The ‘uncliched number’ of things I hate about Dubai
This post is about the ten things that I hate most about Dubai. But isn’t that too cliched? Ten things about so and so. The list is then cropped to seven. Oh damn, there is now a guy who writes about Seven habits of highly effective people and seven ways of so and so. Those seven habits which do no good to anyone except give the author royalties in seven figures. Since I am far from being effective in any sense lest you count annoying people, even seven is now out of question. But isn’t it cool not to do things that everyone does? So here is my list of six things I hate about Dubai, when I think from an Indian perspective. Coolio, innit?
1) The heat. I haven’t been here during the peak summer season. I wish not, it still gets hot enough here. Unlike Bombay summers which makes one sweat as if it is raining,this rather feels like you are being roasted and cooked like Shawarma. Consolation? Unlike Bombay, everything from the buses to the loos are centrally air-conditioned.
2) The traffic. Takes me two hours and fifteen minutes to get to my hostel from college. Morning takes less than an hour, but that is because we leave early, that is six am for you. Leaving for hour fifteen minutes late means reaching there an hour earlier. The Porsches and Ferraris are starting to bore me now. I rather see them race, than look at them as if they are parked in the middle of a fancy road. Bombay or Delhi, you win there.
3) Proxies. There is just one internet/telephone service here. Even Bill Gates could learn some monopoly lessons from Etisalat. Warez, Pornography, Flickr, Social networking even blog sites have been blocked (Do click, nice one). Many of them are blocked and unblocked periodically. This is worse than China. The people there atleast protest, or atleast Americans do it for them. But did you know this existed in UAE? Hope things will improve, another telecom company is about to open soon. Yeah they do burn paintings and ban books back home. Even the whole of blogspot was blocked because some teenager’s rants posted a threat to national security. India is still a much more a freer country, atleast blogspot was unblocked within days.
4)Expensive. This country is not as expensive as others, especially if you account that its a tax-free nation. But being the Indian that I am, I convert everything into Rupees which keeps reminding me that I could have what all for the same amount. The only items cheaper here are electronics and fuel. Things whose even monthly interest I cannot pay if I were to buy them on loan. I do not know about the engineering degree, but I am sure I am going back home with multiplication tables of 12.5 (1 AED= 12.5 INR) etched right at the back of my head.
5)Conservativeness. Every culture has its own traditions and foreigners are expected to respect them. I do. But that is no reason for me not to dislike them. They constitute laws on clothes, drinking, freedom of speech. Just so many restrictions make me uneasy. Even if Chief minister of Tamil-Nadu Jayalalitha, gets editors arrested for being a pain in her ass, at least Indians still call her a politician with a waistline five times the normal human’s, and brain a tenth of a retarted chimpanzee.
6)This just ain’t India. Yeah just that. Lived there long enough to miss it. Where one can get off being ticketed by saying you are the third cousin of so and so politician. Where you get stuck at your home for three days as everything got flooded, because it rained as heavily like it always does. Yet the resilience of the people, who had already expected that the drains wouldn’t be cleaned like it always happens, makes you smile. Where cows cause traffic jams and you get to bitch how cool it would be to be in a foreign country.Ahh… India.
~Aditya Anand
October 15th, 2006 at 1:45 am
Can’t agree with you more on the sixth reason Aditya. I was aslo stuck with converting everything to INR for almost 2 months when I’d arrived in Melbourne but am off it now. As for sites being blocked, let’s just hope that yours isn’t the next one if those guys ever get to reading this entry.
October 15th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Haha…hillarious…one teenagers rant leads to the entire countries blog access blocked…Wow!
BTW, I got your mail and I’ll reply ASAP.
October 15th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
lol… dude i would heed Prateek and pray that they dont block your site. man…!!! and well u will get over the converting soon… and as i said i would be very wary about my freedom of speech if i was in Dubai.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:18 am
And I thought Delhi is an expensive place to live in!
