The sound of theTram

Amidst the excitement of what has been happening in Egypt for the last eighteen days I have been garnering material to teach myself the most important lessons of life. There was a lot of activity. First the disbelieve that anything important would come out of the movement, then the move to the guest house for a week not so much because we felt unsafe but to save Junu the forty five minutes drive to and fro from the work place and of course to appease the apprehensions of the two sets of parents back in India!Next was coming back home and waiting for something to happen and then the wonder and excitement of a historic moment.

As I have mentioned in my other blog post that I had been a witness to the violence that preceded the revolution, what I had not mentioned is that I was on a darkened balcony of our tenth floor apartment!The couple of days that followed is when I discovered that one can live without the internet (At that time I felt frustrated :))
In fact I used to spend watching TV and knitting and keep my hands occupied!(My hands were missing the keyboard)Normally the family has fun spending their lives in front of their own private LCD screens!But now Mubarak made sure we sat together in front of a common LCD and did things together! We discussed History, Politics and aired and argued for our views and did what I as a pre-internet era child used to do! We even had cups of tea with Mickey (She got out of drinking her two cups of milk daily!) I jumped every time the bell rang; peered through the keyhole only to see either our maid or the laundry man outside!

When we decided to shift to the guest house till all was back to normal, I didn't want to leave my sea view and naturally lighted apartment. It was a different experience in the guest house- I finished a lot of my knitting; read books; met a lot of people; aired my views and DID NOT COOK! quite a good holiday in fact. By the end of the week I wanted to cook! ( I cannot believe it even now!)

We were soon back home; I luxuriated in my own space for the first half an hour; If I had been a dog I would have rolled on the floor! After that we went for a small walk to San Stefano to get Mickey a Mac D! She was desperate for something non-veg after a week of vegetarian food! The curfew was set to start at seven and it was already six twenty! So we rushed to get it and managed to do so! There was ten minutes left as we approached the tram line and the tram chugged past us slowly and I was impatient to be back before the dead line.The tram was full of people all trying to be back before the time limit and it stopped let a car pass and I

was already jumping out of my skin!

When we did reach home with minutes to spare I realized that the tram I was so irritated with had been a symbol of normalcy in my mind all through the days of revolution. I remember asking Junu in the initial days whether the tram was running, if it was then my mind was at peace!

When the traffic had stopped for the six seven days I could hear the sound of the sea from my bedroom and used to feel contented but it is the sound of the tram that goes unfailingly by at different times of the day that gives me the satisfaction that "the sky is blue;God is smiling; everything is all right with the world!"