Yesterday, as we flew from Dubai to New Delhi, the Arab world changed.
As we flew, I was thinking about the conversations we'd had on Dubai's Metro.
When we boarded, a young man jumped up and offered me his seat. I looked up at him and asked "Do I look that old?" Laughing, he demurred, and of course we fell into conversation with him. He was Egyptian, from Alexandria, so of course was watching evens in Cairo with even more interest than we. Like all of the people we met in Dubai, he was a guest worker, trained as a lawyer, but working in the hotel industry.
To finally expunge my nagging jet lag, I had a message after we returned to the hotel. As I drank a post-treatment cup of herbal tea, I spoke to the woman seated next to me, who it turned out was Saudi. Our voices tinged with emotion we talked about our hopes and fears for the people of Egypt. "We don't know what to pray for," she confided and I concurred.
Thursday night we waited with the Arab world to hear what Mubarak would say, and groaned with impatience, and fell asleep in hope and fear.
This morning we awoke to the news that Mubarak had fled to his summer villa and the Swiss banks had frozen his assets. We are in another world now, that of Northern India. Today we will visit Humayun's Tomb, Hasht Basht, Eight Paradises, the marvel of Arab mathematically derived architecture and garden design from the era which say Islamic rulers coming from the west rule various regions of India with varying degrees to tolerance and reliance on their Hindu subjects. More recently, Hindu nationalists were incensed that it was the only site US Pres. Obama saw when he visited.
I'm the sentimental old cold war orientalist who wonders if everything has to be black or white, ready for democracy or not, rich or poor, modern or ancient?
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