Syria, Lebanon, Arabic & Delhi 6

Heres a thing or two that the typical Indian bloke does not know (or does not care to know) about these parts.

By 'Middle East' a typical Indian guy will probably vaguely know and broadly refer to all remotely arabic places - including the Dubais, Abu Dhabis & Kuwaits to Jordan, Syria etc. (although i understand that my own brother (a.k.a Idiot sibling**) cant plot Jordan, Syria & Lebanon on the world map)

[ ** Side track: on Gtalk today he asks me: 'Dei n$#i, eppo enge da iruke. Amma wants to talk with you'. I say, 'Damascus' - with the speaker on - he tells Zeenat - 'En ma, kanda endathukellam avan edhukku masam masam poran. Paithiyam pidikapodhu']

For all dorks like him here is a map: from theworldatlas.com

In summary theres :

1) The Afghani / Farsi places : Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran

2) The Emirates & parts of the GCC : Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain,Oman, Yemen included - small places really

3) The Mongolian places - Uzbek, Turkmenistan etc. (Dunno much about them anyways) -

4) Saudi Arabia & Kuwait - A big arab stronghold - orthodox & oil rich.

5) Then theres Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and of course Israel / Palestine.

Now the objective of this long, rambly lecture is really to make the following point - each of this 5 sectors are as different from each other as Delhi & madras - from the cultural point of view - and as different as Dhaka & Dubai - in terms of prosperity.

One can argue that classifying as just 5 regions is wrong - i agree - Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan are different from each other - Turkey is a big enigma in itself - Israel / Palestine is a subject on which blokes from all other the world write lengthy essays on NYtimes.

Moving from east to west - the language changes from Hindi in Punjab (India & Pakistan), Hindi/Urdu towards central pakistan, Farsi towards western pakistan, Iran, Predominantly Arabic in Saudi, Kuwait, The Emirates - Arabic is the chief language in Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon too - Fading to Turkish in the North - Hebrew in Jewish pockets.

The French colonized much of north africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon, Syria of course - for a long period of time in recent times - for like 300 years in Syria to much longer in North Africa - so the language, trade ties etc. kind of stick. Like for eg. all wealthy Syrians still have residences in France, have children educated there and all. All governmental forms have french / arabic options even in Syria.

Damascus is 2 hours driving distance from Beirut (Capital of Lebanon), 2 hours from Amman (Capital of Jordan) and about 5-6 hours by road from the Turkish border. I guess this will help some1 get a perspective of how near they all really are.

The Syrian pound trades at 47 to a dollar - nearly the same as our Rupee - so its real easy to make a comparision of costs - a filthy expensive room costs 160 euros a night (vis-a-vis Taj Coramandel i guess) - mine costs 40 euros a night - and its better run than say, some of these crummy 2500 rupees a night places in T Nagar where i sometimes i put a guest or something.

A buffet lunch at a place with a rating similar to GRT Grand days costs about 600 pounds a head - cheap - near same as GRT. Clothes cost 300 pounds / 400 pounds, some fancy pillowcovers i bought for my mother costs like 600 pounds per set of two etc. there arent migrant workers - all manual labor is done by locals - Syria isnt rich enough for Iraqi immigrants etc. as per what A tells me. Young syrians with some intelligence, experience expect high salaries - because they are hard to find - S, the babe who is A's assistant ('who pays 2 times more attention to makeup & to boys' than her job) is paid 25,000 pounds a month. (I found her pretty, um, a bit dumb, and wearing far too much make up)

Syria is cheaper than Lebanon & Jordan - which are more expensive - but less so than Saudi, understandably. A large fraction of Syria's people are christians - and you cant tell them apart with their names - i know christian Ibrahims, Baseems, Youseffs, and Habibs. They are all Arabs - but christians and muslims - this is how it is.

Syria, Lebanon are hugely tolerant - girls parade around wearing heavy pigmented makeup, in high heel cow girl boots - boys & girls stroll around holding hands - theres drinking allowed during the month Ramadan - you cant perform loud religious acts like you can in India for eg. - but thats hardly anything to complain about - u probably cant do it in England & USA.

All such things will probably lead to getting imprisoned in the Saudi Arabia for example. Jordan is in-between i hear - but FAR less irksome than Saudi arabia for example, where this oppressive air sort of floats around you.

Damascus is the worldest oldest capital - certainly the oldest recognized captial of the Arab world - you can see that in the city's buildings - Saladdin died here (He is this legendary Muslim king who fought the infidels over the holy land) - he was based mostly out of Damascus - the Omayyad mosque (Inshahallah, il be going there on Monday) is considered to be THE oldest grand mosque - the turks built of lot of stuff around here too - and the whole culture - the coffee, pots, street layouts, fountains, roads, the weather - are all an exotic mix of Arabic/Ottoman/ French cultures.

My guess is that Syria would have been still the center of the Arab world if Israel didnt too well with technology and the Saudis would still have been Nomadic cattleheaders if not for Oil.

Hmm enough boring lectures - can any1 guess what the second most widely used arabic word during regular conversation is - (first place, hands down, goes to 'Inshah allah') ?? - It is 'Habibi' - literally means - My Love - but its used as a word for 'Friend' etc. i dunno maybe its one quirk specific to the blokes i mingle with.

Tomorrow i travel to Aleppo which is has solid history & heritage as well. But im afraid it will be mostly work - but we are driving - and its snowing in some parts - so its bound to be fun.

Links:Wikipedia

(p.s Blogger sites arent allowed in Syria. Means, i cant view .blogspot addresses. Nor can i see Youtube. Strangely i can sign into blogger.com and write posts and use Google reader etc. Funny, i thnk.

p.s2 : here is Bharadwaj Rangan's surprisingly postive review of Dilli 6 - dunno why lots of people dissed it though [Did u read what the female from Livemint wrote ? - she claims that the Kaala Bandar - who takes a lot of screen time - is based on the 'monkey man' from couple of years before - LOL ]. But it makes me that much more curious to actually watch it. Any of u blokes seen it ? i'l see it atleast to see how Masakali...Dil Gira.. and Rehna tu.. are picturized. Yeah, no kidding. )