Still single in the city

Sushmita Sen and feeling a wee bit homesick

So Pawandeep wants to know why I've gotten so "serious" about life, and feels I have changed greatly since I left Delhi.

Ummmm... Let me think. Have I changed?

Well, er, no. But I'm in transition, having to find the ground beneath my feet all over again and, at times, feeling utterly sorry for myself. Being in a new city does that to me. I spent weeks moping and fretting in Delhi when I moved from Calcutta, and wanted to catch the next day's Rajdhani back to Howrah Station. I would gratuitously tell everyone (even though they mostly weren't interested to listen to me), just you wait and see, I'll be out of Delhi in a year's time.

I stayed on for seven years.

So there.

Back in Dubai, we keep reading about figures like how only 17 per cent of the population are locals. The rest are all from all over the world, and in that sense it's quite a melting pot. Indians have hogged a substantial chunk of pot space, and Al-Karama is where lots and lots of desis live in. There's a Saravana Bhavan in Karama, and I can't wait to get there and dip my paws into sambhar and rasam and dig into a crisp dosa . I'm planning to go there sometime this week.

On my first day in Dubai, I managed to conduct a full-fledged conversation in Bengali. The office driver who came to pick me up from my hotel is a Bangladeshi, and we chatted enthusiastically about ' Sonar Bangla '. He's been in Dubai for 18 years, has lived alone all this while, and goes back home once every two years.

Does he miss home? You bet, he said.

Thanks to Bollywood, my name is suddenly very, very hot. Everyone asks me: "Sushmita? As in Sushmita Sen?" Every time, I have to nod my head coyly, and tell them how I hated my name till Sushmita became Miss Universe.

A Filipino fellow journo I bumped into here told me that he had covered the 1994 Miss Universe in Manila for the magazine he worked for then. He managed to talk to Sush after the crown was won. "Real pleasure to meet you now!"

And then, one evening, I was trying to cross the road in front of my hotel, without realising traffic moves the other way; a Mazda came pelting down the corner, and I scurried back in fright even as the vehicle came to a screeching halt.

The nice gent behind the wheel insisted I cross anyway.

You first, I smiled, grateful I was still alive.

No way, he hollered back cheerfully.

It's called right of way. Of course, you have no right to abuse it... I giggled a bit to myself, standing atop the road divider, trying to imagine a similar scene in Delhi. I sobered down when people started looking at me strangely.
 
One more observation. Staying in a hotel for a looooong time is utterly chic – or so I thought. But now I realise there's a certain monotony to the organised architecture that greets me when I get back 'home' from work. It's alright to be holed up in a hotel when you are on holiday; it's a different ballgame altogether when a suite becomes temporary digs, all in a day's work.

In the evenings, when I return to the hotel, I tend to wear a hangdog look on my face. "Are you feeling okay, madam?" the friendly usher in the lobby asks me from time to time, with a lovely singsong lilt in his voice.

"Yes, absolutely, thank you so much," I have to flash a smile.

There's way out actually, when you are down and a wee bit homesick: just rush in to a mall or a supermarket or a hypermarket; you are never, ever far from one in Dubai.

Even during Ramadan (it's over now: it's Eid today), when everyone said that the city was on sedatives, the moment I entered the hallowed portals I felt as though I was on steroids.

PS: I have no idea what it is like to be on steroids, I can only guess: must be an incredible high!
PPS: I am moving to a serviced apartment in a couple of days' time, and looking forward to cooking my first meal in a new city.

Watch this space. Ciao.