Strange Waters

Being in a foreign land is like being on a swing. You don’t know which side you belong to. Your passport must prove that you don’t belong here but where you really belong is hard to tell. This is home if you must acknowledge that home is a feeling, yet facts prove the other way. Nobody really understands this dilemma unless they go through the same waters, get hit by the same waves and survive the same storm. So your peer group in this stage of life might understand. But they are not easily available for women. As time gives us more roles and responsibilities, women have to manage more things at the same time. From “why my child didn’t poop today? “ to “ why Hillary's political career faded?”, everything bothers a woman. The key to her survival is to prioritise things and while doing so she keeps her family at the top of the list. This is why as frequently asked women didn’t top many other recognised lists though she was a permanent member in the school toppers list. So women do not often contact their peer group to discuss her trifles.

Luckily I have my sister, Isabella. We fondly call her Bella. She can relate to anything I would say as she had come all the way I had trodden though she didn’t really want it. I know a part of her hated me for she had to (as she claimed) live in my shadows, yet a part of her admired me blindly. That’s okay because there is a mixture of hatred and love between every siblings. If there isn’t, you know they are lying. Had she but realised that she wasn’t living in my shadows but she is my shadow, the only person who can mirror my feelings!

Revisiting this Arabian land with family is a matter of immense pleasure. This is the land I had spent the best of my days. Returning now with the family I had built, I really miss my parents and siblings. Even before the arrival and its plans, I had insisted my husband to rent an apartment in the area we had stayed. Though you cannot undo the changes the time had brought, some things will still remain the same. Though most of the buildings around here are either new or refurbished, the one where we had lived still remained the same with its black and white gates. I wonder how our apartment would look now. This time we had rented an apartment in the next lane, to be exact, opposite to the single storied house of the “Shouting man”. I don’t know if anyone else other than I and Bella would remember the man or call him by that name. He seemed to be mentally disabled. He often shouted from his house's balcony. I never saw his face. During the day he stood along the sun's beam that his face was never lit and at night he stood there in the dark. I don't know his name, age or ethnicity, not even what he was shouting. But I still remember him. I am glad that after all these years, he still shouts at the same spot, something time didn’t touch. But now his voice cracks, and he seems to be old and weak.

My husband and children are by now fed up with my childhood tales. Of course they can’t grasp the essence of it, those waters are strange to them. I don’t know how to explain them the way this land had broadened my sense of acceptance. Growing amidst people of different race and culture had opened my eyes to see things differently. Unlike the expected social frames we have to fit in in our country, here differences are welcomed. Everyone with their own differences abide to the same law of this land. It may not be favouring many, but it never intruded in their personal lives.

This morning, I woke up hearing unfamiliar voices outside the street. I opened the window and saw many men going here and there. Usually mornings until the day gets warm are quiet and foggy at this time of the year. While proceeding with my chores, I kept an eye on the unusual happenings outside. By the time I had sent my kids to school and was ready to go to the office, I saw a funeral procession. It started from the Shouting man's house. Suddenly it struck me that I hadn't heard him shouting for two days. I knew I didn’t know him. But for some reason, tears rolled down my cheeks. Perhaps only Bella can understand.