! 

A couple of songs later came Seaglopur and the crowd went nuts, their lighting, effects and his divine voice transported me to a plane that cannot be described in words. One has to hear it, see it and feel it to know it! Seaglopur gently faded to give way to Sigur 1 (his untitled stuff) with red lights and weirdly peaceful Sigur Ros style videos in the background of drowning people and all sorts of strange creatures floating in and out of our sights and projected imaginations. Just when I thought it was getting magical, he just blew our minds with Hoppipola. Stars were falling, lights were shooting colors and his voice was this soothing ethereal thing that pervaded above all our screams of insanity and I want you to experience that through youtube at the very least-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rq_E3Pq61M (this vid is from sunday nights show). My favorite 10 mins of the concert were when he followed that up with my other favorite song Olsen Olsen, one of his oldest. Hearing the flute part of Olsen Olsen being played live was too surreal and pure to a degree that words can simply not justify. 

The whole time I was sitting through the concert thinking to myself how one human being could possibly be that gifted. Jonsi is seriously the most incredibly gifted and talented musician out there, definitely the big Radiohead of my life. He is the unassuming purity that is lacking in so many people that are famous these days.

His voice just went straight to my veins and has been running in my head non-stop for the past 40 hours now and his music will permeate my life always for sure. So here is too loving and living with Sigur Ros for now unto forever.

Signed by a mad fan,

S

CZECHING PRAGUE

It was a rainy evening, the kind that usually inspires me to write my journal or read a book in the comfort of my bed clutching my favorite mug. It was on one of those dreamy rain filled evenings that Marion (my best friend) and I began our journey of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Dragging my suitcase through the water filled cobble stone paths I got this inexplicable fresh feeling and could feel my adrenaline suddenly starting to rush. My brain completely ignored the dreariness of the weather around us. After walking through a couple of wrong alleys we finally made it out of the right one to find our hostel, an ugly pistachio colored building standing along with many cute candy colored ones in the middle of a bustling and lively street 20 seconds away from tourist central aka the Charles Bridge. Dumping our suitcases in a quaint and cosy hostel room smelling of fresh sheets, Marion and me set out to get our first taste of Prague.

A rainy Charles Bridge

Prague is a tourist soaked city that still manages impeccably well to retain all the charms of an ancient city. Dressed in architecturally diverse styles the city had a soothing and sometimes melancholic effect on me. We took our first walk to the Charles Bridge since we were living right next to it. It was a sea of humanity and stalls selling kitsch. In spite of the million human beings we took in the spectacular view of Lesser Town standing on the bridge surrounded by a bazillion camera totting people. We could see the Prague Castle, the Parliament, St.Nicholas’s Cathedral, the beautiful white Stratov Convent and a million other beautiful and awe inspiring spires and curiosity inducing buildings all at once.We decided to go back to the Charles Bridge later in the night when the tourist rush would calm down a bit.

We then made our way to the Old Town Square, to find ourselves absolutely astounded by the baroque and overpowering gothic elegance of everything standing in it, amidst hundreds of people watching the Euro-cup and singing football songs I had never heard before. At the entrance arches of the Old Town Square were a really amazing street band brandishing beautiful Bohemian looking instruments who I will never forget. Entering the Old Town Square, one first notices people milling around the magnificent astronomical clock, one of the only 3 surviving medieval clocks that is still functioning. Its magnificent golden clocks gleam in your face. A few steps away from the clock we came face to face with the dramatic twin towers of the Tyn Church. From that point on, I felt like I truly entered a fairytale.

The Astronomical Clock installed in 1410

The Tyn Church at the Old Town Square

Old Town Square

We walked past the touristy old town square into residential areas to get a feel of what the quieter more everyday parts of Prague, if any, felt like. We also walked past store windows advertising property in Prague and stretched our brains with the math involving currency conversions to dollars and euros in hopes of one day being able to jointly buy a vacation home in Prague :P We concluded that it was too much wishful thinking on the first evening. We walked past interesting statues, almost climbed a tower, heard the tunes of a flute following us while walking through some of the streets into a quiet neighborhood to take in the beauty and art of buildings. In that neighborhood, we got lucky enough to absorb Prague just by ourselves with nothing more than just an occasional tram passing by. The peace and quiet felt nicely personal. Exploring further, we walked to the Municipal hall and Opera House and wishfully looked at some really extravagantly elegant restaurants and read their menus.

