DOHA: The craze in the Qatari community for special easy-to-remember numbers is not restricted to mobile phones and car plates any more—it has spread to marriages and child deliveries as well.
Invariably all marriage halls in the country—whether big or small—are booked for 12/12/12 which is a special date. Hall owners haven’t charged any premiums for the bookings, though. But at least one person has inserted an advertisement in a local Arabic daily offering the hall booking for 12/12/12 for sale, local Arabic daily Al Arab reported yesterday.
The advertiser, however, told the daily he has no intention of making a fast buck from the booking and that he has inserted the advertisement because his marriage has been cancelled.
“I have paid a deposit to the hall owners and if I don’t use it the amount would be forfeited, so all I want is my money back,” said the advertiser. “I have been receiving several calls but the callers say they need a bigger hall,” he added. The hall can accommodate only 350 people. Several hall owners told Al Arab that the bookings for 12/12/12 were made months in advance—between January and March this year.
This is not the first time the halls are fully booked. “We had full bookings for 11/11 last year as also for 10/10 in 2010,” said one of the hall owners.
Some community members told the daily they have a craze for special numbers and dates because they are ‘unique and easy to remember’ for them as well as for others, so they don’t mind spending for the ‘novelty’.
“The craze for special numbers and dates is spreading fast in our community and people are spending too much money. This is not a good thing,” a female student of Qatar University told the daily, putting the blame for what she hinted was a social malaise squarely on a telecom service provider and the traffic department. They are auctioning special numbers, she said.
She said that once someone approached her with an offer to ‘buy’ her mobile phone number because it matched his car plate digits. “I refused to part with my cell number,” said the student who gave her initials as HS.
Al Arab said that all maternity hospital rooms were booked in Kuwait for 11/11 last year as women due for delivery went for caesarean operation that day. Marriages rose 300 percent in the UAE on 10/10 in 2010, the daily said highlighting the craze for special numbers and dates in the entire Gulf region.
The Peninsula
