Crushing on Dubai

For what it’s worth, watch this video before you read this blog for it answers a long-standing question about Dubai and the importing of culture: If you build it, will they come?

Go Around Twice If You're Happy


What directors Vincent Fichard and Matthew Jones have managed to do with this short film is answer that question with a resounding yes.

Shot on the streets of Dubai, this film seeps into the nooks and crannies of the city and brings to life not only people’s attitudes about living there, but it takes one of Dubai’s greatest headaches -- traffic -- and turns it into an endearing project.

Any local commuter or a hapless one from another emirate (Abu Dhabi) such as myself dreads getting lost on the highways of Dubai. One wrong turn and you find yourself behind an endless cue of liquid waste trucks waiting to unload. And given how long it takes to get back on track, you could spend up to an hour, bored out of your mind, picking the ones that say, “non toxic” from the “toxic” and wonder at the vast expanse of humanity who inhabit what has, in such a short time, joined the the rank of world cities.

But first, its cheeky nod to the labour force that is building Dubai. Even though the first few minutes of the video runs through some of them constructing boards, it is a gentle nod to those who are often forgotten in Dubai’s rush to modernise. Then there is Dubai’s skyline in the background, that stands on its own in a distinct way that is awesome (if you can admit it).

After all, Dubai is building more than an expansive infrastructure. It is building a tourism hub that will attract travelers the same way that perhaps London or New York inspires one to visit. But often when faced with miles and miles of construction, one wonders whether all this will be worth something in the end? Will an upper middle class family in India give in to the demands of their children to ride a water slide at Wild Wadi or will a North American family feel comfortable on their vacation, where Dubai will feel just like another western city, but in the East?

I love the inside jokes too. For anyone who thinks only the rich and richer live in Dubai, there is a scene with a sign that says: Flash your lights if you’re broke.

However, tackling traffic is not always as beguiling as one feels after watching this film (although I suspect this came out of many traffic jams the directors may have found themselves in). In fact, this week, my friend who writes for the business section and lives in Dubai couldn’t leave the Dubai Marina to get to Abu Dhabi. Traffic was so backed up on the highway that she retreated to her apartment and worked from home.

Of course, Dubai faces a number of challenges when it comes to growth, but this short makes it all evaporate, for three minutes, and 52 seconds, exactly.

Ends

The drudgery of single living

There seems to a general bias towards bachelors in this city, especially when it comes to housing.

The idea that a one-bedroom apartment will actually be inhabited by a single girl is likely more frowned upon than a mere inquiry about its existence.

For Abu Dhabi is a city of two and three-bedroom apartments, and lavish villas (or hotel apartments). And to demand anything less not only means to pay more, but face prejudices about being single.

Or so I found when accompanying my friend on one of the most frustrating apartment-searches in this city.

She was renting a studio space in a villa that had been converted into multiple residences. And only recently, after frequently being without electricity or water in the scorching summer months and facing hostile neighbours, did she realise that she was occupying an illegally partitioned villa.

Which would explain our own version of the Amazing Race when it came to looking for an apartment AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

However, there was a slight statistical problem we were only vaguely aware of: Abu Dhabi’s occupancy rate stands at 99 per cent.

And thanks to inflation, rental prices have shot up dramatically in the past six months. So my friend was reluctantly looking at paying an extra Dh20,000 a year for something that was less than sub-standard.

The process of trying to interact with a real estate agent was equally dicey. If they weren’t completely vague about pricing, location and municipality approval then they busied themselves by being disapproving of my friend’s single status.

What is so gravely wrong in being an ambitious young woman, who can easily re-locate in order to experience life in the Middle East? And not just any other country, but the UAE - with its standards of living and safety, and popularly considered the Switzerland of the Middle East.

Yet, the first week was downright depressing. We were shown cubby holes of more villas that were in the process of being converted into apartments, in spite of the municipality’s crackdown on illegally partitioned villas. In one instance, we were shown a one-bedroom apartment in what should’ve been the villa guard’s station.

Her budget wasn’t frugal either. She was willing to fork out anything between Dh80-90,000 for a year’s lodging.

In another case, we ended up driving 45 minutes out of the city and into the heart of Khalifa City to look at a place that was simply advertised as being “before” Maqta Bridge.

“Why do they lie about location?” I asked my friend. “It’s not like we are going to take the place without driving to see it first.”

Even if the city actively discourages building residences for bachelors, mostly workers forced to be single because they are not permitted to bring their families over, they should consider that a large number of their expat work force is made up of highly educated, qualified individuals who are young and ambitious, much like the country and are looking to get ahead and make a difference.

But without a place to live here, we are forced to look elsewhere. Like Dubai.

Faking wedded bliss (aka a case for buying diamonds)

In recent years, diamond companies have fallen over themselves in trying to capture the elusive niche of women who buy diamonds. For themselves. With their own money.

If you’ve recently moved to the UAE, like me and most of the women in the newsroom, the temptation of that market is immense. And inevitable.

From showing visiting family around to outings with friends, a chance of, “oops, I did it (again)” has occurred frequently. And the justifications for the purchase of the precious baubles are equally varied.

Case in point:
Within a week of my arrival in Abu Dhabi, I made my first ever diamond purchase at the local gold souk called Madinat Zayed, which looks like any supermarket except tons of gold and diamond jewellery dangle from like they were fruits and vegetables.

A few days in the city teaches you a precious lesson. Giving men who inquire about your wedded status, an honest answer, is asking for trouble. From unwanted to paid amore, it translates to all kinds of trouble.

For example, I was dumbfounded when three men approached me within five minutes of each other at a five-star hotel’s lobby and Mr. A asked to be my “friend”, Mr B stood grinning and Mr C pulled out a wad of cash. I ran from the lobby. Didn’t walk, didn’t hurry, just picked up and ran.

