Author: Javed A. Khan
Two years ago, I, took, a tough decision for me - is renovating my home in hometown and living the good life. I searched and found that almost seven million expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia (most of them from the Indian sub-continent) is the promise of huge financial gain.
I set out for Saudi Arabia in 2008 December, hoping to build a sufficient nest egg to extend our home in my Hometown; while there isn't a lot of money offered still, it wasn’t a bad idea for at least one or one and half years. Benefits were Tax-free Systems and non existence of money eater things. With no married life and few responsibilities that was the most extraordinary period of earning and saving.
Aside from the financial rewards, what my Indian friends have always been most curious about is the quality of life that expats enjoy in Saudi Arabia. The first thing to be said is that the kingdom is very different to Dubai, the expat playground of the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi calendar does not acknowledge Holi , Diwali or Dushera not even lohri or any Indian festival, so you take your annual leave to fit in with Ramadan and hajj – Apart from Eid none of the festivals are part of the company leave entitlement. I made no complaint about this - we were well briefed by my company, few things I have been warned and that: not to bring pork, pornography, Bibles, Taveezes, bracelets, crucifixes and the obvious ingredients of home-made alcohol into the country did not come as a surprise.
Within our company Villa, I enjoyed spacious, furnished and air-conditioned rooms, Western dress codes mostly formals and casuals on Wednesday, gymnasium, satellite TV, internet access, European, Arabic, Pakistani and Indian-style foodstuffs and,
Every aspect of the nation's business life is circumscribed by a strict adherence to the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. During the holy month of Ramadan, when the population abstains from eating, drinking or smoking until the sundown prayer, most shops and all restaurants and cafés are closed during daylight hours. Only hospitals and veterinary clinics have a dispensation to remain open during prayers.
A prayer schedule in one's pocket is possibly more essential to Saudi life than a credit card. I installed the adhan software as the most appropriate souvenir .You must have to keep the track of the prayers. Time it badly and you could be standing in the supermarket with a trolley full of frozen peas when the lights go out and the checkouts close.
For me, the contrast between Indian life and the Saudi world is visibly more stark than I expected after reading all the articles before getting down here when I got my confirmation for Riyadh. First, in public, one is required to wear a dress which can cover you the most for both women and men, Mens are not allowed to wear shorts or half pants on the streets, for women’s a black, cloak-like affair called the abaya, which masks any semblance of the female form from male onlookers practically good things when you really want to avoid anybody’s glance on you. In the supremely strict environment of the capital, Riyadh, this has always been a requirement but it only became so in the relatively more cosmopolitan conditions of the eastern province in the fallout from the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
I arrived into the new world order and never thought to defy it. Running the gauntlet of the mutawa'a, the self-appointed religious policemen who roam public places to arrest them to not to pray at prayers time and looking for inappropriately dressed males ,females of all races to admonish and threaten with sticks and arrest, did not seem worth the hassle. In certain areas of Riyadh and Jeddah, and particularly after Friday prayers
The dress code has its uses for females I thought, hiding a bad hair day in the heat or concealing a full-blown pregnancy. And never let it be said that there is no hierarchy of fashion: catch any well-to-do Saudi woman with a good figure to show off and you will notice that her abaya has a cut that is a touch more body-skimming than is usual, the cloth will be silk and embroidered and, yes, her heels will be vertiginous and her bag genuine Gucci. Males will be all same dressed with big white clothes on them with three holes two for their hands and one for their head.
You can trust the droves of young Saudi males who gawp their way around the crowded shopping malls on a Thursday night (the Muslim weekend) to go completely wild in appreciation. This is Saturday night fever, Saudi-style, and the dating game is played out with mobile phones. The boy - who hasn't come to the mall to shop - drops his number into her open Gucci bag when the mutawa'a isn’t looking. For public entertainment in a land that forbids all contact between the sexes of different families, this is as good as it gets.
The second most visible symbol of the differences between the Middle East states is that, in Saudi Arabia, a woman may not legally drive a car but a child of 10 year can drive a GMC. An Arab News article during my time in the kingdom reported that 50 per cent of the nation's road accidents were attributable to underage drivers, which, for non-drivers, is some feat and probably goes to show the level of subterfuge the male population must employ to cover its pride. A study of this phenomenon by me from a snip of news paper while having my Samosa in the canteen concluded that women routinely argued with their husbands or demanded that they stop suddenly at the sight of a nice-looking dress in a shop window, and so caused pile-ups.
Any woman who wishes to travel outside a without her male escort (her husband), must therefore order a taxi from a firm that is designated for female use; they usually come with blacked-out windows and a polite Asian driver (mostly a Bengali or Pakistani).
The alternative is to use your colleagues or your own Car, in some part of Jeddah buses are also available which locally called Hafla, which are hot and uncomfortable and run only from the some
The third crucial factor defining life in the kingdom for all is the public segregation between sexes , preventing opposite sexes from having any direct contact with males/female in the workplace, market, malls and almost everywhere .This results in the (female) Gulf editor of Arab News having to work from home rather than in the newsroom, and all shops and businesses (beyond the most exclusive and inaccessible ladies' centers of fashion and beauty, designed for the wealthiest Saudis) being staffed by men.
Usually, the shop assistants are quite liberal and friendly Asian expats rather than Saudis, but most garment shops and malls don’t allow you to try the cloths, they don’t have fitting rooms at all. So, if you don't know your size before you go into a shop, don't even bother looking. You will not be permitted to try the thing on in any case, and the assistant risks his job if he lets you head off to the look with it and the mutawa'a are in that mall.
All of these constraints should not detract from one very favorable difference between Saudi and Indian life. The child in Saudi society can do no wrong, which, for any parent who has ever wrestled with a toddler having a full-on tantrum in a supermarket, is a philosophy that can be sorely tested.
As a Indian man with free heart I notices I big difference and treatment from Saudis for british’s, I have been stopped many times in front of a Shopping mall gate because I was a young boy. But take a child with you, and the Arab world respects you instinctively. Take a male child with fair hair and you are onto a winner. British’s are having a good life with all amenities and lavishness and most of the white’s are who wants’ to slash down their debts with Saudi’s tax free money.
I am painfully aware that it is not a cultural nicety I can expect an al-Qaida sympathizer or an Pakistani who wants to flag Lal Quila to observe, but I felt safer in Saudi Arabia as a mother than I did in my home town, and it is a memory I shall carry with me long after the dust of the kingdom.
I have friends who use cheap calling cards and voip services to save their marriages, I observed people standing in lines of moneygram services. I observed them making way for Saudis and British people while on walk. I also saw them being afraid and unsecure while out. They miss everything they lost everything, they lost their confidence their smiles and moreover their youth but still they have a relief on their faces for serving their families and giving them light after burning their selves.
I salute every expatriate serving their families for their good life.
Javed A. Khan
