See Paris for me...

I pick up a few books from a local bookstore everytime i go home. Last week i returned to kuwait with 4 new titles and one among them is 'See Paris for me' authored by Preeti Aisoli. I have never heard about her or read any review about the book. I picked it up for the namesake. From the back cover i assumed it would dvelve into the intriacies of a mature passionate relationship outside marriage.

The narration is more or less a diary entry narrating a forbidden relationshp between two mature individuals. The story is set in Paris and takes you through almost all major museums, concert halls and works of painters.  Its about Sadhvi, wife of a diplomat posted in Paris who gets intensly attracted to a scholar teacher.

The story is set in Paris, Budapest and hydrebad. Both of them are mature, inteligent with a common interest in arts, musuems and concerts. Readers need to have patience for loads of narrtive on music and art. Her yearning for him and the emotional struggle to let go of it forms the underlying narrative. They occcasionally meet at her home for lunch with other friends or chance meetings at museums or on the numerous romantic parisian streets.

They rarely talk freely about their relationship. But their meetings can be best summarised by " deprived of the will to move they sat next to each other in unquiet silence. The unspoken swirled around them in dizzly 
circles".

This novel celebrates the silent yearning at times the soul craves for and is painted in a canvas that sketches the struggle to let go of it too.

Strictly for moody romantic art lovers.

From Kabul to Paris...just to be alive!

She is a widow in her late sixties living with her youngest unmarried daughter in Paris. Its a small house with minimal furniture a dire contrast from her palatial bungalow in Afghanistan. She looked frail but there was nobility in her eyes and in her weak hunched gait.

She is the wife of a former general and minister of the erstwhile Rabbani government. The family sought asylum in Paris soon after Taliban deluged the power corridors of Kabul leaving behind countless bodies that warmed the power seats of government, military and royalty.

She along with her husband six daughters and a son lived a quiet life in the suburbs of Paris. There were no more servants to house keep or to prepare lavish Afghani menus the family was used for generations. Dusty albums- the only reminder of their days in a pre-taliban kabul opened up on my lap.

I was stunned at the beauty she was in her engagement picture. She wore a dark green short sleeve dress that revealed her legs from the knees. She was seated with her head tilted towards the right showing the flowers arranged on the silk hat she was wearing. Hard to imagine that Kabul had once adorned naked legs and flowery hats that would put any Jane Austen character to shame.

There were numerous pictures of the couple visitng Russia, Azerbeijan, Pakistan, India and parts of Europe. They were mostly pictured with army generals and ministers. From the hectic political and socilite life adjusting to a life of a refugee took its toll on the family. but they were content to be alive.

This was a family who lost all their wealth, belongings and roots but managed to survive Taliban. But not many were as lucky as she was.

P. F. Chang’s – the new Chinese bistro in Kuwait

‘Been there twice and didn’t get a table’….. ‘the waiting time is like an hour and more’ - sound bites from my office. What more PR does a newly launched restaurant need? The reference is about P.F. Chang’s - the new entrant in the Kuwaiti dining scene. This brand being a US based one is familiar with the young Kuwaiti population. This is their first venture outside US.

Am not a great fan of Chinese cuisine but the elusive aura built around the difficulty in getting a table landed me along with my long time friend from UAE at the reception desk on P.F. Chang’s in Aveneues mall. ‘Sorry sir…you are 12^th in the waiting list’ smiled the lady at the reception while raising her thick mascara eyes from the reservation register. I looked at my friend and we rolled our eyes ‘as expected’. ‘By the way I can offer you the bar counter’. We didn’t care…

The food was worth the hour spend on the bar stool. We ordered dynamite shrimps and fried green beans for starters. The latter (a simple dish of batter fried green beans) was a bit bland but worked great with the sauce. The dynamite shrimp exploded shaking up every taste bud taking notice of the batter fried shrimps soaked in a thick spicy sauce. I could spot the cocktail glass, in which the shrimps arrived, on every second table. I repeated the shrimps during my second and third visit as well.

Need to mention here about Chicken lettuce wraps – a must try! I loved my drink as well – a blend of honey, sweet melon and I guess orange.

The main dishes were fine. The ginger chicken with broccoli and the orange peel shrimps were an escape from the true Cantonese style and that’s exactly why I liked them. They came with brown rice (our very own palakkadan matta). The menu am told was originally conceived and planned by chef Philip Chiang (now you know the origin of Chang in the name).

The mini desserts were really ‘mini’ just to fold in to the last few square inch spaces down your belly. The ambience is chic so was the bill. Finally I dined at a Chinese bistro that was named after human beings (Paul & Chang) and not a dragon or a lantern !

