The smell of parathas

Glympse of a small-time restaurant in Dubai in the seventies

The smell of paratha and egg heated up in corn oil was in the open air. Mixed with tomatoes and coriander leaves, and green chillies. Simple meals were shared with people that fought each other not so long ago. The Indians and the Pakistanis, Afghanis, Baluchis, Iranians, Yemenis and Iraqis. Males wearing multi-coloured turbans, salwar kameezes, striped shirts, and kanduras against the Arabian heat.

As everyone ate brunch in this corner shop run by Kerala Indians, covered from the desert sun, I thought about the people I was surrounded with — a hotchpotch of nationalities and races from all parts of Asia. I now worked with the conquerors of them all, the British. Breaking paratha into bite-size pieces, gulping them with Lipton tea, harvested from India and packaged in England, talking in many regional languages and all the while listening to a song by Lata Mangeshkar, the nightingale from India and continuously catered to by the smiling skinny lads who were hell-bent on service.

Everybody was here in Dubai to serve in some form.

This was beautiful. Humanity was at the core before borders, regions, languages and religions — a cosmopolitan mixed bag.

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