Sweet summerish cure !!

I finished up my last post discussing about a Desert, Dessert and Dubai, and so I have decided to continue further on the topic. On our expeditious trip back to Dubai and back we picked up an instant ice-lolly make, just perfect for this summer. Before I tell you anymore about Zoku ice-lolly make, let me enlighten you about another favourite store of ours – Tchibo.

Tchibo is German, value for money store and of course, we particularly love the place for the value it offers and fine products it houses. At 29 Dirhams I thought it was a great deal for an ice-cream maker. However, I was a little disappointed to open the pack and realise it was just a mould to make instant ice-lolly in 7-10 minutes.

As a matter of fact, it was it still a good deal. How can one freeze the lolly mixture in a jiffy at home unless we got ourselves chillers used at ice-cream factories? 7-10 minutes for two of lip-smacking lollies. The only catch is you have to keep the Zoku moulds in the freezer 24 hours prior to making the lollies.

What you really need to do it is blend a smoothie with milk or yogurt or even fresh juice would do the trick and then tick-tock tick-tock. Viola in 7 minutes this is what I made.

The pack comes with ultra easy and interesting recipes and best part you don’t need to go to a Tchibo store if you don’t have one in your city. Just get it from Amazon! 

Silly Saturdays: Arabian Desert

As a pre-requisite to get Oman visa, one needs to follow certain procedures. To complete the formalities we undertook a little road trip back to Dubai to cancel our old visa and finish other paperworks.

The drive from Oman to Dubai is real scenic one especially if the weather is not too hot. You would pass through hilly terrain, see some very refreshing greenery and large spans of the deserts. The nature is amazing, even the dry and lifeless desert looks picturesque. As if someone beautifully carved and landscaped it with great effort.

The very sleepy Smera got up halfway through the drive to see the symbolic Arabian Desert. She stared at the view for a while, spotted a few camels too and then curiously asked us.

Mamma: Is this is a desert?

Me: Yes Smera, that’s the Arabian Desert!

Mamma: Are we going to eat it after dinner Mamma?
Me: (Taken aback, took a minute to think of an answer and then said) No darling this desert is made of sand and we cannot eat sand right? The Dessert we eat is made of nice stuff and is yummy for our tummy. 

Du-bye

Something is different as I write today. It’s not weather or the mood but it’s the backdrop, towering mountains have replaced the skyscrapers.

Change as they say is inevitable, and so it was time for us to move from Dubai to Muscat. We are all set for new challenges, goals, happiness, frustrations and learning’s here in Muscat.

Dubai has been really kind to us. We continue to be great fans of Dubai, of course every place has its own challenges but the city with each passing day tends to grow on you.  For many it might be the city with biggest and tallest, for me it has been the city of firsts!

It was almost 7 years ago I got married and came to Dubai join my hubby. To be honest, at first I didn’t like place very much but in a matter of few months I started calling it home. We set our first house together, done it up to call it our home, bought our first car, and mastered the art of DIY thanks to frequent trips to IKEA among many other things.  But nothing beats the pleasure of being first-time parents.

Little Smera was born here in Dubai and she filled our lives with immense joy. Staying away from family, it was difficult to raise an infant all by ourselves with no prior experience, but it got us closer to each other as partners.

We have been extremely fortunate on our career front and especially my husband who has been part of an outstanding company for the last 10 years. RSA has been extremely generous and supportive of him and his ambitions. In fact Smera is truly a RSA baby with pink and purple being favourite colours, true to the brand colours of the company.

Taking a sabbatical from work to enjoy motherhood, it was here I first tried my hands at blogging and I must admit I am addicted to it (thanks you for supporting my addiction !).

 There are numerous memories tied with this city and I am really going to miss it. The friends we made, our house (no, home), our favourite food joints and so many other things. However I am sure we are going to make many more new memories and I would love to share it with you all too here on Sangrywords!

To Muscat it is, here we come, with a little prayer in our heart, smile on our faces and hope in our minds to start a new chapter!

A fine line!

Getting a driver’s license in the UAE is not an easy task. But I managed it with ease and so I declared myself from that day onwards – a good driver. Actually to be honest I have been driving for more than half a decade in Dubai. To date I have never received any major fines. However I did receive two small ones. One, for not paying the parking ticket and second for obstruction of traffic.

