A Totally Non-Penis-Related House Issue

“We went over one hour and 30 minutes today,” DM said, proudly over the phone.

“That’s some great cardio,” Kayo concurred.

“Of course, Charo had to stop along the way to get chai. I think that negates the biking, but, gotta choose your battles.”

“Just get a tea without sugar,” Kayo advised.

“Well you know, with the chai, gotta get samosa. Saying, ‘Hey, I’ll just have a gay sulemani with no sugar,’ is a bit sad.

“You go along the Dubai Canal?” Kayo asked, once he stopped laughing.

“Yeah man, great spot.”

“You know,” Kayo mused, “That’s the canal due to which they ended up building the world’s biggest turn-off, which fucked up the house value of Ismail, Khader’s dad.”

“Huh,” DM said. “Fuck his life, I guess.”

Just a few kilometres away from DM, the man whose life had been fucked was standing outside the very house in question.

He was an older Emirati – a small, thin man wearing a crisp, white kandura and matching kshemagh. Stoking his beard, he wondered out loud.

“A worthy house, for a worthy man,” he mused,”But…”

He shook his head. The paint, once it had dried, had turned a sort of pale pink that had led to friends at the local mosque making gay jokes.

“Syedi Ismail Ibn Hamed Khazan?”

Ismail turned to see a man much like himself, but with a different laser-cut beard design that had far fewer grey and white hairs.”

“Na’am?”

“I am Azeem Ibn Arshouf Hind Atwan, from the Ministry of Habby-ness.”

“There must be some mistake,” Ismail said. “I had complained to the Ministry of Transportation.”

“Yes, to the Road and Transport Authority, yes?”

“Yes.”

“They said there is nothing to be done since they can’t break the whole flyover for you. That is why they referred the case to the MoHa.”

As Akeem said this, his mouth formed a sort of demented grin with the last syllable.

“Okay, well, I am quite unhappy.”

“We hope to fix this. Tell me the whole story.”

“The problem began when this flyover was built, and put this biggest turn-off in the world in front of my house. The cars are so loud.”

“Well syedi, before that broblem, there was already another broblem with the house gay baint colour, yes?”

“Yes, but that is unrelated.”

“Hmm,” Akeem said as he took notes in a tiny pad he had produced from his kandura pocket.

“Well, that is it. This is not the colour I wanted.”

“You have just recently built this house, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Why such a big house just for you, your second wife and daughter?”

“I am local.”

“Yes.”

“Also,” Ismail was not sure why he was explaining himself, “The old one was designed by my first wife.”

Akeem only nodded slightly.

“We also have a rabbit and two servants.”

“In the servants’ quarters.”

“Yes, we built those separately.”

“You don’t let them go out?”

“Because they might become pregnant!” Ismail said with exasperation. “You know these Filipinos.”

“Hmm.”

“Also, I don’t want them to use their church networks to find some other place with better salary.”

Ismail had no idea why he was confessing everything like this.

“Why did you break the old house just because it was designed by your first wife?”

“It had some bad energy to it,” Ismail felt odd saying. “You know, everyone said she had dementia. But I swear, it was like she was possessed by shetaan.”

He felt good getting it off his chest.

“Ah, so maybe some of that was in the old building?”

“Yes. Seeing her like that made me come back to god.”

“And you threw her out of the house she built, and tore it down.”

“Yes,” Ismail cleared his throat.

“You were planning to protest the flyover?” Akeem asked, pointing with his chin at some placards sitting against the gate. The one in front said, a turn-off for the senses.

“My wife was planning to. The noise is so much.”

“You were going to let your wife who is one year younger than your daughter from your first marriage and who has a bad knee stand outside to protest the flyover?”

“How did you know this about her?” Ismail began to ask, and then stopped.

Azeem had a twinkle in his eye as he grinned.

“We don’t do protesting like this here in the UAE,” he said. “This is not UK or some place like that.”

“Yes.”

“It can lead to deportation.”

“But I am Emirati.”

“You did go to school in Jamaica and your grandmother is Iranian. You know how things are with Iran.”

