My only form of vice these days is tea. I have two cups of
tea on working days in office served at my table by this young Bangladeshi chap
called Azeez. I always talk in Bangla with him though there is a distinct difference
in our dialects but we understand each other perfectly. I love the tea he
makes. It’s a cross between the bubble tea I had in Singapore and the homemade
tea with milk and sugar in Calcutta.
Some days I feel I never left India. Some days I feel I have
been here forever. Besides Indians are everywhere in this country, if not
Indians then Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. How am I supposed to feel remotely
out of place? If truth be told then in Sharjah it is practically impossible to
feel like an alien if one is an Indian. I was forewarned but it is reinforced every day. I am not even
complaining.
This country didn’t hit me hard on my face or punch me right
there on my gut like Singapore had. Is it because I came here with a job and
not as a penniless graduate student ? I didn’t have to look for a shelter over
my head or figure cheap transport out to
work nor think of where my meals shall come from. At some level it was all
handed to me on a platter.
I walk everywhere, to office, to the gym, for my
walks to the park, for movies to the mall, for grocery shopping to any one of
the hundreds of departmental stores that this city is dotted with. I walk and I
walk in the peak of summer in the Middle East and I don’t mind at all. I have
my eureka moments here every now and then, while walking through the streets and I
spot a sign of a book shop only to figure out that it is actually a stationery shop!
Dayyymmm! The salons are so affordable that I almost shrieked in delight the
other day after being told a manicure will cost only so much.
The hottest part of the day I am in office and by evening it
does cool down relatively. What I miss the most, if I have to talk about
superficial material comforts, would be the cold water showers. The feeling of
the cool water against my skin, at the end of a long tiring day at work, will
be a long distant dream now. The water is perennially hot here, even at 10 at
night. All those tall claims about a cooling system for the water tanks were all
eyewash. The only cold water(read as normal water in Indian standards) showers I took was in Dubai at my friends’
places who live in the better off parts of the city.
Dubai fails to dazzle me. I am thankful to have friends
there. Not just anybody, but my roomie from Singapore and a very old and dear
friend from my Pune days. But if I had to record my observations on the city, as
a complete outsider who has never visited this part of the world, I’d say it is
big, dizzyingly grand, intentionally imposing (they try too hard to intimidate
with their loud architecture I must say), so very bling and a complete concrete
jungle sprinkled with man-made green patches here and there. What sold Dubai to
me, if at all it did, would be the rows and rows of Gulmohur trees planted
liberally all around the city. The sight of the fiery red blossoms gladdened my
heart and filled me with a strange sense of bonhomie towards the city. I wasn’t
so far from home after all.