I have very good explanation to justify myself on these two counts too. In the first case, it was just a technical glitch. You see here we can pay tickets via sms, but I happened to send to the wrong number, realised it when I found a ticket on the car. For the second one, I would like to blame the hubby darling. Dropping him off one day, in front of the office I happened to have stopped the car on the narrow road for not more than 20 seconds but that still did amount to obstruction of traffic. And it would not have happened if the hubby had not asked me to drop him. Right ?

Now coming back to square one. I am good driver! I can give good lectures too on the subject, I can also give you few of feelers from some my previous posts.

1. Driving me crazy

2. My massive problem of passive road rage

3. Take care, not chances

But this New Years I got my first speeding ticket. Sob, sob! Yet again I would like to state that it was not my fault. This time too I have a perfect explanation to the slip-up or should I say speed-up and the photo shot that ensued.

1.      The weather was lovely, with slight drizzle and moonlit sky

2.      The mood was happy, as we were driving to Muscat to meet the extended family

3.      My daughter’s favourite song Jiya Jiya Re from Jab tak hain jaan was playing

4.      On one my favourite radio channels, City 101.6 fm

gettyimage.ae

So singing along with Smera, I accidently happened to step on to the gas a little more than I should have. Should I be blamed for it? No, City 101.6 should be for held responsible for constantly playing lovely music that instantly perk me up and put me in such a jolly good mood that I forget the road speeding limits too.

It was just a mistake but that still cannot take away the fact that all of us had a wonderful time listening to the radio during the long drive.

Silly Saturdays: Toddler’s food for thought

Smera usually gets lecture from me when she says no to eating vegetables but last evening was a little different. The scenario was - Smera’s baby-sitter was giving her dinner when I overhear this conversation.

Smera: Aka you must eat lots of vegetables then you will become big and strong like me.

Aka: Ok Smera!

Mamma: (hearing her lecture) Smera would you like some more vegetables?

Smera: No mamma, you can give it to Aka, she needs to become big like me. I am already tall.

It’s not just Aka’s food she is concerned about. She also loves to talk to toys every now and then, telling about eating healthy, just as a mother would tell her kids.

That brings me to man-eating crocodiles, Smera has a crocodile and she love to feed him and this morning she brings the crocodile to her daddy and says, “Daddy, look what my crocodile ate?” and here’s a picture of that for you guys to see it for real.

There's Smileage in it

Travelling back to Doha filled me up with nostalgia. The trip must have been five years back now or then about a year and a bit since I quit my job at the Qatar Airways to move to Dubai. Getting myself comfortable in-flight I was super excited at the prospects of being back to the city which was home for over 2 years. I was also looking forward to meeting my cousins and their lovely daughter. So you can understand my disappointment when I was told at the immigration that I cannot enter the country as they had just implemented a rule which prohibits re-entry for 2 years for anyone who had cancelled their visas.

To this date I cannot figure out why anyone would have such a rule, but that is not the story. Walking into the immigration with my husband who did not have any problem getting in, I was devastated to hear that I need to fly back to Dubai and was an absolute bummer for both of us. We asked if we could meet someone more senior to reason it out. After a short wait when the manager arrived, I was fuming with anger and did not even bother to extend slightest of courtesy or to listen to what he had to say. I just lost my cool as any normal person would (?).

The answer was NO. As I was on the verge of tears, the ever so polite hubby pitched in and requested them to try one last time if possible by speaking to their supervisor. One of the biggest gift that god has bestowed him with is a calm head. And the rest was magic

Voila! All it took was his gentle words and a sweet smile, my passport was stamped. That very instant I realised my mistake and I felt so ashamed of myself, plus got an earful I got from the hubby. I could have put down plenty of reasons for my arrogant behaviour, but I didn’t once think that how difficult a job is especially when you are meeting people like me almost every day or once every hour.

 That was a big lesson for me and from then on, I have practised the art of smiling and being polite with people I meet, be it a cashier, the cleaning boy, my neighbours, taxi drivers and the list will go on. I am sure many people would even thought of me as a mad lady just randomly smiling at them.

