The Great Let Down - II

Continued from Part - I

And then there is “The Money”, oh yes, that's something that made my time here worthwhile but then again even money starts losing its value once the needs are satisfied. I made my first million (INR) in savings that is. Fulfilled all the wishes of buying the gadgets that money can buy without paying any sort of taxes. Not to be snobby but  listing some of them below. 

The first thing I had bought was a Nikon P&S, and lost it within a month on an aeroplane.

<3

Then second thing was the Casio EFE -  500D, part of Sebastien Vettel’s collection.

The third thing was the Canon FS- 400 video camera.

The fourth was the PS-3

The fifth was the HTC  Touch Pro, windows phone. My first smart phone sold it after 6 months :P

The sixth was the Nikon - D5000 DSLR. My first SLR.

The seventh was the Sony Vaio VPCEB15FA

The eight was the 32 LG LCD for back home. 

The ninth was the Bose In ear phones. Had wanted it from so long.

The tenth was the Blackberry Bold 3.  

And behold, the latest is the Apple MacBook Air. 

Apart from the gadgets, I always knew I was not going to stay here on a long term so kept my investments in terms of apartments and vehicles to a bare minimum and anyways Dubai has amazing transportation system. This is one thing all the metros in India should learn.  

A few nuisances that I found mighty annoying about this place was the weekend system .I mean why the hell invent your own calendar, can’t we just follow the calendar that the rest of the world follows. My company had the concept of Thursday Half day and Friday which was supposedly the “weekend”. I absolutely abhorred this concept of weekend and even more going to work on a Saturday and Sunday. People said that with time you get used to it but I could do nothing but detest and loathe every single weekend. The second was the prayer calls five times a day, I don’t mean any offence to the religion neither do I have anything personal against it but I just cant relate to it and it is nothing but screeching noise for me which I cant wait for it to stop. I mean, you are sitting their in silence with your thoughts and there he goes off screaming away to glory. If your on a call while being outdoors, this sound virtually acts like a Signal Jammer. And they have one mosque in every single block of the country so there is no way that you can escape it. It gets worst during Ramadan, the prayers start at 4 AM, and the pitch keeps on increasing incessantly, none of the restaurants will serve food and even if you find it somehow, you will have to hide somewhere and eat like a thief. I tried being a part of the festivities and I have to say, the atmosphere completely changes during Ramadan. The amazing sweets and even yummier food made me over look some of the other irritating things.

If all that was not enough, I was once hauled up to the police station and roughed up just because me and my buddy went to an empty beach to take the photographs of the sunset and then the reason given to us was that there was an oil rig, a couple of miles into the sea and we were supposed to be spies and part of some conspiracy to blow it up. I mean seriously, do I look like a spy to you? The cops over here are more psychos than anything else, they will not listen to you if you don't speak Arabic. In all probability if you get into their hands they will charge you for murder and execute you. I mean the legal system rinks of the justice served during the medieval ages (Although I heard they serve Chicken Biryani in the Jail)

The other thing which is prominent here is the rampant and in your face prostitution and open solicitation that goes on in public places. Initially I was completely “culture shocked” and then slowly started accepting as one of the many flaws of this country. This is a mighty dangerous habit and I have seen many a guys wasting away their hard earned money, month after month on this horrendous activity. The cops turn a complete blind eye to the entire thing. 

That concludes my rant. I hope to put all this behind me and get a clean break through. If someone asks me, "Do you ever wish to come back here?", and for sure the answer would be Hell No. And neither would I recommend this place to anyone who is not Muslim.

P.S: To all my muslim friends, this is not intended to offend anyone, this is sincerely my and only MY opinion. I am sorry if I have hurt any of your sentiments or feelings but this is how I felt during my stay and since this is my personal space, I let out everything. I have nothing against any religion, hell I am agnostic for all that matters.  I hope I don't get burnt for this.