Off The Cuff: A wry look at life

I gulp down my new dual juice in the morning, a mix of orange and carrot which tastes like muddy water, run down to my car, buckle up and by the time I shift into fifth gear, I reach my workplace.

My commute time is all of 11 minutes. (I have gone into hock with a bank for six months to buy a car which I use for this short trip, and for my weekly grocery shopping. But then the Dubai public transit system is well, still on the drawing board and there's no frequent bus service to Gulf News and to places I would like to go).

Back in Toronto I would get up before the geese start honking and flying in formation in the steel-grey skies, to catch a bus which would transit me to the subway.

In winter, when the snow falls, I call up the transit department and check what time the bus will arrive at the stop in front of the apartment building. This is a wonderful and useful service as even a few minutes in the open, even clothed in the best Italian leather, could freeze your butt.

On the bus, I would leisurely read the morning paper I had picked up at the corner kiosk. Then I would spill out with the rest of the passengers right into the subway.

The transit time from here to Kennedy Station, east of Toronto, where I worked, was a good 90 minutes. (Scarborough, in East Toronto, has a huge number of Sri Lankan Tamils and their temples have a portrait of Prabhakaran, the man who institutionalised suicide bombing).

I usually bought a warm, fluffy cheese bagel, a Tim Horton's coffee and like most other commuters, would leaf through a book I had picked up from the neighbourhood library.

"This long commute will age you even before your time," my wife would whine when I returned home at 7. But I loved this time I had to myself and Toronto is not Mumbai or Tokyo, where you have to jostle, push and shove for a seat on the fast trains.

As Sir Peter Ustinov, the movie actor, raconteur and a 'citizen of the world', describes it: "Toronto is like New York, run by the Swiss."

The efficient public transit system helps cuts down air pollution, but still, when the days are muggy, the skyline becomes hazy and the met department puts up advisories on the air content, for asthmatics and those with allergies.

The other day as I was on my way to Gitex with my colleague, we saw this long, patient line of motorists at a stand-still and I wondered aloud whether we would find a parking place at the computer show. My colleague said this jam wasn't heading to the show but these poor folk were trying to get to their homes in Sharjah.

I have been to Sharjah only once on a Friday morning, with my friend driving, but then nobody gets up in the morning on the weekends and nobody's on the streets.

But long-time residents say that the traffic and the commute time on other days, to the neighbouring emirate is a killer. Which is surprising, because there are not that many vehicles in all the emirates put together.

I believe the northern emirate unknowingly got into this fix because it offers something what Dubai landlords cannot or maybe the landlords stubbornly will not offer: inexpensive housing.

In the absence of not many housing for the low income groups in Dubai, it has had a very curious effect on the expat community. Many Asian families tend to share an apartment because the rents of Dh 40,000 or more are unaffordable. And all this home sharing is a marital minefield.