A mention of Fujairah would be incomplete without remembering the Pakistani taxi driver who drove us around. Businesslike, he drove a hard bargain and fleeced us, I am sure. We must have paid double what it should take. We could only chip off 20 dirhams from the price he originally quoted. But in the final analysis, both Sudhakar and I felt it had not mattered.
Sahil not only drove us around the little town but also went out of his way to be helpful. When I requested that he take me for some local shopping, he readily obliged with a ‘Mushkil Nai’ – a phrase I was to here many times that day [and on other days from other people – hospitality and a readiness to go out of the way to oblige is quite a trait of character here]. Not only that, he also came along to haggle with the Pathani shopkeepers and get us good prices. He volunteered to take us past Fujairah to the neighbouring town of Khor Fukkan where, he said, the beach was better.
Soon we got talking.
Driving down some very elegant residential quarters, he explained that those were local people’s quarters and that the sheikh of Fujairah subsidized 50% of cost of the house of all natives.
When we remarked on the elegance of the houses and the town, he opened up.
‘Yeh banaayi hui khubsoorti hai,” he remarked. “Come to my village in Pakistan to see real natural beauty.” He said he hailed from a village in the beautiful Swat valley in the Pakistan-Afghan border. “Well, if you miss it so much, why did you come here?” I asked.
“Pakistan is beautiful,” he said, almost poetically. “Lekin Pakistan may aman nahi hai. We cannot earn in peace there. We come out so that our families can live.”
“If there is no aman in Pakistan, why do you leave your family there?” I persisted.
“They are safe where they are – the Swat valley is safe, far away from the unpeaceful conditions. Only there are few avenues to earn well there.” He said. “I go once every year to spend time with my family. I have been here on a work visa for more than 9 years now.”
“Have you heard of Swat? It is very beautiful, like Switzerland.” We could sense the pride and wistfulness. I remembered Rabindranath Tagore's Kabuliwala.
And then suddenly as we were returning to the bus stand to catch the bus to Dubai, he hesitantly reminisced: “Two years back I brought my biwi and my youngest sister as tourists to Dubai for a month. For twenty three days, we went around the cities in my taxi, seeing places, enjoying ourselves. Then one day we had an accident on the road. My sister – she was just ten- did not survive.”
We froze in shock and sadness, and had no words to share. I realized suddenly that we had been privileged to be taken into his confidence, to have had momentary access to the innermost recesses of his heart and memory, that it must have been very painful and very difficult for him to recount that incident, that he need not have, but felt important to share it with us, passing tourists, who would never see him again in his life. That some strange chord had been struck between us three that had opened this painful floodgate for him.
As we got off the taxi, my husband paid him exactly what he had asked for, not a cent less. We bid him good bye and eid Mubarak and left for the bus. Ten minutes later, as we waited for the bus to take off, my husband got a call. It was the taxi driver: “Did you find seats? Are you comfortable?”
I am convinced more than ever that at a people to people level, one reaches out to the other in some strange deep way that is meaningful and enriching to both, notwithstanding differences in language, age, gender, nationality, religion, political ideology or loyalties. That for some reason we have allowed these various masks we wear to come in the way of a subtler level of communication and understanding that we all possess. We have allowed the masks to take over and define who we are.
Left to themselves, people everywhere would reach out and recognise in each other’s eyes – another human being with similar likes, fears, concerns, and emotions. Mushkil Nai.
Sahil not only drove us around the little town but also went out of his way to be helpful. When I requested that he take me for some local shopping, he readily obliged with a ‘Mushkil Nai’ – a phrase I was to here many times that day [and on other days from other people – hospitality and a readiness to go out of the way to oblige is quite a trait of character here]. Not only that, he also came along to haggle with the Pathani shopkeepers and get us good prices. He volunteered to take us past Fujairah to the neighbouring town of Khor Fukkan where, he said, the beach was better.
Soon we got talking.
Driving down some very elegant residential quarters, he explained that those were local people’s quarters and that the sheikh of Fujairah subsidized 50% of cost of the house of all natives.
When we remarked on the elegance of the houses and the town, he opened up.
‘Yeh banaayi hui khubsoorti hai,” he remarked. “Come to my village in Pakistan to see real natural beauty.” He said he hailed from a village in the beautiful Swat valley in the Pakistan-Afghan border. “Well, if you miss it so much, why did you come here?” I asked.
“Pakistan is beautiful,” he said, almost poetically. “Lekin Pakistan may aman nahi hai. We cannot earn in peace there. We come out so that our families can live.”
“If there is no aman in Pakistan, why do you leave your family there?” I persisted.
“They are safe where they are – the Swat valley is safe, far away from the unpeaceful conditions. Only there are few avenues to earn well there.” He said. “I go once every year to spend time with my family. I have been here on a work visa for more than 9 years now.”
“Have you heard of Swat? It is very beautiful, like Switzerland.” We could sense the pride and wistfulness. I remembered Rabindranath Tagore's Kabuliwala.
And then suddenly as we were returning to the bus stand to catch the bus to Dubai, he hesitantly reminisced: “Two years back I brought my biwi and my youngest sister as tourists to Dubai for a month. For twenty three days, we went around the cities in my taxi, seeing places, enjoying ourselves. Then one day we had an accident on the road. My sister – she was just ten- did not survive.”
We froze in shock and sadness, and had no words to share. I realized suddenly that we had been privileged to be taken into his confidence, to have had momentary access to the innermost recesses of his heart and memory, that it must have been very painful and very difficult for him to recount that incident, that he need not have, but felt important to share it with us, passing tourists, who would never see him again in his life. That some strange chord had been struck between us three that had opened this painful floodgate for him.
As we got off the taxi, my husband paid him exactly what he had asked for, not a cent less. We bid him good bye and eid Mubarak and left for the bus. Ten minutes later, as we waited for the bus to take off, my husband got a call. It was the taxi driver: “Did you find seats? Are you comfortable?”
I am convinced more than ever that at a people to people level, one reaches out to the other in some strange deep way that is meaningful and enriching to both, notwithstanding differences in language, age, gender, nationality, religion, political ideology or loyalties. That for some reason we have allowed these various masks we wear to come in the way of a subtler level of communication and understanding that we all possess. We have allowed the masks to take over and define who we are.
Left to themselves, people everywhere would reach out and recognise in each other’s eyes – another human being with similar likes, fears, concerns, and emotions. Mushkil Nai.
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