“Yes.”

“You know syedi,” he said, putting away his notes, “Habbyiness is where you look for it. A big house and a family with a pet rabbit – these are things to be habby about. Think how unhabby your first wife is, sitting by herself in a small flat, away from the home she built.”

“True,” Ismail had to admit.

“The great thing about my job,” Akeem said, turning his back and walking towards his shiny blue BMW, “Is that I can show people how habby their lives already are.”

Ismail looked at his house as the sun began to set. It looked less pink in the dusk light.

Diwali Bumper Stories

“That’s going to be hard,” Deepak said, feeling almost as if it were his sleeves that were dangerously close to touching the sauce.

“Yeah,” DM said, pulling the right sleeve up with his left hand as the naan got close to the butter chicken.

“You know, we don’t usually even eat chicken,” Charo, DM’s wife, chirped. “Usually we just have seafood and vegetables.”

“Yes, you already mentioned that,” Deepak said, crossing his arms since this was now obviously a gloved remark about his weight.

It wasn’t, but with how Deepak’s moons were stressing the top part of his juba, it is understandable how such a remark said so many times (twice) could be taken in this way.

“Good stuff,” DM said, carefully putting the naan-held piece of dripping chicken in his mouth.

“Why are those sleeves so long and loose?” Deepak asked, deflecting from his weight that his wife had been making fun of already that day.

“Oh, you know, readymades. You can’t get them perfect,” Charo said since DM was chewing.

“Far from perfect,” Deepak mused.

The halls were decked to the Hindu equivalent, with lots of colour and of course small lamps and candles. The sparklers had been out earlier, and mega levels of fireworks were promised later. The area of Dubai that Deepak’s flat was in – Golden Sands in Bur Dubai – was perfect for the festivities. A heavily Hindu area, as signalled with all the shops selling flowers and incense, the fireworks would rival those in Mumbai and other places.

“Okay guys, it is now time for the traditional polishing of our gold coins,” Deepak said, unfolding his arms and smiling.

“What?” DM put down his plate.

“We have to polish our gold coins.”

“What gold coins?”

“The gold coins we Gujaratis collect every year.”

This sounded to DM like some kind of much sadder version of Pokemon. However, having dealt with all kinds of North Indians in his time, he knew he had to take the wheat with the chaff.

The bell rang. Deepak ran off in his blue juba and white bottom to get it. He came back smiling, holding the one sleeve of an Emirati whose athletic build starkly contrasted with his own.

“This is Ahmed, my friend,” Deepak introduced, spending too much time on the last word and making it seem like they were lovers.

“Oh, it is also Chinese new year?” Ahmed said, looking at DM’s red top.

DM sighed and put down his plate again that he had picked up to finish before the gold-rubbing began. As he extended his hand forward, the butter chicken sauce that his sleeve had dipped in splayed forward, onto Ahmed’s crisp white kandura.

“Allah!!!” Ahmed exclaimed.

“I told you about those sleeves,” Deepak said, as if it helped.

_____________________________

How to Deal with Salesmen in India

(The following story happens in Malayalam, but is translated with some colloquial terms left.

“It’s Deepawali and I’m dealing with this crap,” Joy, Kayo’s dad said, scratching his head.

“You could not be dealing with it by being firm instead of trying to please everyone,” Santhi, his wife said, as she closed the front door.

Joy purveyed the scene in front of him: a large front yard with a guava tree on one side and banana plaavu as well as a gooseberry tree on the other. All five dogs ran at him at the same time, making his progress towards the young man sitting on the other side of the porch slow, particularly since he had to stave off the two pups from biting his kaili/lungi.

The attempted rape scene having ended, he focused his attention on the young man, who was dressed formally and wore a sad face like he was being sent off to be shot.

“Sarr, please. I have quota,” the young man repeated.

“Yes, yes,” Joy sighed.

His earpiece buzzed.

“Dad,” the voice said. “Remember what I said.”

Joy blinked hard. His idiot son had no idea what life in Kerala was about.

“Do it, Dad.”

