A little diary from the dusty closet

 This is 2007, and we are here in Djibouti. It’s a very small country on the northern tip of Africa. We are here as a little group of friends who have pooled money to dabble in the scrap business.

Africa has been strife-torn with civil wars and other disturbances, so the nearby port in Somalia is inaccessible for export and import of cargo through sea lanes. So this is where Djibouti, with its relatively better environment in terms of safety, comes in, because we have a French and American naval base here. In the presence of troops, there is comparatively better safety for foreigners.

Under the guidance of a Gujarati entrepreneur, small-time though, we are here looking for picking up scraps of various types, from light to heavy, and sending them to India for recycling.

Don’t be surprised if the water is steaming hot in your bathroom. Djibouti is a land of lava deposits. The volcano city below is still smouldering. The last explosion took place as recently as 1989.

The entire economy of this small country is driven by the port. Most of the things which define Djibouti in political, social, economic and cultural aspects are focused in the city only. So the city itself, you can say, is the state and the capital.

The rest of the small country is covered with blackish, grey, brownish lava deposits, small rolling elevations, acacia shrubbery, boulders and stones. As you move along the international highway, which is a pulsating tarred corridor to Ethiopia, you see big freight trucks moving almost without any hurdles. It’s a smooth journey.

Ethiopia, the relatively superior force in the region, has no access to the sea. So Djibouti enjoys the benefits of its port facilities.

Moving along the highway, you see sandy forlornness bounded, bracketed by volcanic ridges on both sides, and the panorama enclosed in between bears a standstill image of solitude, isolation, even forlornness.

You see little flocks of goats nibbling away green leaves while perched on the sturdy canopy of acacia trees. You see flocks of wild camels running towards the next rare green thing. Moving on the road, you see the hazy, misty yellow encroachment of the sea here and there, its water gleaming under the sunrays.

This wilderness is almost uninhabited, save some tin-roofed stone structures here and there. There are practically no industries. Where some underground water is available, you see its effect like a difference between life and death. Here the acacia trees are greener. Some tiny hamlets and kids playing around appear, inserting life into the lifeless panorama.

Now and then you come across abandoned trucks and cars along the highway. The poor machines which fell on the way—there is almost no technology to put them on the road again. No spare parts, no workshops. So they just are waiting for their return to the scrapyard.

As you move towards the tourist spot of Lake Assal, meaning salt lake, you see Americans and French moving towards the famous glittering white reserves of salt, along with a few greatly satisfying seaside views and rocky beaches. You see nomadic temporary hutments and structures, camels and goats on the move carrying the trashy cargo.

Well, that is how life is here: poor, needy, yet full of its own unique charm. There are some signs of development which carry some sad whisper to the future.

Interesting features include dormant volcanoes, lakes, the Red Sea coast and islands. The people here—60% of them are Somali, Afar comprise 35%, and then you have French, Arab, Ethiopian and Italians, which total up to 5% taken together.

The official languages are French and Arabic. Somali and Afar are also spoken and understood widely across the population.

Lake Assal and the younger volcano of Erta Ale, which erupted on November 8, 1978, are famous tourist attractions, especially for the French and American troops who are stationed here.

Then geographic uniqueness is defined by salt flats, the lowest surface at 155 metres below sea level. So you can imagine the saltiness of that stretch. It seems like, if you take a photograph, it will be snow white, and you can easily pass it on as standing on an ice sheet or a glacier.

So basically, it’s a stony desert dotted with scattered plateaus and highlands.

We have taken an apartment in the suburbs of Djibouti capital. The locality is known as Cite Hodan. It’s a reasonably well-structured apartment, having three rooms on the ground floor and one on the upper floor, and a little courtyard in front of it.

My friend, who is also named Sandeep, is a big guy, measuring about 115 kg and 6 feet 4 inches in height. And I am considerably smaller in proportions in comparison to him. So Djiboutians, in order to distinguish between us, call us Sandeep Jagir and Sandeep Kabir—Sandeep the big and Sandeep the small.

And our third friend, Sajan Pal, is a relaxed guy. All of us are from the same village.

My focus is to study and do research and make an entry into the scrap business, where we have our main competition against Arabs and Pakistanis, because they have a larger network here, given their religious affinity.

Sajan Pal is a relaxed guy. He prefers to smoke hookah and watch TV and lazily walk along wherever we force him to go.

Sandeep, the big one, is the youngest among us, and he is a Casanova. He is a hard worker as long as you can guide him, but he is very focused on having a new woman in his bed.

Presently, I think he has been stabilized a bit in his pursuit of females because Fatuma is the supervisor, caretaker and maid of our apartment. She manages everything, ranging from cooking and attending calls to giving much-needed intimacy to Sandeep.

So she is his girlfriend, and she is four or five years older than him, a very mature woman. She has trained him really well. So he speaks Arabic quite fluently within a year, because love will make you learn so many things.

The teachers back in India could not teach him English in his 12 years of schooling, but here he has mastered Arabic, and it’s quite surprising to listen to him speaking Arabic with more comfort and ease than English.

And when he moves in the bazaar, he is much bigger than most of the Africans around, and he jokes that in Africa they will give you respect in proportion to your size. So I have seen even strangers nodding to him with greeting whenever he passes, and this observation seems to be quite correct in Africa. The imposing figure is your entitlement to recognition and being noticed and being respected.

So he is having a great gala time here.

Fatuma has a younger sister, Khadiga. She also comes now and then to help her sister in the work. But thankfully, Sandeep, the big one, is not having bad intentions about her.

Just that sometimes, whenever Sajan Pal becomes a bit mischievous, he will try to touch her mischievously. She giggles and runs away. So that is a very naughty type of pursuit, but he is not serious about it. He is a complete family man. He has two lovely kids at home and a very loving wife. So whatever he does in that is just playfulness. No serious intentions of taking the girl to bed are involved in that.

Then in our circle there are two persons of Afar descent.

Abdullah—he deserves discussion later on. He was involved in the civil war from the Afar side. There is a big family, almost aristocrats. So they have a big estate where his mother moves around in an almost 30–40-year-old Land Rover, which was gifted to her by her husband.

Abdullah’s father stays in Ethiopia. They have dual citizenship. In Afar province in Ethiopia, they have an estate there as well.

So Abdullah works as a middleman for us to approach the influential parties for scrap dealings. It’s a small country, and the politicians manage business as well, including the scrap business.

Ahmed is a TikTok kind of guy. He also is an Afar, and he comes from a good family. He was educated there in Canada, good language management skills. So he’s managing the affairs of an influential woman minister. There are rumours that he is having an affair with the big woman as well, who is double the size of him. He is a slim, smart guy.

So things are quite interesting here.

Abdullah and Ahmed. Abdullah is a down-to-earth guy, unassuming. We can approach him just like he is our friend. We can slap him on the shoulder; we can walk while putting our hand on his shoulder.

But Ahmed is like a man of protocol. He is always in formals, talks like a manager. So when we approach him, there is a big distance we have to maintain, because he is a facilitator. He has connections with ministers; even in the presidential office he has some connection.

Khadiga—not Fatuma’s sister. This Khadiga is a different girl. She is a small-featured, round-faced girl full of life. She is of a mix of Arabic and North African descent, and that makes them quite beautiful, a crossbreed between Arab people and North African people.

Fatuma, that is Sandeep’s girlfriend, herself is quite beautiful in her ways. She has a colour like we Indians, with just a shiny brown shine, just like a shiny bronze shine, just like Khadiga, the girl from the neighbourhood where our apartment is situated.

Now this girl Khadiga, quite surprisingly, sings Hindi songs masterfully. You can imagine how much craze our movies have in North Africa. She cannot speak Hindi, but when she sings Hindi songs, you cannot make out that she does not know Hindi. Her pronunciation is amazingly correct, and she has a melodious voice, and she is quite tuneful. It’s quite a pleasure to listen to her.

This girl Khadiga from the neighbourhood visits us quite often because she is Fatuma’s friend. And Sajan Pal is full of mischief. Even here he would try to somehow touch her in a joking way. She would pretend to get angry. She knows that he does not mean harm or have bad intentions. So that playfulness between the two of them is quite a game to watch and laugh about.

And these women from the neighbourhood, they smoke hookah, and there is flavoured tobacco here in different flavours, apple flavour and strawberry flavour, and the special Arabic hookah is quite popular.

Since Sajan Pal himself is quite fond of smoking hookah, he has purchased a very nice hookah. Whenever we go to the city and go to a mall for making our purchases, he never misses an opportunity to buy different types of flavours of hookah.

And apart from that, he also borrows video cassettes of Hindi movies dubbed in Afar and Somali, which are quite popular here. He knows these are the two things which will act like jaggery, which will attract the bees or honeybees.

And that’s exactly how it happens.

