Whispers from Bandra

One balmy Bandra morning, I stand guard outside Suzette Creperie & Café, waiting for fellow breakfast aficionados. In the lead-up to acquiring a table, a vague pretence to a queue has formed, in the manner of people not quite willing to acknowledge the rigid orderliness of a line. Bandra folk seem torn between lazy repose and the necessity of having to show oneself near the premises at all. Their present consternation at having to put up with a full house eventually sprouts into fretful conversation. I hear a woman’s voice - “Well, how much longer? You know, I’ve got errands to run”. It is my initiation to the suburb and I’m pleased that it is the right kind. The choice of phrase is immediate reaffirmation of Bandra’s Catholic roots and a history distinctly separate from that of Bombay. Here, ‘errands to run’ it is. 

….

Increasing fondness for Bandra visits, rather inevitable given its time-honoured melange of charms, leads me on the trail of Bollywood, friends in tow. We are looking the for the wall murals of the B.A.P (Bollywood Art Project) that lie scattered across Pali Hill. In our search, we get lost in the labyrinthine byways and alleys that characterize the gentle sloping up before descending down towards the sea-facing Bandstand Promenade. It turns out to be a blessing though. One such alley eventually gives way to a courtyard of sorts contoured gently by the facades of two-storeyed houses with tiled roofs and wooden balustrades. The tree that is central to the courtyard has a sign hanging from one of its stumps. The sign reads – “Audition for Salman Khan picture. Contact 8350018942”! 

....

I am still chuckling about it while awaiting my order for lunch at a restaurant. Its innate amusement value notwithstanding, I see it as proof of the tangled nature of luck and serendipity in this home to Bombay’s film industry. Just as my lunch arrives, two twenty-somethings join me at the table. It is a crowded affair at this restaurant. When I begin to tuck into my meal, one of them launches into encomiums for Anurag Kashyap. While initially coming across as fan adoration, its nature abruptly shifts to that of a working relationship. It dawns on me that this is about assisting Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur! Having deduced this, I now find a casual conversation about what is essentially someone’s work, electric. "Anurag is so chilled out! You wouldn’t believe this but aadhe time hum bas stories sunaate hain. So, he’s given me a reco (sic) for Karan Johar’s next magar mujhe pata nahin. I like the atmosphere in Anurag’s set." In this moment, Bandra couldn’t be more about Bollywood for me. 

….

For all the talk about its old-world charm and artist’s village appeal, over the last five years, Bandra has entered the popular Indian consciousness as one half of an engineering marvel: the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. Yet, this does not appear incongruous as one would immediately expect in the manner of say, Montmartre being paired with the words IT and Park! Partly, one must put this down to Bombay’s ceaseless ability to make room for the new. Nevertheless, I suspect Bandra pulls its weight as a name with which something larger than life finds a fit too. As such, this engineering feat now dominates the southern end of Bandra wherever there is a view to be had. While different views of it are lessons in perspective and geometry, the predominant one I have sampled during taxi rides skirting Bandra is a shimmer of delicate white strands from a distance. No matter how often I see it, every glimpse is a veritable Darshan. On one such ride, a cabbie, seeing admiration writ large on my face, puts a different spin on the topic. He holds that on the subject of views, one group that must be vexed more than anything else ought to be the residents of the Mahim, particularly those along the seafront. What was once a view out into the Arabian Sea has now been reduced to a view of the sea link. His valediction on the topic is sparse and pointed: Bandra’s gain, Mahim’s loss (sic).

….

May last year, on the date of announcement of election results, it emerges that the NDA has won. Accompanied by a friend, I am walking back to Bandra station after an alfresco dinner at Saltwater Café. Faithful to the route suggested by Google Maps, we find ourselves walking through the Muslim-dominated quarter of Bandra leading out to the impressive façade of the Jama Masjid. All through our walk, we find groups of people huddled, whispering with quiet urgency. In the bedlam of murmurs, it is hard to discern anything specific. Eventually, a throwaway sentence falls on my ears - “Aaj pata nahin har musalmaan ka vote kidar gaya hai”. Friend and I cast knowing glances at each other, perhaps in shared reflection of how this chance encounter is a peek into the minds of our populace. 

….

