Musings: Bus trip to Oman

I made an interesting trip to Oman in December 2000.

I went by bus (the journey to Muscat, the capital of Oman, takes a little over five hours).

Strangely, tickets for the bus ride are sold by Philippine Airlines in Dubai.

The bus left at 4.30 pm.

The driver was a handsome Omani wearing Rayban glasses and dressed in traditional Omani garb - a long white robe on the body and a colored cap on his head.

The drive to the border takes an hour and a half and passes through desert that is famous for dune driving, sand skiing and the like. There are two huge dunes - one on either side of the road. The larger one has (I am told) been affectionately nicknamed "George" by western expats. The other one is called "Martha".

As one approaches the border, the landscape changes. Desert gives way to small brown hills. These are about 20 million years old. The ancient sea, which once covered the whole region, rose and fell, influenced by major world climatic changes. These hills, forming a natural boundary between Oman and UAE, are of great interest since they offer a relatively rare opportunity to examine oceanic rocks, such as basalts, lavas and oozes, formed at the site of a mid-oceanic ridge more than seventy million years ago.

Suddenly all mobile phones fall silent. There is no signal. We are at the border.

The border post is just a collection of small buildings. There is a check post where passports are scanned and visas are issued. I am asked to pay Dh. 71 as visa fees.

The bus resumes it journey only to stop a hundred metres ahead where all luggage is offloaded and must be opened for inspection. I am glad that I didn't put a bottle of whisky in the suitcase - there is no telling what may have happened as this is the holy month of Ramadan.

A little further lies Oman.

The bus approaches the barrier and stops yet again. A border guard has a hurried conversation with the driver and the bus door opens for a third time at the check post. A teenage boy boards the bus. He will probably get a free ride to Muscat courtesy Oman Transport Corporation.

As the bus enters Oman, one can see the difference between the rich country that we just left behind and its poorer neighbor. The road, which till now had been a 4-lane expressway, degenerates into a two lane highway with traffic coming at you in the other lane - something one almost never sees in the UAE.

The driver's cell phone springs to life and he is almost constantly on the phone, driving the large bus at 120 Kmph with one hand and talking into the cell phone with the other.

After a few hours the bus pulls into the town of Sohar, which is also a beach resort. I buy a bottle of water and try to drink it as surreptitiously as I can because it is the holy month of Ramadan, when all Muslims are fasting and do not eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset.

An Oman Transport official boards the bus and checks all the tickets. He ignores the youth traveling without a ticket. I am reminded of the book "Catch 22".

Night has fallen. I am a little nervous as someone once told me that this road is unsafe in parts. I get more nervous when the driver slows the bus and appears to be looking out for someone or something. The bus stops after a while and a swarthy Omani, gets on. He gets into the driver's seat and the driver sits in the jump seat next to him. I gather that he is the second driver and will handle the balance portion of the journey.

Those of you who have been to the Middle East would have noticed that Arabs love to talk. You can see this happening constantly in Dubai - a citizen of the UAE (called a "local") will almost always be on his cell phone talking to someone or the other all the time. In the evenings the men sit around and chat. This is called a "majlis".

The new driver of the bus sports a marked tendency to chat. His posture changes. He sits such that his body is leaning far to the right. He controls the bus with his left hand. The other driver also leans far to the left and the two drivers' faces are very close - maybe a foot away from one another. They look deep into each other's eyes like lovers when they talk.

Occasionally the driver checks the road to see that he is still on course. The bus seems to have a mind of its own. It negotiates curves and obstacles on its own whilst the two drivers are lost in conversation.

My heart is in my mouth. I change my seat to just behind the driver. I watch the road ahead anxiously, ready to give alarm in case of an emergency.

However nothing amiss happens and some time later the bus pulls into Ruwi, Muscat.

My journey is at an end.

This article is copyright Prakash Subbarao (prksh1@yahoo.com) All rights reserved. The article may be reproduced in full provided it copied in entirety without any changes to the original and credit duly given.

This article was written in 2001 and was factually accurate then. Phillipine Airlines no longer sells tickets for the Oman Transport Corporation. Strangely enough, as at early 2004, these were being sold by a book store next to DNATA, in Dubai.

Musings: The Bird Market in Sharjah

Thesiger, the first white man to cross the Rub Al Khali (The 'Empty Quarter' - the desert in Saudi Arabia which is perhaps the most inhospitable area on earth) with his Bedouin friends on camel back was once asked if he thought any Arabs of the current generation would repeat his feat. He is stated to have replied that modern Arabs have forgotten how to ride camels and have learnt how to cross deserts in 4x4's instead! In this context, I had assumed that the modern day youth would not be familiar with the art of falconry. It appears that I may have been wrong in this assumption.

I saw quite a few local UAE nationals in their traditional garb in the market. They were examining the falcons.

Imagine a room of dimension 5 metres by 3 metres. Imagine that the right half of the room has a sand pit over which there are wooden slats running horizontally across and on each slat sit three falcons, spaced approximately a meter and a half from each other. The falcons are tied to the wooden slats so that they cannot escape.

Most of the birds are 'hooded' (that is; their eyes are covered) since this calms them down. Some of the birds sat without hoods. There were falcons of various sizes and shapes and colors, including what appeared to me to be a baby falcon - looking miserable on its perch. The hooded birds sat perfectly still whereas the unhooded ones eyed the strangers warily.

The Arabs exhibit no fear of the birds and boldly walk up to them (sometimes even sit next to them). Maybe this is to intimidate the birds into submission. The Arabs stare at the bird which after a while looks away. They check the wings of the birds, its talons, the underside of its feet etc. Then the Arabs stroke the birds breast and then pull the birds on to their arm. The bird's stance is now closely examined.

Outside in the corridor, turbaned Pathans and Baluchis walk around with falcons on their arm. These are birds that have been recently caught and that are for sale (the 'grey market', so to speak!)

Falcons have been described as very brave birds and the only time you know that a falcon is sick is when it suddenly falls off its perch.

I wish all the falcons of the world could be free but this is not in man's scheme of things. One man is however trying very hard to restore falcons to the wild. Every year a team of scientists from the UAE travel to a remote area of Baluchistan and release many falcons into the wild. As per the instructions of Sheikh Zayed, the President of the UAE.

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This article is copyright Prakash Subbarao. All rights reserved. The article may be reproduced in full provided it is copied in entirety without any changes to the original and credit duly given.

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).

Musings: This is Dubai. Anything is possible here.

I am walking down the street when I see a familiar face. It’s Eve, I think, involuntarily. How could that be, she’s in California! A closer look reveals that it is someone else.

I am driving through the Sharjah University campus and see someone familiar clicking photographs. Looks like Olivia. Turns out be someone else.

At the Jumeirah Beach Park an ethereal figure in a red bikini emerges from the sea. No it’s not Ursula Andress! It looks like Ana! But alas, Ana is in Poland.

As I drive past the creek I see the smiling figure of Sabia smiling and waving at me. Am I hallucinating? I ask myself. I must be. She is in Italy!

