Tryst with the Tahreer

Turnip seller in the streets of coptic Cairo

Khubs(Rotis) being sold in Cairo market

Protesters in Tahreer square at night

Graffiti on Cairo walls

Aditya Birla in Alexandria

Tahrir Square in the morning

The Great Sphinx

Pyramids of Giza

Egyptian Dish Koshary in all its grandeur

Yes, you heard or rather read right. Last week we were in Egypt on a few days break. Though apprehensive in the beginning, we were convinced by our Egyptian colleagues and their families living in Cairo that it was indeed safe to travel to Cairo.

Whatever we had hitherto read, heard or researched about this largest and most populated city of the Arab world, does not do justice to what the city actually is. It has a lot more to it than just the famous pyramids. It is in some ways a city of contradictions, as much as it is a seat of civilization, which could arguably be the oldest known to mankind.

The first among these juxtapositions, is its transport system. It has one of the most notorious traffic. Traffic in Cairo is excruciatingly slow, so much so that it makes you want to tear your hair out at times and is a real test of patience. On the other hand it has a well organized metro system which takes you around the city in no time. Maximum running time between stations is hardly more than a couple of minutes. The best part is its price. You can travel all you want without exiting the station, for just one Egyptian Pound. The trucks on the roads have horns just like the ones we have back home. Made me kind of nostalgic every time I heard someone honking……
There are donkey carts rubbing shoulders with BMWs and Mercs. And there are lots and lots of Vespa scooters. Reminded me when I used ride my Dad’s as a kid. Makes me wonder why Bajaj hasn’t tapped this market yet…………..
And they sell about anything and everything, from on the go breakfast to auto parts, from the back of pick-up vans parked in the by-lanes.

While the world is hustling and busy on the main roads, the side walks are relatively laid back. Elderly men who have done that and been there in their prime, sit back and watch the world go by, probably reminiscing their good old days, with their steaming cup of tea and ‘sheesha’ or ‘hubbly-bubbly’, a close cousin of our desi ‘hookaah’.

Our hotel was a stone’s throw away from the Tahreer and we did get to see some part of the action. Processions and protests, though all of it is just localized in and around Tahreer. For the rest of the city it is business as usual. When we asked our guide to the pyramids why the Egyptians raised a revolution, he answered, ‘because Hosni Mubarak took all our money and did not do anything for the country’. And there was wide spread corruption in his regime. They feel democracy will solve all their problems. And I feel really sorry for them. I did not have the heart to break his. He needed to take a look at The Democratic Republic of India and its record of corruption in the last year. The very next day we travelled to Alexandria with another guide and we asked him why the people were still protesting in the Tahreer even after Mubarak is gone and elections were being held. He said, because the Egyptian people were crazy by nature. Later on we saw a very interesting take on this situation at the Cairo Airport. A quote by the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi read ‘The Egyptians are doing nothing new, they are creating history yet again.’


The bazaars are really crazy. There is one thing I really envy about Egyptian ladies. Their mothers might never have given them grief about making perfectly round ‘rotis’ or ‘khubs’ as it is called in the Arab world. The bazaars sell the ‘khubs’ on the roadsides. Or as we saw in Alexandria, ladies were getting together in the community ‘tandoors’, where they just give the tandoor owner the dough. And the ladies catch up on their gossip while waiting for their ‘khubs’ to be prepared.

The old city has an amalgamation of Islamic and colonial style buildings nestled against each other, so many of them still inhabited. Though predominantly Islamic, Cairo has its fair share of churches and really beautiful ones , especially in an area referred to as Coptic Cairo. Not many people know that the largest population of Coptic Christians, live in the Arab world. Almost all inscriptions inside the church walls are in Arabic, sometimes even using words that Muslims usually use. And they refer to God as Allah. Not surprising, given that both are offshoots of the Abrahamic faith. Now when nationalism is at its peak in Egypt, one popular song blaring through the FM when roughly translated says ‘you are Muslim, you are Christian,”kullu akhwaan, ana misri” meaning "we are all brothers, I’m Egyptian". Hope all Egyptians hold that thought and come out victorious of their troubled times to see better, more prosperous times.