JUST DESERTS: Getting our due

A FEW WEEKS AGO, in class, we had a brief discussion during a test about the correct spelling of "deserts" in the phrase "just deserts". Some students were surprised to learn that there was no connection to "desserts". We then discussed the origins of the phrase: "(From Dictionary.com) A deserved reward or punishment, as in He got his just deserts when Mary jilted him. This idiom employs 'desert'  in the sense of 'what one deserves', a usage dating from the 1300s but obsolete except in this expression. Origin: Middle English, from Old French deserte, from feminine past participle of deservir, to deserve; see deserve."

Later I remembered a little feature I had written for Dubai's Khaleej Times earlier this year at the request of editor Patrick Michael. The feature is reproduced below.

JUST DESERTS
Ramesh Prabhu left Bombay (now Mumbai) for Dubai back in October 1988. His first — and last — place of residence in Dubai was Karama. Eleven years after he returned to India, he still has fond memories of the city and his home. Here, he recalls his years as a resident of Karama:

Call it karma.

When I first landed in Dubai to work as a journalist with the Khaleej Times, I was put up in a villa somewhere in Jumeirah. Within a couple of days, I asked to be moved to “civilisation”. I had come to Dubai to learn more about the place, so living in an isolated bungalow, as we called it back in India, was not for me.

As luck — or karma — would have it, a Khaleej Times editor was vacating his second-floor apartment in Karama’s Pioneer Buildings. I moved in very soon after.

I can only imagine what the area looks like now, in the wake of Dubai’s construction boom, but in those days it was a quiet residential zone with three- and four-storeyed apartment buildings and oodles of supermarkets and convenient stores within walking distance.

The great thing about living in Karama then was the home-town atmosphere: we had friends from the subcontinent in our block and in neighbouring apartments, and get-togethers on holidays and festival days were the rule.

Living in Karama had another big advantage: easy access to all the important locations, from Satwa and Bur Dubai, to Shaikh Zayed Road and the Maktoum Bridge.

When my wife and I returned to India, I wanted to name our bungalow, sorry, villa, “Karama”, but this would have sounded strange to our fellow Bangaloreans. So we settled on a moniker that, we thought, would be a throwback to our good old days in Dubai: JUST DESERTS.

We have since moved to a new apartment in a gated community, but the gate plaque bearing the legend “Just Deserts” holds pride of place in our living room even today.

"JUST DESERTS": THE PLAQUE THAT LAY EMBEDDED IN OUR ENTRANCE GATE PILLAR FOR FIVE YEARS BEFORE WE MOVED HOME FROM AN INDEPENDENT HOUSE ON OLD MADRAS ROAD TO A GATED COMMUNITY, BRIGADE GARDENIA, IN J.P. NAGAR, SOME 30 KM AWAY. THE PLAQUE IS NOW A SHOWPIECE IN OUR LIVING ROOM. PHOTO: SANTHOSH C.J.