Whenever he starts the hookah and the flavoured smoke goes travelling down the alley, carried by the gentle sea breeze, the maids, four or five of them, cannot help themselves. On one pretext or another, they would start moving towards our apartment, and within no time you have this little smoking party in our living room, a carpeted living room with round bolsters, Sajan Pal reclining against a bolster like an Arabic king, and the girls smoking hookah around him, making him feel royal.

And then he puts a cassette in the video player, and some Indian movie which hardly had any effect here in India, but when dubbed there in Somali or Afar, creates a big impression on those girls.

So there they are, smoking flavoured hookah and watching the movie.

Just imagine—a failed movie here, there being watched like it is a superhit. Amrish Puri speaking in Afar or Somali. Quite a hilarious sight.

This neighbourhood girl Khadiga is very much knowledgeable about what is going on currently in the Indian film industry. She knows who is going with whom, which actors and actresses are having affairs. She even knows about the birthdays and special occasions of all the stars and heroines in Bollywood.

It came to me as a big surprise.

And one day, I think it was a movie of Salman Khan that was playing on the video. Sajan Pal jokingly said, “Don’t you think that I am like Salman Khan?”

So this Khadiga jokingly said, “No, you look like Raza Murad, the villain.”

Then she raised her finger in my direction and said, “He looks like Salman Khan.”

So there was instant laughter around, and Sajan Pal, in mock anger, stood up and chased her across the rooms, tweaking her cheeks and giving a little pinch on her shoulder.

Those were the beautiful days.

And this slim girl, Fatuma’s younger sister, also named Khadiga, is slowly, slowly coming out of her inhibitions. She is opening up. She is a very shy girl, and Sandeep, the big one, is quite protective about her, like she is his sister-in-law.

So he is always putting a note to Sajan Pal not to play mischief with the slim Khadiga, whom he takes as a sister-in-law. Then Sajan Pal laughs, as if, “You have all the right to do whatever you want to do with her in future.”

And this little Khadiga, she is very, very efficient about her work. Whenever she comes and arranges the kitchen, small coffee cups on the little chest with a single drawer, she is very focused on cleaning utensils, cleaning the house.

Silent girl, but she smiles now and then. I have seen her speaking only a few words.

And there you have Sajan Pal, a chillum filled with tobacco, flavoured tobacco, with aluminium foil above, live coals, and the hookah’s glass bottom bubbling with the inhalations.

In a corner, the ceramic vase of dhomni. It is a little clay vessel where you put coals and, on that, a fragrant mixture involving certain earth extracts and natural herbs and branches and dried leaves or something, and it gives a very aromatic, scented kind of smoke that lifts your soul.

Go to any African house and you will have this fragrant smoke wafting around slowly, gently. It makes you so peaceful, and it is amazingly fragrant, a completely different type of flavour than you have ever smelled before.

So the entire house seems full of romance.

And the African sky, when you go out into the night—unpolluted air, simple people. Poverty has its benefits. You have simplified structures, unpolluted skies, silence and peace that you cannot imagine in a crowded metropolitan city like Delhi.

Africa has its own unique charms.

Little Khadiga is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, a shy, darkish-brown girl with a beautiful oval face, but her silence speaks volumes about what lies under her innocent, shiny bronze face.

She takes very long, long inhalations and coughs at the hookah, which is quite surprising. She can even compete with Sajan Pal in drawing in far more smoke than he can take, even though he has been smoking for long.

So these parties are amazing.

The smoking parties are quite popular in the neighbourhood because these are poor people. These are economically very modest maids and servants in neighbouring houses in the society. But it speaks volumes about the happiness that one can avail from little, little things.

In the entire neighbourhood, the aromatic fragrance of hookah going around, girls arriving and going, taking draws at the hookah, enjoying a bit of the movie that is playing on the television, and spending as much time as it is possible for them to take out from their busy schedules.

And Sajan Pal is very particular about making it a full party—cornflakes, snacks and chips in a tray.

It is quite joyful to see such female liberation and liberties under the hard Islamic rules. Djibouti women, they get lost under the uplifting spell of aromatic smokes, and it elevates their spirits. They enjoy smoking, all liberated from restrictions and injunctions of Islamic rules concerning women and girls.

Khadiga, the little girl, she sits against the wall. Her oval face would rest against the wall after taking big draws of hookah smoke.

“Aap Ki Kashish” is playing on the stereo, flying freely with the spirits. She fills the chillum again and tears open a new packet of tobacco to arrange a new round of smoking.

And these women, they have learnt even a few of the cuss words, thanks to Sajan Pal—cuss words like we speak here in the Haryanvi dialect.

“Sasu ki.”

Sasu ki means my wife, daughter of my mother-in-law.

And “Teri behen ki…”—leaving it unfinished, meaning something mischievous later on.

With every kash, bubbles rise in the glossy bottom of the hookah. Like a young goat, Khadiga, the petite girl, is now eating the cornflakes.

Fatuma comes in between after satisfying Sandeep, the big one, screaming upstairs to clear away the things scattered around by the smokers.

The Khadiga from the neighbourhood, considerably bigger than the smaller Khadiga, with her beautiful round face, a beautiful concoction of Arabic and North African mixture, both in colour and feature, both in structure and shine, giving her an exquisite beauty of her own type.

She is also competing quite expertly with her smaller namesake.

And then you have thick-set women in their robes. After having very, very long kash at the hookah, they now leave, leaving Sajan and Khadiga, the petite, alone, as he tries to have a look at her nipples.

She hits him with the hookah pipe’s mouthpiece on his bald head.

Sajan is, by the way, balding in his late thirties only. Sorry, he is in his early thirties.

So Fatuma, Khadiga the petite girl’s sister, puts an end to the episode. She takes away the chillum, because they might over-smoke and this mischief will graduate into something serious.

So she clears the garbage from the ground and the entire room. She knows that her sister is getting out of control. Earlier, she had given a few scratches on Sajan Pal’s arms, like a little cat, when he tried to become too friendly.

Djibouti women are comparatively liberal in comparison to Islamic women in Arab countries. They smoke, they have romantic link-ups, sing songs, enjoy life in their own poorly innocent ways.

And later on, as I come to know, Khadiga, the neighbourhood girl, is working as a maid in a neighbourhood house. She is an Ethiopian.

And whenever I come across her, it strikes me that she is so talented. She can memorize the words of an unfamiliar language like Hindi and sing quite well, reasonably well—in fact, better than any of us.

She is a freely flowing, bubbly girl in her early twenties, far away from her home in Ethiopia, working here to support her family.

And she knows that Sajan Pal is not serious about his pursuit, and she also knows that since he is married, she herself cannot have any ambition to allow him or to seduce him, because these women are very particular about respecting the sanctity of somebody’s marriage.

But if they find you are single, then they will give you an opportunity.

But she still allows him reasonably good opportunities to flirt with her.

A fan of Bollywood heroes, it seems as if she becomes a fan of anybody coming from India.

Jokingly, when I ask her if she will marry Sajan, she mutters a few words of English, some words in Arabic, and gestures, which make me understand what she means to say:

“No marry, no Hindi.”

She raises one finger to indicate herself, then puts forward four fingers.

“In India, even Dharmendra married twice,” I make her understand.

So this is what she wants to say. He is Hindi. Sajan Pal is Hindi. He is married. So he should not try to marry me, because that will break the rule of Hindus.

They call us Hindus “Hindi” here. People in Arabic and North African countries call Hindus “Hindi.”

So when she puts forward four fingers, she means that we people can marry—a man in our religion can marry four times. Had he been a Muslim, it would have been okay if he had proposed marriage to me, but since he is Hindi, he is not supposed to marry me.

Then I put forward a counterargument, and this is what I mean to convey:

“In India, even Dharmendra has married twice.”

So I make her understand through words and gestures.

She gets the meaning.

“Bobby Deol,” she mutters with feigned eyes.

And then she makes me understand through a smattering of words and gestures. She says:

“Sajan thinks, says marriage no problem.”

Then she moves her hand towards the telephone and says:

“Telephone, his wife.”

So this is actually what she means to say—that before marrying her, Sajan will have to telephone his wife back home and tell her.

And then she raises a fist and makes a fighting sign and says:

“Me here, she there.”

Both with raised fists.

She is trying to portray a mock fight between two women who have married the same man. It means that we both will not stay at the same place, because it will create a scene.

So these kinds of innocent pleasures, in the company of these simple but rich-in-heart people, allow us to forget about the intricacies and hardships of managing an unregulated scrap business, where rules change overnight, where anybody can vanish with your money, where you are even under the threat of physical harm.

Anything can happen.

You might find yourself behind bars. You might find yourself even killed, thrashed, duped, cheated.

But that’s Africa.

It gives you an amazing range of experiences.

****

People here in Djibouti like to travel in big cars, SUVs and wagons—Toyota 4WD wagons, Prados and Cruisers. Maybe it is a symbol of power and might.

People of the feudal aristocratic class almost rule over the masses in political and economic aspects. Almost all of them have French nationalities, having studied and stayed there. Empowered thus, they come back to rule.

