Random Travel thoughts : Dubai..

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.

Between Kayli Mundu and Levi's

The Past quarter of a century or more has seen a new breed of Indians being born. The Arabian sands witnessed the liquid gold erupt changing it into an Arabian paradise of crude oil, the modern synonym for luxury,wealth and fief(It is ending). It began a transformation of the entire Asian continent marked especially by the changes in the Indian subcontinent. The Indians, Pakistanis and Bengali flocked to this modern paradise to sweat under the scorching heat and earn some gold for their families. The sixties were the beginning and seventies and eighties saw them coming in large numbers.

Kerala was one of the beneficiaries of this boom and it saw the gulf phenomenon spread viral across every nook and corner of the state. Dubai or 'Dhubei' as pronounced by the Malayalis, was the paradise for every ordinary Mallu. Soon families settled , children started growing on the desert land alien from the Mallu land until they finish high school and go back for college and higher studies.The Levi's are sold out for the blue and green checks of the lungi (kaylimundu). This is one big transformation for them. A mindset is being changed when one leaves the luxuries of the Arabian paradise and reach the tropical warmth of the coconut land.

People tend to try and find out the pros or cons of each lifestyle but both has its own merits and it is seen when passing through life period as well as places of different culture and scope. The cultural soup in which children grow in the gulf is different from the life back in the villages and this collides as well as fuses at different points of time. This is an interesting aspect of  the expat children and their life. The Namesake Mallu is abandoned in his homeland while branded one in the gulf.

Children in the middle east meet different cultures and form a unique one combining all. But it sometimes fades one's own. It all depends on the way he or she is being brought up and may vary from place to place. While they are 'Malabari' in the middle east, they are called 'Saaip/madaama'(sir/Madam a term used to mock at mixed culture or English influence) in Kerala.... confused between the kayli and  Levi's.