I believe I can fly!

When I first came into the UAE back in December 1995 - I remember landing at the verdant Abu Dhabi airport where I joined my husband of two months who worked there - driving back into the city, one thing that truly astonished was the lush greenery, the decorative palms swaying in lonely splendour at regular distances from one another, the resplendent pergolas on both sides of the road and the beautifully sun-shiny weather with dappled blue skies and puffy white clouds...a perfect welcome - and add to that the long winding roads that just about upped the ante with regard to 'going for a drive'.

Yes, you may well put it down to the nostalgic memories of a young bride, but those were the days when one could actually see the roads and enjoy the drive - fewer cars and certainly more well-mannered drivers, less road rage and a general sense of etiquette and well-being that made everything so much more civilized, if you get my meaning!

Fast forward 21 years and today such visitations are most definitely consigned to the sands of time. Life has come full circle and even if taking long drives are one's thing, the lack of time and energy post work, the terrifying stories of traffic woes and challenges with juggling the daily logjam of one's life, render such an activity - undertaken just for pleasure - a sheer luxury! Driving anywhere in the UAE is now dreadful, to quote some of my family and friends who refuse to do it more than absolutely needed - they will also give you a litany of complaints about why it can be just too hazardous to one's health and peace of mind!

As a non-driver in Dubai (oh yes, I have heard the shocked gasps and dealt with the raised eyebrows, as people listening to me immediately pipe up about how on earth someone in the media industry has actually managed to survive without what they consider a basic survival skill in this concrete metropolis. Of course I have had to weather some horrendous experiences waiting about in the middle of the desert back in the days when public transport was a myth at best, but that is a story for another day!) - so, as a non driver in Dubai - heavily reliant on the public transport system in the city - and it has lately considerably improved with a plethora of options - from the ubiquitous Dubai Metro, to the Dubai Taxi, Dubai Tram, RTA's Dubai Bus and even water taxis that have beautifully complemented the age-old abras and dhows as scenic conveyance across the Creek - I am pleasantly excited to hear about any advances in this space.

The most recent story is of the flying taxi that Airbus has said it is looking at introducing at some point over the next decade - connecting Abu Dhabi and Dubai, to give people some reprieve in beating the daily grind. We also hear of some fascinating developments like the hyperloop that will ostensibly enable people to do the Abu Dhabi - Fujairah journey in just 15 minutes. Truly fabulous....cannot wait! Given the surge in population and motorists this might be a great way to go...good job, UAE, in thinking out of the box and making the impossible possible! You inspire me to get up and get going everyday! It is true that great cities inspire great stories....I truly believe that with a wind like Dubai beneath my wings, flying should be no challenge at all!

Flying city taxis
http://www.thenational.ae/business/aviation/dubai-to-abu-dhabi-in-a-flying-taxi-airbus-looks-to-revolutionise-the-daily-commute

The Art of Being Still!

More and more as the pressures of modern life and staying in the rat race continue to pressure us, we realize that as human beings we can only meet the pressures and demands thrust upon us, if we step away from our work for a short time.

Of course this is no new idea, no revolutionary thought, no 'innovation' as everything in the 21st century must almost of necessity, be. Scholars and philosophers from Shakespeare to the stoics of the past have always recommended some 'alone time' to re-energise and orient ourselves better - to develop a coping mechanism as it were in order to better handle today's 24 x 7 electronically leashed world.

While travelling has been known to broaden horizons, and going somewhere has been always advocated as the answer to finding one's hidden purpose, the truth remains that it will rarely give us hidden insights of our world within - that oft-unknown, hidden world of our subconscious self, that little niche which encompasses the vastness and answer to what makes us happy, what makes us alive, what is our true purpose.

 A world that can shape us in fact into competent and confident individuals better able to deal with our lives on this information superhighway.

Listening to renowned travel writer Pico Iyer on his TED Talk session recently, I was fascinated by the author's affirmation that going nowhere was perhaps as important, if not more so, than going somewhere. He spoke of how important it was in this day and age, to observe an Internet Sabbath, an enforced break from social media and platforms, some time out for our whirlpool existence, to just be. At 29, the author realized one day, as he was returning home in a taxi, that although he was living his dream, writing and travelling the world, he could never manage to catch up with life, he was unable to hear himself think!

Following this epiphany, he decided to abandon his dream life for a single room in the backstreets of Kyoto, Japan. A place that boasted no excitement, no hopes of career advancement, no entertainment, and - get this - no technology of any sort. A place where when you wake up in the morning, the day simply stretches before you. Iyer never regretted his decision. He understood the importance of leaving it all behind or 'switching off' if you wanted to take control of your life back.