Don’t get me wrong I haven’t turned to a saint by any stretch of imagination and still lose my cool occasionally but have reformed myself a great deal along with the improved odds of getting things done. This helps me get freshest of veggies, even if they are not on the shelf, free coffee, free clean-up of stained car seats, discounts and extra special pedicure.

 Thinking about it, I have always seen my mum practice it and my mum-in-law who retired as head of nurse, talking of empathy, putting ourselves in other’s situation but that night I forgot all that since I was upset. It took me a proverbial slap on the face to recognise that.

I am sure we all have learnt a very popular phrase – Smile and the world smiles with you, weep and you weep alone! Remember it’s not that the people are bad, sometimes the situations are. A smile can even sometimes make the impossible, possible!

Economist - 0, Farhan Akhtar - 1

I love listening to music. Perhaps good music might be the only thing in the whole world that the same affect on everyone (except my husband, more on that later) and today’s post is all about Sangrywords having fun at Dubai Music Week.

Saturday night was the most spectacular concert night that I have been to in a real long time. I was almost going give this concert a miss with us the house shifting, the other headaches surrounding it and the hubby travelling, there was no chance. But the lady luck smiled on me - The one sms to City 101.6 with an answer to a question got me premiere tickets to the concert. But the biggest surprise was the chance to meet Farhan Akhtar in person.

Even with tight schedules, the event manager in me made sure hubby landed just in time to head straight to the concert. In my anxiety to reach the venue on time I ended up 45 minutes early - as the saying goes, better early than sorry! Wearing a 5 inch stilettos waiting for the gates to open for concert must be easy-breezy for most girls but for a mum of toddler who is always in snickers or flat pumps, that was really a tough ask.

Once we got in of course there was another customary an hour and half wait before it all got going. So we managed to find a place to sit down and thankfully it was not on the floor. After a while, I saw my hubby plugging headphone to his iPod, and was nodding his head appreciating some good music, or so I thought. The truth is hubby is musically challenged, I mean it’s something that he does not really enjoy, he’d rather watch news channel.   The curious devil in me got me to ask him what was it that he enjoying so much and it turns out that he was listing to "The Bo Xilai trial: End of the road?" from the latest audio edition of the Economist. I can also reveal at this stage that my hubby is the arguably the only person in the entire universe with out even having a single song in an almost full 32GB Ipod.

The fun had just begun, when I was swiftly escorted back stage to meet n greet Farhan Akhtar followed by a photo opportunity. I did not miss this golden opportunity to shake hands and hug him. Feeling ecstatic I ran back to the darling hubby like a child who got her favourite gift.

Image: 7days.com

Pritam was a bit late coming in and hence he really was the cause for the delay, however it is understandable since he was wearing sunglasses at night, must have found it difficult to find his way to the venue.

Image: City 101.6

Image: City 101.6

Arijit Singh’s Kabira song and Neeti Mohan’s act, kick-started the night and even my musically demur hubby too was caught dancing (this time without the Economist audio edition in the background). Next was Benny Dayal, my first time watching him perform live and it was worth waiting every second of it. Benny and Farhan Akhtar are two supremely talented boys and add up to that, these pappus can really dance. Unfortunately we had to leave before Mohit Chauhan came on but it’s was for an even more priceless reason Smera. It was past 1:20 am and I was worried if she found us still missing from home then the baby-sitter would have had a tough time to placate her.

Thank you City 101.6 for making the evening so special for me and my hubby, it was a pure prodigious night to cherish!

Out of focus

On a bright sunny morning, we decide to head out for breakfast under the shadows of world's tallest building. With warm sunny rays falling on my face, my heart yearned to get a click under the picturesque Burj Khalifa. I asked my hubby who was armed with his camera to click a nice picture, for my facebook profile and so he took a trial shot before getting me into the frame. This it looked!

Looking at the brilliant trial shot I swiftly went and stood right in front of it to get that all important perfect profile picture. This is what eventually came out courtesy my hubby’s creative and inquisitive eye for details.

