I am back !!

Just incase if you were wondering where Sangrywords has been for over a month, well then I have come back to the blogosphere unfortunately with nothing really exciting this time to tell. My family has been playing pass on parcel with viral flu. For over a month and boy it has been absolutely tiring. 

It’s different when you are sick and miss your mum, but what would you when you are the mum and your little one is sick. Little over a month back, Smera started pre-school and just like most kids, she too fell sick with this change in her routine. 

All was well when she recovered in a week, but then duhddudy aka daddy fell sick, the little girl who was well recovering from the flu fell ill again. And yes not to forget the mamma and then back baby again for another 2 weeks.

While this month had been plagued with the flu but it was just as bad as it sounds there were few highlights too:

• Smera started her play-school  and made her first painting in school
• My mum us visited twice this month and each time she cooked us a sumptuous meal and some more to last a week
• We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary with a wonderful weekend getaway to Hatta ( a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the city)
• And we got the first complaint from Smera’s school for excessive use of the word daddy which reminded other kids of their dads and made them cry!

Image courtesy: Fotolia 

Dear daddy ...

To my Daddy,

A week in and I still cannot find the right line to start. Last week went by re-living my childhood memories thinking of the time we spent together, the jokes we shared, the fights we had, the lessons I learnt and the times you’ve been there for me (that would be all the time!).

You and I are so similar – when it comes to getting angry or having fun. I miss those days when we would watch Malayalam movies on weekend together without knowing the name of the movie and more recently when you and ma were here last year on Smera’s arrival. I miss those days when you would wake me up and rush me to get to school on-time, picking me up after college and discussing politics over tea.

Even then, it took me my first stint of living away from home to realise how much I love you and amma. But the best was yet to come - my admiration for you both are unexplainable in words now that I am a mother to Smera. It’s a tough task and you have all my sympathies now for all that I have put you through.

Of course there are numerous things I still need to learn from you. The one that tops my mind first is being disciplined, in life and more particularly about my health. Someone asked why are you so fixated about your weight?  Without a slightest bit of delay my answer was – “You have not seen my mom and dad”. Sometimes I really feel ashamed that I can’t even match half your energy at my age. Another thing I truly love about is your take it easy attitude, I know how much you hate the word tension, and just on this one occasion I wish if I was not like ma. 

Dad, I know I don’t say this very often– you are the best dad I could have asked for and I can’t thank you enough for giving us a good life.  You have given me a great mother and a wonderful brother and on your 60th birthday, I just want to say – I love you.

Happy Birthday!!

P.S. – I remember you got very emotional watching the movie Baghban and had tears in your eyes. Well that’s not going to happen to you, we are going to take good care of you. But instead you and me can author a hilarious comedy writing our life stories. Tell me what you think of it?  

Image courtesy: corbis.com

God-fearing? I don’t think so

What does the phrase “God-fearing” really mean?  I have heard these in a number of different contexts – in the devoted religious sense of the word, in the parents telling children how to behave situations and how I can miss, the ubiquitous Indian matrimonial advertisements that typically starts with something like “We prefer proposals from God fearing professionals of good families…”

The reason for this sudden philosophical reflection is once again my little one, Smera. During our recent trip to Delhi to see her G.Pa and G.Ma, she developed a particular fondness to the Barbie-doll-sized idol of Ganeshji (one of Hindu deities) that was sat in our living room.  She would at first touch his nose and playfully hold his hand. Later, when she musters enough courage, she would put her arms around and lift him up and go for a stroll.

Being the dutiful grandma, fearing that Smera would break the idol, and risk the God’s wrath, my mother tactfully took possession of the deity and placed it in our more secure puja-room (prayer-room).  This of course was followed by a fitting grandmotherly advice on respect for all religions and fear of God.  We left it at that and moved on with our lives.

A few days later, Smera got her first chance to get in to the puja-room when she tagged along with her Grandma for her early morning prayers. I am sure she must have found the setting of the room itself amusing – walls plastered with murals of deities, lingering aroma of the incense and soft lighting from the flickering diyas (oil-lamps). 

Then she spotted the idol of Ganeshji who was earlier moved to safer grounds. And in no time, her face lit up in excitement as if she had bumped into a long lost friend.  Leaping from her Grandma’s lap and cutting through the consonance of the prayer hymns she said “Hi!” She then continued with her mono-syllabic conversation with the God throughout the duration of the prayer. 

