For Old Times' Sake

I was eight when I first heard Boney M's Holiday songs. I've heard each of them a thousand times now, but one of them that instantly stuck with me was Auld Lang Syne. More so because I had no idea what it meant. No one at home seemed to be able to tell me. And since my only link to the outside world was Doordarshan and Akashvani, I had to learn it like one of those romantic spanish phrases, like Formas de Amor, like Besame Mucho, ones you never understood but just sounded cool when put in song.

And then I grew up and finally got to know what the words meant. It didn't really make much sense though. Old times' sake. "Should old acquaintance be forgot, for auld lang syne"? Shouldn't you rather be remembering your old buddies, for old times' sake? Someone else told me it just meant "a long long time ago". Mm, that made sense, I thought. And so that's what it meant for a long, long time.

After school you grow up a whole different way. The song remained forgotten for years. Life's what happens to you when you grow up, I've heard. Heck, no kidding. When I heard it again, almost twenty years after I first learnt to say the phrase, it wasn't so "senseless" anymore.

For the sake of some of the best times you've had, you have to let go of the past.

Are You Watching Closely?

"We'll see you again, inshallah"

"I'm sure we will" I replied as I turned my T-card around for the last time. In a time not too long ago I might have got a little moist around the eyes. But Saudi and its experiences have hardened me somewhat. I've closed some doors around me which I will not open again. I've been warned the floodgates come unexpectedly and they're tough to stop once they come. But that's not today.

D and I talked on the drive back home. About nothing in particular. The new speed limits on the roads, the kababs at the new place downtown. "Five years have gone by real quick man." I told him as I parked the car and gave him the keys. "It's been five years?" His mouth opened like one of those colon-O smileys. "It hardly feels like two, chief."

"It feels like yesterday." I smiled as we hugged goodbye.

I handed over my passport to the customs officer. He looked at the picture on it, looked up at me. Turned to a page cluttered with older exit stamps and made his mark on one corner. "Ma salaama, habibi" he handed me back my passport and boarding pass. Go in peace, my friend.

It's not a place I've grown to love. It's probably not even a place I would yearn to come back to. But here, I have gained a little, lost a little, learnt a lot. Made some new friends, been forgotten by a few old buddies. Survived the red-brown sands and 52 degC. Eaten the most fattening meals of my life. Learnt to call a friend a brother. Seen some relationships last a lifetime, others not so much. The ride may leave you dizzy, it may leave you ecstatic. It may scare you to death, it may make you want to do something crazier. But the ride is the thing. As the brown city got smaller and smaller, it's neatly arranged streetlights fading to a mesh of criss-cross lines, a little part of me, I leave behind.

Dance of Life

"Nah, I'll come get you", K said just before she hung up. K and I met up for dinner a couple of weeks ago. It's been over five years since I met her. We ended up having a great time, probably one of my best dinners in and around Houston, and reminiscing the good old days.

We've both had our share of difficult times since then. And in their differences, they have been kind of similar. We chose to get over them in different ways. I buried myself in work, so much so I had no time for much else. K did the same, but with a difference. She buried herself in something she loved doing. She still does it today, almost a year later, with such enthusiasm that just bursts with freshness each time. In most of our trials, the ends justify the means. It's not to say that what one does is better than the other. But in our acceptance of what has happened, we often decide, unknowingly, what we were always meant to do. Hopefully a glimpse of what life has in store for us - for the better.

Otherwise K hasn't changed much. She's still as chic as ever, but worries about how good she'll look in every snap. Still dances as if no one's watching. Still has that mischevious honesty in her eyes.

One of my recent favourite songs played on the car stereo on our way back. "I've been doing some singing too of late. Let me sing along with this one, tell me what you think eh?" K was at it as we swept through the Houston night. In a little stray thought that played in my head, the night was suddenly silent, except for the wind through the trees whistling my admiration out loud.

I had a smile as I walked up back to my room at the hotel. Call me behind the times if you would, but independent, confident women always give me goosebumps.