The steeliest women here have taught me their intimidating ways, including my favourite, from my friend at the business desk who gives men in Dubai and Abu Dhabi a piece of her New York mind in a B&T accent (For those who grew up on the outskirts of New York and used a bridge or tunnel to get to the city). Since I couldn’t master her rate of speed of speech delivery, instead I bought a wedding ring and faked my marital status.

The ring works especially well when I am forced to answer uncomfortable personal questions to a cabbie, usually from Peshawar, Pakistan, who depending on my answers can turn from a disapproving fellow to a smiling fatherly figure. It’s 10-pointer if I am unmarried, but much shorter if I flash the ring:

Married? Yes
How many children? None
Why? Newly married.
-The End -

That is not to say they don’t offer advice, but it’s better to hear how I will make a dutiful wife by bearing 10 children than be chided about my womanly shortcomings or be offered a cabbie’s cousin in marriage.

So far, it has also worked in restaurants against eager waiters (although one still slipped me his number, winked and said, “call when you are lonely”); at the hospital, where I landed with a case of bronchitis and an eye infection, and it took the ring to make a male nurse back off. The latest deflected fellow was a passenger on a flight from Bahrain.

Now that the ring’s purchase has been justified, it’s onto a pair of solitaire earrings to match the ring — if only to create a new shopping niche.

A type away

If you really think about it, there is little difference in the way North Americans and Indians search for love. Online, that is. Except one looks to virtually date and the other seek to marry. The explosion of websites on both sides of the world says it all. In the US and Canada, my friends casually date through sites like Lavalife. For wedded bliss, they may answer a painstaking list of questions on eharmony.

Not much differs across the Atlantic. In India, sites like shaadi.com are enjoying unprecedented growth (in advertising sales and site traffic). That is not to say love is abound.

The horror stories stack up much higher. And it gets more complicated if you are a South Asian woman in North America, navigating an Indian marriage site. Writes a friend: I remember getting emails from guys who faked their jobs, where they lived, what they looked like, etc. My favorite email was one from a guy's mother who found my profile and she said, "I don't like that you work. You can't work. And how do we get Canadian citizenship? We want it, but we don't want to move there. You have to come to India."

When in a moment of silence, my mother noticed I was still fussing about a recent break up in my head, she let it slip: My father was thinking of turning me into a marriage market statistic by adding my name to a matrimonial site. Which I heard as such: Run.Surya.Run

I made my case, with all the salient points outlined above. My parents and friends had seen me go through a particularly humiliating break up. Understandably, my father was concerned. He went from toasting his daughter’s happiness to furiously calling my ex, demanding he have the “moral courage” to answer to him. After all, I was an almost 30-year-old, single Indian girl living abroad, and pursuing a career that leaves little time to meet sober Indian men (though my ex was neither sober nor Indian). The new reality was a stark reminder of how clueless my father was about matchmaking. And he (almost) did what thousands of aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and fathers in India decide every day: List an eligible family member on an website.

This time, I tugged at his heart strings: if he was proud of his journalist daughter, he would allow her this. Find a man who can spell. And then I showed him a choice sampling of what the sites had to offer:

(sic) I am liveing in dubai for past 5yers i am working as designer in cad and prodection manger in adv co ... so if any one intrested in me pla call or e mail . i am looking for a honest and trust good normel color girl who can lead with me in life and make up the mind to live with me for ever ..then all later if we like each other thnx

I remain unlisted.

Single in the homeland

June 11, 2008



In local Indian parlance, they call it the air around you. When you’ve been away from home for a long time, you not only look different, but they believe the air around you changes. So even if you’re trying to fit in, people can simply tell from your presence that you no longer belong.

And there I was, a case of neither here nor there. And to make matters worse, single.

More than a decade had passed since I had left India. In that time, I had lived in North America and the Gulf. In short, I had grown from a girl to a woman.

A lot had changed around me but it took a visit to the local bakery in Kerala to realise that.

They were exactly how I remembered them. Sugar encrusted jellied candy in the shape of orange slices, locally called orange candy. For a second too long, I stared. I also caught the assistant baker’s attention.

“Where you from?” he asked in English. Scrutiny was delivered more in tone than language.

He didn’t want to hear that I was born in India and looked like his sister. He knew I came from far away.

Actually, he was flirting. I wouldn’t have guessed but the local guide accompanying me grew curt and took over the orders.

“How dare he think he can get a foreign wife?” muttered Nasser, my friend, guide, and adopted big brother, after we left the bakery.

Apparently, men in India don’t flirt. Maybe at a posh bar in a large metropolis but certainly not at the corner store in a small town. For a country determined to modernize as much of its infrastructure as its mindset, when it comes to marriage, little has changed over centuries. You don’t date casually and if you’re going to ask a good woman where she is from, chances are, you’re testing your marriage prospects.

My single status shone through again when visiting a remote village in Rajasthan where I found myself surrounded by veiled woman who seemed amused enough to want to run their fingers through my hair and insist I wear my sunglasses indoors.

Although they had been told that I had travelled from the UAE, they knew I was single because no woman in their right mind travels so far, without a male escort unless she is “modern.”

“She must be from TV,” one of the aunts said to the other.

Turns out, even a film heroine marries the hero at the end of a Bollywood movie but only on television had they ever seen women sitting around asking questions, like I was.

And now an entire village was almost convinced that those serious women on television were like me -- unmarried.

As I left India, I carried wise words from my friend Nasser’s nanny, who had grown old with the family and now managed his kids.

“Don’t say ‘no’ when they ask if you’re married, say it as if there might be hope,” said the nanny. “Say ‘not yet.’”