While cutting back is not something most of us can afford to do, the fact remains that this is a probably one of the best ways at our disposal today to simply recharge, rejuvenate and re-energise our souls. The most important prerequisite to forging ahead in our lives and careers, fulfilling the different roles we have to play - as professionals, productive stakeholders of the community or as proactive family members!

I have attached the TED Talk link to Pico Iyer's speech. Please take a few minutes to enjoy the message!



https://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_the_art_of_stillness?language=en

In Celebration of Being Alive!

Yes...I am a big fan of celebrated South African surgeon - Dr. Christian Bernard, whose pioneering surgical efforts as much as his fabulous philosophy - a celebration of being alive - something all human beings should aspire to do - never cease to leave an impression. This week gave me cause to reflect on Dr. Bernard's beliefs yet again - when my sister-in-law and dear friend succumbed to endometriosis or uterine cancer which had only been diagnosed in October 2013. What followed was a truly traumatic time for friends and family. Apart from the agony of seeing someone as lively and vivacious as this lady deteriorate steadily were the logistics of taking her from one hospital to another subjecting her to endless chemotherapy and radiation sessions, morphene injections and other indignities - in early April in the presence of the entire family, she finally breathed her last. As we all prepared to give her a fitting farewell and bid her soul adieu in its journey into the afterlife to merge with the divine (a common belief among us Hindus), one thought assailed my senses again. How important it is to live every day as if it were your last. You do not know in the greater scheme of things who you may have the good fortune or bad karma, as the case may be, to encounter the next morning, next month, next year. Being positive, pleasant and living a life free of regret must come as prerequisites or essential tools/ instructions in the DNA manual to being human today.

Quite often in the rat race that life has become - and if you live in a city as busy as Dubai you definitely appreciate what I am saying here - you forget to appreciate the finer touches, the sentiments, the subtle nuances, the mundane everyday little bits and pieces - that make life worth living. While in 50 years time the money you earned or the education you attained may have little or no consequence, how you lived and what people thought of you as a human being will definitely leave a lasting impact. About Vinita Rajkumar, who lived the moment with effortless ease and managed to secure more real-time friends than many pretenders to extroverted-ness might boast of on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, there can be little doubt. She epitomised Dr. Barnard's human being - she celebrated life and lived just as she died - in the limelight. Rest in peace girl, you have been an inspiration, and all of us - friends and family have been privileged to know you - for the short span you were with us. I am now resolved to live life. Large.

Expo 2020 Dubai - The view from here!

As we get into holiday mode in Dubai this year, we realize that all is not what it should be, considering this is holiday season and we are counting down to the new year. Dubai and its residents should be out celebrating. Not only has its winning bid of Expo 2020 capped another phenomenal year of achievements, but at the same time, created opportunities enough to ensure that its GDP just keeps ticking along in a healthy, upward staccato. But as I said, that is as it should be....

Some of the gloomy faces would quickly put paid to the hope that all is well. So what are our prime concerns?

One of the significant ones of course, is something that not just Dubai's residents, but our friends and relatives around the world are equally familiar with thanks to our continuous ranting and raving about the it all year long - yes, the infamous 'R' word - rents we are all quite sure are poised to rise again and this time minus the rent cap that the country's leadership, for ethical reasons as much as to keep the 'rabble-rousers' at peace has so far imposed, which permits landlords to raise rentsonly once in two years and then again not above a rental cap of 5%. All that we are told by skeptics is now a thing of the past. There are to be no more rent caps as Dubai fast-tracks on building and infrastructure projects in a race to meet its tryst with destiny. So what is to become of us, we ask? What will the poor person whose salary already does not keep pace with Dubai's exalted vision do? Well, say the skeptics with a shrug of their shoulders, you can always go home...?!

Another fear, also triggered by the rising expenditure that basic provisions seem to be hit by - if there was a littany of complaints about how little the value of a Dhs 100 bill is today, compared to what it used to help purchase once upon a time, today there is a stark and real fear as expats find their savings hit by rising prices across sectors - education, real estate, transporation, electricity and water and other utilities.....

So, what should the government do to allay such fears? As things are they do have to deal with some very real insecurities, which is only natural considering that the majority of their population is expat-driven. Today things seem stark for a lot of the doomsday theorists who are busy writing early obits to their time in Dubai, and are talking of leaving to head back to their hometowns.

