Hard to explain

I remember when I was writing my first book, there was this part in the plot which I used to dread reaching. I thought I'd never be able to write it, explaining it properly. It was the part about the book in the book. I had to explain it through the narrator of the book that whatever is happening in the book that I was writing is what'll happen in the book my character was about to write. The same plot, exactly... well almost. It was a crazy part.

But at the same time, while I was writing the book, finishing chapter after chapter, I would be really excited about getting to that part too. I just wanted to know how it came out eventually. It came out pretty neat. It's besides the point, I think now that the entire book - the first one - I wrote is a whole load of crap... a number of people told me that book in the book part was really "real".

It was. That's because I wrote it exactly the way it happened when I was explaining the plot to two of my friends. I mean I repeated that part to them about 20 times, not so that they can understand it, but so that I can understand it. Or be clear about it.

What I'm trying to say here is, there are things you so clearly feel, but can't explain it in words. You could also blame it on the limited vocab of a man. Maybe. I mean, everything can be explained in words, right? Guess so.

I'm gonna try and explain this. I am in Qatar. I've been here for almost four months now. I don't know how many more I'll stay. Maybe two, maybe three, maybe one year, maybe two years. I don't know. I have been assured, I will stay on because this country would grow on me. Maybe, but then again, that's besides the point.

If I am to today, look back (or look forward) at my life in Delhi, I find it really weird. I woulnd't know how I'd do it, or how I did it. I can't really recollect my feelings. My actions, yes, not my feelings.

I've been out of touch. It's that simple. Even my relationship with my girl, I don't really remember how it feels to go around. I don't remember, or I feel I don't know what a couple is supposed to say to each other, or how are they supposed to act together. It seems alien to me.

In this country, in the Gulf, a human being gets completely cut off from emotion and feeling. It's because around you, people show you no emotion. They're just indifferent. Everybody. You can't blame them, it's just their style of functioning, their way of living.

No one's cribbing about that. Their life, their call.

I'm just saying about me, I'm quite out of touch as to how I'm supposed to behave, or how I would feel when I come back to India. When I see women around. Even the most average looking women will look good to me, coz they woulnd't be hidden behind a veil. I'd be astonished I think, when I see women, in butt-hugging boot-cut jeans and those skimpy tops, with their belly buttons pierced, walking around in GK 1.

I don't know if I'll know what to do when my girl's traveling (she travels a lot for work). What will I do? Who will I meet?

Or when I walk into Turquoise Cottage, and see soooooooo many people dancing around, getting sloshed, smoking joints... how will I react? To the loud rock music?

You remember that movie... Cast Away? When Tom Hanks returns from that isolated island after four years and there's this get together at his hotel room, and he looks at the cooked lobsters, and prawns, and it feels alien to him. He can't even sleep on the soft bed... evn forgets how to smile. The surroundings, the development, the people... it's all weird.

I feel like that.

There are bars here, there are parties - some even good off and on - here, there are flashy cars, great shopping malls, some super sexy buildings... still there's something about this place that makes it very dull. And it's not just me who says that. It's inexplicable - this.

It's all fake. It's a put on. The women in the bars - all of them - are on sale. The women in the malls are behind veils.

I ain't just talking about the women here. I feel like a women-freak or somein like that. I'm just trying to explain. The atmosphere here is really different. The queued up palm trees on the sides and on the dividers, are all imported, the shiny sexy sky line is all made by Indians, there are small small islands, which are made by man himself - actually - like stuffing piles and piles of snad and bricks and making an island... it's all so fake... stinks of money.

People work very slowly. There is no sense of urgency. It's very laidback, and no matter how much you try and avoid it you just fall into it. Like water takes the shape of the subject it falls into. No matter what the shape.

Everything 'normal' - my life in Delhi, my relationship, my friends, my feelings, my thinking - seems rather abnormal.

I also think its very normal for me to feel this way. Anybody would, whether they stay in Qatar, or the US, for a few months or years and come back home to their country.

But in Qatar it's a little different. Trust me. You feel exiled... completely cut off from the rest of the world, from feelings and emotions. We're walking talking stones here.

And when you suddenly, in two and a half hours, reach a land where everything is completely the opposite, it's hard to suddenly jump out of your personality and switch back on to what you used to be in Delhi. And then when you come back here jump back in to what would suit you here.

It's just too hard.

It's sad, but it's true - you get used to this life in exile. I'm slowly sinking in to it as well. This land of escapists.

They say, with assurance... you go back to your country, and you will crave to come back here and then never leave. "Take it from me in writing, if you don't leave now, you'll never leave."

This is Qatar.