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.
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