Gandhi redux!

developments over the last few weeks have forced a rethink. a rather big hammer wielded by fate has led to us abandoning the gay (pl no pun) merry life and embarking on an austere quasi-monastic existence. we shall henceforth (at least till further notice) refuse the leg of lamb, the sikandari raan, the t-bones, the koftes and allied meat-of-the-matter viands and concentrate on garden-fresh veggies and the occasional fish. we will also have to abandon plans for now for a camel BBQ planned at the end of this month.

the health is not what it used to be, and this was discovered just after the last post. additional incentive to sort out the health was the size of the doc's bill. the same number as the year!

shall be back in a few days with more interesting stuff.

muddle east?

this place can catch one unawares. we disembark thinking of tans, SPF, ice creams, Long Island Iced Teas and so on. for this is after all desert. where the sun shines 335 days of the year (we are on leave for 30 days and are out of the country so we dont know if the sun shines those days). these points are all borne out for 9 months of the year. july - sept / october is not fit for man nor camel. considerable investments in knee-lengths and sleeveless tunics.

but come november, and everything goes awry. KLs and SLs are hastily jettisoned. frantic searches are initiated for woolens! airconditioning is passé and monkey caps are de rigueur. the temperature swings from 42 deg to 12 deg. while people dont actually freeze, hypothermia is a distinct danger in the outlying parts of dobuy.

we are quite confused.

i ton yhw ti od dluoc icniv ad fi

we write this as a legit resident of the sands! over the last few weeks we have got a l'il piece of plastic that certifies us to 'legally live and work in the United Arab Emirates'. thrills us no end to be legit. what thrills us even more is the fact that we are 'free of infectious disease' and therefore 'medically fit to reside in the UAE'. we all know what 'infectious disease' means in today's enlightened age.
the new year has happened and we saw it in snoring away. though there was a spectacular fireworks display which we saw from our lawns (we have two). the relief at finally getting our papers sorted made xmas, new year's eve, etc a wee bit more fun!
finally managed to read 'da vinci code' hence the title. the book does not grip. nor does it hold. a waste. the author becoming a multi-millionaire on this garbage only proves there's one born every minute. and now we even have IVF...
anyway, happy new year and may the gods (or L. Ron Hubbard depending on your persuasion) smile on you this year.

Wet sand?

the rain in Dubai can be a funny thing. when a region gets a maximum rainfall of something like 30 mm annually, you tend to forget what rain feels like, smells like and more importantly the havoc it can create!

however, a 30-minute drizzle (as seen from my office alongside) two days ago led to some 700 minor accidents across Dubai! it also led to some strange sights (for Dubai)- puddles of water, people with umbrellas, wet shoe marks on pristine marble flooring...

but the weather has been beautiful, with cool winds and temps in the mid-teens. cloudy, grey skies provide a welcome relief to never-ending sunny and cloudless days. and also set the mood for a single malt come the eve.

desktop criticism

faithful readers have complained that my postings are not true to the spirit of this blog. said readers feel that i should write more about life in araby and not publish guff downloaded from some site (with due credits of course).

point noted. shall endeavour to spread more sand. but exercising my right to creative walkabouts, i shall continue posting points of general interest & flavour.

after all, no one ever talks about reader's block.

a holothurian or femella as a pet?

would u care to have this as your pet:







Excerpt from The Times: The creatures, also called sea cucumbers, or bêches-de-mer in French and namako in Japanese, are one of the items on Asian menus that Westerners often find most difficult to swallow. Known to scientists as holothurians, they resemble bloated brown sausages studded with warts. They scavenge from the sea floor, catching plankton and ocean debris in their tentacles. When alarmed by predators, they react first by firing sticky threads, and then by vomiting their internal organs, which later regrow. As if that wasn’t enough, they breathe through their anuses.
but taking a buddhist perspective (of all living creatures having SOME use), people of far-east asian ethnicity consider this as a delicacy, best had boiled and dried (perhaps with a spot of chutney on the side). bet no japanese kid yells if he has to eat broccoli...

as for me, i would rather have THIS as my pet:

GarageWare

VCs have always pored over balance-sheets, burn rates, IRRs, ROIs, blah blah blah & blah. this is esp true for investments in software / IT startups. but methinks VCs should also bring in real estate consultants when they analyse a funding proposal. for garages seem to loom large in these software successes. YouTube (the latest money machine, taken over by Google some time back) is just another startup that was founded and initially run from someone's garage.
so i have an idea: identify all the available garages in a given market (especially in California & China), buy them up and rent them out to wannabe software moguls. eventually corner the world garage market, and set up a consultancy to advise these moguls on the ideal garage to rent. this new input to the software indutry will be called garageware, and a new company will be set up to run this business. the company will be called GarageDoors, and will have Windows.
remember u read about this here first!
more on the biz plan later.

random pensées

just to get back into the groove as it were. diarists in times past used quills, reed and wood to fashion their writing instruments. the modern diarist uses the keyboard. is that writing? or is that data entry (i dataentered this blog on thursday...).

news today of a neighbour's death from over-indulgence in the demon brew. the 2nd in his family to be killed thus. this family is a microcosm of a larger economic context - a vicious circle of poverty, big-city aspirations, minimal education and a grinding inability to bring in resources to get out of this circle. leading to escapism, a denial of reality.
had spent some pleasant times as a boy with this man. and i will always be grateful to this family for making me develop a more rounded perspective. and also because seeing their situation helped me stay rooted to a hard reality - life CAN be unfair. so make the most of it while it is.

have developed this funny craving for chelo kebabs. thankfully, staying in dxb ensures access to this most sinful of delicacies, first experienced in a bombay eatery whose fame and recall just highlight the fact that PR can do wonders, even without underlying substance.

consistency

the gap atwixt my posts is steady at 6 weeks - remarkable consistency for a gemini.
this gap has seen a lot - the passing of a loved relative, rather severe ill-health, post-campaign stress disorder and nervous jitters brought on by the fact that there was nothing to be nervous about.
am told by the local bedouin that adjustment to the summer heat here takes a while. and hence the ups and downs. thrilled me no end to hear that.
but the ramadaan feasts have helped improve morale! more on this in the next post!
till then, festina lente!