Enough Already

I'm not one to comment on socially sensitive topics. But this whole Sania news just doesn't allow me to do the same thing this time. Hate mails and comments and news just keep piling on day after day. Everyone suddenly thinks Sania should be the role model India never had. How can she marry someone who has previously been accused of match fixing? Doesn't she know cricket is an Indian religion? Doesn't an alliance with someone like this destroy and defile our nation? And does she know he's been married to someone previously? We as a nation are worried for her safety and security! What if his ex-wife attacks her and we lose our best tennis sensation!! And the worst part is OMG WTF he's a Pakistani! Surely being the responsible Indian she is she CANNOT even THINK of even associating with people that we are at war with??

Give it a rest guys. Let's forget the fact that what Sania does with her life shouldn't be anyone's business. It's like we've just gone back twenty years. To blaming everyone in the nation for something most of them aren't responsible for. To looking for reasons to find fault when there are better things to do. To just wiping out all those initiatives, all the music and lyrics for love, peace and brotherhood. These are people with us, people around us, people like us. When an enemy has a face, he shouldn't be your enemy anymore.

Guy Love

For the ladies - if you've heard it it's true: guys can't handle emotion, at least not with other guys. We're probably crying the river inside and all that, but on the outside it's a whole different story. I've had a few of these "guy" experiences myself, and I thought it's about time they were put down.

Guide:
WWWTS: What we want to say
WWEUS: What we end up saying

G1: Hey, why do you have a palm pendant around your neck?
G2: Oh this is 'coz I got engaged a month ago. My fiancé has a similar one too around hers. It's supposed to go like - hand-in-hand, you know.
WWWTS: Awww, so sweet that is! *sigh* I wish we had this back in India too! *double sigh*
WWEUS: Neat! Fancy those Chinese traditions, eh?

G1: So how was your vacation?
G2: Awesome. Did a bit of traveling. Finished too soon though - now it's back to work and hell!
WWWTS: Yea, I know. But I'm glad you're back dude. Things are kind of tough right now. At least now there's someone I can depend on.
WWEUS: Tell me about it. So, 'sup?

G1: D tells me you're leaving?
G2: Yea, had enough of the oilfield man. And of this place of course.
WWWTS: Well, I had the best time with you around man. Will miss having you around. Am sorry to see you go, you know.
WWEUS: Hahah, true. I'll probably go next.

G1: How's L doing? You guys getting married soon or what?
G2: Oh, we broke up last week buddy. Some things didn't work out.
WWWTS: Nooo! But you guys were perfect, I thought. Been together for two years right? Are you sure it's not something that can be worked out? Everything's got to have a solution yeah? Surely there must be something I can do to help?
WWWEUS: Oh, bummer. Pizza?

I guess guy love doesn't go much deeper.

Ammi Jab Banati Hai

Just after dinner one day, the three of us were sitting and watching Conan o'Brien on TV, sipping Naeem's signature after-meals chai. We'd just finished a meal of chicken curry and rotis from the local restaurant behind the compound. "Oops - almost forgot!" Naeem stood up and went to his room, and came back with the yummiest besan ka halwa I've ever eaten. "From home - friend brought it over today." Our mouths were already stuffed.

In between mouthfuls we got to reminiscing about back-home food. Nitin about his dahi-parathas and kadi, Naeem about his doodhi burfi and mithi lassi, and me about my puttu-kadla and mutton biryani. "The halwa's a little different from last time, yeah?" "Yeah, Ammi can never make the same thing twice. I asked her for besan ka halwa that's all - no point telling her 'the same as last time'! Lekin Ammi jab banati hai badi fit banati hai yaar!"

Amen. No arguments on that - go around the world eating your poulets, calzones, fajitas, dim-sums, chop sueys, sushis, kebabs, whatever - all that just melts away when you think of home food. I've already started counting down my 15 odd remaining days!

