Welcome to the EK forum.

1. I've heard these rumours too, but I live in Dubai and travel in and out a hundred times a year, no worries. They are very strict on drugs, and there are severe penalties if you are caught in posession of drugs but don't worry about the thousandth-of-a-gram-on-the-bottom-of-my-shoe scenario.

2. The UAE has different controls and rules about many medicines which are commonly accepted elsewhere in the world. Probably the one you need to be most aware of is that Codeine is banned here, its common in many painkillers so check the ingredients of your medicines. Zyrtec and Immodium are both sold here so should be fine.

3. Hindu meals are almost always chicken, from what I've seen/heard. Although I have never ordered a Hindu meal so this advice is not from first hand experience. You may also be interested to know that EK usually offer an Indian non vegetarian dish as one of their meal choices anyway so by not ordering a special meal in future, you may actually end up allowing yourself the choice on the day, whereas now you don't really have an option to take something else instead.

Hope this helped you :-)