Thursday, April 17, 2008

Back to Kuwait

Well some of you might know, I am in Kuwait these days on temporary assignment by the company. There is lot to write about things being changed in the country since I have officially left, that was about 10 years now but I hope that wouldn't be engulf my conversation today.

For me, it was all over the day I stepped into Lahore back then. I desperately wanted to go back (Kuwait) as it was the only country I had lived for a long time and having an emotional attachment with your birth country is typically considered very normal, no matter what kind of prejudice and discrimination one may face while living in the Gulf countries. The time I spent in Pakistan and in UK made me almost forgot about this land and I started to care less about the developments around here. It was only when I came to Dubai last year, the name Kuwait emerged on my mind as a place to live again.

Not that I have decided to live in Kuwait forever, neither I have much options nor my company plans to keep me here but yet their is something I still find attached to. Due to the nature of my job, I have to visit different locations for site acquisition purposes and only yesterday I have traveled more than 100 miles around the country. One may argue that their is not much after few miles of the city in Kuwait anyway but traveling around in circle to find exact coordinates on GPS is not an easy task at all. Well the story is, yesterday I was assigned to visit Fahaheel region. Fahaheel is an area around 30 kilometers away from Kuwait city. It is relatively nicer place to live, away from the busy market places of Farwaniya(where I am currently residing), Salmiya (where my high school was) and Kuwait city.

We were in four cars, circling the area for several hours searching for exact coordinates to put mobile mast and suddenly there was a site of my beloved old building where I spent best times of my life. The building has been renovated heavily and the 2 floor building has been to turned into private accommodation now, yet for a second I wanted to go in and imagined to see the flat, as it was in my memory since ever. It was certainly an emotional moment, wasn't sure how to react or behave, thus just drove past the building, observing new developments around the area. For one reason or another, I hate the changes they have made, there are new buildings, the supermarket close to our flat has been renovated and it doesn't look nothing like the old building I was used to, there is a new Mosque at the back and whole new housing development in the area I used to cycle around with my friends. It is funny that I don't live in the area anymore, haven’t been to the country much since I left, yet I got worried about these changes and yet I am writing about it now.

Life is scary, life is full of surprises, life is full of things you don't want to see yet one goes through it all hoping for a better tomorrow, where things would be a bit more aligned to one's favourite, yes hope the only driving force left in my life for now...