The New Year is really cool in Bahrain. This part of the Year from around mid November, the temperature drops to a hill station coolness. The chilly fog rolls in from the sea and it does make life more pleasant.
The country decked itself up for the New Year and other local Festivals. The mini Gardens and sidewalks decorated with coloured flowers and bushes and trees festooned with twinkling lights. People walk about in the cold winter evenings in their traditional winter clothes. The skies darken by 5pm and the whole country is lit up with yellow orange lights.

We start one of our long walks early one evening. Trudging along exhibition avenue, the hotels sporting decorated Christmas trees and the mini twinkle lights which are everywhere. The chandelier shops with their glassy drops reminding us of the palaces of the Arabian Nights. I stop a few minutes to see the lights reflected in those magical glassy drops and walk away in a daze everytime.
Then to the perpendicular avenue with the whizzing cars and the pedestrian population now non existent we move at a steady pace admiring the houses and stopping to look at the dainty chocolate shops.

The Andalus gardens are just past the mosque with huge glass chandeliers decorating its vast interiors. There are always people around this focal point, the mosque. You catch sight of the palm trees in neat rows near the gardens. There are cascading artificial waterfalls adding to the oasis effect. The gardens include a family area and the general one.
The families troupe in with the little ones and the babies, spread out mini carpets on the grassy lawns and settle down. The children then get occupied with their games while the adults sit around chatting till the picnic food time.

I find a cement bench to sit down after the long walk. I see a small play ground, where a group of boys are playing an energetic game of football. I always wish,I could provide Krishna with something like this as an alternative to all those electronic games. Except in Nigeria, we never had access to playgrounds like these, close to our homes. And the one school in India, which had a spacious ground closed its gates after school time.
The Andalus garden has a circular walkway in the middle of grassy lawns and a lot of palm trees.

When I wrote about the school whose playground shut after school time, I meant the school near our home there. There are schools which have good play grounds in India.
The temperature has fallen to the single digits. There were a few short and light rains when the cold started and now it is sunny and cold. This is the sort of weather, I enjoy. If only Bahrain didn’t get so terribly hot in summer!
Early some mornings, I see water birds flying low over the empty Gosi car park. Long white wings gracefully cutting through the cool morning breeze.

I was quite busy the whole day, without so much as a peek at the outside world. Late in the afternoon, I started making some spicy crispy puris. It is now much more pleasant working in the kitchen and the whole evening was gone, before I even realised it.
Today is a religious day for the locals and there were ceremonies announced for the people to participate in. The Ashoora is to mark the death anniversary of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed. The whole country sort of gets together for the occasion at important mosques in the Kingdom.

The country seems to be in idle mode. The shops have closed. Krishna went for a hair cut and I was annoyed to notice that hardly any of his hair appeared cut-The saloons were closed!
The Gosi was closed and about 10am there was a man shouting at the security people there and demanding for the manager or his phone number. Since there was a university operating there and some ATM maybe someone wanted to get in. I could also spot two girls fully covered in black waiting to get in. The commotion died, the shouter had won his way.

The Bahrain fort is a world heritage site. The ramparts of this fort with its four thousand year old history are impressive. On one wintry morning, we crossed the dry moat to enter this huge still standing edifice or part of it . A lot of hard climbing was rewarded with a fine view from its highest point.
Some photographers, their tripods set, were clicking away. A group of workers Pakistani or Bangladeshi trooped in for sightseeing. There were some caverns in the fort with steep high roofing. No chance of anyone climbing out of them,except by the stairway!

A phone call from Nigeria brought back memories. The rose garden with its red and orange pink roses. The jasmine creepers and the pink hibiscus flowers. The orange trees loaded with fruit almost bent double in the heavy rains. The big crickets,a noisy chorus after the rains. The fireflies forming a twinkling carpet on the wet grass. The cashew trees which almost seem to grow everyday, its yellow and red fruits drawing the children to them like magic. The avocado pear its green fruit well hidden. The red soil glowing after the rains. This was almost paradise on earth.

The kids arrive one by one after 4pm. It is get together time for them everyday. Sometimes they bring their own games. At most times,it is each one with his game but chatting and laughing in a group. It does make their spare time more interesting,even if it has to be spent indoors. Maybe we should take a cue from them. Join together to get monotonous chores done.
Earlier in the 90’s at my parents’ place,the ladies would gather around 4.30pm for some conversation. Some would be carrying grocery bags. A relaxing break, after a day of work!

