random musings on a hot july day

on this 1^st day of july, 14 days from the day of the bastille, 15 days from the birthday of our youngest niece and 20 days from the birthday of our eldest niece, a few random thoughts with the morning potion!

like, the holy month of ramadan could prove to be one heck of a tough month this year. nearly 19 hours of fasting for the pious and the believers, with nary a gap in between. we wish them a blessed month.

like, we are currently in a mind battle over the desire to lose weight and the urge to just chill on our sofa and watch the world go by on the beeb. but this is not a battle that we can afford to lose. we have to get into a normal shape chop chop. for reasons that are not meant for the public!

like, the 2^nd half of the year promises to be as weird as the 1^st half. that is the downside of working with people whose brains are parked behind their knees. and while we shall not regret working here [all part of the life experience] we shall certainly opt out of working for indians. esp those who are abaft 18.5203° N, 73.8567° E

and on that note we bid our readers ta for now and to await with bated breath the next portion!

dubai through a different lens...

we recently listened to a lady friend of ours who and posted a series of photos on fb. the idea being to spread good photos and [to my mind] make fb a little bit more interesting than dish water. because we blog [!] about life in dobuy as lived, the photos capture stuff that most tourists do not see. so here goes!

the first one is of something that is usually associated with desert and araby but which is rarely seen in the glitzy environs of dobuy - the camel! we see these single-humped dromedaries on our peregrinations around the country and being somewhat sympathetic to voiceless animals take a liking to them!

the next photo is something that is ubiquitous in this part of the globe - sand. with our propensity to walk with head down [the ancient greeks did it too...] we tend to notice things below eye level. this was interesting simply because of the numerous sets of footprints that were on the patch ahead of us, now all we need to do is give a fancy title and an even fancier description of the photo and rake in the doubloons!

this one was on a hot thursday night and we were drained after a few hours in sonapur - where construction workers are housed in dormitories called "labour camps", which description causes no little angst to the PC-brigade - and we needed to rehydrate ourself with speed. the interesting thing about this glass is that the word "perrier" turns green when cold liquids are poured into it. good brand initiative and slaked our thirst as well!

the clock tower in dobuy was till the 70s the end of the road - the city ended there! today it's a massive hub with jams (cars not camels). the clock was gifted to the ruler of dobuy by the sultan of oman and rolex has got its brand recall sorted.

 a dose of reality just 45 mins away from the glitz, glamour and bling of dobuy. this is a side street in umm al quwain, the "poorest" of the 7 emirates. and given that india can never be far away from indians i met a tea seller from santacruz [a suburb of bombay] who's been here 35 years!

democrazy?

the Great Indian Tamasha is rolling on and lots of people seem to be having a lot of fun taking potshots at each other in various media.

but spare a thought for the sheer logistics and management skills required to pull off a feat where over 800 million folk like up to show their finger! and to get a functioning government - even if it looks like a patchwork quilt stitched by a navajo on kaya - is by far the best salute to the indian spirit!

we read somewhere that "matching voter expectations with government capacity in such an astonishingly complex nation is a daunting governance challenge" and whoever wins the elections will know that he / she has work ahead!

lounging on our sofa here in the sands, we have been dwelling on the merits of the city state and its ability to foster a better quality of life. we are of the firm opinion that the motherland is just too massive for effective federal governance. we are especially peeved that bombay is treated like a dark horse both by the powers and by its own residents!! we need to be carved out as a separate territory, centrally administered and freed of the burden of carrying aspirations of politicians from the mofussil who care more for their patch of dirt than bombay.

and finally, the day the NRI can vote from his adopted country will be the day when india will truly stand out as a model of democracy!

simple philosophies of life

we do not claim any particularly deep knowledge of wines [though we have a dream of suffixing "MW" to our name one day]. however we do know what we like and our tastebuds are firmly within the hexagone! not for us the plonk dished out in our native land or in the land of the free. nor for us the stuff coming up from down under. the occasional zinfandel has titillated our buds but only when someone else is paying!

its not just drinking the wine. its also about the traditions, the lingua franca of the amateur du vin, the entire experience...and yes its also about our cultural underpinnings, our values and perhaps our desire for association. and we will never drink for the sake of drinking, for advertising to the world that we are above the pedestrian in our lifestyle!

so while the rest may mangle grapes with their feet [heathen habits still exist unfortunately] we shall listen to the soft sigh of a cork being pulled from a bottle [a sound akin to a kiss from someone we love], the gentle gurgle of the amber liquid as it decants into a glass and inhale the heady bouquet.

we daresay there are harder ways to spend a day!