November 23rd, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Nice post man… kinda agree with almost all.. lol Seriously
February 17th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
This was interesting……. The only problem being that I already knew all about these problems, what with having a few realtions there……
March 28th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Is there religious freedom in Dubai, in terms of Hinduism? IS there mandirs etc?
Regards,
Umesh (UK)
April 13th, 2007 at 3:21 am
Ten things I hate about Dubai: 1.Materialism and Superficiality; 2. Constant construction=disappearing nature; 3. Highway terrorists (drivers) who are arrogant, rude,selfish, competitive (”Me first!”), & above all, dangerous (mostly men under the age of 35); 4. Foreigners (expats) who think it is their country and feel entitled to disrespect the nation’s cultural sensibilities (If you want to dress like a hooker, drink in public, etc., THEN GO HOME, please); 5. Bloodsucking Emiratis who have pushed cost of living so high that they may eventually wind up with a glut of empty villas & apartments after the poor middle & lower income people have abandoned ship, leaving big-shot owners and employers with no employees; 6.The HEAT; 7. Laborers who are paid so little; 8. DISRESPECT of show-offs toward service-people and underlings–that is so sick; 8. A government opening the doors to all evil for the sake of their nation’s fame/prestige/glory/wealth enhancement–damn the effect on the environment or morality; 9. “Muslims” not practicing their noble religion, but instead acting like dogs; 10. All the others trying to make some quick money by lying, cheating, etc.; 11. The nosy people who are always asking me excessively personal questions; 12. Little good reading material except for bestsellers–the Borders Bookstore here is so cheesy; 13. Rude people who don’t know the meaning of the word queue; 14. Rude people who block your exit when your car is parked; 15. Sometimes employing Emiratis just to fill a quota, when they are OBVIOUSLY unqualified and incompetent; 15. Heavy traffic; 16. Lack of beaches and exercise facilities for people who prefer a non-nudity environment (couldn’t they just allot SOME space for the modest, who don’t want to have to see others stripped off? Please don’t tell me “don’t look” when you’re crossing in front of my path wearing those tiny, ugly speedos that look like women’s pantis–yuck); 17. Laborers who STARE at me through their bus windows, for no apparent reason; 18. Body odor of the unwashed, the garlic-eating, the beetle-chewing, and those who have overdosed on cheap cologne; 19. No place to park–I spend half an hour just trying to park at the bank, and I’ve tried branches in many locations; 20. Apparently disgusted or arragant looks at me in my hijab by European ladies who have CHOSEN to come to an ARAB country (do they wish I would just disappear?); 21. My hijab-wearing girlfriends cannot find a job in this “Muslim” country, UNLESS they are Emirati, the only women ENTITLED to wear an ABAYA and hold onto a job–what equality!! Fix THAT, you blasted rulers of Dubai, please!—-OOPS, sorry, that was more than 10, but I feel that I was just getting started!
July 11th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
chicken with chilli fried with amazing masala, i don’t know reading the above, all i could feel and think about was this, there are just a few nothings in dubai to cool yourself off when the mind takes on this frenzy run up and down what is actually happening there -
Wouldn’t wish to spend a moment of thought for the sandland as it is coined now -
Somethings that i have seen in dubai:-
1, Major of police taking money and helping out a crook who had sunk 6 million dirhams.
2, Dubai court accepting entirely false evidence and stupid lawyers, who have ran away from court after the innocent party was convicted.
3, A US military warehouse in the Jebel ali port, with enough carriers and aircraft’s to wipe out the entire middle east in 1 day.
4, A government that is for the nobility, by the nobility and of the nobility.
5, A nobility that works based entirely on lawlessness, - in a patriarchal kingdom son is king after father, not brother - open your eyes and see.
6, Everything that is fake, the city center , mall of the emirates and ibn battutta mall, are not made of bricks, they are lego blocks.
7, Cars that are cheap, only to fill traffic and kill a person not through accidents but through mental stress and road madness.
- But hey, i have lived there long, long long long.
August 4th, 2007 at 9:49 am
*Comment Deleted by Admin*
December 10th, 2007 at 7:42 am
this is dubai , LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT !