DXB

After the rather shocking realisation that yesterday I completed two years in Dubai (actually Sharjah, but if I write about Sharjah, I’ll struggle to go beyond one word...dull...and Dubai and Sharjah are twin cities anyway), I decided that two years was enough time to get a ‘feel’ of any place and hence this post on Dubai.
How does one begin to describe a city that is many things to many people? In fact, it is many different cities in one. Over the past few years, Dubai has experienced unprecedented growth, a surge that is almost scary in that many people question whether it is sustainable on not. Doomsday soothsayers abound and have made confident pronouncements on how the Dubai economy is going to bottom out and stay there. These soothsayers were there many years ago when Dubai started its extraordinary and ambitious development plans and I have no doubt they will be around many years on, but till date, Dubai has shown no signs of slowing up.
Old timers in Dubai will tell you astonishing tales about Dubai of 20-30 years ago. They will describe Dubai as a semi-urban town with only one high-rise building and plenty of desert. They will talk about the old souqs (markets), the easy lifestyle, the city with culture, of rustic kinship, of a time when a day spent fishing on ones ramshackle trawler would be considered a day well spent, of a time when date farms and camels were as much a part of life as the ubiquitous car is today. With a twinkle in their eyes, they will recite tales of trade with the Indian sub-continent, of how the Indian rupee was the legal currency here till well into the 70’s (UAE came into existence in 1971). That era though is sadly past. Dubai today is a busy and buzzing metropolis with a population nudging 2 million and expected to grow to 6 million in the next 5 years...a staggering growth by any standard.
I remember thinking on reaching Dubai two years ago that the place looked awfully rich. I mean, anyone who has traipsed through the airport will tell you that. My first drive through Dubai left me impressed as well. Lovely roads, great traffic discipline (this impression changed pretty soon though), absolutely beautiful flower arrangement on the pavements (this has remained) and fellow Indians everywhere (mostly Kerelites, though that too is changing now). I remember, on my first night out, sitting next to the creek, taking lazy drags of a sheesha (Arabic hooka) and my friend telling me that Dubai is a soulless and culture-less city and I wondered at that statement. To my inexperienced eyes, the place was literally dripping of Arabia. Arabic food all around, people walking in traditional Arab dress, Arabic spoken everywhere...and I thought, this place has character and the character is more Ibn Batuta than Captain Cook.