That evening, as I moodily reflect on the appearance of all these apparitions, the truth slowly dawns.

"Dubai Discussions" has suddenly become more than a discussion group. It has become a personal arena where we wince when Ana’s ribs ache; where we are moved to tears when somebody’s relationship fails; where we critically examine one’s boyfriend and conclude that the pet Chihuahua looks better! J (Adnan, forgive me this one!)

Well done, gang! Let’s keep the camaraderie up! We will all benefit.

Ok, now on to other Dubaiesque things.

Imagine you are in the middle of summer. The heat is a sweltering 45 degrees Centigrade. Your mouth and lips are parched. You pine for a cold Coke. The heat hits you with a blast as you get out of your car. You hurry into the dome shaped building. Ah! It’s a cool minus15 degrees Celcius within. You change in the locker room. You put on your skis and off you go. You are now on the longest ski track in the world inside the world’s largest free standing dome. You idly wonder how many other skiers are there and idly start counting. You stop when you reach one thousand. The attendant later confirms that there were1200 skiers also skiing.

The Snow Dome - an indoor Alpine ski Resort – will shortly come up in Dubai.

Inside, one will see snow capped mountains, arctic zoos, live penguin rookeries, ice-skating canals, bob sleds, etc.

The dome will house a giant snow deck measuring 175 meters in diameter that curves its way upwards around a 300 meter slope as it rotates. The down hill run varies in length from 380 meters to 20 kilometers. 20 Kilometers? Yes, 20 kilometers and more! This is achieved by spinning the deck at speeds between 5 kmph and 25 kmph.

That evening, as you chat with a friend in a far away land you tell, in response to her query as to how you are, that you have a touch of frostbite. Frostbite? she asks unbelievingly. Yes, frostbite, you confirm with a smiley.

This is Dubai. Anything is possible here.

Article copyright Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)

Musings: Christmas Eve in Dubai

When I was a kid in Bombay, and I am talking of the years 1955 – 1960, there was a sizeable Christian population there. India had recently got independence and was finding its footing. Therefore there were quite a few British and other western expat managers.

On Christmas Eve groups of small children would move around and sing carols in front of each building. I can still hear in my mind their melodious renderings of “Silent Night”, “Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer” and other carols.

After singing five or six carols they would come knocking on each flat and it was a tradition to shower them with gifts or sweets. Eeven money.

All communities gave happily – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists.

These children were the best ambassadors for Christianity and did a lot to promote inter-religious harmony.

On the 24^th December eve, the tradition was to drive around Bombay marveling at the brilliant lights that decked the city for Christmas and New Year.

India gradually got rid of its non-Indian managers and with their departure this tradition too deed down.

One of the significantly large blocks of Christians in India were the “Anglo-Indians” – “descendants of British men, generally from the colonial service and the military, and lower-caste Hindu or Muslim women.” (source: angloindian.com). These “Anglos” as they were called could not find their foothold in India as they were not accepted as a community and they moved away to England, Australia etc.

With the departure of the expat Christian managers and the Anglos, Indian streets fell silent during Christmas.

Last night, keeping alive a tradition that is now over 40 years old, my wife and I drove through Dubai’s streets and visited malls and hotels to check out the Christmas Cheer. Sadly, it was muted.

I wonder how Christmas Eve is in places around the world.

Cheers,

Prakash

Musings: 1971 visit to war torn Bangladesh

Hi Guys! I am much better and almost normal after the ‘flu attack.

While I was down, I was wondering what to post next to this group.

I thought “why not start with the day I got my first camera” and then go on to the best photo opportunity that I have had so far.

Remember, I am 52 years old next month. That’s a long innings that does give one a lot of opportunities for photo shoots!!! :-)

My first camera was an Asahi Pentax K1000. I still use it. It has a very fast 1.2 Macro Lens. It came as a gift from my mother when my daughter was born way back in 1977. That makes the camera 26 years old! The other day I was taking some photographs in the Deira gold souk when a Yugoslav approached me. He was also a photographer, he said. He showed me his camera, also a K1000 but not made in Japan like mine was. We both agreed that this particular model is a fantastic one.

I have traveled a lot in my time but the very best photo opportunity came in early 1972. I was in Calcutta then, on a holiday during my college vacation. The Pakistani Army Commander in the Eastern Command, Lt. General A. A. K. Niazi, had surrendered to Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora of the Indian Army on 16th December, 1971 and Bangladesh had been borne. My father had a lot of contacts with the Government-in-exile of Bangladesh and so I pestered him to take me to Bangladesh.

All one needed in the immediate days after the war was a pass signed by the Indian Army or issued by the Bangladesh Government in Exile which operated from a building in South Calcutta and called itself “Mujibnagar” after Mujibur Rehman.

We got the pass and on 2nd January set out to see the new country. I took along my mother’s camera, a Leica with a Zeus Icon lens. Another hardy piece of equipment that she had purchased in 1958 and which was still going strong in 1972.

My father had told me that we would go to Bangladesh only on one condition – that we would leave very early in the morning and return the same day. In those days it was very dangerous as there were a lot of fleeing Pakistani troops who were still armed and a lot of Razakar’s – Bihari Muslim civilians who had supported the Pakistanis violent suppression of the people of former East Pakistan.

The border is not very far from Calcutta and can be reached fairly quickly. When we got there, there seemed to be some sort of commotion going on. This was at Petrapole, on the Indian side. Apparently a car trying to smuggle guns had been detected by the Indian Army and we were advised that there would be a long delay. We got out of the car to stretch our legs and to try and work our way out of the jam. We were in luck – there was a Mukti Bahini officer (a Bangladeshi Freedom Fighter), Arun Barun Boswas, who was in a hurry to get to his place and he offered to get us out of the traffic jam and moving if we could drop him at Khulna. We agreed and thereby started a great adventure.

Using his influence we were off in minutes. He knew everyone at the customs. We came to a halt at the Benapole Land Customs on the Bangladesh side which is a little further down the road. There we saw (Photo opportunity # 1) a very young boy, maybe just 15 years old but already a hardened Mukti Bahini fighter standing at guard with a Lee Enfield 303 rifle.

We were soon waved through when they saw Arun Barun Biswas with us.

Just after the border comes the town of Jessore with its Cantonment. In their bid to stop the advance of the Indian Army, the Pakistani troops had blown up a bridge and the Indian Army had created a temporary floating pontoon bridge. (This was photo opportunity # 2). Huge Army trucks were crossing and had preference and we had to wait till they got across. It was like a scene out of a war movie!

All the buildings were pock marked with bullet marks. There were burnt out petrol stations all along the route. The road, though a metal one, was rough because it had been churned up by tank tracks.

A little further we came a cross a Sherman T-42 Pakistani Army tank that had been abandoned. The machine gun and live ammunition was till in the turret! (Photo Op # 3)

Biswas told us that he would show us foxholes where the Pak Army had dug in. We detoured and saw the foxholes. Some of them had suffered direct hits by Indian Air Force aircraft but many were intact. (Photo Op # 4).

