View From the Roof

Yes, Finally made it to the roof top of the Nile Zamalek Hotel! And am so glad! The view of the Nile is breathtaking and unbroken.

The weather these days is just perfect to spend time with a sheesha and tea, looking over the Nile and contemplating life. The place ahs salads, drinks and a few meat and chicken dishes on the menu.

But the real attraction is that one can order food from the neighbouring Blue Elephant restuarant and they will deliver it to your table on the rooftop. The place does some delicious Thai dishes and my excitement about the place is primarily because it has a number of vegetarian options and it can serve the vegetarian version of almost any dish on its menu. The place was formerly known as Sabai Sabai.

I got a great idea while sitting -it would be a great place to throw a party-the setting and the food are good. The 2 ingredients for a successful party!

How to get there? Take the left onto the Brazil street from the 26th July street. Keep going straight till the street curves on to another street (cant remember the name now) and on your right, at the corner, there is the Nile Zamalek Hotel. The entrance is from the side facing away from the road.

Dont get discouraged by the disheleved nature of the looby or the construciton work going on on the floor where you get off to climb the stairs to the rooftop. It will be worth the climb!

When Mr. Bachchan Saved the Day

March 8, celebrated world wide as the Women’s Day was to be the day when a million women would congregate at the Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) in downtown Cairo to assert equal rights and political participation in “New Egypt”.

Like many other women living in Egypt, I was at Tahrir at the designated time to show solidarity with my Egyptian sisters. I spotted a number of ‘foreign” faces among the women who had gathered at Tahrir but the turn-out of the Egyptian women was woefully low. I later on learnt that many had opted not to come since they were not sure about what to expect-after all, Tahrir was the scene of the 25th of January revolution, which had culminated in the departure of a President, who had autocratically ruled the country for 30 years. The Square had been witness to much drama, collisions, tears, anger, violence, deaths and even a marriage.

Though the President's departure had taken place almost aa month earlier, some people were still camped at the Square in tents. The hitherto innocuous square had acquired a new glamour and attracted hordes of curious onlookers.

A few enterprising people had put up tea stalls, complete with plastic chairs and tea boys to offer succour to those camped at the Square as well as their visitors. A few others insisted on painting the colours of the Egyptian flag on the palms of the people for small change. Some of the signs from the revolution were still strung around the square and there were different groups scattered around the periphery of the square, attracting audience by airing their grievances aloud -from unemployment, to bad conditions at their workplace etc.

For a couple of hours, I hung around, hoping to see more women arrive and for the proposed march to take off. A few did trickle but not enough to even start adding to the proposed million numbers. And there were more expatriate women than Egyptian. The 'foreign' women were ridiculed for being there, for supposedly not belonging. A friend told me that one expatriate lady, who had called Cairo home for the last 30 years, was even asked as to how much she had been paid to be there. She was understandably upset, as she felt that she had every right to take part in this march in her adopted home. The stories of personal attacks on foreigners were very distressing. The whole event degenerated into the men heckling and ridiculing the women, and things took an ugly turn when some of the men even chased the women down the street as they tried to leave Tahrir.

But fortunately, my foray into the Square has pleasant memories. I had not carried my passport and I was asked for identification at the entrance to the Square. When I said I am from Al-Hind (India), I was graciously allowed to enter. My Egyptian friend acted as the interpreter and I was able to interact with a number of people there. They were curious to know how the Indian democracy worked and whether we had the equivalent of the secret police. Since I carried a camera with me, I was asked to take photos, and hastily scribbled email Ids were thrust into my hands, with requests to email the photos to those addresses.

And then, of course, the inevitable, as any Indian resident of Cairo, must have experienced. I was inundated with requests to pass on regards to the Bollywood icon, Amitabh Bachchan. At one point, I sarcastically murmured, under my breath, “Yeah, right! He is my next-door neighbour.” My friend took it literally and translated it into Arabic, after which there were renewed requests and questions on Amitabh Bachchan.

During a quiet moment, I reflected again on the superstar power of Mr. Bachchan. Here, I was standing at a historic site, forever immortalised in the pages of world history, talking to people who had just orchestrated the downfall of a government and the conversation was still about Mr. Bachchan! He was the real hero that day-a day which had ended so miserably and which had not seen any heroes.!