The big one has developed a friendly relationship with a prominent Afar family. The family patron is old. Now he is staying in Ethiopia for medical treatment. Ahmed, the son, returned from Paris, is involved in many businesses: shipping, cargo trucks, import and export.

His elder brother Abdullah, who is more approachable, recently remarried after getting his daughter married from his previous wife. Abdullah is a lean man in his late forties, but looks much younger due to his tight, athletic build. He has a beautiful long face with a French cut, dabbled with grey strands of hair.

He was an important commander in the civil war against the Somali-led government. The Somalis constitute about 65% of the total population. After the civil war, some Afars, including the Prime Minister, were accommodated in the cabinet.

Abdullah is friendly enough to take us to Lake Assal in his Toyota 4WD wagon, battered and old with much usage.

Situated 155 metres below sea level, it is a vast deposit of a snow-white field of salt. It is rock solid. You can walk on it. Under the sun, it glitters like a vast snow field. If you take a picture standing on it, it becomes visible like a vastly sprawled-out glacier, and nobody would believe you that this is a picture you have taken on the northern tip of Africa, where the sun is scorchingly hot, almost shining on your head.

Coming back to what is happening between Sandeep and Fatima, nobody, either in the neighbourhood or nearby, believes that they don't have a physical relationship. It seems to be a common secret and almost accepted. She, after all, is a Muslim unmarried girl staying away from home. She shares the premises with males from outside the country, and that too belonging to another religion.

But very rarely does society look into the reality lurking behind the obvious. The world of emotions, softly surging titillations of the heart, is beyond the hardy gaze of the world. This world is, after all, inside—the world of emotions, affection, likes.

Maybe from the Djiboutian society's point of view, she is the most decent girl.

Her father married five times, so there are many sisters. Earlier she worked at a French home. She knows Somali, Afari, Arabic and a couple of local dialects, which involve many words from many languages. In the evening she goes for English and French language tuitions to enhance her suitability for better-paid jobs.

Sandeep pays her 20,000 DFR, Djiboutian francs. She, through her unflinching dedication, justifies each and every franc of her salary.

Staying at this home, at our rented apartment, I have not for a single moment felt that I am out of India. She epitomizes each and every sinew of the fabric of care, dedication and untiring devotion to the schedule followed by the ideal Indian housewife. Be it rice, salads, chapatis, sabji, pakoras or kheer, she prepares them like any Indian housewife.

She learns so quickly.

Sandeep has just made a few video calls on the computer, and his sisters and mother have introduced some basic recipes of Indian food. And Fatima, she has learned them very quickly and cooks them with the expertise of a seasoned Indian housewife.

The great principles of cleanliness and orderliness are followed to the core. Everything is always at its right place. The chaos created by us perpetually is ever swept off its dirty feet by the swiftly moving broom of her duty.

At 25, she is a bit overaged for the girls yet to be married. The major part of her earnings goes to the upkeep of her family. It's a big family, much in need of economic help from all the members.

Ironically, even with such examples, traditional Djiboutian society prefers males, just like anywhere else in most traditional societies. Even though they get dowry at the marriage of their daughters—in Djibouti, the girl's family receives dowry at the marriage of their daughter—and till their marriage they contribute to the meagre family budget, still there is a preference for the male child.

Now Fatima has brought her younger sister Khadiga along with her to train her for the job of kitchen maid and domestic help. Today she started to take her for the English and French tuition classes in the neighbourhood. If they learn these languages at a workable level, they might get jobs in American and French apartments, which pay better.

Khadiga is a shy young girl, in a shell before her sister, yet the naughtiness and excitement are bursting at the seams inside. Sajan Pal is often mischievous around her, while Sandeep has protective feelings about Khadiga, as she is, in a way, his sister-in-law. Fatima herself keeps a protective eye on her younger sister and does not allow Sajan's mischief to go too far.

In fact, it is a great drama.

After all, what is real in the world? Everything is drama in the real and ultimate sense.

Sandeep, the virtual husband of Fatima; Fatima as the elder sister and even the homemaker of this rented house, protecting Khadiga from transgressions; and Khadiga escaping Sajan's mischief whenever Fatima's eyes are not protectively following her around.

Coming to other aspects of life in the rented apartment, on the internet phone here we have an application which allows long-distance calls through VoIP calling. It is cheap. So Indians working in the companies make phone calls back home using our little office as a PCO.

In this way, the personal computer is also working as a PCO, which covers the monthly internet charges of 20,000 francs.

A young Sardar had a long and satisfying talk with his wife back home. He and his friends made calls worth 6,300 francs while I was on duty.

And coming to another aspect of life here, Sandeep, the big one, kisses Fatima, fondles her, but they cannot have a conventional physical relationship because her private parts have been stitched up.

It's a very tragic practice followed in traditional African societies. Only on the occasion of marriage are these stitches cut. That, I think, is their obsession about virginity.

A man might go and have fun at a hundred places, but a woman, she will be stitched up.

So you can just imagine how nasty things have been against women in particular, and the same applies to women generally across nationalities and continents.

The night before yesterday they slept together in the room on the ground floor. At one point she told him, weeping:

“What does it mean? I am not your wife, nor will I ever be in future.”

They both got emotional and started crying.

Her father owns a 500-ton launch, a boat, but he is married to five women and has dozens of offspring, meaning all of them are poor. She is the daughter of the first wife. From this first marriage there are five siblings: four daughters and a son.

When her father married for the second time, Fatima's mother went mad and had to be hospitalized. Presently, her husband is staying with his first wife.

Sajan Pal feels jealous of the Sandeep-Fatima romantic link-up. Not in that typical angry way, but of course it creates a reaction in a human system. A male ego will always have bruises, even if you are very committed and loyal to your partner.

So at the personal front there is something antagonistic smouldering inside between Fatima and Sajan Pal. Fatima feels that he is always taking any chance to have a go at her and find shortcomings in her work. I feel it might turn out really sharply and, in fact, end up harming their personal interests in the long run.

Sandeep has really protective feelings regarding Fatu. He calls her Fatu. He has similarly protective feelings for Fatu's younger sister Khadiga, while Sajan Pal remains ever mischievous around her.

Some problems have developed with Mr. Keshwani, the Gujarati businessman who guided us here, thinking that he would be able to use us and make us work like mules for his business interests. But some issues have cropped up.

Given that he is a nice human being, the worries of business are beyond such niceties.

He is a flyer. He jumps from one place to another place, from one scheme to another, from one plan to another, from one idea to another. In this manner he has gained experience—business experience, I mean—which indirectly means knowledge.

But to use that knowledge, you have to focus on a particular scheme for a reasonably sufficient time and consolidate at that point. You have to focus your priorities, use your knowledge, sort out your pros and cons.

But he has been flying from place to place.

All his former partners, including Mr. Zepal, the Sardarji, think well of him as a human being, but when it comes to real business, they see the same glaring fault in him: the itching personality to hop over from one idea to another.

The person who collects more than average knowledge of a particular field starts thinking in multiple perspectives. This multiplicity of ideas makes him an itching thinker, not a businessman.

In business, you have to choose from among the very few carefully chosen options. You can't go beyond them. Go beyond them, and you are an impractical, unsuccessful person.

Since his acquaintances, to whom the fuel oil and iron scrap were to be shipped, were not making any payments, Sandeep, the big one, changed the bill of lading at the last moment. The containers had already reached Mundra Port, India.

Now Mr. Keshwani is fretting and fuming that the chickens whom he helped in hatching are pecking at his feathering.

The situation has once again taken a wrong turn.

Anil, who had earlier eaten ten lakh rupees from our joint company account and had agreed to pay for the press machine, has now taken a U-turn again.

Mr. Keshwani has now gone into their favour—that is, Anil and Shekhar. Shekhar happens to be the other partner.

It is a seesaw battle.

That is the problem with business. You are an institution in yourself. You take yourself as the boss. It can be okay as long as you are working alone and all others are your subordinates. But when it comes to partnership, however great and long might have been the past between partners, the tragedy of it requires that the partners somehow and quite inevitably find themselves bossing over each other, and things fall apart.

The same thing is happening here.

Perhaps the crass world of business, the bloody goddess of materialism, bucks and profits, requires the bloody sacrifice of faith, trust, friendship and all the soft emotions in the human heart.

Very tragic, but that is how the world is.

It goes on and on.

How many more beautiful relationships will be sacrificed by it?

In fact, there was a very wonderful opportunity of making good headway in the scrap business through a mediator, a middleman whom Abdullah introduced us to.

Now that middleman was a class fellow of the President of Djibouti, and there was a big scrapyard running into many kilometres. There you could see the choicest heavy scrap of big vehicles, because here there is no maintenance industry.

Vehicles have a very short life on the road, and within four or five years they hit the scrapyard because spare parts are not available, mechanics are not available, and since other ports are locked at the moment due to civil strife, the scrap of a few countries, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, even Somalia, lands up here because Djibouti Port seems to be the only way out.

