SYRIA: Syria has been going through a lot of disturbance for over half a decade now. I ain’t going to write about my opinion about who’s on the right side and who is the devil part but I am only trying to put forth a picture of the effects of the disturbance. I have been travelling to this country for over a decade and have witnessed almost all the moods of this land. When I first travelled to Syria in 2006, the place kept my eyes wide open impressing me with its development, rich culture, modernity, shopping choices, food and what not. With passing years, I became more familiar with the place and fell in love with it more with every visit I made. I eventually kept visiting the place and started loving it even more and then I got a heartbreak, felt as if I was dumped in love, felt as if the fate of the place dumped me and the place both.
When the news of the war in the country broke, it must have broken many hearts and made them sad and amongst those many sad broken hearts was one beating in my chest too. With the passing years and the discontinuation of the flights to the country, and my known people especially Mr. Abdul Kareem Shalabi deciding to move out of Syria and deciding to live elsewhere in the world, the heart inside me turned into more pieces and the hope of visiting the beautiful beloved country started to move farer and started to look like a mirage. We lost touch with each other, we got busy in our own schedules and memories also started to fade, the emails from each other started to vanish. Until one fine day in 2015, another common connection Mr. Jamil Yousuf from Jordan was on a visit to India and during a meeting with him, the conversation led to Mr. Shalabi and Jamil mentioned that Shalabi finally had decided to choose to go back to Damascus over living a luxury life in the United States.
I don’t remember whether it was after that meeting that I told my father Mr. Wali Waheed about it or Mr. Shalabi and him were already in contact already, but we got back in touch is what meant more than anything and probably times had to turn around and in 2017, Mr. Shalabi gave us the good news that it were possible to visit again and people from some countries had already started to visit Syria. So we got into a whirlpool of whether to or not to, but finally ended up being positive and decided to visit again. In February 2018, I landed up once again at Damascus International Airport and was heartbroken once again to see condition of the place, but the hope lit a little more to see some people travelling to the place.
I was in Syria for 3 days then and the movement was very limited and I couldn’t actually move out at free will and Mr. Shalabi visited me to the hotel and the conversation which included past memories and gossip and smiles and laughs ended up with a hope to meet again. Since it was a very short trip then and I spent most of the time at the shrine of Bibi Zainab, listening to the gun shots and blast sounds in the background. I decided to visit Syria again and right now just lying in the bed, resting on the pillow, thought to pick up the phone and write about some things that are literally haunting my soul.
Upon my arrival at the airport, witnessing an almost deserted airport that once used to be a happening place with a lot of hustle and bustle, finding the foreign currency exchange counters at the airport empty with none even there to exchange any currency, having the airport taxi counters inside the airport terminal empty with no handlers but the photos of Bashar Al Asad and his father in the background making it look like them attending the counters, witnessing the fear on the faces of people that used to look fresh and content once, looking around the trash of the buildings that were once up and strong, burnt vehicles, bullet covers on the road, women begging, children finding their own ways to just keep themselves entertained and let the life move on, are all haunting my soul and the question is, who’s the winner of all this war drama? Wherever in the world it would be, the scenes would be alike however the script could be different.
I am hearing gunshots in the background and wondering the shots I am listening to, would include some that would have the bullets piercing some human body making it from alive into dead, dead for ever, painting the earth more red, making children orphans, making them helpless and pushing them to streets and turning them from lovely children into pity beggars, turning their charming faces into glooming beggars. I don’t know whether I would be able to fly back and then come back again or would meet a bullet that has my name written on it to paint the streets a little more red with my blood, but I hope the fortunes of this country change one day and people are able to enjoy hummus and pita with coffee in open ear on the streets of Damascus soon.