Let me share a wonderful experience I had while I was working in Saudi Arabia in the early 2000's. I was with a dairy company called Al Marai, doing extremely well and happy with life. In Saudi as you know, there were not much entertainment and I was leading a very monkish life when the satellite channels on TV happened to me.Even though I was working there for awhile then, it was only in that period I could afford to have a TV and a dish antenna without hurting the money I sent home to my parents every month. Till then, my imaginative world was the English books I have read and the English movies I have seen in India. The world outside and the people and their language and culture has always fascinated me. So naturally, you can guess, how happy and excited I was when the satellite channel offered me the whole new world of European TV.
I remember, some times I have spent my whole weekend just watching TV, the documentaries, serials, movies and news without ever being bored. I even tried to learn some new languages much to the ire of my colleagues who thought it was a glorious waste of time, I should be trying to pick up some new accounting qualification like ICMA, which the Irish company I was working for was encouraging all of us to do whole heartedly.
In one of the channels, I don't remember exactly which one Arte or TV5 or DW, HRT or the many Italian channels, in one of them they used to show a movie about Arabs or with some Arab back ground which I used to enjoy very much. Since I did not understand the language, I did not know what the movie was about, which language they were playing it in, the only thing I know was it has so much of stories within the movie in different cultural context and I liked it very much.
After my time was up in Saudi and during my rest of the travels, I kept searching for that movie, even in these later years, most of the art stuff which I have come across and learned about was basically from the search for this movie. Sadly, I never came across the movie, which was dear to me not only for the movie itself, but for the time of my life, which I used to have when both my parents were alive.
Surprisingly, can you believe, I stumbled on the very movie Yesterday while reading a blog www.atomiccaravan.blogspot.in
It is Paolo Pasoloni's "Arabian Nights".
:)
It also made me realise, I am way out of the main stream when it comes to keeping myself updated about the world I live in.
I remember, some times I have spent my whole weekend just watching TV, the documentaries, serials, movies and news without ever being bored. I even tried to learn some new languages much to the ire of my colleagues who thought it was a glorious waste of time, I should be trying to pick up some new accounting qualification like ICMA, which the Irish company I was working for was encouraging all of us to do whole heartedly.
In one of the channels, I don't remember exactly which one Arte or TV5 or DW, HRT or the many Italian channels, in one of them they used to show a movie about Arabs or with some Arab back ground which I used to enjoy very much. Since I did not understand the language, I did not know what the movie was about, which language they were playing it in, the only thing I know was it has so much of stories within the movie in different cultural context and I liked it very much.
After my time was up in Saudi and during my rest of the travels, I kept searching for that movie, even in these later years, most of the art stuff which I have come across and learned about was basically from the search for this movie. Sadly, I never came across the movie, which was dear to me not only for the movie itself, but for the time of my life, which I used to have when both my parents were alive.
Surprisingly, can you believe, I stumbled on the very movie Yesterday while reading a blog www.atomiccaravan.blogspot.in
It is Paolo Pasoloni's "Arabian Nights".
:)
It also made me realise, I am way out of the main stream when it comes to keeping myself updated about the world I live in.
