Disable Overlay Advertisement on IBNLive.com

IBNLive.com is a great news website for India. Just one problem - they have this irritating overlay advertisement every time you visit the homepage. Besides, while you check the individual stories, and go back to the homepage, the advertisement comes up again. It's irritating because you should either wait a few seconds before the advertisement auto-closes, or click the close button (which changes position every once in a while).

I wrote a greasemonkey script that disables this advertisement once and for all on the IBNLive.com homepage. It's located here.

If your firefox does not have the greasemonkey ad-on, install that first. If you don't use firefox, see why you should. If you don't know what firefox is, you should go out more often.

Room available in Kendriya Vihar, Gachibowli

One of my roommates discovered that he had spent a long time of his life in Gachibowli, so he decided to shift to Kondapur. Kondapur's not too far away, but I sure need a replacement for him in my aptt now.

Our aptt is a 3 BHK in Kendriya Vihar Phase II, Gachibowli. The place is great. It's clean, no-noise, water 24 hrs, electricity almost 24 hrs, gated community, safe, secure. The place is a 4-min bike-ride from Microsoft, Infosys campus and a 10-min bike-ride from Hi-tech City. A lot of guys and gals from Microsoft and Infosys stay in this aptt.

The room has 2 windows and wooden cupboards. We have a BSNL 256 kbps broadband internet available over wifi. Also, a fridge, well-equipped kitchen and washing machine are at disposal. All this for a room at Rs 3950 p.m. (including maintenance charges).

If you are interested, or you know someone who is interested, leave a note here, or mail me at: nirnimesh-(at)-gmail.com

Google Reader & What I Should be Reading

"Web as a Social platform" You've all heard it, might have even seen it in action.

I realized the power of a social web when I was thinking about my blog reading habits. There was a time when I'd painfully populate my Google Reader's subscriptions. Depending on how ambitious or slacking I was, it'd either drown my reading-list with hundreds of blog posts, a bit too many to handle, or drought it with scanty ones so I'd have to look out for news websites in askance for more. I could never figure out the right set of feeds to subscribe to - the same feed that'd report something as interesting as an iphone launch would sometimes also report something as worthless as Amitabh Bachhan being down with flu. How did this problem get solved? Enter the social web.

What I did was simple. Discounting the bare minimal set of blog feeds that I did have to subscribe myself to keep my Krebs cycle working (say, Slashdot), I left all the others for the people in my friends list to read and share. I began with reading stuff that ALL my friends would share and then cut it down to hide the ones that felt like abusing the 'share' feature. Now I'm down to a much smaller list of friends whose shared blogs I read. The most awesome part now is that what I read has already been screened once by someone whose judgement I tend to agree with. The end result: I'm pretty happy with my reading list these days. I realize that I hardly ever miss something I'd really want to read about and at the same time, I don't get swamped with excess of them either.

It's intimidating how easily a seemingly tough problem of "figuring out what I want to read" could be made more tractable by a social web, even though I myself did not have a clear judgement of what I really wanted.

BSNL Broadband

I recently got a brand new BSNL broadband connection. And it's amazing.

After the initial hiccups of waiting for a about a month to get the phone setup and the router/modem delivered to me, everything else was a charm. I was given a type IV wifi modem. It's a UTStarcom WA3002G4 modem with 4 ethernet ports.

Now, I was terribly pissed off with my previous connection - one from Sify. First, it wouldn't work on my Mac without having to login from a windows machine (Sify has a mac login client but it doesn't work). I had to wait for hours for my windows-loaded roommate to return home so before I could get online. Second, one would need to login using the login client at least once every day, which means that you couldn't leave the internet unattended hoping it to keep downloading stuff. Third, the speed was awful. Fourth, I was charged Rs 1222 per month for the unlimited connection. Fifth, the Sify guys have blocked icmp, so I couldn't ping the outside world.

With my BSNL Dataone connection, I have all the above problems solved, and everything comes for a chick Rs 750 only. It has been only 2 days and so a little premature to comment on reliability and speed, but I have been able to view youtube videos with minimal buffering wait.

Now coming to the modem. The UTStarcom WA3002G4 modem is a beauty. I had a DLink wifi modem earlier, which amongst other problems, didn't allow connection to my company's VPN and had a crappy web interface which was dumb as a door knob. The BSNL modem provides a tidy http interface & slick telnet interface as well. My account information is entered into the modem itself so I need not have a login client on the end system, and so it works on all OS-es all the time. The modem allows me to backup configurations to my machine, and it saved my day a few minutes ago. I love it.

