Slow Curry Community: A Love Affair.

Slow Curry Community was a weekly meet-up group between Artists/Designers developed under Campus Art Dubai 5.0

This feels a little bit like dating. You find yourself sitting opposite to a person, who you barely know, but have some sort of connection to. You know you have some interests in common through the small conversation you’ve had pre-him asking you out, but that knowledge does little to uplift the heavy cloud of awkwardness of having to find the right words as you fidget in the discomfort of the situation. You become aware of the minute details that have never really bothered you before. You become too conscious of your own body. Why does my skin feel so tight all of a sudden? You remind yourself to breathe and continue to force that au natural smile on your face. There’s nothing simple about trying to tug into the random straps of conversation the person across you is nicely extending. An urgency to find the sweet groove, where the conversation starts to effortlessly flow, arises with time. The longer it takes, the noisier the voices in your head. Am I too boring? Am I too stupid? Do I have something stuck in my teeth? But then there’s food. You find yourself arbitrarily stuffing your mouth with big bites of whatever you have distractedly ordered whenever you run out of intelligent remarks. At least, there’s food. At least I have something to do with my hands. You excuse yourself and go to the ladies room. You splash some water over your face and stare at the droplets of water, running slowly down your cheeks, mixing with the pearls of sweat that invisibly formed on your forehead. Their patient pace reminds you that not all things happen at a snap. Like water, we sometimes need to lightly drizzle and dribble and drift and simply flow. You take a few deep inhales, and silently repeat to yourself that there is no rush, and no expectations for a first date are necessary. If the interaction fails, you will inevitably carry on. You may very well never meet the person across the table ever again. Just be yourself… (Whatever that means).

This feels a lot like a love affair. You subconsciously set expectations because you’re eager to share and establish something that is of meaning and value, something that lasts and endures and overcomes the ebb and tide of living. There are indeed occurrences of “love at first sight”, but as most people would retell, it is a rather rare phenomena, much like the sighting of a blue moon. The young fiery passion fades over time, as I’m sure Romeo and Juliet won’t be happy to hear. More reliable though is a steady and consistent effort in building a stronger, more profound foundation, based on empathy, common goals and a complimentary perception of the world. You realize, after many fiery passionate affairs, that people tend to grow on each other. You realize that sustaining and maintaining a relationship takes an enormous amount of energy, time, love and effort, more than any grand gesture would take (no offense to grand gestures, but aren’t they all so momentary and thus fleeting?). In other words, it takes a mature type of commitment. It takes proper full-scale investment. A persistent drop of water, after all, is capable of penetrating stone. But who has time for that in this crazy place? We shall see.