Land Of Dubai

The poor come here to make some money. The rich come here to make more money!

The wonderful land of Dubai – the tax free land that has been a shopper’s paradise and every business man’s dream, has been going through some very rapid changes in the last few years.

I was born and brought up in Dubai and the place that has been home for me since…forever, now seems like a stranger. The buildings are taller, the roads are congested and people are more aggressive and unkind then ever before. I miss old Dubai!

With toll gates haunting your drive everyday and the ominous taxation in Dubai, where are we heading to? Demolishing buildings everywhere to pump the property boom, increasing rents, being penalised for giving a ride to your colleague, increasing prices of fuel, and inflation that can be seen even in your groceries, what kind of people do they really want staying In Dubai?

Dubai is long known as the City of Gold and the biggest contributors are expatriates who have devoted their lifetime staying in this place. It saddens me that there are families who have been here for decades at a stretch, but today the same are in a dilemma where they can no longer afford to live even a modest lifestyle in Dubai….let alone a lavish one!

Everything is possible in this glitzy land but at a price! It is great to see Dubai – which I consider as ‘home’, as developed as it is and I can be pleased to say that it has come from a barren desert to become a booming city. But at what cost? The people who have helped ‘make’ this country what it is today; have no rights to even secure a decent living here. The people who sweep the roads and groom the beautiful flowers you see everywhere in Dubai are the same people who are living in the most horrible conditions. They are the people who eat a meal - worth the same as your tip to the valet man and are content with it. Yet they are the ones who are the first to be thrown out.
Expatriates are looked down to and Emaratisation is promoted. It’s great! It is their country and they should be ahead of us and I mean it when I say it. But I wonder when all the low wage earners, bachelors and expatriates are thrown out, who will keep the Dubai roads, malls and garbage trucks clean? Who will polish and shine our very glitzy Dubai to look its best?

Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road - 1991

Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road - 2005



More Reading On:

Urban Dubai - BBC

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Snail Mail…Lost in Web space?

Best ads –‘If you really want to touch someone, send them a letter’ An advert by Australia Post inspired this ‘post’ [pun intended] on snail mail….Does anyone still call it snail mail or does it have some appalling tag to it to make it sound like a disease?
Define snail mail – Blast from the past? A mode of communication used by….the dinosaurs?

The last time I received a snail mail [that’s what I called it and am sticking to it!!] was when I was in the 7th grade from a friend who had moved back home.
The joy of knowing that an envelope with rather big, childish handwriting in dads hand was addressed to me was exhilarating! And month after month I would wait for yet another one to come with replies to the million questions I wrote back to her!

Electronic mails are convenient no doubt, but how can it ever be the same? I can get flowers in an E-card but you can’t compare it to freshly sprayed perfume that I could get on a paper card. In time of grief or happiness, E-mails are fast and convenient but only a paper card would hold stains of tears to show you the deepness of true feelings. And moreover I don’t have to worry about my paper card expiring or getting deleted if my inbox went over storage limit!

I think I would vote for snail mail to an Email – they just cannot be the same! Is it just me or are there many of you who nodded in agreement when you read this?

Daughter today Mum tomorrow?

Mother - verb look after kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so. [As per the Oxford Dictionary]

That’s what mothers do best. Look after, protect and love unconditionally. Yet what is with the daughter – mother relation? They can’t live with each other and certainly can’t live without each other. The constant bickering and arguments that seemed so important a few years back just make me wonder how it would be if those fights had never happened.

How would it be if we had spent a lot more time sharing and laughing and shopping? How would we have turned out to be? How would our relation have turned out to be? Would it be any different than what it is? Or would we have been the same? Its not that I don’t have a good relation with my mum but I just seem to understand all that she did for me only after I don’t live with her!

