"At the end of thy hundredth winter, the sun is more unseen and more spotted; the year, month, and day are shorter; and the earth is more barren; and the crop will not yield the seed. And men become more deceitful and more given to vile practices. They will have no gratitude. Honourable wealth will proceed to those of perverted faith. And a dark cloud makes the whole sky night, and it will rain more noxious creatures than water."

-From the Bahman Yasht.

Words cannot express.

Home and Away

I'm going back to Muscat in November. It's a family holiday that we have planned for two whole years. We'll be returning to our childhood home for the first time since we left in 1999. We're all so unbelievably excited, we can hardly sit still. It's almost only a month away!

We'll be there for three weeks. I hope it's a happy three weeks. We've received unwelcome pieces of news recently: one of our favourite beaches is now accessible only to the guests of the resort it lies next to, and blocking the entrance to the beach is a tall Starbucks building; the wadi we used to go to every other weekend is now almost dried up, probably because of global warming and the rising heat. And these little pieces of news remind us that our former home will not, obviously, be the same as it used to be 13 years ago.

Nevertheless, our excitement is almost unbearable. Muscat was all I knew until we uprooted ourselves and went through quite the culture shock in Kerala. We now have a new home in Bangalore, and right here and right now, I would rather be nowhere but here. But Muscat still calls.

What are the associations you make when you think of the Middle East? You may think of conservative Muslims, covered from head to toe in burkhas. You may think of Dubai, with all of its excess and decadence. Now, Oman? This kingdom walks the rare middle path. Yes, it is Muslim and Middle Eastern, but not conservatively so. That has a lot to do with the large expatriate community there, which includes nationalities from all over the world.
And in terms of how it fares as a holiday/tourist destination, Oman is not for the people who gravitate towards Dubai. Oman is usually thought of as a sleepy place. We don't have shopping festivals like Dubai, nothing overly commercial. But what we have is natural beauty. The beaches. Oh, the beaches. Pristine blue waters and gorgeous sands.

Oman has a lot of historical beauty as well. I remember many weekends spent exploring old forts and souqs, built with care and precision enough to last hundreds of years without needing any renovation. I remember getting up to the highest lookout tower of one fort and standing by the ancient cannon it housed, unable to tear my eyes away from the tree tops of hundreds and hundreds of greenish-brown date palms.

Absence and the yearning to return have probably romanticized my memories of the place and the time we spent there. But now, as an adult, I have even more love for the city. It welcomed me with open arms and granted me a wonderful childhood.

I cannot wait to go back there and explore once again. :)

Let me tell you a little bit about what it's like sometimes to share a family tree with a few of my extended relatives.

I am Malayalee. I am also Muslim, by birth and by inheritance, but not by choice. By conscious choice, I am pagan. But that's unimportant.

A relative visited today. I won't even try to explain how we're related; it's beyond me. I do know, though, that he cannot be more than 45 years old and that he has two young children. The older, a girl, is six.

Today, I am 26 years, one month and one day old. I am also unmarried. Now, this is unacceptable. Not only do I have the gall to remain unmarried and thus childless, but I also dare to work and earn my own living. Financial independence, the most dangerous thing you can give to a "young girl my age."

At lunch, said Concerned Relative asked about my future, rather worried about me continuing to live my life freely and without confinement, like free range cattle. This obviously stemmed from looking at me come back home in the morning after staying over at a friend's place the previous night. "Are you searching for a potential husband, now that your older one is married and taken care of? No? She wants to wait for a few more years? That's fine and everything, but if you wait too long, it will be too late to have children."

The entire conversation was taking place right in front of me, as if I was simply furniture in the background. This self-righteous, presumptuous preacher of an uncle insisted that I not only get married, but that I do it soon because if not, it will be too late to have children. "She is 26 already!"

And he hopes that one of the receptions for my wedding (because there will have to be at least two, of course) will be held in Kerala so that his family, and many of our other relatives, will be able to attend.

It was crystal clear that he had absolutely no concern for what I wanted from my life. It's of no concern to him that I have always refused to agree to an arranged marriage. That I don't care about getting married "late in life" because I don't want to have kids anyway. And most importantly, that I fully intend to stay on this track for as long as I feel this way. No, he simply went on about "today's generation" and how they must learn quickly... or else.

I was obviously quite irritated, and only a little amused. But my mother's presence reminded me of my alleged obligation to treat him with at least respect, if nothing else.

For a few minutes, I seethed as I listened to him chew Ma's ear off. He wasn't talking to me, of course. I didn't need to be spoken to, since this decision about my own future wasn't mine to be made. In the minutes I took to put away the dishes and clear the table, I calmed down. I decided I would blog about this to document the experience. And then, once this post was done, I would move on to other things more worthy of my time during a precious weekend.

Which is exactly what I did. First, a long, luxurious bath. Then a little music, followed by sleep. See, unfortunately, as is typical of my dangerously independent ways, I had had a lot of fun last night with a big gang of friends. It involved quite a bit of alcohol and and not enough sleep. So I slept. And didn't think about anything else, too busy living a happy life to be concerned about others' concerns.