Private-Al-Jazeera Net
"Al-Bayab Al-Bawab" This title of the famous movie starring the late artist Ahmed Zaki is perhaps the most famous description among Egyptians when talking about the profession of real estate guard or what the Egyptians call "the gatekeeper."
But you might replace that description with "artist concierge" when you see Bahi Salah, sitting under the estate that guards him, holding the lute and playing the most famous musical composition, in the happiness of neighbors and passers-by.
"Uncle Bahi," as the neighbors call it, is 52 years old. He was born in Esna, Luxor, in southern Egypt. He loved music from a young age.
Bahi did not complete his education at the Trade School after he got a prep, to work in agriculture, then he moved 10 years ago to Cairo to work as a real estate guard.
Bahi says to Al Jazeera Net that he learned the oud since the late 1990s, at the hands of the artist Omar Abdel Ghaffar Al-Shihabi, but his love for the oud started before him, as he listened to the artist Rashad Abdel-Al, and he was very impressed by the oud player in his band called Abboud.
Bahi did not stop practicing his hobby of playing the oud, as he plays and sings daily after completing his work, explaining that the oud is his main way out of distress and life crises.
Bahi mastered the playing of many famous passages of great instrumentalists such as Sayed Makkawi, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Sayed Darwish, Al Sanbati and Abdel Ghani Al Sayed.
Bahi faced many inconsistencies between his work as a guard and his playing of oud, as some residents criticized him and refused to perform and demanded that he concentrate on his work, forcing him to move between more than one drug.
But now he settled in a property whose residents welcome his hobby, and passers-by, and some tourists accept him to see the "doorman the artist."