A little further we saw a huge group of people and immediately knew that something out of the ordinary was taking place. We stopped the car and elbowed our way forward to see what it was. A Razakar had been captured! We saw this bearded person in ethnic dress with his hands tied behind his back being marched by a huge crowd. We were told that they would probably finish him off in the next few minutes. (Photo Op # 5). (I still have this particular photo somewhere!)

And so on it went.

In those days one took photographs in black and white. I don’t know now where the negatives are. I had three or four pictures with me in Dubai and am trying to locate them. If I do I shall post a copy to the photos section.

Looking back, it seems unbelievable. But it did happen, I assure you.

Best wishes,

Prakash

Musings: This is not cricket

A tongue-in-cheek article about cricket that shouldn’t be taken too seriously! 

“EMIRATES FLY PAST MCC IN THRILLER” reads the headline in today’s Gulf News, sports page.

“Fly Emirates”, the cricket team of Emirates Airlines, recorded a thrilling 3 wicket win over the visiting MCC.

Mention of the MCC brings back nostalgic memories of when the MCC team *was* the England team. MCC toured India several times.

The website www.lords.org states “The (MCC) touring programme will begin on 4th January, when an exceptionally strong MCC squad will leave London to play in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The party will include Jonathan Batty (Surrey's new captain), two ex-England players (Dougie Brown and Jason Gallian), and a former Pakistan international (Iqbal Sikander).
MCC earlier used to play countries (like India). Now they play airline cricket teams. Or, alternatively, airlines teams – specifically the Emirates team – has become so strong that it can take on the MCC single handed and win! Which option do you prefer?

MCC and the England official side seem to go hand in hand. Where one is, the other is not far behind.

Here is what the cricket side www.cricinfo.com had to say about the MCC’s presence and its message reaching far and wide:

“Over the years, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has been the body that sets the tone for the spirit of the game. Despite being headquartered at Lord's, their message reaches all the far corners of the globe where the game is played. It came as little surprise, then, that the MCC was hard at work in Bangalore too. Left stacked on a table was a neat set of flyers; one side had on it a striking image of Sachin Tendulkar playing a square drive. Under it was a quote from the little master: "Cricketers should always respect their opponents." Wise words indeed, but ones that are often forgotten in the heat of battle. On the other side of the flyer, there are little notes about various aspects, including the Responsibility of Captains, Players' Conduct and Fair & Unfair Play. If one is unconvinced about the role of the MCC with regard to keeping up the high standards of sportsmanship once followed, one need look no further than the fact that they have printed copies in Hindi and Marathi as well, just to reach out to young children in India.”

These days, money is all corrupting. Tons of money, that is. Just imagine, Attapattu of Sri Lanka wakes up one fine morning to see Sri Lankan Rupees 1.1 million staring back at him. Here’s the official report from www.cricketfundas.com:

“Police investigators are looking into the discovery of a large sum of money found in hotel room of Sri Lanka's limited-over squad captain Marvan Atapattu after the team checked out at Kandy last week.

The Sri Lankan police Criminal Investigation Department was informed that Rs 1.1 million was found by the Kandy hotel's staff after the conclusion of the December 10-14 Test match between Sri Lanka and England, which ended in a draw.

"We're investigating the recovery of a large sum of money from a room in the hotel where the Sri Lankan cricketers stayed in Kandy," an investigator said on the condition of anonymity.

The news about the money's recovery was made public by the Sunday Observer newspaper, which did not identify the player but said he was a "top order batsman, who has never bowled".

But Atapattu stepped out of the team's dressing room at the start of the fourth day's play in the third and final Test match in Colombo to clarify his position to reporters.

"I have nothing to do with that money," Atapattu said. "I don't carry such huge amounts of money while playing. I don't know to whom the money belongs. Other people have stayed in that room before me and after I left the hotel," he added.”

“The man selling his own and cricket's great shame is former South African captain Hansie Cronje. He is seeking the highest bidders from the world of print and electronic media, to serialise his own story of how he cheated his way right through his career as captain of the South African team.

These words are words that another cricket site has to say about Hansie Cronje.

“You only live once” the saying goes “and if you live it right, once is enough”.

Back to the clean world of sports in the Emirates.

How could a team like Fly Emirates beat the MCC? Was it talent alone? Was it bad luck? Was it match fixing? Was it Dubai belly that incapacitated the MCC team? We’ll never know.

So why not be charitable about it?

Well done, Emirates Team!

Right next to the story that Emirates beat the MCC is another smaller one.

“FLY EMIRATES TOPLAY IN ENGLAND”.

The victorious lads are all set to play against Lord’s Taverners cricket team at Windsor Castle on June 13th.

Any bets on who will win?

Musings: The Parrots of Khat

Khat is a very small village, off the beaten track.

To get to Khat, one must reach the outskirts of Ras Al Khaimah. There one sees a road going to Digdagha. The road continues beyond Digdagha and ends abruptly. This is Khat.

Khat has hot springs and the sulphurous water that bubbles up to the surface is considered to have healing powers. It has become a tourist attraction of sorts – deserted during the week and visited during holidays and weekends.

The hot water spring is right where the road ends. Two pools have been constructed – one for women and the other for men. In the UAE men and women cannot share a single public pool, so if you plan to visit Khat remember that your group will be split (if there are women in the group).

My first visit to Khat started off gruesomely. On the road I saw a camel that had been hit, obviously at high speed, by a car or a truck. Its remains were strewn across the road. Ugh! It is the only camel that I have seen hurt like this in this country. Here they place such a high esteem on the camels that almost all roads are fenced off. These days camels cannot stray on to most roads and hence are safe from the dangerous drivers of the UAE.

On my second trip to Khat, I returned with a friend. As we approached Khat, I saw a watch tower behind a wall. Only a part of it could be seen. It was inside a compound. Strangely, this was a school compound! The watch tower appeared to be in ruins and we decided to investigate.

We stopped the car in front of the school gate and had to walk around the perimeter to get a better look at the watch tower. However the wall was about 3 meters high at the point where one could get the best view, so the two of us dragged a stone on which one could stand and peer over the wall.

The stone was very wobbly. I took the photo of the watch tower teetering on the stone. The camera angle wasn’t the best one but under the circumstances it was the best that I could do.

A little further up the road we came to the hot springs. This is where the road ends.

It was a cold winters day and we were looking forward to the hot bath.

There is a nominal charge to enter the pool. Once inside there are many cubicles where you can change and leave you clothes to hang. An attendant keeps watch but it would be prudent to leave your cash and other valuables in the car.

If you don’t have a pair of swimming trunks, you can enter the pool in your underwear (so take a spare set along).

The circular pool is about forty feet in diameter. It has been made out of rocks to give it a natural look. The floor consists of large pebbles. One end is shallow – about two feet deep. The other end is about six feet deep. One can stand on ones toes and keep one’s nose just out of the water.

The water wasn’t boiling hot as we had expected. It was hot bordering on very warm. It had probably cooled during its transportation from the source to the overhead tanks to the pool itself.

