As life fades away, Baghdad becomes a memory

By Ahmed Rasheed and Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad tastes of pistachio ice-cream on a summer night for Ahmed Baqi.

Evoking happier times, Baqi reminisced about the days when families and lovers crowded Baghdad's famed al-Faqma ice-cream parlour before bombs and shootings emptied the place.

"I had a girlfriend and we used to go to al-Faqma. It is a special place in my life. Now I drive by and look the other way. It is only a memory," the 30-year-old lawyer said.

One by one, the old places where Baghdad's residents loved life are disappearing under violence.

Parks, book markets, cafes -- where many played as children, browsed bookshelves as students or whiled away afternoons smoking water pipes -- have been erased, leaving a city many residents say they no longer recognise.

With car bombs, concrete barriers and shortages slowly eating away at people's lives and forcing once easy-going residents to stay indoors, Baghdad is becoming a memory.

In conversations laced with nostalgia, many Baghdadis speak of their city as if it was a bygone time, or a lost childhood.

As the country tears itself apart by sectarian violence, "haneen" -- an Arabic word that means longing -- has become a national past-time of sorts in private gatherings.