Alf Laylah wa Laylah: Night 105: The Story of Geo and Demo Graph
Considering it unfair to the hitherto unestablished tenets of online journalism to leave unmentioned the various events, experiences, trials, and tribal Asians encountered whilst repositioning to a new climatic/time/danger zone, I have herewith determined to relate specific observations pertaining to the particular location, renowned, through myriad news channels that permeate the globe, as Riyadh. As much as I’d like this to be an interim journey-diary of sorts, the ineluctable fact that I’m destined to be deserted here for a substantial period of time-perhaps even a full one thousand and one nights, or more-makes this story, and the stories that follow, more correspondent to LiveJournal’s very own changelog, detailing the adjustments and modifications committed, as opposed to a blithesome travelogue.
I promise what follows will not be as la-di-da and ponderous as above; it’s just that I’m currently reading some 19th century fiction. Okay, I know, that’s no excuse, but it’s a fact that I’m reading The Return of the Native just the same. An altogether splendid book which apprised me of the fact, among other things, that people of England in those days drank straight from ponds.
So, coming back to the place where I am … well, to put it plainly, it's a desert. And a pretty big one at that. From a cruising altitude, it’s difficult to discern signs of civilization or effects of technology, as multihued dunes predominate-tiny clusters of building or bush are lost among the vast expanses of sand. Now and then, you spot a thin dark streak stretching for miles-a highway or pipeline connecting one middle-of-nowhere to another. I am sure the first humans trying to land on Mars (the lead being a black pagan lesbian, thanks to NASA’s PC and PR) would get a feeling of déjà vu, if they are familiar with this terrain. Yeah, I know, Arizona is more Mars-like, and so also is the train-route to Tamil Nadu; I was just trying a simile for effect. Saudi Arabia is one humongous stretch of silica, and that was what I was trying to get across (literally too, on my connecting flight from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh). I come from a comparative jungle, and it takes more than official claims of mountains and forests to the south to make me change my mind, however enforcing-negative-stereotypes my opinion is.
On terra firma, Riyadh is a king(dom)-sized, sprawling, overcrowded city with modern highways and flyovers, progressive architecture, parks, museums, restaurants, thousands of shopping malls, millions of cars, offices, and apartment buildings crammed with people-a city barely distinguishable from Bombay, if only by the lack of a coastline, naturally-growing flora, cloudbursts, individual freedom, intoxicating spirits, and exposed skin.
The day I landed, more than three months ago (funny how time doesn’t fly), it was a chilly 16°C during the day (transpose digits for rough Fahrenheit scale) for a rookie from the tropics. The mercury has since climbed, burst through the glass, and is poisoning the upstairs plumbing as I write. I came to know that summer was unseasonably severe back home this year and a lot of unfortunate people (mostly poor) succumbed to heat waves. Tragic. Thankfully, that does not happen here. The general standard of living is good, oil-burnt alternating current is cheap and unfailing (not even a single brownout the entire time I was here, a marvel to somebody accustomed to the vagaries of hydroelectricity), and everybody has recourse to air-conditioning. Blessed air-conditioners. Which run fulltime and conk out periodically due to the load. It is indeed a good time to be a coolant monkey.
We inhabit the top floor of a two-story apartment located conveniently midway-a minute’s walk-from the wife’s clinic and the daughter’s tutor, on a street I like to call Car Accessory Ville, with over a quarter-kilometer of shops on either side selling varieties of automobile ornaments. The whine of drilling equipment, the hiss of spray guns, the exhortations of shop salesmen, the incessant honking, the fumes, the blast-furnace breeze, and the occasional sandstorm are bothersome only when we de-cocoon from our air-tight, sound-proof, hollow-brick suite. Which is all well and good, except for times when you feel the urge to storm out of the house slamming the door behind you for a long walk to cool your head after an argument or general vegetation-induced* madness. I have since learned to hyperventilate like a beached whale and count till twenty … thousand.
Speaking of the pitchmen downstairs, I shudder at the memory of a short, wild-eyed, bearded guy straight out of Tolkien, who came running at me brandishing a menacing dark cylinder shouting, “Sunken troll! Sunken troll!”
I went, “Wha … ? Aaaah!”
It was later when he unfurled the tube that I realized this overenthusiastic marketer was just hawking tinted film for car windows. Whew!
My street feels so much like home, it’s annoying. Malayalis shed new light and quantitative significance to the term “teeming millions,” and crawl over every supermarket, apartment, hospital, cab, ATM, sidewalk, rooftop (fixing dish antennas), lamppost (fixing streetlights), barbershop, restaurant, crook and nanny. The signboards are in Arabic (mandatory), Malayalam, and occasionally English; my mother tongue supersedes Hindi as India’s national language.
As for other ethnicities, Bangladeshis fight it out with Pakistanis, while Filipinos (or Pilipinos, as they like to spell it; they have the cutest kids), Egyptians, Palestinians, Afghans, Jordanians, Sudanese (their teeth are the toughest to pull, informs my wife), Eritreans, Kenyans, Moroccans, Libyans, Nepalese, Syrians, and a bunch of other Indians watch from the sidelines. The native Saudis in their white robes and checkered headgear try to blend in as inconspicuously as possible, the poor buggers. There’s a fast-growing wave of government-implemented Saudization (yes, it’s an awkward spelling), wherein all businesses are required by law to hire natives in a prescribed ratio (sometimes even exclusively), as unruly, semi-qualified, unemployed youth are a growing law-and-order concern. This, by no mere coincidence, reduces my odds at gainful employment a good deal. I am still on the hunt. More on that later.
