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Dubai 2000 |
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Thoughts
Without Boundaries Thoughts
of love & longing |
Full of hope and determination and with e-commerce in our hearts, the three of us set off from Bangalore. 3 hours later as we found ourselves in the Mumbai International Airport, we were told that we were being upgraded to Business Class. It boded well. Business class meant that I could watch Erin Brokovitch on 2 different screens. One on a little thing that pops out of the arm rest and the other on the main screen. Both were good. The coolest ever thing happened then. They have a camera that's fitted below the plane so its aimed at the front wheels of the plane. The view from this camera is on the screen inside the flight in front of us. And this is kept on, live, as the plane takes off. Eerie, surreal experience. Like star trek. It made the trip worth it already. Dubai airport is … umm… slow. While we got through immigration and to the baggage claim very quickly, the baggage itself took pretty much longer. In fact a quick dipstick survery showed that I could have written a white paper in the same time. I was just wondering if the B2B bubble would burst before our luggage came through, when Arun and Sai did a small Mexican wave indicating that the baggage had arrived. On the first day we were presented with a proposition that everyday things in Dubai were twice as expensive as in the US. Which was to be the basis of our plan. We then went into the local supermarket armed with pen and paper, and noted the prices of about 50 different items and models. Shuja and I of course gathered more data than Arun and Sai, on account of their age relative inexperience. We were I'm sure a suspicious duo… snooping around taking notes. But if somebody had asked us, he would have been told that we were making a list of items for a gift registry for a friend who was getting married. And then we were a couple of physical instructors looking to plan a gym. The Ikea store was a revelation. Anybody wishing to learn about merchandising, display and visual appeal should spend 5 minutes in the Ikea store. This one was large… and Shuja and I were thinking about whether people had actually gotten lost here for years, when we found the exit. Its now past midnight on 23rd of August. I'm at the lobby of the hotel, sipping coffee and trying to chronicle the past 3 days. Like good consultants, we have created 3 business models in 3 days. Hopefully we'll get to do some real work soon. The second day we created another business model. This ones about an infrastructure play on ecommerce. But it was not well received. So its back to the drawing board. Getting those consulting blues again. Our other companion in this venture is Khalid Salah. Khalid is about 6'3" and is very excited about e-commerce. He's very personable. He makes friends with the kids playing in the corridor as he walks down. He came with us to Hard Rock Café last night. Hard rock café was all about ambience. Ordinary food and ordinary live music made up the rest of the experience. Still, driving the 30kms there and back in Abdul's Honda at 130Km was fun. Dubai is wonderfully multicultural. At the airport I heard strains of Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Tamil and many others that I could not recognise. (note: the suggestion here is that I could recognise chinese). We went looking for an Iranian restaurant it turned out to be Indian. So we ate American food in the end. The hotel we are staying in has a gym and a sauna. Its well suited for those of us who are athletically inclined. <Ahem> The breakfast is worth spending a few moments on. It starts with cornflakes and currents, and ice cold milk with a lemon tart. The next round is chicken salami and fresh buns, washed down with fresh lemon juice. After this I normally have the 2 eggs sunny side up, with toast and butter. End with coffee. Then I call the hydraulic crane. When I return to Mumbai and they ask me if I have any thing to declare, I'm going to burp! I'd better stop now, since I've promised to take Arun and Sai out shopping. The boys are playing well etc. etc. … if I don't keep my promises, they'll cry and stuff… so adios from the Desert kingdom. 2000
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