They say home is where the heart is. I'm sure for the most of us, home is where Mom's food is.

Who Knows

Six of us were cramped up in that little cabin on the truck. For the past eleven days we've been there everyday, at least six to seven hours each day. Watching the little weight indicator on the monitor, hoping for an answer and hoping for it soon. The chunk of metal downhole just refused to give up. We'd been pulling on it, smacking metal on metal, looking for that rapid drop on the scale, waiting for it to come free.

At the end of the day we were tired, upset and seriously considering the possibility of redoing everything we had done in the last six weeks. And then we saw the 9000 pound drop, and the coil rolling back freely.

"Al hamdolillah!* " Everyone of us cried out with our hands raised at our chests.

Frank is Chinese and an atheist. Håvard is Norweigian, and he's not been to church since his divorce. Fazil is from Azerbaijan, I don't have much to say about religion there. Mohammed has spent the last five years in San Francisco, but he's a pretty devout Muslim. And so is Ali, but he's been in Saudi all his life. I'm also quite the God-fearing Catholic.

But it didn't really matter. Sometimes, you can have a ton of experience in the work you do. You can explain everything, plan ahead, do something you can to the best of your knowledge and ability. And still, sometimes, we find ourselves desperately waiting for a miracle that we know with all our technically programmed minds will just not happen. And yet, when it does, there is something in the way it all worked out that makes you wonder. In the same way that the world has its perfectly random order. Maybe this is what all of us can call God.

* A common phrase which praises Allah. Translated, it roughly means, "This was possible, by God's mercy."

Dream Catcher

You will live it out in time

But God forbid

That among the dreams of tomorrow

And the memories of yesterday

You forget the reality of today.

Tamizh

A gave me a birthday gift two weeks ago. Ah, I should probably say that the original gift that I was supposed to get dissolved into thin air on account of the fact that my visit to India was unprecendented and unexpected at the time of her arrival, and realizing that it was almost impossible that the two of us would meet during her trip back home, and calculating carefully that the postal department would make a killing on parcel registration almost nullifying the value of the gift, she had come to the conclusion that it would be better to give me this gift the next time we met, which could not be longer than another two years in time (I have simplified her original explanation which ran into seven and a half pages on standard A4 size paper - front and back).

So after a million whines of self-pity on having no birthday acknowledgement from someone I have known forever, she agreed to put together the one thing I really have wanted for a long while. A CD of tamil songs. Not that I've not heard tamil songs before, but not like this. The CD has pretty much blown me away - you could call it an obsession I guess.

On the other hand, I think whoever said mallu is tougher to learn than tamil knew nothing about either language! I'm a little language shy and A scares the hell out of me every time I try to speak two words. So a few days back I manage a Innu onnum pannala * and she's on it straight away -

"No! What Innu? You should say innukku!"

"But innu is passable no?" (hands a little sweaty)

"NO! It's not passable! And what onnum pannala? This is not your mallu - say innukku onnume pannala * !"

"OK..." (My voice is shaking and I can't say another word)

Hah, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If it's I it has to be pannitaen ^ , if it's he it has to be pannitaan ^ , if it's she it has to be pannitta ^ (oh, actually in very pure tamizh it has to be pannittaal ^, but in conversation pannitta is passable :P ) And elders you have to respect, OK? No enna pannara ** and all... it has to be neenga enna pannareenga ** !

Where does my paavam mallu compare to this where a simple Endhu cheyyuva ** ? would fit everyone and everything!!

But I'm having fun inspite of all the domination and humiliation. And for that, A, you're officially forgiven for everything ;)

* - Did nothing today

^ - various forms of did

** - What are you doing?

V1/16

The strands in your eyes
That color them wonderful
Stop me and steal my breath
Emeralds from mountains
Thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth

Today completes three years since I left Bangalore - then and now one of my cities of dreams. The place where I gained a little, lost a little, and still continue to learn - a lot. This is a dedication to everything that makes the city what it is - the traffic, the streets, the double meter auto rides, the restaurants, and more than anything else - the people who made my life the way it is now.