The Apartment entrance leads to one busy lane at daytime. Some days at night, the road is busy and the movement of the cars on the road disturbs the early birds.
The athletic boys on their skateboards create a din after 10pm when the road is less used. Today very early in the morning it sounded like a lone person playing football. There was a thud at regular intervals. It was 4am and through the light fog and darkness, I could see a worker in his yellow overalls, cleaning the pedestrian path. The trash drum closed or was pushed noisily.

You get into a pattern of waking up at an unearthly hour. For me it was around 3am. Earnestly trying to get back into sleep mode was making me more awake.
There seemed to be a light patter of rain. The asphalt on the Gosi car park gleamed black. There were glistening dark puddles and the wet coldness crept in through the netting of the big windows. The skyscrapers looked freshly washed in the glow of the numerous neon lights. A lone truck swished through the rain water on the main road. The early car washers had not yet appeared.

Today is sunnier but cold. The sun sort of puts some brightness over the day and I am one of the people who feel a day without sunshine is a gloomy one. I go around the days’ chores with less enthusiasm always on the lookout for some sunshine. I do not spend time at the television. I go into the kitchen for refuge and try to work up enthusiasm by starting on something time consuming. Preparing some fried snacks that can be stored or some curry powder to last a few months. Tired out,but looking for some sunshine tomorrow.

Today is the “Pongal” day in south India. Since it is a harvest festival,it is a green day. At Coimbatore, the stacks of sugarcane appeared first. They would be lined up in vegetable shops and at street corners for selling. The fresh turmeric plants with their tubers rich with the yellow orange turmeric buds would add to the festive spirit. These buds would be ground to a paste and used as a beauty supplement. The sweet “Chakkara Pongal” would be prepared in some houses in traditional pots. The livestock would be decorated with flowers and bells for “Mattu Pongal”.

It is early morning and I see Krishna off. I watch from the window as he walks across the car park. Near the exit, the school bus picks up students from this block. I wait for one of the other children to join him and move on.
Today, I stop for a moment distracted, to look below and see two wild doves in combat it seems on the grey sandy area, below our first floor apartment. They flew at each other, never rising more than a foot from the ground and beat each other with their sandy grey brown wings.

The melodious cooing of the wild Doves greets us every morning. Caught up in the bustle of the morning, I hardly hear them afterwards. At mid day, when the traffic clears, I can hear them cooing to each other. It is such a soothing flow of sound and you want it to go on unhindered by the loud calls from the mosque or the blaring of automobile horns.
The trees bordering the Gosi car park have sprouted a crown of fresh green leaves,after the senseless cutting of their branches a few months back. A home for the Doves, perhaps!

Just before Aswaq on the Exhibition Avenue is a roundabout with a little garden and a waterfall. The garden is filled with flowers and the water gushes down chilling and frothy. The fountain faces a huge empty ground and the road to Gudaibiya is behind it. At this point on Exhibition Avenue a draught of fresh air from the sea reaches you as the sea is just a little distance away.
But reality is a few feet away from the fountain. The first shop round the corner is a street side café with the sheesha smokers out in the pavement.

Krishna returned from school tired and annoyed. Their regular school bus hadn’t come,so for the return trip they were put in another fully occupied bus. They had to travel standing for the entire journey of one hour with their heavy school bags. This was because there was no space to offload the bag,according to him.
I ask him why the school bus hadn’t started on time and he says the driver was on his cell phone. ” Amma, he drives with his left hand holding the cell phone with his right hand as he speaks” . Scary information!

The Gosi car park is like a valley filled with cars, amidst the high rise buildings. This is the reason that, I have such a good view from my first floor window. Mostly, it is a deep blue expanse of sky that I see.
I did see clouds once,on a summer day. But in winter, I see a lot of clouds everyday. Sometimes a lone helicopter flies across the sky, toy like in its appearance. I have never seen or heard airplanes from the apartment. T he helicopter circles, its drone eerily out of place, in the midday silence.

There was a time when I used to walk to work. It wasn’t too far and if I took the bus to work, it was a one stop journey between two short walks on and off the bus. So instead of waiting for the bus, it was convenient to walk the entire distance. So many words to make myself understood!
Again for the lunch break,I used to walk home and back. In all it was about a mile everyday. A cathartic process! It gave me time to think about the work just accomplished and to plan for work ahead.

