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Ali Azam and I do not share the same taste in music. Not that it matters to him. With a beaming smile on his chubby red-cheeked face, he beats time enthusiastically on the sheepskin covered dashboard of the solid Toyota Land Cruiser. I am resigned to listening to the throaty warbling of Arabic songs forever, so it seems.

My family and I are on a ziayarat or pilgrimage to Yemen, with which Dawoodi Bohras have spiritual links. Alibhai came into our lives at the start of the trip as our designated driver. Apple cheeks not withstanding he was a little dictator. He admonished us on the quantity of our luggage and once we set off, refused to stop until we reached our destination. He was hardest on my mother-in-law, who sat in the front seat. “Mummy,” he commanded, “you not sleep, or I feel sleepy!”, words that left her bleary-eyed for the rest of the trip — and tone deaf as he turned up the volume of his favourite music, also ostensibly to keep awake!

In due course however, he unbent as his cultural pride got the better of him “Try, try, Yemani,” he would urge as he quickly became our guide to all things Yemani.
Miles fly by as we cross the fertile valley from Sanaa to Zi Jibla, capital of the vast kingdom of Arwa Queen also known as the Queen of Sheba. From there to the Red Sea coast it is a flat featureless desert. We pass small-town markets that could well be in small-town India. But there were also sandy deserts with camel herds and sandstorms; and sad to say vast open stretches littered with every colour of plastic. “Yemen’s shame,” nods Alibhai sadly.

The roads are lined with dhaba-like eateries. In the city, Alibhai would let us alight, pick our drink, share his snack. But out in the villages, he wags his chubby finger and refuses to let me out. “No, no, only men”, he would say to my husband.It’s easy to see similarities with our North-Indian dhabas. Every one of them had a bhatti where they cooked large qoobs similar to but flakier than our rotis. In vast “degs” dug into the ground were meats cooked with rice echoing the flavours of biryani.

Ascending the mountains from the tropical slopes rich with mango groves along the Red Sea we climbed into another world. Nothing prepares you for the stark vast vistas of Yemen’s mountainous north. Dry and sparsely populated, the mountains occasionally reveal fortress-like squat mud buildings impossibly on high, inaccessible precipices.
Haras is fast becoming an international destination for adventure sports such as paragliding, but for me it meant warm people and many cups of kawah (sweet black coffee). Off the main roads down impossibly steep dirt roads we take a first hand look at a village. Surrounded by plantations of coffee and kat (a tobacco-like leaf) are mud houses with exquisite detailing in white and typical multicoloured windows. Although military presence is omnipresent in Yemen, the local people are happy to welcome us into their homes and delighted if our boys can join in a game of street soccer.

The average Yemani is nothing if not a very good businessman. In old town Sanaa, with it winding alleys and gorgeous mosques, we haggled over brightly coloured African baskets. “For you,” said the smiling vendour, “I give for 1000 Yemani”. I say, “No I have only 500.” “For you” he begins again and I wait with bated breath, “I give for 1000 Yemani” And so it went on until he wore me out and I bought the damn thing at his price!

Here too, the mounds of spices made me nostalgic for home and I bought a few grams of a small dry yellow chilli used often in Yemani food. Although I still haven’t figured out what to do with it, it has a daffodil-like symbolism for me, flashing upon my inward eye images of a simple pilgrimage that turned out to be an adventure sport.