Growing up in U.A.E - Part 1

I am really grateful that I was raised in the United Arab Emirates for nearly half of my life - 18 years.
Dubai was and will continue to be my first home. The United Arab Emirates has 7 states. Abudhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm-al- quain, Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah.

When I think back on those recollections, there are these blurry visual memories of Dubai, my old rented apartment in Naif, and all the other buildings that surround ours. The sounds of the pigeon's wings fluttering on the outside window AC's are still in my thoughts. It's a fine place to start, I suppose. A trip from the delicate to the strong memories.

I was a child of the 80's. I had a great time growing up. It was incredible. The World Trade Centre - Dubai was the tallest structure at the time. (Luckily found few images on google, using them here)

I remember my dad telling me that the World Trade Centre has more than 35 floors. Wow!
By the way, the iconic Sheikh Zayed Road was nothing more than a desert back then. How time flies!

Growing up, My major schooling - till higher secondary was at Varkey International Private school, Dubai. They had a group of schools back then. Used to be called the Varkey group of schools. Today it's called Gems or so. Not sure.

Anyway, this was the era when we all wore those green or red water bottles around our necks to school.
Some had their favourite drink 'Tang' in them, while others had water. We also got these fancy pencil boxes.
Our school was enormous. We had a large football field, a basketball court, a volleyball court, a large stage, an interior auditorium, and a small canteen (still remember that 15 minutes recess was the most enjoyable thing in life). I had to relocate to Deira when I was about 6 or 7 years old (a place in Dubai).

I remember visiting my childhood friend Ramee's house for Eid, Bakrid, and Ramadan. They would also come home for Vishu and Onam. Rashida Aunty's biriyani was excellent. She cooked the finest biriyani I've ever had. Majid's uncle had a studio. At his studio, we took a lot of family photos. Ramee was a few years younger than me.We used to have fun with those pottas guns back in the day. lol. I used to enjoy the smell of it. lol
Channel 33 (a tv channel back then) had shows like Gobots, Swamp Thing, and Oh' Crystal Maze' Captain Majid and so on. And all I could remember about my home is that was we had this huge balcony and a restaurant below ours. Falafel Dubai restaurant was its name. There used to be a small grocery, a saloon, and a Lebanese sweet shop. After a haircut, I used to mostly get a sweet from there. lol. There was a mosque nearby, and from there - almost a kilometer long side walkway from our place. The walkway continues until it reaches a neighbouring roundabout. We also had a shopping complex nearby called Al Ghurair center.

There wasn't much traffic on roads like today. I still remember my first movie experience 'Jurassic Park' with Dad. That was one of the best experiences I've had at Al Nasr cinemas back in 93. Al Nasr used to be famous for its ice skating and stage shows for Malayalee organizations. I guess every Onam still needs Al Nasr.

By the year '96 or so, there was a major hike in the rent. The distance from Dubai (qusais) to Sharjah was 15 kms and we used to reach in a matter of minutes, unlike the hours that we take today. The 22,000 aed per year rent shot up. We decided to shift to Sharjah. We moved to an apartment in a place known as King Faisal street. We had a Spinney's supermarket nearby though. The opposite side had nothing but an open ground and an old hotel called Nova Park. 

There were no other buildings near this hotel at that time because the old Sharjah airport used to be here. There were some remains of the floor tiles of the airport. We used to spend most of our time playing cricket in this ground. Since this used to be a huge open ground. We had all sorts of friends joining in. Srilankan, Pakistani, African. Right after playing, we go to grocery stores to grab something to drink.

Brought back some memories? Hahaha. Mine too. 

Well, Areej used to be my favorite drink (aka colored water), but this is what we drank. Areej costed 50 fils, (I guess its still 50fils) I used to be a huge fan of the pineapple flavor. While Shani and Pepsi costs a dirham. So if we had 2 dirhams, Oman chips, Pofaki and a Pepsi. Attaboy! Masafi (drinking water) was more expensive than Pepsi at the time. And we used to prefer Pepsi to water. It's true! And who can forget that chocolate-hobby? That was something that almost every birthday boy used to bring. Some kids, on the other hand, used to bring in Quality Street, Kit Kats, and Galaxy Jewels. Our school canteen used to sell the tiniest pizza you'd ever seen. I also recall the mayonnaise sandwich we used to get in the plastic wrap.

