Happy Happy New New - A Celebration, At Last!

When the BB was born, I knew that for the rest of my life, new years would be associated with my son's birthday. Born just a couple of days after the New Year came in, his birthday celebrations happen along with the Christmas-New Year festivities. All my past regrets were finally put at rest, because we did in fact had something like-a-party to celebrate the day this time. Considering the fact, that it was just about a fortnight, since I came to this entirely new place, I am happy that atleast something could be done.

We invited three families, one of whom, we met for the first time in our lives and fell quite in love with, Trishna's. It was rather sweet of everyone to come in. The party actually happened on the eve of the BB's birthday, since I did not want to spend his birthday all busy with the dinner preparations. A set of friends, trooped in earlier, and helped with the decorations and preparations. Below is a photo of what the living room looked like, just after being decorated.



And next, is one of a gorgeous cap, that was gifted to the BB, which was just ideal for the day, since it is shaped like a birthday cake, with exactly three candles on it. I think it is absolutely adorable, so just wanted everyone to peek at it.

My job for the day was to prepare the dinner. And never in my life have I cooked for eight adults and three kids. I have a great habit of choking up, while cooking, and invariably mess up the food, when having guests over. I neither had great cutlery, nor my regular resources and so the task just got more daunting. The cake was ordered from a shop ofcourse, I have no idea about cake icings, and I had not even tested the oven here till then. Chips and dips were all that was kept on the ready for starters. A friend made some yummy pineapple raita, and fortunately, the rest of the food, that I prepared, turned out quite nicely, nothing was burnt, had extra or less salt, and that for me is good enough reason to celebrate. There were seven dishes including the raita, and I am super-duper happy that I could pull it off. A completely Indian meal, and decently edible. Unfortunately, I was all rushed, and have never hosted a party at home, so I don't claim to have been half as decent a host as I would have liked to be, but I loved the guests, who were gracious enough not to mind that, and just go about the whole thing happily.


The spread above, is what was served. The meal consisted of peas pulav, puri, raita, chhole, sukha aalu and lamb curry, followed by kheer/payesh.Yes, yes that is completely me bragging. But I am sure the serving, and presentation could have been greatly improved. But I give myself the concession of having just moved in, and managing with whatever I had.

I don't think the BB got the point of being the star of the evening. He was rather smitten by Aadya(Trishna's daughter). So much so, infact, that even while cutting his cake, his eyes were fixed on her. After the eventual shyness, she too became relaxed, and these two little ones, under the supervision of an elder, kid managed to amuse themselves well. Did I tell you, all my culinary efforts were completely ignored by these two kids, and they actually survived the evening on just the chips served with the cake. Just look at them, hovering around the bowl of chips.

The candles were blown, people sang the birthday song, My BB cut the cake, and so it was the kind of celebration I had been waiting to have for his birthday since the day he was born. And finally it was done. Not huge, but a party all the same. And here is saying cheers to my little baby, who had suddenly turned into a boy of three, and life has become a bit tougher!

My Glorious Days in Bombay

A vacation is that time, when life moves into a different gear, things happen in a different dimension. The glorious things are more so, and the terrible things don't feel quite so bad. And that is exactly how it was. Twelve days in another dimension. To be honest, though my location has changed physically, mentally I still am in Bombay. You know that feeling that lingers, where one feels they are still in the same place for a few days after having moved. Oh! Glorious Bombay, how I love thee. The twelve days were packed with activity, and I saw very little of the DH, and even spent a few days going solo, leaving the BB with his much adored GP, though he(BB to be specific) was all mine to cuddle in the night.

