As our car wove its way through midday traffic (and no, it wasn’t on cruise control), my glance was drawn to the auto rickshaw in front. Emblazoned on the canvas cover at the back were the cryptic words “Grow your height”.
I stared mesmerised by the message and then comprehension dawned. It was an advertisement to gain inches in height. As I chuckled with delight, I knew I was back home!
Where else can you find teeming traffic, streets chock-a-block with people, horns blaring and vehicles swerving suddenly to avoid an unexpected obstacle such as a buffalo standing still in the middle of a thoroughfare, contemplating the complexities of life?
We had many stops to make that day. The first halt at a shop saw us looking at a closed shutter. It was around noon and there was no reason for it to be down. On inquiring, we were told it would open after Friday prayers. We continued on our way, resigned to making a second trip there. The driver made some unexpected turns and I learnt later he was avoiding the most congested roads. The lanes we were driven through weren’t familiar to me, which made me feel like a tourist in my hometown. I had lived there for so many years and yet I couldn’t recognise so many areas.
I was on a brief holiday home and I seemed to have traversed a fair distance, from one end of the city to the other, to complete some paperwork. I normally do not choose to go home in the summer, but this time I had no choice. As I entered government offices and banks, I was struck by the immunity to the heat that the residents seemed to have developed. The staff sat in rooms with fans that hardly stirred a breeze.
As I wiped the sweat trickling down my neck, I noticed that they all seemed unaffected by the weather. That’s when I realised how living here in the UAE had spoilt me. I wanted and expected the coolness of air conditioning wherever I went. Soon, I found myself whingeing about the weather and only stopped when someone said, “But you’ve come from the desert, not the North Pole”.
They obviously have no idea of office environments here, where one feels cold almost throughout the year as the thermostat seems to be turned down to the minimum, creating a wintry atmosphere.
As I stood in line outside an office to pay a bill, I thought longingly of Dubai and imagined the cool interiors I was used to. This helped for a while, but soon the harshness of the heat put paid to my daydreaming, recalling me to the reality of where I actually was.
As the last day of my stay dawned, I breathed a sigh of relief. But as soon as I rested my weary head on a pillow, the calls started. One was from a frustrated electrician whom I’d got hold of with great difficulty. This handyman is another vanishing species, like the plumber. He began complaining about non-cooperation from the maintenance department of the building where he was trying to work. After several phone calls to fix the problem, I felt completely wrung out. And then I looked at my watch. It was time for the next outing. Reluctantly leaving the air-conditioned comfort of my room (at least the house I was staying in had all the mod cons), I braced myself for yet another runaround. If I had a choice, I would have hibernated in that room for the duration of my stay there.
I left for Dubai on day eight with the ominous words of a sibling ringing in my ears: “Get used to this. You’ll be coming back home for good some day.”