Four encounters, four whispers, each revealing a different facet of Bandra. Perhaps I have only looked at what I wanted to. There is such a thing as perspective. 

Moments from Central India - Episode 1: Leaving redux

There is something peculiar about being displaced against the direction of the line of sight. It isn't merely about being a mild physical anomaly. It extends to the mind as well. As I'm being borne backwards from Dadar by the Jan Shatabdi Express to Aurangabad, my mind refuses to disengage from the metropolis that I'm oriented towards. It dawns on me that there is such a thing as leaving a place and all thoughts associated with it behind. Staring vapidly outside a window at the landscapes shooting forward, I find it hard to forget the trappings of work. Soon, I am distinctly aware of my mind replaying the events of the day in reverse. 

It begins with a vignette in which I am fretful, rushing back home in an auto-rickshaw and wondering how everyone else waiting at home is playing it so cool. I am late and yet have received but one phone call asking as to how things have progressed. Then the scene loops back to the loveliness that is the folding action representing the closing of a work laptop. There is something about the manner of this activity that clears the mind. I'm struck by how the mind is once again influenced by the mechanics of how we do something. The next vignette is characterized by infinite limbo. I'm stuck waiting for something to arrive and it never does in this replay for the scene does not segue forward. Dazed, I look to my mind for succour and it obliges, looping to the next vignette. This is a flashback of sorts for I'm presented with the arrival of my uncle and aunt from Dubai, a happier memory to dwell upon. 

The six of us - Ma, Pa, Kaamya, SM, Pushpa - are seated in my bachelor pad, now feigning a pretense to being something more. On cue, I rewind to some hasty rearrangement the previous morning before my parents and sis had arrived. I am in the middle of my living room and, a biannual upheaval. After a significant chunk of time spent achieving the quixotic dictum of a thing in its place and a place for everything, I am somehow left with residual energy for fussing about with a colour scheme of sorts. Eventually, I decide on a combination of earthy maroon and demure orange. A trio of petit cushions make their way on to my coir bed ...... and the final vignette segues to the maroon interiors of the Jan Shatabdi at this point. Part of it had begun to feel like work again, belittling the move towards cozier memories. 

The six of us are now seated in the train. I try to detect any sense of facial discomfiture wrought on the others by preoccupations. Sure enough, I catch all of them at various moments grappling with their own sense of work left behind and upcoming. Pa wears any such preoccupation in languid fashion, in the manner of someone who is used to the consternation it brings from years of experience as a practicing Chartered Accountant. Ma is keen to get a discussion on familial complications out of the way before touring begins in earnest. I sense she is too dutiful about our trips to let anything serious get in the way of fun - a paradox! After many attempts at meaningful conversation, we are defeated by the physical anomaly alluded to earlier. The best antidote to the mental bedlam these things result in is sleep. Kaamya lands a winner at this by seemingly being able to doze anywhere, anytime. I see it as her own response to a general malaise at continual displacement that has consumed the better part of the year for her. 

Pushpa and SM have, after a series of booking misfires, emerged on the other side of vexation where things are clear again by way of resignation. Their respective work situations nags at their thoughts as well, compounding the issue. My aunt isn't sure if she will be granted leave at the school in which she teaches. Uncle, IT man, stands poised to spend a good hour each day on the trip on the phone; only we don't know it yet. Kaamya, in the midst of a PhD, has her recently completed field work and the prospect of an unpeopled winter in Denmark to contend with. By and large, our countenances are writ with vague concerns. It occurs to me that this is an all-adults trip, a first for us. 

Every now and then, the vagueness is dispelled with a joke - someone has had a series of light bulbs go off inside their mind! We are a faithful group in conversation. Sensing the importance of such an opening, everyone pitches in with something alike in tone and mood. This leads to a spell that is markedly pointed in the manner of its participation and its effect. The subjects inducing such spells are as diverse as the nature of Kolaveri chap Dhanush's new-found sangfroid in performances, the degree of truth (or untruth) to the pronouncements of family astrologer Raasikkal (Lucky Stone) Raghavan, or even how we have finally reached our hometown Madurai's rail soul mate Manmad after years of talking about it. In a family dominated by ferroequinologists (now that's a hell of a term), the occasional rail joke can be lost to outsiders in the dizzying depths of a shared hobby! 