God-fearing? I don’t think so. But something tells me (or should I say my little one taught me) befriending someone is better than being fearful, be it mere mortals or the God. Don’t you think?  

Another trip back home with my travel buddy

My recent Delhi trip was nothing short of a roller-coaster rider and the credit goes to my little one. As my husband says “adventure and you can never be apart”. There are few things I wanted to leave for you, Smera to read when you grow up, considering my memory is not that worth mentioning. So here it goes, buckle up my love and read on what you did.

§     Baggage belt is meant to move baggage. Baggage does not include us humans, darling. Hence it’s not meant for you to run on. This was your second attempt but your super-alert mamma caught you!

§   To make up for the lost opportunity, you made me and Grandma run through the entire terminal 1 at Dubai and very conveniently lost your shoe.

§     I somehow managed to retrieve the shoe but you preferred to walk without it. Am I am thankful on that bit since I didn’t have to run again searching for the shoe, but unfortunately the socks had to be discarded.

§     You slept like an angel through the flight, like you always do and if you are not sleeping you do make sure the fellow passengers are thoroughly entertained!

§     Your baby food bottle broke in my bag soaked my voice recorder which had become a constant companion for me to leave voice notes for my next big blog idea.

§     Grandpa patiently took charge to clean up the mess and separating sticky lactose from high-tech electronics.  It’s currently under repair, but let’s pray that we can fix it.

§     Next time you are visiting Delhi, we will make sure that Rani di (aka our help) gets her annual vacation, since your clothes give the impression that you’ve been busy doing her job.

§     Considering the amount of beating and fighting you did with Grandpa and Uncle Sanju, wrestling could be a good career option for you.

§     But if that’s not good enough, you could try what Grandma thinks – athletics, given that you are always on the run.

§     Aunty Veda taught you new dance steps this trip, so you make sure you practice it well. And her bangles are not meant to be worn on your ears they are meant for hands.

§     And an interesting encounter with the God, more on that in the next post.

P.S. - Incase you've missed Smera's escapades on her first trip, you can read it here.

Image courtesy: Corbis.com 

Oh my…emergency!

On a recent weekend, I woke up listening to a familiar tune. I reached out to my phone to figure out if that’s my daily alarm (which I regularly ignore) or a call from of one of my 4am friends. Trying best to hold-up my droopy eye-lids fighting the brightly-lit screen, I realised it was a call, not from a friend or a familiar number.

“Strange”, I told myself sliding my finger across the screen to answer the call. “Salam alaikum” - I was greeted by serious sounding Arabic male voice on the other end. Before I could think of the correct Arabic response (which is of course, Wa-alaikum–salam) came some additional information from the other end “This is Dubai Police, Do you have an emergency?”

A call from the police, first thing in the morning – boy didn’t that wake me up! Quickly gaining my composure and switching the lights on I replied “Sorry Officer, I think…it must be a mistake…err…misunderstanding?”

Listening then to the officer who continued “We got an emergency call from your number”, I quickly scanned the room to zeroed-in on a tiny target, a sheepish looking Smera. I knew by then what had happened. A profound apology from my side for the early morning trouble ensued.

But the real trouble is that my fifteen-month-old is an early riser and I am not. Once she is awake, she would try every trick in the book to get me out of the bed. On that day, she obviously got bored and called the police to get her mother out of the bed! You have to give credit where it’s due, she did manage to wake me up early on that day.

You may remember from one of my earlier posts Smera’s love for the phone and that she wouldn’t take anything less than the real thing. We have had a number of call backs from friends who thought we were trying to reach them, when in reality, it was Smera checking out the speed-dial function!

All these antics mean we are usually very careful to lock the phones when they are left alone. But as it turns out, you can make emergency calls even when your phone is locked and it is no match for a toddler’s random experimentation.

I hope the only disruption that was caused by this whole episode was to my sleep and not to anyone who was in need of a real emergency attention during that time.

For now, Smera holds the record of being the youngest member in our family to call the police, by a long margin. 

Chapatti-nomics

I am an expert at making chapattis. And my husband loves to tuck in freshly made hot chapattis with curry by the dozen. It is however, a lot of hard work to produce the version that our in-house-aficionado devours – one that virtually melts in your mouth.

It starts with choosing the right flour, the right proportion of water, at the right temperature and a fair amount of time spent kneading the dough. Then making the dough balls is easy, but rolling the pin to flatten the bread and baking it to get the balloon-effect requires some skill.

