B-Log

As a little girl with an embarassing ‘foutain’ ponytail on top of my head, I remember the distant sound of a moped approaching. It used to be the sound of my grandfather coming home. The sound of dad’s car used to make me jump and scream the cliche “Papa aa gaye! Papa aa gaye” (learnt from the movies of course). The roar of neighbour’s son’s bike meant I could expect his father’s screams becoming audible in the succeeding few seconds.

Apart from the horn, the sound of the vehicle itself is a part of it’s identity too. Without it, it does not feel like a ‘mean’ machine. So much so, that a new electric car would be fitted with fake engine sounds.

The newest addition to the list of vehicles I can identify by their sounds would be the Dubai cabs. I can hear them approach and zoom away. And without even looking, I would know that it was a cabbie who for some strange reason did not want to pick any passengers and thus avoided any attention. And this phenonmenon is very common. Cabs have become so scarce in Dubai that you could probably auction each ride to the passenger who is able to pay the most. Cab drivers throw tantrums for no reason and pick up passengers on the basis of their appealing looks and gender. Even if you call one through their call center, they usually pick another passenger. If their conditions don’t match, they happily zoom around town in the fast lane, in their vacant cabs.

Or may be it’s all a part of a bigger plan. May be they are just practicing to enter the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which explains the speeding of vacant cabs in order not to put the passenger’s life in jeopardy. And I thought there was not an iota of humanity left in this world.

Whatever the case may be… Something really needs to be done.

This entry was posted Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Dubai, Humour. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.