This is how I would tell my friends back home in India, Assam in particular, about my life in this beautiful adopted land of Bahrain.

Bahrain is a tiny island nation in the Middle East located just next to its big brother Saudi Arab. It’s a very small dot in the world map not readily visible to the eyes and to the uninitiated, mention of the Middle East, generally proves counterproductive to extract any sorts of interest or enthusiasm.

The first thought to cross their minds would be about the restrictive nature of life generally prevalent in this part of the world. However, about Bahrain, that can’t be any farther from the reality in ground. In fact, you are in for some rude shocks if you land up in Bahrain with that preconceived bleak notion about it in mind.

I will talk about it and few other things that I hold dear, in detail, in the next few paragraphs.

I came to Bahrain, to implement a project, developed out of our Bangalore office.

The first thing that I noticed and liked is the relaxed pace of life in general. The absence of, traffic snarls so usual of our cities back home, undue hurry and tension to get somewhere or get something done, eases up the mind so much; a big sigh of relief for me.

We were supposed to wrap our project up in few months and be back where we belong to. But, sometimes, things hardly go as planned. Problems, delays and then one thing led to another and here I am fifteen years, and still going strong.

To fill our otherwise free weekends with some activity, we formed a cricket club comprised mostly of Indians and a few Pakistanis and Srilankans.

Though I used to play a bit in Engineering College, it used to be with tennis ball, albeit the harder variety. But here, for the first time, I was playing with real ones. Till then, I used to think that cricketers make too much fuss about new ball and old ball for nothing. But, when I experienced firsthand, the amount of swing my untrained hand was getting out of the new ball and how the same ball behaves when the shine is gone, my doubts about whether all those debates are for real or not, vanished.

Unlike some of the Islamic counterparts, Kingdom of Bahrain does not impose the customary stricter norms on its people.

There isn’t any mandatory dress code that applies here. Expats and locals alike take advantage of the same. People who choose to be bold aren’t frowned upon by those who prefer to stick to the puritanical norms.

Expectedly Islam is the main religion here, but, all other major ones co-exist peacefully with full freedom to respective adherents to practice.

Women rights tend to define how progressive a society is and here too Bahrain scores handsomely. They are educated, form a major chunk of the workforce, drive, go out alone, pursue their academics, career, business, sports and hobbies.

In the space of art, culture, entertainment too we hardly miss anything. For example, we get to watch all Bollywood, Hollywood movies, live shows, performances, exhibitions by artists from all over the globe.

Food festivals, air show, F1 race, international design exhibition, garden show, you name it, we have it.

We celebrate all festivals and the fact that we are away from our homeland, makes us do it with even more fervour. Most of us never performed in life before coming to Bahrain, and obviously far from perfect, but, we make it up with great enthusiasm and most of all we enjoy to the fullest which is what matters at the end of the day.

Bahrain also has on offer, some really nice places to visit and activities to do for the tourist. Those who seek the night life, this place have some amazing hot and happening clubs with plenty on offer to lift up the spirit. You will also be spoilt for choices among many cool restaurants and wide varieties of cuisines, should you wish to eat out.

Bahrain is also a good sporting nation. Bahrainis are crazy for soccer and do have a good national team. It is also good in athletics and routinely claims medals at Olympics. Many clubs and organisations arrange full marathon, half marathon, aquathlon, triathlon, relay marathon, and many such events open to people in general.

All in all Bahrain has been a great place to live in and we hope it remains happy and prosperous for long time to come.