And when the laughter dies down, the vagueness returns. Inevitably, at some point, the baton doesn't get picked up and everyone settles into their own mindspaces. This trip is to be one such, I think at this point, where many of us are beset a touch more with care than we've known on trips prior to this. In a way, that is novel too. Having reached a seamless transition point of the reverse chronological exercise my mind has been perpetrating on me, I am less beset with concern now. A deep breath and a sigh later, I settle into the line that's been my refrain for a year now. The years shall run like rabbits. For in my arms, I hold the flower of the ages and the first love of the world. These two lines of Auden are so incredibly context agnostic on their own that I fit them to whatever I'm feeling when I evoke them for my comfort.  

Looking out to see vistas of hills punctured by pretty wadis, I am more certain in the notion that we are going somewhere else now. 

In Dubai: Episode 6 - On the trail of a Tangierine

Ibn Battuta Mall

Some imagined impulse born out of a love for travel, travelers and travel writing in general had led me to blurt out Ibn Battuta Mall when SM had queried me as to where I wished to go after the planned itineraries came to an end. Before departure that noon, we had walked to nearby Ansar Gallery, a two-floor convenience mart stocked with everything imaginable that had us singing to the tune of ‘ah, life abroad’. Given this and the general overabundance of malls in our trip (I’m not sure as to how this can be avoided in Dubai), I fear this could turn out to be yet another one. To top it all, it is a long way between the respective metro stations – 33 kms. As such, it isn’t so much with expectation as with uncertainty that I venture Ibn Battuta Mall.

Outside the bus station next to the mall, we are joined by the hot sun afternoon sun that is a harbinger of things to come in summer, and Pushpa, whose school happens to be nearby. From here, buses depart for Abu Dhabi (100 km) where the Al Nahyan family reigns. Cousins in the larger sense, these two families constitute the most powerful of the six families of the UAE, perhaps even the ten families of the Persian Gulf. That sentence reads like it should be in The Godfather. Nearing the outskirts of Dubai with only Jebel Ali ahead, the Battuta Mall feels like a link between the two Emirates and that is just the kind of arrangement the Moroccan traveler wouldn’t have minded as part of his considerable legacy.

At first, the mall seems to be a strange way to pay tribute to a traveller of legions. Custom dictates that a monument should be its own justification, and the subject it commemorates, the sole draw. A shopping mall will inevitable reduce a towering subject like Battuta to the side-lines. In the few hours we are inside the mall, it does seem so. Nearly everyone seems to walk on without casting the slightest glance at the considerable interior décor. Pa and I do the opposite, wilfully ignoring the stores, going over every piece of work with deliberation. The layout of the mall is divided into sections that feature the various courts – India during the Sultanate, China under the Mongols to name two – which Battuta visited. The motifs are broad though, only loosely evoking the region. For instance, the Egypt court has the insignia and relief art associated with Pharaonic Egypt – jars, implements, animals, and human figures standing sideways in hierarchical proportion.

Walking through Tunisia Court could well be like strolling through the streets of a Maghreb town. The ceiling has been plastered with sky wallpaper, palm trees and street lamps have been installed at corners that have been recreated in the manner of the narrow, winding streets of a trading outpost. Only instead of a bedlam of fish vendors and boulangeries, we have all the attributes of the modern mall. Ma is especially enthralled by the evening bazaar-like scene that is created. Here, even brand names and store facades lose the banal, whitewashed and antiseptic look that is their characteristic, acquiring something of the quality of a little mama store. What is more, brands don’t dominate here either. Petit stalls chaperoned by women are full of curios, knickknacks and the like. Some of the better souvenirs I have seen on the trip are to be found here, atleast as far as malls are concerned.

We pass through other galleries – the Andalusia Court is replete with astronomic and scientific exhibits that speak of a more enlightened state of affairs in that part of the world before the Reconquista – the India Court is dispiritingly unoriginal with the obligatory elephant, craftsmen and palanquins – before arriving at the Persia Court. Its centrepiece, under an ornate dome with a geometrically patterned decoration that is early Islam’s signature, happens to be where Starbucks has put up shop. Around the coffee shop are exhibits displayed in the form of a miniature gallery. Thoughtfully assembled, they offer much to muse about the world at large during Battuta’s time and now. Ma and Pushpa, spent from a lot of walking, have found chairs. Pa is nowhere to be found for a few fleeting moments. Head still reeling from the sheer brilliance of the Moroccan’s exploits, I am nevertheless struck yet again by how the old is evoked through the new in Dubai. When a young Lebanese couple ask for directions to the Tunisia Court, all I can muster is a dazed smile. 