So as we roamed around in the scrapyard, I could see thousands of tons of scrap waiting eagerly to be shipped to the recycling plants.

And to make it even more lucrative, there were two or three entire aluminium frames of aircraft.

Now aluminium is very costly, you can imagine, and since there was not much competition and we were among the earliest to reach there, we needed a press machine which presses the light sheet scrap into bundles so that it takes less space in cargo containers.

Press machines were hardly available here.

So we had asked our two partners, Shekhar and Anil, who were managing things in India. We had left some ten lakh rupees for them to get a press machine loaded so that we could start working here.

And to start business here, we were required to pay a nominal amount. Once the containers started moving, with advances from the scrap dealers in India, especially a friendly scrap dealer from Ludhiana, a rich man, we could have started the cycle of making payments—getting advances from the scrap dealer in India and giving them to the people here.

So had it started like that, we would have ended up finishing off the entire thousands of tons and earning a lot of money.

But things were not supposed to be that way.

Anil, when he found himself the authorized signatory of the bank account, took out all the money. He married a spinster lawyer in Delhi, paid the debts he had to pay to many others, bought a second-hand small Maruti car and settled his life.

The press machine never reached us.

So that plan was somehow finished due to the greed of one of the partners going wrong.

And since then we have been trying our level best to somehow take up small consignments of scrap from here and there. Here you have to pay at each and every step to get your consignment finally shipped off.

Most of the things are managed by politicians indirectly. They are the ones who own the scrapyards, even though they have proxies who appear as the owners.

And we have also shipped a few containers of used oil.

The entire Djibouti capital is powered by a big thermal plant. This is a generator-based plant where massive generators, using fuel oil, generate electricity, and as a by-product you get used oil, which can be used in other ancillary industries like making mats and plastics and other lubricants.

So with help from the friendly businessman from Ludhiana, whom we call Babu Bhai, he has been sending us payments in advance, and we have sent a few consignments of that also there.

And that's how we have been managing here, working in yards.

And to make it worse, Mr. Keshwani then plotted to take Anil and Shekhar on his side, and instead of paying for the press machine here, they ended up in Djibouti to start another venture, a parallel venture.

And since Sandeep and Sajan Pal are tough farmer boys, and I happen to be the literary type, the skirmish was inevitable.

They ended up having a fistfight right there in the colony because Mr. Keshwani had taken an apartment just a few blocks away in the same residential society.

The police were called.

In fact, the surprised and shocked locals, especially the maids from the neighbouring apartments who come to our apartment for smoking hookah, said this was the first time they had seen a real fight happening outside television, which is primarily in the Indian movies they watch.

So even they told us that this was the first time they were witnessing a real fistfight.

The police were called, and here they are.

What do they do, the police? Poor policemen. What they do is pick up both parties irrespective of who is the complainant or who is the sufferer. They pick up both parties and take them outside the national capital, travel up or down the road across the lava-clad barren landscape, and then ask the people to just step out.

I mean, they stop the vehicle a few kilometres away and ask all concerned to step out of the vehicle and leave them there stranded.

There is no public transport. The roads are almost empty. So there is a 100 percent chance that one has to walk dozens of kilometres to reach home again.

So that is the punishment.

On-the-spot punishment.

How did it happen, this bloody fight?

Despite all these losses, I don't think things would have taken this bad turn to result in a real bloody fight between we friends, with Mr. Keshwani looking helplessly, scared like a chicken standing in a corner.

I tried to intervene, but all of them are far stronger than me, so my effort at stalling the fight was almost inconsequential.

On this particular day, we had been working at a scrap site about 15 kilometres from the main city, in utter desolation.

Volcanic deposits. The sun, extremely, extremely harsh. The tropical sun. The prickly acacia bushes and other thorn shrubbery standing out here and there, warning you, intimidating you.

So we had just this sackcloth spread over a small acacia tree, and that was our resting point while the loaders and cutters worked on the scrap.

The cutters, they cut it into small parts. The loaders, they lift the heavy stuff and put it in the container.

It's a very tough task.

That day we had hired Ethiopian labourers from the port. Now, because in North Africa Ethiopians are considered more enterprising, they are considered to be very hardworking. So these migrant Ethiopian workers, dockhands, would give you double the product and work for the same salary as compared to Somali workers.

Somali workers, in my experience there, were shrewd, lazy and quarrelsome. They didn't try to work hard. They would try to just have their way at the end of it.

So this day, while cutting and loading was proceeding in that desolation, sighing winds, hot winds, we found a Somali group of people approaching the site with their complaint:

“Why are you giving jobs to the outsiders? We are locals. We deserve to be employed first.”

So there was this scuffle between them and the Ethiopian labourers.

We had to call the police.

The police arrived with a big wagon, and there they took all the labourers from both sides. All of them were arrested, and we could see the wagon moving in the opposite direction, taking them further away from the city.

So they would be reaching their homes at night that day.

To make it worse, a jealous person informed the law minister—a big woman—whose scrapyard it was, in fact, even though the proxy was someone else.

While allowing us to take the scrap, she had put up marks for the light scrap only and forbidden us from taking the heavy one, especially a massive two-ton generator, which could easily be put into use in India by even an average mechanic.

But there, there was no mechanic, no spare parts, no repair shops. So it was there in the scrapyard.

She knew about its value, so she said, “At this price, you don't have to take this.”

Now Sandeep is always full of mischief and looking for ways of bypassing agreements to make more bucks, even though I was trying my best to keep our word.

By that time, he had said, “Just when we start putting the scrap into the container, we will put the generator first and then cover it up with the smaller pieces so that it won't be visible.”

So the generator was in the container and the smaller parts were being carried out to be put around it.

It was just partially hidden. It was clearly visible from outside when this fight between the Ethiopian and Somali workers started and they were taken away.

The work was stalled.

It was such a heavy piece that it could not be taken out.

Somebody informed the law minister—the law minister's wife, actually, the woman who owned this scrap.

Somebody informed her, and there she came dashing down in her 4WD, raising dust, fretting and fuming like a volcano.

A big, above-six-feet woman in her traditional robes.

And I can never forget the storm of obscenities and hard words that escaped her mouth. Even though she was speaking in a local dialect, you could make out it was terrible stuff.

And she chose Sandeep to hit, actually, because she found him a suitable candidate to vent her fury.

So she struck him a few times on the chest and called him a thief, and left fretting and fuming and ordering him to take the container out.

There were stern warnings of putting us behind bars if something of that type happened again.

So it was a very bad day.

We could not contact anyone. Even our taxi driver had run away. So we had no contact with anybody.

In the evening, work stalled, so many disputes.

We then walked all the way for 15 kilometres to our apartment in Cite Hodan.

The only cheerful point on the way was when we passed across a couple of small villages where smart, handsome, energetic, smiling boys, full of energy, were playing football.

This I can clearly see in my eyes even now.

So it was almost nightfall when we reached our locality, and that is when we came across Mr. Keshwani and the culprit Anil and Shekhar.

And since we were so damn tired, things just flared up and ended up in a fight.

The hardships of doing business in Africa.

And there, even as far as the scrap trade is concerned, anything can change within a day.

Like today you have permission to export scrap from here. The next day, without any information or communication, somebody will tell you that it has been banned as of now.

So containers sometimes will lie in the scrapyard, filled up, sealed, ready to be shipped. But since, as per the latest regulation, they cannot be shipped.

We have seen many containers almost rusting because the policy was suddenly changed.

So it's quite tricky.

Africa in all its colours, ranging from humans to nature.

It is quite exciting, but you have to be very patient and open to any type of untoward thing happening to you while you are working in your capacity as a small businessman, almost unprotected because you are a small enterprise.

That makes it even tougher.

****

Ali is a Pakistani software engineer. He works from 6:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night in the rarest of rare software companies in this poor country. His wife and kid, consequent to the rarest of rare love marriages in the holy land of Islam, Pakistan, are in turbulently embroiled Pakistan. During the last two and a half years, he has been to Pakistan only once.

Since Sandeep and Sajan Pal have a computer, which is our lifeline, keeping our channel of business and relations back home open, that is our most prized possession here in this world cut off from the homeland.

Now, in such a country where finding a software engineer can be as tedious and tough as finding a ring in a big heap of husk, you can consider yourself extremely lucky if you happen to have one in your neighbourhood. After that, it becomes your duty to fulfil your obligation towards that favourable draw of luck by keeping good relations with that engineer.

So we have been doing just that.

But wizards, wherever we find ourselves, rarely think in such months-long, multi-perspectives. So at least I have tried to keep the decorum because I know that he can come in handy in this country. Suppose there is some problem with our computer, he can help us in sorting it out.

But Sandeep and Sajan, on the rougher side, started behaving with him like a typical Pakistani. We then searched Internet Explorer for anything that might help us avoid seeking his favour. So, me being their trump card, I tried my level best.

