Utterly soulless sketch6/1/2023 In producing my comedy video in late 2012, I wanted to create something that celebrated the charming cultural peculiarities that make the city an enchanting place to live, and to show that Dubai is a much more interesting place than descriptions of it as a soulless artificial desert town might suggest. There's a depth and complexity to Dubai's international culture that has been overlooked in news stories about the city's growth over the last decade. I didn't have the kind of salary or the perks that Westerners have been known to receive there, but I worked hard to pay my bills and was able to enjoy life amongst old friends in a city I love very much, just like people my age in places like New York or London. For six years, I worked for Emirates Airline – the city's flagship company – and then for a consulting firm, doing my part to build up Dubai as an aviation hub and tourist destination. ![]() Its economy was booming, and I wanted to go back to the place I thought of as my hometown, to continue my parents' work and make my own contribution to the city I had seen grow around me. I decided to move back to Dubai after I graduated from university in 2006. We were warmly welcomed, and we proudly became US citizens. Dubai was the only home I knew, but with no chance of naturalization or permanent residence there, my family emigrated to the United States when I was 16. My friends, neighbors and classmates were of almost every nationality, and we formed a bond that is still going strong in a tightly-knit Dubaian diaspora. Dubai was a wonderful place to grow up, especially during the 1980s and 1990s when communities were more organic and the pace of life was less frenetic. My parents were Sri Lankan expatriates, of that generation of foreigners from all over the world who helped build Dubai. I grew up in Dubai, having moved there a few months before my second birthday in 1986. The reason? UAE authorities accused me of threatening the country's national security by creating a sketch-comedy video parodying teenagers in Dubai and posting it on YouTube. I had been imprisoned for nine months, all but two weeks without a conviction. In January 2014, I was released from a maximum-security prison in the middle of a desert in the United Arab Emirates.
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