Like many of the guests who frequent Asharq al-Awsat, Anas was receiving treatment at a medical centre nearby. Over the past several years, Sarita Vihar has become a hub for medical tourists from all over the world, especially West Asia, who come to receive affordable medical treatment at private hospitals in the neighbourhood. While here, many patients from West Asia yearn for a taste of home, particularly because the food they are accustomed to is much less spicy than Indian food.
Asharq al-Awsat is on the fourth floor of Om Palace, a guest house in an area of Sarita Vihar dotted with lodging for medical tourists. An Arabic news channel plays on a small television. Abdullah used to work as a chef in Damascus, but he and his family fled the ongoing Syrian civil war in , leaving for Delhi.
He lost two brothers in the war. Two years after leaving Syria, Abdullah began work at Asharq al-Awsat. He was inspired to open the restaurant in , he told me, after he visited Om Palaceβwhich, at the time, had an Indian restaurant on the fourth floor. The owners agreed to rent out their kitchen, and Kamal opened his restaurant. This is not how you make kabsa! Abdullah then proceeded to show the cookβan Indian, and a personal friend of Kamalβhow to make chicken kabsa, a popular Arab dish.
Abdullah then, Kamal said, offered to help the restaurant in any way he could. For the past few months, however, business has been bad at Asharq al-Awsat. The walls had just been decorated with tiles inscribed with Arabic lettering. Some tables were draped with Persian rugs. Tarikh, like Abdullah, is a Syrian refugee. He fled Damascus with his family in , after both his home and the mobile-accessories shop he owned were destroyed in the war. It has not all been smooth sailing for Tarikh, though.
He speaks some English but no Hindi at all, except for the few functional words which help him communicate with autorickshaw drivers and customers. Nobody here understands me as they do back home. Abdullah has had more trouble adjusting to life in Delhi. He finds the language barrier even more difficult to deal with than Tarikh does, since he barely knows any English or Hindi.