Overtime, my husband and I have developed a neat division-of-labour arrangement when it comes to chapatti production. I would choose the flour, oversee the mixing, he would then make a mini-workout of the whole kneading process and finally I would come back to roll the pin and make it hot.

By way of what I call the muscular-arm and skillful-hand partnership, all was well in our tiny bakery. Okay, that was only until our little one popped-out. With lesser time on hand and frequent interruptions, we were now using Smera’s sleep-time to carry on our family tradition.

One evening when we were both tired, hungry and on the ritual, Saju asked a very profound question. “What is the economic cost of making chapattis yourself?”  Before I could utter a word, he sputtered out an impressive mathematical equation.

I do not remember the exact numbers but it included the cost of the flour, water, salt, wear and tear of the rolling pin and kilo watts of electricity used. He then paused for a bit and asked me for an estimate of the most valuable ingredient, our time.

While I was trying to make sense on where the whole conversation is headed, he said “Let’s use the time cost of our part-time help” After a moment of what appeared to be an exercise in mental mathematics, he came up with a number of two-dirham and fifty-fills.

“Two-dirham and fifty-fills, that’s how much each of our chapattis cost” he said with a stoic-face. Faced with the prospect of heavy-duty-math standing between me and my dinner, I said that it made sense hoping he’ll forget about it after a good nights rest.

Alas, we were soon researching our in-house chapatti replacement options. Those who made it to the short-list were the ones from the open-food counter at Lulu, the wafer thin kind from Saravana, heat-and-eat version from Chiotrams and the tawa-parata from Bombay Tadka.

Of all the options, Tawa-parata from Bombay Tadka (BT) stood out for couple of reasons. It was made of whole wheat flour (atta) and it was at least twice as big as what we would normally make. It costed us three dirhams a piece and it was right next to the place where we would do our weekly grocery shopping.

Now, even I can figure out that is a good deal. And thus we started another family tradition – weekly shopping of chapattis by the dozen. It straight goes into our freezer and gets a microwave treatment just before dinner. It sure doesn’t taste nearly as good as our in-house version but all things considered, it is a steal.

The reason why I started writing this post is because of a recent development in our chapatti strategy. Last weekend when we called BT to place our regular take-away order, no one answered the call. Thinking they must be super busy serving the hungry, we walked in there, only to find out that they have shut the shop.

Looks like someone got their math wrong.

Motherhood, a soap opera!

Fifteen months of motherhood has taken the toll. What else would explain my perennially tired existence, pony-tailed hair-do, dark circles, and a constant desire to sleep?

I guess this must by a reality for any expat mom with out a full-time help or the support system we take for granted, back home. Yet, I find it difficult to accept that I do not have any time to myself.

That’s not completely true, is it? -  I get my daily breather when my part-time help comes home and on weekends when Daddy is in charge of Smera. But, there is something that I find very difficult to come to terms with - being at someone’s mercy to go to the beauty parlour ! I am not being unreasonable here, just enough time for me to get through regular and very essential stuff, nothing fancy.

I shouldn’t though, be complaining about the lack of inspiration when it comes to personal upkeep. I only to need to step out to my balcony to spot all the lovely ladies in our apartment complex - some even mothers of 13 or 14yr olds, look younger and definitely fitter than me.

I have on numerous occasions complimented them, and somehow that still does not feel enough to applaud the way each one of them take care of themselves. There is a fashion-week-feel to the occasions I get to meet most them together – usually for a party at someone’s place.

During the recent Valentines Day, on the way to one such get-together, I bumped into a lady at the elevator. I was on the phone, but we noticed each other and then we surprised each other, when we later turned up at the same party. But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

After the customary pleasantries and introduction, the sweet lady revealed, that when she met me at the elevator, she thought I was some college girl skipping class on a Valentines day!

A college girl! - far cry from the down-beat self assessment early on. “My Santoor-moment”, I told myself, while sporting a broad grin through all of the following week.

I guess, a well meant compliment works better than the best beauty treatment.

Note: Santoor is a well known bathing soap brand in India. The brand is made popular by its iconic yet consistently cheesy commercials.  It typically features a beautiful Mom walking into a party being spotted by unsuspecting ladies. Just as everyone shower compliments such as ‘which college are you from?’ or ‘are you single?’ – a child appears on the scene calling “Mommy…” to everyone’s surprise. Here is a video

My massive problem of passive road rage

It is confession time yet again at Sangrywords – on popular demand, this time on my passive road rage.

Fasten your seat belts, here is the laundry list:

1.     Yes it’s true, I swear at people who cut the queue jump in front of my car without indicators to save a mirco-minute.

