It's not often that I concede a victory to Dubai, but New Year's Eve was one of those times. As much as I may gripe about its issues, the place does know how to put on a show. And if lighting the world's tallest building on fire, in a magnificent display of light on glass, wasn't fancy, I'm not sure what is.
But it was sheer madness on the ground.
New Year's is usually a quiet affair for the Mazumdars. Whether we're out of town on a one-night retreat or not, mom is usually asleep when midnight rolls around, and the rest of us are in the process of watching a Harry Potter re-run. With the few necessary calls and messages performed, an early night in is all that is called for.
This year, Dubai invited its entire population (by means of its lovely, efficient, highly motivated telecommunications providers Etisalat and du) to a special New Year's Eve celebration at the foot of its crown jewel, the Burj Khalifa. We decided it would be a good idea, since spending over $150 to go to some DJ'ed New Year's Bash didn't really sound like fun. With that, we set out to Dubai Mall.
For my non-Dubaiian (Dubaiite? Dubinese?) friends: The Burj stands at one corner of an area known as Business Bay. Adjacent to it is the Dubai Mall - which, given that this is a city of malls, must be pretty damn special to get its name - a very large institution, with numerous entrances out onto the Bay.
Clearly, with the entire city invited, it would get crowded.
After struggling through traffic for a good 45 minutes, we make little headway, and resign ourselves to parking close to a kilometre away from the mall. Eventually, we get into it, and are greeted by the most massive crowd that could have ever been amassed at the place. Our plans to have dinner at the mall essentially vapourized within seconds of walking in, as many of the restaurants we approached actually admitted to running out of food. The multiple exits out on to the Fountain were more reminiscent of a Mumbai local train at rush hour, than entryways to the centre of Dubai. We actually didn't make it out onto the large Fountain-front, so we made our way out of the mall, and followed it around to a corner which was a convenient point to look at the Burj from. After about 40 minutes in the (relative) cold, the firework began. And it was quite worth it, seeing a structure like the Khalifa light up like that.
A short walk back to the car, and home we were by 12:30 p.m. With a post-midnight dinner of macaroni and cheese, the Mazumdars retired for the first time in 2011.
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