But, you know, with immature knowledge, it is a very tough task to function as a professional engineer.

Out of mischief, Sajan and Sandeep opened some adult websites on Internet Explorer. So the computer got infected.

And now our computer needs the services of Mr. Ali.

After a few calls and a couple of courtesy visits to his house, we have not yet seen his engineering hands doing something for the benefit of our computer.

As Mr. Ajay Pal is here, and the upper-storey room is not large enough to accommodate four persons, Sandeep once again has got another opportunity to sleep with Fatu in the privacy of a separate room.

The relationship seems to be on a sound foundation because the younger Khadiga becomes tentative and shy in front of Sandeep, as if he is her real brother-in-law. There is increasingly the atmosphere of a little family around the three of them.

Sandeep often talks of going to India in March for a couple of months. Fatu threatens that she will leave the house and its back-breaking services the day he leaves for India.

The other night they were alone in the ground-floor room. She wept and told him that if he doesn't marry her, she will never marry in life, will even die.

Sandeep also started crying.

Both cried and then sought physical intimacy and consolation in the limited manner available to them.

All the women of the neighbourhood tease her about this relationship. There are even some rumours that they are secretly married.

She has even faced family protests regarding her staying at night in a home often full of foreigners, males only. She demonstrated to her mother that she was still a virgin, showing that the traditional stitches remained intact, and closed the chapter.

Due to this relationship, she had to bear the brunt of Mr. Keshwani's anger. He had seen the couple in moderately objectionable proximity, had a quarrel with Fatu over salary, and threatened to send her back home.

Sandeep came to her rescue.

Keshwani said either she or he stays at home.

She, the nice girl with injured pride, started packing her belongings.

Sandeep ordered her to stay back.

Sajan has intrinsically antagonistic feelings for her. They both know that Sandeep pays her 20,000 francs instead of the 15,000 set by them.

Sajan's main complaint, apart from his major grouse of watching helplessly the fireworks of his lust going waste, is that she mismanages financially. The grocery bills are high, and she prepares meals well in excess of demand.

But he knows that business here is mostly dependent upon Sandeep because he knows the language. He has a more extensive network with the locals. So his stay here is, in some way, decided by this relationship with Fatu.

Sajan Pal just watches helplessly, waiting for his opportunity to strike.

Poor Sandeep's belly has to bear the brunt of Fatu's kitchen skills. His abdomen is bulging out like that of a middle-aged fellow.

He says that it is okay for a man to have a bulging paunch.

Me and Sajan discussed that maybe it is a typical feminine insecurity—to save him from the seductive looks of other attractive females by turning him into an unattractive middle-aged man in looks.

Well then, everything is fair in love and war.

Sajan is forever saying mischievous and suggestive things in Hindi and Arabic. Both sisters call him Shaytan. Khadiga teases him girlishly, sticking her pointed tongue out at him.

A few names that I remember from the neighbourhood: Ayesha, Aamna, Vikran, Ibrahim, Ahmed, Muhammad, Din, Abdullah, Abu Bakr, Musa.

Our kind partner from Jalandhar, Babu Bhai, has sent 9,000 through electronic transfer. Oil and scrap deals have been finalized.

Anil and Shekhar are now with Keshwani in Delhi.

God knows what they are up to.

Mr. Ajay Pal from Delhi, who has been in friendly business relations with Mr. Keshwani for the last 25 years, is now encouraged by Sajan and Sandeep's latest spat with Mr. Keshwani and company.

He knows that since we are staying here and are in contact with a few people, the middlemen who can arrange business deals, Mr. Ajay Pal is making business overtures to us.

He has laid out extensive business plans before us.

He is a very practical businessman.

Sajan, the realistic Jat, is not feeling too friendly towards him either.

Let us see what happens.

Sandeep has developed good relations with Ahmed Abdullah. He is almost a part of their family now. Their old mother looks at him with much fondness, as if he is her own son.

Ahmed Abdullah belongs to a prominent Afar family.

The third son, who studied in France just like two of his elder brothers, got married to a French lady. As usual, the lady divorced with a lump sum of money. Their son of mixed parentage, brown with cute features, now plays in the dust of their sprawling farm, dotted with palm fronds.

The family patriarch, the man who created much of the fortune, is now in Ethiopia at their sprawling estate in Afar province.

There is a big dairy at the farm here in Djibouti, but the rest of the land is left fallow without any agriculture.

The sprawling estate by the main road between Djibouti city and Cité Hodan, where we stay, is a relative oasis of prosperity, greenery and peace in comparison to the surrounding blackish-grey lava formations.

During the civil war, much of the family's fortune was spent sustaining the civil war from their side, being one of the prominent Afar families in revolt against the government dominated by people of Somali origin. Abdullah played a real part in it.

He commanded a little platoon and stayed among the volcanic formations outside the city with his armed men.

Now they are making an economic comeback.

The spacious farm is a great example of mixed farming involving a diversity of crops, poultry and dairy farming.

There are many date palms on the farm. Presently, bunches of tiny dates can be seen. A labourer was tying these tiny bunches to ensure that they don't sway and fall in the wind.

There are many wells, with rock walls lined inside, from which power generators pump out water.

There are small vegetable beds of maize, tomato and other vegetables.

There are numerous cows in enclosures formed by two lines of iron pipes. There are many sections for different varieties and age groups of cows. The breeders move proudly in their respective enclosures—the male cattle breeders, the sires.

In a poorly set-up wire-mesh structure, the poultry section ensures a delicious supply of eggs and meat all around the farm estate.

There are many old rustic bodies of big cars, a symbol of their changing tastes and automobile priorities over the years.

Sandeep has developed a very nice relationship with the family.

He calls the family matriarch Amma, and he says that he is their fourth son.

Whenever Ahmed denies him something, because Ahmed is the official type, a strict disciplinarian and always to the point, Sandeep puts it in the old matron's ear, and she then gives them a good lesson.

One of the family members works with the World Food Programme, and another has a butchery.

Mr. Ajay Pal says that women here are not as simple as they seem to be.

He says, if you enter the mud, ensure that the mud does not get spattered on your clothes.

He advises the young guys here to be careful and use protection. According to what Mr. Ajay Pal tells us, if somebody ends up having a physical relationship with a Djiboutian woman and she is able to present proof of sexual intercourse and approaches the court, you can be forced to marry her.

So this is the warning Mr. Ajay Pal has been giving us young guys here.

The great thing about this country is that there is not much of a stone wall between the VIPs and petty businessmen from India.

They say that their dream is to make it the Dubai of Africa, so they are making it very approachable, receptive and open to any type of entrepreneur, ranging from the richest one to ragtag little groups like ours, where we have just collected our little capital and are thinking of making it big.

And there are all the signs that one day it might become an African imitation of Dubai as well.

Even Mr. Ajay Pal has been successful in building up a relationship with Adem Deilate, the Djiboutian consul in Delhi. The Prime Minister here is, according to what we are told, the consul's brother.

He met the Prime Minister.

This availability, openness and accessibility of the top leadership, even to the petty businessman, will ensure that a very competitive environment is built up in future.

Today Khadija, the maid from the neighbouring apartment, came with pain around her navel—I mean pain in her stomach around the navel area.

I administered her Nux Vomica, a homeopathic medicine.

I don't know whether she was saying it out of feeling obliged, or whether the pain really was cured, but she said she was relieved of it and was very happy.

Many ladies, their heads covered with cloth, drive Toyota pickup cars, Toyota SUVs, Prados and Land Cruisers.

During our stay here, we have seen just a few small cars and two-wheelers, which can be counted on fingertips.

There are just cars, and that too big cars—the SUVs, the 4WDs.

There is no state carrier.

During the last year, many luxury minibuses imported from Dubai have come onto the roads here.

These imported minibuses have thus facilitated movement in and around the city, including travelling to and fro from Cité Hodan, where we are staying.

Coming back to Abdullah's farm, here we have managed to get space for our oil filling—iron drums, rubber-processing oil or fuel oil.

The trucker brings oil in his tanker from the power plant: 20,000 francs per truck as his fare, plus 550 USD for one container.

So that is the cost we have to pay.

Apart from it, there are some more charges, unofficial charges, to the middlemen. The President's former classmate, who arranges all this, gets this contract.

We have employed four labourers to do this job of filling the little iron drums from the truck, and we pay them 20,000 francs per month.

Two of them are Tanzanians.

One is Ali Hamish, and the other is Farhan.

Ali is a stout, short man with a very dark complexion, a long face and a booming voice. He understands Hindi because he was in India for a few months.

He was there in Bombay, illegally, of course.

He said, “I was travelling on a cargo carrier, and then we got down as it docked in Bombay. I could spend a week there in Bombay.”

Sajan always greets him with a crude Hindi slang word, grinning broadly.

Ali replies effusively in Hindi that he is nothing of the sort. He understands the joke because he picked up some Indian slang during his time in Bombay.

