Spice of Life The man would make an admirable Hercule Poirot with his bald, perfectly egg shaped head and a neat, pencil thin moustache. He stands behind the glass counter, a little too stopped for his age, his pink face scrunched in tiny parallel lines of wrinkles, as he carefully fans a large lump of coal placed inside a little clay incense burner. The burner is shaped exactly like Alladin’s lamp. When the man is satisfied that the coal is alight, he carefully places a tiny milky crystal of Oud on it with a pair of tweezers. Within seconds, the store is filled with a smoky, cloying fragrance. I am inside Dubai’s famous Spice Souk, a cool, dark warren of shops set deep inside a covered market. The roof is made of of wooden rafters, rough and weathered like the faces of the sellers of the spices. Elegant pointed arches span the many entrances of the souk. The spice souk is a tangle of dimly lit narrow lanes that open to wide, sun drenched, dizzyingly bright courtyards every once in a while. The operative word at the Spice Souk is chivalry! Old-fashioned, wholesome, slightly theatrical, chivalry. Most of the spice trade here is controlled by Iranis. The spice sellers are always ready with a multi-lingual performance for the benefit of the visiting tourists. Today, my camera, dark glasses and a linen sun dress has misled them! Hercule Poirot makes his move in Spanish! ‘Como esta? De donde eres’? He asks me, smiling broadly. I decide to play along. ‘Muy bien, gracias. Y usted’? I reply politely, feigning my best Spanish accent. Bien, bien, beams Poirot. He continues speaking to me in broken, but perfectly understandable Spanish, rattling of the names of the spices in Spanish, pointing to each sack. Mountains of spices are arranged on shelves outside the shop. Jute sacks are bursting with colors, light blue dried lavender, wine red piles of dried roses, crystals of Oud the colour of freshly made ghee, heaps of dried lemons looking like ping-pong balls, big red stacks of dried chillies, fat ivory hearts of garlic cloves sliced open and dried, perfectly curled sticks of cinnamon, plump pods of cardamoms, soap bar sized chunks of indigo..the place is a feast for the olfactory senses. ‘Quiere’? ‘Do you want lavender’? Asks the man, thrusting a handful of lavender flowers in my face. I bent down slightly to smell them. A subtle fragrance permeates all my senses, as light and frothy as butter kept out in the sun for too long! ‘Bebe el te. Muy bien, para el salud’, ‘drink the tea, very good for health’, he insists. I succumb to the smell and buy five dirhams worth of dried lavender. I know I am grossly overpaying, but hey, I am still ‘in-character’ as a Spanish tourist. The last time I was here, I was in my hard nosed desi avatar. Clad in a simple salwar kurta, minus the dark glasses and the camera. Most of the sellers of the spices had ignored me then. Last time I was here, aggressive street sellers had tried their best to sell me fake Fendi handbags! What a difference external appearances can make! - Shefali Vaidya
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:33:15 +0000
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