In Dubai: Episode 5 - In the company of Titans

Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall

SM and Pushpa’s balcony looks out to a shimmer of skyscrapers that dot the business and financial district of Dubai. Among them is the incongruously tall Burj Khalifa (Tower of the Caliph). We have been looking at it on and off for three days now. It is the key fixture in our morning and nightly Darshans from the balcony, not entirely unlike a towering South India Gopuram (temple tower) whose glimpse is sought from the comfort of one’s home. During the many drives through the city, it is a constant feature of the Dubai skyline. My first impression is one of absurdity; it seems an impossibly high construction that makes a beeline for the heavens. In its ambition more than design, it reminds me of the Tower of Babel (Burj Babil in Arabic) of Biblical legend. The Book of Jubilees mentions the Tower as being 2.5 kilometres high making it thrice as tall as the 828 m high Burj. This is among the more conservative of the various estimates for the height of the ancient tower! The Burj is ambitious enough for our time; the world’s tallest man-made structure of any kind. 

Our plan is to ride the elevator to the top of the Burj and spend some time savouring the views. The tourist entry to the building is contiguous with the Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall. It seems uncanny that a horizontal behemoth should share a complex with a vertical titan, almost as if the Blue Whale were somehow conjoined with the Godzilla. Pushpa can’t accompany us to the top despite being with us at the Mall owing to cancellations in her teaching schedule. Tickets have to be reserved in advance for the trip to the top, quite amazing considering the holiday season is behind us and it is a Monday. We have 5 tickets, and are compelled to leave her at a coffee shop within the Mall.

The first part of our tour consists of navigating a series of numerical claims for the Burj, displayed in exhibits and virtual screens along the approach that is elaborate and serpentine enough to generate excitement without constituting too much of a wait. When we eventually reach the elevator, there is a short wait while we are told that the elevator to the observation deck is a novelty in itself, clocking a top speed of 36 kmph and speeding to the 124^th floor (~450 m) in less than a minute.

Inside the speeding elevator, ears pop as the pressure drops. We are a sensitive family when it comes to the ear; rapid aircraft descents usually mean conversations after landing are laboured with everyone having to repeat everything atleast twice. Here, Ma’s grimace suggests she feels the pinch more than the rest of us. Shortly, the doors open and we step out on to the observation deck. A 360 degree viewing space, the deck floor consists of wooden planks that make slight but rhythmic plonking sounds as people walk about. It is roomy enough for a 100 people or so without feeling crowded. The first few minutes are spent looking at the views and clicking photographs. There is much to take in for geography enthusiasts; the Creek in particular is revealed in all its complexity.

The euphoria of where we are and what lies outside lasts a while, perhaps twenty minutes. Strolling around and looking at the goings-on within the deck yields a mixed bag. Expensive souvenirs are being sold at a counter with few takers, unsurprisingly. At another corner, there is worrying evidence of Hollywood having colonized a landmark barely three years after its baptism. Tom Cruise’s jaw-dropping stunts in MI-4 find their touristy reinforcement here through posed photographs against a dark background in empty kiosks. They are later photoshopped to show the tourist in the act of climbing the Burj. While I am a fan of the movie and its innovative sequence centred on the Khalifa, I wish this sort of thing didn’t happen although it seems inevitable given Dubai’s tourist ambitions. In the end, it is only yet another in a series of activities created out of seemingly nothing. Perhaps a pokerfaced witticism is called for from Simon Pegg!

