Glimpses into the Blue

It was a hot Friday afternoon in May. The earth was parched by the blazing sun. The streets of this city in the middle of the desert were truly deserted. Even the most vagrant of souls had accepted their defeat and resigned to the comforts of the indoors. I mustered the last ounce of courage and resolve left in me to pursue my mindless journey through the alleys of Doha. I kept questioning the sanity of my choice to come out at this inhumanly hour on an elusive pursuit which had started losing its purpose by the minute. I fought off the strong urge in me to turn and bolt back to my room, partly because of the fact that my destination was closer now than my room.

At this juncture, amidst all these travails I felt a wave of nostalgia lap me up in it's embrace and take me 10 years back in time. I saw myself wearing my favourite green tom and jerry t-shirt and matching shorts, waiting for my mom to get in the kitchen. And as soon as she did, I was out of the house in a jiffy joining my friend Newton (names changed for the convenience of the author to increase the possibilities of crafting an ingenious net of lies and still not be answerable to anyone) I felt immense pleasure, like when one feels when seeing a long lost friend, though in reality I had just seen him the previous evening during the match of tops (pambaram in thamizh). I wanted to spend every moment of my summer holidays with him and the neighbourhood gang loitering aimlessly in the sun. We together set out on the tricky task of gathering the rest of the gang without ruffling the feathers of any of their parents. The job was fraught with danger and demanded very high levels of caution, given the fact that no parent in his/her right senses would let his/her offspring loaf about under the scorching Sun. After the successful amassment of the army (or at least most of it) we set about on our usual daily routine which had various mouth watering activities like kabaddi, marbles, tops, seven stones and anything under the sun quite literally under the hot, unrelenting sun. I never complained about the temperature and humidity, it only seemed to bother the aged. I was never perturbed by the blistering Helios who sometimes left the old and the weak dead in his trail. I was contemplating the similarity of the ambience and the marked difference in my attitude towards it between then and now.

My reverie was cut short by a sudden bustle of voices in the air signifying substantial activity in the vicinity, quite contrasting to the deafening silence of idleness that I was subjected to thus far. I knew that I was nearing my destination, ‘The Nepali Chowk’. I took a sip of water from the bottle which I had brought from my room appreciating my resourcefulness which is an area that I’ve been found wanting quite often. I then continued my journey towards the Al something shopping complex (replace something with any of the names like falah, desman, madinath etc. found in abundance in this part of the world) It was famous, not for the plethora of electronic gadgets that it offered nor for the competitive prices but for the weekly Friday gatherings. This was supposed to be the gala event for all the blue collared denizens of Doha. I wanted to witness this carnival which never stopped come rain or shine.

The din in the air was rising steadily as I approached the brown single storeyed mall which was quite big. I entered through one of the many entrances and after crossing various shops displaying their wares in garish lighting I reached the huge central courtyard. I was dumb-founded by the sight I beheld. It was a veritable sea of humanity. I am very bad at estimating, but by any measure the crowd there was staggering to say the least. The fact that the ambient temperature was hovering around the 50 centigrade mark made the sight even more implausible. I wondered what drove them to come here in hundreds every week braving the brutal weather that they have to put up with all week long from morning to night in their line of work.

I am sharing some of the snaps from that day here:

I took courage and accosted one of the faces in the crowd. Some of the things I gathered from the chat and some that I knew already are: This is the only form of social bonding for all the blue collars in the city. Friday is the only day off in their week. They utilize it to get to know the happenings in the lives of their friends in the city. This is the only form of communication between comrades who are far from home. They do not have Yahoo, Orkut or Hotmail to connect them. They cannot afford to go elsewhere in a city built solely to entertain the oil barrons. They come here to feel being part of a group.

I decided to get mixed in the crowd and feel it from close quarters. I saw people all around dressed in their Sunday clothes (should be Friday clothes for the middle-east). I saw some carrying huge bottles of water and mirinda, some with imitation ray-bans and nikes, some chatting animatedly, some laughing from a joke just cracked, some singing movie songs and dancing, some sitting alone waiting, some having a heated discussion, some worried and one queer guy stealing a gulp of what seemed to me like booze. I saw all the emotions and moods coming together forming the various strokes which together form this picture every Friday at ‘Nepali Chowk’. The picture which had bright parts and the dark ones, dirty parts and the immaculate ones, beautiful parts and the ugly ones.

I am not here to voice the trials and tribulations that these people go through day after day. I am not here to ask questions on the importance of money in one’s life. I am not vying to pass judgements on their decision to renounce a lot of cherished possessions and comforts for the sake of earning bread. All I’m trying to do is to understand them as they are. At the end of the day I don’t think they love the sun any more than I do, but I do understand why they come to ‘Nepali Chowk’ week after week.