In Dubai

Dubai.. hmmm.. didnt really know what to expect when they told me that I have to go to Dubai. Short term.. they said.. and believe me, that was some relief. Though the truth remains and has been confirmed this time as well: no project remains a short term one, or atleast it invariably extends to something thats one and half times you thought... well, actually, i did have an idea, call it a misconception, of what i was expecting from dubai..

Well you intelligent folks, tell me where is Dubai? What!! Near Russia!! I thought you were reading my blog cause you were some intellectual.. now i know you are not.. what a shame!! anyways, welcome to the league. By the way, my recommendation, you need some serious lessons in geography starting with 'the world is more like an apple than a pizza'. Well, Dubai is in the middle east, in UAE. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that? That its not an open society.. that its religious to the point of being fundamentalist.. and negative stuff like that.. If you didnt think that way, then you might be an intellec after all who makes a few dumb errors sometimes.... as for me, i had a conception of middle east as described and truly, i feel ashamed to own these now.. how ignorant and arrogant can one be? you really need to be here to believe that this place is very open and modern... and offcourse, pleasently different from what i thought.

Work!! Woork!! Wooork!!Well, thats what I did when I came here. My client is setting up a new telco here, called Du, which promises to break the monopoly of the government telco, Etisalat. As such, there is a lot of activity and buzz all around the middle east, most of it however is in the floor where I sit, or atleast thats how it appears to me. We sit on the third floor of Dubai Media City, Bldg 14, in the middle of 200 people. And try to get some work done while people keep shouting from all sides. Helps me understand the basics of how to avoid communication. Well, not that this environment is new to me, and launcing a new company is never an organized event. And I am quite happy to be a part of bringing a new company to life..
However, after 2 weeks of working day and night, I decided that this is enough, and i need to go have a look at the city.. so i went through the tourist guides and maps.. and planned my day out.. bilal, who is my boss at work and roommate here, joined in on friday morning. So we took a cab and went into the city. I had tried to find out the bus routes cause that makes it cheaper and hence, the journeys more enjoyable, but it was confusing and there was not much information available. Anyways, we visited a lot of places, the old city, the dubai museum, al fahedi street where bilal bought a digital camera, which was much cheaper than in the US, he said.. then we went to the dubai creek and experienced the famous abra rides.. that was the most interesting thing i guess, because thats the first time, i came to know that dubai people deal in something other than dirhams and dollars, and these are fils, which is in fact, a lower denomination of the dirhams (1 dirham = 100 fils).

Well, we took a number of rides on the abra's. Abra is a nothing but a boat, which are used by the local people to cross over from one side of the Dubai Creek to the other. These cost us 50 fils and I was quite happy. Its a real frenzy when you try to get into the abra at peak hours.. mostly because there are a lot of people and not enough space on the abra during those times.. and the driver is at the peak of his glory telling people that they cannot get into his boat as its full.. at non peak hours, they would go down to the street to fetch you.. another practical example of the policies of demand and supply.. was it adam sandler... or adam smith.. anyways..

So, that was one part of Dubai, the old city, comprising of parts of Bur Dubai and Deira. We crossed over to the other side of the creek and walked a long distace by the Creek until we got to the gulf. That ended our day as we took a cab to come back. We had walked for quite a long distance. I mean, I am a software engineer and most of my day passes by sitting on my chair and trying to crack some silly abstract issue about why a dumb piece of data is not getting loaded into an equally dumb table.. and here i was, trying to cover half the city of dubai on foot on a single day.. i mean, guys, what more are you looking for.. offcourse, you dont expect me to sprint like carl lewis...

On some other day, we went out with Rob, who is our project manager and an excellent communicator. Well, I have no dumb clue as to how he can get his points across so clearly. I have tried all through my life to get my point across and have ended up confusing people.. silly people, they need to spoon fed to make them understand stuff.. i have given up on teaching them.. its not worthwhile.. i feel.. anyways, so the three of us went out, i mean bilal was there too.. so, we went to the old city, took some abra rides and then came back to rob's hotel where we spent some nice time at the pub at his hotel.. man, i miss beer here.. and i had a lot that day.. i dont like it, these guys do not sell drinks unless you have a license.. now, i am new to this place, where the hell am i going to get a license from... i guess you got to live within the rules of the place.. so i am doing that..

By the way, Dubai is quite modern and there are lots of nice malls and huge buildings.. and they are very different from the ones you get to see in the western countries.. i mean i am no architect.. (maybe i have some qualities.. i did study civil engineering for a year).. but i understood that the buildings are more triangular than squarish.. not to say that they do not have square buildings, but they have some spectacular triangular buildings.. i guess you can relate them to the pyramids.. i mean the ones in egypt.. and i guess they also experiment with architecture pretty much.. they have some unique structures.. like the burj al arab.

People, my sincere thanks if you are reading this line.. i mean you deserve a chocolate from me.. offcourse if you enjoy one.. if you dont, you can give one to me.. cause i enjoy them..

Take Care guys..

Venturing into Blogosphere

Finally I think I am going to bring this thing to reality. Had been thinking of creating this for quite sometime now, but man, i aaam laaaaaaaazzzy, very lazy. At one point of time, I had just forgotten why exactly i had thought i needed a blog. Imagine.. Well, not that I remember now, but anways, I dont care anymore, I mean we think of so many things and then think of ways we want to achieve them. Does it always happen like that.. like things falling in place and completing the jigsaw puzzle.. no it doesn't. Sometimes it just needs to start at some point, i guess and that need not be an important one either...

Hey guys, are you still reading?? Inspite of all this?? I mean, I am happy, but is this really that good.. Must be, otherwise, why would an intelli guy/gal like you read this anyway. Well, now that I have created this space (space.. can that be created..) or rather borrowed this space from the Internet, I would really need to plan it up and decide on the content of this. Man, that really requires some serious thinking. What I am going to put up here so that you come back to read this shit..

Maybe I will put up a few pics of myself. Would that be good enough to make you come back.. hell no.. I will put up a few pics of me and my sweetheart.. she is lovely but mine.. well, let me think.. maybe I can put up some good (hopefully) pieces from time to time... i guess that will sustain your interest.. i mean, i know you guys are demanding, you need good stuff to read.. but be co-operative, people..

Will catch you again on the next blog..

Take Care Guys..