Down By The River Nile
June 11, 2008 by haziamyperspective
A lot had been said and written about The River Nile. And during my recent trip to Egypt, it was one the main things I’d looked forward to. After the international exhibition, I changed hotel and moved into a colleague’s room at Sofitel Al-Gazerah, strategically located at the bank of the river. Despite the exhaustion, I stood on the balcony on my 1st night and stared at the tranquil water. I basked in its’ presence. The next morning and the morning after, I had breakfast at the coffee house and sat on the outside terrace, it was really close to the river.
The things that I heard were not exaggerated. The river did have a captivating effect.
I recalled the bird eye’s shots of the river taken from a plane that ‘Ad’ had sent me. Middle East / Africa was his playground, a setting that he built his fictional life against. During a peaceful dinner cruise by the river on my last night in Cairo, I sat next to the Malay trade commissioner in charge of Africa. He travels frequently to Sudan, Libya, Eqypt, etc. ‘Ad’ may had known this guy and stolen his life story and then, claimed it as his own. Anyway, I felt that by the end of the trip, I have advanced to a different level of this episode altogether. After all, it has been more than a year since he ‘died’.
The river inspired the following poem:
Down By The River Nile
Powerful, alive, peaceful
Flowing tones of changing blues and greens
Never did I imagine finally being here for the first time
Without you by my side
I felt like I was acting out the scenes of your make-belief life
No longer the passive viewer
Merely watching your exciting days through words and pictures on the screen
Now the table had been turned and our places… switched
I became the star actor
And your presence had been reduced to a lifeless shadow
Lingering in the background of my life…
