Last week I spent an evening out in a restaurant close to the Dubai International Airport. The whole set / sequence reminded me of a trip I had made to Daman about 20 years ago and I thought I'd document both the set.
On a bored weekend, a few friends and I decided to take off from our shared flat in Andheri, Mumbai and head to Daman. We left on a Saturday morning and were in Daman by late afternoon. We checked into the hotel, went out for a late afternoon lunch. There was really no beach to speak of and bored, tired and sleepy after a heavy lunch, we decided to nap till evening. All of what we had seen until then was a sleepy town with hardly anyone in the street and very little activity.
We were in for a contrast. At around 6:30-7:00 most of us came awake at growing noise outside in the road. By the time we washed up and came down to the front of the hotel lobby, there was a sea change. The roads were filled with people, cars and two-wheelers and generally the place looked as though there was a Mela about.
As the evening progressed, this sleepy town went through a transformation that'd put Las Vegas to shame !. There were brawls in pubs / bars and restaurants, there were people walking the streets with liquor in-hand or upto their eye-balls.
As it turns out, Daman is the closest "drinking hole" to Gujarat (DRY!) and the floating population was just that - float in and out over the evening. It almost seemed as though all the people who'd want a drink in Gujarat had gravitated to Daman !
Now, cut to Dubai.
There were just 2 of us who wanted to have a quiet drink and catch up on business developments. I had about 2 hours to kill late in the evening having already checked in and with my boarding card. As we went into the local bar, we saw some people, but, not much.
As the evening / night progressed, I realized that my "Daman experience" was being replayed. Everyone around was drinking more than they could carry and were pretty boisterous. All the frustrations pent up was being spent in a binge. This even led the person with me to comment that all of them seemed to be "Dharam-Bhrasht". To add to this, I even saw a person with the beads of meditation in one hand and a drink in another. Talk about immediate salvation ?
In Daman, by the next morning, the roads were empty of people / traffic, but, crammed with junk and garbage. In a way am glad I was not going to be there the next morning in Dubai
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