Balancing Mr. George and my urge to purge

One of the biggest tasks in living in a rented place is the trouble of moving out. After three years of highs like having our daughter and lows like having our estate agent doing the vanishing act with our deposit, now its packing time. Our landlord sold this place to take advantage of booming property prices in Dubai and we have to move out of the place and make way for the new landlords who’ll call this their home shortly.

Now there is a huge task waiting for me at the end of this week. The last time I was subjected to this ordeal was three years ago (obviously) and I remember everything like yesterday. We had about 46 boxes, furniture and an assortment of bags and suitcases of different sizes. And back then we were moving out from a one bed room place and the size of the family was 2 – and this time around, each of these parameters as my hubby would like to put it has grown by 100 percent (that would be a 2 bed room house) and 50 percent (our little devil, Smera) respectively.

The packing bit is still easy (as we’ll have some help from the packers!) but it’s the unpacking (which I have to do on my own) that scares me the most. I hate it the very idea of putting things in the cupboards, making sure everything is set out right. I have to confess I have a bit of OCD, for me everything has to be in order or else I won’t let live anyone live in peace.

If hoarding is an obsessive trait, then mine is the exact opposite - that is purging. I am most certain, even this time around I will have much more to discard than to pack.  Initially I thought of asking the hubby to a day off to help me, identify things to keep and things to chuck. But then I realised we might end up at some counselling session to patch things up as he loves to hold on to certain stuff which is unlikely to be used ever again.

Having said that, my purging habit has occasionally caused me heartaches, I once donated my precious little black sweater by mistake and on many mornings have deposited hubby’s Financial Times into the waste bin even before he even got a chance to open the fold.

Please keep me in your prayers as I take on the battle to ensure that we do not go over-board, hoarding at the same time keeping my ‘urge to purge’ instincts at check.

Silly Saturday: Home delivery

Just like any other toddler Smera has a weakness when it comes to mobile phones. So as over-protective mobile lovers we got her a little toy phone almost a year ago. She didn't quite like it then, obviously was not as interesting as ours. But suddenly she has taken a liking to the toy. She loves to pretend having serious conversation over her toy phone.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation tapped by MBI. Yes you guessed it right Mommy Bureau of Investigation.

Smera: Hello Saravana? Do you have two illy (read idly)?

Smera: Daddy what do you want? Dosa?

Daddy: Yes angel!

Smera: Excuse me one dosa. No oil and coffee.

This is our regular order on Friday mornings at Sarvana but what made us laugh is the seriousness with which Smera efficiently ordered over the phone.

Lesson to learn: Never underestimate a two and half year old's ears! 

Image: gettyimages.ae

On shaky grounds

By now everyone would have known of the 8.0 magnitude earthquake rocking Iran. Sending little panic parcels to the nearby countries that includes us in here Dubai and back home in Delhi. Well that is really the factual description of what happened. And if you go by facebook or other news source you might start feeling a little dizzy.

On ground the situation was entirely different. After a tiring workout session with the trainer, I was catching on some sleep. A few minutes past 2 in the afternoon, hubby calls in to make plans for a movie. Thankfully since it was for a movie, I eventually didn't mind taking the call at all.

Then shortly I receive another call for the hubby, “Sangi there is an earthquake, the building is shaking”. “I can’t feel anything here”, I said to him. “Well then maybe you are earthquake-proof”, says the darling hubby, slowing treading on dangerous grounds.

Image: gettyimages

Telling myself it was nothing I thought of getting back to sleep, just then I hear messages flooding on Whatsapp. Most the messages were coming in from neighbours in the community and some of these messages read as below

“I felt the earthquake now!”

“Yes, offices in festival city evacuated”

“My bed was moving”

“My sofa moved”

Another message read as, “my lights are swinging”. Ok this one really scared and made me got off my bed.

Then the message from my very thoughtful neighbour’s, “what if something happens to the nuclear plants?”.

With this thought, my sleep went away and slowly peaked out of the window. The office-goers in the complex bang opposite to my house was on the road. Then the next message on the phone was, “watch out for the after shocks, it would be wise to dress up and be ready should we need to run out”.  

Thinking to myself, maybe I really am earthquake-proof, I got ready to pick-up the hubby from the metro station. He turned up unusually early thanks to the earthquake I never felt. And then sipping a cup of tea and discussing the earthquake story, the hubby with a smirk on his face says, “Since you are shaking things up all the time, maybe the earthquake had a calming effect on you”. 