In a crowded island like Bahrain, commuting takes time especially during the peak hours. For the 8am start of school, Krishna leaves by 7am and it takes him close to an hour to get to school. In the afternoon, it is another hour in the bus to the house and it is already 3.30pm. A couple of hours to lunch and relax, it is home work time. Then a light dinner and I have to rush him to bed by 8pm, so that he gets a good night sleep before the rush to get to the bus stop by 7am.

As I watch Krishna walk to the bus stop early in the morning, I catch sight of Julie the security man’s cat sauntering across the car park. She had been following Henry as he went about his early morning job of washing cars. Her stumpy tail held high, this fluffy white, yellow and grey cat had an air of quiet dignity about her. She runs a short distance and stations herself below one of the parked cars, keeping a watchful eye on the sparrows twittering close by, picking up the worms as early birds do. Early cats get birds too!

There was a quiz competition in Krishna’s school. The kids stayed back after a full working day. From the close of school till after 6pm it was fun time in a less crowded school. The program which was to start at 6.30pm, started after 8pm. Most of the parents’ had gathered to collect their wards. It was at 9.30pm that the program ended and the results were announced after half an hour. It was well after 11pm that he came home. A sixteen hour work day for a child! Thank God it is the weekend for a well deserved rest.

Saturday is the day to catch up with the family. With my mother and brother in India and with my older sister who also stays abroad. Usually it is my sister who appears first on Google talk. Then my niece appears on chat and asks if she could call grandmother to join. Then we the sisters take turns to chat with my mother and brother in India. For my mother this is the last task of the day. I can imagine her walking to the gate connecting her house with my brother’s and let technology connect her to her daughters.

I found a message from a stranger in my mail. Usually, I delete the message immediately. This one was from a south Indian girl from my home town or so it seemed (the E-Mail ID was of an alumnus from a local university) and she had even included her phone number. The family was united in disapproving the act of even opening the mail. All she had written was to greet me and ask if I was from the town. I sent back a guarded reply asking who she was and yes I was from the town. No reply yet!

Today is India’s Republic day. In schools all over India there are ceremonies to celebrate this historic day and the children are able to sense and hear the patriotism. The children who stay abroad really miss this. Unless their parents’ take serious effort to get them interested in their home country and its history, they lose out. When they go back to India, they do not really feel they belong there neither do they feel they belong here. A few years in India help them to get the feel of their cultural identity and then any move is less difficult.

Looking from my vantage point at the window as daylight faded on a pleasantly sunny day, I could see a flock of sea birds in the sky. They glided and swirled together,seeming to enjoy the last rays of sunlight. A lot of busy people crossed the car park. The university girls’ waif like trotting on their pointed heels, the men with their flowing garments and checked head cloth held by the black rings. A few boys in their jeans and T-shirts were moving about, all very suburban. The cleaners of Gosi stood with their brushes and were in discussion.

I am never the one to sit down to watch serials. But I have gradually been hooked into “Desperate Housewives”, which I think is a replay on Star World. The 9am slot is convenient for me to relax a bit with my breakfast. I know it is quite dramatic, but here I am sitting day after day and feeling part of the happenings on that interesting lane.We see a bit of our friends’ and neighbours in the ladies there.
Padma my former bank colleague says in every branch, I have seen a repeat of characters- essentially people are the same.

We enter the Gosi complex on our way to our weekly vegetable shopping. As Chandra stopped at the ATM near the entrance, I looked up as I waited. A huge clock was above my head its golden pendulum swinging with every second. There was a new shop with colourful perfume bottles and bright handbags and purses. The security men relaxed at their stations as we passed a newly painted shop a bright yellow contrasting with the pale shades of others around it. The fish tanks with the huge silver fish swimming, its silence broken by the humming of the filters.

It just seemed like 2009 had started and it is the end of January. The school year ends by March here and there are no annual holidays. The first term of the next year gets completed, before they have a long summer break in July and August. There are plans to extend the holidays until after the Ramzan festival. This means they will break later in July and with the soaring temperature it is going to be tough on the kids. No break before starting the next class and an extended first term is a losing proposition, by any standard.

Saturday evening is talking time. The family get together time on Google talk. We start off about everyday happenings of the countries we stay in and go on to consult each other about health problems of family members and what are the best options available. Then the talk rambles off to old times. Talks about cousins and family events are recalled with the sad and the glad ruminated upon. For a few hours we are transported mentally to our fairy world with family and friends’ seemingly closer. All chores are forgotten and have to be done in an energised rush.