Musings: The Hand Of God (Part 2)
Hi! You will probably see the hand of God in a lot of what you read below. Or so I’d like to think.
When I look into the past, I can see a very distinct pattern that charted my route to Dubai. I feel I was destined to come here.
I’ve had tremendous ups and tremendous downs here. I even tried to leave once. I stayed in India for almost six months. But 15 days short of my residing six months outside the UAE (my residence permit would have automatically expired if I had crossed six months outside the UAE) I booked a flight to Dubai and returned. That was in October 2000. I am still here.
Why? This is a question that I have asked myself a thousand times. The answer eludes me. Maybe I will find out one day.
Strangely enough, the first ‘event’ to take place that propelled me towards to Dubai was in my daughter falling in love with a Muslim boy in Bangalore and marrying him. We are Hindus but broad minded ones at that and when we realized that they were excessively serious about each other we (my wife and I and our community in general) gave our blessings and approval. It didn’t hurt to know that the boy had an impeccable lineage and that his father is a famous educationist and (at that time) a very senior official of the Bangalore University. (He went on to become a vice chancellor of a university).
The boy’s parents, however, refused to accept the decision. He was physically bundled off to far away Dubai, to live with (and work for) his maternal uncle. Their logic: ‘this is puppy love. Separate the two and give the separation time and then try and arrange a divorce.’
It didn’t work out that way. If it had, I wouldn’t be sitting in Dubai.
The lad, my son-in-law, is a very enterprising guy. He started clandestinely applying for jobs to wriggle himself away from his uncle’s dominance and to make a bid for independence.
One fine day, an interview call arrived. It was from a well known company. He cooked up some story to get out of the house and attended the interview.
This was an interview like no other.
The interviewer was the managing director of the company himself. A man known for his supercilious and haughty attitude. But Sameer (my son-in-law) didn’t know that.
“Tell me something about yourself” the big man commanded. And Sam (as we call him) told the MD all about himself including how he had fallen in love and got married against his parents wishes and how his parents had forcefully separated him from his beloved wife etc etc etc. The interview took on an emotionally charged hue.
“Describe your wife” the managing director commanded.
And poetry flowed from Sam’s eager lips. “She is very efficient. She has an excellent command over the English language. She is an achiever…….” And on and on he went.
“So what is it that you want?” the MD queried.
“I’d like nothing better than to be re-united with my wife” replied Sam.
To those of you who are unaware of the UAE’s rules regarding “family status” you should know that a person must get a monthly salary of Dirhams 3000 plus company provided accommodation or Dh. 4K per month in order to be able to sponsor his wife. Sam fell into neither category, even if he were to be selected by this company.
“You are selected for this position” the MD eventually advised Sam. “And if your wife is as good as you say she is, we will offer her a job too, based on your assessment. Both of you will be on the company visa but your wife will work for a sister company of ours in Sharjah”.
And in that split second their destiny changed. And that’s how my daughter came to the UAE.
What the managing director had not told Sam was that all employees of the Sharjah company automatically get free company accommodation. When my daughter came to the UAE she walked into a job that gave her a fully furnished beautiful (but small) two bedroom villa (rent free), free water and electricity, etc. She did very well and soon became very popular in the company.
One day she called me long distance. “You will love the UAE, Dad” she said. “Why don’t you come here on a holiday?”? And so it was that I set foot in the Middle East fore the first time in February 1998. I was here for seventeen days. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
When I returned to India my son and my wife mounted a campaign to persuade me to take them to Dubai during the Dubai Shopping Festival. I readily agreed, and in April 1999, the three of us visited Dubai.
I had been planning to relocate to the UAE and had been looking for a sponsor. I won’t go into the details here, it is all documented in my article “How I came to be in Dubai” which is also in this blog. It will fill in a lot of gaps and give you more background information about my “hand of God” statement.
I found a sponsor quite fast and launched my life in the UAE.
Six years down the road I am still here.
Anyway, back to our little tale...................
Sam plodded on as a sales rep for the company while my daughter had a meteoric rise in the organization. On many an occasion a glum son-in-law would confide in his father-in-law the problems that arise when the wife is earning more than the husband.
