Officially, Eid in Dubai was on Monday, the 23rd. The Shia community celebrated it on Tuesday (24th), instead, claiming that the others had missed one day of Ramadan by starting the holy month a day earlier and not following the moon properly. In Pakistan, there were claims for each of the three days - 23rd, 24th and 25th! Amid all this confusion, I preferred to stay in Dubai for I had got hold of a car.
The first thing one does after getting an employment visa in Dubai is to open up a bank account. The second goal is to get a driving license, which according to some people, can be quite challenging. For me, it was even more challenging because I had to learn to drive from scratch. Somehow, I got my driving license on my second attempt, but I couldn't get a car uptil now. Whenever I was about to start looking, I had to go out of Dubai for some official work. At last, one of the colleagues had rented out a car here, and since he was going to Pakistan on Eid, I got hold of his car.
This turned out to be a good decision as I shall not be able to buy a car in November as well. I am leaving for Bahrain for a month, insha Allah.
Meanwhile, there are two interesting Dubai based blogs: A Secret Arabian Journal and Secret Dubai Diary. Grapeshisha is another worth visiting website.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
A Get-Together
I am in Karachi once again. It's an official trip to discuss the roadmap/ integration of a few of our products.
Meanwhile, I got a chance to organize a dinner for FAST 2000, last night. The venue was Pizza Hut (Tariq Road) and the timing was 9:30 pm; though people were awaited till 10:15pm (that's still pretty decent by Pakistani standards).
It was fun. At the least, I had some pretty good time after a long gap. The following members were present: Salman Kasbati, Yours Truly, Faizan aka Dexter, Umar Siddiqi, Ali Safri, Sarfaraz, Imran Gaya and Cassim Bharoocha.
Just for the sake of letting everyone know, Imran Gaya is at State Bank; Umar Siddiqi at TPS (Business Development); Faizan @ UBL (product manager of mortgages); Ali Safri and Sarfaraz are senior software engineers :) at PWC Logistics working for Pakistan Customs; Salman is at LMKR Karachi and Cassim is at Metropolitan Bank working as an IS Auditor. Surprisingly, many of us have to do with banking in one way or the other.
The most interesting part was the conversation b/w Dexter and Umar; ranging from the usability of Nokia 1100 to "Winning" by Jack Welch. We are very happy to find someone who can handle Dexter.
But within these lighter moments, I learned a lot as well from Dexter's remarks on Basel II to Imran Gaya's recommendation "The World is Flat." You guys rock.
Meanwhile, I got a chance to organize a dinner for FAST 2000, last night. The venue was Pizza Hut (Tariq Road) and the timing was 9:30 pm; though people were awaited till 10:15pm (that's still pretty decent by Pakistani standards).
It was fun. At the least, I had some pretty good time after a long gap. The following members were present: Salman Kasbati, Yours Truly, Faizan aka Dexter, Umar Siddiqi, Ali Safri, Sarfaraz, Imran Gaya and Cassim Bharoocha.
Just for the sake of letting everyone know, Imran Gaya is at State Bank; Umar Siddiqi at TPS (Business Development); Faizan @ UBL (product manager of mortgages); Ali Safri and Sarfaraz are senior software engineers :) at PWC Logistics working for Pakistan Customs; Salman is at LMKR Karachi and Cassim is at Metropolitan Bank working as an IS Auditor. Surprisingly, many of us have to do with banking in one way or the other.
The most interesting part was the conversation b/w Dexter and Umar; ranging from the usability of Nokia 1100 to "Winning" by Jack Welch. We are very happy to find someone who can handle Dexter.
But within these lighter moments, I learned a lot as well from Dexter's remarks on Basel II to Imran Gaya's recommendation "The World is Flat." You guys rock.
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