Home Coming

It is a hot day in July…. We are packing our bags for our annual trip to India. You see the schools in the Gulf close for nearly two months during July and August. And that’s when we make our sojourn to India to visit our near and dear ones. My two boys are happy. They love being spoilt rotten by their grandparents, uncles and aunts. Enjoy spending time with their cousins. India is a fun place. They manage to indulge in a lot of activities that they wouldn’t have in the desert city of Dubai. Climb trees, chase squirrels, pluck vegetables from the kitchen garden, wander under the umbrella in pouring rain.

Two years later – one more hot day in July…and we are packing our bags. But this time the mood is a little different. There is a sense of anticipation in the air. Our trip to India is for a longer stay. My husband and I have decided that the boys will go to college in Pune, Maharashtra. A lot of our family and friends are surprised. Most Indians would gear their kids to be able to cope with further education in the West, either the U.K. or the U S of A.

But here, despite having already traveled some distance west, we were actually turning around and heading back home – and to Pune !

It was a big decision for all concerned. For the boys Dubai was home. The younger one had turned two a couple of months after we had settled there. And now sixteen years later he was to leave these familiar surrounding that he grew up in. But that was something he had to do even if he were to go elsewhere for his education. For us as parents it really was one of those things that one ponders and ponders about, hoping very hard that the decision taken will prove to be the right one.

I laid it out as plain and simple and as gently as I could in front of my boys. So far India had been a holiday for them. They may have spent a lot of time here during their holidays, but never lived here as such. They had so far been visitors here and never integrated into the way of Life here. So far they always went back home, to Dubai. I wanted that to change. I wanted that the family and relatives mean more to them than familiar faces and that they truly bond with their cousins and other relatives and appreciate the close-knit ties we Indians share with our families. I wanted that they no longer be stranger to their country and know it for all its good and the bad. Logic being very simply that tomorrow even if they ever emigrate and settle in any other country, they would always be known as Indians. So it was necessary for them to know India !!!

By Shubha S Nafrey

And Life can be better…

There is a theory in science fiction – propagated by one of the world’s most truly visionary science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke –we as a human race actually strive for a much higher quality of life. So, in our hearts we know that the future is really not all that dark. Deep in the core we want ionized quality air, safer homes and a way to get much more out of life. After all why the blazes are we alive – if not for a better life!

The thing is – for the neo scientific generation – future life creates a vision of living on Mars or some other planet – with a created “superior atmosphere”. Why don’t we create the same geodynamic space here? All it needs is a well thought out combination of technology with traditional thinking!

In fact, much of the new talk that is actually being translated into new buildings - and that has actually got me quite excited. New material used in the buildings can now ensure that the temperature is always at an even keel, architectural intelligence in placing the windows in a way that allows for better cross ventilation, and using the correct planting of trees that keeps things cool –to reduce solar heat gain – now we are talking!

Then again, as the news about an unsafe world looms larger – we are looking at creating safer communities. Communities, which are just not created by the strength of watchful digital technology or smarter homes, but where the sheer joy of living where happiness resonate. That we can achieve, through a term that is now in vogue, “responsible living.”

If we actually can create a greener community where we generate less waste, monitor our pattern of consumption, define a better future for ourselves, then perhaps we have got it made.
We all know we can do better. The more adventurous will say – and quite rightly - don’t wait for the inevitable if it's something you want.

A better life cannot be, "someday we'll be able to..." or "in a few years.” Ever considered that this “better life” can be inevitable and worthwhile, and now – not later.

Why wait for this “better life?”

It is time we gave a serious thought to creating in living in better communities, harnessing the power of technology, nature and even our past to make this one life that we have so much better.

It is time to move beyond the hedonistic notion of pleasure and incorporate all that we really think is worthwhile – in the way, we choose to live.

By
Shyama Dutta










Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. ~Albert Einstein