No one knew that the simplicity of the
desert could be transformed into a flashy land of glittering sky scrapers and
speeding metros with millions of people commuting day and night. My recent
visit to the Arabian land of dreams, Dubai made me think about human expansion
and modernism.
The travel from Muscat to the UAE gives
different shades of geography as well as life. The small two storeyed villas
and buildings slowly diminish and the large beautiful farms with beautiful date
palms and green banana plants are washed away with rugged grey mountains at the
border. Then we reach the canvas for this thought, a desert at the foot with
large towers standing in the horizon.
It starts with a sea of sands but to what
it transforms is bedazzlement. A city of concrete still in its formative period
but roaring to the world that it is the next big one. The growth of the
Emirates is fast and grand which brought in international infrastructure and a multi-cultural
flavor to the place. But as it is with all the big cities of the world the
material connectivity is increasing at a rapid pace while human connectivity is
slowly vanishing and it does matter when it is in a land that has an
established culture of hospitality, courtesy and values. The Modern development
often pulls down human values bringing in unhealthy competition in life that
changes human beings into money churning machines. While money is good,
consumerism may lead to loss of human values and this need to be checked as
applicable to all major cities.
But the transformation of this country is
something near unbelievable when thinking about the desert it was. Thanks to
the wise men behind this, the Emirates is standing tall. The barren hot desert
has been changed into heaven and hope the heaven does not lose the humans from
it.
