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. 

The Great Let Down - I

It is finally time to say Good-Bye to Middle - East which has been my so called home for a good part of last two years. I sit now at the airport, looking back trying to evaluate the good memories from the bad and I am not surprised that more often than it should be, it has been the latter that seems to have left a prominent impression. I have got into trouble insanely lot many more times than I have in my entire life.

When I got an offer to work here, I had set myself a target of maximum 2 years that I will spend here and I am glad that I am getting out just in time. If I had to sit down and literally count, I have spent around 20 months almost equally divided between Dubai and Kuwait. Initially, I was not big on coming to middle east, but circumstances in the previous job and the position offered here prompted me to take this up as a challenge.

I still remember when I first walked out of the Dubai Airport, as soon as I stepped out, the humidity hit me like an invisible force and my spectacles were all fogged up, I was like WHOA, WTF! I was totally mesmerized by the concrete art in form of futuristic buildings on the SJR. I was truly enchanted by the sight of the Burj Dubai now better known as Burj Khalifa, It was still under construction back then but stood there looking like a towering giant over the city. I was put up at Discovery Gardens, a nice and quiet neighbourhood, almost like an Oasis surrounded by the desert all around. I would lie if I say that I didn't take an immediate liking for this place, I was happy by the spacious furnished apartment provided, a small garden patch where you could relax in the evenings and beautiful view from the balcony.

Picture Perfect!

I guess the first thing that I started noticing about this place was the cars. Yes, those gorgeous metal beauties. This place was like a paradise for me, I felt like a little boy again watching all those super-cars come to life which I had only seen on the posters of my bedroom wall or as wallpapers. And of course the R1’s and the Harley’s. Half the time here was spent drooling over every passing super-car and there were many!

The seductress

The second thing was the babes! The one I am talking is more of the organic variety. If I say, I was completely blown away, would be an understatement. The English, the Americans,  the Russians, Germans (my own boss was a hot and tall German) and the chicks from all the other European countries completely nailed my jaw firmly to the floor. There has to be a special mention of the Arabian chicks, especially the ones which had nothing else but their eyes visible. One glimpse of those eyes and it was enough to keep you going for weeks. I mean there was something about it, that you just cant forget. And then there were the other Arab chicks who had their complete face visible. Layers and layers of makeup, marinated in perfume which you could get a waft from a mile long and the kohl giving a finish to every outline on the face, like a border on the painting. Still they had oodles and oodles of oomph just oozing all over the place. Lunch times were usually happy times in the mall, completely spent ogling and staring. The Indians and others Asians were ofcourse there but hardly worth a second look, mostly because they were either married and tagging along with their husbands and children, not even MILF title deserving. Well to be fair, I have seen nothing but them all my life.

Slurrp!

The first month went by like a breeze, the work place was good, nothing like the horrible stories I had heard from people. ‘Almost’ treated as an equal, friendly colleagues, good work ethics, decent but aged boss, not exactly a challenging job profile which left a lot of time for me to persuade other activities. I took to the European food and Arabic cuisine that the Ibn Batuta mall had to offer like a bee does to a flower. I almost ate at a new place and a new food course for almost a month or so. I always loved experimenting with food, so it was absolutely a paradise.

I didn’t have much of a social life since I hardly knew anyone out here except Vikram who was in Sharjah at that time and neither am I big on making random friends. So I had to depend on my colleagues to show me around. Still, the one thing that I like about this city is that it never makes you feel that you are alone, since all around you see people on their own, doing their own thing. Despite of that, I managed to cover a lot of places here in Dubai, almost all the beaches (loved the crystal clean Green/Blue water although a bit extra salty), Desert Safari, Bull Fighting at Ras Al khaimah, The Dibba - Oman - Musandam Dhow cruise, The Burj - al- Arab, The Burj Khalifa and the musical fountain, Gold souq and all the stupid and boring malls. And in Kuwait, The liberation towers, The Kuwait Towers, The parliament house, The holy family church and the Salmiya beach front. Kuwait is so small that you can circumvent the entire country in 2 hours flat. 

A special mention has to be made of twitter here. Within a month of coming here, life did a complete U-turn on me, in simple words had a break up for the most annoying reason which I cannot digest, it was really some kinda big ass karmic joke. I was in depression for a month or two and solitude that Kuwait provided really helped. I was introduced to twitter out of sheer boredom. I mean how many movies can a person watch and going through the breakup of the century didn’t help either. Twitter is the kinda place where you can strike up instant conversations and there is someone or the other always available. It provided a comforting distraction and it works so well that I would recommend anyone who has had a break-up, to ‘twitter therapy’. I met quite a lot of new people over Twitter meet-ups knows as "Tweetups", some are still good friends and some I found uber annoying. I mean I am not a crowd kinda person, it totally creeps me out to strike random conversations with absolute strangers.

(To Be Continued...)