Lost in the Concrete Desert

Concluding part

Looks like Aman Plaza doesn’t seem to seize amusing me! The other day as I entered the lobby one late evening, I saw a few residents grouping together and having some sort of a discussion with the Manager.

It so happened that this particular ‘foreign’ family suddenly heard the fire alarm and went rushing to the lobby thinking there was a fire somewhere in the building and when they saw the Manager sitting there they panicked and told him about it! Poor Manager went to check from where the bell triggered the panic; it took him to the fourth floor and was coming from these same people’s neighbors. An Indian family was performing their evening prayers with their prayer bells!! Prayer bells for fire alarms! When I heard this I couldn’t help but burst out laughing…”Wait how can you laugh at a serious situation? Here these poor foreigners got so paranoid hearing the bell go off mistaking it for the fire alarm and you are laughing at such a thing?”, I thought to myself. I can’t help it, this is outrageously funny.

After two days what do I see, a circular to all the Indian residents saying that henceforth we should refrain from using prayers bells so that our  ”Worldly neighbors”  could live in peace. How would one like that?

Life went on for another year and one afternoon while I lay on our chaise lounge, my phone rang and lo… I had good news; we had at last found the place of our choice to move.

No more Ethiopian house-keeping women with figure hugging T-shirts and track suits sporting their matted hair, no more experiencing crazy incidents and lastly no more fodder for my write-ups.

It’s almost a year since we have moved from the swanky posh Aman Plaza to a quieter old Mahooz compound where there are birds chirping in the garden, a huge neem tree in the back yard, an occasional myna sitting in the window sill and looking at me as though  asking me for some thing to nibble, sparrows flying in gay abundance, butterflies circling around the flowers, well manicured lawns with date palm trees swaying in the wind and the best of all the jasmine shrub hugging the fence leading to my house, can I ask for anything better? No, way.  Except for my son when asked how he liked this new place says, “Its not cool mom!”

Since son has flown the nest, it’s going to be dad and mom who will enjoy living in this tranquility and not getting once again “Lost in the Concrete desert”. Amen!