Farhan has a small face with a broad forehead. He is a silent worker.

Sajan and Sandeep are very satisfied with their services because, in comparison to the local workers we have employed, they work very efficiently and very hard.

Ali has a mobile phone, an expensive Samsung set. He has loaded some explicit pictures into it, including an interracial sexual image. It makes me think, somewhat humorously, about how histories of race, status and aspiration can find their way even into private fantasies.

It is quite funny, actually, how history plays a part in what we still do.

Thursday night is a type of carnival night here, for the next day is Jumma, a day of utmost repose, relaxation and piety.

So many people go on a shopping spree on Thursday evening.

Nightclubs are full of lust, fun and frolicking. Ironically, sex workers are available at a cheap rate in comparison to many other common commodities here.

I can recall one particular incident when Sandeep, the mischief-monger, was able to draw me and Sajan into nightclub revelry on a Thursday night in the city.

And it's just human to somehow let one's guard down.

And there we are on the discotheque floor in the nightclub, dancing to strange numbers ranging from anything Asiatic to Western.

Now, I have been a casual drinker on social occasions, but this time I got boozed up, and that was something very strange because I usually try to maintain a very sober face and remain in control of myself.

And then—monkey dancing.

I hardly know how to dance.

So Sandeep, the Casanova guy, was dancing with anybody, ranging from sex workers to ladies of class. He was dancing with everybody.

I was just hopping like a little monkey.

And Sajan—what a funny incident happened.

Sajan is quite handsome-looking if he puts a cap on his head to cover his balding head.

Bald head, actually.

So he is a healthy guy, and with a cap on, the handsome boy is dancing gently, holding the hands of an Arab woman.

And suddenly, on a certain whim, she happens to take off his cap.

And imagine—from a handsome man of 30, he looks like an uncle of 50.

Instantly there is such a big change, and she cackles with laughter, kisses his bald head, and then goes away laughing.

It was so funny.

Taken aback, Sajan puts on his cap, drinks more, and then I find him dancing gently in the typical Western-style dance where the gentleman holds the woman's hand, the woman and man facing each other and just swaying and imbibing the rhythm of the music.

So this is an elderly French woman in her fifties, of his mother's age.

They are dancing, but she is reasonably fit for her age.

Sajan gets excited.

Now, one particular fact about Sajan: he does not wear undergarments beneath his jeans or trousers because his thighs are quite heavy, and if he uses tight underwear, he gets an infection in his thighs. So to avoid that, he keeps it open—just trousers.

Now Sajan is drunk.

He has been away from his wife for so many months. His overtures have been repelled by the ladies in the neighbourhood where we stay.

He gets excited, and before long he exposes himself.

Now just imagine the decency, the understanding, the wisdom of age and maturity in that woman.

She is not shocked by it. She doesn't feel offended. She finds it something very natural for a man in close proximity with a woman.

Gently, with caring hands, she restores his clothing and zips him up.

I can never forget it.

It is such a strong moment which tells you so many things—how understanding one can be about another's position.

She did not get offended. She simply understood that he is an expatriate. He is staying away from his family. This is a rare moment of just getting out of control.

So she did not judge him.

She simply zipped him up again and continued dancing.

It was such a beautiful moment in all that mess.

I got over-drunk and I blacked out.

I don't know how and what happened after that in the wee hours after midnight.

I just remember that after getting heavily drunk, I passed out in the darkest corner on a sofa where there were some sex workers.

After that, I just blacked out, lost my sensation.

I came to a sudden jolt of consciousness and found myself walking in a downtown area, a deserted narrow street with very poor housing on both sides, almost a slum.

And a woman, a sex worker, held a tight grip on my wrist.

At this moment I regained my senses again.

I found myself there, and then I understood.

Instantly, I gave a big jerk to my hand and started running away.

She tried to follow in desperation.

A poor girl, you know.

She was not bad-looking. She appeared to be of mixed Somali and Arab parentage and was quite good to look at.

I stood at a distance.

She knew that she could not pursue me and catch up with me.

So I could see the desperation in her, driven by poverty.

Who goes into prostitution out of free will, with the good intention of it?

One is often forced into it.

So I could see the desperation in her voice, and she was calling me back.

And then I felt kindness for her.

I just asked from a distance, “How much do I owe you? How much do I have to pay?”

I had heard that sometimes people in the trade even steal wallets.

So instantly I took my hand to my pocket and found the wallet there.

That meant this girl was quite honest.

Actually, she could have very easily taken out my wallet had she intended to do it.

She hadn't done it.

Then she told me the amount.

I just gave that money to her.

When she took it, she again said, “If you want to come with me, you are most welcome.”

She said it with a sad smile.

I turned around and went to the main street to hail a cab.

Actually, it had happened like this while I had passed out. My friend Sandeep had availed himself of the services of this woman, and that's how I happened to find myself being led by the wrist through that isolated lane.

I remember a similar incident in the same context, even though it is not related to Djibouti.

While I was in India, I was still in the business of exploring opportunities in import and export of scrap of different types.

There is this big congested market in central Delhi, in the Old Delhi area.

So we used to go there with my friend and meet the traders.

Because of the congestion, it was impossible to take the car into those congested alleys. We used to park it well outside the area and walk down for one or one and a half kilometres to reach the innermost recesses where big businessmen sat in their little hovels.

Massive opportunities in small, cramped places.

As we walked, the path would cross the red-light area, the much-talked-about G.B. Road of Delhi.

And there you have the desperation and tragedy of women selling their bodies—some on account of their own follies, some being cheated, some forcibly kidnapped, some abandoned by lovers, ultimately ending up here in this ghetto.

Now this friend of mine, he was a colourful character.

So one day he said, “Why don't you just go and have a look at it? You are a writer. You still keep writing in your journals. So why don't you just see it from inside? That will possibly give you material for building a story.”

And a writer can always be convinced on these grounds.

So he said, “I will have my fun, but you can have a look around, and then you can write about it.”

So I followed him up.

On the ground floor, you have the usual market where common people are selling their wares of all types.

On the upper floors, you have that tragic life of women in the sex trade.

So we moved up a dark, narrow staircase lined with paan marks because people spit gutka and paan, humanity being made so cheap in those grey corridors.

And the moment we reached the threshold, like claws, we found that our hands had been grabbed.

Now during the day it is very odd to have clients because mostly the business happens at night. And with more liberty for male-female proximity, the visitors to these houses are diminishing in number.

So business is very down.

They don't want to lose an opportunity to get a client, even if it means almost dragging somebody inside.

My friend, I saw him being willingly led away into the interior of the establishment, but I remained stuck at the door itself.

I supported myself with one hand against the doorframe, putting all my force into it, while two women were grabbing me and trying to make me enter the house.

They were cajoling:

“It will be good fun. Come, come.”

I just slumped down on the ground so that they wouldn't at least be able to lift me up.

Then they thought maybe I didn't like them, so they called somebody they thought I might find more attractive.

Then I started pleading with them:

“Please, please leave me. I just came out of curiosity.”

I even said that I was dysfunctional in that area, so I could not do what they were expecting. (Haa.. Haa one ought to tell lies to save oneself from such nasty situations.) I am functional, by the way. But one shouldn't bother about typical male egoistic honor when saving the real honor. So tell the lie and chicken out. That's better than being forced into sex by greedy hookers. 

But they said they can easily make me operational provided I gave them a chance. So then I tried emotional blackmail.

That was quite funny.

I told them that I write for the welfare of women in this trade. I have a research-scholar friend who is writing on your issues and bringing about more awareness about this and that.

And I even said that I am your guest.

“You should not be treating me like this.”

I spoke so personally and gave so many pleas while just lying there on the ground that they finally had to loosen their grips.

And I came down readily.

So that was quite funny.

But that also shows the tragedy of life in such corridors.

****

Cité Hodan is the posh colony to the west of the capital city of Djibouti. It is built by Lootah Builders and Construction, Dubai, on a high lava ridge. From the city, its wide blocks of flats, three-storeyed and two-storeyed residential blocks are visible as a slightly better streak of accommodation.

Still to the west of Cité Hodan are higher ridges where a World War II-time network of bunkers looks over the highway with an ironical look.

Nearby this network of bunkers are the residential single-storey barracks of Lootah construction workers. Roofs are made of two iron sheets filled in with a non-conductor of heat.

There are so many Indians, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, in these barracks with their stories of pain and struggle.

They visit our PCO, defined by the application on our personal computer. They come for international calls. One call rate is equal to 100 DFR.

One guy ended up spending 45,000 francs in one call. Must be talking to his girlfriend there in the subcontinent. He was Bangladeshi.

Another guy had sent 45,000 rupees through Hawala. His people were yet to receive it even after two months. His passport was with the company. He is here for the last eight months.

He says he is getting only 9,000 to 10,000 Indian rupees.

What is the use of being out of the country, away from home and earth, for this type of money?