I felt that the water was denser than normal tap water. Maybe it was just an impression. I also felt that the water had a rusty color to it (again maybe it was the dark rocks and pebbles that gave it this illusion). I also felt that it had a strange taste that I am unable to define. However it felt pretty good and we spent a few hours in the pool.

There were about thirty people in the pool; people of all ages but mostly Asians. Many kids were jumping into the pool from the rocks in spite of warnings that this is not allowed.

Two hours later we got out of the pool and showered I felt very fresh and invigorated.

Just next to the spa is a building made of stone with an ornate gate. It was locked and we couldn’t investigate it.

Behind this stone building is another ancient watch tower in a state of disrepair. This is the only place I have seen watch towers and other old buildings decaying. In Dubai and the other Emirates, the watch towers, wind towers and other heritage buildings have been fully restored to an immaculate state.

Anyway, the dilapidated watch tower was about a hundred yards from the road. As I set out towards the watch tower, I almost stumbled on a goats head. It had been decapitated!

In Saudi Arabia they say that a sheep (or goat’s) eyeballs are a delicacy and a good host offers his guests the eyeballs to eat as a symbol of hospitality. This goat had its eyeballs intact indicating that the UAE doesn’t follow this tradition.

A little further and nearer the watch tower was another goat. A female. Probably grieving for her lost brother, lover, husband? As I moved closer, she scampered away.

This watch tower is home to parrots.

As I approached the watch tower, they fluttered up and flew around the watch tower shrieking and making a huge racket. It really shattered the silence. I just couldn’t believe that four tiny parrots could make such a din! The birds went on and on until I beat a retreat. They then went back to their perch and thankfully fell silent.

All this happened over a year and a half ago. I wonder whether the parrots of Khat are still there. Let me check. One of these days I will visit Khat and submit my report.

Bye for now!

Prakash

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This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (e-mail: info@datadubai.com)

Musings: The Global Village – revisited in 2004

By Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)
4th February 2004
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Dubai's traffic waxes and wanes to some hidden, unknown, celestial body, it appears. Just when I thought there would be massive traffic today, I found the streets strangely deserted. Where does everyone go during this period? It's one of life's mysteries that needs to be resolved. But not today.

The lack of traffic encouraged a foray to the Global Village. Traffic was light right up to half a kilometer up to its gate. Miraculously, I was able to find a parking slot practically walking distance from the gate.

Last year, as I mentioned in an earlier posting, a Brit lady was bitterly complaining to a friend that Arabs just couldn't do anything right. They must have heard her because this year the transportation facility employed was a model of efficiency. Within minutes of our coming out to a car park a bus picked us up and deposited us at the gate a mere 60 seconds later.

Bajaj (India's 4th largest motorcycle / scooter manufacturer) takes it reputation seriously ("You just can't beat a Bajaj" is their slogan). Here were many auto rickshaws, painted a bright green, ferrying passengers briskly to and fro the parking lot for a fee.

Autorickshaws are tremendously overloaded in India. And, during Mrs. Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency' in India, when draconian laws were in force and parliament was suspended, there was a law that stated that every public transportation vehicle must have a government slogan painted on its rear. A foreigner to India, seeing the slogan "The Nation Is On The Move" on the rear of a heavily overloaded autorickshaw, nodded understandingly. It made sense.

There were also a lot of cycle rickshaws apparently sponsored by Western Union plying visitors to and from the parking lots. It's strange to see this non-gas guzzling, human-powered, eco-friendly vehicle plying the roads of a country that has one fourth of all the world's oil!

The crowds at the global Village are clones of the crowds that we saw last year. The year is different but the flavor remains exactly the same. Has some software engineer created that girl in red and the various people in the crowd (a la the Matrix?) We'll never know, will we?

People of all nationalities, colours, religious beliefs rub shoulders here. There are a variety of costumes. From people dressed as Roman soldiers (complete with sword) to women dressed in saris to tribal Africans with spears to girls in tight fitting jeans.....one sees them all at the Global Village.

Apparently cultural shows are again at the forefront this year while eating stalls comes a close second.

We make our way to the Indian stall. After all, that's the mother country and she beckons. It also appears to be one of the largest and most beautiful this year. (Morocco and Egypt also have terrific stalls!).

Inside the Indian stall it is amusing to see a sign saying "Your horoscope" but there is a well dressed guy, sitting on the floor, with a computer in front of him. In the olden days it used to be a half naked sage who consulted rare manuscripts to tell the future. With India now at the forefront of the IT revolution, the change is being felt all around - the position of the stars are now speedily charted by electrons.

I look out for the henna stall. Ah! There it is. But the mehendi-wali is a different one this year. I pass by, silently.

The range of handicrafts that India has to offer is immense. Like someone once said.....India is not a country, it's a continent. And the diversity of goods on offer justifies this statement.

The next stall on the agenda is the Thailand stall. Everyone in Dubai is is telling everyone else in Dubai to visit the stall and eat "Pekky" mangoes, so we look out for them. It's quite easy to get to the stall. One follows a trail of people with paper trays piled with mango. The one's nearest you have small heaps. The heap increases as you approach the source. When you see a person with a heaped plate, you know that you are almost there.

A plate of mangoes, sliced and with spices added, costs Dh.10. Very expensive, I tell myself. After the first bite I realize that the stall is surviving on hype and word-of-mouth. Indian mangoes are any day better. Better still are Pakistani mangoes! But no one would pay Dh. 10 to eat an Indian or Pakistani mango. The Thais have apparently positioned their mangoes perfectly. Like their silk. In both these areas - mangoes and silk - the Thais have stolen the edge through better marketing. Just like the Chiquita bananas of the Philippines. Ask any Indian and he will tell you that there is no match for the delicious Indian spotted banana but alas, we see it only in India!

Oooops! I digress. Let's get back on track.

This year there are many more pavilions compared to last year. The increase seems to have come from Malaysia, Singapore, and European countries such as Cyprus, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ukraine etc.

Since this was what the Indian Army would call a "recce" (short for reconnaissance) we make mental notes on what to visit and what to skip the next time we come to the Global Village. By `we' I am not referring to the Royal `we'. I mean "me and my wife".

The trip back to the bust stop seems to take longer than when we entered. That's because we are tired and wish to get away ASAP.

The bus, in typical Dubai efficiency, arrives 30 seconds later. A minute later we are in our car. Two minutes later we are on the road. Thirty seven minutes later we are back in Sharjah. But we spend 15 minutes finding a parking slot.

That's Sharjah for you!

Cheers,

Prakash

Musings: TRENDS - The ‘other’ side of human nature

By Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)

There is a rule in Dubai (or should I should use the past tense here?) that men who molested women had their photographs published in the newspaper. This gradually came to an end and now that I think of it, I cannot recall seeing such a photograph for a very long time! Have men stopped molesting women? I plan to write to Gulf News (Letter To The Editor) re this. Let's see what happens.

