Every wondered why the Eagle fountain in front of Sheraton Oman Hotel in Ruwi is serviced/cleaned so often? I don’t have a clue either. Firstly, the fountain doesn’t catch the attention of people zipping off in the highway. With Sheraton under renovation for some years now, not many vehicles pass through the cross road and the visibility for the fountain is very, very low. Come what, the service/maintenance guys land up regularly (once in 3-4 weeks) and painstakingly clean the whole fountain. Once in a while they add a dash of fresh paint to the not-so-dull surface. Can’t understand why so much money is being wasted on a boring fountain. If it was a landmark piece, I would understand, but this one…

A bizarre thing happened in front of my eyes today morning while commuting to office. I was witness to a ‘live’ accident near Sheraton signal in Ruwi, and it almost took a few minutes for me to recover from the shock.

I was coming from Stars Cinema side and was waiting near the signal. Just then, the red light splashed on the Wadi Kabir-Sheraton side, and all the vehicles stopped except for a saloon car which kept moving and hit a car coming out of Sheraton and going towards Ruwi-CBD. Dumbstruck, I closed my eyes for a second. The saloon car then crashed into the signal post, uprooting it, and came to a screeching halt in front of a lamp post. All this I was witnessing as is. After a few seconds, an Indian guy with his wife and a little baby emerged from the saloon car, and the terrified lady crossed over to the other side of the road clutching on to her baby and crying hysterically. The saloon car was totally smashed, and by the looks of it, it was a close shave for the family who escaped unhurt. Nothing happened to the guy on the other car either.

It is a close call for the car in front of me who luckily had stopped a few yards behind; otherwise the signal post would have fallen on his car.