What I saw in Dubai!

Marine Area, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Water adapts and adjusts its course when it encounters a stone or a shore. Whatsoever happens, it continues the journey. I believe my experiences and encounters with hurdles in journey of life has been quite eventful. 

In fact, famous Bruce lee articulated it even better:

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. ... Become like water my friend.”

After completing my MBA, I came to Dubai. I joined a sales position in a shipping company which involved everyday travel in my car within U.A.E. I meet lot of companies/people who, at sometimes willing but mostly unwilling, discussed the possibility of using our services. 

Living in middle east for over half a decade, I had some trends  and observations which made me little cynical of life's fairness -

1. Emirati, locals of Dubai owned 51% of all the businesses in mainland Dubai
2. Emirati were too well taken care by the government for so long that they'd became lazy, aggressive and unproductive 
3. Emirati looked down upon the people from Indian Subcontinent (Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshis, etc, - Indians for simplicity). Consequently, they were mostly under paid or at times exploited. 
4. On the other hand, Europeans and Americans were paid disproportionately more. It might have to do with the opportunity cost of working in Dubai against their much developed home country.
5. Local establishment chastised the saving habits of Indians for they get nothing of these home remittances. While the Americans, Europeans and Filipinos spent extensively and even borrowed heavily. 
6. Cost of business operation was increasing in UAE due to VAT while Companies were cutting cost by hiring cheap labor

Living through this everyday, reinforced my belief in unfairness of the world.

But the real wisdom dawned me when I got a fleeting thought about the 124 Cr Indians who'd never get an opportunity to travel and see what I saw. Thus, i began to also see some positives for the first time: 

1. It takes insurmountable will and vision to turn a Desert city into a sprawling mega-city of modern times
2. It takes a tremendous courage to accept and change the status quo. Dubai realized in last decade that its oil money is almost over and diversified into Non-Oil industry like Tourism.
3. How seamlessly can a Country/City fund its infrastructure development by just organizing the basis utility like Taxi System, Parking, Tolls, Road accidents, etc.

Now, I don't look for fairness in everything but the courage to continue the journey I embark upon. At last, water did change it's course.