Steps!

Beirut is the hilliest city I have ever been to. Well, San Francisco comes closer to this one, but my friends thought that the Lebanese water had affected my brains too as I even dared to compare SF to Beirut! Oh well! Though Beirut is not aesthetically the best city you could come across, it has its own charm. The skyscrapers with their special window drapes, war-shaken, bullet-proof(ed) and completely destroyed buildings amidst these multi-story buildings, indescribable long traffic jams, cars/buses stopping randomly at the highways to drop-kick up passengers, the continuous honking, the extremely sloped highways and incredibly long staircases give Beirut its own style. For some reason, I am fascinated with these steps! With a pinch of exaggeration, I can say that you are always either climbing up or down in this city!

The steps that join the upper and lower streets of the city are quite unique in their appearance! They are long, colorful, irregular and even uneven! They represent the street art and generally are accompanied by very interesting graphite.  While you are reaching the top, if you turn around you can see the beautiful calm Mediterranean sea gazing at you. It's a very peaceful sight and makes you forget about all the traffic congestion, pollution, and the hustle-bustle that goes on on the streets below (or up!!). Usually, these giant staircases are adorned by very cute small beautiful houses with usually the hanging gardens where you can  expect to see small lemon trees with at least 10-12 lemons in the artistic balconies. I don't want to into the logic behind it, but generally, these steps are in very tranquil areas of Beirut and you can enjoy the much-needed disconnection from the city!

I think writing anything more about this steps won't help and will just be redundant! Plus you might wonder why a whole post for something as ordinary as staircases?! So here I present you some of the pics of these steps and you'll get an idea of what I am talking about! Every city has its characteristics and I think these steps give Beirut its unique mood.

Take a look and you will understand why! 

Relativity...

Yesterday my morning started on a bad note. Oh the usual first-world problems, nothing particular. I thought, 'and there goes my day! why dear God, why it's always me?'. Typical no! So I came to the office in a foul mood and even the smooth taxi ride didn't cheer me up. I didn't want to be grumpy the whole day, but was difficult! And then it was time for the field visit for office work. 

It took us almost an hour to cover a distance of mere 5 km. I was sulking in the back seat of the car with some sad songs playing in my ear (haha!), cribbing in my mind about the horrible traffic, the cold and wasn't even able to enjoy the sea that was spread all along the road. Finally, we reached the destination. We were in a hospital where I was supposed to take  photos of a young Palestinian boy who recently had a liver transplant. The photos were necessary to show to the donor who had paid for half of the operation fees which amounted to some thousands of dollars. The moment I entered the hospital, all my so called chagrins disappeared. Not because I was happy to see a hospital but because I could see with my open eyes people who actually had problems. Some couldn't walk, didn't have enough clothes to protect themselves from the nasty cold winds and some were begging on the street... It was an eye-opener, a slap in my face. It was a signal to see the bigger picture and think bigger.  I was sad about something that wasn't even a real problem!  And here were these people with a smile on their faces even though they were suffering from the worst diseases possible. When I entered the room to see the patient with another colleague from office, I saw an extremely thin guy lying in the bed with his mom sitting at his head and watching TV. That sight shouted at me saying "see, even this guy who fought with death is smiling and what is wrong with you!". I pulled myself back, took the routine pictures and went back to the office with much needed positive vibes in my heart! 

Since I am here in Beirut working for the Palestinian refugees, my attitude towards life is getting more  realistic and I am more appreciative of the things around. I can't say that it's reassuring that there are people with worse problems than mine, but it gives me the energy to forget my petty worries. This power of relating is my new tool! At times, I write in the cover letters that 'coming from India I know the problems of a developing country and this can be an added asset' and (crap) things like that. Now come to think of it, I didn't quite know about that problem. When we visit the camps, schools and get to see some social life of these Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, I understand that what I claimed I knew was just theory and the reality is way different and frightening. Comparing my problems like no electricity for three hours or no matching shoes etc. with the problems of Refugees must the most stupid comparison in the world, but it definitely gives me the will to continue and eventually a motivation to do something concrete for all these people so that one day will see a real bright day.