                                                                                      

Valentines day - a story of love, flowers and bills

Love was in the air. Love smelled like roses, felt like red silk and tasted like delicacies at a fine dine restaurant with candles lit between pairs of love struck glistening eyes.

'Planning' seems to be the key word when it comes to 'love' on Velentines day. Valentines who were trying for a last minute dinner reservation or flower delivery would vouch for that...because they never got that romantic seat in their favourite food bar or the perfect dew filled roses decked with cupids arrows. 

My colleague placed a last minute flower delivery (paying KD 3 i.e more than US$ 10 per rose) and ended up with 20 withered roses that looked like they had practically been sniffed by the entire neighbourhood. But for most of my friends and family it was a perfect 'Valentines day'

It was mid day when i called my sis to wish her. She sounded ecstatic as i later learned she was the Jeweller with her valentine. A newly married friend took a flight from Kuwait all the way to Bombay to be with his valentine. The day seem to have passed by peacefully in Bombay and not disrupted by the Shivsainiks...lately they had too much on their plate ( Rahul Gandhi, SRK..) and sending troops on Feb 14th seemed to be another disaster they didnt want the statelite channels to dine on.

Another friend who keeps telling me how the recession in dubai had spiralled his business (of course to the earth's core) found petty cash useful to decorate his office with fresh flowers and rolls of red silk - all for employee motivation in a recession hit economy.

Another Valentine day faded out in the horizon...leaving behind a lot more love and a lot more bills to pay....


  

Shivarathri...om namah shivaya...

Today is Shivarathri...men and women fast during the day and stay awake during the night - all for thanking lord Shiva for saving the world. There are numerous myths regarding the origin of Shivaratri. All these myths happened during night and hence reason enough for celebrating Shivaratri during night.

I googled and found a few 'shivarathi' myths  - about Vishnu and brahma searching for the origin of Linga following a fight,  the Story of Shivaratri based on 'Samudra Manthan' where Shiva drank the poison that was churned out of the ocean and had to stay awake the whole night to keep himself alive. 

There is also another story of Shivratri based on a hunter who escaped wild animals by climbing a tree and kept him awake by plucking Bilva leaves. In the morning, he discovered that he had been dropping the leaves on a Shivling. And the word spread that he was saved by Lord Shiva.

Apart from these myths, it is said that the reunion of Lord Shiva and Parvati happened on the Shivratri day. Another legend states that Lord Shiva performed the Taandava on this day - the origin of indian classical dance.

Shivarathri (night of Shiva) has eventually entered the Indian vocabulary (be it hindu or christian, marathi or tamilian) as a term for sleepless night. Every night India (or where ever Indians are living) murmurs 'Looks like tonight is going to be shivarathri' -  it may be a newly wed groom whispering lustly in the dark, a tired mother trying to put her child to sleep, a student on his exam night....they all experience the essence of 'shivarathri'.

Just a heads up about your hypermarket counter assistant

Its thursday evening and our office elevators (8 of them) frantically stuttered at each floor and offloaded scores of our colleagues on to the ground floor. They were all in a hurry to queue up the narrow spiral exit of the parking block adjacent to the office building.

By the time i left office the elevaors were taking an evening nap. I met William in the elevator. He works as an office boy (yeah they remain 'boys' forever) on the 18th floor. He is not hurrying to go home to rest and then to go out later in the evening to enjoy the weekened.

William like many other low paid expatriates work as counter assistants at a leading hypermarket. No...they are not employed as part time assistants. They 'pay' this retailer to be employed. They pay KD 1 (US$ 3.6) per day to the retailer to help pack the trolley of goods purchased by their customers. William and his colleagues hope to get tips from these customers tired of shopping while attempting to load these huge trolleys (assumably designed by a finance guy to accomodate a lot more than one would have intended to shop).

Next time you see a hypermarket counter assistant skilfully opening the thin plastic bags to load your grocery, think about tipping him. He has paid from his pocket to serve you in the hope of making a little extra on a busy weekend.

Salute to the Hypermarket giant for a win-win strategy - the employee pays for packing goods that are paid for by its customers. In a recession hit market, organisations are looking for new revenue streams - but this seems to be a stretch of imagination rooted in sheer expliotation of a meek marginal population.

Recall Mails

People have a fascination to open a recalled mail even when they know that the sender has expressed the desire otherwise. 99% of the times I get my ‘recall’ request popping up as failed. It’s the human urge to know or experience the forbidden in action.