This was the era when we experienced a dramatic transformation in the way we used our pens. Do you remember Hero Pen? The one that resembled a killer whale? lol. Suction technology for ink.
On most days, it was ink stains on my shirt and tie. Following this, there was a multi-colored pen in 1 (green, blue, red, and black), a Kushboo wala pen (for sniffing our books after we finished our homework). Then came the Gel pen.

Home scenes, on the other hand, were quite different. We didn't have cell phones like we do now, but we did have these wonderful land phones. The white chunky ones with the red flashing dots. We used to talk on them all the time. I guess by that time, even codeless phones were out. Local calls from Sharjah to Sharjah were completely free.

However, a new trend termed as Bleeper/Pager began to emerge. This was how it appeared. This was worn on the belts of all the Indian uncles.

  

The crazy thing was that our school computers were still running MS-DOS at the time.
And we had Pc man to play during every computer period. That pie-shaped thing in the game sucked balls through a maze. lol. And ingesting some larger balls in the corner gave it enormous powers such as being able to consume those Squid-like enemy creatures for a few seconds. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. lol.

As a child of the 1980's, our generation has witnessed the evolution of technology from an 8-and-a-half-inch floppy disc to a 3-and-a-half-inch floppy disc to a USB device. Wow. That floppy disc could hold 1.44 megabytes of data. That was fantastic!

Back then, I also had a battery-powered walkman.Used to put in cassettes. We could stick labels and write on them. Some had 90 and some had 60 written on them. The fun bit was we would always need a pencil next to us just in case if the tape gets jammed. True story!

1997 was another year that had passed. The epic melodrama Titanic was released. However, channels such as Asianet began to appear in our homes.And certain serials took over our houses like wildfire.Sthree. The never-ending series of events. Yep.
It also has obnoxious advertisements. "HELLO, Vannallo Vanamaala... DANG!"
These advertisements were engraved in our subconscious minds.

Yep. That's the one.
However, because I had a younger brother (we have a generation gap) and he was into classical dancing and music back then, my parents were practically always behind him. They were enthralled by the drama and excitement, as well as the competitions and other activities. My task was to exist at these moments, capture his performance with a camcorder, and occasionally record those 'Sthree' serials on a vcr after school.

 

I had my fair share of participation in a number of competitions too. Back then, I was more interested in arts and sports. Children from all of the schools used to participate. I used to participate art in competitions such as the Indian Association's on-the-spot painting competition. Dala, Kairali, and so forth. However, I have won several for the school.

I also recall visiting Ras al Khaimah on a regular basis to visit our family friend Kannan and his family. As soon as we see the flat stretchy Etisalat tower, We know we have reached Ras al Khaimah. haha. That place has developed a lot over the years!

Kannan's dad, Tom uncle still runs a dental clinic in the area. I used to go to him to get my teeth fixed. It was incredible. Kannan and I used to play cricket in the empty grounds nearby.

We also had family trips to a lot of parks like Safa, Mushrif park etc. Every family brings in some home made food, all the children go to the play area. Mushrif park has a barbeque area. Used to be a lot of fun going to the park. We used to roam around the entire park and we didn't need any sort of gps to find our way back.

Not everything, though, was physical activity. Back then, some of us were addicted to video games.
I used to have an atari series.lol. Yes, don't write me off as old just yet. I was able to purchase one because they were the cheapest on the market.

Remember Nintendos, Game Boys, Sega Mega Drives? One of the most shady phoney game consoles, had 9999 in 1.lol. I had one of those, as well as the infamous Brick game console. Some of the more affluent kids owned Playstations. That was, however, unusual.

