Dubai – the World’s fastest city - Jim Krane…. Dubai always intrigued me. How can a city which is only 60 years old ( they did not have power or even sanitation 60 years ago) be one of the most rocking places on earth today…where the likes of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi fly 18 hours in a private plan to inaugurate a hotel by playing a tennis match on the helipad ! All the great cities of the World also have long histories : London, New York, Paris, St Petersburg, Hong Kong , Instanbul…..all built over centuries …nurtured by generations...where each street evokes memories of history….and the great people who lived there and influenced the world. Here is the Johnny come lately….with a little bit of oil ( for the record..all the oil is in other Arab States and in Abu Dhabi) and a lot of spunk and chutzpah…the enlightened rulers of Dubai built an economic model where the city makes money and everyone else who comes there does too in a peaceful manner . This book is not a historical tome…it is essentially light reading which throws insight into the economic miracle of the city state of Dubai…and what the Sheikhs did….interesting nuggets on the all the famous buildings and hotels …whether it is the Atlantis or the Burj Khalifa or the Burj Arab…the book has a story for it.( for the record, the most interesting story on Burj Arab is by my friend Rajender Kumar Babani...but that will be for another day!) It also goes thru the mandatory chapters on the sorry state of the South Asian labour that built the city, the normlessness of the local Emiratis, the reckless driving etc., etc., This must have been done to give the book a ‘balanced’ perspective. Whatever you might say about the Sheikhs and their delusions of grandeur…of building monstrously tall buildings in a cramped up place or scooping out the sea and building the Palm Jumeirah for the uber rich or the aborted World City – and all the consequent ecological damage that they are supposed to be inflicting….you have to give it to the Sheikhs of UAE that they have built the only World Class city in the entire South and West Asia…wher e anyone with a smart idea and hardwork can make money in a honest fashion, where women can walk on the road safely at 11 pm, where you can pray to your own God without any restrictions, where the Shias and Sunnis live in peace…..we can go on and on about lack of political freedom etc( Big Deal…half the world doesn’t have it !), that it is a monarchy where the ruler/kingdom/government and polity coalesce into one and keep on cribbing…..but it is indeed a remarkable city which caught up with the rest of the advanced world in less than 60 years…one only wishes that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia had the same mindset…West Asia with all its natural resources….would have been a much better and safer place. Read the book for curiosity value….gives you some stories about a city that grew up in a hurry…and continues to grow…and proving the nay sayers wrong that the bubble will burst… Recommended for in-flight reading : My rating : 3/5.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:09:20 +0000
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