The underlying thought process is that there has to be some goof up that the sender is trying to hide and I need to know it. But still the ‘Recall’ option is a good feature (if successful) allowing to avoid an embarrassment or a regret. Wish we could apply the ‘Recall’ option to some of our sound bites that create havoc (mostly) in our personal lives.

The husbands of the world would vouch for that. To gain an upper hand in an argument, men do say silly things – mostly about in-laws or compare spouse to another woman (sister or sister-in-law) and then they repent for a life time.

Same goes to a wrongly send SMS. I remember the rumor about a cricketer sending an SMS to his wife that was intended for his mistress. The grape wine is that the sms was intentionally send to break the news to his wife. Men are so vulnerable. They even have to fake confessions!

Public transport in Kuwait

If there is any place on earth where public transport is not used by its citizens it would be Kuwait. Huge expensive cars are the norm and every person with a drivable age has one. Kuwait has well planned roads and hence so far has no major traffic issues unlike Dubai.

Public transport which means buses comes in 3 models and colour combinations - run by 3 different companies (govt. owned). They run uniterupted carrying maids, labourers, lowly paid white collar workers and me.

The buses are not as clean as in the UAE so i do sanitise my hands once i reach office or home. btw i used to do this even before the H1N1 compliance came into effect this year. Colleagues in the bank had a strange expression when they came to know that i used the buse to commute to office. probably i am the only one in our department who commutes by public transport.

the buses are driven mostly by egyptian or indian drivers and my co-passengers are indians, philipinos and arabs. the fee is anominal 200 fils (slightly over AED 2 or Rs 32). but for students its free of charge..something similar to the dscounted rates in India.

Students and anybody who can get away as a student travel for free. Drivers hate to stop at bus stops that has only students waiting to board the bus. As a rule they dont stop...and lately these student victims have started hurling stones. Its become a bit dangerous these days ..with a few such incidents leading to broken glass windows.

If the policy is to allow students for free, then it should be followed. there is no justification for going against this as most of the time the buses run with barely a few passengers and at peak hours the bus will be fully seated and a few passengers would be standing. Scenes like in India where passengers hang around bus doors like a beehive does not happen here.

lately am happy....a new set of buses have been introduced on my route...so i get to travel in cleaner buses. Someone at the bus company has not yet inspected the buses i guess....they still have welcome to 'some chineese company name' posters stuck behind every seat....of course the buses were ordered from China.

Koko – the best guide in Bangkok

Day 5: 3rd Oct, 2008

My last day in Bangkok. I had booked a tour for Grand Palace and The Royal Monastery of Emerald Buddha (Temple of the Emerald Buddha).

I met the most interesting and entertaining women in Thailand - Koko, our tour guide. She was packed with so much life and energy that it effused into the tour and transformed day 5 as the best day in Thailand.

The group was really international in mix – an Indian from Muscat, a Korean couple from KL, 2 girls and 2 guys from the Australian police, an African American from Boston and a Lebanese (honeymoon) couple from Dubai. Koko addressed each of us by our city names except the American guy – she called him chocolate.

En route to the Grand palace, she went on non-stop giving titbits on Thailand, thai culture etc…(10 million population in Bangkok, 5 million cars, 2 million cycles and 50,000 cycles. 95% Buddhist, 3% muslims and 1% greek Christians – no England Church. 44 alphabets in the Thai language, monks eat 2 meals a day and do not eat after 12 pm)

Our first stop was at the Reclining Buddha. A huge gold plated statue. Around the statue there were numerous offering cups and for 10 batts a bundle of coins are available to offer in each of the offering cups. I took a bndle of coins and prayed for a wish and offered the coins in each of the cups – close to a hundered cups.

The Australian lady police clicked a snap for me with the majestic ‘Reclining Buddha’ in the backdrop. She lived up to the reputation of police in GK by asking Koko, of the two statues which one was Marco and Polo (it was two separate statues of Marcopolo).

Koko never entertained questions as she was sure of her script and she knew the answers to those untimely questions would be addressed at a later stage.

I befriended the Indian guy and we both helped each other in clicking our respective snaps. He worked for Gulfar in Musact.

At the Grand Palace (built in 1782) we saw the Coronation Hall, the Royal residence, the Chedi where the remains of Buddha are kept and the temple of Emerald Buddha – carved from a blockof green jade and was first discovered in 1434in a stupa in Chiang Rai. At that time the image was covered with plaster and later a part of the plaster on the nose flaked off revealing the green stone underneath. Initially it was thought the stone was emerald and thus the legend of Emerald Buddha began.