Ma prods me to look at two people seated on the floor next to each other, wearing cardigans with the hood over their heads, their backs against a support and their legs stretched out. One appears to be a Chinese man; the other seems vaguely like a Caucasian woman. Each is writing something; a closer glance reveals postcards. A few feet away is a little girl, probably Arabic, trying earnestly to capture some minutiae on the floor on her camera. There are others seemingly lost in thought, looking nowhere in particular. I don’t notice it at first but soon it seems more eyes and cameras are turning inwards. Perhaps, having tired of the views, they now feel drawn to the drawn-out countenances that faces are gradually acquiring. Could it be that taking in vast panoramic sweeps stretches the eyes in a way they are unaccustomed to! One camera hover inches from a face almost as if trying to record a specific glint in the eye. The whole thing has played out like a well-sequenced inversion of the tourist glance. Now people are both the focus and the backdrop; the view has been reduced to a prop.

                                                                                                                                            

Back on terra firma, the Dubai Mall beckons. There are a few things to this mall besides its size. For one, the promoters have deliberately shunned any attempt at ornate sobriquets for its various sights. The mall’s plainly definitive name is a clue as to what awaits one inside. A section recreating the Arabic Souq is called The Souq (market). A waterfall spanning three floors with male figurines in diving repose at various heights is simply titled The Waterfall.  The world’s largest choreographed fountain is within a lake (yes!) in the premises of the mall. There are no prizes for guessing the name. The definitives have a purpose – the powers that be would rather that we didn’t fuss about with qualifiers. Malls per se are monuments to consumerism; the Dubai Mall seems like a veritable temple-museum.

Cams’ trip has reached its end and she is to leave for Copenhagen that night. Outside Terminal 2 at the airport, we are in jest about how a three-day trip means she needn’t lose the jet lag acquired on the flight to Dubai. It is another ten hours for her with a stopover at Doha. We meanwhile, have a comparatively pedestrian three-hour flight back to Mumbai. Cams is warm and efficient with her byes, a quality only enhanced in recent years. We return home by the metro; the two remaining days in the trip appear laced with uncertainty. 

In Dubai: Episode 4 - What Maketh a Metropolis

Dubai Bus Tour and Dhow Cruise

The third day involves something I can’t recall having done in more than a decade – an arranged bus tour. We have steered clear of that sort of thing through my formative years, shaping my own ideas of what a trip should be. Oddly enough, when something is truly sparse, it becomes somewhat novel again and there is a palpable sense of excitement. When we leave, it dawns on me that we are already used to the convenience of being picked up outside the apartment in roomy taxis. It is no different this time with a minivan.

After being transferred to a bus, we learn that our tour guide is a fella going by the functional, diminutive name of Ali. Are all tour guides in this part of the world usually called Ali?! Granted that it lends itself with immediacy to convenience but wouldn’t it be wonderful for a guide to introduce himself with the full Islamic glory of a name such as Abu ʿAbdallah Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallah Il-lawati ṭ-Ṭanǧi Ibn Battuta (more on him later) and then perhaps add, it is my very good honour to meet you and you may call me Abu?!

In his twenties, Ali is stocky with wry eyes and a sardonic smile that he uses to close out sentences. It is the kind which makes me feel that the tourist cliché has been reinforced multiple times back and forth, almost as if to suggest that he knows we know he knows that the bus tour is, all things said, only routine. Even his weariness seems practised; he seems capable of conveying its specific tonality on a different day to a different group. He might be the very embodiment of the bored tourist guide, with no hint of a flourish or a bravura touch to what is admittedly a difficult job to plough through day in and day out. It is one made more difficult by us tourists. During the tour, Ali keeps throwing questions offhand at us, albeit in a voice that suggests clinical boredom. More often than not, he gets no response. It is difficult to assign blame to a situation like this. Typically, an audience responds to its performer and a cheery one should get some response if not reciprocated cheeriness. It is also fair to say that even the most cheerful guides must come to feel dismayed by continual lack of reciprocation. Eventually, Ali, like all people who learn to perform such jobs with dutiful detachment, has pared the work down to its bare essentials. For our part, as tourists, we have rationed our gratitude to the minimal in that we thank a professional, not a performer, someone reeling off factoids and not a storyteller.

                                                                                                                              

Given the introductory function of the tour, we are given fairly strict time slices at most places. In this regard, Ali is good at conveying a sense of discipline and urgency. The Dubai Museum, meriting a couple of hours, is to be galloped through in 20 minutes and yet we aren’t left feeling morose at such a rushed pace for this is meant to be a sampling exercise. People respond, out of understanding or indifference I am unable to say, but with a delay of only 10 minutes, we are off for a drive through Jumeirah, an uptown district that is as elite as they come.