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There he was, cruising in his pickup truck at the unearthly hour of 3 am last Friday. It was a very foggy night. Visibility was very poor. What speed he was driving at is not known. Maybe he didn't notice that traffic had come to a halt in front of him. His truck slammed into the vehicle in front and he died on the spot. He was Balaji Kamble of Gulf News. He was transporting the next day's Gulf News to Abu Dhabi. Blood and newspapers lay strewn on the road.

What is very strange is that the next day, AFTER he had been well and truly dead for nearly 19 hours, and his body was still lying in the morgue, someone at 10 pm local time, used his ATM card and withdrew his life's savings.

The police are investigating. They won't get very far because the bank sheepishly admits that its security camera was not working.

Has mankind become so callous that money has become the prime mover in society?

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They poured oil on the roads and then performed stunts with their cars which slithered hither and thither. When the police arrived, these young lads (most of them UAE nationals) threw stones at the police car. The cops (though armed with guns) calmly noted down the registration numbers of the cars (all the while being pelted with stones). The next day eight of the youth were arrested and thrown into jail. They were collectively fined a little over Dh.1000 for damaging the police car.

This is a first for Dubai. It has never happened before. Or, alternatively, it has happened before but the papers just never got to write about it. In any case, it is a new dimension in an otherwise placid city.

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The Guinness Book Of Records states that the country with the largest shortage of women in the world is the UAE. And the Gulf News of 2nd April tells us that the divorce rate may be a staggering 80% with UAE men divorcing UAE women and then remarrying expat non- national women.

Someone has written in today's Gulf News (Letters To The Editor) that "the laws in the UAE make it easy for a person to get a divorce. In particular, a man can walk into a court and file for a divorce and get it without his spouse even knowing about it"!!!

Shortage of women and surplus of divorces. Just don't go hand in hand, do they? Clearly something is wrong somewhere.

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Many year ago there was this Italian con man who would go around Dubai in a Fiat Punto. He would claim that he was broke and that he had no money to return to Italy and would then offer, at a throw away price, a designer suit that was lying in back seat. The person who purchased the suit at "a throw away price" would soon realize that he had been had and the suit was a cheap imitation. This Italian became notorious and there were sightings of him everywhere. The police tried to nab him but in vain.

The latest scam doing the rounds of Dubai appears in today's Gulf News. I reproduce it below:

" Recently, a driver stepped out of his car and asked me the location to a building. During our conversation, he pointed to a Dh. 500 note lying on the road and asked me whether it belonged to me. When I replied in the negative he took the money and told me we could share it, Dh. 300 for him and Dh. 200 for me. He wanted me to take the Dh. 500 note and give him Dh. 300. I believe it was a counterfeit note. Beware of such tricks."

Or maybe it wasn't a counterfeit note! In today's "ANDY CAPP" cartoon, Andy asks his wife for a loan. "A loan? Whatever happened to the tenner I gave you this morning?" asks his wife. "There was this guy collecting for charity on High Street. I must have dropped it, running up the alley to avoid him" Andy replies.

The trends in Dubai are disturbing, my friends. Human nature is disturbing.

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This article copyright Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)

Musings: The Shaikh's English

In Hawaii if someone says "You know my Feezicks Professah, you know da bolo head one? Some AKAMAI!" what he means is “You know my Physics Professor at the University of Hawaii, Manoa? The one with the shinny bald head? He is the most intelligent man I have ever known!”.

A similar distortion of the Queen’s English takes place in the Middle East.

The first thing one must do is expand one’s vocabulary immediately upon arriving in the UAE.

When I first heard: “The shurtaa caught the motorist and gave him a mukaalifaa” I really didn’t know what the speaker was saying. I later learned that “shurtaa” means Police and “mukaalifaa” means “a ticket”.

Another useful word to know is “khalaas”. The first time I heard it was in a minibus. The front few seats in a Dubai Transport minibus are reserved for the fairer sex. Often, there is a shortage of the fairer sex in this country (where the male to female ratio is 3:1 or better) so in the final minutes, conductors allow males to take these seats. On this fateful day, seconds before the bus was to start, with just two seats left before the bus became full, two burkha clad Muslim women boarded the bus. They looked pointedly at their reserved seats bit the stout-hearted males refused to budge. The women were forced to take the last two seats on the bus, in the last row. And, horror-of-horrors, were made to sit in close contact with the men. A growl of anger rose from the other inmates on the bus. The three males decided to make a stand and refused to vacate the seats. Soon there was a lot of confusion in the ensuing mêlée but the two women’s voices were heard over the din woefully proclaiming the words “khalaas” repeatedly. However, the crowd didn’t want to ‘khalaas’ the proceedings. Peace was restored when the trouble makers were forcibly ejected from the bus and marched to the Supervisor’s office. The women took their rightful place and the bus left shortly thereafter.

“Khalaas” is a very powerful word. Once when a guy behind me was driving with his headlight main beam on and this irritated me to such an extent that I went to the extreme step of asking him (via sign language) to pull off the road. I got out and marched over to his car. I could see that he was stunned by this display of aggression and was wondering what would come next. I asked him to roll down his window (there is a unique body language for this in this part of the world – one extends one’s arm with all fingers bunched together. It means “please. Do as I say” and is followed by a gesture. In this case I gestured for him to roll down his window. He lowered the window with great trepidation and I asked him why, in the name of all that was holy, he was driving around with his main beam on. His relief at not being struck forcibly on the face was evident. He babbled something that escaped me. After listening a while, I wondered what to do next. Obviously any further aggression was not called for and yet I couldn’t just walk away without doing something positive. I let him babble on a little further and then I beckoned him to stop babbling. “Khalaas” I thundered and walked back to my car. I left him bewildered and, more significantly, with a beam that had been lowered.

I once had the good fortune to work for a sheikh. He was a distant member of the ruling family but nevertheless an important man in his own right. He had been a Minister of the UAE many years ago. I spoke to him many times without actually having met him. One day……..one fateful day………we met.

I was filled with a sense of dread at how this meeting would go. Here was a powerful man, a man on talking terms with the Ruler of Dubai. A man who could make or break me with his little finger – nay, something even softer than that!. Having never met a sheikh in my life I was unable to mentally slot him into the many slots that I had for the various VIPs and dignitaries.

He was meeting me because he had purchased an expensive Nokia Communicator; he initially didn’t know how to set it up to receive faxes. I fixed that for him and gave to his driver who handed it to him. However man is a curious creature and he wanted to learn how to use the wretched instrument to its fullest capacity. He sent the instrument back to me with a message that he would be visiting the office two days hence and that I should teach him the intricacies of communication a la the Communicator.

Being a firm believer in Murphy’s Law I listed every thing that could possibly go wrong and then addressed myself to each of these issues multiple times till I had everything perfect. I even looked forward to meeting the almighty sheikh.

An hour before the appointed hour I saw a UAE national walking towards me. Medium height. Medium build. Red as a cherry due to the exertion of having climbed two flights of stairs. “Salaam Alaikum” I wished the stranger. “Salaam” he replied. “I am the Sheikh”.

There was a moment of stunned silence on my part and then I invited him in to the office so that we could start the training session. “Communicator khalee valee” he replied. “I am here to give you another task. A very secret one. Tell no one about it” and saying this, he gave me my secret task which, even today, is so secret that I won’t talk about it.

