Cairo dairy..

Walk like an Egyptian!!!

For starters, Egypt is called as Misr in Arabic. Remember this! You would see Egypt some places, but most of the places use Misr. And it helps knowing this basic fact. The other two important words : La ( no) and Aiywa ( yes). And you will survive, if you want to live, learn how to read numbers from 1 to 10. They look different but very easy to learn. Once you grappled these words, you are ready for Misr ;)

some of us might have heard this song, some might have even tried walking like an Egyptian,

but very few would have walked like an Egyptian in Egypt. and here comes the first first myth breaking :you can not walk like them, you have to run, you have to get petrified, you need to handle the cars, the two-wheelers,the loads of people trying to cross the road and in between all of this, the smart salesman :)

Welcome to one day in Cairo, I would not say Egypt, cos I have been told Cairo is plain crazy, the

rest of the county is better :) but somehow, after 2 weeks, the craziness is catching on me and I am able to handle this madness around :)

So where should I start ? Let me start by breaking the Myths about Cairo:

1) you will not find mummies everywhere, you will not see Pharaohs walking around, all those great stories about mummies are better in Hollywood, here life has other things to unfold...Mummies are there, but in the museums, in the pyramids, they have their respective places. Like any other country, its hidden away in its past. Its more intriguing for the foreigners, the locals smile about them. Ask an Egyptian about pyramids and they would say , yes wonderful rocks, and most of them have not seen it yet :)

2) Egyptians talk , and when I say I mean they TALK ABOUT POLITICS. Life starts and ends on this note. They love their politics and with the post -revolution scenario everyone talks about it.

And I am not talking about people sitting in the parliament , or the news channels or the academics. These people who come from different walks of life. Some are selling vegetables on the street,

some are passengers in a bus, somewhere are the bus-conductors, some are 14 year old boys and some are 68 year old women. they all have opinions and they all are vocal about it.

3) Egyptians are lazy. One of the first things I was told, when I landed on this part of the world. their days start at 1pm, ( yes they do not know hats getting up at 6 am:))

and they go on till 3 in the morning. If you look at the weather here, I think this is the most sensible thing to do. The mornings are hot and evenings are cool. Its great to work in the evenings. The heat

can sap your life out even though the temperature might say 16 degrees as forecast. They are just laid back, who love going at their own pace. You cant make them move fast, their sense of race comes only and I repeat only when they are driving..

4)You can die, while crossing a road in Cairo and I say this with a straight-face. There have been moments where I have stood half-an hour trying to figure out how to cross a particular street. Be it major roads, narrow lanes basically anything which has vehicles plying on it. You would see cars, dozens of them coming, you would not see red-,lights. I am yet to see some operational red-lights. There are police officers who just decide when to stop the on-going traffic. You have to depend on the whims of these officers. I get very happy on seeing them. They are the only ones who can stop the traffic. I have , had random strangers holding my hands and helping me cross the road. random guys stopping vehicles for me to cross the road. Sometimes cars have come dangerously close. I have seen old people crossing roads like its empty. I have seen young boys running across the major lanes. The way cars are parked is one more fascinating feature. They are just parked in the middle of the road. The roads are not so broad and yet you have cars parked on both the sides, so vehicles have to drive through these narrow roads. And forget about pedestrians.. I have met fellow pedestrians who walk with me. I might have walked miles by now. So I do consider myself an expert on this issue. You just need to navigate between the active vehicles, the parked vehicles, the running cats, the other pedestrians and the boys :)

5) travelling in a public transport : One of the cutest, craziest coolest experiences of my life. Buses here are 3 types : the big ones, the micro ones and the notorious mini vans. All of them

are dirt cheap, so don’t expect anything great. They would take you to your destination and they would entertain you. In between all of this, you would see different stories unfolding in front of your eyes. I once acted like the conductor of one of the mini vans. I was seated right next to the driver as I could not speak Arabic and I was entrusted with the duty of charging everyone for the tickets. I spent the whole journey collecting change and passing tickets to passengers. I genuinely thought he should share his earning for the day with me :) I have caught singing Arabic songs unconsciously, very loudly.. These journeys are long and sometimes taxing, but its a great way to see the city.