Every thing's worked like a charm so far. Touch wood!

Nobel Prizes, Innovation and India

I came across this article about "What will it take for a Indian Resident to Win a Nobel Prize" (see pdf or converted html), written by CSIR boss, R A Mashelkar, with whom I had the pleasure of shaking hands once during IIIT's R & D Showcase. Little did I know Mr Mashelkar then.

The article talks about how the Indian society acts, in the name of conservation, to not only discourage original out-of-the-box ideas, but in some sense to even penalize them. In the history of science, a mere 7 Nobel prizes have gone to people of Indian origin, which is a shameful number. The Indian Society is so resistant to change that even original and novice ideas get lost very soon. At CSIR, Mashelkar did not have the difficulty of finding funds, but that of finding original fundable ideas. Even today, there's no lack of employment but the lack of employable people.

Nobel prize requires not only original ideas and path breaking work, but also hard work and luck. Considering the amount of investment India makes in research, it's hardly any surprise that all thinkers flee to USA or Germany. Not coincidentally, these are the two countries which have the highest number of Nobel prize winners.

India's answer to this appears to be -- well, we don't get enough Nobel prizes, we deserve more, let's reserve a certain number of them for Indians. That's what has been done with professional education lately. That's what is being done for jobs. At this pace, it's rather stupid to bear the brunt of being an Indian and sing patriotic songs. Fleeing to other countries not only makes sense, it also becomes necessary for survival -- I'm talking about the kind of people who need to think free to survive.

Google.com Turned the Lights Out

Found this out from a friend's blog and couldn't help shamelessly copying. The folks at Google turned the lights out for an hour. Read the original post here.


Oh, and if you are quick, you can find the it live at: www.google.ca

Check mChek

Today, while trying to foot my airtel bill, I came across mChek, a mobile payment solution. It works like a charm.

It allows you to make payments from your cellphone without giving out your credit-card information or following painful websites. I just had to register once and choose an mchek pin, using which I was able to view my latest airtel bill and make payment, all in a matter of about 3 minutes.

You get all the good things that online payment services like PayPal & Google Checkout already offer:

• consolidated summary of your expenditure in your bank-statement
  
• never have to divulge your credit-card details to third-party

..except that you can do all this from your phone, the only electronic device you carry anytime, anywhere.

mChek will be expanding to cover bank's payment gateways soon.

mChek has shown the way - the cashless society is here and has gone mobile.

State of the TV

Deprived of good internet, I spent a lot of time in front of the idiot box (television) in the last few days. I have a few observations on the state of television in India.

1. All news channels have crime as the general theme. They now dig for crime. A TV channel showed the full footage of a man mowed down by a train, and the channel was blaming the train-driver for not stopping! I mean, come on.
   
2. The channels on God and religion have the unique distinction of having people blabber words with absolutely no sense. And that lack of sense is supposed to give a feeling of how limited man's abilities are. (Swami Ramdev's programmes are a small exception)
   
3. The only channels worth watching (movie channels excluded): Nat Geo, Discovery, Cartoon Network, Pogo, CNBC
   
4. The house-wife channels (Ekta Kapoor types) have reached an unbelievable level of depravity. The fundamental ask is: Use No Head. It's funny to see how they imagine about the kind of things a household can fight for. And what's with the 3-way face-flashing after each and every dialogue?
5. All DD channels was, is and will be legally and socially and politically safe. They believe in: No action, no mistakes.

All views are personal and should not be misconstrued as detrimental to anyone living, dead, waiting or zombied.

Tata Indicom Wireless Internet on Mac OS X Leopard

I am visiting my hometown in Patna, a part of the country where good and reliable internet is still a luxury. I had purchased a Tata Indicom wireless USB modem (Huawei EC325) for internet on-the-move. It works like it's supposed to, except that I couldn't get it to work on my MacBookPro running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Though the folks at Tata Indicom customer service refused to support Mac OS, their website now does have the drivers for Mac and usage instructions. However, that didn't work as-is for me either.

With minor tweaks, however, I did get it to work and now I'm using the same internet to blog.