The bus is being driven andante in marked contrast to the Metro ride that zips past the towers of the business district. Neatly spaced plots housing identical residences line the sides of the arterial road. They bear the Islamic stamp of being miniature fortresses; no prying glance penetrates the facade. A sheet of haze that day clothes them in a layer of indistinctiveness, making one doubt their mooring in reality, enhancing the air of exclusivity of the place. When we halt briefly at Jumeirah Beach, the haze becomes strong enough to render a close view of the Burj Al Arab (The Arab Tower) rather like a ghost ship. Built to resemble the sail of a dhow, it appears as a giant white corsair from the Golden Age of Piracy, captured in the moment of gingerly absconding from shore.

In sum, it is an arrangement that I think works well for a bus tour – passing by to register impressions and never staying to cement them.

This part of the tour culminates in a drive through the Palm Jumeirah, the only completed Palm project out of three planned ones. Going by Google Maps though, all three have a more completed look. That said, even the Jumeirah project has parts that are work in progress, an idea that is the city itself in a nutshell. Cams is quick to phrase it thus – “SM, how does it feel to live in a city that is always under construction?” By under construction, she is referring to the notion of being a work in progress perpetually. While this is true of any city in its growth phrase, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to name but two, have captured the popular imagination in our time because they are current examples of a search that has been on ever since people began living in mass agglomerations – the search for the perfect metropolis.

Cities can be written about in the manner of a photograph; a certain place at a certain moment in time. Paul Theroux channels a related idea in The Great Railway Bazaar when he says some places have a specific orientation with time. I should like to add the qualifier that over specific time periods, they do. Wind Dubai’s clock seven years back and the snapshot would have been unambiguously oriented towards the future. Go back twenty years and it must have been the same. Since 2008 though, with the recession having taken its toll and the pace of progress having slowed, the time-capture today must reveal a dimmer sense of entitlement to the future. Evidence as to this can be seen in the Government’s response to the 2013 resurgence when real estate prices began picking up again. Property Transfer fees have been increased and regulatory tightening done to prevent a speculation-driven bubble. From this cautionary tale emerges the sense of a city as a living thing, suffering a setback, learning and recalibrating its brand of ambition.

An enduring fascination with cities is to do with the tussle between old and the new, the latter always winning by relentless attrition over time. The specificity of the bout often decides the nature of the arrangement between the two. In mainland Europe, having come so close to losing it all, preservation takes priority. The newly arrived must always tiptoe around the recognized elders. In populous South Asia, by and large the new takes root with a matter-of-fact credo – a space in the city is my birth right and I shall have it – driven by plain economic bullying. Rearrangement of furniture is only post-facto.

In Dubai, I sense a more curious relationship. Here the new is designed in ways that atleast perfunctorily evoke the old. The Desert Safari is essentially the power of the motor vehicle coupled with the idea that sand dunes are nature’s roller coasters. The design of the Burj Khalifa and the Burj Al Arab reflect traditional Arab themes, the spiral minaret and the sail of the dhow respectively. The Dhow cruise is one more addition to this theme. It is essentially, as SM puts it, dinner aboard a cruise. I imagine there are versions of the same thing which appeal to varying tastes but the boats we find upon arrival at Dubai Creek are all made of wood with the overall design of the famed sailing vessels that plied the Arabian Sea. The whole affair seems decidedly less ostentatious, something that can only be the product of a conscious decision in this city.

Aboard the vessel, we are on the upper deck that is laid out like a dining area. Floating along in slow and stately fashion with the night breeze caressing the face, we are soon trading the vanilla how-nice-this-is look that families learn to give each other at the first opportunity. In a stolen moment, Cams and I exchange a sneaky glance of our own, one that feigns cocky derision at what a ‘family’ experience this is! The draft blowing across the creek has a tinge of cold that gets progressively colder as the night wears on. We are left to contemplate what might have been had we visited in December. 

In Dubai: Episode 3 - Sun, Sand and Sky

Dune Bashing, Belly Dancing

That afternoon the customary Dubai experience beckons – dune bashing.  When we leave the metropolis behind, the first rudiments of sand dunes are upon us. Stretching infinitely on both sides of the tarmac, the dunes represent the north-eastern fringes of the Rub’ al Khali. This is known more famously in the English speaking world as The Empty Quarter. The Arabic name and the English translation are both fine monikers, conveying a nihilistic desolation. The place is an immense nowhere, supposedly the largest contiguous sand desert in the world covering most of Southern Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE and Oman.