“You can see,” he began, trying not to make eye contact with the son of the auto driver that had been his wife’s batch-mate. “Five dogs. I have to buy meat for them, many expenses. Inside there is a cat, even more expensive. He only eats premium foods. Very hard to live in retirement.”

The young man didn’t say anything, but looked down even more.

Joy looked back at the house and saw two eyes looking at him furtively from the second floor.

“Okay, you brought the hammer down,” said the voice in his ear. “Now, it’s time to bring down the machete onto the onion.”

The idiot on the line clearly did not understand how an onion had to be peeled instead of assaulted with weapons.

“Umm, other problem,” Joy said, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. “I want hair transplant.”

“What, sir?”

“Hair plugs,” he pointed at his scalp. “Expensive.”

“Okay.”

“Actually, I don’t have money. Can you…” he faltered. “Can you loan me five thousand rupees?”

He felt like he had just vomited. The boy in front of him looked at him incredulously.

“Good job, Dad,” his son said in his ear. “I’m a godamn genius.”

A Haram Assault Story

“Imagine me wearing a pig suit,” DM said to Kayo on the phone on loudspeaker, taking a selfie.

“That is unusual,” Kayo concurred.

“Well, I lost this crypto bet and tried one on – check your images.” DM paused.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I kind of like it.”

“That’s you having your coffee in it.”

“Yeah. Took it to the desert too. Nice stroll.”

“But what if someone sees you?”

“Yeah, what if?”

“Won’t they have an issue if they’re, you know, Muslim?”

DM laughed. He laughed and laughed. Silly Kayo had been away for so long. He stopped the car and paused, enjoying the sun and the way the pink pig suit reflected off the windshield inside.

Dubai, even in the throes of BDS because of the Israeli bombing of Gaza, had liberalized considerably. Sure, people were boycotting Starbucks and KFC, but Israelis were showing up for parties in Dubai (though maybe not with their little hats and Star of Davids visible like before, not wanting to be spat on). There were even raves in Saudi which ended with the beach being littered with condom wrappers.

“But Jews don’t eat pork either,” Kayo said.

“These do,” DM paused as he got out of his car.

“Oh right, EuroJews.”

“Listen, whatever they are, things are not like before. I mean look at this.”

DM took a photo of the poster outside the mall he was entering.

“What’s this?”

“New Dubai, man.”

“I don’t get it – is it anti-massage or just anti-card?”

“Anti-card.”

“But the symbol says no massage.”

“No that’s a card with a massage on it.”

“But I thought they’re okay with the massage part. Just not the happy endings.”

“They just don’t want cards thrown all over the place.”

“That’s some odd prioritizing.”

“Exactly – so massages are fine, but just don’t make a big mess.”

“But-“

“Wait,” DM said, stopping at the food court off the ground floor. “Man I think I see Sameer.”

“Wait, like from my work?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen the photos of him you’ve sent. And his LinkedIn. That jowl and loose suit are the same.”

“Huh, I wonder what he’s doing outside Ajman.”

“Maybe taking a break from his wife complaining about his stature in life. Man, I’m going to hit him.”

“What?”

“It’s the perfect time. He won’t even know it’s me.”

“But wh-“

“Listen, already, a pig hitting Sameer – he won’t like it-“

DM could not finish because Kayo began laughing uproariously.

“Yeah he won’t like it. He probably has never fathomed such a thing ever happening in his life. Especially living in a Muslim country.”

“Man, they’re gonna build a casino. What Muslim country.”

“Didn’t they end up not getting that fatwa?”

“There is no way Trump and Caesar’s Palace would open hotels here if casinos were not on the way.”

Kayo was silent.

“Okay but be careful.”

“I’m going to get him from the back.”

For tense seconds, all that could be heard was the subtle swishing of the plastic inflated material as DM hunted Sameer.

“What you do?” the voice was loud and made DM jump.

“What?”

“Why you dress like kinzhir and walk like Counterstrike stealth?” The speaker was a man with a well-built chest in a crisp, white kandura.

“I can wear what I want and walk how I like. This is new Dubai,” DM said.