1. Download the driver and README at Tata Indicom's website.
2. Install the driver corresponding to your machine (ppc or intel). Do not follow the README. Those instructions did not work for me.
3. Open System Preferences > Network and you should be able to see an entry for "Huawei Mobile". Configure the device with #777 as the telephone number and "internet" as the username & password.



4. Click "Advanced..."
5. Select "au by KDDI" as the vendor and "cdmaOne Bluetooth" as the Model. This chooses the modem script to run. The defaults did not work for me.



6. Click OK and then connect as usual


The internet is not blazing fast, but is good enough for checking mails, that is, good enough to let me breathe everyday.

Blood Donation

I donated blood today for the first time. They say that blood donation is good for health, as it improves circulation of new blood. And the body is able to make up for the loss in a mere 48 hours anyway.

More than anything else I'm happy for the fact that I'm not underweight anymore. I remember having considered blood donation earlier but could not because I wasn't healthy enough. My weight at 68 now makes me perfectly healthy for my height.

Yay!

Shop Review: Shapes Opticals

Shapes Opticals is located in the heart of the nearest market from Hitech City, near Pizza Hut in Madhapur. I went to Shapes Opticals to get my specs' frame mended after I managed to break it on my flight back to Hyderabad from Singapore. What happened thereafter is an exclamation.

The guy refused to mend it; he suggested buying a new frame instead. I wanted my specs fixed as soon as possible, so I gave in and signed up for a new specs. I was promised that it would be done in a day. Now, I wasn't truly confident, as it has happened on a previous occasion that the shop had defaulted on the promised time, so I insisted that he better make sure that it's ready by time. He said that it would be.

When I went to the shop the next day, I was surprised to see that it was actually ready. Just that it wasn't the frame I wanted. The frame I wanted was black. This was red. When I complained, the guy in the counter (the same one who took the order) started tweaking it -- he started pulling out things from another black frame and plugging into mine. I didn't object. And there in front of my eyes, he broke the frame. He asked me to come back later. And he wasn't even ashamed. To make it worse, when I got angry, the other guy across the counter asked me to take cancel the order.

I returned back after a day and this time my frame was brown. And it didn't even rest well on my nose. I had given up hope to get my point across. Brown wasn't unbearable, and I could do some adjusting myself, so I just took it. After all, it was my fault to choose Shapes Opticals despite apriori bad experience.

Points to note: Shapes Opticals has exorbitantly high prices -- frames and glasses alike. The guys across the counter are dumb to say the least. They don't have any kind of expert knowledge about specs. They are rude. They'll almost certainly default on the order.

All things said and done, I understand that he has the right to sell crap if people are ready to buy, and I have the right to refuse to buy from him if I don't like it. So, here I am, exercising my freedom to make others aware that if you want reliable service on your specs, do not choose Shapes Opticals. You'll almost certainly be dissatisfied.

Disneyland and Wow!

One of the things I can most prominently remember about my childhood is Disney cartoons. There was a stage when Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Goofy meant more in life than probably computers mean today.

I visited Disneyland at Anaheim near Los Angeles. Many thanks to Google for the company trip.
I managed to catch 2 rides with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

Disneyland is a childhood dream come true. One less thing left to do in life.

I'll stop now and let you look at the pictures or the slideshow below.

Unconditional Love

They say that when you want someone no matter what, without any expectations for returns, then it's love.
Love is blind, they say.
Love knows no reason, they say.
Love is unselfish, they say.
Love is about giving, they say.
Love is unconditional, they say.

All wrong. And most Bollywood movies are a testament to the above errors.

I'm afraid to say after spending (a little less than) 25 years on this planet that I disagree with the above tenets. Love is exactly the opposite.

Love is an expression with the tightest equations, where ever give is balanced by an equal and opposite take. You love someone for his/her qualities, not for the lack of them, which is why perhaps I'll never love a beggar. You love someone for his/her achievements, not for their failures, however unfortunate the circumstances leading to the failure be.

Love is selfish. If it's not selfish, it's not love. It's charity. You love someone not for the other person, but for yourself. You try to make the other person happy because it makes you happy in turn.

Ayn Rand said:

Love is an expression of self-esteem, of the deepest values in a man's or a woman's character. One falls in love with the person who shares these values. If a man has no clearly defined values, and no moral character, he is not able to appreciate another person. In this respect, I would like to quote from The Fountainhead, in which the hero utters a line that has often been quoted by readers: "To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'

Love is not about perishing for someone else but about rising higher together.
Love is not a weakness but a strength.
Love is not a bondage but an encouragement.
Love is not unconditional.

