A convenience store on every street corner, open 24×7, I must be in Shanghai. Skyline full of spiky buildings afar, that’s Hong Kong? Skyscraper jutting from behind the shadows of small buildings, I must surely be in New York! A flood of people pouring across the wide crossings, am I in Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo? All of that and more was my first impression of Dubai.

This city feels like a work in progress; everything is in a state of being built. It evoked the feeling of moving ahead, orthogonal to my expectation of annoyance. Reflecting, I suspect the place I call home now has turned its back on progress and towards stagnation – it is in that light that I see this contrast.

Still, there is no permanence here. Everyone is a visitor. There are homes being built, yet it feels there is no home to be built here. It’s entirely unsaid and in the air that there is no identity for you here.

Dubai is a duality – rich and the ordinary; tall builds and large roads; hot weather and even more hot weather.

Pockets of enclaves, strewn around places amidst tall structures

The beach is one place, where you could see those otherwise invisible, come to unwind. I felt the most normal here – it goes without saying, it was for a very different definition of it

Mega structures towering over beaches, under construction, glowing in the haze – seemed alive yet dormant as if hibernating in a dystopian future.

There was an air of quietness, in an otherwise busy and bustling world.