Happiness is peace, tranquillity, birdsong?and a place to park



There is something to be said about living in isolation away from the bustling buzz of the city. It can truly be peaceful and can help to reawaken senses and thoughts dulled by the tedious demands of everyday life. Things that you may have forgotten or put on hold forever are suddenly fresh in your memory, and you are reminded of the more central things in your life.

Also, parking is not a problem. One of the greatest bonuses in living in communities or compounds outside the city is the abundance of space - something slowly becoming a luxury these days. I saw a lot of this space when I spent the weekend with friends in Rowais, in the western region of the Abu Dhabi emirate. Before I headed out, people were telling me how I would get bored there as Rowais was in the "middle of nowhere" and there was nothing to do, etc.

Well, the drive there was quite boring, I have to admit. But it was amusing to see what kind of cars were on the road and what they were doing. For instance, two new white BMWs, one with a Saudi licence plate and the other with an Abu Dhabi one, were having a race - doing a lot of dancing and zigzags between the trucks and lorries driving along the highway connecting the UAE with Saudi Arabia. I wondered if they raced all the way to the Saudi border. Who knows? Anything is possible when you are surrounded by desert and you feel unwatched. I didn't see any flashing lights from radar machines as cars sped by, although that doesn't necessarily mean that they are not recording.

After a drive that seemed to go on forever, I arrived in the Rowais complex close to the Abu Dhabi oil refineries, and was delightfully surprised to find a greener than expected residential compound. It was similar to the ones you find in the other Gulf countries, where the walled-in compound of identical villas has all the main facilities provided, such as a market, a clinic, a bank, a recreational centre, restaurants and sometimes schools.

Sure, there isn't much variety or choice, but the place is comfortable and everything seemed to slow down. You could easily become a hermit, as no one would bother you - there aren't many neighbours. "Do you like it here?" my friend asked me over a plate of freshly baked home-made bread and pools of honey. "Yeah, it is peaceful," I said. I had forgotten how nice it can be to just sit in a garden and listen to birds. I know it sounds lame, but it is the truth. In the city I'm usually running from one building to another, and the rest of the time I am sitting in my car driving here and there.

The night before, my friend had taken me on a tour of the place. The restaurant in the recreational centre was like a blast from the 1970s with its funky chairs and mismatched colours: not the most luxurious of places, but it sure has character, and a "homey" feel to it. Of course, you could get bored eventually as there is nothing much else around, unless you want to drive over to Saudi Arabia or camp out in the desert.

The week before, I spent some time driving around the outskirts of Abu Dhabi island and discovered several "cosy" communities where people are dependent on just one or two supermarkets, and feel quite content to be away from everything. They would go into the city once or twice a week to the mall, and to meet friends and family. "It's great! The rest of the world is already over-populated and congested, and we are lucky to be able to still have this here," one of my Emirati friends said the other day.

My relatives actually looked for a spot in one of those outskirts communities, in Bahia, after moving here from London. They joke about their area not always being too well lit, but that is OK compared to the benefits of space and "peace and quiet". "Our kids are not always shopping at the mall, as it is too far," said my cousin, who enjoys that she plans her trips to the mall and that it becomes a family event.

As for me, after a few days of zero stress and demands, and a dead mobile phone because I forgot my charger, I actually found it stressful to come back to the traffic and demands of the city, where tempers run short and people are "too busy" and, of course, have no time for anything. I remembered how my Polish grandmother used to force us as kids to spend every weekend on a farm or in the forest or the back yard. She would even drop us off in the middle of an open field and let us run about for an hour or so.

"It is important not to lose touch with nature," she would say. "Keeps you sane." Given how insane things were before my trip to Rowais and how refreshed I came back, I think she was right. rghazal@thenational.ae

The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol

Power: 154bhp

Torque: 250Nm

Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option 

Price: From Dh79,600

On sale: Now

Tips for taking the metro

- set out well ahead of time

- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines

- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on

- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers

Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5

Other must-tries

Tomato and walnut salad

A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.

Badrijani nigvzit

A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.

Pkhali

This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.

Tree of Hell

Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla

Director: Raed Zeno

Rating: 4/5

The specs

Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors

Power: 480kW

Torque: 850Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)

On sale: Now

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Teams

Punjabi Legends Owners: Inzamam-ul-Haq and Intizar-ul-Haq; Key player: Misbah-ul-Haq

Pakhtoons Owners: Habib Khan and Tajuddin Khan; Key player: Shahid Afridi

Maratha Arabians Owners: Sohail Khan, Ali Tumbi, Parvez Khan; Key player: Virender Sehwag

Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC

Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC

Kerala Kings Owners: Hussain Adam Ali and Shafi Ul Mulk; Key player: Eoin Morgan

Venue Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes

Timeline October 25: Around 120 players to be entered into a draft, to be held in Dubai; December 21: Matches start; December 24: Finals

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Schedule:

Pakistan v Sri Lanka:
28 Sep-2 Oct, 1st Test, Abu Dhabi
6-10 Oct, 2nd Test (day-night), Dubai
13 Oct, 1st ODI, Dubai
16 Oct, 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi
18 Oct, 3rd ODI, Abu Dhabi
20 Oct, 4th ODI, Sharjah
23 Oct, 5th ODI, Sharjah
26 Oct, 1st T20I, Abu Dhabi
27 Oct, 2nd T20I, Abu Dhabi
29 Oct, 3rd T20I, Lahore

Hili 2: Unesco World Heritage site

The site is part of the Hili archaeological park in Al Ain. Excavations there have proved the existence of the earliest known agricultural communities in modern-day UAE. Some date to the Bronze Age but Hili 2 is an Iron Age site. The Iron Age witnessed the development of the falaj, a network of channels that funnelled water from natural springs in the area. Wells allowed settlements to be established, but falaj meant they could grow and thrive. Unesco, the UN's cultural body, awarded Al Ain's sites - including Hili 2 - world heritage status in 2011. Now the most recent dig at the site has revealed even more about the skilled people that lived and worked there.

APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)

Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits

Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

Storage: 128/256/512GB

Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4

Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps

Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID

Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight

In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter

Price: From Dh2,099

Isle of Dogs

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Ed Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson

Three stars

Jigra
Director: Vasan Bala
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Rated: 3.5/5
Company info

Company name: Entrupy 

Co-founders: Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder/chief executive, Ashlesh Sharma, co-founder/chief technology officer, Lakshmi Subramanian, co-founder/chief scientist

Based: New York, New York

Sector/About: Entrupy is a hardware-enabled SaaS company whose mission is to protect businesses, borders and consumers from transactions involving counterfeit goods.  

Initial investment/Investors: Entrupy secured a $2.6m Series A funding round in 2017. The round was led by Tokyo-based Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities Group's jointly established venture arm, DG Lab Fund I Investment Limited Partnership, along with Zach Coelius. 

Total customers: Entrupy’s customers include hundreds of secondary resellers, marketplaces and other retail organisations around the world. They are also testing with shipping companies as well as customs agencies to stop fake items from reaching the market in the first place. 

Coming 2 America

Directed by: Craig Brewer

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones

3/5 stars

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Our legal consultants

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

CREW
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TWISTERS

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos

Rating: 2.5/5

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher:  Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5