I am writing this literally in the last few hours of my working full time for an interesting and innovative newsroom in the Arab Gulf.
It is past 1am and just 10 hours away from a doctor’s appointment in downtown Dubai; a neurologist who believes I am suffering from carpel tunnel syndrome — an affliction that affects people like me whose work involves sitting long hours at a desk and typing on a keyboard. It is however, a small price to pay, I think, for being a knowledge worker.
I should have finished writing this column a long time ago, but like a true-blood reporter and writer, there was procrastination involved, such as making umpteen cups of tea, “for inspiration” or going for a midnight run and then finally clearing out my inbox.
They say you see your life flashing by when you are drowning, like on a slide projector, all the things you had forgotten that you love. Clearing out my work mail inbox was something like that.
Besides re-reading the terrible jokes that journalists are fond of, that I found in my inbox, there were moments of pride and joy when a ‘fan’ emailed that she just loved my columns and that they inspired her to write.
Working here was an eye-opener and reminded me that seeing my name in print was not only such an ego booster, but that sometimes my writing actually helped people, such as the father whose very sick child was given a new lease of life because readers were moved after reading about the girl’s illness and helped fund her treatment.
I am not sure how the 12 years that I worked for Gulf News passed so fast, but I was lucky in that each day was different. There was never a dull day when you are working in a news office, churning out information fast, trying to keep pace with Dubai’s even more fast-paced developments.
Twelve years is a relatively small span of time as compared to many expatriates who have lived here for much, much longer and can boast of the time when Shaikh Zayed Road was “just a dirt road” or about the time when people actually spoke to each other, rather than text each other.
There has been a huge change over the years in the way we communicate and it has impacted and forced the media to learn new ways to tell a ‘story’, as a report or an article is known as in journalese.
I remember speaking to Ashok Amrtiraj, a former professional tennis player and a successful Hollywood producer, and he talked about how people will change in the way they interact with the media and how they will get their news on their phones one day.
That seemed like something far away in the future and I did not pay much heed to that, neither were the readers interested in such a fantasy.
Well, the future has arrived here very fast and I will not bore you about how I once typed a story on a nasty typewriter that purposely jammed the keys just as I was nearing deadline — the time when you should file in your story or you are dead, so to speak.
Thankfully, there are still people who love to read news and want to read it from a physical paper-and-print newspaper, rather than glance at headlines summarised on a smartphone or an iPad.
Things are going to get even more interesting in the way we consume media. I was joking with my son the other day on how I hate carrying my huge smartphone around and hoped that someone invents making calls on a hologram.
Well, why not? We have 3-D printed pizza now, don’t we?
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.