A wonderful column. A few months back I was in Dubai for a day and roamed around Burj Khalifa. The dancing fountains are the similar as in front of Bellagio in Las Vegas. With masses getting bankrupt in Dubai’s construction and housing industry, it has thrived into a great entertaining cosmopolitan city. My host told me that mostly it is controlled by under world and most of the underworld people of Russia, India and even Pakistan have invested a lot there. One of my brothers used to call them Memons of Arabs. At least they were able to build up this desert and could be proud of it, including us. These Gulf states have changed our economy. I mean Pakistani economy a lot. It has surpassed Hong Kong and Singapore in some ways.
Bollywood is almost ruled by Muslim actors and the new writers. Earlier there were some female actresses too but not now. Once heard Yusuf Islahi giving the same kind of statistics, he even boasted about Dawood Ibrahim. This is in fact a very optimist picture of the south India. As I learned that in north Muslims are mostly living in slums, shantytowns and run down conditions as showed in the Oscar-winning movie Slum dog Millionaire.
I wish to visit India and watch it through my own eyes. At least it is considered safer than Pakistan. — Abida Rahmani, By e-mail
Dreams of the dispossessed (2)
