UAE Day 2nd Dec 2009

It was UAE Day yesterday and a national holiday all over UAE. The special event of the day was about to be held in Corniche in Abudhabi where they had declared lot of fireworks. People fled from all the other emirates to abudhabi and the city was overwhelmed with cars, taxis and other transports. We spent the day watching boring programs on Tv and towards nightfall my husband grew restless. He started getting calls from his colleagues enquiring about the fireworks show in Corniche and he kept talking all about it almost the whole evening. We had an early dinner and thanks to our all in all azhaguraja for fixing the balcony clothes drying rope up so high, we had enough space to stand in our balcony. We had never tried doing this before. We stood in our balcony waiting to see the fireworks.

We were amazed to see that our almost deserted passport road is now full of cars and God knows what all types of transportation available in UAE. Upon a close observation we found all the cars were marching towards corniche. Muroor Road was jam packed with cars and we can imagine the crowd in the other parts of the city. Last year we went out on UAE day and caught up in traffic for long. This year we decided to stay indoors. As we watched from the balcony too many horns were being blowed by the drivers which was very very abnormal. Here in the UAE as against the Indian driving ethics, they hardly use the horn. The drivers are very generous that they let the pedestrians pass first instead of honking or rushing through. It was a strange phenomenon to hear too many horns in the jam packed traffic. Kids were sitting on the car tops with waving flags in their hands. some of them sing loudly, some shout at the top of their voices, some try to intimidate strangers and expatriates, some drive crazily on the roads. On the roads they display happiness and spirit of  freedom. 

The sky was clear and here and there we saw helicopters shunting. We discussed about fireworks in India during diwali and recalled many funny moments with fireworks. We talked at length about oosipattasu, lakshmi vedi, kuruvi vedi, bijili vedi, atombomb, saravedi etc.  He was talking about the magnanimous fireworks in their temple utsavams in Kerala during Summer.. He mentioned that trichur pooram festival and kavussery festivals were well known for fire works. They used to burst crackers in a wide play ground where it would cause no problems to the residents. 

According to the local news paper, UAE has aimed to make UAE Day a Big Day and to attract tourists, they will be hosting this fireworks show in a larger base. From next year onwards, this will attract more visitors and it will be a much awaited event it seems. 

I prepared coffee as we waited for the fireworks to start. We sipped coffee in the balcony and comfortably put two chairs in our little balcony to witness this. More than waiting for the fireworks, it was the very first time we had an exciting chat sitting in our balcony. After a while, the fireworks started and it was a feast to the eyes. Different types of artwork in the sky with lights. first it was a floral pattern, then the concentric circles, then spirals, the cycle spokes and what not. the sky was filled with colored lights. phew.. absolutely breathtaking! After 45 mins of sheer feast to the eyes, when it all ended, We saw a Smiley firework denoting the conclusion. It was a memorable  evening with the fireworks. I will try to get some nice pictures next year.