Life is short,
Art long,
Opportunity fleeting,
Experience treacherous,
Judgment difficult.
- Hippocrates, 400BC
I got this quote from a New York times article i'm reading just now and it fittingly sums up my week and come to think of it, my 3 years in Dubai.
I've been too busy past few days that I forgot about my "Coming to Dubai" anniversary. March 15. Its official, I've been in Desert City for 3 years, and yes, I've been mostly away from home for 3 years. If I stayed in my first job, i wouldve finished my contract by now, but thankfully God had other plans.
The decision to come here was a one-eye-open-jump-off-the cliff kind-of-thing. You know one of those moments where you really just decide to drop all inhibitions and just TAKE A CHANCE, because something inside tells you if you don't do it, you'll never know and you'll be left wondering, and boy, am I glad I did.
Three years ago i took that leap and now I'd say I'm finally in the water floating free.
Life is short. Opportunity Fleeting, and though you do get a lot of chances to get it right, the opportunities are never the same, and if you don't take the high road, and take a risk you could be missing out on something really special or even life-changing.
Experience Treacherous, Judgement Difficult. Dubai is not the easiest foreign city to live in, especially if you've been raised in Asian-meets-Catholic values and predominantly Western ideals of Freedom, and where you can get away with much of everything if you know how. When i first came here, I pretty much had to let go of most of my previous self, my old experiences, and reserve most of my judgements until i learned ropes.
Life is short. Art long. For what is Art but the imitation of life, and vice versa, a certain truth, and a way of looking at things differently. This week Dubai was alive with Art, and despite the fact that the city hides a dangerous ugly dungeon, it gave me the unique opportunity to reconnect with Art, and eventually brought me back to myself. Only this time, I am a different person looking at another angle, recognizing parts of myself and seeing that my life's painting has a lot more to offer now.
I am the same but not the same, and this week has been pivotal to that change.
MONDAY :
5pm Monday - Dubai Mall :
I found myself in Dubai Mall with some spare time, and as an old habit, whenever I find myself in the mall with time to kill, I go to the bookstore. It's been a while since i let myself wander around books, i took some to read, and lo and behold at the far end of the bookstore, behind the Manga section, I found a Japanese coffeeshop overlooking the famous Dubai fountain.
If there's one thing in Dubai ill never get tired of seeing it is this fountain. I order cappucinno, four Japanese women walk in, a grandma, her 30something daughter, her 20-something young niece and a 2-year old little girl. They sit in front of me and the fountain show starts. For a moment there, it felt like I was sitting at the border between two worlds - asian-Japan and the the very Vegas-inspired Dubai Fountain, and that the Universe or God is trying to tell me a secret.
I take out my Muji notebook and I'm writing again, the traditional way, with Pen and Paper. The return of the Familiar. "Welcome back" - i whispered silently to myself. My Blackberry phone dies before i could share the moment. Just as it should.
7pm, Monday - Armani Hotel :
My photographer friend calls me out on my reverie and I go with her to the much-hyped Armani Hotel, where she had to take some photos of some high-end Art exhibit. As expected, high-end art was nowhere near real art, so she went to work taking photos of people who were mostly there for the Champagne and prestige. I wandered off to check out the so-called art, only to find a pixelated hundred dirham bill stuck in a gold frame, with a 22,000aed price tag. "Yes, Dorothy, you are still in Dubai" - I whispered to myself.
At that point I lost interest in Armani art, got myself a glass of free champagne, sat on a corner and people-watched. My friend comes back after 15minutes, she's done taking photos, and dying for a cigarette. We went to the overpriced veranda of the Armani Hotel to watch the Fountain again. And while smoking i decided to ask her about the incredibly story of how she met the rock icon Karl Roy, who died on Sunday. Her story was larger than life, like Karl and it blew me away. It was a story that made me think about chances. There on the Armani balcony, I hear a true-to-life story about Taking chances, more importantly Taking a chance on people and giving people a chance. How a small thing can change one person's life, and eventually make a difference in the world. A Stone picked up and thrown in the river creating ripples.
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| Almost Famous: Brutal Grace, my friend-photographer, got her first big break because she was a fan of Karl Roy and then Karl Roy became his fan, and their lives we're never the same again. |
It was then I realized that your life is not entirely yours, like how a painting or anything created out of nowhere becomes a part of the collective world and now has the potential to affect the next person that you come across - and because of this one should never, if he can help it, put a pixelated Hundred Dirham painting on a Gold canvass and call it Art. Karl Roy never did. God bless your soul Karl.
9PM, Monday - DIFC:
To shake away the Armani Art exhibit let down, My friend and I decided to get a dose of some real art and headed to, well the Dubai Financial Center, the hub of decent art galleries in Dubai. Of course, money brings the best art to the region, and art without the means, well, it is good but sad. So DIFC galleries at least had more real art to showcase and the crowd was much more eclectic. I cannot go as far as say authentic, but for what its worth the crowd had character.
We meet a young famous artist - Sacha Jafri, who had an exhibit filled with doodles he'd done with special ed kids. These were very good doodles with good messages for a good cause. He was a fan of Kafka, and one of his drawings had a cassette tape that says SideA-Side B. Of course, we fell in love with him.
We stayed till the everybody left coz the art vibe was really getting to us and it was a good feeling. Then, when you least expect it magic happens. A take-away moment, mostly for my friend, but i was happy to be there.
Sacha comes out of his gallery tired, and sits with us for a while. He said he's been mostly travelling, London, New York. I, mere consumer of art, sit there comfortably with the maker, chat and drink a bit, thinking that this guy is possibly a toast in his circle. It doesn''t matter, at that moment he was like any other guy. At that moment we were on the same playing field. Such is the charm Dubai, chance meetings are extraordinarily ordinary.
*End of Part 1*
to be continued.
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