Off the Cuff: Getting lost is so easy

My colleagues wanted to go to Global Village and have a good time, so I said I'll drive and promptly got all of us lost.

I don't know how we got there but we were on some strange dark road and we could see the bright lights of the city way over on the horizon. My colleague's husband pulled out a smartphone and punched on the Google map and said, "We are here," which didn't help matters much because I am hopeless at reading maps.

I just want to make it clear that it wasn't my fault that we got lost because Global Village is not a place I go to every now and then and thanks to the fast developments in Dubai, the familiar landmarks on the way keep changing frequently.

"Maybe we should stop and ask someone," said my colleague, a little flustered as it was getting darker. But I ignored that suggestion because like most men I believe we have this inbuilt system for direction which we have inherited from our migrating ancestors.

Asking for direction would have been humiliating for a man, but my colleague, being a woman, would not have understood that. But after seeing dangerous-looking trailer trucks being driven by men with vacant looks on their faces, I decided to stop and ask a motorist who was standing near his car on the dirt track.

It was getting cold now and I saw he had wrapped a long scarf around his head. "Global Village? " It's that way," he said, pointing in the opposite direction.

"Can't I keep going straight," I asked him and he understood my predicament of being a man and all that and not wanting to look foolish to my female companions. But he was firm, "Yes you can, but you will end up in Sharjah," he said.

"Can we give you a lift somewhere," I asked and he hurriedly said he was fine and that he was just waiting for his friend. But I could see in the look on his face that he had conjured visions of travelling with us for hours, lost in limbo land.

Homing pigeon

I seem to be good at ending up at places where I don't need to go. One day I was on the road and it seemed to be getting lusher and greener on either side and the air seemed much cleaner. I was somehow heading towards Al Ain.

I had read somewhere that women are better at navigational skills and can lead you to your destination as precisely as would a homing pigeon. Foolishly taking that piece of information as the gospel truth, one day I made my wife guide me to an art gallery in Al Quoz I had to visit.

"Take left here," she said, looking at the map I had printed out of the location, and we promptly ran into a dead end. There was a tiny roundabout ahead, like you see in driving schools where you teach kids about road navigation. And around that roundabout there were huge trucks solemnly going around, so I got in line and we all turned around and headed back to where we came from.

A researcher said it is not true that women are not good at navigational skills. Brain scans showed that an area in the brain which is crucial for such skills is equally well-organised in men and women, she says.

But apparently there is a subtle difference between how men and women perceive things. The researcher says that if you ask a man for directions he will say: "Go straight, then turn left after a kilometre."

Ask a woman the same question and you will get landmarks: "Take a right turn at the shoe store, and left at the bakery."