HERE I COME If I do not treat this single mature man than who on earth will, I said, and decided to put an end to tormenting myself by succumbing to the inevitable and throwing the economic considerations out of the window. I have decided to hop on that plane this evening, for a flight that, within a mere twenty minutes, will take me to a familiar, yet totally different world. To my beloved Beirut. I became enamoured with Beirut the day that I had first set foot there sometime at least 15 years ago. I have been back and forth many times since than. Beirut has been an alluring place for me for as long I can remember. It was the Paris of the Middle East when I was a child. Than it became part and parcel of our daily lives for more than a decade as scenes of a brutal civil that started in the mid-1970’s (and raged for more than a decade) was transmitted to our living rooms almost every night. And it somehow drifted away from my radar. Until that is, I met Samir Tahan, a Lebanese man who had come to Istanbul for holidays for two weeks, ended up staying God knows how many months, became one of my best friends ever, and somewhere along the line invited me to his homeland for a visit. Naturally I obliged and a new love story came into being, luring me back over and over again. I love this city and believe me I have been to many during my chequered existence on this planet, which so far spans 52.5 years. More than anything else I love its people. I love their resilience which ensured that despite all the wars, assassinations, bombings the city survived and moved forward. The first time I was there , it still had the scars of the civil war. No longer. I forgot how many times Israel wreaked devastation in this country since the civil war came to end but thanks to these resilient people you would be very hard pressed to see any signs of that either. I adore their zest for life,their much justified reputation as being people who know how to live. What makes them different is that this applies to all age groups. They are all out out in force every day and night. I love Beirut because whenever I stroll down the streets,and the streets of the Hamra district in particular, I have a feeling of the Cyprus that was which makes me feel that I am at home. A feeling that I dont have back at home. It is hard to gauge why that is but I guess the fact that this is a multi-confesional place where Moslems and Christians live next to each other, does play a prominent role. But it is not just that. The Med also has a lot to do with it. So does its close proximity. There may not be much of an interaction between Cyprus and Lebanon these days but there must have been a lot over the centuries and this is very apparent in their cuisines. I love Beirut for having something to offer and delight me at every visit and at every age. There is of course the Lebanese cuisine, even the thought of which making salivate this very minute. For those who are interested there is the legendary night life which I used to savour when I was not so mature. One of my best memories ever was a consequence of the Beirut night life. On the last night of my first ever visit there, my host and friend Samir had taken us to a night club where we had consumed copious amount of tequila. My flight to Istanbul was early in the morning next day and as a precaution I had not changed my clothes when we had crawled back home. As expected there was mayhem in the morning. Samir ran into my room screaming “Wake up habibi, you will miss your plane.” I grabbed my suitcase and Samir, clad in his pyjamas and sporting a pair of flip flops on his feet, drove me to the airport. I rushed in shouting “where is Istanbul desk?” only to get a devastating response from a very amused looking female official: “Istanbulllllllll? It has already landed in Istanbul sir.” When I came out of the terminal building, a demoralised man, I encountered Samir in his striped pyjamas having a heated exchange with a police man. After a bit of shouting and screaming I found myself going back home, sitting next to Samir at the back of a taxi. His car had been impounded for having offended the integrity of the uniform of the policeman. There was a deathly silence, that only lasted for a couple of minutes, followed by howls of laughter all the way to his house at Byblos. What I get up to in Beirut has changed somewhat since than. Clubbing is no longer an option because this mature man is determined to age gracefully. But he may briefly pop in to Bardot bar to feast his eyes on the wonders of this world and depart with a sigh. He will most definitely walk around the city for hours, he will soak up the sun at the Corniche as he engages in his favourite sport of people watching, safe in the knowledge that noone will bother him. He will walk into a patiserrie for a bit of self-indulgence and most certainly he will visit all the shrines. Bottega Veneta, Lanvin, Hermes etc they are all there. And this time, he has something brand new in store for him. He will be staying at an upscale boutique hotel located at the heart of the city, bang next to that bohemian district called Gemmayzeh. The exquisite rooftop of this hotel has a commanding view of the city and the Meditteranean. When he was surfing the next the other night to find a hotel and came across a photograph of this rooftop he had said “This is the one.” At the end of each “gruelling” day he will unwind at the rooftop of his hotel sipping his cardamom infused Lebanese coffee. I say, thank God for the credit car for affording me the opportunity to act on impulse and thank God for maturity for giving me the wisdom to know when to stop.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 08:49:32 +0000
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