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Indian families from across the social divides describe how their lives have changed.
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"Freedom" is increasingly defined as the ability to show skin or smoke and drink in public. When women here talk about individual freedom – as opposed to the collective freedom of equal opportunities in education and at work – the freedom they tend to be thinking of is the freedom to be constantly sexy.
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But what Dubai has proved is that if you build it, they will come. For if there's one thing Dubai can do, it's build: one third of the world's cranes are here at any one time, most of them directly outside of my hotel window. I try and count them but give up at 70. The highest is perched a kilometre up in the air, on the top of the Burj Dubai, already the tallest building in the world, and it's not yet finished. Next month, the biggest shopping mall in the world will open, the Dubai Mall, and shortly you'll be able to fly into the world's biggest airport – six runways and the size of Hong Kong island. What's more, if you stay in your hotel, you need never even know you're in an autocratic Islamic state where it's illegal to hold your wife's hand in public, or be gay, or found with 0.003g of cannabis – less than a grain of sugar – on the sole of your shoe.
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There are three very different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?
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This cycle of events is maddening whatever the ailment, but it can be massively frustrating if you're seeking help for a mental health problem.
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But I'm thrashing about on the pavement so I can't do any of this … and although I'm conscious, the world's gone Cubist, everything's in bits and it's not a good moment to be asked for ID. Which is what happens next. I'd assumed that the police had arrived to check I wasn't being assaulted. But no, they want my driving licence. Would you give me a driving licence? Do I look like I have a driving licence?
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Stop expecting to be rewarded for your suffering. Do you feel you have to "earn" joy by struggling first? Some people believe that the larger the obstacle, the sweeter the reward. It's possible to get carried away and only allow yourself to enjoy life after you've suffered or struggled to some degree. If you find yourself stuck in this state of mind, think of times in your life (especially childhood) when you experienced joy without suffering.
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All of this touches on numerous issues, the two most important from my (admittedly rather limited) view being that 1) Autism Speaks attempts to speak for people with autism, which is a horrible and condescending idea to begin with, but especially so when considering how spectacularly they fail, and 2) they argue that there is something “wrong” with having autism, and that autism is in fact something that requires a “cure,” when instead many people with autism do not want a cure or feel that there is in fact anything about autism that needs to be “cured,” and even those who ultimately do would probably like to be included in the process and would also like to be treated like people in the meantime.
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Tourism ad for Australia
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"It does feature certain classic Beckett elements, such as sparse stage directions, a mysterious quality of anonymity, a slow building of tension with no promise of relief, and an austere portrayal of the human condition," Matheson said. "But Beckett's traditional intimation of an unrelenting will to live, the possibility of escape from the vacuous indifference that surrounds us—that's missing. Were that his vision, I suspect he would have used perforated paper."
