Tid Bit from My Diary

This weekend the dark clouds gathered around the global economy once again and this time it was on concerns that two of Dubai - owned companies may default on their debt obligations. Watching the news develop in the television stations a thought crossed my mind … “How happy we were there”. I was transported to another world when I read Oscar Wilde’s “Selfish Giant” for the first time. The statement “How happy we were there” remained closed to my heart and popped into my mind every now and then. This time it was not so much for us as we had reached Dubai as matters had already started to get sour, though I would have loved to live there. There has been hundreds of thousand s of families who had to leave the land of their dreams. The economy was buyout many people lost control over their lifestyle started to live beyond their means. They were sitting on the edge spend their past , present and future income with an illusion that they are immune to the global economic downturn without ...

Few days back I had written about the living statues in my other blog A Slice of Art & Design . What a coincidence that a very similar technique was being used in one of the popular malls in Dubai last week. A few stores had come together with a Radio station (who runs a few FM channels in different languages) to host a competition. The competition was quite uncommon (I shall not comment if I liked the idea or I did not) for this city where there is a constant attempt to inject new ideas to promote consumerism. This particular competition was called “ Spot the real model ”. There were a few (5 to be precise) model who were posing with the mannequins in the display windows of the stores spread all over the mall. It was exactly the same act as one of those living models. The only difference probably was that they were working under a corporate or a modeling assignment and not as street performers. All one had to do to claim a prize (shopping vouchers) was to be one of the first...

Last month I had attended “ The Hotel Show ” at the Dubai International Trade Centre. It was a one of its kind yearly occurrence with exhibitors from around the globe descends here to showcase their products. Everything that you see and you do not see when you walk into a hotel as a guest was on display. It goes without saying that stuff that we do not see surpasses what we do with a great margin but this is not my point of discussion. It was very encouraging to see how the business houses are putting up a brave face in the wake of the economic Tsunami that has struck the entire world. Everyone was being extremely optimistic and kept focusing on to the sunny days ahead and we all know that it is not too far away. There were amazing and awesome products on display like stabilized natural plants to designer’s furniture. Similarly exciting were the technological concepts focusing into providing a unique and integrated guest experience. There was a design competition for the employee unifo...

Time Freezes... The Sun is setting ... A plane about to land.. while a boat lazing aro und They say Industrial revolution has brought in the concept of mass education where large number of pupils were taught in the classrooms as opposed to one is to one teacher student relationship. The result have been amazing and the world started to mass produce all the produce all categories of professionals. A large number of individuals who could do the same work with same level of expertise and one could replace the other so very easily. I think one of the few profession which was relatively untouched by this sweeping wave has been the photography. Primarily because of the high initial cost and operation expense. Today we live in a world where everyone is a photographer and a digital camera is one of the most common possession of a person on the street. The first question you will face when some one spots a new camera is "how many mega pixels is your camera?" the notion is that the hi...

What do you do when you stop at the traffic light? One has to be very attentive in this part of the world. A delay of a split second to move at the light turning green could start a live orchestra with people trying their hands on the car horns. I have noticed some motorist, (actually more than some motorist) devoting this spare time of theirs in keeping their nose clean. In other words downloading stuff from inside their nose into their car with the help of the index fingers. Some people like to spend this time by getting prepared for the meeting he is going to attend on his arrival or being creative by developing ideas or trying to solve mathematical mind benders or maybe analyzing the days activities at work, the usual what went wrong or what could be dealt in a better way..... while the car fm provide the background score. Have you ever tried to try your hand at photography. These are some result of my humble attempt at what I call "Traffic signal photography" . Let me kn...

There is something quite unique about a bridge not far away from Dubai. It is a narrow bridge which only allows only oneway traffic. You have to wait for your turn to get into the bridge and can only do that once the car already on the bridge have crossed over and no one from the other side has started. This is the only link to the mainland and if something happens to that bridge you will be in limbo! There are no traffic light or traffic cop but people ensure that there is a smooth movement of traffic back and forth. Why can't we have this behavior within the city limits? Well that is a million dollar question. Within the city limits we are different people.. "bina juddhe nahi debo succhagro medini" (will not concede any land even equivalent to the tip of a needle without a fight). Once you cross over to the other side there is nothing ....... not a black hole though! But a vast deserted sand punctuated by the track marks of 4X4 vehicles and then converges into the prist...

It helps at times to look out of the window without trying to focus on any particular object but stare at a distance. It clears my thought process and opens up the mind to the world of imagination and ideas. One particular morning with a freshly prepared coffee in my mug, I walked up and stood in front of the window. It was in the 10th floor in one of the mid-rise buildings of downtown Dubai. We had a wonderful view of the creek, golf club and the city skyline with intermittent take off and landing of aeroplanes from this office. That morning it was a building construction site across the street that caught my attention. It was buzzing with activities. At this point one would be tempted to wonder what is new in this, probably 80 out of 100 windows in Dubai has got a similar view, a construction site with whole lot of activities. After all this is a city which has employed almost 60% of worlds total number of tower cranes. It has built in ten years what took better part of a millennium ...

First week in March of 2008 when I relocated myself to realize the Dubai dream I was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of things in this city. Living in Dubai is completely a different experience than visiting the city for a day or transiting by its airport. I was speechless as I discovered a city so vibrant and so full of life with so much of glitz all around. I was put up in a service apartment on the Sheikh Zayed road and used the public transport to commute to and from my office in Deira. It was almost like a skiing, could not have been smoother. I used to wonder while it only takes 15 minutes travel to and back from my workplace, why is all this fuss that people make about Dubai Jam. Soon I realized that it was only the beginner's luck that worked in my favor when I had to wait only for a few minutes to get my morning taxi while a phone call to the RTA call center used send me a taxi to get me home safe and sound. The rude awakening came as I found out it is was not only diffi...