dubai

She had kept it a secret and I  didn't know until she was packing for the trip.She was going to Dubai and her tickets were booked.!

What about me? She made a face that asked me to fuck off. I told her without me she was gonna pay a heavy price for her misadventure, that all sheiks carried two scimitars and one was used for a more deadly purpose. She made a second face , one of glee and absolute pleasure. I fucked off.

When I came back home there was an another big case. It was mine, packed with old underwear and socks and ready to go. I asked her whether she was taking me along as a slave, because no decent human being would ever like to be caught in those clothes she had packed for me. I dumped most of it and went with an almost empty case.She didn't care; presumably she needed that space as she planned to buy Dubai out. Shopping!

Once at the airport, the baggage handler fell over  when she heaved my bag up to tag it . She was totally unprepared for its  lack of weight  and she fell . She got up and gave me a look of absolute incomprehension, while all behind me in the queue tried to stifle their laughter.

Once inside the lounge , we realised that we were booked on a flight that was never going to fly and that we will have to go hungry. There was stuff to eat at the airport, but to eat those you need gold teeth, so we waited for the plane to arrive, board and then eat, by which time it was already tomorrow. The flight was uneventful, rather boring, unbelievably boring because I had asked for a window seat and was assigned 919 Z, right on the wing.

Dubai was  a happy place  to arrive at, many many happy faces from different places, size and colour, though I felt a special dread.I had heard horror stories of sheikdoms' arbitrary ways and the imagined ignominy of not being allowed to face up to meddling authority  made me  nervous and I had lost it by the time I reached the counter . So, when the native kid manning the immigration motioned me with his head to look into a face scanner, I blinked!

Bah! he slapped my passport down, looked at me and said something I didn't understand and I made a gesture, flapping my hand behind my ears. I choked and looked like a blubbering  idiot just asking him 'what?'

ahh...Nam kya hai , he asked again , his mouth opening up fully and I croaked my name.

Once in Dubai, we had a splash and that's when I dropped my cellphone in a waste bin, by the metro. Everybody around froze. Never in  history of Dubai had anyone dropped a cellphone in a waste bin, intentionally or unintentionally! Who but the extremely demented did that? I was in a bind. Do I leave the cell behind and walk? Do I rummage the bin and get the cell back? There were no policemen around, that meant there were plenty of cameras right there, peering at me, recording my every move. My god! My god! My God! There I was, waste bin and me, the rest of the world had quietly melted into the side walls of the station.

So what do I do?. I enact the entire scene looking up to the unseen cameras, miming with my face. I go, hands and arms flaying, on what went before, playing out my intentions, my plans for retrieval,  while people stood and watched a berserk man tearing into a waste bin.

Holiday went by, happy happy days to really remember. Friends, friend's friends. Relatives. Their hospitality and happiness of having us was overwhelming. Grand  lunches and dinners popped up every time and there was little time for anything else. I lived on borrowed clothes. It was a blast.

We were sad when it was over.On the way back to airport, my cousin wickedly reminded me the airport security at the exit gate may have a footage of me rummaging the waste bin and maybe they would hold me back and  send me to  prison for littering.

"Hey blah blah, you can't be serious" I said and laughed it off. But the next two hours were the most unsure moments I ever spend anytime as my life of freedom, the system that allowed me to explain, the system  that allowed one to face up and challenge unbridled authority,  flashed and faded in my mind against a system that may or may not offer recourse to fight back legally and win. I wanted to out.I wanted run. I was a wreck.

Friends, liberty is there and much over there and much more evident than I expected, but I have to say I felt an imminence, of menace from an unseen hand.

More than all that, I now truly respect your courage and purpose of being there, living a life and getting things done against a backdrop of conditions truly alien to us. Thanks.Goodbye.May god bless.