The start of holiday planning is a phase of weaving between a frantic kind of excitement and “oh, I’ll have to leave the comfort of my kettle and tea / my bathroom / my patch of sunshine on the porch”. It’s just so convenient to not have adventures. “Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things”, as Bilbo Baggins says.

Mostly chivvied along by friends, I end up committing to one. Come day of travel, you’ll find me checking travel documents mildly obsessively. Once home is behind and the world ahead, I rely on preternatural calm to get through the interstices of travel, like airport queues. The observations though, are valuable (ex. Anytime there was an Indian ahead or behind me, I heard “tsk” at intervals when there were delays while waiting in queue)

Usually, early on in my adventure, a mage appears to remind me of my good fortune in being out and to make the best of it. That happened super early this time. Presenting Ginger Mage, who apparently took over from Scary Mage back home.

I’m spending a week at friends’ home in Qatar. At age 45, that’s a first, visiting and staying with friends for a week. I wondered last week, if I should send a list of questions on good deportment to make myself and FAQ. I realised that was ridiculous and didn’t.

Within minutes of entering their home, they’ve invited me to get used to things at home, and informed me that if any kids speak to me, I’m responsible for entertaining them for the next few hours 😂 It helps that these are friendships panning decades, and I’ve known the lady of the house before she turned 18. When her kids pulled me into their adventures, narrating Tintin adventures and playground trips, that cemented the comfort. FAQs weren’t needed, after all.

Pulling back a little, I landed at Doha and after a quick karak and the order of an egg roll without egg at a local favourite place (“the vegetarian has landed”) got transferred to the kids school where Afsha was holding fort on “International Day” repping the home state at a stall. Literally fresh off the boat, I joined her on sticker duty behind the stall.

It was a glorious afternoon of watching kids in their national costumes, tiny ones getting excited to see the India flag (stickers) on their wrists, and impossibly cute kids of all sizes frolicking about. I’d forgotten how endlessly entertaining school can be and my first afternoon in the Middle Eastern sun took me back to that emotion.

There were apparently 17 stalls run by enthusiastic mums. You know what that means. Spectacular home cooked food from 17 countries, explanations on spices used, cultural nuances in a way that women do best. Dances from different countries happened and as Zorba the Greek’s tune started off with a couple of Greek mums dancing with a Palestinian mum, I knew this was going to be an adventure where the unexpected was going to peek in around every corner.

The evening sashayed in with me being +1 for an invite that Afsha had for a Sri Lankan food festival. We didn’t win the raffle but boy, did we win the good food lottery.

After enjoying subtle flavours of pickled salads and hoppers and a killer rasam and kothu porotta and too much good food for one evening, peppered with lovely conversation (but of course), as a band played Bill Withers and Doobie Brothers covers, I thought the evening couldn’t get better.

And somehow, it did. On the way back, Afsha took a long route around West Bay, showing me around the business district without the peak traffic bustle. I immediately understood the allure of tall glittery buildings. It doesn’t feel spiritually too different from craning your neck to see big towering trees. I know, blasphemous thought. Bear with me. It’s same feeling of being cradled in comfort, though, through two diametrically opposed paths. That feeling of acknowledging our own forgettable smallness and connecting through that, into the vastness within and to possibilities.

That was my last cogent thought before I dropped off into the best, uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep I have had in months. Friday, here I come!!

Edit: On the drive back, I do remember being so sleepy that my eyes closed a couple of times. I thought I masked it well and was talking to Afsha about why one should visit Bhutan. The next morning, I had a sneaky feeling I wasn’t all that suave. She laughed about how I was slurring my answers and she was fighting the impulse to record me, lest the movement lulled me out of the slurring. For each of her questions, apparently the answer would start with an enthusiastic, high pitched and clear enunciation and culminate in sleep slurred speech. I’m glad that I continue to bring entertainment to my friends even now 😂 My sleepy shenanigans are legendary now across decades and time zones.