Lyrics from Goo Goo Dolls' I'll be

Mayflower

Strange but wonderful, that sometimes -

- in the loudest of places, you can find just the silence you wished for.
- it really is possible to sleep your worries away.
- music and lyrics can take off a day's weight.
- friends are the only reason you need to make a decision.
- you can miss someone even though you're hardly in touch.
- memories of yesterday make up for the expectations of today.
- you can dream about something you know won't come true.
- acceptance can be the simplest form of love.

Onion Pakoda

"Yaar aaj to pakoda khaana hi padega!" Naeem, Nitin and I are sitting in our living room watching the rain pitter-patter outside. Rain. In my part of the world, that's rare. Nitin's the one who made the pakoda remark. That's how it is with him - most things are impulsive and based on parallels. This time it's the badiya mausam - ghar ki yaad - pakoda on a rainy evening parallel.

But this time everyone's enthusiastic. Somehow it does seem like a pakodi ka din. And so on the first weekend all of us have in almost a month, we decide to have a doing nothing - doing everything day. Naeem takes us in the morning to the local Pakistani Street which has the best aalo ke parathe I've had (prejudiced opinion because I'm in Saudi - but what the hell!).

But Nitin's right. The weather is awesome. The only time Saudi has actually looked romantic. The rain has cleared the air. The sky is dark but when you look out to the distance, you can almost touch the peace it casts on the ground. Sitting at the Corniche sea face, sipping at our coffees, we can see through to the Bahrain causeway miles away. Mornings have never been so lovely.

A drive and a movie later, we remember to end the day with what started it - Nitin's pakodi. At the little restaurant downtown, dabbing our onion pakodas in its red chutney and chana-dal, there're no worries of work, of people in distant lands, of money or relationships. Life feels momentarily peaceful.

What a girl can't do

Tagged by Pareltank

DB, Tunisian - My kid's six months old now. No, my husband doesn't work - my job's enough for the both of us now. Someone has to stay home and take care of our baby.

AE, Saudi - You're not getting married for another two years? That's too long, man! I'm getting married in two months - can't wait! No more cleaning rooms, ironing clothes, cooking meals - you get someone to do it all for you!

AR, Indian - Oh well, it's one thing whether your husband says it up to you whether you still want to work after getting married. I wouldn't want to get married to someone who feels its OK to give up my job and relocate where he is if it's OK with me. Doesn't that mean he pretty much doesn't care?

MB, Sudanese - It's really tough to manage women, my friend! Before they get married they seem accomodating and understanding. And then once you're married, suddenly there's this big career complex - about who's working and why there should be any sacrifice on either side. And then a kid comes along - and complicates matters even more!

FF, Omani - Nah, it's really not fair to ask her to quit her job and come here to Saudi. What's she going to do here? If I don't get a transfer out of here I'll probably just quit this job and take up a peaceful government job somewhere in my little town.

Notes:

1. I made this post the way it is to bring out one thing I realized - people's views on feminism are part of the life they've seen growing up, part of their culture and tradition. As cultures and traditions change, so do these views. However, I can never claim that one person's view is the entire country's view - they're not even a sample space. And while you have your own view, to some extent all of us are influenced by what people who are part of this sample space think.

2. All these lines are from real-life conversations - none of them are made up. :)

3. FF is now happily married and settled in Oman, running a private business with a few of his pals. His wife is a computer engineer.

Signs

I love the safety signs on a rigsite. It's also kind of impressive to visitors who think rigs don't really give a damn about safety. All that has changed.

This one at the safety induction tells you that time is important, but more important than time is safety:

There is no work so urgent or important that we can't take the time to do it safely.

I saw this one on a rig floor - encouraging you never to be shy when you have a question:

When in doubt - ASK. The only wrong question is the one you did not ask.

Of course some are great sources of entertainment - like this one which tells you to smoke only in designated areas.