Finally a neighborhood devoid of tourists

We ended our day by having goulash and traditional Czech potato soup at a restaurant that couldn't have been more Czech, with its high sloped concave ceiling, an accordion playing musician, a beer and money well paid for bottles of water that barely lasted 3 sips. We went home tired, happy and excited from our first evening in the disneyland of fairytales writing our own first chapters. At that point I figured why it took me just one evening to understand something Kafka said -

"Prague never lets you go..this dear little mother has sharp claws."

Secondshaadi

Secondshaadi.com- this website suddenly popped up on my sidebar while reading a news article. The name quite spiked my curiosity and before I knew it, it was one of those rare advertisements I actually clicked on. I had never heard of secondshaadi.com or even known of its existence. Apparently it is India’s No.1 remarriage website which I thought was awesome in a way.

‘Second marriage’ and ‘divorce’ conventionally have been very dirty words in India. Marriage traditionally was founded on comprise, tolerance and so called societal rationality as opposed to love and desire. Higher divorce rates in India today alarm me less and make me happy, especially for women in India. No matter what critiques of the increased number of failed marriages in India have to say, I believe that more women today are empowered enough to step out of oppressive and male dominant marriages. As more and more Indians are embracing capitalism, more and more women in urban and semi urban towns and cities find themselves becoming economically independent and socially bolder.

I wonder whether oppression of women was purely the reason for low divorce rates in India. For the first time ever, I recently saw the stats on divorce rates in India and much to my shock they were supposedly the lowest in the world i.e. 1.1 % also meaning just 1 marriage out of 100 actually ends.

We are currently a society of evolving values, coming of age yet clinging to some of our values and traditions. Love marriages today are relatively less scandalous and more acceptable compared to even a decade ago.

In my opinion financial stability and strength in numbers are the two main reasons women of today can step up and out of a failed or loveless marriage. As the number of divorce seekers in our society goes up for better or for worse, women have more strength in numbers. The social stigma as a result is reduced. As more and more Indian families educate women, even if to just find a suitable boy that has a huge impact on their ability to find decent paying jobs. Remarriage is happily seen less as a counter cultural issue today in India by a lot of youngsters and women. Very recently the Union Cabinet of India approved changes in the Marriage Act to help quicken the divorce process, which is often very lengthy and time consuming. The Cabinet also okayed changes to recognize a wife’s right to property that was acquired during marriage, which is a step in a very positive direction.

I am happy for the women of today who get to be part of a society where the social cost of divorce seems much less of a problem than it was ever before.

Decoding feminism in India

A discussion I recently had with a professor left me feeling mildly discomforted and unsettled, the reason being she insisted that I was a hardcore feminist who wasn’t ready to accept that.  All my life I have lived in a country where sexism stares you in the face every step you take and everyday makes you realize in different ways, that the fight for gender equality is no where close to getting over yet. Having said that, I do not even remotely consider myself a feminist, in fact the word being applied to me made me squirm for some reason. I am committed to gender equality and that’s all there is to it. After doing everything I could to convince that professor that I was not a feminist I started thinking of what feminism really was and what it really means in todays world especially in the Indian context.

Processing everything I knew about women’s rights in India from the Pink Chaddi to bra burning campaigns and more, I realized that I would have to go beyond relying on my brain to understand how feminism operates in India. So I spoke to some of my friends who considered themselves die-hard feminists and what I heard from each of them shocked, amused and confused me simultaneously.  Their ideas of feminism spanned the whole scale of stereotypes starting with equality, reproductive rights, and hatred for the opposite sex. Liberation, beauty, and vanity encompassed many of their opinions and ideas as well. The more I talked to them the more I got confused between liberals, hippies, anarchists and a weird concoction of views that everyone seems to be basing their beliefs out of.

