Strummin' my pain...

April 1987, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

I let myself out, pulled the door to close softly, the latch clicked firmly into place.

She’ll never know what time I’d left. I’d left her sleeping contentedly.

Walking the short distance to the Abu Dhabi road, pumping my feet trough the sandy patch like a two legged camel, I walked between the lone supermarket and the last house in the row.

Abu Dhabi road is the most likely place to find a taxi at this hour, I thought and soon one arrived. You don’t need to flag a taxi to stop for you, the only reason one could be found standing here, in Al Karamah is to look for a transport to town.

Most taxis would start to move much before you have both your legs in, leave aside settling down into your seat, firmly. I was getting used to all this by now.

“Deira” I said.

He did not show any signs of having heard me; maybe he knew where I was going!

No, the only place to go in Dubai at this hour was so obvious that I felt like a fool as soon as I had uttered the word.

“The other places to go could be Bur Dubai or Al Nasser Center or the Al Ghurair Centre…” I thought, “so why is it so foolish to tell the driver where I was going?” I argued with myself. “The other places would be closed by now, you fool !” I told myself…

Once you have come out of the Al Shindgah tunnel, you have arrived into another world altogether. Deira! The most fragrant, peaceful and full of old world charm of all the places in Dubai.

Busy. Peacefully busy, much past the midnight hour.

Most women here wore burqas and most men kandurah (or is it called something else) never mind, it’s a white gown and a white head scarf tied firmly to their heads with a black, knotted rope, which reminded me always about the fan belt that had once come off my old maruti van, the engine had stopped to cool and there was a massive boil-over, with a huge jet of steam billowing right under my ass. The engine of a maruti van is located just under the driver’s seat, a clever, Japanese give-away technology to India, indeed!

The taxi screeched to a halt shaking me out of my reverie. “But this is The Riviera Hotel, how did he know where I wanted to go to in Deira? Or was that so obvious too?” I asked myself.

Before I could make a fool of myself again, I handed the fixed seven dirham fare to the driver, got out, banged his cab door shut and started to walk back in the direction where we’d just come from!

I could feel the driver’s eyes piercing my back until I’d turned into the lane between the Middle East Bank building and the Deira Post Office. (I had no idea at that time that my office would be located on the seventh floor of this very building, three years later).

I’d turned a corner…

...More to avoid the driver’s gaze than for any other reason.

I think…

continued…

I’LL WELCOME ALL YOUR CRITICISM…therefore…
I cordially invite all your brickbats…..I know there are no bouquets for me, for this one!

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Tags:

travel, uae, dubai, biography, nonfiction, kumar, bellani and deira