2oo7

A supposedly “planned” out day almost fell apart thanks to well, “God” and a few other “betrayal- of-trust” people. Okay, We ditched the booze-ful, dance-ful and event-ful party atthe Ranches because it was completely contradictory to our definition of fun. But, we heard a lot later of the eventful night that was at the Ranches. Right. Anyway, the highlight of this day was supposedly the football match between the ex-students of our school and us, the current students. But hey, quite obviously the ex-students didn’t show. Hell the guy who was “organizing” the ex-students himself didn’t show up. Thanks Kumar! But credit to Josie for being a darling, and blessing us with his half-hippie presence. So what started of as a would-be formal match, ended up as Man Utd fans v/s Arsenal fans match (kinda), in which the lucky-asses of Man Utd won. Fine and damn. It was fun, none the less.

The “match” gets over, thanks to another cheap ass goal from the Man Utd wannabes, and they win. Exhausted after 3 hours of passionate football we finally breathe. I apologize to all those affected by my uncalled-for and abusive “football-outbursts”, and then thank Dusty for the balls. It is now time to head for our next endeavour, The Beach. But first we decide to freshen up at the ‘always-and-forever’ hideout/second-home, Romit's House. God bless him, his mum and his dad for their whole-hearted acceptance of us, and or 200+ DB noise level. We take turns to shower, and Ali picks up the guitar which clearly signals the most entertaining aspect of any party – Singing with the Best Guitarist ever. We sing the classics; enjoy the flatness of Romit and Harry, while SK, the quiet and bored observer plays TEKKEN 4. Harry comes up with a new song which Tejas encourages, but Ali almost ignores. Ali’s vibrating vibrato than resonates the room, and then enter antagonist – my headache. Okay before any Ali erupts, it’s not because of Ali’s vibrato, nor because of Harry’s and Romit’s flat voices, but because of the dreaded passion of mine, football. 3 hours of heavy football in the cold, cold, "desert" of Dubai seems to have gotten to my head.

Bharath and the rest of the Gang B enter the fray and meet us at Venus Deluxe Restaurant in Karama, and this happens to the be the most entertaining aspect of our day. Vegetarian food at a cheap-ass, but brilliant restaurant, with 10 other guys, turns out to be the highlight of the day. Tejas' & Ali’s balloon is dressed while we wait for a table. Apparently we are the not only people who end up at Venus for new years dinner. The food we order comes quick, and above all is scrumptious. Everyone enjoys his complicated-concoctedly-named dosa. Bharath’s “Dry Gobi Manchurian” is a hit. We order 4 plates of that, and well each one of us eats our heart out, rekindling the memories of the by-gone year and well, our by-gone lives, in which one of the highlights is a certain senior male computer teacher. Then the bill comes, and we are filled with unexplainable joy – 10 Dirhams per head – that’s how much it costs. This makes the dinner even more satisfying. There is nothing like good, cheap food. Call us “losers”, “faggots” or whatever else, but Venus rocks! Meanwhile, my headache, despite the Panadol, is still pissing the hell out of me.

It’s 11. We desperately want to make it to the beach before 12. I struggle with an aching head, and Harry, the sweet guy he is, offers me his Santa cap. Everyone else is hunting for cabs. But all we find is a hundred other people waiting for cabs. We see an empty cab, but the bastard doesn’t stop for us. He prefers to give the Filipino chicks a ride instead. Ass. We give up cursing all the frustrating frustrated cab drivers of Dubai who can be such…well we just give up. Time to revert to a previously non-existent Plan B – Romit’s play area. Romit’s house/building saves the day yet again.

It’s 11:45 and my head is still spinning. I get annoyed. We are running to make it Romit’s roof on time for new years. The gang races ahead, my headache pulls Tejas, Govind, Bharath and me back. We lose our way and get temporarily lost in Romit's corridor. The clock strikes 12. We are still in the corridor. Wow. New Years in a Corridor - simply brilliant. Tejas and me just look at each other and smile, and memories of previous New Year nights race into our heads – Burjuman, City Center and City Center – 3 places of our 3 previous New Years. Yeah, laugh on.

We finally make it to the roof after wishing a party of random people “Happy New Year” on the way and then observe the environment-unfriendly-but-half-amusing firecrackers that light up the sky. It’s then time to wish the people we care about “Happy New Year”. Hugs are exchanged and so are messages and phone-calls. Clichéd-ly ‘awwww’. My headache is still pissing the hell out of me, and therefore I decide to spend the night at the life-saver Romit’s house. Harry & Ali go randomly missing having well a “chat”, anyway I hope there was nothing sexual about their escape. We get a little scared when Ali tells us that he pissed in Romit’s building’s Sauna. What the hell was Harry doing? Observing? Anyway, I ignore, at least then.

We have our “honest” talk at Romits, and then Harry leaves. My head is still spinning so I sleep, and soon the rest follow. The end. But not the end of my head-ache – because the annoying piece of shit still haunts me when I get up. For everyone who still doesn’t get it – its painfully annoying to have a headache on New Years.

New Years is over-rated. It’s an excuse to celebrate, but it’s fun none the less. I celebrate it, and that is a little hypocritical (sorry Ali!) in its own way. But hey fun is fun, and even if New Years eve wasn’t the funnest of fun, it was still an experience.