Happy Republic Day

Not that the Republic Day bears a great significance to India as it exists today, this day has been celebrated for 58 years now. Called as the red letter day, this was the day 58 years ago when the Constitution of India came into effect and India was declared a Republic (that's straight from my 7th grade history text book).

As a child, I actually used to enjoy this day primarily because it was a holiday but also because of the colorful jhanki (processions) that different stats would march near the Red Fort, and the President onlooked them. It was fun to watch all that on TV. Then the president would give away awards to the highest achievers in the country.

Alas, the grandeur is lost. It's just another day for me now. Even though a president doesn't really "command" anything, his personality and achievements in the past used to at least make it look honorable. But with the current president, Pratibha ...something.. , I hardly see the point. Failure magnified and under-achievement celebrated. Imagine a Bharat Ratna given off from her hands!

It's time we stop doing things to carry on a tradition. Just because it has been done that way for years does not mean it's not outrageously stupid!

A Day in the Life of a Prime Minister

Here's how I imagine a day in the life of Oxford alumni, India's Prime Minister, probably is:

4:30 AM
PM wakes up. Goes to the dairy. Fetches milk and delivers to the residence of Prakash Karat, Sonia Gandhi (and family, one by one). Returns back to PM's residence and begins morning prayers, "Oh God! May my government not fall today. May mighty Prakash and almighty Sonia shower their blessings on me today too. Amen!" In the background, photos of Prakash Karat and Sonia Gandhi, with incense sticks fuming him to oblivion. He has reached a trance.

7:00 AM
PM gives wake-up call and bids good morning to Sonia Gandhi (and family, one by one). Sonia Gandhi faxes back the list of places the PM has to visit and the papers he needs to sign the day today. PM then rings up the residence of all Left party leaders and asks, "It's 7:15 AM. I've been holding it since 4:30. Can I go to the toilet now?" Dare he not go against the common minimum program. Dare he not do anything more than the bare minimum. "Who am I to decide?" he muses.

9:00 AM
PM reaches office. On the wall are neatly arranged pictures of Sonia Gandhi and the entire progeny. Alongside is a check-list of the UPA coalition's common minimum program (CMP). It's a coalition government after all. The word "minimum" is the highlight. Time and again has the PM been reminded by his coalition partners that their aim is to do the minimum and no better.

The PM takes his seat and rings up the caterer who services breakfast to Prakash Karat. "Has it been delivered yet? What! What the hell are you up to? I will fire you." And yes, he can. When it comes to care-taking the appetite of his Left allies, he has supreme jurisdiction.

10:00 AM
PM chit-chats with Finance Minister.
PM: What's up with the sensex, dude? You told me it won't rise. 18k to 19K in 4 days. Are you kidding me?
FM: I don't know. I tried. I have the RBI and SEBI try every trick in the book, but the bulls have been raging the market. Evidently, they see India as an excellent growth corridor.
PM: I don't care about what you do. I just want it down. You have no idea how mad Prakash sir is going to be with me today. He had personally asked me to ensure that no progressive attitude be tolerated. How will the millions of sulking sobs survive if India's economy ramps up? We cater to the "common" only -- that's the plan. Anyone who has enough to eat two meals a day is not common. We don't care for them. The beggars are my friends.
FM: I do realize how deep the pole goes inside you. Believe me, I'm at my wit's end. All industry majors have been doing wonders with the economy. Lately, Mukesh Ambani rallied up to become one of the richest in the world. It's shameful I know. We have millions below the poverty line. How dare he make so much! I suggest that we seize all his money and bring him down to rags. Then and only then will he realize that the poor are his brothers.

11:00 AM
A train of cars screech towards PM office. All cabinet ministers come rushing towards a conference hall in PM's office. PM wonders what the meeting is for. "It only befits that they don't inform me when the guys are meeting. I mean, who am I to know?" All of them assemble inside the conference room. PM follows. Only the doorman gets up to greet the PM. And why not? He was appointed there through the national employment guarantee scheme. He did not deserve the job. What's great with giving the job to a deserving candidate anyway? It's divine only if the candidate couldn't dream of the job. Then it's mercy. Then it's charity. Then it's virtuous. No wonder the doorman is cheerful. Homo sapiens have no tail, or else one could see it wag.

