It was my first visit to Dubai, and I wasn’t handling the timezone difference very well. On most days, I found myself waking up at 4 am.
Tossing and turning around in the soft hotel bed, try as I might, I couldn’t sleep. Fortunately, the hotel was walking distance from the Jumeirah beach. If I was going to be groggy during the meeting hours, I may as well enjoy some time with the waves. So I strolled up to the beach every morning and watched the waves crash on to the silent shore, waiting for the sun to rise.
On one of the mornings, I heard someone play music. It wasn’t hard to locate the source. Still dark, I could make out the outline of a man, his head covered and in his hands a giant horn-like instrument. I sounded something like a bugle, but not quite.
I waited for him to finish his piece and mustered up the courage to talk to him. “Where are you from,” I asked. “India,” he responded.
It took me a while to recover from the surprise revelation. “So am I! Where from? And what are you doing here?” I rattled off the questions in quick succession.
He told me his name was Vernon, and he was from Mumbai. By profession, he was a personal trainer.
His client was sleeping that morning, and he decided to extend his stay at the shore.
He then explained to me the significance of the instrument he was playing. The Shofar is an Israeli wind instrument. He played it early morning by the beach, before beginning his day.
Vernon explained a few verses from the Bible and how the instrument was his path to spiritual cleansing. We continued to speak about vibrations and how everything in nature is connected to different types of “waves”.
When the sun had come up fully, he took leave. I lingered around at the beach a little while, reflecting on our conversation.
“There are no accidents,” he said. “If my client wasn’t asleep, I’d have left a long time ago. God wanted me to play for you.”
Musings of an eccentric mind 