Time n tide wait for no man (perhaps ariel does)

this matter of posting posts... a blog cant be a blog unless it's updated regularly. (dead blog: log). and there have been the odd grumblings of discontent from loyal readers (2 at last count) at the lack of new content. To them, and to future LRs, apologies and a promise to be more regular.

Cherrabay!

a year ago today après moi le déluge became a reality for bombay. bombay survived. battered, bruised and wet behind the ears & elsewhere. but alive and open for business. unlike the namesake town of the supposed author of the quote.
plan to open a very dry wine tonight to salute those who battled & won, battled & lost. and a friend who provided shelter and entertainment in his car for 19 hours.
this day last year i could not imagine that exactly one year later i would be sweltering in 48 deg heat. in a country where average monthly rainfall is 7mm. such are the vagaries of life...

in memory...

We are all British!!

Hillary Rodham Clinton traces her origins to the same part of northeast England as George Washington, the first president of the United States.

The great-great-grandfather of George Clooney, the actor, emigrated from Ireland and became a jeweller.

President George W. Bush is connected by one blood line to Wild Bill Hickock, the western gunfighter. (Blood SHOULD spill if this news really gets about.)

Tom Cruise traces his roots to a Welshman who emigrated to Kentucky in 1850.
(His real is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. He has all our sympathies. Must have really annoyed his parents.)

Tom Hanks, the actor, is distantly related to Abraham Lincoln. (wonder if thats the inspiration for the beard in Castaway).

(since my parents were technically british till independance, i wonder if i can claim british ancestry... any light on this will help my move to the mother country!)

Swallows in summer too...

Monica Lewinsky is in the London School Of Economics...

Champagne - Coventry - Chandigarh

A guide to those misguided souls who think champers should be uncorked with a loud POP, and let the precious fluid spurt away, to be soaked up by carpets and divers other non-appreciative receptacles.

Scientists at Coventry University have developed a mathematical formula which enables people to uncork the bottle without wasting even a single drop of champagne.The formula, which has been named "Smith's Law" after its founder, Dr. Steve Smith, is P = T / 4.5 + 1, where P stands for pressure and T indicates the temperature. It is based on the well-known fact that the pressure in a typical bottle of champagne at room temperature is equivalent to the pressure of a double - decker bus tyre. As per the formula to stop the cork from flying off, the temperature of the liquid should be between 5C and 7C, which means that the pressure will be 2 to 2.5 atmospheres, a third lower than when the bottle is at room temperature.The researcher says that keeping the temperature right is the most important thing as if you get the temperature right, the pressure will be right and you will be able to enjoy the champagne at its best.

A thought: cricket, that most english of pursuits, celebrates victories big and small with champagne, that most french of philosophies. However, that does not explain the ludicrity (does that exist) of a milk-drinking jat popping open a taittinger at the conclusion of a certain epic battle in 1978. At Lord's.

The incredible lightness of being

an accidental look at my weight the other day made me wobble with fright - 100 kgs and counting! called for prompt action through the correct channels. a pizza later, decided to do the GM diet.
at conclusion yesterday, i was hoping to bounce along the asphalt, pounds lighter. tho not too much avoirdupois has been shed, i AM feeling a bit cleaner (internally, as it were) and am planning to do this diet once more.
the only fly in the ointment is the preponderance of fruits in the thing; fruits being one thing at which i look askance. am more the meat and veg types...
attached pic shows effect of day 4: 3 glasses milk & 8 bananas...

By the way....

what do birds and bees talk about....?

Go to Hell!

On the Day of The Devil (according to popular custom), thought would pitch in to help drive tourist traffic to this little town in Michigan, USA. Around since 13 October 1841, with a permanent pop. of 72. Joins other American towns and cities with names that defy logic - Arab, Intercourse (Alabama), Unalaska (Alaska), Allah (Arizona), Yellville (Arkansas), and so on and so back. For more pointless city names in a rather pointless country refer to http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Pointless/Cities.html.

Was planning to go see The DV Code today - devils day and what have you. ticket cost (AED 30) and a tendency to fall asleep in my coffee (result of being at client's service till 4 in the morn two days running) forced me to change plans. shall festina lente and put up the feet with a pipe tonight instead. with a stiffish G n T.

the Dubai dacha and environs

in kitchen after succesfully boiling water

Kunal (house mate) n self in the lawn.
when elephants dance, the grass is trampled
(old ba-xi saying)







1 Bakhit Villa from a distance.
Bakhit's Buckets on thu nights.

the long and winding road...

we are back

apologies to myself (since i seem to be the only reading my blog!). a two month gap cannot be attributed to mere writer's block!
these two months have seen a lot of action - more work, an unexpected trip home, a birthday and a raise at work!
helios seems to be in his element these days, and the weather is manna for sun-block makers et al. native wisdom (i.e. the gardener at home) has it that temperatures in June are likely to hit 49 deg c. time to break out the bikinis....
this post is by way of getting my hand back in. stand by for more...