With such credentials, it adds much to the Arabian mystique. Yore and fable have only enhanced its legend; there are tales of lost cities (Iram, Ubar) that have been swallowed by the sands around them, making them the desert equivalents of Atlantis. Yet this earthly black hole is also home to the Bedouin who have somehow been weaving their way through its dunes and wādis for longer than anyone can remember. Their nomadic life, though on the wane, continues today. No discussion of the Rub’ al Khali or the Bedouin is complete without mention of Wilfred Thesiger. An Englishman born in Ethiopia and a war veteran turned explorer, his fascination for places untouched by the motor vehicle led him to an epic journey across the Empty Quarter in the 40’s. He chronicled the dwindling ways of the Bedouin and his account, Arabian Sands, together with Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, launched modern travel writing. It is one I am currently perusing.

Presently, atop a sand dune, I vacillate between two scenes. Behind me are groups of tourists, an armada of SUVs lined up in conquering poise, a bevy of cameras and the general chatter of tourism. We have arrived here thus: the customary halt at the shop of miscellanea before we leave conveniences behind for good and a brief showcase of four-wheel drive before we stop for the photo session. At a reunion, posed photos have more purpose for the act of herding together into a frame is the reunion itself in miniature form, people from disparate timelines sharing a moment in time. I can’t recall a more enjoyable one in a long time. The photos reflect the bonhomie to the extent that we purchase a couple from the tourist outfit, something we normally shun. We are firm in denial to other tourist claptrap though. For instance, a falconer approaching us with a blindfolded falcon is turned down without as much as a second glance.

The second scene, ahead of me, is the Empty Quarter. Try hard enough and one can always lose the rest in a flight of fancy. Synesthesites must do this all the time. A black-and-white chequered keffiyeh wrapped around my head, less a concession to the heat and more an accessory worn in tourist jest, helps me feel the part. For a few fleeting moments, I am alone with the Arabian triumvirate - sun, sand and sky. As gusts of wind blow sand all around me, I am momentarily unnerved by the depth of feeling the desert evokes. Love of the desert is irrational, as the adage goes. There are no logical pointers as to why some people are enthralled by these waterless seas. While this is only a moment stolen in a planned itinerary, I briefly flirt with the idea of being a Thesiger and embracing the desert, warts and all.

Minutes later, as the SUV is pounding its way up and down this Arabian roller-coaster, I am part of the shared experience again. I suppose journeys are thus; one moves between parallel worlds. Pushpa lets out peals of laughter that alternate between genuineness and mockery. Her general effect on the rest of the family is such that we are quickly galvanized into mirth and half-derision too. Eventually, the pounders make for tarmac again in a manner reminiscent of a meeting concluded between rival gangs. I am forced to delay ours a wee bit by a mounting sense of nausea. Nestled into the back seat of an SUV seat, a static trunk and haunches are prime fodder for food to be tossed around inside.

Our ride stops at a fenced camp where there is more bundling of touristy things. There are samosas on offer and Arabian dining seating recreated alfresco around a makeshift stage. Little stores offer alcohol (in Arabia it must be more apt to say alcohol instead of liquor) and souvenirs. Short camel saunters are made available. An enclosure tucked away from prying eyes has a group of twenty-something Tamils sampling the Hookah. In a truly bizarre addition to this motley set, there is a screen on to which is projected, without much notice, a video of us in the act of posing for photos amidst the dunes! It continues in the same vein, capturing all and sundry for everyone present to see. We are both amused and embarrassed by this. Dinner is a typically Indian affair (given the clientele) with two Levantine inclusions: Tabbouleh - a mishmash of Bulgur (Durum Wheat), Tomatoes and Parsley - that bears a resemblance to the Maharashtrian Poha, and Fattoush, a salad with Pita bread as its mainstay.   

