The native despairs

Why did I take the decision to leave Bahrain and head back to Mumbai and India? There were three reasons.

The first being Bahrain’s lack of culture, or rather English-language culture (I have been led to believe that the Arabs have a vibrant performing and visual arts scene).

There is a dearth of bookshops on the island and the few that do exist price themselves out of the reach of the common man. In Mumbai I could guarantee myself a world of books at reasonable rates and ready availability. I could also visit theatres and art galleries, which dot the city.

I am happy to note that in this case my decision has been vindicated.

The second point is people. The diminutiveness of Bahrain meant that one pub crawl and you’d know half the island’s drinking expats, it also meant that people could begin to grate.

Bahrain’s expatriate community (be they Britons, Americans, Indians or Filipinos) is not known for its intellectuality and mundane conversation takes centre-stage with alarming regularity. In Mumbai I hoped to find exciting conversation and prodigious intelligence. I was wrong.

I have always believed in my amorality, although as I have grown older a large swarm of nihilistic bees have invaded my bonnet. In Bahrain, morals are discarded like used condoms; expats live the depraved life (or try their level best to) and the social judges hide their faces.

For all my intellectual elitism I have realised that on the island we formed a bond in our moral anarchy, and even though we didn’t spend evenings discussing Proust and Liebniz we were amassing life experience by the pint-full.

Men and women swapped tales as they did fluids...with an ease that came from familiarity. The barriers were smashed and the speed of descent into a carnal heaven became our totem.

Mumbai is different: conservatism rules the day and the youth have little or no experience outside the box of religious and social dogma. So while one can easily find someone with whom to expound on Cartesian geometry and Empiricism, you’d be hard-pressed to find a loose-moralled, non-judgmental person with a lust for life.

One slip into the amoral thought process and the stares are withering. I have managed to keep to myself in order to prevent myself being labeled evil incarnate.

I miss my friends in Bahrain, not out of any love for humanity, but due to a yearning for simpler times, when you could say and do whatever you chose without running the risk of being made a pariah.

The third reason was to further the cause of my journalism career. And in that respect I am happy to add that I have found a newspaper I enjoy reading and working on (I, however, do wonder how long it will be before my trademark predilection for boredom sets in).

And so we come to the most important question of all: did I make the right decision? Yes and no.

Yes because I have a job with a future (in Bahrain the room for professional growth was fast-running out) and it’s good to be back among the books.

No because the city will kill me, if not with its congestion then with its oppressive conservatism, lack of global perspective and at times Neanderthal outlook on life and its issues.

And then there’s the lifestyle change: I have to adapt to moving to a poky house after the large one in Bahrain, and the fact that, contrary to popular belief, money goes a longer way on the desert island.

But the bed has been laid and I intend to sleep in it, for a while at least. If it turns out that I have made a mistake then I have to consider that I might have to sacrifice my career for an easier life and head back to the Mideast (or somewhere else).

If that day comes I will do it rather sheepishly, because when the dust settles the only truth left standing may be that I simply couldn’t hack it in Mumbai. And that’s not something I want on my tombstone.