Dubai’s Best Stand Up Comic

Photo credit: Photo Cindy / Flickr

Hamza took the mic in his hand with enthusiasm. After a couple of weeks of not doing much, being back on stage was where he loved to be.

“Hi everyone I’m Hamza, the Emirati comedian.”

“Weren’t you half Emirati before?” a lady’s voice asked.

Hamza stopped himself from calling her the c-word and instead said, he thought calmly, “Yes, I thought this would be easier for people.”

“Sounds like some weird ass racial confusion,” a gruff voice, likely the lady’s husband, said.

“Next week he’ll be the Emirati lady comedian, watch,” someone laughed and said.

Hamza cleared his throat and touched his ponytail, which had been washed that day after 3 days of not having been.

“You know a lot of people ask me why as a pescatarian, I eat fish but not beef,” he began.

“Nobody asked that,” a drunk voice in the crowd said, but in a way that indicated that the owner was having a moment of clarity.

“Well, anyway,” Hamza continued, remembering the FAQs online he had read about steaming ahead. “I say, because I can hug a cow but not a fish.”

There were 5 searing seconds of silence, and then a cough.

“Haven’t you ever gone fishing you git?” an Australian voice asked. “You can hug a fish.”

“Actually I have been fishing many times,” Hamza continued, but wincing since he was going off his material.

“Bullshit,” the Australian retorted.

“Anyway-” Hamza tried again.

“I really hope this isn’t your regular job pal,” a Canadian voice said loudly.

“Don’t you know these idiots don’t get paid,” an American said matter-of-factly. “It’s open mic. Bet you he’s unemployed.”

“I’m ah, just going to give up my time today,” Hamza said, stepping away from the mic. “Anyone else?”

“Yo someone go up there,” the American said. “There’s a 500 Dirham prize for tonight and I don’t want that loser who doesn’t trim his nose hair to get it.”

There were murmurs in the crowd as the mic stand stood by itself on the black stage. Hamza waited by the stage curtain, shaking his head.

“Heyyy maaa!” a squeaky voice came from the side of the stage.

Everyone looked to the side to see a rotund little man amble onto stage.

“My name is Amrit maa,” he said into the mic, ignoring the feedback from the electronics.

The small crowd erupted into laughter all at once. Hamza had never head so many guffaws.

“Oh my god, he’s like a peeled Idaho potato!” the American said.

“Look at his shorts!” the Canadian said. “I thought they were 2/4 pants, but they’re small shorts that look like long shorts on his short legs.”

Amrit, being slightly drunk, launched into a story without noticing the room.

“I’m out of work maa, so I took a modeling job. Plus sized clothing maa. Photographer took pics, told me to take off ma shirt then bend over. Then I felt his snake maa. He put his cock on ma shoulder!”

The whole room was in stitches. People were coming in from outside hearing the laughter, and swelling the audience.

“Should we be laughing at him getting sexually assaulted?” the woman wondered.

“Look at him,” her husband said. “He’s the kind of guy that’s okay with rape. Just as long as it doesn’t happen to him.”

“Then ma girlfriend came to pick me up maa, She came in and said hello and the photographer stopped. She didn’t even see what he did, stupid depressed bitch. When we were walking to the car, that bastard came out of the studio and said ‘Come back tomorrow. I’ll give you a good fuck,'”

The laughter in the room was uproarious. Hamza gritted his teeth.

“You just lost 500 bucks you long-haired greasy fuck,” said the club owner to Hamza.

Birthday in Jail

The small squat man looked straight ahead, clasping and unclasping his hands on the bars of the jail. Unlike most issues in his life that he could pretend were far away, this one was right in his present. No Netflix show could escape him from here.

“Amrit, visitors!” the jailer yelled from down the hall.

Amrit lightened, suddenly hopeful on being whisked away from the pattans licking their lips in the cells around him.

DM and Kayo walked through the grey, badly-lit hallway toward Amrit.

“Guys!” Amrit shrieked, his voice hardening many cocks in the cells around.

“Hey man,” DM said, shaking his head with the greeting. “So, did it?”

“Yeah bro I got caught coming back from the trance show,” Amrit said, hanging his head.

“Driving liquored up in Ras Al Khaimah,” DM said, still shaking his head. “How many times did I tell you to wait till you sober up.”

It was not a question.

“I know maaa! Aaasoreeemaa I tried maa!!” Amrit squealed, much like a Hindu housewife at her husband’s funeral.

“Uh, yeah, anyway, we got you a Mister Baker cake,” Kayo said, having heard this wailing to many times to care. “It’s a meh cake, but you’re in jail so better than an elbow in your crotch.”

He places a small cake through the bars onto the cot.

“Thanks maaa,” Amrit said in his Mickey Mouse voice.

“Alright so gotta head,” DM said, already walking away.

