Mall of the Emirates changes mores at breakneck speed

Letter from Dubai: Dubai is a desert miracle. A thrusting, jostling, thriving, modern city state, shimmering like a mirage on golden sands lapped by the pale blue waters of the Gulf. A magical Emerald City of Oz, fashioned of gleaming multi-storied green, gold, blue and pink glass buildings bound together by concrete ribbons where gleaming cars hurry people of all races and faiths to office, home and shopping centres.

Trade is oil-poor Dubai's life blood. Construction provides a frame of bones and sinew. Here, there, everywhere, skeletons of new blocs rise from the sand, hoardings enclose construction projects, traffic is diverted into jams. In stages over the next six years, a metro on pylons will link Dubai's business districts with residential neighbourhoods, and off-shore man-made islands will become the luxury playgrounds of the world's wealthiest people.

The Mall of the Emirates is the largest in the Middle East and, for the moment, the second-largest in the world. Beneath its Moghul modern cupolas and domes are brand-name shops from Europe, Asia and the Americas: Harvey Nichols from Britain, Monsoon from India, Carrefour from France, and Borders from the US.

Looming over the entire complex is a curious angled projection culminating in a bulbous knob topped with a red light to warn off low-flying aircraft and helicopters: Dubai Ski. On weekday evenings and weekends, its slopes, clad in grainy machine-made snow, are thronged with men, women, and children wearing rented boots and warm jackets in red and blue. Those with skis and snowboards take chair- and T-bar lifts to the crest of the four-storey hill, and sweep to the bottom, where nets prevent them from crashing into children spinning down low mounds on tyres and trays. The lighting is soft, grey; the atmosphere as misty as the Alps in winter. Emiratis and Asians who have never seen snow before are at first awed then delighted. Emirati women dressed in cloaks, headscarves and padded coats slip and slide down hillocks and fashion snowballs of crumbly corn snow which burst on impact.

Couples and families observe the snow scene through huge windows from tables laden with food and drink at the St Moritz Cafe, where a film of a fire burns brightly on the grate in the chimney. Others gather at the Chinese and Italian restaurants round the corner to watch the spectacle.

The halls are thronged with window shoppers: women covered in cloaks and veils with only eyes showing, girls in skimpy shorts, men in long shirts and bermuda shorts. Anything goes. Shopping is the Emirates' national sport, window shopping a mania. If shopping were to be added to the list of Olympic events, Emiratis would win the gold, silver and bronze medals. As we stroll past a display of skimpy lingerie, Sudha remarks, "A few years ago this wouldn't have been allowed." Dubai, a hub of Middle Eastern commerce, is changing rapidly, globalising; its people are reaching out boldly to embrace new things, new experiences. Minds and mores are changing at breakneck speed.

Zabeel Park is an oasis at the heart of Dubai. The park, two vast green tracts of land bisected by a highway and bound by other broad thoroughfares, provides lungs for the city state. Sudha and I walk to the park across the bridge from Karama, a district inhabited largely by Indians. We take a ticket and enter this wonderland of lush grass, trees and carefully-tended flowerbeds where pests are kept down by environmentally-friendly spray made from the berries of the neem tree which grows along the highway to neighbouring Abu Dhabi. Not far from the entrance families are barbecuing meat on open grills; others are eating elaborate picnics on the grass.

Boys whizz by on skates or pop cricket balls on sidepaths. Ladies in saris lounge on benches. Families ride round on a train, bell clanging to warn pedestrians. A disembodied female voice proclaims, "Would the parents of the lost-ed child Anil please come to the gate." He is the second lost-ed child this evening. We cross a second suspension bridge to the other section of parkland, where children paddle boats on an artificial lake. Outside the fence joggers and walkers of all nations jounce or walk along the wide path surrounding the park. Men in T-shirts and shorts, women in chadors and girls in tennis skirts make the 2km round in the cool of the evening.

In a layby beside the path a youth, his back to us, dances to western pop music playing in his car, its doors wide open. Oblivious to his surroundings, he dips to the beat, practising steps with a door as his partner.