New Year Bash in Dubai

It took me five shirts, ten pants and quite a few hairstyles to be satisfied with how I looked that night. The sigh of chilling breeze at 10 pm unnerved us when we friends left for our New Year party at a hall close to the World Trade Center in Dubai. That night all roads led to Dubai, an oasis of forward and broad minded atmosphere in the desert of conservative Gulf countries. Murphy’s Law was working at its best then; the normally ubiquitous Dubai taxi was suddenly the rarest thing on earth. We had to go far and there was no vacant taxi in sight. After a long anxious wait and some forced but sincere prayers, we found two unoccupied taxis and latched onto them as a hungry predator would on its prey.

We reached the discotheque soon thereafter but not before 11 pm. The make-shift hall was turned into a disco for the musical extravaganza on the New Year eve. Some of the biggest DJs of India namely Aqeel, Suketu, Nasha and others were invited to enthrall the crowd and usher in the year 2006. Our pulse went up as we reached closer to the entrance of the hall and heard the faint foot tapping remix music through the well guarded walls of the hall. The crowd gathered outside the entrance could compete with the best in the fashion world. My heart skipped a few beats as I saw quite a few exquisitely beautiful girls dressed to kill. One of the best dressed girls we saw outside was a fair girl in complete black. She wore a seductively low-waist skirt, a backless top that was tantalizingly low even from the front – all to our ‘lusty’ delight. This only got better as we went inside the main entrance.

We had started dancing even before we entered the hall. We just couldn’t stop the dance bug from taking over. Hard and soft drinks flowed in the air. People were guzzling them while dancing with their partners and making the most of the moment. The disco lights, the laser beams and the sound system worked in tandem to mesmerize us. In between our dancing, we went around to survey the crowd (read gals). And what we saw simply left us dazed. Gurrrlzz were dressed in their glamourous best. I’d never seen so many scantily clad ladies under one roof, grooving to the dance beats. Girls and guys here have an amazing dressing sense and they carry it all off quite well. Guys shined in ‘Eminem’isque trousers and T-shirts combinations and dance steps that matched their sartorial skills. Girls wearing Capri pants, camisoles, tank tops and minis with competitive hemlines were gyrating sensuously to the beat of the music. One girl in particular had forced everyone dancing around her to stop and simply watch her in awe. She started dancing very slowly and yet suggestively. And by the time she hit the peak, she had a lot of us gasping for breath. She danced like a professional stripper gyrating on the pole. She left us as awestruck and wanting for more as a stripper would. And she did that without taking off a single piece of clothing from her curvaceous body. Anyway, there weren’t many of those to be removed.

I took a break from dancing to catch my breath and observe the whole crowd from a distance in the intermittent darkness. As it often happens with me, I started thinking about the whole event that was unfolding in front of my eyes and a thought crossed my mind. I was observing the big screen showing DJ Suketu totally engrossed in music, changing his CDs and enthralling the crowd, the crowd that was lapping it all up. The crowd was his slave that night. I started wondering what it takes to reach a stage where people would be ready to pay even a penny to come and watch what you do. The DJs of the night had reached a stage that probably none other in the crowd did. And that is why, we were the crowd and they ruled the crowd. Think about any famous personality in the world of sports, music or movies and you’ll realize that the ones we pay for have really paid with their lives to reach there. Success and fame doesn’t come easy. You’ve to pay with your life through single minded devotion before you command a crowd that pays to see you perform; a wonderful thought to begin the New Year with and to follow if one wants to rise above the crowd.

The New Year had arrived long before and we were still dancing. Exhaustion was setting in and we could see more people on the sidelines now grooving slowly with their dancing partners. They hugged and danced in loving embrace, mumbling sweet nothings in each other’s ears, cuddling and kissing in the winking lights, looking into the partner’s eyes with kinky and lovelorn smile on their faces. Call it the effect of drinking binge or whatever, the temperatures were rising as the couples slowly forgot they were in public. Mild and short kisses turned into prolonged ones and progressed to deep smooching. These loving couples turned to love-making couples and promoted us from mere observers to voyeurs.

Our New Year party began with excitement, only to end up with s-excitement. We all came out satisfied and yet exasperated; for we got more than what we had bargained for and yet we were disgusted at being single.

This article is a tribute to the indefatigable spirit of ‘stag’hood. For had we not been there as stags, we would never have surveyed the crowd to find the best of the lot. And being a stag is like being in an eternal state of hope; hope that we will someday have someone for us. And we, the stags, keep trying – irrespective of umpteen setbacks – to reach to the hearts of that special lady who we envisage dancing with us. It is this hope that keeps us afloat; the hope that we will someday cross over to set our feet on the grass that is on the other side of the fence.

Three cheers to the spirit of the stags wherein you’re for all and all are for you. How close you’re to divinity when you’re for all than when you’re for only one and that only one is for you! ;-)