Roaming Late at Night

Living an independent life especially in a place like Dubai is what made me, first of all, a night crawler. This place has turned me into a nocturnal being. Well it was on Friday early morning (i.e. 2am) that I learnt that meeting strangers at night is in fact a dangerous thing. Well let me share my weird experience with those who read this blog. This is a pretty interesting story and here it is:

Well after spending the evening (Thursday 02/11/06) at golden hall and round table pizza (as it was my best friend's birthday), I was happily driving around the midnight Karama mess when a good friend of mine called me up & asked whether he could be dropped off at Satwa. Accepting his request, I picked him up from a cafeteria called Jabal Arafah (which is my group's hang out joint which we believe is our "so called bar") and drove of to Satwa. On the way, I and my good friend were discussing about "teenage love". After a long talk/debate I finally reached the destination where he had to be dropped and then I took off to Karama enjoying the nice soothing music that was being played on the radio. The whole evening had been great fun.

I finally reached Karama, parked my car behind my building. Now as I'm a new driver I was checking whether my car had been parked properly or whether it required some more twisting and turning. As I was checking my car, a local approached me & told something in Hindi. Since I didn't comprehend what he said (as i don't know Hindi), I politely asked him to repeat whatever it was in English. He gave me a silly grin and told me why I was checking the car. I casually told him that I was a new driver and was checking whether I had parked correctly. He then gave me a wicked stare (god knows why) and asked me whether it was my car. I confidently replied with a YES and he told me to show my driver's license. Looking at an ID card clipped to his Kandura, I had a feeling that he might be a CID doing his duty. As I had nothing to fear about I showed him my license and he nonchalantly took it and put it in his pocket. This made me furious. I asked him straight away to give back my license which made him give me a wicked look once again. He told me to meet the police in the morning in order to get back my license. Not understanding what the hell was going on I told him that I hadn't broken any damn rule or committed any other mistake that my license should be taken.

I was then getting nervous (which I assume that he hadn't noticed) and started asking for help. Another man who was present at the scene feared to help as it had a local involved. As I began to ask around for help I (to my surprise) saw a cop car (Nissan Pathfinder) approaching towards my direction. Feeling relieved I waved my hand. Noticing my signal the cop car drove quickly and stopped next to me and I immediately told him what happened. He asked me to point out who the local was & I showed him the person (local) who walking happily around. He immediately called for that person and began to talk to him in Arabic which to my vague understanding was a "command". During the course of their talk, the local surrendered my license to the cop. The cop who was such a good man gave back my license and told me to remove my car and park it elsewhere (which I assume was because the cop would have thought that the local person might show some grudge and cause damage to the car). I thanked the cop and drove off to Zabeel Park where I parked the car.

After parking, I crossed the road and the person who feared to help earlier came to me and told that the local was indeed high (not sure on what as I hadn't smelled alcohol). He then told me not to show and give my "Pathaka" (license) to anybody, only and until he proves himself to be a CID/Police. I just nodded my head and walked to my house.

This was indeed shocking to my friends as none had ever had such a weird encounter. I posted this here to tell people to be careful especially with strangers (at night).