“You’re not sharing the cake maaa?”

“Um no, DM said there’s a nice place here for shisha and Filipino food,” Kayo explained.

“You came here for food maa?”

“You don’t like the stuff we eat anyway,” DM said curtly. “It’s not chicken breasts. Maybe chicken feet.”

“Yuck! Shey!”

“Anyway why is it you can’t come with us?”

“Aaaasoryymaaa! I tried maaa!”

The wailing died abruptly and was replaced with the sound of quiet eating as DM and Kayo walked away.

Emirati Youth Work

Photo credit: billycm Pixbay

Hamza had had a wonderful vision. In it, he ran in a sun-dried field alongside African children, laughing and shaking his ass-length hair before commencing the supervision of the building of yet another school. The fact that this was the dream of white girls from America did not at all occur to him.

He shook himself out of reverie and focused on the fact at hand.

The man in front of him looked only remotely in a small way like him. He was stocky, short and wore a kandura slightly stained with breakfast egg. Most importantly, he was tied securely to a gurney.

“Dear cousin, I want to tell you about an amazing idea – an idea that is not just for the mind but for the heart,” he opened as he had practised in front of the bathroom mirror before his wife got dressed for work.

“AAAAOOOOEOEOEEE!!!” his cousin responded.

Hamza felt a quick moment of doubt. He was after all, a man with an aeronautical engineering that had seen no use over a decade as he took one local position after another, doing very little work and gaining few skills. Now he was unemployed and looking to start a charity with no prior experience.

He shook his wrist bead bracelets and jerked out of the doubts. No, he told himself, he was the man that had shaken the shackles of dyslexia to become a comedian that was called upon to almost every comedy festival in town (unpaid).

“We will start a social business that will allow Emirati kids from underprivileged backgrounds to start their own business!” Hamza summarized, reading off the business plan his brother’s friend from Vancouver had shared with him.

“Pthoooo!!” his cousin spat a fat gob of thick partially yellow liquid on Hamza’s linen shirt.

“Son of a bitch!” Hamza lost his temper, already on the edge from not being able to talk in Arabic.

Hamza jumped at his cousin, and got in one swipe before the cousin, screaming, kneed him in his long testicles.

As Hamza fell like a greasy sack of French fries, his cousin used his powerful unencumbered legs to stomp him in the stomach and chest. It was only 3 orderlies that were able to get the screaming handicapped person off Hamza.

Years later Hamza would maintain that it was his peaceable nature that stopped him from hitting his cousin back, not minding his one punch.

However when his brother called to ask if he had talked to cousin about the idea, Hamza simply said he had decided not to go, gingerly placing his crotch into the seat of his Land Rover that had been gifted to him by his dad and was now insured by his wife.

A Nigerian Kebab in Rani Radha’s Court

Photo credit: OpenCage

Amrit had jumped out of bed at the crack of 11am on a mission.

He had not planned the mission ahead, by any means. Far from it, Amrit was just taking his between-episode siesta, not expecting such sudden calls.

Liz had other ideas though. Though the lady had made a good chunk of money working and having side businesses, she had not made friends. Hence when Amrit came along, she was happy to make him her number one chum.

This included various administrative tasks, including hanging out with her boyfriend – an out-of-work private trainer.

The newest required Amrit, for some reason he could not fully discern, to round up several Bengalis and show up at Al Khail Gate, where Liz had an investment property of some worth.

Amrit had rounded up said Bengalis quite in short order since he had several workers’ numbers. Patans, African, Bengalis – he had them all.

Five Bengalis squeezed into his little Tiida as Amrit zoomed over the last part of Al Khail Road.

As he took the turn-off to where his GPS said the building was, he knew that the investment property was no luxury flat. Situated next to the Al Quoz industrial area, the thing was meant to house labourers.

Having had a wank before he left the house, he was not feeling all that energetic. Rather, he needed a snooze. Nevertheless, doing favours for Liz could lead to a future job.

Amrit got out, encouraged the workers and led them to the tenement blocks.

A fat squat guard in a white uniform, who looked like a dark version of Amrit, walked over as the troop made their way.

“Yeh tumara flat hein?”

“No! NO!” Amrit made it very clear, stopping to make his point.

“Oh, kya tum owner ka husband hein?”

“Che! Nahin!”

“Oh, okay, lover…” the guard said under his breath as the party went past him.

The Bengalis quickly got to work in the flat. The space was huge, and still had a few poles lying around that had been used as dividers. Broken appliances and bottles littered the floor. Various food stains were on every surface. The smell of shit from the washroom promised the biggest threat.

“They used the place as brothel,” the guard said from the door, wanting to work on his English suddenly. “I hear screaming. So dirty. 1 woman, 20 men.”

Amrit was gagging still. When he had asked Liz about the damage, she had said there was shit everywhere. He had made her promise it was not real shit, because he could not deal with that.

