Cairo
Cairo, the capital of Egypt, has 20 million people spread over 600 square miles. Founded over a thousand years ago during the Fatimid dynasty, it is historically rich and strategically important. But for me Cairo is also the home of the grand storyteller Naguib Mahfouz who deftly weaved tales of this intricate city in his Cairo Trilogy.
On a short visit to Cairo with family, I alternate between the two facets of this great city: immersing myself in the present while marvelling at its history.
Walking through the older Cairo neighbourhoods, where neighbours smoke hookahs around a cafe table, children play on the narrow streets on their way to school and housewives negotiate the price of meat with the butcher, something seems very familiar. This could very well be one of the mahallas (neighbourhoods) of old Dhaka.
But only a short taxi ride away is a fort on top of a hill: the massive Citadel, build by none other than the great Salahuddin. We reach here in late afternoon and enjoy beautiful views of the city in the setting sun. Also on the hill is the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, which looks like the mosques of Istanbul from the outside. In the cavernous interior, stained glass filters the sun's rays into a multitude of colours.
If the Citadel is grand, Tahrir Square is anti-climactic. The scene of recent uprisings appears to be nothing more than a busy traffic roundabout. I am reminded of foreign visitors when I take them to Shahid Minar: they understand my words, but looking at their faces I can see them struggling to fathom its significance.
One afternoon my son leads us to another Cairo landmark: Koshary Abo Tarek. This low-profile restaurant serves koshary, a dish made of lentils, rice and small elbow macaroni, flavoured by spices and topped off with browned shallots. The waiter is used to tourists. He shows us how to blend the sauces, lemon juice and garlic with the dish. Taking a cash advance from every table before the meal, he relies on a prodigious memory to calculate the total and return exact change afterwards. The koshary is delicious, filling and inexpensive (about BDT 40.)
Another time we visit the Naguib Mahfouz Cafe in the middle of Khan al Khalili, the great souk of Cairo. We sip tea, coffee and sahleb while well-heeled Cairenes – men and women - around us smoke hookahs and talk boisterously. I can't recall whether Mahfouz frequented this cafe, but his favourite hangouts included the Ali Baba Cafe and the Orabi Coffee Shop, both of which appear closed.
There are numerous references to birds and animals among the artefacts in the Egyptian Museum, but in today's Cairo, the cat is king. There are cats of every shape, size and stripe, often luxuriating in the attention showered upon them. Among birds I see Pied Crows, White Wagtails, Sparrows and the beautiful red Laughing Dove.
Cairenes are polite and smooth to a fault with the exception of a taxi driver we had the misfortune to hire. He “understands what he understands,” taking us to the wrong hotel and losing his way again and again until, alarmed at the prospect of missing our flight, we release him and find another taxi.
I try to imagine life in this city whose air has a whiff of lost grandeur, whose people have unlimited charm and whose madness belies its method. Not my cup of tea, but I feel fortunate to have made its acquaintance.
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