We had a late night flight this time, bookings at sky high prices, absolutely last minute, and loads of luggage, so much in fact that we had to take two separate cabs to the airport. And the airport, OMG!! I had never seen the Sharjah International Airport as packed, as it was on the weekend of Eid, the day we left. Paranoia of swine flu, and I had the BB in his carrier, up my back, all the way till we sat down for some dinner, and then back again till we got into the flight. Guess what? there were some illegal passengers too, being in the second last row, we saw it. A girl, a couple of men, who got into the flight, and walked straight into the crew's cabin, stay put, and emerged only after landing. We landed early morning, and reached home at the crack of dawn, and joyfully dosed off to sleep. I woke up, the DH and the BB fast asleep, got dressed, and went out for an urgent errand, telling the DH to be up, to open the door when I return. What do you think happened thereafter? Of course he never heard me banging on the door, and ring the bell a million times, happily asleep. I went out hunting for the MIL, managed to find her some place, far away from home, and got back with her. There was no point waiting in the mosquito infested stairwells. So that was the start to my holiday.

I traveled in the locals after ages in Bombay, full of love and nostalgia. Actually carried my DSLR to take photos, the people around were surprised and expected me to soon show them a press card. Not surprising to be honest. I would have felt the same way back in the days when it was my regular mode of transport. The locals in Bombay become such an essential part of the lifestyle, for those using it, that it is difficult to even imagine a different dimension to it. Hawkers came in and out selling things starting from bindis, hair clips and undergarments to jewelery, dress materials and sarees. A tip for buying from these hawkers: they are more agreeable to bargaining in the second half of the day, while they adamantly stick to the price demanded in the first half. Also the prices are very reasonable, so do not expect huge bargaining margins.I bought myself some multi-coloured wooden bangles. I so love colours, that everything in India looks gorgeous to me. The most amazing thing to happen was, that I bumped into an old train friend who is currently living in the US on one of my trips. She is married to an old classmate of the DH, and has been living in the US since she got married. By complete coincidence, we were taking the same train, and had a gala time catching up during the journey. What were the chances of two expats actually getting on the same local?

Sunset shot from the train, while crossing a creek.

The trains always have some interesting graffiti and advertisements to catch one's eye. Some are plain lewd, while others can promise everything from a bean bag to weight loss, career enhancing courses to solution to all of life's problems. Though I had stopped noticing them, during my daily travel days, they quite caught my eye, after this long gap in my traveling. And so here is just one of the many fun ones there were. Why worry, when everything can be solved by just calling a number?



This was the first time I traveled to South Bombay after the gruesome attacks in November. Life seemed just as usual, and I also dared to lunch at Leopold Cafe, one of the open firing spots on that fateful night. The popular eatery, still harbours all the gunshots it recieved, and they have become places of keen attention and curiosity for most. I on my part clicked a few photos too, but will not be putting them up here, for the sheer morbidity and sadness they bring in. Sitting there eating, I realised, indeed there is no place to so much as even hide in there. Also saw the much barricaded Taj. While clicking photos of the famous victorias, the many guard from across the road at the Taj entrance, with huge hand gestures, made it clear to me that I am not allowed to photograph the Taj. And even later while I was ambling around the Gateway, they kept requesting me not to click pictures, and I had to assure them quite forcefully that I was not photographing the hotel entrance from any angle. Fortunately though the entire exchange took place with smiles. But all these things just leave a bitter taste in the mouth, knowing that the once grand and open entrance to the grand hotel now has more guards and security than guests.

That was followed by a lot of cruising along Colaba Causeway and gaping lustily at the gorgeous wares. A riot of colours everywhere. The beautiful jewelery, the lovely casuals, bags, sandals, knick knacks for home. Oh! How much of my will power was needed to stop me from buying pretty much everything I could see. All I can say is, its a treat for shoppers, and lovers of accessories, and ethnic Indian home decor.


This trip was also about photography for me. Pretty much everywhere I went, the camera went with me, and there are loads of gorgeous photos, which definitely need a dedicated post.

And I finally got a glimpse of the elusive rain, my first this year. The water dripping down, pouring down, felt like nectar flowing in my veins. I actually got stranded for about half an hour due to the rains, stood under the roof of a shop, and simple devoured the falling rain with my eyes. I wanted to soak myself, but I had to go back home in public transport, and did not feel quite comfortable doing that, while being dripping wet. This means I also saw some lush greens after ages, and my eyes soaked them up hungrily. I can just close my eyes, and see the scintillating green all around.