But eventually it's all about relativity and we can't forget that everybody's problems have their own place and importance!

I asked myself, "come on!! you have seen poor people in India, you never felt this intensely about the whole situation then?" Maybe I was too young to really understand the gravity of the problem and now that I am away from home, in a foreign land my observational skills are at their best. Maybe after living for three years in France, I have certain expectations from a 'foreign country' and Beirut terribly fails on those, that now I am seeing the same problems with a better and matured insight. However, there is a tinge of sadness in my heart that to understand the gravity of such problems I had to come so far away and couldn't really do much for my fellow citizens. But oh well like they say, it's better late than never!

And so, inshallah I'll be back in India soon! 

Short and sweet?

Let me reiterate a general belief: Living abroad for work or for studies has its pros, and cons too. The  fact of being in a foreign land doesn't sound all that appealing especially when you understand the difference between just visiting a new country and actually living there. Though my friends and I, we consider that I am one of the luckiest persons (hah!) in the world to get to travel so much at such a young age, I would like to confess that at times it's a malediction... 

First of all, you have to be away from your beloved home and family and friends. Though with time I have trained myself to be strong and not get involved beyond a certain extent, at times it is just not possible! There are moments where you need your best friend next to you; not by the phone or on the other side of the screen. You get angry at the engineers for not yet having developed the technology where we could cross the computer screens whenever needed. There are one of those days when you are so sick of your own cooking and crave for even the simplest dish from your mom's kitchen. Plus obviously no Starbucks nor Costa nor any other fancy coffee shop can ever replace one 'coffee in glass' of Roopali and chats around that coffee... You feel like having your bike right there when you are waiting for a bus for hours or stuck in a horrible traffic jam or just tired of walking those last two minutes from the bus stop to your house. You do get bored of 'discovering the new city' and playing your Japanese. You just want to sit at home in front of the TV zapping channels with a bowl of Maggi. But oh wait, there's no TV neither Maggi! You see photos of your friends on Facebook having awesome get-togethers at farm houses or them getting married and what not... You do miss out on a hell lot of things and it is not always possible to deal with this pang of sorrow alone... 

This is when you start questioning your decision of coming so far away to enrich your CV!! But in these low times, if you are lucky like me, you have your newly-formed-age-old-friendships to cheer you up and boost your spirits! Because these are the people who know exactly how you feel as they have 'been there and done that'! They are the ones who can take you out from that momentary frustration and give you hope that things will eventually be just fine! The evening walks, the world-cuisine dinners, the bar hoppings, the general gossiping about the known and unknown people, the giggling on stupid things, the cribbing about how inefficient a city can be and what not give you an assurance that finally you are not really alone in your adventures. They inspire you by their journeys so far and it gives you moral to continue! They sympathize with you in your 'poverty' because they are not any different! 'Let's be poor together' is the best motto! Believe me, it's one of its kind of experience to be the 'first world poor'!! Not really funny but at time amusing and can teach you a great deal about life! However the problem of such friendships is that even if you wanted to, cannot last forever. Well, of course, you do keep in touch through emails and other social networking sites, you promise to visit each other in any corner of the world, but that's not the same, right? 

This is the only part of this whole new-city-new-people adventure I don't quite like. Every time you are on the move, you have to start afresh. You have to find your comfort zones, get used to the different rhythm of life, fight the jet lag, and what not! The only metaphor I can use here is a table from IKEA; You bring the pieces and built it so that it can stand on its feet and serve you. That's exactly what you have to do you every time you are in a new city, new country and are surrounded by unknown people. You have to build yourself with moral, confidence, money, open mind and optimistic attitude so that you can be out there and help yourself survive. But when these things start to get on your nerves and you kind of start losing the balance, it's these new friendships help you to get on with things and in extreme cases prevent your break-down!!

The 'short and sweet' so does suit these wonderful relations.

I really wish there was a world metro which would take you to desired city in 5 mins to make a 'short and sweet' visit to your global friends...