“Khalee Valee’ in this part of the world means “to hell with it”.

And I more fully appreciated Murphy’s Law than I previously had. The law states “If anything can go wrong, it will”. I figured nothing could go wrong. What went wrong was that he said khalee valee to the whole project! Something that I never anticipated.

Shortly thereafter I met an Egyptian male secretary to a UAE national manager of a company. I was there to pitch for their website – they didn’t have one and were looking for someone to do it. The Egyptian probably liked me for after a while of waiting in his waiting room he took out a file and showed me some photographs and then outlined a theme for my approach to the big man. “He likes this too much” he told me. “If you tell him like this, he will give you the order”. “Liking something too much” is also a part of the lingo here.

One comes across “same same” very often. Ask someone something and he will probably use this phrase. “This training program of our company same same as that of Emirates Airlines”.

"Same same" is used equally by Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Arabs and almost all the 140 nationalities that Dubai plays home to. European expats who have lived in Dubai a long time also tend to feel that "same same" makes for easier comprehension and use it without batting an eyelid.

What else, you ask?

Khalaas. I have decided to stop. No more. Khalee valee to the rest of this article. I will do the balance tomorrow, and if I wrote same same don’t blame me!


This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)

Musings: The murky goings on in the Middle East in olden times

The amazing Arabs were sailing longer distances than Columbus 1500 years before Columbus ever set sail.

For several centuries these Arab sailors provided Europe with many of their luxury goods, while managing to keep many of their sources a complete secret. These Arab sailors were the means by which inventions and thoughts were transported from the Far East to Europe, causing the Greek and Roman Empires to develop into great and sophisticated civilizations.

The Arabs were also accomplished pirates. However, they were also instrumental in shifting the balance of power in the region.

How? With elephants! Believe it or not, the murky goings on in the Middle East started with elephants.

Elephants? Yes elephants. Specifically Loxodonta africana, the African elephant.

Our story flashes back to the time of Alexander the Great. He ruled with an iron fist. Things were going well. All the generals under him behaved themselves.

Then, one day, Mr. Alexander died of acute pancreatis. One Mr. Sbarounis CN., of the Second Propedeutic Department of Surgery, University of Thessaloniki, Ippokrateion Hospital, Greece, has deeply researched the final days of Alexander and has concluded that Alexander the Great died of acute pancreatitis secondary to heavy alcohol consumption and a very rich meal.

Whatever be the reason of his death, the fact remains that the invincible Alex was no more.

Immediately after his death, before the period of mourning was over, his generals divided Greece up amongst themselves.

Soon these generals began warring with each other for greater control. In the Middle East, this translated into a struggle between the Seleucids of Damascus and the Ptolomies of Egypt.

The crux of the matter was that the Seleucid Army in Syria had elephants and the Ptolemies in Egypt had none.

This was a great imbalance of power during times of war.

Elaphants, as we know, are beasts that inspire fear and terror. Being trampled by an elephant is not what the soldiers of the Ptolemies looked forward to.

In order to counteract this tactical deficit, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the ruler of Egypt decided to import African elephants into his army. In order to do this as fast as possible, he needed to move elephants from central Africa north . So he developed a series of ports on the Red Sea complete with elephant stopping stations. Elephants were then captured, trained, and eventually moved from the southern parts of Africa to Egypt via ships and ports. As this all took time.

The building of ports and ships on the Red Sea was no simple matter. First of all, there were only one or two small ports in existence. Egypt had always looked north to the Mediterranean, and south, down the Nile River. They had an impressive navy on the Nile River, but no history of sailing on the Red Sea up to this time. Added to this, the Red Sea was famous for its Arab pirates. These pirates lurked in all the bays and harbors along the sea's edge. Thus it was very difficult for Egyptians and others to do trade on the Red Sea in the face of this certain piracy.
Therefore, the construction of a series of ports along the coast and the construction of war ships was mandatory before the Ptolemies could make the seas usable for their purposes. Added to this were the physical difficulties of sailing on the Red Sea. The Red Sea is dotted with many rocky shores, coral reefs, and is also susceptible to powerful winds from the south west. Any boat venturing into strange waters, with inexperienced sailors was at risk from the elements, not just the pirates.

In those days it was common for merchants to hire archers to sail on their merchant boats to help withstand Arab pirates.

However the Arab pirates could not be ignored for long and a truce was made with them. The Arab pirates then started themselves moving the goods legally from point A to point B earning money in the process. In other words they became legit. They also started specializing in niche markets like modern marketers.

Since most of the business was in the frankincense, and since frankincense was harvested only once a year, the Arabs needed something to occupy themselves (apart from piracy) for the rest of the year. Being skillful sailors, they found a way to transport elephants on their ships for the Ptolemeic rulers. One offshoot of this is that African elephants would be used to decorate the buildings in Petra (in Jordan).

Then in 85 BC, the Arabs accomplished an amazing victory. As the Roman army was entering the Middle East, Seleucid power totally crumbled. The citizens of Damascus appealed to the Arab King Aretas III (86 - 62 BC) asking him to enter the city and protect them from the invading and marauding forces in the land. He did so, and thus totally clinched the orient trade with Europe. Now all trade had to pass through Arab hands, whether it was from the Orient via the maritime route and the South Arabia ports to Egypt, or from the Orient via the Silk Road through Mesopotamia. This made the Arabs total masters of luxury trade.

Once the Romans arrived, the Arabs began the dangerous game of guessing which rising Roman power to back. They correctly guessed that they should back Julius Caesar, but failed to back those who assassinated him. During this whole time, the Arabs endeavored to maintain friendly relations with the Romans who were quickly becoming their principle customers.

Maintaining control of the Red Sea, however, was vital to their being able to maintain a monopoly on their trade. Added to this, they tried to keep the source of their goods a secret, spreading many false tales about where their sources were, and the difficulties they had obtaining their goods.

Some years later, the Arab trade monopoly on the Red Sea was challenged when Cleopatra and Antony were defeated at the battle of Antuim. Cleopatra then had sixty warships dragged from the Nile overland to the Red Sea, where she and Antony planned to escape to the famed land of India.

The Arabs, alarmed at the size of such a naval force on the Red Sea, and at their planed destination, took it upon themselves to attack and burn the entire Egyptian fleet. (Josephus) This helped cement their relationship with the new Roman powers, as well as protected their interests on the Red Sea.

This also led to the deaths of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony.

Arab power had been consolidated.

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This article copyright © Prakash Subbarao (E-mail: info@datadubai.com)

Summer Camp in Dubai

Schools close in the UAE during the summer months of July and August.

During this period, a lot of people go back to their home country for their annual vacation notwithstanding the fact that airlines have substantially jacked up the air fares.

Many decide to take their vacation during Christmas.

Some do not take a vacation at all.

I fell into the last category during the Summer of 2003.

Although temperatures soar to 48 degrees Celsius, one doesn’t feel the heat as offices are air conditioned. In fact I have on occasion had to hurry downstairs to the torrid sands outside my office to “warm up”!