It’s the small things about a person that you miss the most. My top few about not being at ‘moms’ would be:--

*Fresh fruit! It was so easy to come home and pick up a bowl of fruit cut and kept cold by mom and just gulp it down….but of course I would refuse to eat even that because it didn’t seem important to keep down the phone to eat fruit! Now I realize how long it takes to cut open a pomegranate when I do it myself!

*Putting away folded laundry done by mom, in the cupboard. I still put my folded laundry in the cupboard – after I have separated [whites, colors, blacks and hand wash], washed, put out to dry, got it back in from drying and folded them.

*Mom’s food!! I still don’t like all the dishes she cooks…but I certainly miss my favorite ones…..a lot!

*Changing bed covers……why cant we plastic coat our mattresses and pillows?? Its crazy how it needs changing every week and adds’s on to the separating, washing, drying and folding process!

*Meals for office? I think in all the places I have worked for, I have always had THE most elaborate snacks packed from home - planned out for from morning tea to drive back home!

*Morning cold coffee. She knew just when to get the milk out so it’s the right temperature when I drink it before rushing out for work. I now get up half an hour early to take the snacks and make the milk!

*The best was the late night gossip sessions with mum……we could laugh, cry, abuse and b**c* about people and know its fine to do so because it’s not going out anywhere from our tummies!

So I wonder does it always have to be that way. Do we have to realize our mum’s value after the time is gone? What are we so busy with to have not noticed so much in such little time? What can be more important than having to take mom to her most boring hangout supermarket even thought she just wants to look and not buy? Or take her for a ride once a way with her friend? Or help around the house more than what we did?

Can I go back about a decade back when my sister and I could still be at moms place and do all that we didn’t? Can we have the relation we now have with her…just a little while back? Can we just be her little girls once again……we don’t promise not being naughty but we do promise on more fun and understanding!

Love my Mum....think its time to go meet her :)

Are women that complicated or our Men too lazy to bother!!

Yes women are complicated but i think men have us women all sorted out there! [Please read the comment by Baiju to my previous post 'wedding or dating']I think in most cases and out of my experience - with the number of male friends I have had in my life and spoken to, they all know what women want! They all know how women think and all that they expect from them.The problem I feel is for men to put into action what they already know! Is it very difficult to express your feelings once in a way without having being probed by us? Men know that for women out of 4 weeks in a month, 3 weeks we are hormonally challenged! Yet is it too much to ask for you to be a bit understanding and not fight back when we act like a total pain in the bottom? Is it difficult to just hold us and tell us that it’s ok and just kiss us and the fight will be gone in a second…I can guarantee you that!Is it too much to remember an anniversary or things about how our relation started off? Is it difficult to understand eye contact when in a crowd or to get us gifts for NO reason at all? I am sure that men are not that insensitive or ignorant as they seem to have been portrayed or spoken about…..it’s just about doing the right thing at the right moment.I agree it can be tiring but trust me ill tell you something that can help any relation…which is, that women love to talk and if your willing to listen she will tell you exactly what you can do to stop all the bickering and her nagging….all you got to do is remember….what to do and when…! That’s your keyword – Remember!

Wedding or Dating?

Every girl has the much awaited dream of having the perfect dress at the perfect wedding with the perfect guy....but are weddings just over rated in a girl's head?
I wonder where the tradition began of when a girl would have to leave her home and come and live in with her husband and his family. Not only do you feel like an uprooted tree but the emotional baggage that a wedding brings along is not a piece of cake! But to be fair in most relationships it is usually the girl who is more eager to get married, where as the male species have been trying to escape us women from having to 'pop' the question for eternity. So in most cases it us women who want to get married and have a family and all the moments followed by it yet we complain of how cumbersome it is to move out and leave our family and accept a group of strangers who now become 'my family'. Dosent dating just sound a lot more fun? But dating is just not good enough either is it....we want more because we want to feel loved and belonged and want to come home to a waiting husband and a family and special moments that only can be shared with a husband.....because a boy friend just wouldnt understand...
Arent we women just complicated ...