Still processing my thoughts on all that Beirut was, in those few days that I spent there. Meanwhile, here is a brief piece written for The Hindu's Sunday Magazine supplement.
Read it here or see below. Published on December 17, 2017.
NOTES FROM BEIRUT
It can be a tad disappointing when you land in a far away country and feel right at home. You want to be in awe when you travel, you want to feel lost, you want to take endless photographs and write mental notes of things that are different, alien, unfamiliar and unrelatable. More so when it is a city that you haven’t seen a million pictures of already, as if it were the mountain in your backyard.
So it was with Beirut, that which they once used to call the Paris of the Middle East. The roads are narrow, though rarely potholed. Cars are too many and traffic is painful. It is loud, busy, crowded and colourful everywhere, just like home.
Beirut is very much not like home too. The enduring capital of Lebanon sits with unease next to some of the worst war-torn nations of the modern world. Predictably, the off-spills of human tragedies, apart from their own war until recently, have seeped through the country’s borders. Yet, typical of cities, Beirut mostly lives as if the wars are everywhere but there. Beirut lives in its parties, its pretensions and in what it wants the rest of the world to see. Perhaps, that really is the only way to be when the memories of the war that wiped out its wealth, physical beauty and unborn lives are still close enough to touch, as if in the backseat of a bullet-ridden old Mercedes.
SERVICE TAXIS
Some war-time Mercs, beautiful vintage pieces that splutter before rolling, operate as taxis in the city. As do several other beautiful old cars I couldn’t name, and many increasingly new ones. ‘Service’ is incredibly popular, and cheap. They essentially are shared taxis where you almost always pay a fixed amount, no matter how long or short the distance. It is usually 2,000 LL (Lebanese Pound) or about Rs. 85 per person. Sometimes the driver finds no one else to share the ride and you get the whole car to yourself. Sometimes they don’t really want to go where you want to and try to get you to hire the whole car at a higher fare — it isn’t really too much more. They are mostly nice that way.
Most taxi drivers first ask “which country?” I get assumed to be from Sri Lanka, for there are several workers from that tear-drop nation in Lebanon, I hear. I get asked a lot if I am “Hindi or Buddha” — Hindu or Buddhist, followed by a really sweet curiosity about my country. A man with one teeth, who is staring at the side of a beaten car, stops me on the road and wants to know what language I speak. He isn’t sure how to react when I tell him there are over 700 languages in India. Instead, he asks my age, if I have children, my marital status — like that friendly aunty in the next seat on your 42-hour-long train journey — and when we bid goodbye, tells me to go tell Amitabh Bachchan that he said hello from Beirut. I will, I say. I am not too surprised Bollywood is known and loved, for a day ago, a taxi driver has sung for me a line from the movie Sangam.
MONEY MATTERS
The currency system is really confusing. 1500 LL was fixed as one US $ when Lebanon took up a dual currency system. Everyone accepts both USD and LL, which is so weak that coins start at 250 and notes of 10,000 LL are things you casually place in your wallet. Converting into two different exchange rates and calculating what to pay in each currency tugs at the brain a bit much at times. People are nice enough to supply the amount in both currencies though, when they see your forehead straining under the wrinkles of concentration.
The food, the food! Lebanese food is worthy of every exaltation imaginable and deserves a long note all for itself.
Read it here or see below. Published on December 17, 2017.
NOTES FROM BEIRUT
It can be a tad disappointing when you land in a far away country and feel right at home. You want to be in awe when you travel, you want to feel lost, you want to take endless photographs and write mental notes of things that are different, alien, unfamiliar and unrelatable. More so when it is a city that you haven’t seen a million pictures of already, as if it were the mountain in your backyard.
So it was with Beirut, that which they once used to call the Paris of the Middle East. The roads are narrow, though rarely potholed. Cars are too many and traffic is painful. It is loud, busy, crowded and colourful everywhere, just like home.
Beirut is very much not like home too. The enduring capital of Lebanon sits with unease next to some of the worst war-torn nations of the modern world. Predictably, the off-spills of human tragedies, apart from their own war until recently, have seeped through the country’s borders. Yet, typical of cities, Beirut mostly lives as if the wars are everywhere but there. Beirut lives in its parties, its pretensions and in what it wants the rest of the world to see. Perhaps, that really is the only way to be when the memories of the war that wiped out its wealth, physical beauty and unborn lives are still close enough to touch, as if in the backseat of a bullet-ridden old Mercedes.
SERVICE TAXIS
Some war-time Mercs, beautiful vintage pieces that splutter before rolling, operate as taxis in the city. As do several other beautiful old cars I couldn’t name, and many increasingly new ones. ‘Service’ is incredibly popular, and cheap. They essentially are shared taxis where you almost always pay a fixed amount, no matter how long or short the distance. It is usually 2,000 LL (Lebanese Pound) or about Rs. 85 per person. Sometimes the driver finds no one else to share the ride and you get the whole car to yourself. Sometimes they don’t really want to go where you want to and try to get you to hire the whole car at a higher fare — it isn’t really too much more. They are mostly nice that way.
Most taxi drivers first ask “which country?” I get assumed to be from Sri Lanka, for there are several workers from that tear-drop nation in Lebanon, I hear. I get asked a lot if I am “Hindi or Buddha” — Hindu or Buddhist, followed by a really sweet curiosity about my country. A man with one teeth, who is staring at the side of a beaten car, stops me on the road and wants to know what language I speak. He isn’t sure how to react when I tell him there are over 700 languages in India. Instead, he asks my age, if I have children, my marital status — like that friendly aunty in the next seat on your 42-hour-long train journey — and when we bid goodbye, tells me to go tell Amitabh Bachchan that he said hello from Beirut. I will, I say. I am not too surprised Bollywood is known and loved, for a day ago, a taxi driver has sung for me a line from the movie Sangam.
MONEY MATTERS
The currency system is really confusing. 1500 LL was fixed as one US $ when Lebanon took up a dual currency system. Everyone accepts both USD and LL, which is so weak that coins start at 250 and notes of 10,000 LL are things you casually place in your wallet. Converting into two different exchange rates and calculating what to pay in each currency tugs at the brain a bit much at times. People are nice enough to supply the amount in both currencies though, when they see your forehead straining under the wrinkles of concentration.
The food, the food! Lebanese food is worthy of every exaltation imaginable and deserves a long note all for itself.
**
The writer, when not flâneuse-ing someplace and writing about it, can be found at the mercy of her brood of rescued mutts.
The writer, when not flâneuse-ing someplace and writing about it, can be found at the mercy of her brood of rescued mutts.
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