Village man

Room with a 'Zooper' view

Winter’s are almost leaving and making way for summer to come in. I hate summer and would do anything avoid getting out in the sun. The summer in this part of the world is extremely harsh. The reason why I am cribbing about the Dubai summer is, once they are here it is almost impossible to do anything outdoors. So we decided to head to the zoo this weekend before the weather changes course.

This time we went off to the Emirates Resort Park at Al Bahiya, about 40 mins drive from where I live. It is a much smaller park compared to the Al-Ain zoo. However, the up-close interaction with animals really elevates the entire zoo experience. I am sure you would be heard all about the petting zoo concept, but this was the first time I was experiencing it. Despite the fact I am not an animal-lover nor zoology was my favourite subject, but this trip might have turned me into one.

We booked ourselves the zoo facing room, while it’s little more expensive compared without zoo view, but it was totally worth it! Check out the early morning sight just outside our room in the video.

Go talk a walk!

Ok the truth is I am not a big fan Valentine’s Day, why should we express our love to our loved ones only once a year! I say it all the time, especially when I need his credit card or I need him to take the little one out.

However with all that said, Valentine’s Day is falling on a Thursday.  It gives me just another silly reason to go out on a date-night. So before I made any plans I thought of checking, if had he have any prior work commitments on Thursday.

Me: Honey, how is your Thursday evening looking like, will you be busy?

Hubby: I think not!

Me: Then let’s go out, what do you think?

Hubby: Sounds like a good plan, what about the baby-sitter?

Me: That is taken care of

Hubby: Then let’s go out for a walk on the beach road.

Me: Walk on the beach road? (Thinking in my head: Sounds romantic, but just a walk, may be a dinner too??)

Hubby: Yeah, I have been planning to do the half-marathon for sometime now, let’s do it this Thursday!

Image: gettyimages.ae

Then slowly I get back to work, pretending I didn’t hear that bit of the conservation. Knowing my hubby so well, it’s a given that was purely an innocent remark. He might not even have realised that it’s Valentines.

For rest of the men folk here is my piece of advice – A half-marathon on weekend night, double it up on a Valentines Day – A sure shot way of getting in wifey’s bad books for the rest of the year! 

Rain, dear

I love rain! It’s one thing that I have always looked forward to every year, from the time my memory goes back.  I grew up in Delhi where temperatures in summer can soar up to an unbearable 48-49 degree Celsius. The rain comes as a saviour and also the perfect time to make paper boats walking and dancing in the rain. A true Delihite would welcome rain with chai and hot pakoras, while chai was never offered to us when we were growing up, we were compensated with a warm cup of bournvita.

Things remained same even as I grew up went to college, rain meant bunking class sitting at the canteen having coffee and hot samosas. Those were the best samosas I ever ate the, I am sure that’s in part clouded due to cherished memories from the college where I found great friends.

I have also seen the scarier side of the rains, the flash floods of 2005 in Mumbai. I was just a month old in the city, rain started to pour down heavily and I was stuck in the town with no chance of getting home to the suburbs. Life came to a standstill but even then the whole thing turned out to be a fun night with my favourite girl-friends by myside.

Divya a dear friend, who also happened to be my client working with the Tata group managed to get me and a friend a little place to sleep at Taj Palace that night. Most of the Tata group employees those got stuck were accommodated there, fun night with room of 10 or more girls chattering through the night.  After that, me and my bestie, Pinks were stuck at the company guest house for 2 nights and with no work!

Another night that same monsoon season me and Pinks walked 5 kms in the rain with no rain-gear on us to eat at a rustic restaurant Crystals in search of delicious  rajma and baigan bharta.  Drenched in rain and both of us shivering we ate like as if we had not seen food for  days, somehow the food that night made us feel as if we were home.

Cut to life post-marriage, l find myself in this desert land where thinking about rain is just being harebrained! It is not that it does not rain but maybe day or two in year. Last time we had big rains here in Dubai was maybe 4 years back!

There is another problem apart from this I am married to a guy who works for the insurance industry and the moments it starts raining his first thought would be, “there goes my bonus!”.