She had said that the tenants had ruined the place. Using her supposed influence with the police, she had gotten them beaten up.

Amrit did not wonder why a woman of such influence could not afford a professional cleaning service. He was a leader of labourers but not much more, despite his Brahmin heritage.

Said workers toiled away as Amrit went outside to get away from what one of the Bengalis had said was kaka dropped on a broken commode.

Liz drove up in her car that was not quite as new a model of Jetta as she wished, a few hours later.

Amrit made it clear that he had not done any cleaning himself, and distributed the 450Dhs among the 5 workers, as well as the papdi chaat.

The Adventure of the Small Sailor

Photo credit: Pexels

Amrit was livid. He had been harassing his “friend” Liz for ages about getting him a job. Every dinner they had, every stupid high class show they went to, he mentioned the need for a job.

This was not the first friend he had pestered for a job. His girlfriend’s friend had blocked him on Whatsapp and phone because he had gone after him for a Unilever job. An old friend had even given him a job at his wife’s father’s company; Amrit left said job in style and hence burned that bridge. A fellow drug taker had promised him an admin job at Damac Properties; it had not yet happened.

As he drove speedily in his small Nissan Tiida over roads lit by a full moon, the anger slowly cooled and mixed with a sort of relief. Liz had finally called him to say that a job was ready. Not just a 4K job with some sweatshop, but a really nice 8K one doing admin for some place or the other – she had not given specifics.

Instead, she had asked him to meet her to the Dubai Creek – an unusual location given that there were few Damac offices there. It would have made more sense to meet at Business Bay where Damac offices dominated the skyline.

Amrit know, however, to not ask too many questions over the phone, mostly because Liz used a British accent that, since it was not real, was hard to decipher.

Liz was also part of a group of people that can be cumulatively called the “we’ll see” crowd. She rarely made a promise; if she did, it was broken 90% of the time. Liz was as much “we’ll see” about Amrit’s job as she was about where to go clubbing and getting tickets to shows.

To be fair, Amrit was as much a “we’ll see” sort of chap as much as Liz. Except no one had ever put their livelihood in Amrit’s hands, ever.

For his end, Amrit had jumped out of bed at 4pm just as Liz called, throwing off the blanket that had kept him snug with the A/C on. He turned off Netflix as soon as he knew that Liz was not asking for another favour, and ran on his chubby legs to the car.

He screeched to a halt at the parking near the pier, and walked over briskly, his arms going up and down with his elbows bent. Rarely had he moved so quickly.

Getting to the end of the pier, he looked in every direction for Liz.

Nothing. Just ship after ship in the water and a few men walking about from them.

Thunk! Amrit fell and saw the ground rise up towards him.

_________________

He woke up on steel, cold but with heat all around him. Getting up, he saw several Black and Indian men putting on loose billowing pants over their tight underwear.

“Hi guys,” he half-squealed and half-moaned. “Where am I?”

“It’s a cruise ship you idiot,” a Congolese man said as he tied his pant-strings.

“You are part of the crew here,” a Bengali man added.

“A ship?” Amrit lightened up. “What rank? Lieutenant?”

“Abhey idiot,” the Bengali said, “You’re not here to wear a uniform and steer. Anyway what do you know about that. You are going to put coal in the furnace like us to heat the ship.”

“Oh shit,” Amrit said, like a Mangalorean housewife swearing for the first time.

“At least,” the Bengali said as he began stoking some coals, “they send us the remaining daroo that the crew don’t want. Then we can get smashed.”

“Oh yaaaay,” Amrit said, his demeanor changing.

Not even bothering to change from his 3/4 pants and collared t-shirt, he ran up to the furnace and began to stoke and load, sweat, coal dust and dirt quickly covering his whole body.

A fun thing you can do with an Indian flag

It was a different kind of party. Jashan had just found himself an amazing deal in Dubailand for a flat, and wanted to christen it in style. He invited over, Kayo, DM and of course, Amrit.

Amrit had called up on the day to announce that he would taxi over, not saying outright but alluding to his desire to get stone cold wasted, after which his girlfriend Priya would drive him home.

“I just could not,” Jashan would later reflect. “The man has no job and he wants to pay 80 Dhs to a taxi. So I said I would pick him up.”

It was only once he was in the car that Jashan told Amrit about the plan to go to the steam room, which immediately excited the rotund little fellow. Eventually just DM and Kayo were going to go, the latter largely to stretch his hurting shoulder. Jashan was claustrophobic, but upon seeing the actual chamber had been tempted by its largeness. Amrit of course was always down for a good time.

Kayo knew that Amrit would be down. He had seen the man even take like a dog to shit to the women’s steam room at his building, going down to it without even letting Building Security know. Kayo at that point had stopped going to swim and steam with Amrit since it seemed the stupidest thing over which to be arrested and deported.

