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10:01 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 22, 2013
Your children get bored. They hate their loving cousins, have nothing in common with them, and the cousins find your kids intolerable and the kids start the 'when are we going back to Dubai' routine and you keep saying, sssshhhh, another two weeks, and the kids say, whhhaaatttt, two weeks, are you nuts, what are we going to do for two weeks, we want to go back now,and that means now.
Just to prove a point one of them decides to get a fever and everyone offers you unhelpful advice and you give them a Panadol and everyone looks at everyone else, as if to say these phoren-returned types, no stamina, no resistance.
Then you visit sensitive relatives (everyone has them) and you say something stupid like, phew, it's hot, wish there was an AC and relative goes into this self- deprecating spiel about being poor relatives and we know you are not comfortable, this is the best we can do, sorry, we cannot offer you a better deal, and you say, no, no, it's just fine, but it isn't fine and the next three days are spent in high tension with relatives making needless remarks about how they have failed to give you what you are used to in the Gulf.
You meet old chums for a get-together and one of them goes for you for being 'different' now that you live abroad and how money must have changed you; are a big man now, and when you pay for the lunch, he says, we may not be living abroad and making big bucks but we can pay for our own meals, and he makes you feel so silly and small and all you want to be is nice and feel wanted but he just won't let up and, forbid the thought, you make some chance remark about why can't they get the phones to work or just look at the condition of the roads and this guy begins to wave the flag in your face and question your patriotism and the next thing you know your old friends are looking at you as if you were some traitor and you want to ask: where is it written that living abroad automatically disqualifies you from making criticism about your own country.
You catch the flight back and the airlines make sure they have it all wrong and the computer has cancelled your seats and you scream that you called the city office number and got it re-re-re-endorsed, dash it, I spent six hours waiting with a silly little number in my hand and I don't care if the computer PNR isn't showing 'ok', I am going on this flight with my kids and my wife and no one is going to stop me and the lady behind the counter says, so sorry sir we can't take you, the flight is full, speak to duty manager.
So, now you are raging mad and the dootymanijer grins evilly and says, rules are rules and you should have done all this 72 hours prior to departure, now you will have to wait for 'no shows'.
And your wife and kids help you along by saying, don't you have any influence, can't you do something, we can't stand here all night.
Oh, yes, we can, oh yes, we will.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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