“I want to beat you,” the man said, raising one hand, “but you are haram.”

DM wondered about the technicality of this. He didn’t know Islam well, and Dubai made it hard to figure out since the whole city was built around loopholes.

“Excuse me sir,” a new, far more feminine voice interrupted.

Both DM and the man looked to see, standing next to a plastic-clay planter, a Filipino man with braces. He had one hand caressing his necklace.

“Sir, would you like to come to a birthday party tonight?”

“I do not go to parties with only men,” the man in the kandura said.

“Not you,” the Filipino man said. He pointed with his elbow since the hand was busy caressing. “You.”

“Why the fuck would you invite a stranger to a party?” DM asked.

“So we can eat-just to make friends,” the man smiled.

“What were you going to say before the friends part?”

“Just so we can eat with you.”

“Why are you salivating?”

“My, so many questions.”

The Filipino man suddenly turned and ran away, flailing his arms as he did so like he was fanning a fire.

“It’s definitely a new Dubai,” Kayo said, still on speakerphone.

Jowls Collide: Part II; Two Men, One Dream

Sameet sighed for a moment and thought a bit about his life as he watched the lone fat man dance on his own at the far side of the shisha cafe.

It was a high-class cafe, but for sure not set up for dancing – that was the lot of clubs that also had shisha, not something shisha cafes were supposed to butt into.

“Shehzad hi accha tha,” his phone rang, making him wince because it was the voice of his wife as the ringtone.

She had made him set that as the ringtone, as a constant reminder of his inabilities.

“What are you doing, man,” she said when he clicked Answer and put the phone to his ear.

She didn’t mean “man” in the sense of a Goan talking to her friend or some hippie. The word had to it the ring of being told that Sameer was the man of the house, but had not met his obligations as such.

“I just finished the deliveries today,” Sameer said, like he was giving a report. “I just had to make a call.”

“What’s that music?”

“I had to stop at a shisha cafe to use the bathroom.”

“You’d better not be spending money willy-nilly.”

“No, no. Just had to buy a tea since the waiter caught me using the restroom.”

“Why do they care who uses the restroom?”

It was beginning to sound like an interrogation, as often these calls did.

“I don’t know,” he sighed.

“You’re sitting there enacting your wild fantasies, no?”

“What wild fantasies?”

“The same one, of standing like an idiot and doing that anal feeding.”

“Chupp!” Sameer stopped himself, knowing this would lead to further argument. “I am just sitting here about to come back home.”

“So another 3 hours before you get home?”

“Yes,” he said, checking his watch.

“Enjoy,” his wife said. “You were made for that only.”

Sameer sighed and put the phone on the table.

“What’s the matter, man,” a voice said, but with a much nicer, sing-song ring to the word “man.”

Sameer looked up to see the dancing fat man standing next to him. He was considerably smaller than Sameer, but as fat, with almost the exact same wheatish skin. The man’s hair was wet from dancing.

“Oh, just home problems,” he sighed.

“Ah,” the man said, sitting in the other chair by the table. “My wife is a fat, black bitch too.”

He lighted up a cigarette. Sameer was shocked – he’d never seen a fat smoker before.

“Mine isn’t black,” Sameer replied, as if that was worth anthing.

“Back when, I banged a Korean chick 6 times one night,” the man said, exhaling with feeling. “That was the life. Not this shit.”

Sameer didn’t know what to say.

“I’m Amrit,” a small chubby hand extended. Sameer touched it lightly with his just as chubby but bigger hand.

“Sameer. Hi.”

“Man, sometimes I think about how good my life used to be,” Amrit said, waving the cigarette in his hand. “I had a good life on Tinder before this bitch became my wife. Job with accommodation. Also I had a best friend, nice guy. Then this Malbari came to Dubai and told him some bad things about me.”

Sameer suddenly felt a bit closer to the man.

“You know,” he said, “I also got screwed by a Malbari.”

“These Malbaris man – they’re all like that. I used to work for one. He made me work for no salary.”

“Yes, just like that. This one cut my salary.”