When we were kids, we didn't have much to think about. At least, not for me.
We had the afternoon shift at school. Until the age of 15 or 16, I had never interacted with or met any girls in person. Yes, it's sad, but it's true. The school system was highly rigid. The only girls I saw were in my brother's dance class and, if we were lucky, some on our annual day.

The year '98 - '99. Hormonal changes and circumstances. I was an ozhappan (backbencher, lazy guy) who barely scored 50% in class. At home, things began to tighten up. Bob was our class's valedictorian.
Now, coming from a Malayalee family. The next thing in the line is comparison. I mean almost all our classmate's parents said the same thing!

Bob scored 99, You scored 40. Parents said - Be like Bob. But, I told my self  - F*** this Bob! However he is a gem of a person. (Its just that we used to get fed-up of him scoring that way) lol

Mom used to behave like a private detective. I used to wonder if she had been an agent for the FBI. She has found my answer sheets, my hidden report cards, and she has even read my personal diary! We began having Tuitions one after the other. Morning - Tuition in Qusais, return to Sharjah, study again, return to school in Dubai, and as soon as I get home, tuitions again! This continued until the end of the tenth grade.

But something amazing happened to me throughout these years. I was introduced to music. MJ, Linkin Park, Backstreet Boys, Enigma, Westlife, 2pak Shakur, and the list continues on... Don't misunderstand me.
I, too, listened to a lot of Indian music. The English ones were supposed to make me look cool.
lol. Alisha's 'Made in India' was a trendsetter while Colonial Cousins, Falguni Pathak, Aryans, Euphoria, and other songs were aired nonstop on channels.

Back then, watching MTV and channel V was considered a sin. Hahaha.

However, I had a smooth transcendence of my sins from Asianet to MTV. Shenaz, Cyrus, and some VJ's were awesome and those channels had an awesome creative content back then!

Dad had purchased a T18 by this point. No, I'm not referring to the machines shown in Terminator movies.
Ericsson's T18 is a mobile phone.We used to write down phone numbers and memorize them. My wild guess for the T18 Ericsson is that it was purchased by someone's uncle. We Malayalees must do the same.
Dad most likely purchased it as well. I'm not sure! People used to carry mobile phones that resembled remote controls at the time. Back then, the most well-known brands were Motorola, Alcatel, and Siemens.

However, Dad was creative. He bought the tiniest, most ostentatious-looking one...which later became mine. hehe

If I remember this correctly, It could store up to 50-100 phone numbers and 10 messages. That's it. lol

Forget phones, I remember watching The Matrix in the theatre around this time. I had no idea what the movie was about or what it included. I enjoyed how Neo dodged the bullets. lol. After this, hang out with pals, probably go for All you can eat - KFC or buy some shawarma, and then head home.

The good times didn't stop there. '99. The occasion has arrived. Dad brought home a used computer.
I was ecstatic. However, the O.S. was completely out of date. It was version 3.1 of Windows.
Dang!

I called my friend Jeswin and told him I wanted to update to Windows 95. My friend came in with a Windows 95 DVD, and after three attempts, we were able to install Windows 95. It worked in some way. Following that, the first step was to install games like Dev, Quake, Aladdin, etc.

After then, I can't pass up the chance to contact friends on Msn messenger. However, we require the internet.
And do you remember those dial-up connection noises?

 And way before google we used Yahoo search engines and trust me. The websites were design wise - Bad.

Yep. That's how Yahoo used to look. Anyway, back to Msn Messenger.
To utilise MSN messenger, you must first obtain email addresses - Hotmail ids are required to send messages to others.This was the first time I interacted with the opposite sex. We didn't even know if it was a girl on the other side. There was an option to Nudge in the messenger which was quite annoying at times. lol. Everything was cool until it came to the 2000's. There was a rumor about the Y2k virus, and the board exams were round the corner too. It was said that all the machines will stop after 31st December '99. What a bunch of BS! lol

Board exams happened as it had to happen.

To be continued...