As soon as DM got to the flat and gave the new abode a thumbs up, they all stepped out to go to the steam room on the topmost floor of the building.

“What is this?” DM suddenly asked Amrit in the corridor.

“I didn’t know till I was in the car bro about the steam room!” Amrit protested, his arms mid-way up.

Everyone stared at Amrit’s bare feet that unashamedly touched the floor.

As they walked into the lift, DM also noticed that Amrit was carrying a garbage bag. He sighed tensely.

“It’s like you prepared before you came by thinking of all the ways to piss me off.”

“Broo, there’s one more thing,” Amrit explained. “There’s an Indian flag in the garbage bag I’m going to use as a towel.”

DM and Kayo were incredulous until Amrit produced part of the flag like a contraband. Jashan, who had given Amrit the flag, was expecting this.

Jashan left early, taken aback by Amrit moving sensuously in the jacuzzi, apparently due to a back issue that could only be alleviated by the jets. Kayo followed soon, having seen Amrit walking into the women’s bathroom as seemed his habit after using the women’s sauna at his own place.

The fun did not quite end there. A long discussion about Amrit’s various actions followed over shisha. By then, Priya had enterd the picture and listened as Jashan, who was usually quiet, outlined Amrit’s many vices and issues over the day.

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” DM told Kayo.

“When does he think?” Kayo mused.

As if to highlight this, Amrit ran into the room from the balcony, asking if 1,500 Dhs was a reasonable price for him to pay for renewing his (Priya’s since he was staying with her at her place) rental contract. It took 10 minutes to explain to him that he was getting screwed since landlords pay for the rental contract.

Priya was meanwhile telling him that he was being treated like a joke, especially by Jashan who kept going on about him riding the jacuzzi jet. He finally announced that they were leaving, as she had been goading for a while.

“It’s just you and me baaaiiibe,” Priya told him when they got home. “Just you and me.”

In the Flat of a Moron

Photo by Anthony Waymouth on Pexels.com

It was that tender time during which the cool winds of winter turned into the balmy warm currents of April. Tensions were increasing in the streets of Dubai. Men were more likely to cut one another off on the highways and local roads, take a swing at one another in cramped lifts, and honk their horns 2 seconds longer while waiting for cafeteria waiters to come out for orders.

Not so in a studio flat in Jumeira Village Triangle, also refereed to as Zaaveetaa. Here, a fat little man with a teenage haircut danced to psy-trance music in front of a HD television. His stomach lifted a clear 10cm from its resting spot every time the beat dropped.

The doorbell rang, so Amrit stopped dancing and wiped his sweat with tissues as he walked to the door.

DM walked in, already a bit suspicious.

“Were you dancing?” he asked.

“No maaaa,” Amrit exclaimed. “Just came from gym.”

“From the gym.”

“No maa,” Amrit lost his confidence. “But I went here and there.”

“Here and there,” DM repeated. “Oh hi, Priya.”

Amrit’s long-suffering girlfriend Priya sat on the bed, looking at her phone.

“Oh hi,” she said, got up and hugged DM, and then sat back down to look at the phone.

DM and Amrit walked to the balcony.

“So what’s new?” DM asked, bracing for the usual crazy news.

“Maaa,” Amrit began in his usual pleading way. “I went to Karama with Priya. She went to do her nails and I was just roaming around. I was looking at the socks in one shop-”

“The short socks that make your feet looks like dots?”

Amrit laughed. “Yaa maa. But they only go with the shoes-”

“Neither those shoes nor socks suit you.”

“Ok maa. But I was waiting outside the shop when this tall guy came around the corner.” Here Amrit stood on his tip toes and put his hand as high as he could. “And he was dressed sharp man, clean cut. I thought some CEO type-”

“Are you a Mangaloean aunty?” DM had to interrupt as he put his hand on his own forehead. “Why don’t you wear a housecoat.”

“Maa this man was so tall he walked around the corner and his dick hit my chest maa!”

“What.”

“Dick hit my chest maa. And he didn’t say excuse me, anything. Just pushed my things together and started tit-fucking me.”

“What the fuck Amrit.”

“Happened maa.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you call the police?”

“What can I do maa. He put glasses on my face and called me Mia Khalifa.”

“Fuck off.”

“He finished on the glasses maa.”

DM sighed a long loaded sigh – one of a man who had sat through many such stories.

Amrit watched him, opening and closing his fists and making a soft whimpering sound every 5 seconds or so.

After a minute of massaging his own temples, DM got up and began beating Amrit with a belt.

Priya slowly pulled herself up from the bed and went to watch by the balcony window, holding the phone to her ear.

“That’s right baaaibe,” she said as she switched ears, “You don’t have any money, so pay him with your boday.”

The person she was on the phone with of course assumed Amrit was giving ass.