So he says he will fake illness to somehow get out of this country.

Lootah Group has an agreement with Dhaloo Airlines of Somalia. They purchase out-of-date and out-of-service aircraft from former Soviet republics and fly them on these routes in the Third World.

It's risky travel at concessional rates.

Even travelling by Ethiopian Airlines is not totally without its share of troubles, especially the connecting flight from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. They sometimes cancel it altogether.

Sometimes you get a very small aircraft whose fuel might let you down even during the short flight of 45 minutes.

Sandeep had a horrendous experience on this account when the fuel tank of the tiny aircraft gave way on its journey from Addis Ababa to Djibouti.

Thank God there was a famous potholed airstrip available nearby. It was an airstrip dating back to the Second World War era, and the small aircraft almost fell on the runway.

The Chinese inside the plane were crying.

China is spreading its wings in Africa like anything. You can see China-specific articles even in Ethiopian Airlines magazines available in front of your seats.

So the Chinese people were crying, thinking it was all over.

Sometimes, when you are a bit luckier, you get an opportunity to reach your destination by the cargo plane bringing its routine supply of khat.

These are narcotic leaves supplied from Ethiopia, and they give a high, just like cannabis.

Sandeep tells me that he came to know about the fuel getting spent in the small, old-looking, noisy aircraft when, after some time following the bumpy landing, he saw fuel tankers reaching for refuelling.

So that was quite funny.

And sometimes the passengers will find themselves availing the opportunity to reach the destination by the cargo plane which is bringing the supply of khat, the cannabis-type natural leaves which are supplied daily by cargo plane to Djibouti.

Mr. Keshwani travelled that way with four or five other passengers.

Khat.

Some people call it khat. It is available in small packets costing anywhere from 500 to 5,000 Djiboutian francs.

Small wooden boxes, just like paan sellers in India have. On these small boxes women sell these packets.

So Coke and khat—the soothing lap of the great mother.

You can see almost all Djiboutians chewing on these leaves. They retain them in their mouths, just taking the juice in, and it gives them a high just like cannabis does.

Islam prohibits drinking, that is liquor. But there are so many other substances which can give an equal high. So this is permissible.

As you set out in the afternoon, the most usual sight that you can come across is somebody chewing the leaves, having sips of Coke and just going into a trance of forgetfulness.

Then nothing bothers.

The hard reality is somewhere else altogether.

So these narcotic leaves have a drugging effect, like cannabis has. They are much in demand.

There is a special cargo plane for daily supply from Addis Ababa to the Djiboutian capital, and if you stand on the roof, you can see people waiting for it, looking into the skies, because there are so few flights and this particular plane is so recognizable with its old body and rusting paint.

Everybody knows:

Here comes the fuel-guzzling monster carrying the leaves of liberty.

The day it gets delayed or the flight gets cancelled on account of any other factor, you can make it out instantly from the reaction of the people.

People become cranky, snappy.

You can see more brawls.

Everything seems to go out of hand. There is more disorderly traffic, shouts, brawls.

So that shows how khat is managing life, giving an opportunity to poor people—a labourer working at a bone-breaking hard task under the scorching sun for a pittance of money and just looking forward to a relaxation-filled evening with khat leaves and Coke sips, and then sleeping in the folds of dark night.

The substance, without going into the morality of it being good or bad—here I am puzzled whether to call it good or bad because, when I see its significance in the life of poor people, you end up even feeling that if not for this chewing of these leaves, life will be far more intolerable and difficult for these people.

Now coming back to the more practical matters, we went to the law minister's office. His wife runs a company, the export-import of scrap and other items.

Aziz is a relative of theirs. He manages the company.

He is an educated Muslim. He got his education in Canada, and to facilitate his services as a middleman, having connections with influential people in business and political circles, we paid him 5,000 USD.

So that happens to be his salary, in fact.

As an educated person, he takes it as his rightful salary. Having got management training, he talks of management efficiency, work culture and turning Djibouti into something significant in Africa.

And he always cracks jokes at Sandeep and says:

“You have chased so many Somali women. You have night-long escapades with Somali women and sleep late at night and get up almost at noon the next day. Look at your bulging paunch. Why don't you get up early? Enough of chasing Somali women. You should exercise now.”

He jokes. He laughs.

Apart from having fun at the cost of Sandeep, he is also venting out his feelings against the majority Somali community because Somali and Afar, in my observation here, do not see eye to eye in Djibouti.

He is from the Afar community, which has been given some representation after the civil war, including the post of Prime Minister in the government.

Now some work culture is evolving here.

Since some material had been stolen from their scrapyard, this time he has asked us to come with a written plan mentioning the names of persons who will be visiting the yard during the cutting of the scrap, the type of machinery used, the registration numbers of vehicles allowed inside the yard, time, schedule, etc.

I think his policing is management knowledge that he learned in his college in Canada.

When I tell him that we have been duped of 20,000 USD, he firstly puts the blame on us, saying:

“Indians drink beer and think they are the smartest persons around. You people chase women, get duped and then make complaints.”

My God, again Somali women in the picture.

There is an Indian in his mid-forties who has forfeited his passport with him for roughly 1,300 USD.

This man worked for a Dubai-based company, squandered 35,000 USD in a month from the company account on debauchery, a major portion of it going into the furnishing of his favourite sex worker's room.

His boss slapped him.

The poor guy was taken in by police.

Now he is lost in the poorly drawn-out two- and three-storeyed blocks and poor quarters of Djibouti.

His family, including wife and kids, is waiting for him back in India.

During these days of disgrace, he comes to dine with Sandeep sometimes, but then he stole his 200 USD while Sandeep was drunk.

He also spent a month or two with Indians working for Lootah Group, but again ended up stealing money from them.

Our neighbouring block at the street corner is full of a big widow and a brood of girls and boys.

The family patriarch was in the army. He died in service.

Out of the compensation money, they have bought a second-hand SUV, opened a little eatery on the ground floor.

Now they have started a telephone booth as well.

So they are our business rivals now.

When Sajan and I were coming from the evening stroll, the woman—a big woman, bigger than both of us—approached us with one of her boys who could speak English.

She started talking in Somali, while a thin young man translated.

They explained that our using the internet phone, used by most of the Indian and subcontinental labourers, was illegal.

Since they have got the registration for a proper landline and pay the money to the government, they said it was not a threat. They were not going to the government.

It was just neighbourly advice:

Be careful and stop allowing people to call from your internet phone.

Maybe Ali, who says he has reasons to be angry with us, as well as Mr. Keshwani, is behind this thing.

Muslims are always preferred over any other religion in a Muslim country. That is not a surprising fact.

The same applies to Djibouti as well. They hold a bigger clout.

Ali, the short and dark 26-year-old Pakistani software engineer working with a Kenyan company, has taken an apartment opposite us across the lane.

His brother Taj is a 38-year-old bachelor.

Mr. Keshwani, ever sticking to his habit of leaping from one project to another, took Taj to Dubai for setting up a new business venture.

As is always to be expected, things did not go the way they had been planned.

Now Ali and his brother are blaming Mr. Keshwani, saying that Mr. Keshwani has used them.

Most of the local women, even migrant workers working in the nearby houses and apartments, prefer Taj and his comrades for the reason of their bearing the same religion, that is Islam.

Even an Indian Muslim barber from Bombay stays with them like he belongs to their country only.

It only proves, at least to me from what I am seeing here, that for them their first identity is that of religion. The rest of the identities, like nationalities and ethnicities, come secondary.

Thanks to Sandeep and Sajan's mischief of watching porn sites, our computer is infected with a virus, but Ali is not doing anything about it.

Maybe he is taking revenge in this manner.

Today they have brought a French lady from the company. She was taking pictures while smoking in front of the mobile camera, passing on instructions about what to do, but it could not be accommodated.

And I think ultimately we will have to take the services of Ali himself.

We have to somehow, possibly, use Fatu's network to start a reconciliation and then convince him to visit our place and sort out the issue.

Another gathering was arranged, this time Anina, Fahan and Ayesha were invited.

As usual, Sajan Pal flirted and smoked the water pipe.

I introduced myself as Raja from Pakistan.

I just wanted to play mischief.

These girls are very particular about their religious identities.

Next day, Sajan, Anina, Khadija and I sat down for the smoking session in the privacy of a wall in the backyard.

Khadija showed her open, unhindered choice for Muslims.

“I have three boyfriends in the town,” she says. “You are kafirs. You sleep with girls before marriage. You will go to jahannum. You burn.”

She particularly points me out as a worshipper of Shaytan, putting out her tongue like Mahakali, indicating upstairs where I do my puja in the morning.

I worship Mahakali.

So she says I worship Shaytan.

She seems even offended.

So it is very surprising to come across this aspect.

It was a quarrel, in fact.

Let me clarify it a bit.

The girl is saying that I worship Shaytan, and she is pointing towards the place where I do my morning puja, lighting an oil lamp in front of Mahakali. She even takes out her tongue to imitate Mahakali as she says I worship Shaytan.