Being in the field of computer education, my company stops computer education and starts conducting “Summer Camps” during the summer. Stops computer education because the students and most of the faculty are going home on vacation; starts conducting summer camps because there are a lot of children that aren’t going home for a holiday and their parents do not want to leave them alone unattended and so enroll them into summer camps.

Since computer education is much “regionalized” – children do not want to travel too far from their home, a very cost effective way to create awareness is to drop leaflets at each flat in the immediate vicinity of the education center.

Another way of creating awareness is to seek the permission of schools to hand over the leaflets to parents at the “annual day” of the school where parents and teachers meet for the generally distasteful task of discussing the ward’s (poor) performance.

Last year this direct-to-parent approach was very effective and gave good results but this year, a very large number of companies jumped on this bandwagon and each parent was inundated with around 25 brochures. The mind overloaded, the fingers went weak and the brochures fluttered gently to the ground. They cycle was completed when the vendors picked up their brochures and ‘recycled’ them, to the same results.

This brings us to the theme of this story. The need for bodies to deliver brochures.

Since this was the first time that I was conducting this exercise, I felt the best way to go about it was to put a small classified in “Gulf News”, the English daily of the UAE. The ad wouldn’t be accepted under the heading “Situations Wanted – Sales” since this was not a selling job; we were soon breaking our heads as to which category to put it under. Finally, we decided on the “Miscellaneous” category and ran an advertisement for “delivery boys”. Being an inborn pessimist (I blame it on studying Murphy’s Law too often……….”If anything can go wrong, it will”) I was unsure of the results. However, on the appointed day our ad ran and we were soon besieged with job seekers. I left it to my secretary to wade through the logistics of it and shortlist 6 people so that 4 could be finally selected. Being an efficient soul (though this was her first job) she soon had the six lined up for further interrogation. I decided that since she had sailed through smoothly so far she might as well conclude the exercise by choosing the four musketeers and left this to her. I forgot all about it.

The next day, at 9 am sharp, the four gentlemen were there, smartly dressed, shoes polished, fresh eyed and eager to start work.

“These don’t look like delivery boys to me” I muttered to myself. “They look like sales executives!”. I called the secretary in and asked to see their résumés.

The first was a highly qualified CAD Engineer. He was (I found out later) till recently, earning a princely salary. Then his company stopped paying salaries (a very common occurrence in the Middle East) and he finally “agreed” to write off his dues to the extent of US$ 5000 if they would agree to release him and not enforce a ban on his passport. His name is Robin and he is a Filipino. A very nice guy. Always smiling. He has gone through a lot in life and has an exuberant optimistic attitude towards the future. He told me he was flat broke and had therefore taken up this short term assignment where he would earn about US$ 300 working part time for a month. When I asked him where he was staying, he told me that he had a girlfriend in town who had agreed to a “sleep now, pay later” plan. He gave me a knowing wink.

The second résumé was that of D’Silva, a Srilankan. He is a qualified accountant and had, till recently, worked as an accounts officer for a 4 star hotel. The hotel went bust, the management changed and D’Silva found himself on the streets sans job. Sans friends. Sans money. (Life is like that, isn’t it?). He had gone from a white collar worker to an illegal almost overnight. He could stay on as long as his visa was valid and would then have to leave. He was maximizing his earnings opportunity in every way as long as he was in the UAE. He was a hard task master, I was soon to learn. He became the leader of the group – the guy who ensured that the other guys were doing what they said they were doing and, more importantly, what we had told them to do. He gave me the reports every day (and he gave my secretary and hourly review via cell phone.

The third guy was an Indian named Sudhir. He was an office boy in his previous company. That company too set him adrift in the choppy seas of unemployment and Sudhir was scrambling to survive. He was the quietest of them all since his communication in English was poor. Or maybe he was naturally taciturn. He had a very strong trait that I noticed much later and which made him stand out in the group.

The fourth was a student named Ankur. Also an Indian and the son of a taxi driver, he wanted to earn some money for himself. Ankur was the smart glib guy of the lot. At age 18 he reminded me of my son and I tended to go easy with him.

The boys turned out to be trustworthy and hard working and work progressed smoothly. Soon phase 1 was completed – the dropping of brochures flat-by-flat in a multi storeyed building. This was also the easiest part of their job. Two guys took a lift to the top floor and then started their routine and, helped by gravity, walked their way down between 15 and 20 floors. They would complete the target in about 2 hours and then go home for a well deserved rest. This was OK with me. I didn’t want to over work them in the summer heat.

Soon we went into phase 2. This was the “hand-it-to-the-parent” phase. It required standing outside the gate of a school, in the scorching mid day heat (48 degrees Celsius) and handing over the brochures to the parents as they came out of the school.

None of the guys could do more than twenty minutes at a time.

We had a car standing by with air conditioner continuously on and piles of cold drinks for them to consume. They would dive in for a ten minute R & R session before D’Silva ordered them back on the job.

It was in this phase that we noticed Sudhir’s strength. He could just stand there, bare headed in the sun, and hand the leaflets out without taking a break. He came from a very tough stock.

Since I was almost all the time with them we became friends. I go to know them all well. They told me their sorrows, their ambitions, their hopes, their aspirations.

They had one thing in common. They all begged for a job with my company.

If I could have given them a job I would have done it without a moment’s hesitation. But I couldn’t.

The month ended. Their task was completed. It was time for them to leave.

We promised to keep in touch, but in turbulent times such promises are never kept.

About three months after they had left I came across their telephone numbers in my address book. On an impulse I called Robin’s cell phone. A female voice answered. Sounded like a Filipina. Sounded very suspicious. “Why you want to know where Robin is?” (sic) she demanded repeatedly. After I had explained at length why, she told me that he was back in the Phillipines. It seems he got a good job with a multinational at Jebel Ali Free Zone and was about to be sent by them to Japan for a CAD training program when it was discovered that he had some missing documentation. So he went back home to set his papers in order presumably to return to the job. “We will have a drink together” he had told me when the assignment ended. I am still hoping that he will call. He is a very nice guy.

D’Silvas phone yielded a “this number has been disconnected message”. My only link with him was that of a phone number and that link had got cut.

I keep meeting Ankur off and on. He drops in now and again to the office to meet me. We talk about his studies; his plans to return to India for higher education.

Sudhir had no contact number to start with. “I will keep in touch” he said. But he never did.

All that is left are warm memories.


Copyright Prakash Subbarao (info@datadubai.com)

Musings: Anu Kapoor and Shaan live in Dubai

I am sure that there are many Indian and Pakistani members in this list and is to them that this posting is addressed.

One of the nice things about Dubai is that many Indian and Pakistani musicians wend their way here – they cannot afford to ignore this important oasis of fans in the Arabian Gulf region.

Of late a lot of games shows and musicals are being shot here. Anu Kapoor (of Antakshari fame) was here filming a game show at the Ajman Independent Studios in Ajman. The show was looking for an audience and were offering free passes. My wife and I jumped at the offer and there we were, at the studio, one chilly evening (it’s really COLD in Dubai these days!).

