Enduring the Heat: Personal Notes from a Dubai Summer

It’s peak summer in Dubai.

It’s not just hot it’s unbearable. The days are long and energy both physical and mental runs low no matter how much sleep you’ve had. There’s no neat way to describe it. It’s not just heat. It’s exhausting. The kind of heat that doesn’t just sit on your skin, it sinks into your bones.

You drink liters of water just to stay upright. Even that doesn't always help. Umbrellas are useless. And when you finally step into air conditioning, it’s not relief, it’s recovery. Your skin continues to burn long after you're indoors.

Dubai fortunately, is equipped for this. Malls open early. Gyms, walking tracks, indoor everything. You could go days without needing to step out into the furnace. But not everyone gets to live indoors. Some must face the oven every single day, delivery workers, construction crews, service staff. They don’t just feel the heat. They work through it. That’s not inconvenience, that’s endurance, I have the highest regard for them. There’s always a bottle of water at the entrance of my home for delivery people, and sometimes I hand over sodas or Coke cans too.

Just yesterday, August 1st, I felt what was probably the worst of this year’s heat. Stepping outside felt like entering a kiln. Within minutes, I was flushed. My face turned red from the sheer exposure, and the heat clung to me like a second skin, long after I’d come back inside. Breathing felt heavier than usual. It made me think, how do the cats, the birds, the street animals even survive this? They don’t have chilled rooms or cold drinks. And even for someone like me, ten minutes outside felt unbearable.

So no beach walks. No parks. No open-air anything. Summer shrinks our city into a network of interiors. But even inside, people adapt. Life goes on slower, sweatier, but still moving.

And sometimes, I find myself thinking about how Dubai or Abu Dhabi, for that matter came to exist in the first place. One of the old stories goes that a group of men were following a gazelle during a hunt. That chase led them to fresh water. That water became a settlement. And the settlement became a city. Survival led to civilization.

Generations of people lived in this land long before refrigeration or modern comfort. They survived the heat and managed with the limited resources. Arabian nights still bring fond memories to my mind. Ali baba and forty thieves, Sindbad the sailor, Aladdin, and many more middle eastern folktales are so entertaining and makes you want to hear more.

Desert folks found the rhythm in resting during the day, gathering in the evenings, cooking, telling stories, playing music under the stars. Their routines, their clothes, even their food, all evolved to serve one simple goal: endure. If someone asks me, what do I want from the desert, I will totally say, Aladdin’s magic lamp. Undoubtedly, The Arabian Nights stories are some of the world's great treasures. 

Bedouins survival at extreme desert conditions is enlightening, everything was logical, and had reasons from tents to milk consumption was thought through. Desert psychology is different from what we know, and we could learn a lot from that. Not just in how we dress or eat, but in how we accept and adapt to the seasons around us.

Of course, today’s Dubai is a mosaic of cultures and habits, people arriving from all climates and backgrounds. That makes adjusting to the heat even more layered. I grew up in Bangalore. Summers there were predictable. If it rained, it would stop in half an hour. You didn’t need umbrellas, heavy jackets, or thick clothes. Cotton was enough. We didn’t think about weather much, it just worked with us.

Even when we started traveling, we held on to what we knew, pairing salwar kameez with winter jackets, heavy embroidered blouses with business suits. It was always a bit of both: old and new, tradition and necessity.

Now, here I am, indoors on the first Saturday of August, thinking about how this desert teaches us something different. It demands intentional living. You don’t survive summer here by accident, you plan for it. You stock buttermilk in the fridge. You pick light clothes. You invest in indoor hobbies. You slow down, because there’s no other way.

Back home, we took our manageable weather for granted. But being here makes you notice. Appreciate. Adjust. It forces you to think about your choices, your rhythms, even your routines.

They say geography shapes lifestyle. And they’re right. But I’d add this: if you want to live differently, it takes conscious effort. Even something as simple as growing a plant in Dubai’s summer needs planning, patience, and care. The soil dries out fast. The sun is merciless. But when that first leaf shows up, it changes your day. A little green, a little life, surviving against the odds.

And that’s something to hold on to. Even in 48 degrees.

 Written By,

Chaya Mathew

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