Please do not smoke in here. Smoke is the waste left behind from your cigarette. You know what I leave behind after I drink water? How would you like it if I stood on top of you and pissed all over you? Respect my preference like I respect yours.

Of course no one really cares about swearing or cursing here. Why else would you see this in the main office?

How about a nice big cup of Shut the F*** Up? THINK before you say something stupid.

And then finally there is that sign which makes you think that inspite of all the safety they're promoting, there's always one sign too many. One that makes it seem like you're three years old and/or retarded. Like this one posted 35 feet above the ground on the rig floor:

Do not jump. Use stairs.

A little bit of green

Money is not everything in life. But it is most things. I remember telling A - The only people who say money is not important are the ones who have enough of it. Or the ones who've always had enough. For everyone else, we choose to believe it doesn't matter - because it is the right thing to believe. No one likes to sound materialistic.

But the truth is that in the satisfaction of being able to afford - your dream car, a birthday gift, an expensive dinner - you find your happiness.

Lunar Depression

Eight days in Shaybah - tiring. Ten hours of sleep in the last four days, food eaten out of a paper plate in the middle of a million dirty tools, a rig floor covered in drilling mud. My clothes still smell a little like hydraulic oil. At least now I'm back at the airport and waiting for a flight back to town. Mujeeb and I are talking about the peace we're hoping to have over the next couple of days - "They're having Eid holidays in town man - peaceful. No waking up at 6 am, no sleepy morning meetings, no job preparations. Office opens only on Sunday." That's three days away.

On the taxi back home I have pleasant thoughts - wake up really late, a visit to town, a little pending shopping, cooking the next evening. Office - well, maybe for a couple of hours in between.

Life's different at 7 am the next morning. I wake up red-eyed to a ringing cell phone. Ali H. I curse loudly. I'm pretty sure I know why I've been woken up so early. And sure enough - another job, and leaving in a couple of hours. I'm PISSED. All in caps. Pissed through getting ready, through the short trip to office, through the three hour taxi ride to the heliport, through the half hour chopper ride offshore.

But then it ends there. Going down after checking in at the radio room, I join Thamer and Hussain who got there four days ago - guys who've been fasting almost fourteen hours a day, every day for the past one month, in preparation of their biggest festival of the year. Fasting - without food or water - when back in town, when at office, or when working on the rig floor in the middle of summer. And at the end the only thing they really want is to celebrate Eid with their families. They're not complaining though.

I don't prepare a tenth as much for Christmas. And yet I never learn to shut up. :)

Vandana

Vandana joined classes two days after I did. Standing at one corner of the 4-feet deep pool, I smile seeing Aravind bring her along. Pink flowers on her swimsuit, pink goggles, pink shower cap, pink wristwatch strapped on to her little hand. I always like pink on a girl, but this blast of pink makes me smile again.

Aravind picks her up and dips her into the pool. "Close your mouth. Close your mouth!" That's his I'm-going-to-dip-you-into-the-pool line. Vandana resurfaces gasping for breath. "I got water in my nose!" she whines a little. She runs up the pool steps and stands on the shore. "Enough for today sir!" She whines again. "No problem... no problem Vandana!" Aravind assures her.

Yesterday, ten days from when she first joined, Vandana is bursting with love for water. Aravind holds her high above the water at the 6-feet edge of the pool and throws her in. "Swim Vandana, swim!" he shouts from the edge. Vandana is off like a bullet. Five seconds later she's covered the breadth of the pool. "Let me jump again sir!" she screams, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

For me, who still needs every muscle working to death to swim three-quarters the length of the pool, 3-year old Vandana is my superhero.