“Bastard. I showed that guy. I claimed so much petrol expenses and gave all the samples to my friends.”

“Good. But I don’t know what to do with this guy. He just keeps asking for weekly report.”

“I hate those.”

“Not anymore though,” Sameer pondered with one finger on his chin. “He seems to ask less nowadays.”

“Must be eating fish molly or some crap.”

“Still, 2/3 salary cut is bad.”

“Aye man, why did you work for a Malbari company anyway?” Amrit scripted his still-wet hair.

“No, no, it’s a Canadian company,” Sameer also itched his scalp, knowing how hard it would be to explain. “But the manager is a Malbari.”

“Ha! What!”

“And he’s not even a Malbari in Canada. He lives in Kerala.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah man, I even made a private investigator take some pics of him riding around on a motorcycle in lungi. But the CEO didn’t see it as scandalous.”

“Man, do you have these photos?”

“Yes, why?”

“I want to check who this is. He used to be in Dubai?”

“Yes, that’s where I met him.”

Sameer looked through his photos for the two he had kept in case they might be useful in the future.

“See, him.”

“Oh fuck me, bro,” Amrit exclaimed, grabbing the phone. “Fucking Kayo.”

“That’s him! Bastard!”

“Bastard! Ruined my friendship!”

“Ruined my good life here in Dubai,” Sameer added from his side.

“You know bro, if he were here in Mumbai, I could get some guys to kick his ass,” Amrit said, putting the phone down.

“In Lahore, he would be dead,” Sameer said with determination.

“Bitch.”

“Whore.”

Sameer looked at Amrit, who was staring at him intensely.

Suddenly, Amrit leaned over violently and kissed him. Sameer had never felt another man’s tongue in his mouth; but Amrit’s lips felt just like a woman’s – soft and supple, though sweaty.

“What fuck! Yuck!”

Sameer pulled away and saw the waiter, there like the angel of death.

“You fat, yuck! Not gay club. And not for fat gays.”

“I’m not gay,” Sameer said, faintly.

“I don’t fuck care,” the waiter said, walking away with what was, Sameer realized, a very gay gait.

“Sameer, bro.”

Sameer looked shyly at Amrit, part of him wanting to run away.

“Slap me.”

“What?”

“Slap me.”

He could never for year ever explain why, but he did it without question on the second prompt.

“THAPPP!”

The sound was satisfying, like a whip.

“THAPAAAA!”

Sameer’s head rang, and he almost fell.

“My turn,” Amrit was smiling.

“THWACKK!”

This time Amrit almost fell. Sameer took a deep breath.

Back and forth, for 15 minutes, the two men traded slaps. By the time they left the cafe, both had red faces. Amrit walked off like a snail who had no place to go. Sameer got in his car, ready for the traffic to Ajman.

Jowls Collide: Part I; the Delivery

Sameer was a bit lost and a bit worried. As usual, he was behind schedule because of the awful Dubai traffic. He got out of his car, unbending slowly after 2 hours sitting.

He took a few steps toward the shisha place on Sheikh Zayed Road, and then had a thought. What if they didn’t let him use the restroom? This had happened before – some waiter had stopped him, and that too after he had eaten hale and really needed to unleash the backside.

Sameer walked back to the red Nissan Altima and opened the back door. He took out the food delivery bag he kept there for his freelancing.

“I hope this works,” he sighed as he slung the bag over his shoulder and closed the door with a thud.

He walked slowly over to the shisha place.

“So far,” he sighed as he was half way through the 100 metres to the door.

Sameer ducked through the door and went straight to the restroom, where he urinated while staring at the tiles in front of him. Picking up the square delivery bag, he smiled with a bit of contentment as he walked out of the door.

“What you do here?” The voice was strict, like that of a teacher of delinquents.

Sameer stumbled around verbally, saying something about relieving himself on his way to a delivery.

“You take delivery bag into toilet?” the man asked.

Bloody Ukranians, Samen thought. They were too uppity, thinking they were white. Walking around like they owned the city. He nodded the affirmative, wishing for the waiter’s whole country to be carpet bombed.

