Arabian nights

I met Sweetie, a Filipina housemaid, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) on a dating app. Throughout the call, she kept hiding from her madam in the kitchen

I had always thought the Middle East (West Asia) had tough laws on online dating. Here's what I found on my smartphone.

I logged on to SinglesAroundMe, an app that helps you locate partners across the world. I typed in Dubai, and Filipinas after Filipinas filled my screen. And, no matter which West Asian location I put - Medina, Mecca, Doha - the app kept returning to girls from the Philippines, based in the Gulf.

So, I met Sweetie, a Filipina housemaid, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) on the app. We traded Skype IDs and started a video session. Throughout the call, she kept hiding from her madam in the kitchen. In the dim light of the Gulf evening, I could only make out her love-arrow tattoo below her neck, and her colourful, Korea-Pop hair.

Sweetie said it was her second time on the app. The first time, she had met an Indian called Faheem from 'Kairala' (Kerala). At this point, she broke down. Sobbing, she told me how Faheem had made many promises, but kept none. Worse, he didn't even bother to call her once he left Saudi. The only gift he gave - a cheap 'Kairala' oil bottle - filled her with scents of his memories.

Before I could even comfort her, she cut me off, on hearing her madam's footsteps.

Sweetie called in an hour later.

This time on Skype, she had brought along a fellow Filipina housemaid. Both eyed me, and burst out laughing. "Red shirt, spectacles," they chattered. "He is box office!" the fellow housemaid declared.

She meant I was handsome.

This might look like a game, but it is not. Remember: I was a foreign man in the Gulf, therefore, a "rock star". I heard Sweetie say this to her companion, and saw them raise their arms and slap each other's palms. She boasted the prize catch to her friend. I made a good impression on the fellow housemaid, and an even better one on Sweetie.

In the days that followed, Sweetie called me Pizza Pie, and herself Honey Pie. Our typo-filled conversations went like this:

"What u do Pizza Pie?"

"Writing a story, Honey Pie."

"Wow, so ur so very entelegent journalish...im so proud of you."

"What are you doing, Honey Pie?"

"I am chatting you Pizza Pie."

And when the Internet dropped off, she would text, "I fell mad. No Cgnal." She was cute, but the language barrier was too big.

So, we switched to video calls. Now, I was mostly gesturing at my smartphone camera, praying something would penetrate her head. But she could only barely grunt out 'I love you'.

Then, one day, she messaged, "I have a pic, but not normal pic. I send?" OK, I said.

So, she secretly arranged herself on the thick Arabian carpet in her madam's bedroom, took a photo, and sent it. The picture was flirty, and went straight to my heart. I made comments of the sort you would expect, and the conversation moved along.

From then on, we started trading photos - only. In the weeks that followed, I was floored by the pictures' openness. In her madam's absence, Sweetie struck curious poses with Arabian artefacts, and used them to good effect in her photographs. "Look at the eyes of the foor (poor) housemaid. Dark circles and swollen. Sleep at 2 am. Wake up 6:30 am," she labelled her pictures.

I was impressed by such artful documentation. But as you would expect from a Gulf country, Sweetie worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week. This meant a limited legacy for her art work. But I needed such artful documentations around the clock. So, I, Net Sherpa, made peace with the idea of keeping multiple Filipinas on rotation, through the app. If that makes you feel bad, just think that a good number of these Gulf-based Filipinas might be keeping me on rotation as well.

ashish.sharma@bsmail.in