An Evening in Nuayyim

On a hot summer evening, Ady and I were tidying up our container before doing our pre-job checks. Ady gave me a "I'll go call the electrician, mate!" holler before walking up to the rig offices. He got back around ten minutes later with a medium-built man with a moustache and a toolbox in his hand. "Anil" he said, shaking my hand. His face and the name put together were pretty much a giveaway. "Malayali aano?" - Are you a Malayali? - I asked. My guess was right. And then there was a lot of talking - talking before work, talking while dragging our 480 volt cable up to the mud tanks, talking while checking our circuit breakers. Work done, he left, and Ady and I continued what we had got there to do.

About half an hour later, Anil returned. "Joseph Chettan is here. He's from your same place, he said he'd like to meet you." I wasn't in much of a tearing hurry anyway. For the next twenty minutes or so we talked about things I now associate with every Malayali acquaintance - Where in Kerala are you from?, How many siblings do you have?, When did you last visit home?, Do you plan to get married soon?, Politics there are a bitch, eh? - among tons of others.

Joseph is in his early forties, he is the man in charge of bringing food supplies to the rig. He would drive his pickup three hundred kilometers, bringing in fresh vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and poultry for those three-course meals everyday. Anil, in his mid-thirties, is the chief electrician at the rig, had what is to me one of the most dangerous everyday jobs - everything concerning power, high voltage, anything that could go Boom! in your face the next minute. I was the youngest of the three, pretty much a rookie at my work on the rig floor compared to the other two.

In those twenty minutes no one talked to me like I was a kid, and I didn't think much about how old they were either. We were among those million other Mallus in the "Gulf", talking and laughing and glad to have met each other at one of life's crossroads. "I get off next week. Back home for five weeks!" Anil says with a broad smile, "Excited to be seeing my family again. They're the ones who you work so much for, right?"

"They're the ones." Joseph and I agree, and the three of us smile faintly at each other. In the middle of the Nuayyim desert under the moonlit sky, we share a brief moment of brotherhood - separated miles in the work we do but united by that common purpose.

Getting Back

54 degrees and sand in your ears.
Cracked lips despite a ton of lip balm.
Smelling diesel and drilling mud.
Drinking like a million soft drinks a day.
June wasn't exactly peaceful.

Home has never felt better. * sigh *

Written in Pink

Loud music played at the open-air cafe. Walking out of the 13-floored building, we took a look around us to take in the essence of the cold Bangalore night. A 40-something man in a T-Shirt that had a caricature of Lennon with "Imagine" scrolled under it, reading a book, sipping coffee. A couple holding hands, sharing a single large cup of cappuccino and a sandwich between them. Bigger groups sitting around tables talking, laughing loudly, some throwing straws around the table.

And then a little girl, four feet tall, hair plaited, nail colour cracked, with a thin and inadequate-looking brown sweater wrapped around her, standing at the gates. In her hands she held a bunch of roses and a faded white plastic cover with something-TEXTILES printed on it. Under the bright streetlight, the weight of the building in front of her made her seem smaller than the little thing she was, the darkness of the evening making it way past the bedtime of any other child her age.

"Bhaiyya, buy a rose please." We looked at each other and then at her. "How much for one?" I asked. She streched out the bunch to me. "Buy them all no bhaiyya, then I can go home also." There was something in her voice that melted our hearts. "OK, how much for all of them?" We smiled at her. Her eyes suddenly lit up, the prospect of an early trip back home and the warmth and joy of sleep suddenly in front of her.

"One, two, three..." we watched her count every rose to the end "... eighteen. One rose is ten rupees... so eighteen... umm... (frantic calculation with her fingers lest us prospective customers lose interest and walk away)... 180 rupees bhaiyya." She thrust them out to us as we handed her the money. "Thank you bhaiyya!" There was no scream of joy in her voice, no childish reaction of having finished the day early, but we sensed the gratitude. In that one impulsive moment I wanted to lift her up and swirl her above the top of my head, and hear her laugh out loud with nothing holding back her five or six years.

I didn't do that, but in the next half an hour of a rickshaw ride back home, with the eighteen pink roses clutched in one of our hands, we both knew it was the perfect end to the best day we'd had in almost two years.