::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Postscript

What We Have in Common

Aasha Mehreen Amin

The Arab street in Bangkok.

One of the most curious things when people travel to a cosmopolitan city is how they can recognise their own kind just by looking at them. In Bangkok, for instance, which has become as next-door as Kolkata and as cosmopolitan, it is very common to hear bits of Bangla conversations wafting into one's ear from all directions. You may be in an escalator at a hospital, trying to blend in with the crowds in attire and attitude and suddenly you have a few pairs of eyes on you, pupils dilating with curiosity and then, eye contact, a sudden recognition from both parties before each goes their own way. Everywhere you go you will find your country folk -- they may be visitors like yourself or the owner of a 'Bangla restaurant', or employees of various establishments including the hospital you may be getting treatment from. The hotel you are staying at will definitely have a Bangla channel, although most probably the one you never watch back home. Many of the guests you try to avoid, are from back home.

But it's not only the comfort (or discomfort in some cases) of bumping into your compatriots that add to the travel experience, it is also the thrill one gets just from watching people of so many different cultures and trying to understand the differences and marvelling at the similarities with your own.

At a well-known hospital in Bangkok that caters to international patients, it is like walking into a busy airport like Heathrow. There are foreigners everywhere, not surprising, Thailand being a major tourist destination, even now, despite the little dent caused by the Red Shirts’ demonstrations on the tourism industry. The overwhelming Middle Eastern influence -- Arab men in flowing gowns and headgear or western clothes, Arab women veiled and non-veiled, Arab children running all over the place while Thai nannies in hijab run after them, Arab interpreters, Arab-speaking doctors -- it's like being in Bahrain rather than Bangkok. Of course people from the Middle East have always dominated certain areas of Bangkok; just a short walk along Soi 3 on Sukhumvit Avenue, a busy tourist spot is enough proof -- Middle Eastern restaurants, hotels, internet cafes; even some of the hair salons are owned by Arabs. But the number of Arabs coming to Bangkok for medical treatment was never as high as it is now. Perhaps Europe and the US are no longer as enamoured by Arab money as they were before, perhaps Arabs themselves find this new 'medical tourism' destination a lot cheaper and more hospitable.

One cannot blame a Bangladeshi for being a little miffed to see a total Arab invasion in these hospitals and surrounding hotels where once Bangladeshis ruled; well, kind of. Now there are at least three Arabic channels compared to one measly Bangladeshi one. By the end of your stay, therefore, you may be more aware of the latest developments in the most popular musalsalat (soap) on a Dubai channel or which Arab celebrity won on the award-winning trivia show last week, you may have even picked up a few words like 'qism alshurtah' (police station) from watching news in Arabic.

Amongst the numerous groups of black-veiled women with faces like supermodels (if you can get a glance) and high headgear accompanied by their children or men, are other little groups -- Europeans, Americans and Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and of course, Bangladeshis -- all distinct from each other in language, clothing, food habits and attitude, yet all in the same place for the same reason, to get well. Here is where one finds the common traits we humans share no matter which corner of the earth we are from. A son tenderly helping his father to learn to walk again after a stroke; a couple taking turns to hold their toddler as they visit an ailing relative; an elderly man feeding his bed-ridden wife; newly-weds brushing their hands discreetly when no one is looking; a little girl crying and pulling at her mother's abaya -- these scenes are universal, this language is one that everyone understands, whether they are Arab, Bangladeshi, Ethiopian or Dutch. It is a language all families, everywhere, speak.