Editing TEST: Made a few changes that were not really required. Punctuation was above average, but there were still a few instances when sentences would have read better with the right punctuations. The editing for fiction was pretty lackluster but she managed well on the travel editing B and the health content. All in all, would make an average editor—who would probably do pretty good with a brush up of punctuations.
You may think you’ve stumbled onto a science fiction writing-skills test if I start this sample article with “It was a blisteringly hot and gasp-inducing humid day with the inter-city highway offering the services of the world’s longest frying pan.” The truth though is that this is merely a summary of the daily weather report in this part of the world. Welcome to Dubai and 50 degrees centigrade temperatures in the shade!
Every year, so much is written and spoken about on the Gulf summer months that you wonder at the remarkably short memories of expatriates who live here quite happily, year after year after year. Myself included. I’m into my 24th year in the UAE, but each summer brings with it totally new expressions of surprise at the awful, awesome, overwhelming heat.
If public memory is short, Gulf expat memory is diminutive. Every year, from late April to late September, we live in a state of perpetual astonishment at the near melting heat, despite the fact that a quick rewind of the calendar will show exactly the same temperatures, expressions and heat strokes for every year since and even before oil was discovered.
It’s actually quite amusing to watch how salutation trends change with the weather. In winter, you greet people with a cheery “Hi, great weather, eh?” to which you get an echo for a reply. Come summer and the exchange resembles a gramophone that needs urgent winding up, with greetings restricted to a brief but surprised, “It’s HOT, phew!”, and the reply comprising of a dazed look from burning eyes.
To survive out in the open, we look for shortcuts to get from Point A to Point B. Point A could be the exit from your thoroughly air-conditioned office and Point B could be the door of your car parked 100 yards away.
After years of study and migraines, you realize that the minute you exit your air-conditioned shelter, you have to quickly and efficiently hop from whatever pocket of shade is available, to the next. This, sadly, does not work when the sun is right above you and you’re attempting to gingerly skip beside a row of parked cars, wherein the only protection you can hope for is for your shoes because every other inch of you is in the full glare of the solar high beam. (You can jiggle sidewise in the shadow-side of the car but when the sun is overhead, only your feet, if you shuffle along in the shade beneath the chasis, can claim to be safe from sunstroke.) Add to it the guarantee of singeing some part of your exposed skin against the melting-hot metal you’re edging past and you’ll quickly understand why the camel always looks so contemptuously at you.
The irony is that your agony does not end with your getting into your car. You have to wait for various elements inside the vehicle to cool before you can risk touching them. These include your seat belt as the buckle can brand your waist for life, the steering wheel without which you cannot even get out of the parking and which you can touch only for nanoseconds as soon as you sit down, and even the back rest of your seat which will probably be emanating heat waves bouncing off the windshield.
I think by now you would have got the picture… outdoors in summer is no picnic here.
However, if you mistakenly thought this article was a sob story on the travails of an expat in the Gulf during the summer months, I would like to now present the real reason why we continue to live here despite knowing many more summers are steadfastly approaching. We, and probably you, too, would call these reasons ‘creature comforts’.
Imagine knowing for sure that you can easily cool down within minutes, no matter how burning hot the outside is. Time for car to cool – approximately 2 minutes. (The Japanese are great at making cars that do this.) Time for window or split a/c to cool newly-entered home – approximately 2 minutes. Time to cool down after entering central a/c home – approximately 10 seconds. Time to cool down after entering shop, shopping mall, office, airport, cinema – in fact, anywhere except a car park or a park – approximately 3 minutes. And when you consider that within minutes of entering an air-conditioned environment, you are soon reaching for your shawl, jacket, muffler, ear muffs, socks or sweater, you will understand why we forget about the heat so quickly.
The effects of the weather in the Gulf is like giving birth to a baby. Once the event is over, the memory of the suffering fades very quickly and you innocently think the next one’s going to be easy!
Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com).
Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in September, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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—About our writer:
Radha Menon holds a Masters degree in English Literature and works for a multinational airline. She enjoys writing and in her own words, cannot seem to stop once she starts. She has been freelancing for over 10 years and has published articles on fashion, cookery and life in general. She prefers writing casually and humouously on current topics on request, and has a distinct style of her own. She is ideal for contributing as a columnist. She claims to be a 52-year-old with an attitude that fluctuates between 152 and 2. She does not enjoy the rigidity of copywriting for advertisements or writing for terribly technical publications, but is very good at almost every other sort of writing as well as serious editing. Radha's friends enjoy receiving her emails and have been telling her for years that she's a great writer just waiting to hit it big!
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