When the roars of the daylight settle, then begins the voice
of silence- the voice of darkness. That’s why I love walking at night through
strange places. They tell you genuine stories, without the fake colors of the
day.
Second week into my vacation in Sharjah (the city known to
be the cultural capital of United Arab Emirates), around midnight, the bus
dropped me off at the National Paints bus stop. A unique place to be at late
night- if you are walking you will only see pairs of yellow and red lights bashing
by side on an eight-lane road both ways at 100-110 kph. If you are a crazy
enough person, you would have at least two options- either to call a taxi and
get home, or, to take a glance at the GPS, turn off your phone and start
walking, listening to the darkness.
Cars were flying through the cluster of over bridges, a complete
solar system created off the ground merging a few major highways. Fortunately,
there was an angel walking in front of me, right turns at the right time, I
just followed him, he made it possible to cross this cluster easier than it seemed
to be. Then there was the mission, to walk approximately four more kilometers
to get home, through the strange, secret sand fields. I followed the road for
some time to get used to the place, then crossed through inner sand-packed
areas to unseal the hidden vibes of the historical city. Sands were amazingly supportive;
they even bent their heads when I touched them. I turned my head around and saw
that they even keep memories of my footprints.
After a while, I saw the flying cars again, at least a
kilometer away. Even though I knew the direction which I had to walk, the
closer I got to the road, there were two problems new problems. One, the road
became wider into a major highway and two, there was this lucid impression of a
divider in the middle of the road. I stopped for a minute and watched all
around, and spotted a distant fly over ditching the highway, and two angel
figures walking over the bridge confirmed the pedestrian access- Olaa! There I
go!
The sounds of sand valleys (My apologies if this picture is still silent as of 2019), a snap from the XYZ over-bridge, Sharjah.
From the fly over, on one side there was the prestigious
Sharjah University built with amazing Islamic architecture along with a few
other engineering master pieces. But in another two minutes, one can listen to
the sound of desert, the cries from past, the voice of lifeless sand bowls
which had ruled the place a few decades ago. I admired the power of human
vision and determination to change the face of a desert into a bright shiny piece
of art and engineering.
Despite the darkness surrounded, a thought swiftly came in
from nowhere, of the people falling asleep one by one at my home, waiting for me-
the bondage of love, the care of family, calling me home, reminding that it’s
my birthday! I started walking again, a bit faster this time...