It turns into a quarrel, in fact.

I indicated the brightest star upstairs and tried to answer her. Fatima translated between us.

And Khadija, venting out her not-really-girlish fury against me, again says:

“You don't know Somali, Afri, Arbi. Just Hindi, English.”

I do not know why she has been fighting with me today.

All in all, we end up saying that we will no longer talk to each other.

She had a burning-hot spoon, with the help of which she warded off Sajan's overtures, and tried to touch my hand with the end of that hot spoon to conclude the fight in real physical terms.

Negative.

Sajan was carrying a big burning scar on his forearm, and I asked him what happened to him.

He said:

“She failed to brand you with her hot spoon, but she did it on me because I was too nearby.”

And then I laughed.

“You deserve this treatment because you are always hovering near her.”

He says that he is doing all this to ward off the possibilities of a breakup arising due to girls and women involved in the matter.

Sandeep has got such special affection for Fatu.

It is not good for business.

God forbid that it might turn out to be a painful, heartbreaking story.

So Sajan is quite right in this thing that possibly such relationships and affections should not be brought into the picture when we are here, thousands of kilometres away from our home, trying to make a niche in an unorganized sector in an African country where there is hardly rule or regulation.

And most of the time, for Sajan, it is just innocent fun, teasing out of mischief.

That's it.

I watch him very closely and find him somehow detached and not under the risk of falling into the pit of affection or any type of relationship.

He is a good family man, after all.

Sandeep has gone head over heels in love with Fatima, but that also seems to be good because he has been a womanizer in his life here and in India.

So if he is tied to one particular woman, that is good. At least his energies won't be straying too much off the path.

Coming back to the business, in the world of business all your principles, ethics, skills and voices are put at the anvil.

Mr. Ajay Pal is with us since the 19th of this month.

During this period, the common oxygen for this hesitant, suspicious relationship has been the ever-persistent criticism of Mr. Keshwani, whatever might have been the reasons and faults committed by Mr. Keshwani.

Given all these facts, Ajay Pal, considering their friendship of 25 years and also their status of being neighbours in Delhi and their kids being friends, should not have said what he actually said during the last week.

So that somehow lowers Ajay Pal's esteem in my eyes.

Because friends are friends, and despite any type of mishappening, one should not come down to this level to start condemning somebody who has been a friend for so many decades, in fact.

Now Ajay Pal is becoming very serious.

He has paid about 6,700 USD to us, and the work is yet to proceed further.

He has extended his stay till the second of March.

And Sandeep is very mischievous.

Sandeep forced him to pay 100 USD for two full boxes of Heineken beer, and we finished a full box—six cans per person.

Once you are drunk at this level, the real beast in you strikes roots, drunk to the extent of manifold potential.

We were looking out for an opportunity for more and more fun, and jokes followed.

Anina, who looked so plain earlier, today looked really gorgeous, in the lingo of Sajan Pal.

She had pants with side slits up to calf length on both sides, beneath a black piece of cloth draped around her bosom. She wore a black top.

Sandeep cuddled her.

I was at a distance.

Sajan Pal would have done the same, but could not because she ran away and didn't come again.

Then Fatu and Khadiga came back.

Khadiga remained inside.

Fatu again went out to fetch some crunchies, and then Sajan Pal smelled the opportunity and left Sandeep and Ajay Pal talking drunkenly by the main gate.

Sajan Pal found young, petite Khadiga below the space under the staircase, a cosy resting place where food-wears, empty luggage trolleys, bags, cardboard boxes, and dresses were stacked up.

And Sajan Pal, plainly drunk, pinned her down there and began forcing his physical affection upon her.

I was standing at a distance.

I could hear her whispering fearfully that Sandeep might come in. That seemed to be her main concern rather than the looming intimacy. Sajan, in his drunken excitement, grabbed both her hands and continued trying to get physically closer to her. He planted a full kiss on her budding pouty African exotic lips. 

She was resisting him, trying her best not to give in to the full fury of that river of sensuality. Again out of fear that Sandeep might come in and object to this. Then the African panthress responded in her majestic fury. 

She bit him on his hand, but as Sajan Pal later told me, he didn't even feel the pain. Was it a bite of spite. No it was the raw passion of a young girl. Again she tried to check herself. Looking outside to check if Sandeep was there. She wasn't bothered about me standing there and watchging. 

He continued trying to take further physical liberties, but she shrank almost into a shell and resisted his attempts. So the struggle between his drunken persistence and her resistance continued. At this stage she giggled very seductively, as if it was part of the game to hurt his male ego by remaining unattainable. Then suddenly shedding away the fake slough of resistance, she clung to him like a powerful sinewy vine taming a big banyan. 

Here at this moment Sajjan appeared to be coming out of his grip in the throes of passion. There was something that seemed to come between Sajan and the fullest loss of control.

Maybe it was the stern warning put by his wife. And his word to her that he won't sleep with any other woman as long as she was alive. 

Or else, I interpreted it philosophically: perhaps even in such moments there remains somewhere inside us a struggle between the senses and whatever little control or conscience survives.

So there I stood, imbibing the moment, still feeling the excitement of witnessing all this, but at the same time increasingly disturbed by what I was seeing.

God knows where it might have led, because you never know when one crosses the threshold.

But then Fatu came.

Since I have genuine respect for the girl, I left the scene immediately.

Sajan Pal also got up suddenly. More relieved than he would have felt if he had carried it all through to the end. I'm glad that he kept his word to his wife. He is a very nice guy. Far more honest and simple than so many other people I have come across in my life. He is a rare man who has kept his word to his wife even though there are opportunities for him to cheat his wife thousands of kilometers away her. But he has kept his desire firmly reigned in and limited himself to the kind of entertainment we have discussed earlier. 

I don't know why and how, because Sajan does not lack confidence. He too is a co-master of the house.

But still he said:

“Sorry.”

So I think he must have felt that he was doing something wrong.

And Sajan Pal just walked out and joined the discussion outside as if nothing had happened.

And I was feeling bad about the girl because I felt that it was something that was being imposed upon her -- even though she herself was responding with full passion later on. But it had started by the man, and a man should bear the onus for any negative situations coming as a consequence. 

I was even feeling angry at Sajan Pal for having done this.

This is the main problem in having a poetic heart and nurturing poetic sentiments.

In the morning I observed Sajan Pal, but I could not see any traces of sorrow hovering around him.

As if nothing had taken place.

As if whatever had taken place was an illusion and was gone, just vapored off. .

But I think, in my personal opinion, nobody should have any right to take such liberties without the other person's willing consent.

After that incident, I haven't properly looked at her, as if I share the blame from the side of all men.

Since last night, I have been trying to avoid her, afraid that there might be some accusation against collective mankind in those eyes.

Being a sensitive man, it would accuse me in some prickling manner.

Having these poetic sentiments creates new and painful sensations even when you are not directly involved in the matter.

I was just a witness to it.

But since all of us are partners in the venture and share this small business and this house, I somehow feel equally responsible as a partner for all the rights and wrongs committed individually—even if that means somebody taking liberties with a helpless servant girl in a drunken state.

But I am happy that Fatu came at the right moment and nothing more serious happened. But again I'm sure Sajjan would have stopped within limits. He really loves his wife. 

On top of it, if despite everything things had taken a final path, I am sure that I would have stepped in to avoid many repentances at both ends later.

That I am sure.

That much sensitivity, dignity and respect for a woman I have, even if I was a drunk watcher from a distance. And I respect Sajjan's promise as much as I do the girl's dignity. So any intervention would have been for the benefit of boyth parties. 

But thankfully, nothing of that sort happened.

But as far as my state of mind while observing it is concerned, we are a cocktail of emotions.

We are a mixture of good and bad, perfection and imperfection.

As I was watching all this game unfolding before me, a part of me felt excited, a part of me felt repulsed, a part of me wanted to see more, and a part of me wanted to put an end to it.

It was a testing and teasing duality duality.

And I am happy that, at the end of it, when I look at it now, despite the streaks of excitement and enjoyment, a major part of me condemns the act and sees that it should not have happened.

What remains important to me is the state of mind it exposed.

We are a cocktail of emotions.

We are a mixture of good and bad, perfection and imperfection.

There are moments when a part of us can feel excited, another part repulsed; a part wants to watch, while another wants to put an end to what is happening.

It is a duality.

And when I look back at that night, whatever momentary and contradictory emotions might have passed through me, the stronger feeling that remains is that certain things should not have happened.

Perhaps that is also part of the problem of having a poetic heart and nurturing poetic sentiments.

Even if you are not directly involved in something, you can carry its burden.

Since all of us are partners in the venture, sharing this small business and the same house, I sometimes feel responsible as a partner for the rights and wrongs committed individually by anyone of us.

That is perhaps the strange burden of sensitivity.

You witness something, and long afterwards it continues to prick you.

****