RIYADH, 11 April 2004 — The signboards say it all. All over the capital, subcontinental enclaves have sprung up, catering to the multifarious needs of communities from the Indian state of Kerala, from Pakistan, from Bangladesh.
At the shopping center in Hai Al-Wazarah — home to a large number of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi expatriates — advertisements and signboards are in Hindi, Malayalam and Urdu, and above all in Bengali.
“Most of the Bengali customers in the area include unskilled workers who can read and understand only Bengali. Therefore it makes sense to advertise our products and services in our own language,” said Inamul Haque, a Bangladeshi shopkeeper in the Hai Al-Wazarat.
Expatriates from the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, including also Sri Lankans, were estimated at 4.5 million, a majority of them concentrated in Riyadh.
The Hai Al-Wazarat area is busy till midnight, and shops sell everything from the food of the various regions to herbal medicines. It is studded with restaurants serving typical dishes from the various Indian, Pakistani and Bengali states.
“Most of my customers know English, but I have to print a few words in the native language so that people from my part of the world are attracted toward my shop,” another shopkeeper said.
Despite Saudization of salesmen in vegetable and fruit shops, Bangladeshi expatriates openly sell vegetables and fruit at prices much lower than the regular market prices at a street popularly known as the Bangla Bazaar.
Most of these items are directly imported from Asian countries and passed on to the vendors without a middleman. A coconut sells for a s little as SR4, scraped within minutes for the convenience of customers.
The clinics too are manned by physicians from South Asian countries, and charges are very attractive.
A blood test, usually SR25, is available here at a modest SR10, while the consultation fee is between SR20 and SR30.
The atmosphere of the area clearly makes expatriates feel at home on foreign soil, and in the process provides an object lesson in peaceful coexistence for the subcontinent.
