Appooppanthaadi -59

A living quarter at a construction site

The cold breeze has been seeping through the gap in the door of my cell. I have adjusted the thick blacket once again to cover the legs and then pulled it over my head.  "The time is 0535. It is time to wake up", the cute 'not so smart' phone dutifully informed me twice by now. It is snoozing and ten minutes later, it is going to repeat what it told already - "the time is 0545....". No more excuses,.I have to wake up right now, though I loved to have another nap.

How pleasant that short naps are in a cold morning! It is the toughest act of the day I am going to do. No other alternative. By 7, I have to show up at the office after finishing the breakfast. By the time I walk from my cell to office, Sun is yet to make its appearance. The Eastern part of  horizon has already got itself decked up to welcome the "star" of our world. The sky never tires of decorating itself for the grand entry of the star. The magic spell is an abundant display of splendour and and a riot of colours. Enjoying it, I reached my office within five minutes. A day begins thus.

Today a Jordanian is reporting for duty at our office. He will be replacing me whenever I am on my rotational leave. He had been working with our client for the past six years. Suddenly, he found himself out of business. UAE has seriously started localisation of work places. Sounds strange, right? Countries like India talk loud about globalisation, but here it is the opposite. Wherever qualified personnel are available, the locals are being appointed. This causes job losses for the people from other countries.


This is a practice in other Gulf countries for the past many years. How far they succeeded in extracting work from their own personnel is a subject for debate. Anyway, in UAE, this process has definitely gained momentum and in the recent National Day speach, the rulers have once again emphasised the need for localisation. Cause for worry indeed. Anyway, I was relieved as his arrival signals the begning of my holidays. For me, it was not the occassion to worry about localisation and globalisation. As the juggarnaut of time rolls on, everything happens as programmed, and everyone lives on, adapting to the changed situations...as simple as that. 

While on my return after the second leave rotation, I visited the Marina Mall in Abu Dhabi. It was a ten minute drive from my hotel to this place. The entire journey is along the corniche road.  Travelling along this beautifully landscpaed stretch is a pleasant thing to do in Abu Dhabi. On the way, on the left side of the road, we can come across a number of nicely constructed sky scappers. One among them is Emirates Palace Hotel. The Pakistani driver talked a lot about this luxury hotel. He said, to spend a night there, it needs around 7000 Dirhams. It is more than his two months' salary. As a taxi driver, he often gets a sneak-peak of the hotel. According to him, inside the hotel is like "Jannant". I only wish, I could spend at least a night in this jannat. We have to agree, Heaven is man made and is existing on this earth itself! I wish the Pakistani driver understands this fact more than anyone else and convey this to everyone back home

Marina Mall is a sprawling commercial complex that houses a number of big and small shops. The major attraction for the shoppers is the Carrefour there. This mall is located by the the side of the picturesque Corniche of the city. Besides shopping, there is abundant scope for entertainment including ice skating. Ice skating in the middle of a desert,. That is what the visionary rulers are upto-pull out a rabbit from a magic wand!

Another landmark in Abu Dhabi has been inaugurated recently. This is another world record making building. The administrattion says, the Guinness Book of World Records has opened a regional office in UAE to monitor the world records that are happening in UAE and the region. UAE administrattion admits that they have a penchant for making world records. So, the lastest one is the Capital Gate. It is another iconic building in UAE. The speciality of this building is that it has a leaning of 18 degrees that qualifies it into the World Record Book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Gate

Other than such mind blowing sky scrapers, these deserts are hardly offering anything for eatertainement. Most of the outings in the Gulf are limited to visiting shopping malls like Marina Mall in Abu Dhabi and Dubai Mall in Dubai. Watch out for beautiful landscapes, look at the world's tallest building- Burj Khalifa- in Dubai. Of course, there are some scenic tourist spots elsewhere in the Gulf region like in Oman and some parts of UAE. Still a weekend outing can be mainly to a shopping mall or a sea shore. No one can resist a visit to such elaborately constructed buildings. At the least, they help us cool down for a few hours in the air-conditioned ambience. For most of the people who toil for six days at a stretch, these cool malls offer a soothing escape.

I flew Gulf Air this time. It goes to Behrain first. All along the 50 minutes flight, I have been looking from the window. Down below, in the darkness, I could spot a number of flares. It was like a Diwali night. These flares are the essential parts of any oil and gas wells and they appeared to be like the lights in a Diwali night. (In any plant where oil and gas are involved, as a safety measure, excess gas needs to be let out to reduce pressure in the process equipment. These     let- out gases are continuously burnt away  through Flares) There are no dearth of oil wells in this region. The Gulf countries are ever enthusiastically tapping the nature's bounty. These mushrooming wells tells eveyting about their hurry. Let these wells never dry up. At the minimum, these wells are wringing in dollars to my bank account, per se!

I enjoyed another movie on board during the nearly four hours flight from Behrain to Chennai. This time it was English Vinglish. Charming Sreedevi has no competitors, no doubt about that. The expressions of a person who travels alone in a totally strange place are so vividly narrated by the gifted actress in this movie. Do not mistake, I never show such expressions during any of my globe trotting expeditions, however. I got a chance to see some parts of the US through the movie. This is a place my friend Sreekumar visits frequently and I could never visit. Fingers crossed, I look forward to walk on the streets of the country that is still considered a dream land by most of the people in my country. I hope, this will not remain a distant dream, like a woman becoming the President of the USA...