“This dirty,” the man said, making a face like Sameer was carrying faeces in the bag.

Sameer was trying to think of a way out when he saw the clock over the waiter’s shoulder on the wall.

“Ah, I will order some tea and sit,” he said.

“Why?” the man interrogated.

It took several precious minutes to convince the man to let him get a table, hiding the delivery bag under the table.

Once seated, Sameer pulled out his phone and texted furiously. Finally, he put in his earphones and started a WhatsApp video call.

“Sameer bhai hello,” the man on the screen said, filling the entire rectangle with his chubby moustachioed face.

“Dr. Akhtar hello,” Sameer said, smiling as best as he could. “I was saying, why not use BotIm?”

“Sameer are you a salesman for BotIm?”

“Uh, no…”

“Then why you always say BotIm BotIm. What is this thing? I asked my staff – some app people in Dubai use to call their village. You want me to go to your village?”

“No, I’m from Lahore only.”

“Then use WhatsApp, like everyone else from Lahore. You have VPN?”

“Yes, I just bought it.”

“Then all is well. Now, let’s talk about the partnership with your college?”

“Yes, sounds good.”

“So, MOU is good. Next, when shall we sign the MOA?”

“One thing, sir.” Sameer said, scratching his ample chin. “Before we sign, your institution has to pay,” his voice went very low here, “5,000 Canadian dollars.”

“What? I can’t hear over the music. Are you at some mujra?”

“No just a cafe,” Sameer cleared his throat. He repeated what he said louder.

“Paanch hazar dollar?” the tone changed. “Kya hum sabh idhar randi hein kya, dupatta mein ye cash rah kar?” What, you think we’re prostitutes, with this kind of money kept in the shawl of our salwar khameiz?

“No, no, nothing like that,” Sameer was sweating despite the AC. “It’s a new directive from the CEO. They – we – have so many partnerships now, especially with high rank institutions in Philippines. To start new ones, we need a fee to do the audit and setup, na?”

“CEO!” the man on the screen came closer so his pores could be seen. “That man was there on the Zoom call with his scarf. Bloody, trying to cheat-“

“You don’t want him to take off that scarf,” Sameer said, looking at the table leg. “He becomes something else…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Sameer looked back at the phone. “I know it’s a new thing, but needed for now. Please understand-“

“What about that other guy, the bald one?” the man asked, moving back to a normal distance from the phone screen.

“That bastard! Malbari” Sameer suddenly sat up and his eyes opened up wide. “Sonofabitch!”

“Your language,” Dr. Akhtar said, ignoring his own language just minutes ago.

“I hate that fucker!” Sameer continued, unabated. “Wo bhenchoth bas gumta hein kerala mein, lungi penh kar.” That sister-fucker just roams around Kerala wearing a lungi.

“Par wo tho Canadian hein na?” But isn’t he Canadian.

“Wo to hein…” Samen wondered if he had gone too far.

“Sameer, aur aap? Canadian?” And you, Canadian?

“Nahin ji, mein Pakistani-” No, I’m Pakistani.

“Arey, ye to fraud hain. Ek scarf wala, ek Malları Kerala mein, aur ek Pakistani Dubai mein.”

“No, it’s not like that sir,” Sameer remonstrated.

“Have you even gone to Canada?”

“I tried,” Sameer sighed again, looking down. “My visa got denied.”

He right away realized his mistake.

“You want to bring students from here and you can’t even get your own visa?” Dr. Akhtar was incredulous.

“No but they knew I think, I was planning to run away,” Sameer was sweating buckets.

“Dirty bugger! You’re the reason why so many visas are being denied!” Dr. Akhtar moved so close to the phone, only his nose and one cheek was visible. “My son-in-law tried to go for a holiday, and got denied. Because of people like you!”

“No sir, no-“

“Anyway, what would you do in Canada?”

“Oh my god,” Sameer was hit with a beautiful memory that made him close his eyes. “Mujko ekh sapno tha bachpan se, ke udhar jao aur heroin-fentanyl sabh kuch lekhar esein karo.” I’ve had a dream since I was a child to go there, take drugs and do this.

