Increasingly, a kind of therapeutic introspection seems to be the national mood, goaded on by electronic media; Surely a good idea to do some soul searching on what we could do to improve our country. But self improvement cannot be a substitute for good governance. How can it possibly be wrong to expect our government to do its duty and be held accountable if it fails to do so? Aren't we accountable to our employers in our jobs? Failing to confront the problem without regard to political correctness is the need of the hour. Jehadi terrorism and the even more grave issue of our state and central governments (especially congress led) failing to act against it fearing supposed electoral backlash from muslim voters are the gravest of threats our nation faces. Please dont dub me a hindu fanatic or a right-winger just yet; Please hear me out. My world-view is devoid of any consideration to people's belief/regions/beliefs etc, I stand for total and absolute equality of all humans of all regions, beliefs, and persuasions etc. I feel deeply shameful and angry when i hear of muslims being refused apartments in mumbai. I am disgusted to my very core when I see bias and bigotry against muslims and anybody else. Unlike what our politicians may believe, most muslims hate jehadi groups as much as the rest of us and would be happy to see our government act against them.

A goldman sachs analyst shared his expectation the other day on cnbc of realty prices correcting 30% or more across much of india in general and in mumbai suburbs and bangalore in particular. In nutshell - he expects a 30% drop from current levels and doesnt see a quick recovery (likely 3+ years). Had been on a "housing tour" last weekend with a couple of friends who recently bought apartments here in borivali; at prices ranging from 6000 to 6170 per sqft. So if we are to believe the analyst, we could see prices dipping to 4200 in borivali in a year or 2. As a one of the friends pointed out that day, banks are currently requiring about 40% equity from home-buyers a sharp increase from the comfortable 10% till only an year or so back. (I remember 10% of the apartment price + stamp duty was all it took to buy a house in 2004 in an all-white transaction). How many middle-income fellas have that kind of cash to put on the table? Not too many i would imagine; especially with many people's funds "blocked" in the present sensex sub-9000 equity market.

Watching our apalling news channels; while the aaj taks star news and zee r busy peppering terror footage with graphics and "danger music", sagarika CNN-IBN ghose is as usual frothing at the mouth asking a bjp leader "will bjp exploit this event to communally divide this country like it always does?" The choice of news channels rt now pretty much boils down to utterly juvenile bullshit on one end of the spectrum to a neatly programmed but heavily biased coverage where opinions are being pushed facts - Are we ever going to get a neatly packaged, sensible, politically unopinionated/centrist news channel?

After more than an year long "exile" from "blogosphere" i'm back; but I'm not so sure about posting frequent updates so don't watch this space too often just yet! On second thoughts I wasnt really on a exile all this while. i have been posting replies pretty often on the blogs that I frequent - youth curry, and a few other topical blogs.

After more than an year long "exile" from "blogosphere" i'm back; but I'm not so sure about posting frequent updates so don't watch this space too often just yet! On second thoughts I wasnt really on a exile all this while. i have been posting replies pretty often on the blogs that I frequent - youth curry, and a few other topical blogs.

I'm back after a long exile from blogosphere! But no guarantees on frequent posts. So dont't watch this space too often!

Tennis Day
After rain marred the Dubai Open Women's Tennis quarter finals on thursday, there was little hope that the rains would relent the very next day. But relent they did and I experienced my first live Tennis match. Here's the link to the pics:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/vinay_dubai_wanderings/album?.dir=a455&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

That's me with pals, hanging out at burjuman mall. (L toR) Manoj (good chap from gwalior), Sachin (an extreme case of shopping mania this guy, he must have picked up gifts for half of hyderabad, his home town, for his impending India trip. He can spend hours checking out the "right" T shirt, tie, socks, simply any damn thing, Tom (Tom is a Chinese-Indian. Speaks better hindi then many southies at work! cool chap)

That's the view from my office cube. The tallest tower in the background is the emirates WTC.

Aziz bhai, my first paki pal and kebab chef at the shehar-e-karachi restaurant, downstairs. He now "reserves" his choicest sheek kebabs just for me!

A cute kid we saw at the Virgin store in burjuman.
Another view of burjuman mall.

I've got a home!
It's a good feeling to know where you'll be going home next week.
After a brief stay at the penthouse apartment, with the super-religious costalino family, I have found a modest but cheap accomodation, that too, within Bur dubai, in its very heart, in the narrow by-lanes, locally known as "Meena bazar" and "mini-bombay" for its close resemblance to those places. The best thing is that I share my room with just 1 guy - a 50 something, balding, Sindhi textile wholesaler by the name Gurmukh, or 'Uncle', as I fondly call him; not your ideal 'trash the damn place who cares' roomie this uncle, yet a decent chap; except for his obsession to keep the room super-clean, almost hotel-like,, with pillows always facing a certain side up; reclined against the wall at the "correct" angle et all....he tries to recreate a Sheraton deluxe suite in this modest room with green carpeting, and walls with peeling plaster. I admire the spirit, but lose it when he constantly monitors my movements...his worried gaze assessing the "damage" to the "aesthetics" of the room; I have a good idea 4 dis room - just a few holes in the green carpet flooring and we'll have an indoor golf course...I dare not suggest this to uncle though...the place is good (at just 900 dirhams) and the 1 thing I greatly value, I find here - peace of mind; retiring for the night after a hard day's work, and stepping home to find peace. Readers must appreciate that the accomodation scene here in Dubai is quite bad - 3 fellas sharing a studio apartment (a rather glamorous name for a matchbox sized room with attached bath) is a norm here....several families here confine their household to a single to rent out an adjacent bedroom or two, to minimize the pinch of an axhorbitant rent.....it isn't very unusual to find 8-10 people livin a crammed life in a 2 BHK apartment. Againts this backdrop, my one room shared with just 1 other guy seems a luxury....My belief in the neccesity of peace got reinforced after the brief stay with the costalinos, a mostly good natured konkani-speaking Manglorean christian family with 3 boisterous kids. The may be normal 4 their age, but the noise that they cause made my life miserable...add to that the high decibel snores of my roomie there, Sathish kumar (southies spell it that way with an h - the logic, as one kannada pal explained me once, being that the spelling satHish is to ensure that the "T" is pronounced the way it would be pronounced in the word tandoor rather than in the word Tarzan)....

Something as easy as crossing the street poses a challenge when you are still getting used to the change of driving side in a new country. I would get out of my hotel, approach the street, and instinctively turn right to look for on-coming traffic; traffic that was actually coming on at me from the other side! Welcome to right-sided driving, I thought to myself.
The first week passed like a flash...

infrstructure here is just 2 good; the airport is huge n full of escalators and horizontal auto-walks/walkways...i donno what they call them...roads r wide and tree-lined; parking meters everywhere; and fancy cars all around - corollas; mercs; BMWs, humvees, even limos!
Food is expensive; an average meal at an average restrnt for 1 costs abt 10-15 dirhams..almost averybody here is an expat - bur dubai, where i live, is some sort of a melting pot - indians; pakistanis; afghans, iranis; turks; lebnese, filipinos; europeans; africans; ;....mallus r everywhere...and the funny thing is even arab/middleeastern/irani shopkeepers speak hindi! ... I said sayonaara to the oriental lookin lady who runs the cheap ccafe that i frequent and it turned out she's korean and hates japanese!! The hunt for acco is on in full swing...saw an accomodation avialable advertisement on Gulf News site this morning - studio apartment, spacious, bla bla, Only for Keralites....looks like dere's no airline weight restriction on the baggage of bias that people can get from their home countries....more later