6)The weekends here are Friday and Saturday. Yes, they do not observe Sunday as a holiday. something different for me, and something I am still learning. the Fridays here are spent in prayers and Imam would preach for some hours. Having a Masjid, right outside my window did give me free access to some of his Arabic lectures. Not knowing the language, did not stop me from me listening to him.

7) The Cats: I can not believe this : but yes they love cats. A country of cats. I have never seen these many cats in my whole life. Maybe there is history, I know they were worshiped , but the number of cats on the roads is just unbearable ( I do not like cats, so yes I am biased), but they are there. The young ones, the fat ones, the long ones, the small ones. Even the kittens know they belong or I must say they own the territory. Cats should be declared as the national animal here. Maybe it is the national animal.

8) The Food : Egyptian food is basically meat. Bring the meat out, and you would not see anyone even touching the vegetables. As the famous saying goes, vegetables are meant for small animals :) The first word I learned in Arabic was ahamadullah ( which basically means god is great, and also signifies I am FULL!). Cos Egyptians do not understand the meaning of getting full. and they eat, and eat and eat and hog :) and eat again. Yes they love their shai ( tea), be it scorching heat,any weather, they would drink shai. Egyptians are family people, they flock around in numbers, in communities, together. They always are welcoming to guests.

so there some of the things .. i can go on... kullu Misr magnoon :)

A Search for Oasis

ISLAMIC AND COPTIC CAIRO

The Gift

He would have liked a daughter. Someone he could play with, someone he could kiss, someone he could cuddle with. He wanted someone to love. I was not the one. No one could be the one. It had to be a part of him.

It was raining again in Hanley and it was as usual settling the scores with the city. The buildings were soaking in the sadness of the city. It was sharing the grief of the people. This city had seen a lot of pain, but over the years even the buildings had become immune to it. The buildings could not be blamed, they were brown in colour. There was nothing to be cheerful about, so they tried level reducing the pain by soaking in the dullness. It rained, the city wiped the silence, it rained again and city wiped the hints again. It was a constant battle the two were fighting for. Shikha liked this battle. She always felt she was part of this great epic, a mere silent spectator for whom this battle meant something.

And this time Shikha was not alone, she was going to deliver a child, and she really wanted it to be a girl. He would have liked it. The girl and Shikha had clearly understood each other. This was an act of love , a gift from someone who loved someone, a gift for someone who wanted to love someone and a gift which was to be loved. It was supposed to be a surprise. He hated surprises. He hated losing control of his life.

He had taught her to cry in the rain, it was the only way to share your life with nature. He used to believe that rain was a message from heaven. Rain had to pour, there was no way out, and we had to be part of this ceremony. Shikha wanted him to be romantic in the rain. To hold her, and tell her how much he loved her. She wanted him to speak, talk , say things, share. And this was all possible in the rain, after all rain wanted us to share.

But nothing. He had never once said he loved her. For that matter, loved anthing. He knew what love was. But he was not ready to trade it off with anything in the world. He wanted that for himself. He wanted that deseparetly. He never cried either in the rain.

Shikha never wanted a family, never wanted attachments. She was well verse with idea of love and was blindly in love with love. She never wanted to have children but had  dreamt of being pregnant. Even when she was with him, she would always have his hand on her stomach.She loved the glow she had on her cheeks, the idea of a bulging stomach, the idea of being loved, the idea of having a life within oneself, everything gave her a tingle. She had given a lot of thought to it. She had sorted out this well written script where she would get to play the lead. She loved the idea of it.

Shikha still remembered the first time she met him. He was in the library and she was scribbling down notes. He came over and took her for coffee. It was as simple as that. And within one hour of being with him, she was sure that she would carry his child one day. She wanted to. She wanted to have that bulge around her stomach. She had fixations about her body. She had always thought she would look good with her stomach out. After the first night, he had complemented her tummy and he told her one day that she would make a wonderful old lady.

Shikha had wonderful dreams that night.

And then he asked her to marry her and walked away from her life with the negatives of their lives. Shikha could not hold him back, he was looking for love and she was not the one. It was raining that day. She wanted to cry, but there were no memories to etch in her tears. She was unable to remember any romantic moments with him.She only remembered his touch and only craved for his body. She knew that she had to gift him. She had to give him the parting gift.