Also went out for a lavish girlie lunch with one of my closest friends, and could not believe we spent over three hours eating lunch, there was just so much to catch up and chat about, it was loads of fun, and for once it was just the two of us, no spouses, no kids, quite a lot of fun.

The biggest joy on this trip for me though, was that I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Yes, yes, yes I did. I even wore them on my way back here. I could not, simply could not believe that it would ever happen. In fact I had given away nearly all my clothes, and was sure this pair was gone too. It has to be a happy play of fate, that the pair was languishing, hidden under a jacket on one of the hangers in my cupboard. I could have done cartwheels at that moment, had I ever learnt to do them. A few of the old tops, which I had just not had the heart to give away, fit right on, and left me beaming like a hundred watt bulb. And of course people were all astonished to see me a lot lighter than when they had seen me six months back. On the flip side, too much of blogging and Net surfing, over the past year has hurt the eyes, and the power in my eye has doubled. So I am stuck with constant wear glasses now, and have promised myself much much lesser time on the laptop, just hope I can keep it up.

The rest of the vacation was full of yummy food, catching up with friends, riding around.
The BB enjoyed all the attention showered on him to the hilt, increased his vocabulary, and absolutely floored his grandmother by calling her gam'ma. He was happy on the couple of days I was out, but what was great, was the way he hugged me and clung to me when I got back, it is the warmest feeling a mother can feel I guess. And though I was out and enjoyed myself, a part of me missed him each moment that I was away. He had the most fun time running wild in the open spaces, like small kids' park, or the backyard of an old cathedral, and even in a natural flower garden, which we found hard to traverse due to all the undergrowth. We did a lot of bike rides this time with the BB. The same bike that the DH had in college, and was our primary means of transport in our dating days, and even our marriage, till we got our first car. Never in a lifetime had either the DH or I imagined, that one day our child would ride it along with us. It was such an amazing feeling. And on an evening when the BB decided to drop into a late evening nap, the DH and I went for a couple ride on the bike. For the life of me I cannot remember how it was the last time. I believe it was in the first couple of months of my pregnancy, and I had never occupied a seat on the bike ever since. The ride was punctuated with buying veggies, and other boring things, but it was great fun none the less. But the picture I have in my memory is of the DH riding the bike, with the BB in front of him, and me behind. That is the one I want preserved in my mind forever. The BB was initially hesitant about the bike, but took to it soon enough, and even managed to fall asleep while sitting in the front. Aah! those glorious college days of long bike rides and young love, that is what I thought I would always associate with our bike, but who knew things would change the way they have.

Now that the vacations are over, I hope to have many many more glorious vacations like this in the years to come.

In The Eye Of The Storm

This weekend was scheduled to be fun, because it was a long three day weekend, and after a really long time, it meant a Sunday holiday. After an entire week of anticipating, and a little bit of planning, I could only plan a day trip for one day to a zoo, which eventually did not even happen. The problem is this is a desert, outings of the outdoorsy kinds don't quite work out in the heat. The SG turns up with allergic reactions on his eyelids, and me with my allergic congestion. Strange especially, since I have never faced any allergy issues ever before, but here it just keeps cropping up. Fortunately even the zoo is air conditioned, so it would have been a nice way to spend the day, since all three of us absolutely love animals. In this place you either visit malls, or nowhere, especially during the summers. And there is just about as much of mall visiting that we can do. The plan for the zoo trip was for Saturday, and that was the only day we had a plan for.

So Friday morning, I woke up and started to search the net to find any possible places to visit, and found some archaeological sites at the bottom of a travel guide site.The problem was, none of these places could be found on the GPS, except for Al Madam, which was a small town of sorts, very close to the Oman border. So that is where we headed to. Long well built highways, with large stretches of the vast desert on both sides, is the way leading to Al Madam. Something like wilderness, but of the desert kinds. Along the way, we saw a group of camels walking in the desert and parked for some nice photo-ops. They were not very close to the boundary wires, but I was excited none the less at seeing these animals. Unlike what I had expected, we don't really get to see too many camels around the place. A couple of camels actually lied down and lolled around in the sand. Something new seen.


