Dubai Taxis: The UGLY, THE BAD and THE GOOD

The Ugly:
1. Empty Taxis refusing to STOP and pick up passengers.
2. Taxi Drivers not picking up passengers on a destination intent mismatch.
3. Taxi Drivers preferring females over males as passengers, especially single females.
4. Dirty Taxis with tattered seats and seat covers.
5. Rude Drivers
The Bad:
1. Rates are still high compared to the world prices given the cost of fuel and car prices.
2. Uneducated taxi drivers, not knowing roads and destinations.
3. Shortage of Taxis during peak hours and tendency to Taxi Drivers to concentrate only in the Jumeirah area.
4. The concept of multi emirates taxi where they cannot pick up passengers from a different emirate.
5. The messaging system is a luck based system rather than a good process. (Will elaborate on this later).
The Good:
1. There are individual sparks of goodness and that’s really dependent on the individual person than the process.
2. Dubai Taxis comparatively are better off than the Sharjah or Abu Dhabi ones.
3. The Bad and the Ugly are not applicable to say 50% of the vehicles running.
Will somebody explain this one to me?
I was waiting for a Taxi in Qusais. A taxi stops. When I get in the driver informs me that the starting fare should be 6 AED instead of 3 AED because he has a message flashing for a pick up. I look at the meter monitor and find that the pickup is for a passenger beckoning a cab from emirates hills a place about 35 kms from where I was.
I got irritated with this weird request from the driver and declined the ride. I fail to understand the technology and process behind. There was more to this.
Then I called up Dubai Taxi so that the call center could flash my requirement. I stood there for 20 minutes with empty taxis refusing me and then finally a decent fellow stopped. No he was not carrying my message. I ignored the whole process of calling up the Call Centre and got into this one. The one that Dubai Taxi call center was supposed to have organized---that did not materialize at all!! What happened to my call?

Ranking:

I have ranked Taxis of different cities as per the places I have visited. They are given below for you to agree or disagree!!

Kolkata, India 4/10
Delhi, India 4/10
Mumbai, india 6/10
Tokyo, Japan 9/10
Seoul Korea 8/10
Oslo, Norway 6/10
Dublin, Ireland 7/10
London, UK 7/10
Singapore 8.5/10
KualaLampur 8/10
Dubai 6/10
Paris 8/10

The RTA, Dubai better take steps to improve them rather than protecting the Taxi companies by banning car lifts!!!

Sphere: Related Content

Dog's Day Out

It happened earlier too. When Satyajit Ray made his films and certain sections of Middle and Upper Class Indians commented adversely on his depicting poverty. A percentage of people in these segments of society just cannot bear the sight of poverty and dirt and gloom. I remember somebody commenting negatively when a foreigner was clicking a photograph of a beggar in Park Street, Kolkata. He rather clicks Victoria Memorial. Maybe he has? And what stopped my friend from visiting Ethiopia and clicking some shots of the hapless victims of famine?

So when educated (sic) India comments about Slumdog Millionaire being opportunistic it’s a sad commentary of the mental state of those people. We at our cushy homes forget that the rural uneducated India is still waiting to catch up. They want to catch up in terms of prejudices, rituals, bad traditions and they want exposure. So let’s show it. The maid servant working in Arindam Chaudhuri’s house perhaps stays in a slum that the latter never visited or would dare not look at.

The morning view from a high rise building in Mumbai is terrible where you see hoards of people on a field for the morning natural needs. They don’t have a place to go. We of course take refuge in the ostrich like behavior of closing the window. So when Danny Boyle exposes the slum, suddenly people are busy denouncing him. I for one don’t want to be always fed with lies on the big screen. It’s not always a fairy tale that we are running after. So, what's wrong with a realistic fairy tale?

We are sometimes so small that a journalist asked Danny Boyle as to what did he do for the slum actors that acted in the films? His answer his immaterial for my piece, but that’s what the media is all about. But then that’s another topic. Sphere: Related Content

Bait Al Mandi, Dubai

This is in AL Rigga Street. Try out the Chicken Mandi. Its excellent. The mutton one is not all that good. The rice in the Chicken version is better too.

Mandi by the way is a sort of Pilaf that I am told originated in Yemen. It's a base of flavoured rice with nuts and spices and chunks of meat. The chicken is served whole.

Try it. You will like it. If you want the chicken a bit more spicy, then at home you coud fry up the chicken in ghee with some more red chilly or black pepper and dash of lime would do good. Sphere: Related Content

Shameless Truth

Indian companies are prone to fraud and do succumb to unethical practices at different levels. So when Narayan Murthy said that it was a shameful affair referring to the Satyam case, I was not really amused. Either NM lived in a world of his own or perhaps I am plain stupid. The latter perhaps is not so true.

