I love UAE. And I hate UAE. It’s always been a transition point between Europe and India for me, a patron of Gulf Air. It’s the other side of the Arabian Sea. The horizon for me, like most Bombay people, is a vision drawn with an Arabian sea below.
It is at the Gulf airports that one begins to pick bits of Hindi/Urdu and names like Laxman and Kuruvilla. Homely Biryani is as common as exotic Hummous. And there are penguins everywhere, males in their white Arab outfits and females in black. You can’t help but smile when you see a hairy, pot bellied man flick his dish dash back with the grace of a retired actress. You cant help but melt when you seen the same man rub his nose against another man as a greeting. And you can’t hide your surprise either when you see the length of fake eyelashes or heels adorned under a burkha.
In the past whenever I’d halt at the UAE, like most foreigners, I’d look down upon the vulgar artifice. Mock at their vision of a Star War skyline and continent shaped islands. It’s probably the only place that has traditional Arab styled theme housing alongside cowboy and Caribbean themes. They’ve made their own culture into a theme! Bit like having a Dandiya theme birthday party in Bombay.
But this time, after having lived in the bowels of artifice, i.e a 5 star European resort, landing in UAE almost felt like a return to reality. Living on buffets is far more vulgar, more artificial than you would’ve thought. It is like a red light district experience, where lust, not real taste or desire drives you to fill your plate. Buffets are absolutely unsustainable, ecologically and on principle. They encourage you to burden you plates, which lead you to either overburden your tummy or overburden the dustbin. The colossal wastage of food is criminal. For just a bite of 3 different pastries you waste the entire plate. All this passed of as sophisticated behaviour.
I was told it’s European culture to get a separate plate for each course, and a corresponding side plate if required. It’s uncouth to re-use your own plate. Also, the cultural hypochondria recquires you to have your own little bottled water. Unlike Asia, where people mostly eat with their hands, touching food with your fingers here’s blasphemous. Because each person is a source of germs. In India we look at the world as 6 billion people, and not 6 trillion germs.
5 star hotels, like airports and Mcdonalds are the same everywhere. If you didn’t have the city specified on the letterheads, you wouldn’t know if you’re in Turkey, Casa Blanca or Timbuktu.
Another tragedy called Buddha
The spa at Gloria resort has two big statues of Buddha greeting you at the entrance. 5 steps away is a billboard of some Indian spa treatment, which has a naked white man with a saree looking loincloth, lying on a bed. I loved the swimming in the indoor pool in the spa. But each day, the sight of the Buddha unsettled me.
Poor guy. He abandoned his family, starved himself, lived in the forest and went crazy to achieve salvation. To be reduced to a capitalist logo for indulgence, for spa treatments and herbal teas.
Back to the point
There are times when I feel I could eat hummous for the rest of my life. There are times when you can spot a city’s soul in its people, not buildings. There are times when the landscape from Al Ain to Abu Dhabi distils into pure sand dunes. Even in the cooling silence of an AC bus, you can’t sleep. You’re distracted by the mountainous dunes, the stuff daydreams are made of. You are transfixed. The desert begins where your thoughts end.
There are no germs here. No artificial trees and glass buildings. No doubts. No dreams either. No old friends, no new friends, no family, just you and the dunes.
And performances to look forward to….
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