Why Dubai is like a second home to Umair Jaswal and Sana Javed

Pakistani musician Umair Jaswal and actor Sana Javed are the latest celebrities to be honoured with UAE’s Golden Visa. In a chat with City Times on Friday, Sana expressed her happiness at the honour. “We are very thrilled and honoured to get this Golden Visa. We are very grateful to the UAE.”

Actor, musician, singer-songwriter and producer Umair Jaswal and film and television actress Sana Javed have been in Dubai of late enjoying various DSF activities across the city. They’ve also been to Expo 2020 Dubai, and visited various tourist spots across the city including At The Top Burj Khalifa, Ain Dubai, Al Seef and have been shopping at Dubai Mall!

Umair adds that getting the Golden Visa is “an amazing feeling.”

“UAE has always been a second home to us, and we meet so many of our loved ones here, so being honoured with this visa is absolutely fantastic.”

Tell us about your connect to Dubai. Why is this city so special for you?

Sana: It’s always been like a second home to us. What connects us is obviously the culture, the food, the people and the hospitality. I’m wearing an Abaya which is by (designer) Lara and her brand Lara Fashion, that makes me feel like an Arab!

Umair: For me it’s more about the people. I am a musician, she is an actor; our talent and the things we do surpasses borders. We get to meet 200 plus nationalities in this beautiful country. And that’s a fantastic feeling. Dubai is a common ground where we can meet them all and share that love across borders. The love and hospitality has always been amazing, the culture is warm, people are welcoming. There is this sense of everybody coexisting in a peaceful way. That is something that the UAE has achieved tremendously and it is worth praising.

How do you usually spend your time in Dubai?

Umair: She enjoys being at the malls! Every day we are walking around 20,000 steps! It is a lot of cardio for us!

Sana: Obviously, the food and the restaurants. I missed out on Sky Diving, so I will make sure I do that on my next trip.

Umair: For me everything is on this next level in Dubai. A lot of things I hold close to my heart - motorsports, adventure sports - are all pretty accessible here in the Middle East. I am a biker so you have professional tracks here, you have F1 happening here, all these things make it way more exciting for me. I am looking forward to hitting the dunes, do some offroading.

With the entertainment industry worldwide going through a low phase due to Covid, how have you been making the most of the time away from work?

Umair: We haven’t been away from work. The pandemic has made a lot of us in the entertainment industry rework what we are doing. I personally went back to the drawing board, and reimagined and redesigned my whole sound. I’m very happy about it because we used this time when we couldn’t be on stage, but we could be in the studio and work really hard.

Currently I’m sitting in thanks to my wife. She kept pushing me and saying you need to do more songs that people can dance to - so this whole new project of music that I’m doing now is Sana’s project where she wants to enjoy the music! I’ve been working very hard on it and right now I’m on the third album and we’ve achieved all of that in this time.

Sana: We’ve been the lucky ones! I’ve been working during the pandemic, so I’ve been very lucky.

Umair: More shopping for Sana and more travel! We got married at a very interesting time and had lots of plans and everything got stuck - life kind of stopped. I feel that next year we will be celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary because it feels like ten years in one year! We have seen so much of each other in one year! The plan is to spend more time together and travel together. Now since this (Dubai) is home - we’d love to come here and explore all of what the Middle East has to offer and do all the fun things we love doing.