Independence Day - Qatar

It was a little weird today. For a while, I had been waiting for today. A number of days, of nights I sat up and wondered what would September 3 in Qatar be like.

I was told it's just like any other normal day, except that it is a public holiday. Well, I still wanted to see it.

They were right.

Is it possible for a tourist, or a foreigner to be in India and not know that August 15 is Independence Day, or forget it for that matter... or not realise that it came and went off and he didn't even get to know?

Highly unlikely. The way we celebrate. I guess it's just in our blood - we need a reason celebrate, be it anything. If there's no occassion, we celebrate life.

I went to play a cricket match today. This team full of Indians came and hijacked me from my sleep at 6 in the morning. I even asked them why they were playing on a Saturday considering many people have work.

No one uttered a word about it being September 3. Just got a reply: "Some are off, some have half day. We decided to play."

Even I didn't realise it. Like I keep saying, days go by really fast here in Qatar, and I just didn't imagine, even for a second, that September 3 had arrived so soon. I don't know how. I surely knew yesterday was September 2.

Anyway...

It was only when a colleague, very late in the evening, mentioned that the story I had done today was good and at the "right time."

"Right time?" I asked, confused.

"Yes," he said. "Independence Day today."

That's when it hit me, "Damn, today's September 3!"

As an instant reaction, I hurreidly walked towards the window of the office to see if anything was happening outside. Nothing was. It was quiet. As if mourning.

There was no parade, no celebrations, no fire-crackers, no cars rushing on the streets to get to a party, no one talking about freedom and ecstacy.

Or so we believe. Maybe. We Indians, we foreigners.

It's unknown how the Arabs or the Qataris react to today, or how berserk the TV channels go. We don't understand their language. We don't watch their channels. We don't listen to their radio frequency.

There must be.

Something.

Only we don't know of it. Nor does anyone care here.

People who've been here for years and years only know the way from their house to where their office is.

It's all they want to know, apart from how many more lakhs would they have accumulated when they sit at home with a calculator to convert the previous month's salary from Riyals to Rupees.

Happy Independence Day, Qatar.