‘Aur Bhaijaan Kaise Hai’
This was during my recent trip to Istanbul. It was Saturday night, I came late to my hotel and was a bit hungry. So i went around in the neighbourhood looking for restaurants. I found this Pide shop, Pide is a turkish dish, a flat bread with toppings baked in a brick oven. I went inside and was looking for some vegetarian options, trying to converse with the waiter in little bit of english-turkish using some translator. That’s when someone said ‘Aur Bhaijaan Kaise Hai’.
My eyes, with a gleam of excitement, shifted towards the source of voice and there was this young man standing next to a Brick Oven, baking some fresh Pide. This was my 4th day in this country, i had been talking to people in English or Turkish(which is, the other guy is speaking in Turkish and I’m using translators to converse back). So hearing Hindi I excitedly went to that person and we started talking.
Meet Ahsaan,
Ahsaan is from Afghanistan and he knows Hindi. He works as a chef at a Pide restaurant. He’s a big Bollywood fan, learned Hindi just so that he can watch Bollywood movies, his favourite movie being Dangal. He moved to turkey 8 years ago. He has a family of 10 back in Afghanistan and he supports them by working here and sending money back home. He says ‘Bhaijaan, mei yaha thoda kumi mei rehlu, par iss tarah se ghar ke 10 log acche se rehte hai’. So he’s compromising all the comforts of life to ensure the survival of his family.
Ahsaan has few relatives in India and wishes to visit India some day. He told me about the harsh journeys they have to undergo to reach other countries for work. As I told him I had come from London, he said he has some friends there too, so 4 of his friends got into a makeshift boat and tried to cross the sea, they were travelling and it had been few days and they could see no landmass. Totally clueless and discouraged they thought they would die at Sea until they saw the British Flag(my theory is, they were trying to cross the English Channel) and that’s how they reached England.
I asked Ahsaan does he has a partner here in Istanbul or a wife back home. His face lit up with a bright smile and he told me that he’s engaged to a girl back in Afghanistan, his family had arranged the engagement and now when he goes back(which he’s unsure of when), they’ll get married. They were engaged at least 8 years back and are now waiting for each other hoping to meet someday(real life Veer-Zara). He baked one of the best Pide’s I ever had, and when it was time to pay the bill he was adamant that I don’t pay saying, ‘Bhaijaan aap toh Mehmaan hai, aapse paise kaise le skte hai’(I did pay and tip him well but this gesture in a random restaurant in a random country felt good).
It makes travelling all the more satiating when you meet random strangers who touch your life and leave a happy memory.