2.     The even more annoying ones are those who tail-gate as they are in urgent need to attend to a severe case of diarrhoea.

3.     Must not forget the ones who talk on the phone and do not mind even if they are out their lanes.

4.     Aha and lets also mention those ladies who apply make up while driving in the speed lane.

5.     And then are those who drive at a snail's-pace-60 where you can go upto 100km/hr.

6.     The frustrating and tentative jaywalking pedestrians.

7.     The last one are the kinds that I have witnessed only in this part of the world - driving with one foot resting on the window or the dashboard (no, not a typo!).

What’s so passive about all these things you may ask?

The reality is, all of the above are acceptable as long as I am at the driver seat - I can duck, dive and drive away. But all bets are off when I am at the passenger seat. I was busted recently when my husband  caught me swearing  a not so innocent rash driver. And just after that, my husband found my first edit of Take care, Not chances post to be bordering on being snobbish.

After a lot of soul searching, I am left to wonder if should be attending a Road-rage anonymous group (passive division). If there isn't such a thing - perhaps, I could be the founding member and the patron.

I am currently on the lookout for fellow addicts. Let me know if you any of you suffer from the same condition by sharing your story. 

Happiness, now comes as a roll !

What is the one that one food that unites most of us here in the Middle-East, it is found in most cities of the world but sold under different names and varieties? I am talking of Shawarma – a generous helping of chicken or meat, spicy or regular with bit of salad, garlic dip, pickles and fries – all rolled together into a wrap – just ideal for anytime of the day.

The reason I am talking of Shawarma is that I recently visited Shawarmaji’s in Al Barsha that opened a few months back. It is one of those places that caught my attention by it’s peculiar name and I was keen to check it out.

Being in the Middle East for about five years, we have tasted this ubiquitous any-time snack in a number of varieties. The gourmet-version from a sit-down restaurant, platter-version from the food courts, the spicy-version from the road-side café and the cheap and cheerful version from the IKEA cafeteria are just to name a few. As you can see, it is very easy to become a Shawarma aficionado, if you are living by this neck of the woods – and hence my expectations were very high.

Sorry to kill the suspense this soon - the experience at Shawarmaji’s was phenomenal! Every delicious bite of that Mexican Shawarma roll constituted the ideal model of what a true shawarma should be – chicken cooked and spiced up to perfection with a few crispy bits inside, juicy and extremely tender. The meat Shawarma was the first time for me and it surely did impress me – seasoned so well that I couldn’t stop at one. And surprisingly for a comfort food, it tasted healthy - I am sure the generous layering of herbs and mild coat of olive oil did the trick.

With a menu of different variety of the Shawarmas, I can wait to go back there again.

You can contact them for delivery at - 04 4521717 

Location - Shawarmaji is near Lulu Al Barsha, opposite Dubai American Academy.

Image courtesy - google.com  

Twice as Versatile?

I was recently given the 'Versatile Blogger Award' by Iamlonelytoes and PurpleChronicle.  It may appear as the blogosphere equivalent of chain-mails, but if you think about it, it's got to be good to be recognised by your peers. Thank you Joriel and Kajal!

According to The Versatile Blogger Award rules one has to:

§         Add a picture of the award in your post.

§         Thank the award giver.

§         Share 7 random facts about you.

§      Nominate 15 other bloggers for The Versatile Blogger Award and let them know that they've been nominated.

Here is my list of 7 random things-

1. I love to talk. A LOT. My report cards always had ‘very talktive’ remark on them.
2. I don’t sweat much on my face just get hot flush. I secretly pray that one day I can also sweat like everyone else.
3. I was once served chewing gum in my KFC. Yikes !!!
4. I have lots of grey hair, more than my mum does. Sigh !!
5. I have a habit of saying the same thing in 3 languages – Hindi, English, Malayalam.
6. If I were given option either to die or eat fruits (esp banana), it would be a hard choice.
7. I suffer from passive road rage, I’ll tell you all about this in another post.

These are some of my favourite blogs, some new, some old but all are worth reading. Check them out when you get a chance.


Squeaky corner
Anzz café
Life unordinary
Indian ma
Madhusha
Awesome since ‘92
A beautiful mind
Musings and Reflections
Confessions of a Semi-Domesticated Mama
Nona Pensive
Arnab Maity Travel and Photography
Style by Eva diva
A Traveller's soul
Sandier pastures
Spilled milk shake