It’s been raining here in Dubai today and is predicted to rain over the next days too and I am secretly feeling happy. I wouldn't want to be seen hurting my husband’s feelings and so I have quietly stepped out to the nearest café to write this post and enjoy some scrumptious food courtesy his credit card. 

Worth taking a closer look

Tribute to a great man who still continues to inspire us in many ways. This is a recycled artwork at the Change Initiative, Dubai.  Zoom in and take a closer look :)

ComforTable and ProfiTable

You may remember from one of my earlier post, in which I expressed my secret desire for a home makeover – first on the list being my microwave. I managed to convince my husband to go for a new one but I could not make up my mind after getting lost in the myriad of options at the store. So it looks like until I make up my mind, I am going to be stuck with it for some more time.

To force my hand, I took upon the Cash Converters Idea. First get rid of the stuff and then I’ll will have to buy something.

Cash Converters buys anything that you want but the goods have to be in mint condition.  So, that’s explains why the microwave didn't go, but I went ahead and sold my 6-seater dinner table and a reclining armchair.

One fine evening the cash converters guys arrived, with a truck and without the cash (that comes later, I am told), to take it all away. My little one was a wee upset but she let them once she heard mamma was going to get a new one, a smaller 4-seater dining table.

In comes the husband in the evening, after a tiring day from, I open the door with a big smile, “you look really happy today, what happened?” he asked as walked in. “Where’s our dining table ?”, “I sold it, just as we discussed”. My husband looked really shocked and then we went back to the day I formally had taken his permission to do so, but there was problem - he didn't remember any of that, very convenient!  

My next question was “should I ask them to bring it back?” and thankfully his answer was “No”. Even he found the prospect of asking back the table from a thrift shop, tad embarrassing.

The way it works at cash converters is that every week they try their best to sell the wares. If they are successful, we split the spoils 65-35. If they are not able to sell in a week, they would slash the price by 10% and repeat it until they find a buyer.  The list price is currently Dirham 1500 – or according to my in-house financial analyst, if you are really patient and wait for a year you’ll able get it under Dirham 10!

The new dining table has arrived today. Still no word from Cash Convertors – my guess is someone has already spotted the table and is eyeing that as a Christmas present.  I hope they are not thinking of the next Christmas waiting for that elusive under-10 Dirham deal!

Silly Saturdays – The Revenge of the birds !!

After posting my opening post to start the Silly Saturdays feature, I was little uncertain if I would have enough ludicrous stories to publish every week about myself. I am back yet again with another post and this time it is all about my love-hate relationship with the Angry Birds! So it’s no secret that Sangry Words originated at a time when I became conscious of my addiction to the game.  

Coming back to the incident, this weekend my nieces from Muscat are visiting us to celebrate their Eid break with Smera. To make everyone comfortable I decided to take the couch at night while the rest were tucked away. A few hours into my sleep I suddenly woke up to some noise. The first thing I see upon opening my eyes is photographed below.

It’s the scariest thing to be seen in a pitch dark room in the middle of your sleep! After I recovered from the initial shock, I consoled myself it could have been worse.  At last, Angry Birds have their revenge… 

Yogathon 2012 - My update !!

I am ecstatic as I write this post updating about my big day – Yogathon 2012. This is officially my first attempt at anything that involves a long-drawn-out training.

The task was 108 surya namaskar or sun salutations in an event organized by Fitness First Middle East to raise funds for Dubai Autism Centre. My guess was that I could comfortably do 50 sun salutations, but I was determined to give it my all.

As it turns out I managed 95.5 of those successfully and 0.5% of the routine I skipped in tying up my hair. Just 5 months of irregular yoga training have helped me supersede my expectations and that too for a good cause! 

 Even more pleasing was how little my inflexible husband managed to do and that towards the end he resorted to something that he always does when I am winning – running away! I meant literally around the park.

I am signing out with some pictures from today’s event.

The venue - Burj Park behind Dubai mall fountains

The team leading the Yogathon

The organiser and founder of Yogathon - Peewee Sanchez and my instructor too!! 

The very-kind and my favourite - Marcellene!

And toughest my toughest instructor - Bhama