If this show had been held in India, there would have been zillions of people vying to be a part of the audience. There would have been police posted at the gates and there would be fans trying to scale the studio walls surreptitiously to make their way to Studio 2 to be a part of the audience. Here, tickets were going abegging.

We had scarcely settled down as part of the audience – and there were very few people in the audience – when a worried studio hand approached us and asked us whether we would like to a take part in the show. This was incredible and a little worrying. He explained that two of the participants had failed to show up and wished to induct us in their place.

The “game show” being held that day was in honor of the great music director Roshan. (I hadn’t even heard of him!). The studio guy promised that he would give us a brief biography of Roshan to memorize and we could participate confidently. He was so sure that we would succeed that he even called the make up man to start applying the make up.

My wife was all for it. She is basically a very enthusiastic person and is willing to participate in most events; however, the voice of caution kept screaming in my head “DON’T DO IT!” I’d rather be non-participative than famous in worldwide as the guy who knew nothing about Roshan!

Most Indian wives (most wives?) tacitly concede that their hubby has the right to veto every now and then, and so the resolution was firmly vetoed (and sullenly accepted by my wife) and peace reigned. We reverted again to the role of spectators.

Roshan, for those of you who may not have heard of him, was a famous music director in the 1960’s. He wrote the music, for example, of the hit “Taj Mahal” soundtrack (Jo vaada kiya, etc). He is also Rajesh Roshan’s brother (? – someone pl correct me if I am wrong) and Rakesh Roshan’s father.

Anu Kapoor needs no introduction to Indians and Pakistanis. He is an encyclopedia as far as music is concerned. An actor par excellence and above all a great performer Anu Kapoor, has always looked at music more than a medium of entertainment. For him music is a stimulant for the soul and that’s the reason he has been hosting India’s most successful musical shows ever - Close-Up Antakshri - on Zee TV.

What Anu Kapoor adds to the atmosphere is his intense and extempore showmanship. You have him tap dancing one minute to falling on the floor in excitement the next.

And of course, he is a great singer regaling the audience with past hits – in this case of Roshan.

All in all it was a great performance and a great show and we went every day till it concluded.

More recently, as early as last week, we learned that the favorite “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa” hosted by Shaan was shooting in Dubai Media City amphitheatre and they too wanted an audience and passes were available at the Jumbo Electronics outlets all over the UAE.

This was good news, because there is a Jumbo show room within a few minutes of walk from my home. I visited the showroom several times but each time they lamented the fact that they had not yet received the passes (though by now all the other showrooms had). When they finally got it, they felt so obliged towards me that they gave me what I asked for – two passes for every show. When I returned home, I found that in their haste and excitement to please they had given me four passes for some shows!

I later learned that other Jumbo showrooms had been very conservative in issuing the passes and had given each visitor only two passes in toto.

Shaan is a Bengali (Shantanu Mukherjee). Not many Indian know that, do they? Shaan does have a fairly illustrious musical background. His father was composer Manas Mukherjee, who has scored music for films such as Shaayad and Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai.

Shaan made his solo debut with the album, Loveology in 1996 - a commonplace pop album that did not do his career much good. But lady luck at last decided to smile down upon Shaan in 2000, and the singer delivered Tanha Dil, an exceptionally promising album, featuring some soulful ballads, as well as catchy tunes. The album finally established him as a serious singer of considerable worth. He remains a self-taught musician, who has received no formal training.

The show happens at the Dubai Media City Amphitheater and the stands overlook the CNN and the Reuters Buildings. There is a beautiful lake in the backdrop and everything is a lush green. Palm tree lined stone paved paths wend their way hither and thither. All the palm trees are lit up with small colourful bulbs. There is a wooden bridge across the lake. It leads to the CNN building. The bridge too is gaily decorated in lights.

The approach to the amphitheatre is fenced off and there are security guards every where. Incongruously, they are all tall, well built Africans. This serves as a forcible reminder that Dubai is multicultural – 140 nationalities live in harmony here.

Five minutes before the show a “crowd control director” (Jitenderji) tells the audience where the cameras are located, how they must clap etc. and what they must NOT do during the show.

The show starts without much fanfare. Messages are audibly exchanged amongst the director and crew members over the PA system. Shaan indicates that he is ready and the show starts with the director exhorting every one to maintain silence.

Shaan’s Hindi is atrocious. That’s because Hindi is not his mother tongue. This causes several re-takes when shooting. Shaan often says something that is grammatically wrong and the director shouts “Cut cut cut!” like all directors and the scene is re-shot to get it right. This means that Shaan and the director do not do their home work. If they did, and had a script, things would move much faster. But that’s my own humble opinion.

Though the participants are all of Indian origin and singing songs in Hindi, many do not know to even speak a word of Hindi or to even understand it!

There was this teenager from South Africa. He sang very well (though at times one could detect a South African accent). The judge (Abida Parveen) started talking to him in Urdu and he couldn’t decipher a word she said! Finally Shaan had to act as an interpreter.

The moment the show starts, many in the audience pull out chips packets and give it to their children. Dubai crowds have voracious appetites and everyone seems to be eating all the time. The wrapper of the chips packets make a lot of loud rustling. Cell phone rings every now and then (though the crowd control director had asked everyone to switch them off, most do not comply). People talk loudly amongst themselves in violation of the instructions. That’s why, anywhere in the world, Indians (meaning Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Nepalis.) will be Indians and behave as if they are still in India (in the Indian subcontinent). They forget that they are here for a purpose; that the free admission is for them to add credence to the show and that they have a role to play to make the shooting a success. It takes great patience on the part of the organizers to handle these louts if I may use the word).

There is a different judge every day.

The first day that we went Abida Parveen was the judge. I quote BBC here “Long feted as the heir to the crown of the late Qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistani singer Abida Parveen is the owner of one of the most remarkable voices on the planet. The “World Village review wrote: Parveen could sing a shopping list and have an audience weeping.... “The fervour of gospel, the emotion of soul, the abandon of rock and the vocal flexibility of scat.’ That’s how the Los Angeles Times has described the singing of Pakistani Sufi singer Abida Parveen. And her song, at the end of the show, had the audience mesmerized. When this program airs, on Zee TV, look at Shaan when she is singing. He looks completely amazed and bowled by the flexibility of her voice and her gestures when singing!

The next day, the judge was the venerable Ghulam Ali, the ghazal maestro. The man behind timeless classic ghazals like "Chupke chupke..", "Hungama hai kyon barpa...", "Kal chaudhavi ki raat thi..", "Dil me ek laher si", "Dukh ki laher ne..", "Karoo na yaad magar..", and so many other unforgettable ones. Ghulam Ali originates from Pakistan, and has sung over the years in various countries in many live concerts. Many international music labels have produced his albums in various forms. He has learnt his singing from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and also from Ustad Barkat Ali Khan.

The finals are on Saturday. That’s two days left. I hear that the judge today will be Jagjit Singh. I will keep you guys posted on what happened.