GOODBYE DUBAI !!

As the days roll by I get the feeling of nostalgia gripping me tighter than ever. It looks just like yesterday, 15th of November, 2005 when I landed in the Dubai International Airport. The ride to the Hotel in the taxi left my jaw wide open, so much so that my boss had to hit me to get it fixed. This is what desert looks like? Sprawling high-rises, clean roads with disciplined traffic, greenery along the roadsides and so less people.
I am from India, so all these things, sort of comes as awkward to me. If the road is clean then for us the houses must be dirty – where else will they dispose their wastes?
I went straight to office, more so to get my jaw fixed. When I reached the team assistance came running and handed over my laptop and cell phone. Maybe he wanted to reduce his burden of responsibility. But for me it was like WOW!! And it did pain me in the jaw.
Only thing that is universally true was also true here – sitting space was in scarcity.
It took me time to come out of this make believe place and come in terms to reality. Inflation was trying to follow the Colombia space shuttle, house rent kept on changing like babies diapers, always new & improved ones.
Two years went past like my favorite Thai soup, leave it in front of me and next moment it’s gone. Hope the taste will keep on lingering.
Time is like an ever alluding illusion. We spent whole life, born and reborn only with a singular hope that some day we will catch up with time. We die with that hope and are reborn with the same hope.
Dubai was a place of contradictions – rich people, richer people and the richest ones. All towering over the poor laborers, who can make tea with their hot boiling blood, working at temperatures of 50 degree.
Malls are in abundance, all brands under the sun crowding in those malls. Poor Pilipino sales ladies, who can only touch those things, but never have them. People of all colors – white, black, brown, yellow and all derivatives, moving around but hardly touching shoulders. Colors decide the treatment and so does the treatment differentiate colors.
Work was sort off. Will leave with a sense of unfulfillment & unaccomplishment. That’s life after all. Had lots of good colleagues, but never a friend. My fault, only my fault. But work was always fun. Downloaded lots of songs from Multiply, filled up 30 GB on my iPod. Drank in seclusion, read with the agility of a tiger. Never thought will be able to finish so many books in such a short period of time.
Now its time to go back, time to kiss the earth where I was born, back to my mother & father, back to the little house that I can proudly call MY HOME. Home, sounds so sweet when you are away. Home, not a place to live, it’s a feeling of comfort, belonging and where you can always dream when you close your eyes.