I clicked a photo with Koko and promised to sent it to her hotmail.

On our way back there was stop at a Gem factory and outlet. Koko said ‘ you can buy ruby for your friends or secretaries from here….very cheap’ – taking a dig at the elder executives visiting Bangkok with their girl friends or secretaries.

My flight was at 6.30 pm so I left for the airport at 4 pm and for the first time in 4 days I got to know the traffic jams in Bangkok. The 10 minute drive to the highway took 45 minutes. Sensing the situation, my taxi driver re-negotiated the taxi rate and hiked it by another 100 batt – he lived up to the Bangkok taxi reputation: they are out to fleece the tourists at any given opportunity.

I reached Suvarnabhumi airport content of having a great trip and was already looking forward to my next. Not sure of the destination, I was thinking about the possible destinations. One thing was sure. It had to be Europe. After Turkey, Singapore, Srilanka and Thailand it was time for Europe. I walked into a book store at the Duty Free and found a book and my next destination too – Night Train to Lisbon.

The Vibrant Floating market

It was drizzling when I left the hotel at 6.30 AM for the floating market. The surprising fact was that the roads in Bangkok were well maintained, inspite of the incessant rains. The rainy season is similar to that in Kerala which is attributed to the gutters of Kerala roads. Rains does the same things every where…if allowed they clog, roads lines with trees will have rain water dripping on to the tar roads….but only in kerala it uproots the metal and the tar delicately (miserly) laid by the government contractors.

There were three families in the mini bus; two from Dubai – a Swedish couple in their late 40s and a Lebanese family with a 10 year old girl and another family from Singapore with 2 kids. This group was the most reserved and cold. For me it was a solitary tour as I rarely interacted with them.

After 20 minutes of drive huge salt fields were seen spreading over a 10,000 hectares. The fields become active during Dec to May and when the rain arrives the workers migrate to other villages and cities in search of work. Since the ground is salty, people collect rain water in huge pots for domestic purpose.

Our first stop was at a Coconut factory and Orchid farm. At the factory coconut sugar was being produced. Coconut was dried and cooked in huge bronze vessels and the cooked juice was allowd to cool in small cups. Once cooled they were like jaggery cakes.

The Orchid farm had a wide variety of orchids and they had a nursey selling saplings….but sales were very few obviously due to the in-flight restrictions.

I bought a Buddha portrait from the stall and had a quick tea and set-off to the floating market. We reached the entry point of the canal which leads to the floating market. The group was split into two and along with the Lebanese family I boarded a small boat.

The water was murky black. I am told that the canal earlier was inhabited by crocodiles and poisonous sankes. With the advent of toruirns and plying of engine boats they soon vanished. The canal is also famous for being part of a Bond movie – Roger Moore had a boat chase in this very same canal.

The either sides of the canal offers the backwater life of Thailand. Houses erected on wooden platforms with their very own private jetty with a boat parked; it brought back visuals of Kerala and more so with the sights of mango tress, banana, shoe flower, tamarind, coconut and Bougainville lining either sides of the canal.

The driver slowed down whenever a chedi or a Buddha statues appeared in the vicinity – for us to capture it in our cameras. The 30 minute boat trip was refreshing apart from the sight of the murky waters – the cool breeze, fresh green air and the aroma of coconut oil being processed from a near by coconut factory.

Finally we reached the floating market - a huge shopping complex erected on a wooden platform selling almost everything including ‘batik’ paintings and pearls. The sides of the platform are lined with small boats packed with leather bags, Buddha memorabilia, mat products etc a cooking corner that dishes out freshly made thai food. I bought two banana leave trays of pan cakes for 20batt - they were the size of ‘Usha Utup’s bindhi - 16 0f them. They were oven hot and tasted so good…. full of coconut milk, rice powder and sweetened banana paste.

On our way back we had a stop at th ‘Royal Thai Hnadicraft Centre’. The intricate wooden carvings on huge slabs of wood were amazing. I met Anil Chander and family. What a small world!

i send an SMS to Amin - wishng Eid. Later he told me he had send an SMS which i never got.

I had lunch form the Italian restaurant at the hotel – ‘Da Vinci’. Red Mullet dressed with olives and tomatoe with grated cheese and an Italian herb soup. In the evening I visited the Paragon mall. An amazing mall with all the premium brands in attendance and the food court was swarmed with residents and tourists. I ended buying a few clothes and a leather office bag and later had deep fried pork balls. It was one of the spiciest dish I ever had for as long as I can remember. I swallowed 2 cups of coffee to douse the fire within – the mild throat infection got killed in the process.