Dubai So far.....

After a brief but restless stay at home, primarily because of the fact that I have been used to being completely occupied and didn’t know how to react with the loads of free time available, I have finally come to DUBAI. This would be my destination for the next six month; a critical part of my MBA program.

The journey began in a rather dramatic way, when the 11 of us who were coming from Mumbai by the Cathay Pacific flight got to know that our “OK TO BOARD” confirmation hasn’t been received from the college. However, after almost two hours of anxious moments, we boarded the flight. Coming out of the flight, the first impression of the airport at Dubai was a WOW! The kind of impression that one has is awesome. However, the Wow factor did receive a dent when we saw the long queues at the airport for the Visa collection as well as eye scanning. However, didn’t realize much in the euphoria of being in a new place, a new city. The first thing that hits you hard once you are out of the airport is the weather. It was hot; somewhere around 35degrees.

The journey from the airport to the hostel was fun. The best thing being the FM channels that constantly keeps bombarding the latest bollywood songs. Over the course of the next few days I did realize that the craze for bollywood is as much as it is in India, if not less. There is an entire business that revolves around it. Once in hostel, it was fun to be back with friends. To see Shubi(Sheeba), swami (Rajeev Narayanswami) and Shiv there downstairs to receive was indeed heartening. Gosh, had missed them a lot!!

The flight had landed at Dubai around 10.00PM and by the time we reached hostel it was 12.00. Inspite of traveling since the morning, all the tiredness somehow had disappeared seeing known faces around. Moreover we waited for our universal punching bag, Pranay (aka PODKA) and the bhishma pitamah of the batch, both in terms of his age and his gyan, Gaurav Motani.

We got a one BHK apartment; quite spacious. I guess, if I have to rate the best thing that I like in Dubai till now, it has to be the hostel rooms. The next day we all went to the Mall of Emirates, a nice mall. We were completely floored to see the ICE Skiing facilities out there. These people go to any extent to get that experience delivered to the customer. Had a nice time exploring the mall and the place, till we had Avinash come along! We did a lot of shopping that day for the house, right from groceries to utensils – every possible thing that one could think of buying for a house.

We had the classes staring the next day and once it did, life became quite monotonous. It was tough schedule for us, the PMM students. We had to leave in the morning by 7.45; failing which we miss the college bus and have to shell out a lot on cab. The classes were from 8.30 till 4.30 for the first week and till 10.30PM last week. We even didn’t have a Sunday spared, which was more do to with the fact that the people coming to teach us were from industry and they wanted to make much use of the time allot to them. However, I would admit that the super specialization courses have been phenomenal. The lecturers drove over 2 hours one way, from Abu Dhabi, to come and teach us!! That is really very kind of them to do so. We also enjoyed the course on pricing strategies by Prof. Piyush, who was here from US.

This weekend was quite relaxing for a change. We did have MR classes in the morning but there after we went for a movie and had some nice food. As the two weeks passed by and things started settling down, I still find it hard resisting making comparisons of Dubai with Singapore. The startling differences between both the cities give us a lot of opportunity to learn and assimilate the trends of each place. Hope to do so in the coming days!!