B is for… Bahrain – My Current Home

After living with my parents in Lucknow for 26 years of my life, I moved to an entirely different place. This tiny island country in the Middle East was unheard of. I had no idea what lay ahead of me. But you see, that is the beauty of your 20’s – you don’t think, plan or feel scared about any adventure you undertake. You just go with the flow and it all works out.

I truly love this country - no two thoughts about that!

Fast forward two years, we witnessed the Arab Spring in 2011. It started in Egypt and took over the entire Middle East. The Shia majority in Bahrain wanted to overthrow the Sunni regime. They wanted equal rights like the minority community, for which they fought hard. There were rallies, protests, tyre burning in various places, the works.

Meanwhile, the other half of the population – the expat community – was unsure of their role under the circumstances. We feared massive demonstrations, food shortages, roadblocks, and worst.

It was 5 a.m. one morning and I heard sounds that replicated gunshots. I woke up the Boy and rushed to the window to check. We could not see any smoke or commotion but could still hear the thuds. After scanning the whole area, we saw a man in our parking lot. He had a dusting cloth in his hand and was cleaning a rather dirty car by repeatedly hitting it with the cloth...

We(I) were that paranoid!

That evening there was a meeting in one of our friend’s home. He said that he had decided to send his family to India. We booked our tickets to Dubai as well and thought of going to a cousin’s place for a few days. We had to take a very different route to the airport since the main one was closed. What's more, the airport was crowded with familiar faces; everyone we knew was going away for a few days. Somehow, it didn’t feel scary anymore.

Anyway, thankfully things got back to normal (for us) a few days later. Lives were lost in the process; some were taken into custody. Maybe the government did help the dissatisfied community, or maybe it didn’t. You can never know that, can you? A few days of lockdown affected the economy badly. We were just happy that our jobs were safe.

Bahrain waterfront

The coronavirus epidemic feels like a prolonged Arab Spring. This time, the entire world is facing the same problems and so, you cannot run anywhere. We can only hope that it shall pass and pray to a God who may or may not listen to our demands. Will he listen to our repeated protests against the virus? - only time will tell. Some people will lose lives, other will face economic repercussions that may feel like imprisonment of a different kind.

Obviously, we’ve had many happy memories here, but this just felt like something we could connect to in these times. If you or your friends ever plan to come here, send me a message. I am also on Tripadvisor and Quora bringing people closer to Bahrain! If your trip is during a weekend, we can even show you around. Yes, we are that vela, and yes, we always love to go out even if it is to the same places, which is usually the case in my tiny island country!

P.S. B could also have been B for Bangladesh. You can read about it in my 2014 A to Z challenge.