The meeting has already started. PM quietly pulls a chair and seats himself beside Sonia. Prakash Karat is already furious and he would dare not aggravate the situation.
Karat: What's up with the Nuclear deal? What will we do with all the energy? Poor people don't have light bulbs or cars. We don't want the deal.
Montek Singh (from Planning Commission): Sir, our energy requirements scale exorbitantly with industrialization. We cannot afford to buy oil for long. The Nuclear deal is important.
Karat: You just don't get it, do you? We cannot purport the idea of being friendly with America. They are the bad guys. They waste money on education and science. Americans consume so much while so many in the world die of hunger.
PM: But, sir, with progress....
Karat: Shut up. Just shut up. Not a word from you.
PM: Sorry, sir.
Sonia: But Prakash, we must do something about the scaling power requirements. Where will India get its power from?
Karat: The nuclear deal will happen over my dead body. Cut the problem at it's source. Why do we need so much power anyway? Banish all industries. They are only corporate money minting machines. Dismantle all schools. Life was so much better in the stone age. Oh the stone age..
(face blushes with evident orgasm)
Sonia: Ok. As you say, Prakash. The N-deal is done for. I assure you it will be blocked indefinitely. We'll teach Bush a lesson. Manmohan, tell Bush to go to hell.
PM: Yes, Ma'm.
PM looks excessively worried, perspiration running down his chin.
Sonia: What is it now? Why are you sweating?
PM: Ma'm. Just this one thing. Not a big deal. If I call off the N-deal, the people are going to tell me to go and die. They are going to ask me to resign. They'll hate me. Why do I have to face the brunt? Oh, God, why!
Sonia: You mean they don't hate you already? Look.. spare us the thinking. You just giggle and nod along. Think of America. If the mightiest nation can have a retard for a president, there's absolutely no reason why you can't head India.
PM: (almost squeaking) Ma'm! I went to Oxford!
The room bursts into laughter. Everyone leaves the room and heads for lunch.

12:00 PM
Lunch time. All cabinet ministers are seated around a round table. Manmohan is the real boss now. He is busy giving directions to the caterers as they scurry around hurriedly. Who says he doesn't have a control over his ministers? Who says he doesn't run things? He's feeding them currently, isn't he? He has the sole responsibility of their nutrition. Don't say he doesn't have powers.

One of the catering boys, an OBC, aspires to enroll into the B.Tech programme from a reputed Indian university next year. His eyes are lustfully fixated towards Arjun Singh, his hero limping along to fill his plate. He rushes towards him and performs the needful and jestfully mentions "I'm an OBC" at an opportune moment. And why not! No one else stood for a cause as noble as marking deep the social caste divide and plant into an unprecedented territory as higher education. OBCs have suffered for ages. It's time to reverse the winds now. Arjun Singh looks back in his eyes with an equal lewd. Sparks! Cupid strikes. Arjun drops his plate and drags the boy to an adjacent room. Door bangs shut.

1:00 PM
PM is sitting on the floor of his office, trying to mend the broken wheels of his revolving office chair. It broke the other day when Rahul Gandhi took his mother's words too seriously when she said "My son will take the chair soon". How alarmed the PM was that day while he wrestled with Rahul pulling onto the chair from either side. "Naughty children!" muses the PM merrily.

2:00 PM
PM heads towards a suburb in western Delhi. He is supposed to inaugurate a newly built road near Indira Nagar. The road is christened M G Road, named after the "father" of the nation. PM is oblivious to the fact that the new road leads up to another road of the same name at the next turn.

5:00 PM
PM heads back to office. Meets a few people, mostly representatives of charity organizations, anti-industrialization gangs, anti-rich campaigners. He has had a tiring day. Being the head of a 1bn strong democracy is no mean job. He prides himself and gives himself a pat on his back. Another day passed. He was able to push all "contentious" decisions for another day. 'Why should I have bother about these? Ma'm is there. Who am I to think?"

Sin City

I visited Sin City, Las Vegas, last weekend. The last words of the pilot while greeting our arrival at the Mc Carren Intl airport were: "Take a final look at your money" as the people cheered.

Las Vegas presents tens of thousands of ways to lose money. The main street, Las Vegas Blvd, is aptly named "The Strip" -- so easily can the road strip you off your money and clothes alike. The four elements of joy considered taboo in a "decent" society -- drinking, smoking, gambling and flesh are abundant as air. It's a festival every day. Blazing lights, music, (free) shows, crowd -- the sin city has it all.

