Blast from the Past – Happy Times in Kuwait

The best trip I have ever had in my life is the trip to Kuwait. This was before the Iran-Iraq war. One of my close cousins had moved to Kuwait after marriage, she invited me to visit her. There were no moments of silence during my trip because laughter filled all hours of the day.

We were young and silly.

My trip coincided with my cousin’s brother-in-law. He was a good company but much irritated with our non-stop silly laughter. At home we played computer games (Bomber man and Mario) or watched Bollywood films. I hated fighting scenes and songs in Bollywood films, I fast forwarded such scenes as the result three hours movie lasted for an hour that irritated people in the house and more giggles from us meant more annoyance from BIL’s brother.

Going out was fun too.

The hoardings in the city were in Urdu script, which sounded funny when we would try reading it unintelligently.

We wondered what women wore under their burqua, we followed the women in the shopping mall to understand their taste in their clothing. What did it matter what they wore under burqa? We argued, much to the amusement of the men, but it was amazing to see their dressing sense in the visible parts of their body. A well manicured fingers and toes, lots of gold jewelry on their hands and ears, and beautiful stylish shoes.

We loved eating out. ‘Jarjeer’, a form of watercress (rocket) was included in salads, and in most of the meals. ‘Logaymat were Kuwait-style donut holes, crisp on the outside, lightly seasoned with saffron, coated in a sugar paste, with a hint of lime. ‘Machboos’ a dish cooked with either lamb or chicken (sometimes with camel) was browned then baked and served on bed of yellow rice. ‘Margooga, a pasta dish in sauce with cilantro, ‘Mutabag’, a tomato-based stew, ‘Qabot, a Kuwaiti style dumpling, stuffed with ground meat and raisins and served with tomato broth were the other dishes that I loved eating. Tashreeb (lasagna type) was the ultimate comfort food in Kuwait. ‘Torshi’ a homemade pickle that accompanied most dishes.

We were amused by the English spellings of the translated names. There were funny spellings on menu like ‘lamp’ for lamb. ‘Duqoos was the tomato sauce that accompanied rice dishes. ‘Jarish’ was pronounced as ‘yareesh’. In Kuwait dialect, they turned ‘J’ sounds to ‘Y’ and ‘P’ to ‘B’ and we had to ‘Bay’ and ‘Bark’ the cars. Kuwait was the place where I acquired a new name, people called me ‘Boosba’ which some of my cousins call me by this name even today.          

No outing is complete without picture. We clicked many pictures but always had three of us in the picture.

This is the photograph that brings beautiful memories in which four of us were able to get a pretty shot.

How did we manage that?

We had gone to the market to have the street food.

Fully satiated, we decided to walk down the seashore and we saw this large glass building in front of us. Three of us sat down immediately for a picture. That’s when my BIL saw his reflection in the mirror too.

“Finally we will get a picture with four of us” said my BIL. It seemed a good idea; my cousin quickly got up and stood behind her spouse.

Click! Finally we had one picture that had all four of us in one picture.

Lovely shot! Isn’t it?

But wait a minute; do you find anything funny in this picture? No?

But we laughed when we saw the picture

Why?

 Like I told you, sometimes we had no reason to laugh.

ps; Sharing these 'short few moments of blast from the past' with friends at Marathon bloggers

The brief was – Pick any photo from the past and write about the memory associated with it, it could be a picture taken during a trip, could be about a meal you can never forget, a dish that you are proud of, an event that is embed in your memory

Life goes on in Hospital

For a person, who is free and has timing adjusted to one’s needs, time spend at hospital is like living in asylum.

The day starts as early as 5am. The nurses who are too idle at night, need some activity, hence early morning they go on their rounds to check the blood pressure and the temperature of the sleeping patients. They know nothing about respecting people’s private space.

In a Holy Family hospital run by priest and nuns, morning starts with Mass, prayers and hymns in praise of God. Then comes the Christmas carols that are pleasant and soothing to listen to.

Lunch and dinner is served at proper times, they are tasteless (okay we cannot expect biryanis and nans in hospital, but nutritious food can be tasty too.)

You have visitors during the evening hours to keep you company. Some phone calls from distant friends and relatives. The longer you stay in the hospital, the lonelier you get, everybody you know has already visited you, everybody is back to their routine life and you live with yourself at the mercy of the nurses who care and the routine that suits the hospital.

Life goes on.

Good Friends Means a World To Me

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."
Unknown

Each time I feel useless and a burden on the earth, (Dharti ka bhojj) a friend walks closer to my heart, unfolds the clouds of depression and lifts my spirit up. Friends’ smiles have added a bright sunshine in my life and I have found them at every walk of life. Flashback to my childhood, takes me to a profile of a close friend who cared a lot for me. Her name was Usha Singh, I don’t know where she is now but we were very close to each other at the age of 5years.

