Roadtrip-Stopover at Dubai

Ever since I left Riyadh on the 15th of April, my life has been in a tumult. Most of the time I have been on the road, half that time in the air (one of the small mercies my company has deemed fit to bestow on me).

The three short days in Dubai were spent catching up with my brothers and also a couple of friends. Dubai has changed drastically since I left it as a 15 year old in 1994. Glitzy malls, towering sky scrapers and private taxis dot the landscape. I remembered a 39 storeyed building called the Dubai Trade Centre as being the largest building there. Back then, it towered over the Dubai skyline. Hell, Dubai had no skyline till ’94. But this time, when my brother drove me past the area, the Trade Centre was pygmied by the giants around it. I am now amused at the thought of something with just 39 storeys enjoying the status of the tallest building.

The larger part of Dubai is a literal showcase. You see the best of everything – buildings, cars, roads, and yes - women! After all, who on earth, leave alone someone coming from the neighbouring wilderness that is Saudi Arabia, would pay any attention to the vainglory that is man? I was deluged by all the visual images that were bursting into my head. From seeing shapeless bodies underneath a black robe, I was now seeing skin and flesh bursting out. Much to my pleasant surprise, I was able to limit myself to the usual ‘checking them out’ process and not the ‘leer and gawk at them’ process.

As we continued that drive, we came to an older part of town. No big buildings here. I saw a white compound wall on one side, and a petrol bunk on the other. “Do you recognize this place?” my bro asked. “Home?”. He pointed to a run down building, it’s interiors all torn out, and apparently on the road to demolition. That building was where we had grown up. Our house. A complex of modest two-bedroom apartments, one of which was inhabited by a family of five. Back then, there was a wide open ground in front of our building. Where we used to play football and cricket with our friends. Now there was no ground. The road had expanded to eat our ground up, the rest of the space was taken up by the parking lot.

Both my brothers have now moved into their own apartments. Both with fledgling families of their own. Our folks are back home in India, living out a largely lonely and uneventful life. As for me, well, you know what’s happening.

All of us, as I saw in Mel Gibson’s fascinating Apocalypto, sooner or later seek a new beginning. As I was typing this, I figured that, in a strange way, perhaps that’s what both my brothers are doing…making their own new beginnings.