Birthday..

Was in Dubai this birthday, with my sister who stays there. She
remembered a little dance jig we used to do when we were small and if any of our
family members birthday was approaching. On her insistence we did that little
dance… I guess after almost more than 25 years. We just used to count the number
of days left for the birthday and dance around each other… like “ its <family
members name> birthday in xyz day” “its <family members name> birthday
in xyz days.”

Now that I think about it, we never used to celebrate birthdays
then. It used to be just chocolates for us. My granny used to make Sheera(sweet
dish) and we used to cut that instead of cake.

Still we carried out that routine dance for every family
members birthday. It was only on reaching college did we actually start having
birthday parties.

Nowadays birthdays are special right from the first one… the
first one has to be massive, even if the little toddler does not understand a
thing. Maximum first birthdays I have visited have always seen the child cranky
because of so much noise and attention around.

Birthdays come and birthdays go, I have celebrated my kids
birthdays with great zeal, only to stop planning once they turned 10. After that
its their choice, how they want to celebrate.

We siblings never had that kind of birthday celebrations, but
come to think of it, don’t even have any regrets or complaints about it.

Travelogue

Lets begin with… wanting to write since long… wrote a few drafts…which did not make it here… so here I am … trying my hand on unchartered territory for me… a Travelogue…

Travelled to Dubai, was there for 12 days. Basically stayed in Sharjah, and commuted to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jebel Ali.

I seriously did not understand why people were telling me, that I had come there in the wrong season…the climate is bad … but I found the climate much much better and comfortable than Mumbai. Ok there is this missing cloud cover…but we were still able to roam around the streets in the afternoon…without sweating it out. People were telling me, yearend is the best time to visit Dubai. But … as I said… we found it very comfortable.

Second we found people in Dubai skeptic of travelling to Sharjah…but… one of the places worth visiting is Al Qasba in Sharjah. It’s a beautiful water front, with a Ferris Wheel – Eye of Emirates, boats, water fountains, nice restaurants with open waterfront seating. I would highly recommend the place if you are travelling to UAE. We visited it twice, and would have loved to spend atleast one more evening there, sadly could not.

The drive to Abu Dhabi is a beauty. UAE’s efforts in greenery has paid off well…and the roads are beautiful. The Grand Mosque – Shaikh Zayed Mosque, is a place to visit atleast once in life. If you don’t see it, its like visiting Agra and not seeing the Taj Mahal. A modern day structure, but a beauty. The wall decorations, the minars, the chandeliers, even the carpet is simply mind blowing. Its one place I would personally recommend to visit.

Jebel Hafeet…. the mountains, the drive along the road… took my breath away… and view from the top was wow!!! We drove there late in the night, and were able to see the night view…but am told that even the morning view has its own charm. A plaque over there informed us that this road has been voted amongst the top ten roads in the world to drive on… am planning to google on the remaining top nine and make a wishlist of seeing them.

Dubai…the land of Gold(though personally I found Sharjah Gold Souk better than Dubai Gold Souk).. there are many places you can visit… The Abra(boats to take you from one end of the creek to another), the Amphi buses, the Metro, the Malls .. all have their own charm. In our little time we had , we visited the Underwater Aquarium in the Dubai Mall, saw Dubai from the 124th floor – “On The Top” from Burj Khalifa. These are things which one should not miss there.

UAE has good infrastructure in terms of Metro and Roads, but like any other country it is plagued with traffic.. a normal 15 mins ride can take you over an hour during the peak time. Parking woes are aplenty, as most buildings were constructed without parking lots(lack of vision before?). One more thing which I did not like is that as a tourist, I am not allowed to use any Bus unless I have their smart cards, which are available at very few bus stops and every Metro Station. The vision to develop malls, buildings, structures to enhance tourism is one thing, but if I want to travel in Buses particularly, I found Dubai lacking a bit.

Shopping- Ok lets not get into that … that’s my wifeys domain

So why havent I mentioned any water parks, snow skiing , Ferrari world… we have our own over here, which we frequent, better to do things which we cant … right?

Catch the liars…

Have to deal with many kinds of people in my day to day working. Get to meet many. Today while dealing with one labour, whom I know since past 10 years, I happened to notice him twitching his eyes. This he does everytime he is lying about something. Have always caught him in this act and saved myself some money. We used to have one carpenter who had a similar habit. Whenever he would quote high for anything, his one eye used to start blinking, thereby giving himself up and leading to some good negotiations.

There are many such giveaways. I know of one person, who when lying on the phone, will start coughing, clearing his throat. Everytime this happens, I know I am being lied to.

Then there are some who have particular way of talking… one is like .. Arre Sirji…who kya hai na…

Some I know, have a habit of repeating the same sentence again and again, trying to bang in the lie into your head.

And then there are some, who are experts in lying. Impossible to catch them. But have to beware.

Anyways… had not blogged since long… and this labours act caught my attention and set me thinking…so just collecting the ways to catch liars as much as I could remember