Happy New Year to everyone, however random you are to me. Let’s hope this year is greater, more eventful and more fruitful than the last. Enjoy…

P.S. A long post, but another memory successfully created.

by Anish Malpani

Dubai International Film Fest – DIFFing Around

I volunteered for this “prestigious” festival, thanks to a few ads in the newspaper, some positive Ish-related motivation and due to the convincing nature of the DIFF website. For all the hype it created, DIFF was just okay, at least volunteering-wise. Fine Shah Rukh Khan showed up and got jumped by the usually fanatically over-eccentric gals, and so did Richard Gere – wow! Old ‘Hot’ Guy – YAY! Stop making such a big deal out of it. *8-|*

Initially when Romit and I went for the “Volunteer Recruitment Session”, I was awed by the good organization and the convincing positive speeches, making it sound as if volunteering at DIFF was everything you could dream of. I have to give it to Bob and the gang – we volunteers were treated too damn well. We got Dhs 45 vouchers to places like Dome and Schzzam for our “40-minute” lunch or dinner breaks. Obviously, “40 minutes” didn’t happen, but a couple of hours did. We got a lot of goodies, a lot of free screening vouchers, a funky-enough t-shirt, a lot of food and a lot of ‘make-us-feel-important’. Well done you guys, but hey, face the facts. We volunteers were actually doing shit. We were tearing tickets, clicking counters to count the number of film-watchers, ushering guests, ushering guests to the other ushers, flirting with the so called “hot girls”, eating great food, making once-and-only friends, and trying to feel important. We weren’t even half important. I feel they had enough paid ushers (the ones in the blue shirts) to handle the event. Also, there were just too many of us volunteers to the extent that unthinkable jobs were being created. This was so over-free-employment.

Okay fine, maybe I am being a little too negative. I must admit I had a decent time. I definitely enjoyed the food and got to know a couple of really nice and interesting people who I hope I will keep in touch with. I also got to know a group of DPS guys, who knew me (somehow) and found out why our school is so much better and more intellectual than the other Indian schools. These DPS guys were cool, but were too damn Bollywood for me. They were worried more about getting the most funked out phone than anything else, and what blew me away was that they were trying to justify themselves. Though one of them did genuinely entertain me, all of them were automatic-unintended entertainers, if you get what I mean. Fun-fill-ment indeed. I also got to spend time with a long lost friend who I only only meet when this other person is in town, whether this other person is there with us at that moment or not – weirdly enough.

I attended 2 of my 3 shifts. The first one was at the Mall Of The Emirates which was half decent – had a scrumptious lunch at Schzzam with 5 other people out of which I think I will never see 4 of them again. Note: At Schzzam there was this really awesome Magician who really and brilliantly, truly brilliantly entertained us while we awaited our food. Tejas, this Spanish Magician-dude would have made you go madder than you have ever gone before.

My second shift was at the Madinat Arena, i.e. The Red Carpet Zone, which was also half decent. Ishika was great company on a very ‘honest’ day (go figure) and so where the other 5 people who we will also, probably never meet again. Food was once again scrumptious, but painstakingly late at the Dome. We were eating like kings. Anyway 2 half-decent shifts make one decent experience, right?

Bob and the other Volunteer-In-charge people did a good job of handling the volunteers. The problem was that there weren’t enough genuine volunteers. Some wanted the girls, some wanted a learning/fun experience (like me :P) and only a minimum few actually wanted to make the most of this Film-Fest experience, beyond just the ticket-tearing and guest-ushering. And that was kinda sad to see.

When it comes to the Dubai International Film Festival itself, it was glorified with all the “big names” and the “big movies”. It was just about putting forth a grand image of the festival. I almost fell into the superficial “grandeur” of the event, but thanks to a local film-maker, I was bestowed with the right facts. A film festival is not about “big names” and “big films”, it’s about showcasing those off-beat films that don’t make it to the cinema theaters. It’s about giving an opportunity to the opportunity-less in a rapidly growing industry. It’s not about showing popular films that will hit the theaters soon. DIFF failed to uplift the true essence of a film-festival. Yes it did make an effort by hosting an Local Short Film competition, but there was too much concentration on the popularity aspect of films. But I guess the commercial approach is important for the sustenance of the festival. But so much of commercialism? Maybe not.
P.S. Any experience is an experience, good or bad, and it teaches you something or the other. So I apologize for the pessimism.

by Anish Malpani

PRR

Guess who is joining the Premiership Rat Race (PRR) of use-lots-off-wealth-on-team-to-become-rich-and-famous – our very own, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum the proud ruler of Dubai. Yes Govind, you can partially rejoice – his Highness is planning to pitch in 480 million pounds to buy the living hell out of Liverpool. So, that somewhat means ,that Arsenal is the only nor-foreign-bought club, which ironically has a non-foreign coach and only 1 English player in its top playing 16. Right. The English, I tell you.

Anyway, why Liverpool is all happy is because now they can get a new stadium, and be totally wannabe’s of Arsenal. It’s okay Govind, it’s only natural for any club to do so. What Sheikh Mohammed is going to be doing is clearing all Liverpool debts (which not surprisingly is about 80 million pounds), buying controlling stake worth 180 million pounds and investing in the new stadium that will be built in Stanley Park. He, the owner of Dubai International Capital (DIC), is one rich man. Respect sir, and please don’t kick me out of the country.

It’s also fun, yes plain fun, to note that Dubai now indirectly owns major chunks of 2 clubs - Arsenal, with all the ‘Emirates’ sponsoring and Liverpool, with the latest DIC take-over bid. What’s even more fun to note is that now the premiership might turn out to be a 3 way battle – The Americans (Glazers & Man Utd) v/s The Russians (Abrahamovich & Chelsea) v/s The Middle East (Sheikh Mohammed & Liverpool). Boy oh boy – World War III indeed.

On a more saving-my-ass note, actually quite seriously, I have deep respect for our ruler Sheikh Mohammed. He is one hell of a strategist, and his vision is boundless but practical. Dubai is where it is because of him. Hats off on a great job sir, and good luck with Liverpool.

P.S. This post is a mixture of football and Dubai, so you’ll find it on both of my blogs. =)

by Anish Malpani