The Road, better, less travelled..

I like Salik. Its as close as you can get,vernacularly to a curse and yet, it innocently alludes to another meaning altogether, in its own lingua. The S. that i'm pleased about today is the name for the new Toll-Gate fee program that is being levied by the government for our tax-free-AED-earning bourgeoise, from this day. The papers, local and otherwise(only in the GCC area), have proudly displayed in sets of 5 and 6, glorious photographs, taken by wizened and 7Up-gulping media men who saw no other earthly event that could possibly outshine the paparazzi horizion of July 1st. The pictures show the long stretch of a beautifully black road that will see lesser Pirellis and GoodYears due to the imposition of the 4AED toll. Not to mention the huge billboards above this road at various points, repeatedly pounding our visual acuity with "SALIK" so much that i sincerely felt they were really referring to the word "saaley" in a snub-bish fashion. Now 4AEDs,by international standards, isnt too hefty on our wallets. However, being an Indian, it is sure as eggs is eggs that i immediately start a economically-driven process in my mind, to tally it with the Indian Rupee(1AED=12.36 INR, the 4th time i glanced back at the Financial supplement section). If going on a path that i can bypass with the able assistance of 4 other paths, also bypassing the 49Rs.44p. that i have to dish out thanks to Salik, is what aliens do, then i had NO complaints with the government. Sadly, i've not landed here from any one of those planets from The Hitchhiker's Galaxy, with a towel and a tiny manual, and so, it stands to rationality, that a mild hysteria did dawn on me. I use this strip for 4 times a day, since i end up back home for lunch, gentlemanly refusing to gorge insipid grub at the company's canteen. This pig-headedness to eat my curds and pickles in my own premises would out my monthly bare Salik-sashlik bill at Rs.1067.88p. Of course, not being a mathematician, i have removed all the irritating,small extra costs and conditions that we'd rather not calculate. Like petrol, maintenance, insanely-distant shopping malls, religious colleagues with their pujas and the invitations to them at venues that're best described as beastily-kilometred, sight-seeing-seeking relatives("hey lets go to the desert yaar..lets see what's there..you're an ass...staying here all this time and not getting adventurous enough!"). I'll have you know that the government here is a good one. It pays excellent attention to the complaints of us,expat white-collared workers and the not-so-white-collared manual employees. So let me post my bitching here and hope some authoritarian comes across it someday and realize that we DID suffer and we DID adapt. That's what Indians do. Adjust maadi. Inshallah.