Two Countries And An Ocean In Between

Today is a full month since I left my home and my home.

It is a strange place that I am in. Different yet not so different. I don't know what it is to be like outside your home. I didn't know. I still don't. I am learning homesickness; it is all coming very slow is what I feel.

I am not sad like how people are when they leave home for the first time. I am in fact very happy; I am staying in my aunt's home. It feels just like my home, almost. I feel strange sometimes though. It feels like I would roll my always-ready bag to the ariport in a couple of days and go back home. And carry some tales with me about the vacation I had.

I use 'home' to refer to my country too, in some of these sentences; specially my city, Delhi. I am in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia right now.

I boarded a plane for the first time in my memory, that night. I say 'in my memory' because it wasn't technically the first time but rather practically the first time. After all, when you had last board a plan at the age of 3, it feels like a theory only when you try to remember it while doing the same after 24 years. It is a long time. A very long time.

Right-bottom is engine

I had heard people relate anecdotes about plane takeoffs and landings. How they felt or how some others in the plane reacted of this scary thing. Chanting/Reciting prayers with anxiety. I can say with utmost surity though that, that was the most wonderful part of my journey. The take off specially. I would do that whole day if I could.

I was travelling at night so I got to witness this(on the right). It was a connecting flight and I felt rather alone at that connecting airport. Small airport in the middle of another desert country in the dead of the night with a feel of 20 years ago. But the rest was good.

I arrived home here and rested and saw some parts of the city in the day and was amazed to see so much difference. Related to something I hadn't thought about before at all. The most striking and heart piercing was the lack of greenery.

It has been a month and the reason I don't feel at home most is that there are no trees or plants or grass or wild shrubs even. It is a desert country after all. And I am coming from Delhi; the greenest metropolitan back home. For someone like me, it is almost impossible to ever start feeling at home. I need trees.

What doesn't feel different are humans; they are almost the same. The culture is different yes, and the values are different, but otherwise, human nature is human nature. Nothing too exceptional. There are good people and there are not so good. Some are benevolent with their smiles and talk; some are full of themselves or with identity problems. It is the usual. The latter are fewer in density of course.

Density reminds me, there are no people to be found on roads or in most residential colonies even.  There is almost no intra-city public transport apart from taxis, which are costly. People don't walk or cycle because there is no shade from the scorching sun. The sun literally burns the grass to disappearance here, hence no trees or shrubs.

Home here feels like my own home

The city is smaller than Delhi but the places still feel far and big. Everything here is big. Big, unoccupied pieces of land, big houses, big supermarkets, big generous helpings of food, and big cost of almost everything(in comparison). And big cars. Both in sizes and brands. Cars and food are the two things you can enjoy out of home here. No multiplexes, no drama theatre(there could be, but I haven't heard of one), not many other places of entertainment.

Entertainment can be had at home. TV is omnipresent. Due to fewer entertainment options outside, people actually get together at homes and interact. Something which didn't happen much back home(in the family time only way). In a way, it is a good thing I think. They talk about interesting topics. Sometimes it could just be about planes and plane-spotting, a term I learned here first. People still are as crazy about phones as they are back home.

There is no comparison for Delhi. It is rich, in history, in people, in beauty, in diversity, in everything. But when I see two girls, strolling all by themselves at 11 in the night on an empty long stretch of pavement here, I know I can't see that in Delhi. There is no eve-teasing or comments or lecherous stares in the market or other public spaces. It doesn't matter if the girl is alone or with four others.

I haven't seen many girls/women walk being continuously watchful of surrounding men and being conscious of their body. The walk somehow just seems more confident/carefree. It could be just me, or maybe it is actually true. I am not sure if I was expecting this from a kingdom people talk of as subverting women. But yes, women are not issued driver's licences.

Women do all the rest of the things that women do in other places. I hear this(Jeddah) is the most linient city in the kingdom, so I don't know about other cities or tribes/villages. I went to the shore yesterday, the beach is not a very big, publicly accessible area like they usually are, here. Or maybe I didn't go to that part of the beach. But it reminded me of the idea of the west. I have no inkling exactly why though.

It could be a couple of things. Like people were casual about the place all in all. Maybe it resembled some picture or video that I have seen of some other place. But also for other reasons I think. Like men and women here wear all the same western clothes; shorts and dresses and tees. The only difference is that women wear Abaya(burqa) when going out and men have their different official dress here, called a Thobe(read thoab).

One more sign of west is the culture of consumerism. There would hardly be a brand not present here which is there in west. And they have been here forever, unlike India.

Sunset. One of my best pictures of all time ^_^

Anyway, it turned into a comparison when I wanted to write and started with how I feel. So I'll stop here.

To finish this, I'll say that I do miss home. I miss people there. But it will get better, the feeling. I am starting to acquaint with this new place, and blending it in me. I think the above picture can be seen as a sunrise as well if I change the caption.

Home misses me too. People miss me. Mom said the bottle of honey that I used to eat from in the breakfast is lying unused. Same as I left. I never knew objects can envoke such strong emotional reactions as was mine.