After dinner, the stage is the cynosure of all eyes. The first performance is my introduction to the Tanoura, a variant of the whirling Sufi dance, the key difference being the multi-coloured skirt worn by the sole male dancer. The music is played at a rapid tempo to which the dancer whirls, causing the skirt to swirl, and the colours to blur and intermingle rapidly, creating an arresting spectacle. The second performance is the belly dance or more appropriately, the Raqs Sharqi. While the allure of the dancer is what holds my attention for the most part, I eventually start to notice the lightness of her feet and how they are often held in stiletto position. Like the Tanoura, this is another dance form that emphasizes circular and elliptical motion. There is very little by way of leg or arm movement, indeed they are held in light balance to facilitate torso and belly movements. Cams is rapt with academic attention; she later reveals that her Danish friends have pointed out similarities between Raqs Sharqi and Odissi (something she has pursued for five years now)! 

In Dubai: Episode 2 - All's well that Malls well

First Impressions

Waking up the next morning to a gentle sun and mild breeze, we set out for our first impression of the city’s true cultural artefact, the shopping mall. As we shall later find out, Dubai has every manner and size of it. Al-Ghurair Centre on the other side of the creek is where we are ushered to first in a bid to get some of the shopping out of the way as the next few days are to be planned affairs. If the mall is a tourist destination in itself, I am happy to see we have Al-Ghurair to ourselves on a quiet Friday morning. Some leisured buys later, we are sipping coffee at Starbucks and watching cars go by from a sidewalk. Pa draws our attention to the noiseless aspect of traffic; no one seems to honk. All one can hear is the whizzing of cars and the occasional chafing of wheels on tarmac. SM adds that a horn usually means there has been a hold-up for much longer than usual or there has been a flagrant violation on the part of a driver. Honking as a last recourse is a distinct pleasure, especially coming from a driving culture where honking is instinct.

We return home for a veritable sadya (banquet of vegetarian dishes in Malayalam) with everyone’s hand but mine. A slumber follows after which we get our first taste of the Dubai Metro. I am happy to note that the system has been imbibed with as much thoroughness as is possible in our own Delhi Metro. In comparison to Delhi, Dubai’s is also a remarkably uncomplicated rail network. The shorter green line forms an inverted V-shape around the creek while the longer red one runs predominantly parallel to UAE’s lifeline, the E11 that runs parallel to the coastline connecting all the Emirates. The red line also runs on an elevated platform (as is often the case) from Bur Juman onwards. The undulating nature of the rail track adds immensely to the experience, elevated track notwithstanding. Being in the unmanned metro’s first car is akin to riding through a steel and concrete landscape in a simulation. Towers we have seen from a distance earlier are now close at hand. The Metro is perhaps the best thing to do for anyone craving a quick glance at Dubai.

That night we dine at Little Italy, a place described with amusement by my uncle V as ‘possibly the only vegetarian Italian chain in the world’. A seemingly odd choice for dining in the Arabic world but we are here for different reasons; SM and I are patrons of different Little Italy’s (Dubai and Bangalore respectively) while a first visit has eluded Ma and Pa for years now.

Later that night (or early next morning), we are at the airport to receive my sister Kaamya (Cams). She is on a Qatar Airways flight from Copenhagen via Doha. It is her first journey outside the temperate zone since she left India for Denmark a year ago. Had Dubai or Doha been a shade below the Tropic of Cancer (as it is they are both a degree and a half north), she might have forayed into the tropics. This kind of rendezvous echoes Pa’s claim for Dubai as a sort of median point. Apparently this has long been the Al Maktoum (rulers of Dubai) patriarch’s envisagement for the Emirate too. If nothing else, it is not a stretch to look at a world map and conclude that it does constitute a central metropolis of sorts for the Old World. In a modern context, Australia needs to be included too, something that hasn’t escaped the attention of Australian airlines. Last year, Qantas made Dubai its secondary hub.

Meanwhile, SM has arranged for concierge services for Cams. Aptly titled Marhaba (Welcome), it is meant to weave the passenger through lines and waits. True enough, she emerges barely twenty minutes after landing with the concierge by her side, a Filipino woman looking tiny by comparison. Cams returns the profuse bodily thanking that they have made their own with her brand of acknowledgment, demure and pointed at once. Ma and SM are overjoyed to see her after nearly seven months while Cams and I trade half-enthused, half-ironic greetings. She regales us with the tidings of her flight on the way home.