By the way, and why should I pin point only Indian Companies. This is a global phenomenon. Frauds are invented and implemented by intelligent people whether company executives, owners or bankers or the small trader down the lane. What about us? We are also into it. That extra bribe to get a passport quicker, Mr. Devil is ever ready to extend his hands and we gladly embrace them.
I am not sure what dawned on Mr. Raju to confess his deeds. Was he threatened by somebody? Did God appear in his dreams? Was he in the brink of a mental breakdown? The answer to these question can be answered by none other than him and no amount of investigations would able to resolve the questions we have in mind.

Do we expect more such confessions? Who knows? Till such time we will keep exclaiming about the blunder Raju has made.

My question is - When will YOU the reader, confess about your own sins? Or perhaps resolve to be truthful and act where there is no shame attached. Sphere: Related Content

Rolls - Dubai

The pronunciation is quite the same as the much renowned car but here we are talking about food. I am talking about Kabab Rolls a small nice humble dine in cum take away joint off Al Wasl Road. Gourav from eatingoutdubai.com would direct you like this:

Heading towards Bur Dubai on Al Wasl Road cross the Safa Park Signal and you would come across the Emarat Petrol Station on your right. Take the next right (Emirates Post Office at the other side when you turn) and then again take the first right. Carry on and you would come across a small market place amongst the villas on your left. The joint is on the behind. Instead of stopping here you could also go along further on the road, the road curves left and then you take the first left and you are at the back of the market.

Try the Bihari Rolls or the other varieties. The Biryani is good, the sheekh kabas(ask them not to burn them up) are nice, the keema very good and so on and so forth. Try it. You will come back for more for sure. 7.5 out of 10!!

(A Parantha is wheat flour dough flattened (round shape) and pan fried before roasting them a bit. Place the kebabs and some onions, lime juice, small shredded green chillies on the parantha and roll up into a cylindrical shape). Sphere: Related Content

Mumbai Terror 26/11/2008 – A Week After

We now know that the US, British and the Australians are helping India, specifically Mumbai Police, to investigate the macabre event. We also know that one terrorist has been captured and he is under arrest and that he is being questioned.

Now I have been thinking as to why snippets of the investigations are being leaked to the media. Who is that person in the government that is giving away this privy information since investigations are not over as yet? I would have expected that after completion of the investigation a joint report that is signed off by the team is made public. It would have been difficult then for our friendly brothers to keep doing the chameleon act and making divergent, irresponsible and deceitful statements. But then, as someone said that after all it’s a failed state.

A lot of people think that War is a solution, but I reckon that’s not the answer. As Ms. Rice pointed out the other day, the world now has to fight this in financial and logistics terms. For doing this we need cooperation from a strong Pakistani government and therein lies the fallacy. The government there is still under ISI and army influence and it suits them from time immemorial to keep trying for an unstable India. The thinking is beyond logic but then that’s what the British did to the sub continent. They made us hate each other so much that this went to our genes and especially when you work for the government or armed forces. When you work with a any ordinary person from that country, you would find to your pleasant surprise that he thinks like you, likes the same music, eats the same type of food and you would completely feel at home.

I have been seeing these candle light meets and most places other than Mumbai or Delhi are quite chilled out and life and mind is normal and as usual. The media of course refuses to go interior, where bulk of the voters are, and find their reaction. So we see the same bunch of faces again and again on Television telling us on how to get together.

As usual, the problems are in dealing with specifics. For change you need leadership. If that leader is the same one who you are cursing now, what else could you deserve and expect? Specific plans and specific implementation targets and how would they be implemented are the questions that need to be asked. Sphere: Related Content

Sounds of Silence ; Mumbai Terror Aftermath

People have gone back to work. Trains, taxis, buses are back on the tracks and roads as per schedules. Radios and televisions have gone back to playing the normal peppy songs, serials and entertainment shows. Comedy serials are desperately tickling the viewers in order to emanate some laughter. Charges and counter charges are being hurled at each other by political parties. Some resignations here and there have taken place. Some grandiose plans have been announced by the government here and there. Debates on televisions by the same old faces continue. Symbolic fights and protests are on here and there. Investigations are on and press keeps reporting at regular intervals some snippets that some stupid source divulges to them. Page 3 people are fighting on words like resilience and strength. Poets are writing poems. Artists are possibly painting some pictures. Writers are writing and Film makers are planning. Bloggers are blogging. Offices and factories are open. The brokers in the stock market are screaming. Its normal time folks!!!

In the meantime there is silence. There is silence in the homes of the men and women of the forces and civilians who died. There is silence at the home in a small village at Uttar Pradesh where a waiter of Leopold Café used to hail from. The village is silent.

Major Unnikrishnan’s house was silent other than some partial disturbance by some politicians, Sabina Saikias children are not asking any questions that her husband Santanu has to answer.
Hemant Karkare’s house is silent.
The police constables who died on duty, their homes are silent.
So many foreigners who died, their homes overseas are silent.
I can hear this silence and its bursting my ear with its deafening noise. Sphere: Related Content