*Inactivity, not olive trees.
This post dedicated to a dear constant nag, to Sir for the inspiration, and to Kiri for cheering me up one day.
I promise what follows will not be as la-di-da and ponderous as above; it’s just that I’m currently reading some 19th century fiction. Okay, I know, that’s no excuse, but it’s a fact that I’m reading The Return of the Native just the same. An altogether splendid book which apprised me of the fact, among other things, that people of England in those days drank straight from ponds.
So, coming back to the place where I am … well, to put it plainly, it's a desert. And a pretty big one at that. From a cruising altitude, it’s difficult to discern signs of civilization or effects of technology, as multihued dunes predominate-tiny clusters of building or bush are lost among the vast expanses of sand. Now and then, you spot a thin dark streak stretching for miles-a highway or pipeline connecting one middle-of-nowhere to another. I am sure the first humans trying to land on Mars (the lead being a black pagan lesbian, thanks to NASA’s PC and PR) would get a feeling of déjà vu, if they are familiar with this terrain. Yeah, I know, Arizona is more Mars-like, and so also is the train-route to Tamil Nadu; I was just trying a simile for effect. Saudi Arabia is one humongous stretch of silica, and that was what I was trying to get across (literally too, on my connecting flight from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh). I come from a comparative jungle, and it takes more than official claims of mountains and forests to the south to make me change my mind, however enforcing-negative-stereotypes my opinion is.
On terra firma, Riyadh is a king(dom)-sized, sprawling, overcrowded city with modern highways and flyovers, progressive architecture, parks, museums, restaurants, thousands of shopping malls, millions of cars, offices, and apartment buildings crammed with people-a city barely distinguishable from Bombay, if only by the lack of a coastline, naturally-growing flora, cloudbursts, individual freedom, intoxicating spirits, and exposed skin.
The day I landed, more than three months ago (funny how time doesn’t fly), it was a chilly 16°C during the day (transpose digits for rough Fahrenheit scale) for a rookie from the tropics. The mercury has since climbed, burst through the glass, and is poisoning the upstairs plumbing as I write. I came to know that summer was unseasonably severe back home this year and a lot of unfortunate people (mostly poor) succumbed to heat waves. Tragic. Thankfully, that does not happen here. The general standard of living is good, oil-burnt alternating current is cheap and unfailing (not even a single brownout the entire time I was here, a marvel to somebody accustomed to the vagaries of hydroelectricity), and everybody has recourse to air-conditioning. Blessed air-conditioners. Which run fulltime and conk out periodically due to the load. It is indeed a good time to be a coolant monkey.
We inhabit the top floor of a two-story apartment located conveniently midway-a minute’s walk-from the wife’s clinic and the daughter’s tutor, on a street I like to call Car Accessory Ville, with over a quarter-kilometer of shops on either side selling varieties of automobile ornaments. The whine of drilling equipment, the hiss of spray guns, the exhortations of shop salesmen, the incessant honking, the fumes, the blast-furnace breeze, and the occasional sandstorm are bothersome only when we de-cocoon from our air-tight, sound-proof, hollow-brick suite. Which is all well and good, except for times when you feel the urge to storm out of the house slamming the door behind you for a long walk to cool your head after an argument or general vegetation-induced* madness. I have since learned to hyperventilate like a beached whale and count till twenty … thousand.
Speaking of the pitchmen downstairs, I shudder at the memory of a short, wild-eyed, bearded guy straight out of Tolkien, who came running at me brandishing a menacing dark cylinder shouting, “Sunken troll! Sunken troll!”
I went, “Wha … ? Aaaah!”
It was later when he unfurled the tube that I realized this overenthusiastic marketer was just hawking tinted film for car windows. Whew!
My street feels so much like home, it’s annoying. Malayalis shed new light and quantitative significance to the term “teeming millions,” and crawl over every supermarket, apartment, hospital, cab, ATM, sidewalk, rooftop (fixing dish antennas), lamppost (fixing streetlights), barbershop, restaurant, crook and nanny. The signboards are in Arabic (mandatory), Malayalam, and occasionally English; my mother tongue supersedes Hindi as India’s national language.
As for other ethnicities, Bangladeshis fight it out with Pakistanis, while Filipinos (or Pilipinos, as they like to spell it; they have the cutest kids), Egyptians, Palestinians, Afghans, Jordanians, Sudanese (their teeth are the toughest to pull, informs my wife), Eritreans, Kenyans, Moroccans, Libyans, Nepalese, Syrians, and a bunch of other Indians watch from the sidelines. The native Saudis in their white robes and checkered headgear try to blend in as inconspicuously as possible, the poor buggers. There’s a fast-growing wave of government-implemented Saudization (yes, it’s an awkward spelling), wherein all businesses are required by law to hire natives in a prescribed ratio (sometimes even exclusively), as unruly, semi-qualified, unemployed youth are a growing law-and-order concern. This, by no mere coincidence, reduces my odds at gainful employment a good deal. I am still on the hunt. More on that later.
*Inactivity, not olive trees.
This post dedicated to a dear constant nag, to Sir for the inspiration, and to Kiri for cheering me up one day.