We continued on our path and reached Al Madam. I was surprised to see expats in that place, because it was just such a small little place, could hardly even call it a town. It was tiny, really tiny. We drove around for a bit, the BG absolutely not wanting to take the SG out in the heat. There was no sign of any archaeological site, and we were just a few miles away from the border or Oman. And then the lightening began. A storm had been predicted for Sunday, so we expected Friday to be quite safe, but here, we were seeing the skies darkening, with heavy lightening and thunders. There was a lightening bolt striking about ever five seconds. The BG's protective instincts kicked in, and he decided it was time to rush back towards home, towards civilisation about a hundred kilometres away, and an about turn is what we did. I clicked like crazy to get atleast one lightening in my photo stock, but got nothing.

A little bit down the way, the skies looked clearer, the wind was not howling, and things seemed fine. A signboard, suggested we go right to get to one of the places on our list. And we thought we will give it a try. On hindsight, it was a bad bad idea. A little way down the turn, I saw a camel farm,(photo on the left) and thought it would be nice to go close. To do justice to my blog name, I persuaded the BG to turn the car into the sand towards the farm, which was at about a couple of minutes of walking distance from the paved road. This place was like a small settlement with about five or six houses. As soon as the car turned, we were stuck. the sand was soft and the front wheels went right in. An attempt to get it out would mean loads of sand flying everywhere, and the car going deeper inside. There were no people around either. I was dressed most inappropriately for such a situation, in a sleeveless ganjee kind of top, and believe me in small place, where women are covered from head to toe, it was terribly discomfiting. Trust me to get a sticky spot stickier for myself. Fortunately for us, while the BG was running around trying to get help, a car stopped by and the man, offered his help. He had a rope, he tied it to our car and tried to pull it out, the rope broke. After a while, he left. Then another man, I am guessing and Afghan, came with his truck, and he was determined. Just as the BG and he tried to tie the rope, the storm hit us. The sand was blowing everywhere, and the visibility almost killed. I panicked. This was not the best situation to be in with a child. And I had only myself to blame.Opening the car door for just a second, was filling it up with sand. But the man was determined, and kept working at it, and we gave it another try, but once again the rope broke. I got off and clicked photos, and the BG was irritated, I understood, but I wanted to have photos to look back at this experience. I could just click one or two, before the BG would lose it, and that is all I have. A couple of fruitless tries later, a couple of more men wandered into the scene. Mind you, the storm was in place by then. Finally, with two men pushing the car, one car pulling it from behind from really close, we got out. Aah! Thank God, atleast a part of our worries were over. I really wanted to walk down to the farm and atleast get a few photos, but did not, because the storm was getting worse, and the BG did not think it would be a good idea to waste more time, when we were so far away from home, in wilderness. The SG was remarkable, in that he did not get upset or anything, but just sat quietly through the entire thing in his car seat, while his father and I kept flitting in and out of the car.

This was followed by travelling through about 50 kilometres in very low visibility, at a very low speed. I could not get photos of the worst times, because at those moments I was sitting on the edge of my seat. From the look of it, I felt I had been transported to the winters in Delhi, with thick fog engulfing us. As we closed in on habitation, the visibility improved, since there were buildings and other man made structures to act as barriers. Closer home, it seemed impossible that we had been through the storm we had. Strangely enough, we got home by around six, and by eight, the sand storm had completely abated, and visibility completely restored. So guess the storm was meant for us. However, the was the BG and I are lusting for rains, maybe it just happened, so that we could get a small taste of the rains. And I would never have seen the real force of a sand storm in the open desert if we had not been there. There was a possibility of the storm recurring, and hence we dropped the plan the next day to hit the zoo, because it was in another emirate altogether. And as expected, there was no storm post the one we braved.

The photos below are a comparison in the visibility before and during the storm.