Goodbye AUH! I'll be back

May: I loved Abu Dhabi from day one. I loved the winter months of January to March before the sun began to feel a nuclear fusion. I loved the Corniche, Grand Mosque, and more. The roads were clean and orderly (spic and span from the eyesore that I see in India where any public place is reduced to a toilet and filth). Best of all are people there – I would befriend rank strangers from random encounters at the restaurants. The next best thing was a fantastic salary. The positives keep piling: guitar, friends, shopping, etc

            Five months in paradise but it had a villain too. My office manager was a thug, so gross as to sound as a construction contractor or a mason shouting at the indentured coolies. I would wake up each morning resolving: Shut up and put up, an earning of over Rs.6,000 a day is something I have never ever seen in my career. I am a writer and we are a penurious community who never earn enough to file an income tax. So a salary of over $3,000 here is something I would have cheerfully sold my wife to the first bidder (I can say this tongue-in-cheek for I am bachelor!). But daily emotional wear and tear of this monster boss was getting to a point of stretching my endurance no further. Once I started experiencing persistent pains in the coronary region, I knew I can’t afford to work up a heart attack even at such dream incomes. So I quietly exited.

            I have earned sufficient savings and at least next two years expenses from Besant Nagar base. So why put with this stubborn heart pains? Rather I thought: Destiny has taken me so far and it will open up somewhere. I have a tendency to take the road less travelled and I almost always find a new thread somewhere to join the thoroughfare. I must thank a few people here: Pandian at Sangeeta Restaurant who offered me even a month’s single room accommodation for free (here the rents are exorbitantly high for a single room grosses over Rs. 50 k) in AUH so that I could try for jobs. I had little appetite for that kind of frenzied search. Pandian is a waiter and he lives with 8 to a room. I felt so happy to have instilled such affection for me. Robert is my AUH's most favourite character who defines gentleman. His heart is large enough to help anyone in a spot of trouble. And Sabeesh for his warmth friendship. I’ll never forget our outing to the Bateen beach where we exchanged our life experiences for over three hours facing the sea, starry skies, and windy open. He exudes a charm under such dire that he wins my respect straightaway.

            I came to Chennai by end of May. June saw me absolutely drained till a Vipassana retreat put a lot of new thoughts and purpose. I promised myself more outdoor pursuits. I am so recluse and fixated to a computer and sleep that I am entirely comfortable going about my affairs without sighting any human beings for weeks. June got me thinking, Abu Dhabi showed I had some gumption for travel. You get to meet new places and new people; always of interest to the observer in me. I even thought: let me get a bike or something and motor to a Pondycherry or Yercaud or some such crazy thing. Arthritis too has improved but not to such an extent as to join a trekking expedition.

More outdoors would give a free run to my nature. More than a writer I have a mind to soak - there are so many stories and tales lying on the roadside that my mind gets drawn too. The more I mature as a person the less I feel an impulse to write. You want something to inspire you to an obsession that the mind can chew and get its adrenaline ticking. So any new situation or people would get freshness to the mind and possibly some insights to stumble upon. It’s a natural development of a mind. What writing did to me was “it opened up my mind”.

            There was another gain of Abu Dhabi on my mental imprints. I used to judge myself harshly on my ability to make new friends and prone to getting bored too quickly. AUH showed that I could walk into any room and people would hover around me. I realized I had a friend making ability that overrode my natural diffidence. So many people come to me and narrate their life stories almost helplessly. That’s a nerve I never gave credit till even the monster manager said,” Sathya, you have a way of attracting anyone around you.” Coming from that discredited source I knew I had to revise my self-assessment. I am now even veering to the view that I might even have some charisma left in the bank.

            I went to Hyderabad for a week in July and I found another side to me! I was volunteering for a Vipassana course there when my mind was floored by a woman (thunderbolt lightning of Godfather intensity). She was dainty - interesting how a dictionary furnishes the meaning. It says: delicately beautiful or charming, excessively genteel, delicious to taste and smell! - and my eyes kept straining to see. I can only think of three occasions in the last 5 years when my heart leapt to the sight of a woman. All three had one thing in common – there were feminine to a devastating degree. God, this girl’s gait, her clothes, her voice, her natural charm was something I devoured to the full. She was a tender little thing, probably less than 25. I didn’t wish to get entangled. From the look of things it did appear that she too found me arresting. Her eyes shone bright and her glances towards me had that faint sheepishness to it. But I thought: not one so young. Besides a Vipassana centre is a terrible place for self-introductions and make passes.

            I realized that I am NOT looking for a wise, intelligent, fair, beautiful, good skin texture, amazing dress sense or even an understanding partner. I want my women to have a feminine charm that could grace a royal court as a queen. They are very few in numbers and that’s way I should go in the future.

            I am 45 and having the best time of my life. I am glad of the lessons that come my way. My mind is still excited with the adventure of living. There are few dull moments but on the essentials I remain an incurable explorer.

            Life is a voyage in space and time and I have had more than my share.