I would sympathize with Sam.
I haven’t mentioned that both Sam and my daughter dropped out of college to get married. He was doing his accountancy. She was in first year of law school
Sam suddenly got this burning desire to be something in life…………………something more than a drop out. He loves computers and decided to make a career in computers. He started burning the midnight oil. He did it so smoothly that no one, not even I, had any inkling of his plans.
He did his MCSE and then his MCP and then his God knows what. He kept on upgrading his credentials.
Soon a company in Dubai Internet City offered him a job. It was in marketing web sites and the like. Sam and I were competitors overnight (as I was in the same type of business) and he stopped discussing his clients and his day at work etc. with me. Secrecy ruled the roost on either side of the apartment that we shared.
A year later, a client of his company, a very large retailing house in Dubai who had ventured on the Net lured him away from his company. He changed over from marketing to technical. He managed their e-commerce enabled web server.
Somewhere along the line he became my technology guru.
“You must teach me something every now and then if you are to maintain the exalted status of being my guru” I told him. He taught me a lot about computers. Most of it stuff that would land me in jail if reproduced here.
Somewhere along the line he applied for Canadian Immigration. I went with him for the interview at the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. He was extremely nervous. In the ultimate analysis, in his estimation, he was not a graduate. That alone could (he felt) get him disqualified.
The interviewing lady, a stern faced Canadian matron with a cold demeanor, checked out his credentials. She went over all his papers many times without saying a word. His heart sank. She would disqualify him.
Finally she spoke. “There is no employer in the world who would not offer you a job in your field, Sam” she said. He had passed the test.
In December 2002, Sam and his wife left for Canada. They both got excellent jobs there. They now have a new car and a beautiful house that they have to pay for over the next thirty years. He is happy. He earns much more than his wife. And she ain’t complaining. No sir!
My daughter recently told me that she plans to get me over there during the Dubai summer (July and August) for an all-expenses-paid holiday.
Sounds terrific.
But somehow in my bones I know that it won’t be easy for me to leave Dubai. There is something that is bonding me to this place. One day I intend to find out.
And when I do, so will you guys!
Cheers,
Prakash
This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com).
When I look into the past, I can see a very distinct pattern that charted my route to Dubai. I feel I was destined to come here.
I’ve had tremendous ups and tremendous downs here. I even tried to leave once. I stayed in India for almost six months. But 15 days short of my residing six months outside the UAE (my residence permit would have automatically expired if I had crossed six months outside the UAE) I booked a flight to Dubai and returned. That was in October 2000. I am still here.
Why? This is a question that I have asked myself a thousand times. The answer eludes me. Maybe I will find out one day.
Strangely enough, the first ‘event’ to take place that propelled me towards to Dubai was in my daughter falling in love with a Muslim boy in Bangalore and marrying him. We are Hindus but broad minded ones at that and when we realized that they were excessively serious about each other we (my wife and I and our community in general) gave our blessings and approval. It didn’t hurt to know that the boy had an impeccable lineage and that his father is a famous educationist and (at that time) a very senior official of the Bangalore University. (He went on to become a vice chancellor of a university).
The boy’s parents, however, refused to accept the decision. He was physically bundled off to far away Dubai, to live with (and work for) his maternal uncle. Their logic: ‘this is puppy love. Separate the two and give the separation time and then try and arrange a divorce.’
It didn’t work out that way. If it had, I wouldn’t be sitting in Dubai.
The lad, my son-in-law, is a very enterprising guy. He started clandestinely applying for jobs to wriggle himself away from his uncle’s dominance and to make a bid for independence.
One fine day, an interview call arrived. It was from a well known company. He cooked up some story to get out of the house and attended the interview.
This was an interview like no other.
The interviewer was the managing director of the company himself. A man known for his supercilious and haughty attitude. But Sameer (my son-in-law) didn’t know that.
“Tell me something about yourself” the big man commanded. And Sam (as we call him) told the MD all about himself including how he had fallen in love and got married against his parents wishes and how his parents had forcefully separated him from his beloved wife etc etc etc. The interview took on an emotionally charged hue.
“Describe your wife” the managing director commanded.