Rolling through the transcript of my life, I have moved places, countries, life and lost many friends on the route; I change a new best friend, (every five years, I have noticed), matching my personality with them. I didn’t forget their names (I do remember them) but didn’t keep in touch with them after they crossed the borders over to their new life with a different name. Through the social media, I have found few and have interacted with them too but I have moved on.

Essential base for friendship is utility, pleasure, virtue, honesty and common interest.

On social network too, we develop friendship with the person whom we have never met, but that is on an intellectual level. I have many virtual close friends to whom I feel connected and care a lot. When I don’t see them for long period, I worry about their well-being. These are friends to whom we are attracted not by the way they look (most of them are photo-shopped profiles, but who care?) but by their skills, talent and thoughts. These friendships do break off when the expectation does not match with our imaginations. They shouldn’t. But what can one say of a friend who is disappointed by the way we look? Is it important to match the looks with intelligence and comfort?

Pleasure is the essential base for friendship.

Every friendship has a pleasure attached. We can overlook the short-comings of a person that cannot be helped, like color, caste, size, health. (These are always overlooked on online friends). But friendship should bring a joy for it to flourish. We have a good reason to reject her/him when we meet them personally if we are offended by the way they behave. On a physical level, we tend to observe their ethics, manners and culture, their ability to talk sensibly and their sensitively towards delicate issues. The cleanliness and their dressing style also matters. The person who has no time to take care of themselves first because they are lazy to do so, how can we expect them to find time for us?

Let’s face facts. There has to be a utility value to the friendship. Everybody needs moral, physical and emotional support. Friendship follows the rule: I give, and you give too. It has to be interactive and reciprocal. The gender of the friendship is not important but if it is just one way friendship, it cannot last for long. The best friendship is the friendship between women. Women have the caring nature and are willing to offer help whenever the need arises. There is so much to share. It’s not gossip, it’s emotional speculation, a good friendships that lasts life-time understands all the qualities of a close friend, good/bad, and accepts them.

Once a friend, always a friend is my mantra.

In a good friend, sentiments and honesty is the only glue that binds the relationship for ever.

Participating in a post a day with Marathon Bloggers

A Diwali Message...

Diwali festival is here, bringing with it love and to rebuilt the relationship between family and friends. Each one of us will sit with our family and pray to Goddess Laxmi to bless us spiritually and mentally. We will pray for success and prosperity and ask for strength to face the rough times.

But God helps those who help themselves. Just praying won’t help, there has to be some effort on our behalf too.

To bring the happiness into our lives, we should hold ourselves accountable; it’s no use blaming others for our unhappiness. Nobody can harm us if we do not allow them. We are in charge of our own feelings and as we think so shall we feel.

We create the thought and that creates feelings.

Positive or negative thought, it’s all in our control. We spend too much time thinking about what people will gossip about us. In this tech world that we live, let it be understood that people really have no time to think or talk about us. Even if they make a comment, it’s just a passing phrase, nothing to brood about. They make a comment and get on with it, might even forget about it.

But what do we do?

We sit and think about it for hours and hours, making ourselves miserable. “How dare she say this about me? How much does she know me? As if she is perfect!” we repeat over and over, unwilling to forget, thus bringing unhappiness into our lives.

The first germ of bad feeling is our bad thought. We want revenge.

We won’t rest till we have got even and said equally unkind things back to them. We have attachment with negativity and we are always being cynical about every issue. This is a germ that spreads like virus and envelops all the people around us creating negative vibrations that may result in headache, health problems or discomfort.

People are so insecure that they are always doing weird thing to draw attention to themselves.

Why don’t we have a faith in ourselves? Why must we keep proving ourselves?

It is not important to make an impression on everyone whom we meet. As long as we have good opinion about our own selves and have enough faith in our own abilities, there is no need to prove it. Our talent will be recognized eventually without any struggle.

On this day, of Diwali festival, may we be blessed and let us work on cleansing our souls so that negative vibrations don’t even knock on our doors.

Happy Diwali and a happy New year!!

Postcard from Tenerife - 3

Tenerife is an island, there are many beautiful beaches around coastal areas where one can spend hours. The restaurants along the coastal areas sell the best fresh fish and it’s a great way to spend a day with family and friends.

But one has to be careful during swimming in these waters because not all the beaches are safe to swim. I have heard of many stories about people being swept away by wild waves. Those are the people who are not careful about the precausions one has to take and are willing to take risk in such water.

If you are in Tenerife, It is important to identify the safety of the beaches by the color of flag that you see at every beach. Different beaches display different colored flags. It is important to understand their significations by their colors before taking a plunge.

They are red, green, yellow and blue. 

The beach with blue flag is a five star beach. It is clean, has all the safety precautions, has active life-guards, has instant first aid services, restaurants, clean toilets, sea beds and all the facilities to enjoy the day at the beach.

When you see a green flag, it indicates that it is safe to swim. 

Yellow flag indicates that you have to make your own decision and swim at your own risk. All the safety precaution might not be available and you are in charge of making your own decisions.

But when you see the red flag, don’t even bother changing into swim suit.