Finding contentment in the most unlikely places

Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim,
In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind.

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Thursday night, Joumjoum mall, in a place you might need to visit if you ever chance to be there.

Seated at the gate of the small, watery kingdom, the bright-eyed woman wastes no time. After giving me and my daughter a big smile, welcoming us into the white-tiled space, she leaps up from the plastic seat she's occupied for just a few minutes and starts mopping up the water dripping off the counters with a vigour that is admirable.

"You from Syria/Palestine/ Jordan?" she asks in confident Arabic, dropping the names of neighbouring countries in quick succession as she peers at my white skin, now apparent after the niqab is brought down. Her own brown skin, nose ring, shiny black hair speak of Pakistan to me. To that guess, she corrects me.

"No, India!" she smiles happily, still mopping up.

She scowls for an instant at the young girl standing guard at the only stall, pointing to the line-up that is forming under white fluroscent lights. "She just went in," replies the thin girl, a black abaya draped over a neon green shirt and a pair of jeans.

Sunshine again floods the woman's face as she bustles about. Opening a large cabinet with flourish, she hands out what I have come to covet whenever entering such spaces -- tissue paper.

When the door emerges, she swoops in front of the woman who is about to enter, clucking: "wait, wait". She sprays the seat with the trusty nozzle attached to a tube emerging form the wall that should be standard in every such location in the world. The floor is mopped again, and the waiting entrant is finally allowed an audience in the Royal Court.

It is half an hour before my daughter and me emerge from this space. Confined though it is, the Indian woman's happiness is contagious.

"How many children?" she had asked, pointing to Fatima who was playing with me in the mirror. "Two, " I reply. "Yes, I, two boys." she beams.

"I, very happy. Good company," she says, motioning to something atop the pocket of her pale blue shirt, left untucked over black, generous pants.

"How old are your children," I ask, but she thinks I want to know how long she's worked here.

"Six years. Yes, very happy, thanks to God, thanks to God," she laughs, looking upwards several times, as she tucks her black curls beneath the black headscarf loosely tied around her head.

She shakes her head firmly, smile still on her bright face, when I try to offer her money as a way to thank her for cheering up a standard visit, where people in her place usually remain seated as they watch the ladies and children go by, only sometimes offering a tip on the best stall to try, or grudgingly offering some tissue paper and yet who still seem miffed if you don't offer them a tip in return for their "help".

I press the bills into her hand, glad to offer a small reward to this contented soul in a land where people are usually quick to complain - even us.

"Oh, masha'Allah," she beams again at me. "Thanks to God."