I joined my new work place – Radio 2 (Gulf News, Dubai) on the 20th of August. I landed in Dubai just the previous evening and was all nervous and excited about my new assignment.On D-day I got ready for work dressed in what I thought was my smartest best office wear. Since cabs aren’t easy to find in Dubai, I took a bus to Trade Centre Interchange and hailed a cab from there.
The driver was a friendly and talkative Afghani. In a few minutes he asked me about the sunglasses I was wearing. Thrilled that someone finally appreciated the new Polaroid sunglasses I had bought in India I proudly told him that they were ‘Brand new from India’. He looked at me strangely and said “Par ye aisa kaisa hain? Ek aankh pe hain aur ek pe nahin?” Not knowing what he meant I removed my sunglasses and to my horror found the lens of the left eye missing. It was sitting pretty in the case of my sunglasses which meant that I had walked all the way from home to the bus stop wearing sunglasses with the black lens over the right eye and an empty frame over the left!
I thanked the cab driver profusely – he averted a disaster. Imagine what would’ve happened had I walked into my new office, on my first day at work, looking the way I was!
To answer obvious questions – No – I did not see the world in half black and half normal. Sure something seemed different but I attributed it to jet lag and nervousness. And yes – I did get a couple of stares (but no sneers :-)) and that I attributed to my smartest best office wear :)
Too sheepish to talk about this to anyone I told the cabbie that this was our little secret and we both had a good laugh over it. It’s been five days to this incident now and I laugh about it everyday. I told my husband and a couple of friends about it and they couldn’t believe that I walked around the busy streets of Dubai completely oblivious about the sight I must’ve been.
Thank God I’m able to laugh at myself about this. This is probably the funniest thing that has happened to me in ages and my cab driver sure did save the day!
4 comments:
...and the author in you returns! Lovely, humorous article. Chuckle chuckle! Good to read.
Btw, is the lens of the Polaroid glasses removable or was that a defect?
Looking forward to reading some more of your articles!
No..no..the lens just got loose and fell off and because Polaroid is supposed to protect you from UV rays or some such logic the vision is near perfect, so I just couldn't figure out the difference :)
This is so hilarious....Loved the simple, lucid style of writing..you definetly have a flair for humour, and you know that writing a compelling humour is not easy.....you are doing great at it....keep up the good work.
This is so hilarious....Loved the simple, lucid style of writing..you definetly have a flair for humor, and you know that writing a compelling humor is not easy.....you are doing great at it....keep up the good work.
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