It then hit me that feminism is a reality of its own, subtle but not subtle, there but not there, empowering in villages and raging in cities.  All the polarities in the world of feminism that seemed to exist, only told me one story- where there is oppression there is resistance. We have to learn that men are not the enemy but attitudes are more often than not the biggest enemy. Amazingly and ironically enough it was men who first started the feminist movement in India.

The more I read up and analyzed feminism in the Indian context, I realized that after so many years of being around, feminism in India has still been undefined. Surprisingly, it is still an intensely debated definition. In the urban context, it is interesting to see the evolution of feminism and how it transformed to so much more than it was originally intended for. I love the flexibility though, that feminism offers in its definition in rural places and suppressive religious environments which is the saving grace and the only source of hope, self esteem and sense of being for women and girls as opposed to how contrastingly in some urban contexts, uber-stylish activists and feminist movements seem to use it to define their existence

It is amazing how feminism can be used for feeling cool as well as attaining liberation at the same time. I guess its definition lies in the shades of gray. In a way I have started to like feminism for its liberal views and for its allowance of letting a circle fit into a rectangle quite in its own way.

Just another story of India

As I sit by my window on a day that looks like it could be winter again, half way around the world from home in Washington DC, my mind wanders off to India and gets trapped in a complex web of thoughts. Everyday my heart gets tugged in 20 million ways by so many things Indian and India that are hard to explain in words and sentences.

So far my nagging urge to write about the musings of my own mind and its inconsequential reflections have been isolated to the white pages of my numerous journals, life-long friends that have been gathering dust in shoe boxes back in my room in Pune, India.  Nothing used to make me happier than a pen in my hand, and the blank pages of my journal waiting to hear and bare all the passing clouds and thoughts in my head. Over the years, so many of my friends and acquaintances have pleaded, encouraged and suggested that I start a blog and I have finally succumbed to it.  So I hope that in a world of infinite words and never ending blogs, mine will have its own message and stories from my everyday life and reflections of the east and the west, two worlds that simultaneously co-exist in everything I do.

I went back to India for a short break recently, after almost 18 months the longest I have ever been away from home. Landing at the Mumbai airport made me feel a million different things all at once. As I transitioned into everyday life for 3 weeks, everything felt the same as always but at the same time it hit me how tradition and culture is slowly but obviously evolving into a weird hotchpotch of its own, where everything and everyone seems to be battling against the old and the new simultaneously. The more I think of what is happening in India, the more I feel like I am lost in a haze of ironies and paradoxes. It miffs me more than ever.

We have all our big IT parks and tech companies that have got us money, fame and name but the fundamental problem of unemployment still drags. In this age of science and technology and village folk making it big in the IT and other sectors we still have depressingly below standard education and government schools.

I still struggle to understand how a country with such shaky foundations does well enough to be talked about globally as one of the next big things. Ironically enough 40% of the people in my city Pune, one of the most modern cities in India have no toilets and the same is true for 80% people in Maharashtra. Mushrooming multiplexes, designer shops and a few state of the art buildings make people forget about the everyday miseries of the less fortunate. It is this huge mass of the under-privileged that actually accounts for the vote banks politicians take for granted. In spite of that, development and basic amenities are so grossly neglected towards lower and more oppressed classes and they are conveniently spared progress and a better quality of living. A professor of sociology from Jamia Milia Islamia said in a debate on NDTV “Politicians today are ready to kill but not ready to die for their beliefs and ideals.” Those words struck me as very profound and reflective of the fabric and narrative of an evolving India. It saddened me that everyday in India just seems to increase polarities both economically and socially.

As my 3 weeks were up I still did not process India, something that has been a life-long endeavor so far. I left though with hope and an inexplicable sense of optimism for reasons unknown to myself. I felt a strange sense of peace that was truly deep-seated in spite of everything. This trip has just opened up a ton of mines that have made themselves home in my mind over a lifetime. Unsurprisingly, India once again was a reaffirmation of my old judgments, love, confusion and dreams for the chaos and enigma that it has become today.