Here Sameer peeled himself off the armchair he was in, moved away from the green corner table, and bent his knees with his arms akimbo, bending over. He looked like people in the drug-stricken parts of inner cities in America and Canada.

However, no one in those videos of the inner cities had the bulk and also privilege of Sameer (but then again, some may have before their downfall).

He looked unusual, bent over, holding a phone in one hand, the other arm swinging. His knees faced inward, like some kind of elderly cowboy.

“Oh my god,” Dr. Akhtar said, moving away from the phone, his eyes looking downward at Sameer’s tits hanging loose behind his button-up shirt. “Sameer, tell me more.”

Sameer did not hear the sound of the zipper.

“Always wanted something like this,” Sameer said. “Good feeling, no wife bothering me, no kids to drop at school.”

“Oh me too,” Dr. Akhtar said, his one arm reaching down.

“What this?” the familiar voice insisted behind Sameer.

He slowly and painfully bent back up, feeling a bit of vertigo.

“Sorry, just explaining,” he said, turning off the call to a shout of protest from the other side.

“You not explain and make this obscene scene,” the waiter said. “You sit.”

“Okay, okay,” Sameer said, sitting back in the chair and putting one hand around his glass of mint tea.

As the waiter walked away in a huff, Sameer saw a man of similar heft but shorter than himself, dancing by himself in front of the speakers at the far side of the cafe.

Who was the man? Read on in Part II.

Boxes and Sheds

DM was quite irritated. The man at the door had a slick, child-molester look to him. He had dark skin that was ludicrously smooth, as if he used a solid half tin of cocoa butter daily for moisturizing. His moustache and hair had clearly had henna applied to it, giving both a sinister red-brown sheen. Had he put the same in his eyebrows?

“What exactly is it you want?” DM asked, cutting through the soliloquy the fellow had launched into for the past couple if minutes.

“See, sir, I am honest man handy-man,” the guy said, finally making some sense. “I make any handy you want. Handy craft, handy chair, handy job-“

“I don’t need anything like that,” DM said, now tapping his foot, hoping the impatience was visible.

“But I real handy man,” the man continued unabated. “See, this my stoolbox.” At this point, he brought out from behind his back a rather large green metal box. “All stools in here: spanner, screwdriver, clamp-“

“Okay, I don’t need anything. Thanks.”

DM shut the door finally and sighed. He was just half-way into a new Twitter show by a rising star in the crypto economics circles – Tucker Carlson.

He sat in his leather couch and tried to get back into concentration mood before unpausing.

Tucker Carlson was on the screen, sitting as always with the wood paneling behind him. He was mid-way through trouncing Biden for being both apparently a grandma-toucher and also weak economically. DM took notes.

“And to talk further about the economy, I want to invite onto my show (here Tucker paused, perhaps for effect but perhaps also thinking about when he had an actual news show instead of a Twitter stream), CEO of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk.”

There would have on talk shows been some kind of interlude or music at this point. Instead there was silence. DM waiting in anticipation.

“Sorry,” Tucker said, putting his hand to one ear. “That’s next week. I got my schedule wrong.” He shuffled some papers. “Today we have on the show, some special guests. They were the stars of a film that explored a lot of these economic issues that I’ve been talking about, way back in the early 2000s. Please welcome Ashok-an, Jag-dish, Mukesh (he got that one right without pausing half-way), and Sid-dique. From the hit Bollywood film 2 Hari-har Nag-ar.

“Er, Mr. Tucker,” Jagdish, a sort of Malayali Jughead (but darker and older) said, coming in far too close to his camera so you could count his nose hairs. “Kindly adjust – 2 Harihar Nagar not Bollywood. It Mollywood please.”

There was silence as Tucker took in this information and tried to process it.

“Right. Right. So in your film, everyone is going after this briefcase full of gold. And this speaks so much to the state of the economy of America right now-“

“Excuse please, Mr. Tucker,” this time it was Siddique, now bald but with the same moustache as in the photo from the film poster that had been on screen a moment ago. “The film is not about really the goldsh. By the way, I was awarded gold visa by rule of Dubai.”