"They don't need people like us anymore, they only want to bring in the tourists who are willing to spend and throw their money on the various built-in attractions." - As expats we have often heard these doom-and-gloom stories. What must also be remembered is simply this - while the rents might go up in the short term, and prices rise, we must keep the faith that Dubai's knowledge capital today is as much its human capital, the people who have worked hard to make the place what it is today. The truth remains that experience is a hard thing to replace. Expo 2020 will simply not turn out to be all that it is hyped up to be, if the people working towards making it a dream reality simply cease to be - or simply packed up and left. It is perhaps a good time to incentivise key opinion leaders in different sectors, and make them add their two bits towards the country's success. The time is now....even as the entire country gets ready to be part of...history in the making.
 

Beating the blues...

Very often in the course of our ordinary lives we are confronted by the dreaded blues...a sudden crippling fear that paralyzes and makes us suddenly unable to get up and move on with our day. An anxiety attack that has us asking strange questions and undermines our self confidence...and makes us wonder whether we are actually good enough at all or can actually measure up.

It does not take a major catastrophe to bring us to this sorry pass. As human beings we are constantly seeking validation and endorsements - a pat on the back for some job well done, a commendation from the people we work with, a few words of encouragement that we get from our friends and peers - all of these go a long way to boosting our self-esteem and adding that 'feel good' factor to our days. However, when we allow the the world around us to tell us whether we are actually good enough or not, we are setting ourselves up for more hurt and despair.

Despair - a dreadful word and one that fills us with a sense of foreboding. We are often told to guard against it. "Stay positive", "Look on the bright side", we are often advised...but I have a theory about this. The more one is asked to guard against this feeling, I believe living in the 21st century automatically sets one up for this nameless dread. We don't know what to expect. We may go through the paces - toil through our days, filling in time at work, with family, with friends, doing the chores that are expected of us, believing we are free an uncertain future. Simply because we may have salted away something for a rainy day. Or perhaps because we see our kids doing well at school or in their chosen field of work. But remember, that these are not the factors that should ideally make us happy. These are just small pebbles on the long road of life. A typhoon could blow away your carefully salted savings. Bad company, poor judgement, bad luck,  or indeed some inherent challenges might stymie the performance of your children at school or career. Remember the age old saying - to thine own self be true. Isn't it so true when it comes to quantifying happiness and beating away the blues?

What I realize as I grow older is that such age-value systems and banking on others to help you feel better about yourself - could be truly detrimental to any long term happiness. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives and any of the rest of our extended trust circle are too busy in the course of a given day fighting their own battles and winning their own rewards. While they may be perfectly willing - or not! - to lend you a ear, and listen to you rant and rave - they are not the cover you will need in the long journey that is life.

We need to know our worth first and foremost. Everyone is good at something, everyone has some winning potential. Wake up in the morning and tell yourself that you are amazing. This may not get you any brownie points with the world at large - but you will score big with yourself. Be a leader. Be happy. Be the one that the world leans on for a change. And the watch yourself rise in style, stature, happiness. Happiness might be a state-of-mind, but you could reinforce your happy mindset by giving yourself that much-needed pat on the back.

In pursuit of happiness....Until the next time!

Hacking into one's life in cyber world!

One of the most disturbing things to happen to me this week was having both my hotmail and gmail accounts hacked in one fell swoop! Well, for any average person these days, it is bad enough when this should happen to you with one email account, but to suddenly find your life has crunched to a standstill, and that you are now persona non grata among friends, followers in cyber-sphere simply because all your social networking is linked up through your online identities which have now been sabotaged - well, it sure was a ghastly experience folks! The day - October 3rd to be precise, kicked off with one friend calling to check whether I was actually still alive and well, because she had just received a message from my account telling her I was is Madrid, and in urgent need of Euro 1,500, and to send the money through an account that had been created through Western Union.She sounded chagrined and more accusatory than solicitous, telling me to put a stop to it now! This was followed thick and fast by messages and phone calls all day long from friends and associates - some of whom I hadn't heard of in years - asking what on earth was happening, and was I ok? Madness enough believe me, but what would you say to DEWA suddenly deciding to switch off power on the given day in the area I lived in.....catastrophic? Yeah....it was actually nightfall before I managed to get hotmail to send me a link to reset my password and regain access to my account - the entire beleagured inbox was in a strangeChinese script - which made one wonder at how these guys had even managed to gain access to my accounts to start with. And for all of you out there who have not yet been victimised by the nasty hackers, please beware....the first indication you'll get that you are next in line for this sort of cybercrime will be in the form of a mail that comes to you asking you to verify the account details. DON'T DO IT!

The Write Line: Rape as a means of repression by Muamar Gaddafi

The Write Line: Rape as a means of repression by Muamar Gaddafi

http://www.channel4.com/news/gaddafi-ordered-rape-attacks-as-tactic-of-war-icc