Several casinos host periodic free shows. Famous casinos include: Bellagio, Caesars Palace, The Mirage, Treasure Island, Newyork Newyork, Paris, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, MGM. Bellagio hosts a dancing fountain show which is spectacular. The Mirage has a volcano-on-water show. Treasure Island featured a 20-min long carribben pirate show with real boats moving and canons blowing, while girls danced (of course).

Caesars Palace is my favorite and it's absolutely out-of-the-world. Rich Caesar-theme abounds from the walls to the ceilings, which have royal statues and artwork. Expensive shops are located in a setting with sky-ceiling and lighting that makes u feel you are in the open. Lavishness is the word. Money flows. And you can see it. All casinos are always filled with people who are ever ready to gamble even though they know they're most likely to lose all money -- people earn hard and spend thriftily in Vegas.

Insane is it? Well, is the "real" world sane? At least the Sin City is truthful. Clothes are a redundancy anyway.

Oh, and there's a quote:

What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas.

India's I-day at the Googleplex

A social ceremony was held at Charlie's Cafe in the Googleplex to celebrate India's 60th Independence day. Friends and family were invited and it looked like they had a good time away from home.

Crookedest Street

My favorite place in San Francisco is Lombard Street. Touted as the crookedest street in the world, a patch in Lombard street takes 8 sharp turns on a downward slope of 40 degrees. The street has beautiful flowers on either side and it's fun driving with a speed limit of 5 mph.

17 Mile Drive + Big Sur

I went on 17 mile drive and to Big Sur last Saturday. The place is a one-and-half hour drive from Moutain View. Both of them are scenic drives along the Pacific ocean, with beautiful cliffs, rocks, beaches, vegetation and such. Awesome weekend getaways and a sight for sore eyes.

Of particular interest is the way such scenic spots are publicized and streamlined for visitors. All along the way you'd find directions, illustrations and teasers about what to expect. It gets a lot easier for visitors and earns natural income to the county managing it.

Two Days at Dubai / Sharjah

I spent two days last weekend at Dubai and Sharjah. I was en route to San Francisco and had taken a stopover at Dubai. Luckily, a colleague's relatives stay in Dubai, so I didn't have to worry about accommodation and food.

The most apt word for Dubai is "lavish". Not only do the Sheikhs have an enormous amount of money, they don't hesitate to show it off. Beautiful mosques with golden domes, neat roads with posh latest cars and heavy concrete density abounds this oil-rich mafia-ridden port city. In case you didn't know, you don't have to pay any income tax in Dubai. Yep, you heard it, no tax at all. Yet the ruler (a filthy-rich Sheikh) provides all civic amenities at his own cost. Of course he runs the biggest corporation himself (heard of emaar group? they own hyderabad's hitex, if you will) and this promotes Dubai as a business hub. Another big one -- if you are a citizen, you can legally keep 5 wives. Of course you'll have to be super-rich to afford and maintain 5 wives (and that still leaves out 2 days of the week), but just think about it.

Burj-al-arab, a seven-star hotel meant only for the super rich, is a tourist attraction. This is the hotel where David Beckham lives when he comes to Dubai and where Agassi and Federer played tennis on the heli-pad. This is the same hotel, by the way, where Rakhi Sawant stayed when she went to do it in Dubai. The tallest tower in the world, Burj Tower, is still under construction and its expected final height is yet unknown -- they want it to be the tallest for a long time. I also passed by Hyatt Regency, the hotel where Dawood Ibrahim's daughter got married and the cops from the world over kept vigil but couldn't track him down even though he's known to have come at the occasion. They don't even know for sure how he looks!

United Arab Emirates comprises of 7 emirates, of which Dubai and Sharjah are two. Apart from the oil business which accounts for most of the wealth, construction is a major industry. Dubai has the highest concentration of cranes world-wide, which was quite evident by the sight that almost all the buildings had cranes stemming out. Speed of construction is mind-boggling. Soil is almost as costly as gold. People gift soil and plants to each other during festivals.

The Arabs are very proud people. They do not resign their culture at any cost. They are highly motivated as well. Who can think of skiing in such a desert? Yep, they have a skiing center, artificially created. It's an entirely different world out there.