past

Recently, I went to Dubai for a quick transit trip. I hadn’t been back to Dubai in 18 years at that point. I had spent some of the happiest years in my teenage years in Dubai, and then we left when I was 16. It was a bittersweet end to a few brilliant years in the country and I always had this desire, this internal wanting to go back – to go visit my childhood place, the country where I had made so many beautiful memories.

A few days ago, I got that wish fulfilled. I was going to visit my birthplace, India, for 3 whole weeks, and we were going to transit through none other than Dubai. Wow, what a coincidence. Could this be a sign from the universe? Telling me perhaps that I can go back and capture those years and memories from the past.

Of course, you know where this story is going. As the taxi drove us around the hot concrete jungle that is Dubai, I felt a pang in my heart. This is not my Dubai. This is not the place that I remember in my heart – the place that I had been dutifully storing in my memories for so long. It was an imposter! I felt angry, and betrayed. I felt hurt, and confused. (more…)