 |
Click image to view larger version |
one evening in the HILLAT
written and photographed by PINAKI CHAKRAVARTY
“Life revolves around getting to work, enjoying a late
afternoon siesta and, if you’re able-bodied, football”
Yaqoub Abdul Rahim al Balushi sits near the goalpost on three flea-eaten carpets, as he has done every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening for the past 45 years. The carpets look like they haven’t been changed either. It is half past five in the evening and everyone, from the sheikh whose mansion towers over the field to Yaqoub’s friends, are still asleep. Welcome to Hillat Sheikh, a neighbourhood of Muscat tucked away so deep its back alleys end in mountains, and its football field leads to a short-lived wadi.
Yaqoub is middle-aged and had played football here when he was a kid, with his friends who will join him on the carpet for yet another evening of conversation. Time is like a re-enactment in the confines of Hillat Sheikh, bouncing around between houses and wadi walls. Yaqoub’s son is now dribbling the ball along with a few others, and if we had come a few generations ago you could have bet that the boy would be sitting on those carpets when he grew up, looking over his children and talking of the old days. Now, though, nothing is certain, for the hillat is packed with houses, and there’s nowhere to expand. The young people get married and leave for open space, villas and children, choosing areas like Ma’abela instead. Yaqoub isn’t budging, and he hopes his son will never move out. “This hillat is our home, and all the residents are like one big family. We celebrate marriages together, and collectively mourn for our dead.”
“Most residents are Balushi, and almost every family used to be involved in making kummahs, the cap worn by Omani men. Both my father and grandfather made them. But our families left the business when competition grew stiff with cheaper alternatives being injected into the market, and better jobs became available, both in the ministries and in the private sector. No one here makes caps anymore.” Instead, life revolves around getting to work, enjoying a late afternoon siesta and, if you’re able-bodied, football.
Hillat Sheikh is ancient, its graveyards testament to that. And behind a hill of rubble and gravestones, hidden from view, are the hillat’s most intriguing secrets: six pillars made of that old earthen mix called sarooj, one row of three a little higher than the other. And bang in the middle of a graveyard. Who built them, why are they here and how old are they? No one in the hillat could give us an answer, although there are no shortage of stories, some of which can’t be repeated here. What you can see are the two old wells, Ahmer and Abyad, although, as Yaqoub says, “one of them still had a bit of water in it, until the children filled it in with stones.” And he cracks into a big toothed grin and leans back in his jalabiyah, stretching over the three carpets.
Not everyone has been here this long, although Mohammed Shafiq can give any of the original residents a run for their money. Like many here, his family is originally from Pakistan, and in this family’s case, Islamabad. His father left home for Oman more than 30 years ago, and hasn’t budged since. Instead, he became a priest in the mosque of the hillat, and brought up Mohammed to become one too. Together, father and son lead prayers in the neighbourhood. “There was no road here in those days, and outsiders were scared to enter the neighbourhood. But everything changed when the road came a decade ago.” |
)