At this point, Siddique paused, but not much happened for a few seconds. Then Mukesh, the one who had apparently won the contest for whom of the four would go to buffets most often post-filming, clapped his hands vigorously, followed by the other two. Siddique raised one hand to take in the applause.

“Yes, but the film is not about the goldsh.” He paused again, with his hands open as if explaining to a university class. “You see-“

“Sir, it is all about friendship,” here Mukesh chimed in his two fingers and thumb pressed together in a sort of a-ha moment. “All about friendship.”

“Well, crap, that’s just gay,” said Tucker. “Friendship? That’s got nothing to do with the economy-“

“Excuse me sir,” it was Ashokan’s turn to interrupt. “Why are you making face like that?”

“Face like what?”

“Like a constipation.”

“This is just the face I always have.”

“Ente ponne sahipu appi ittonte interview cheyuva!” Ashokan yelled in realisation. My dear (a coloquial expression that literally translates to my precious, but not in a LOTR way) the white is taking a shit while interviewing us!

“Edda ayallu toolshedil alla! Stoolshedilla!” Jagdish yelled, starting to almost cry. My guy, he’s not sitting in a tool shed! He’s in a stool shed!

“Thomaskutti! Vittoddha!” Mukesh yelled as the audio cut and screens went blank. “Thomaskutti! GTFO!”

DM had no idea what had happened during the last few seconds of the show. The Malayalam he had learned at chaya shops and via Kayo had not prepared him for the machine-gun exchange at the end of the show, which had for some reason cut feed early.

Just then, he got a WhatsApp from Kayo: a video from some Malayalam film.

Old Habits

Suraj sat at the back of his Land Rover 4X4, his bare legs dangling off the edge but not touching the sand below. He looked at the desert horizon at Quadra as he nursed the neat Johnny Walker Blue he had kept for the beginning of the good cooler weather in Dubai.

He had actually kept the bottle for this particular day when he and the family would be here in the desert, waking up to a quiet day with no cranes creaking or hum of traffic.

In the distance, he saw an Egyptian family – mum, day and 3 kids – walking their night time accrued garbage to the designated spot close to the roadside.

“Nice family,” his wife said as she tapped the hatch of the Land Rover as if playing tag with it. “They live in Marina.”

“He probably works in Media City,” Suraj said, sipping.

“No idea,” his wife said as she disappeared into the middle of the car to wake up the kids.

Suraj thought about how he and his wife had just paid off their 700,000Dhs (or 7,00,000Dhs for Indians) flat in Festival City. Living with Russians and Lebanese, they had tried to make things look international – having neighbours over for steak dinner after they had themselves eaten biryani for lunch.

No one had noticed how his wife had not had steak those nights – she was a practicing Hindu after all. Just a chicken dum biryani was enough.

It all eventually hit a wall every weekend. No matter how clean Basanti the maid kept the house or no matter how many Dubai Bonds he bought, the photos from cousins and friends in Canada hit their Facebook walls like smiling bullets.

Weekends going to Mexico with a Canadian passport. Buying in the most expensive property market in the world (how some 51st state that was like a freezer could be that expensive blew his mind).

Suraj, however, was a pragmatist. He know there would be no live-in maid in Winnipeg or Saskatoon. No weekend holidays or Georgia or Baku. Just mortgage payments and maybe Uber driving as a side hustle.

The Facebook walls were also plastered with Diwali celebrations back home. Suraj knew he could not go back there – not after having crawled, climbed and stabbed his way to a decent salary in Dubai.

His was really the worst problem in Dubai. By no means was he alone. Really, it was the problem of thousands (maybe even tens or hundreds of thousands) of Indians, Pakistanis and occasionally Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans of the upper-middle-middle class.

Suraj sighed. It was a problem that would not be solved that day. For now, he could do what he always did.

He jumped onto the sand and threw the empty plastic cup into the sand, using the free hand to pull up his shorts. He could hear his wife at the front of the car similarly throw a bag of garbage into the sand.