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It's a dog's life in Dubai

By Prakash Subbarao

This is a true story is set in the year 1999.

In those days, I lived in Sharjah, near Rolla.

Since I had just come to Dubai and didn't have a driving license (an Indian license was unacceptable) I used public transport to move around.

They had a strange rule in those days. Inter-Emirate taxi services were restricted. One could take a taxi from Sharjah to Dubai but that taxi had to come back empty. One needed to hire an expensive Dubai taxi or take the Dubai Transport Minicab paying double (Dirhams Ten) to get back to Sharjah.

To get to Dubai I therefore walked down to Rolla Square in Sharjah and looked for a share taxi to Dubai. These share taxis were easily identifiable. The driver cruised slowly, tooting his horn. His hand was curled around the wheel but with one finger angled at 45 degrees like an erect phallus. That was the signal  that the taxi was headed to Dubai and that it was a share taxi.

These taxis charged Dirhams Five in those days and dropped one off at various points in Dubai starting from Galadari Roundabout all the way to the "bazaar", as Nasser Square was popularly known as.

This particular day I was near Galadari Roundabout and needed to get back to Sharjah. To catch a Dubai Transport minicab I would have to go several kilometers back to the Deira bus stand. A quicker (but illegal) way to catch a cab was to walk up to Al Mulla Plaza which stood at the very edge of Dubai. From here the highway to Sharjah started. This stretch was like a no-man's-land between the two Emirates. A few kilometers away lay the Al Nahda Interchange and Sharjah territory. Dubai Police patrolled this stretch fitfully and this emboldened Sharjah taxi drivers to stop at Al Mulla Plaza and quickly fill their taxi with people trying to get back to Sharjah. The fare was Dirhams Five (50% cheaper than of one took a Dubai Transport minibus).

It's quite a walk from Galadari Roundabout to Al Mulla Plaza but that day the weather was fine and I was in the mood to walk.

Taxis to Sharjah trying to pick up illegal fares normally go past Al Mulla Plaza to the very beginning of the highway. However, many an astute taxi driver had learned that it was easier to drive into the parking lot of the plaza to pick up his fares. Therefore, rather than walking all the way to the start of the highway, I decided to cut into Al Mulla Plaza and walk to its parking lot to see whether there was an itinerant taxi driver there.

As I walked into  Al Mulla Plaza, I noticed that there was a large Labrador dog standing very still, about five meters (fifteen feet) ahead. Suddenly a Filipina came walked out and immediately the dog's behavior changed.  It ran to her, and began behaving very strangely. It ran all round her, stretched out almost fully in front of her, and started prancing around her. "Look what a nice dog I am" it's body language appeared to say. "Please take me home, I have no where to go".

The Filipina was startled and fearful. She couldn't read the dog's body language and thought that it was attacking her. She fearfully looked at me for help from this prancing dog.

I snapped my fingers to attract the dog's attention. It immediately bounded across to me but instantly seemed to realize that I wouldn't be of much help to it. It looked around for the Filipina but by that time she had vanished.

Just then a Sharjah taxi came into view and I ran to it. As I got into the taxi I forgot all about the dog.

The next day a news item in The Gulf News caught my eye. "Dog shot by Police in Al Mulla Plaza" read the headline.

Apparently the dog frightened visitors to the mall and they had called the Police.

A Police car appeared soon on the spot and caught the dog. They tied it tight to a lamp post and then shot it dead.

Several school children who happened to be nearby witnessed the shooting and were traumatized. The "Letter to the editor" of Gulf News was filled with letters about this for the next several days.

No one even paused to wonder what a pedigree Labrador would be doing in Al Mulla Plaza in a Muslim country that predominantly hates dogs.

The dog was possibly reared by a well to do expatriate family, probably a Filipino one. Maybe their intentions may have been very honorable but Dubai has a way of humbling even the mightiest. Maybe they lost their job and hence their residence visa and had to go home. The dog instantly became a liability.

I can just visualize the scene that was enacted at home. The father promised to give the dog to another loving family to take care of it. The children tearfully kissed the dog goodbye. The father drove it fifteen or twenty kilometers from their house and then seeing a mall, pulled in. He opened the back door. The dog bounded out with pleasurable anticipation of an outing but the door slammed shut and the car roared away.

Man had just abandoned his best friend.

Later that day the family was possibly on a flight to Manila. They wouldn't see the next day's papers. They wouldn't know that even before they boarded their flight, their pet was dead.

It had looked as best as it could for a foster family and may have succeeded any where else on earth except the Middle East, where they hate dogs and consider them "unclean".

It got a bullet between its eyes.

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