And poetry flowed from Sam’s eager lips. “She is very efficient. She has an excellent command over the English language. She is an achiever…….” And on and on he went.
“So what is it that you want?” the MD queried.
“I’d like nothing better than to be re-united with my wife” replied Sam.
To those of you who are unaware of the UAE’s rules regarding “family status” you should know that a person must get a monthly salary of Dirhams 3000 plus company provided accommodation or Dh. 4K per month in order to be able to sponsor his wife. Sam fell into neither category, even if he were to be selected by this company.
“You are selected for this position” the MD eventually advised Sam. “And if your wife is as good as you say she is, we will offer her a job too, based on your assessment. Both of you will be on the company visa but your wife will work for a sister company of ours in Sharjah”.
And in that split second their destiny changed. And that’s how my daughter came to the UAE.
What the managing director had not told Sam was that all employees of the Sharjah company automatically get free company accommodation. When my daughter came to the UAE she walked into a job that gave her a fully furnished beautiful (but small) two bedroom villa (rent free), free water and electricity, etc. She did very well and soon became very popular in the company.
One day she called me long distance. “You will love the UAE, Dad” she said. “Why don’t you come here on a holiday?”? And so it was that I set foot in the Middle East fore the first time in February 1998. I was here for seventeen days. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
When I returned to India my son and my wife mounted a campaign to persuade me to take them to Dubai during the Dubai Shopping Festival. I readily agreed, and in April 1999, the three of us visited Dubai.
I had been planning to relocate to the UAE and had been looking for a sponsor. I won’t go into the details here, it is all documented in my article “How I came to be in Dubai” which is also in this blog. It will fill in a lot of gaps and give you more background information about my “hand of God” statement.
I found a sponsor quite fast and launched my life in the UAE.
Six years down the road I am still here.
Anyway, back to our little tale...................
Sam plodded on as a sales rep for the company while my daughter had a meteoric rise in the organization. On many an occasion a glum son-in-law would confide in his father-in-law the problems that arise when the wife is earning more than the husband.
I would sympathize with Sam.
I haven’t mentioned that both Sam and my daughter dropped out of college to get married. He was doing his accountancy. She was in first year of law school
Sam suddenly got this burning desire to be something in life…………………something more than a drop out. He loves computers and decided to make a career in computers. He started burning the midnight oil. He did it so smoothly that no one, not even I, had any inkling of his plans.
He did his MCSE and then his MCP and then his God knows what. He kept on upgrading his credentials.
Soon a company in Dubai Internet City offered him a job. It was in marketing web sites and the like. Sam and I were competitors overnight (as I was in the same type of business) and he stopped discussing his clients and his day at work etc. with me. Secrecy ruled the roost on either side of the apartment that we shared.
A year later, a client of his company, a very large retailing house in Dubai who had ventured on the Net lured him away from his company. He changed over from marketing to technical. He managed their e-commerce enabled web server.
Somewhere along the line he became my technology guru.
“You must teach me something every now and then if you are to maintain the exalted status of being my guru” I told him. He taught me a lot about computers. Most of it stuff that would land me in jail if reproduced here.
Somewhere along the line he applied for Canadian Immigration. I went with him for the interview at the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. He was extremely nervous. In the ultimate analysis, in his estimation, he was not a graduate. That alone could (he felt) get him disqualified.
The interviewing lady, a stern faced Canadian matron with a cold demeanor, checked out his credentials. She went over all his papers many times without saying a word. His heart sank. She would disqualify him.
Finally she spoke. “There is no employer in the world who would not offer you a job in your field, Sam” she said. He had passed the test.
In December 2002, Sam and his wife left for Canada. They both got excellent jobs there. They now have a new car and a beautiful house that they have to pay for over the next thirty years. He is happy. He earns much more than his wife. And she ain’t complaining. No sir!
My daughter recently told me that she plans to get me over there during the Dubai summer (July and August) for an all-expenses-paid holiday.
Sounds terrific.
But somehow in my bones I know that it won’t be easy for me to leave Dubai. There is something that is bonding me to this place. One day I intend to find out.
And when I do, so will you guys!
Cheers,
Prakash
This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com).
posted by Prakash Subbarao's Blog at
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