Writings on the Wall

What? Shufi? What are you looking at? Kya hai?

Sounds familiar? Well, almost. A friend once famously mentioned, "If you murder someone in front of a 16 year old who grew up here, they won't even blink an eye and pass by coldly." Some of you might disagree, but most won't.

Now before you read further, I am not talking about any particular nationality, race or religion. For god's sake, Dubai is an International City where people from more than 150 nationalities live in almost perfect harmony equilibrium. People from all over the world come to this place in search of a better life, and most of them, well almost, even get one. But it’s a quite disturbing pattern which I have noticed on uncountable occasions here - lack of compassion!

On the road, driving in the fast lane at max speed, errant teenagers coming from behind will flash their vehicle headlights continuously until you clear way AND if you are a split second late, be ready to hear a word or two of abuses from the 'in-hurry' pilot driver. Well, one can always argue these are driving habits, so, let's just move on.

Just the other night, I parked my car in a municipal parking lot, came back to find some hip-hoppers/rappers camping all over my vehicle. Pulled out my keys and pressed the unlock button, the headlights flashed and the car was unlocked. Now I assume that all the teenagers were deaf so obviously they didn't hear the car unlocking and continue to make themselves comfortable. I reached the parked vehicle, gave a glance to the guys, opened the door and put the keys in the ignition. As I did that, one of the guys still didn't bother to get up, so I just lowered the window and said ' "Excuse me". Just call me and ask for $100 if you can guess the reaction of that guy, no questions asked! Instead of getting up and making way, the guy peeped in and asked arrogantly - "WHAT?" What? What? Get your f***ing a** moving you douche bag, but no, as a matured and law abiding resident, I just said, "I need to go." Of course none of them cared to say or even think about any sort of apology.

Another one and this one happened more than a hundred times, even today. As soon as you come out of a elevator, instead of making way, youngsters, the gum chewing generation, just walk-in straight, rather arrogantly. Forget an any apology, just hope they don't yell, "Watch it".

Remember the times when there used to be friendly smiles or courtesy greetings, even short conversations with unknown people? Well, today's teenager, you would be better off asking them- How are you?, because in all certainty you will get - NONE-OF-YOUR-DAMN-BUSINESS- sort of reply.

Honestly, I've met a lot of fabulous, amazing people here in Dubai, but all of them are matured, grown up career-holics. Teenagers here are a really cold, unfriendly bunch. But the question is - WHY? Compassion? Well, it’s solely missing and till the time we look into ourselves, we will never discover it, PERIOD.