Turath 1:3
‘Botanical Gardens’
I sat in the middle of a garden, watching the butterflies dance from flower to flower, drifting off to another train of thought and reflection. A small camera was propped up in front of me as I directed, or at least tried to, my partner to different angles and shots to take of the garden, but again, my mind was elsewhere. There were small groups of people and students who walked along the paths surrounding me, the clicks of the DSLR created a soundtrack to the rhythm of the morning, almost soothing. I was location scouting at a local university and public space with a friend, taking photos of myself and the surrounding landscape to get a feel for the project.
I wanted to show QC’s clothing in their natural environment and how they should be worn. For me, location and atmosphere is everything, all of it must be perfect. In that moment, as I sat surrounded by one the greatest universities in the world, a place where knowledge, certainty, and money oozes from every corner, I felt lost, baffled by my surroundings. Not because I am in some way inferior in intellect, but I felt out of place. At one point during the shoot, I thought to myself, ‘what on Earth am I doing here?’
That was where and when it clicked.
You spend years in school, wondering what you will do for the rest of your life. The decisions you make and the classes you choose suddenly become, diluted. No longer do we study to learn, but we study to work. In other words, we lose the education we should be getting, for the job we think we will get. For me, I began to feel detached from school, something was missing, and it was in the balance of career and education.
My experience in the garden was not something new for me, it was a repeated episode of ‘awe and ponder’ occurring throughout the beginning of my journey with Qayrawan Caravan, and had someone asked me if I would participating in a shoot, in the middle of a university garden, I would not have believed them.
The thing about my experience is that it is not complete, I am not at the end of my career. I am still discovering myself within the sphere of my passions and goals. In the midst of that garden I came to realize just that. I am living my dream, and it’s just the beginning.
I actually visit gardens often (according to Muin, the correct term is ‘Bo-tā-nical’ Gardens, but we will talk about that later), not because of their organic beauty, but their divine serenity. Something, within the green and flowering colors and arrangements takes my attention away from the world and directs it solely into the surrounding sphere of nature. It is peaceful within those moments of ponder and reflection, a period of which I use to clear my thoughts.
Several weeks before, I was sitting in a Korean-French style café waiting for my friends and partners, Muin and Harun, both of which had never been or heard of the place before. Unlike them, I am a college student who frequently retreats to the confines of a coffee house to unravel my mind during cram sessions and late night studies. When sitting at this particular café, it was still early in the morning and they had just opened, I sat alone in a corner waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. Looking around, I was amazed!
The workers were running around, fixing up the store, preparing their machines and baking their breakfast desserts for the morning rush which was impending. Within this moment of madness I was simply observing, thinking to myself, ‘this is hustle, something right is going on here’. The workers and team were in sync. It was a symphony of efficiency and culinary feats. Your team is important when looking for the right market. Your business, your idea, your dream, is only as good as the people running it. However these people operate, mesh together, and find a rhythm will dictate your success.
Sitting in the corner of that café, I understood what it meant to have a good team, how critical it was to find the right balance. There were life lessons to have been learned there too, but I was too busy enjoying my coffee when Muin, followed shortly by Harun finally arrived. Our team is a balanced team, we ‘mesh’.
Muin is a UX guy, someone who was a whiff of Silicon Valley mixed in with a South Jersey, Desi attitude. He is the voice of Safina Society’s podcast (someone from Hollywood will eventually pick his story up, it’s just too good to pass up. Somewhere between Life of Pi, Silicon Valley, and Slumdog Millionaire, you will find his story). Muin, has this creative Sufic attribute inside of him, inspiring his vision and driving him to new ideas and innovations. He was also experienced and more mature than Harun and I, he provided that much needed ‘CEO’ dynamic we needed with a little spice.
Harun is a different type of guy: fiscal, conservative in how he goes about a vision, he likes to calculate and then take risks. Between Muin and me, Harun is the anchor, making sure the ship does not go off track. He was the only one, out of the three, that did not understand the concept of a coffee shop other than ‘Starbucks’ or ‘Dunkin’. He was a student athlete in college and was more ‘Blue Collared’ than Muin and I. Let me put it this way, if Harun was given a decision to eat at sports restaurant that served wings, an interesting new type of cultural fusion restaurant, or a hipster coffee bar, he would pick the buffalo-wings sports restaurant. That is just him, he likes simple, clear, straightforward trends and habits. He is also an accountant, which kind of explains everything about him. I think because of his fiscal attitude towards the world around him, Harun is critical to the construct of our team.
Without the right team, you simply will not succeed, regardless of what you set to accomplish. That is why, when I came up with the idea to start QC, Harun and Muin, my two good friends, were the first people I went to. They understand my dream, they know why I am the way I am, and they make my dream a reality. So that when I find myself sitting in a random garden, taking an obnoxious amount of photos, it makes sense. I am working on my dream, innovating, using my creativity to help people and solve problems. None of it would be possible without the help of my beloved partners to whom I owe the highest of gratitude and praise.
The story of how we met and why we chose QC is for another time. Until then,
Peace and Love
—
Ali A. Ben Saad
