Nov 5th, 2024

 ADIPEC, that mother of all Oil and Gas exhibitions, happens to be this week. This is now the flagship congregation of the oil and gas industry on the planet. It used to be OTC- which is a similar exhibition that happens in Houston every year. However, it is true to say that Abu Dhabi has taken over from Houston. And why would it not. Abu Dhabi is now the richest city in the world in terms of how much wealth it manages, across the three sovereign funds- namely IHC, Mubadala and ADQ- which in total amount to 2 Trillion USD. It has more bling power than the texas city, ten times over. Having said that, it is still a dull place. I spent three and a half hours each way yesterday to get from Dubai to the conference center in Abu Dhabi. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic- and then a very convoluted way to get to a car park that was off-venue at the spectacular Grand Mosque. From this car park , shuttle buses took another convoluted route to get us to the venue, which hitherto seemed nearby map-wise. I was exhausted by the time I got home, and did not enjoy the stampede-prone labyrinth at the ADNEC ( exhibition center) that was so replete with stalls and booths of so many familiar companies that used to be such an integral part of my past life. As I strolled around the Shell booth, I was expecting to see a Basrah Gas booth right next to it. This is how it had been set up in 2019 and 2020- when I last visited the place as an employee of Shell. There was none- and I walked around a bit to see if I could find it- but gave up soon enough. The crowding inside the hall was too much to take. The Shell booth had some familiar faces, but I didn’t bother to engage anyone since I did not know them well enough. This is one part about Shell that I simply don’t miss. It is a large organisation where you are simply no one for the most part. No one cares and everyone is happy being a stranger. My current work life is so different. A small executive group, where a lot is wrong and there is a lot of pent-up resentment on multiple topics. But at least, we are not strangers. I increasingly prefer being at loggerheads than being a fly on the wall-atleast at work.  At a certain level, the job is to protect your turf in a somewhat competitive way. The overall motive is to collaborate but as long as resources are scarce, there will always be competition. It is uncomfortable but it is different from being uncomfortable in one’s personal life and within one’s social circle. There, one does not have a role to play; one simply has to be one’s self. To be clear, I don’t like to be uncomfortable at either work or in my personal space. However, I now realise that being uncomfortable at work with some colleagues is a sign of health and not the other way around.

Anyway, I could not find the Basrah Gas booth and so did not bump into anyone that I may have known from my past. Frankly, I had a few coffees and one smoothie in the Ducab booth- which was fairly decent one given our size. And after a few wayward and pointless conversations with half-vendors, I made a beeline for Dubai. The fact is, in spite of everything that Abu Dhabi has going for itself, I cannot see myself living here over Dubai. I don’t care if I made more money here ( which I suspect I might- there is a lot of money to go around relative to Dubai- some of it may well make in into my wallet simply by osmosis). I never thought I’d think that. All my life I have been flexible and have followed opportunities that made me more money than before- I cared not for location. I think I may have reached that age where I place so much more value to life outside of work where making the extra penny seems of no consequence. It isn’t material, but even if it were, I doubt I’d give up my proverbial #dubailife for a move to utterly prosaic Abu Dhabi. It is hard to point a finger as to why it is so dull there. One reason could be that it does not feel like one city but rather several disconnected districts- and the roads are confusing as hell. Even local colleagues have corroborated my view on Abu Dhabi’s dullness. If they are equally bored there, then I must be on to something. Sometimes we form an impression in a very abstract way. There is no apparent reason why Abu Dhabi might seem dull. If you ask me to name something I can do in Dubai that I cannot in Abu Dhabi, I would really struggle. And yet, this is one of those impressions that belongs in the same category as the impression of Jews for gentiles, or of a certainVocalist of a local band that plays bengali rock. In each of these cases, there is no reason to dislike- and yet I dislike. And I am not the only one. It is a such an intriguing topic- and the explanation somewhat offered by Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” was spot on. He explains why he hates Jews- and compares it to hating rats. He says Rats have never done anything to harm anyone- squirrels belong in the same family of rodents and there is nothing fundamentally different between them and while we adore squirrels yet we all hate Rats, don’t we? No one knows why. Disturbing and apalling of course, on an absolute basis, the point is superbly made.

Dubai has till date managed to offer a fabled life, sometimes you have to pinch yourself to believe it. Tough as it is, with traffic, rents and so on- it still continues to attract wealthy people from all over the world. It used to be Brits and South Asians- and the Russians and Ukrainians- and now it is pretty much everyone from Contiental Europe. Not to mention Americans- if you can get Americans to expatriate, then it is saying something because US Citizens have no tax advantage of moving to UAE. I think there was a time where tax saving was the main  motivator for the expatriate nomad to want to move here. Those days are long gone- there are so many more reasons for anyone to make the move. I hope the place stays this way and does not change for the worse- it would be such a shame.