Prestine Innocence

Went to drop off Naqiyah to her summer camp a day before. Parked and gave a cursory hug and said good bye to her. She protested that she could not quite hug me properly while I was still in the car, strapped to driving seat. I duly got out and picked her up in my arms and hugged her. She clung to me and after a few moments said ' Mane nai khabar mane badha itlu kem love kare che".... innocent, sweet, pure.. just like her name. My heart goes out to this child! She's selfless and loving all the time. Gosh! How much I love her :).. It's nice to know she feels loved and has got loving and caring environment around her.. what more could a father want !

Catharsis a path to change?

Things progress.. days go on. But my life seems to somehow be standing still while I seem to have changed and changing .. if that sounds like i'm contradicting myself, let me give u a visual.. it seems like i'm running, changing, evolving, emerging, demerging devolving basically changing all the while rooted to one spot while all around me is same.. same ... same...!

Most imp change I feel is the loss of driving urge that made me work with intensity that people would find disctracting and sometimes even threatening. Now days flow as if in a dream. Doing what I want, when I want, if I want..like lets take today for instance:

Woke up late in the morn, after having slept at the day break busy playing command & conquer simply called red aleart 3. Unimaginative name and under worked game. Some nice graphics and unit controls but all in all a too similar to past versions. Anyway I could have spent the day finishing long pending accounts, working on several loose ends on endless projects i'm involved in and many of which are on hot plate, sorting out my bro's marketing strategy and working on the promotion material etc (He was at my place with rehana and kids) etc etc.. Considering that tue-wed Naqiyah being with me means its an unofficial holiday for me on those days (Beginning monday night, up until Thu morn), a fri spent constructively would'nt have been so bad.

Atleast those were my initial thoughts when I woke up. Oh well, just a small initial thought that barely registered a protest at what I finally knew I'd do. Afterall Friday's a weekend... who the hell works on the weekends anyway right :)... So here's what I did -

Rushed off to Supermarkets for milk before they would close during Namaz time. Walking into carefoure express is ofcourse an open invite for shopping, and I was not to let them down. I spent liesurely 20~30 mins grocery shopping to my heart's content ( This after Thus night shopping spree in Carefoure at Mirdiff). Went back home and informed Rehana of the plans for lunch. Initial plans were to make Hakka noodles but i realised i did not have oyster sauce and shezwan sauce, so change of plan entailed. I'd got fresh lamb ribs and neck. Decided to make a day out of some authentic mom's style meal. Gave a call to mom, took the receipe and cooked lamb ribs stew with curd and billista(fried onions). By the time I finished it was quite late about 4pm, when I realised that it would not do to have such a beautiful dish without mumbai naan ( not the naan which you get in restaurants, this is lamba pav or naan from suleman usman bakery at mohammedali road), I searched the net but couldn't find any mention of this naan which I wanted.. All the receipes were for the other naan. So I decided to do it myself. Happy coincidence of my mixing up Wheat flour for Maida meant that I landed up with truely authentic suleman bakery naan, same soft but chewy dough, same aroma, same color .. awesome. Then setting up the new toy i'd bought the night before, A printer/scanner/fax which had wireless access so that could be used from any laptop etc, and later off swimming with bro and niece. Back refreshed and rehana made excellent Lamb neck with minimal preparation ( only meat, tamarind, green chilly and salt - no other ingrediants) Lip smackingly good... We gorged on that and now they left and its about 1:15 am already. And here I am, working on thunderbird to solve my Gmail out of space problem (someone challenged me that it's impossible to run out of space on gmail unless i'm receiving and saving forwards and junk emails - i beg to differ, I have 3 more gmail accounts besides primary one, to which I have earlier pushed off tons of my emails in order to bring the primary account to 85~90% but always it gets full!).. Also solved sound muting problem in my comp.. so now finally listening to Pink Matini "And than you're gone" and other songs from their album Splendor in the Grass(2009)... awesome listening, me a big fan!

Back to the raison d'etre of the blog. Cooking, music (listening but even more so practicing guitar or piano), computer games, swimming, story time with Naqiyah are Cathartic endeavors on my part. I wonder what I'm upto sometimes. Maybe running towards something or running away from something, but i'm changing. In this process of change, seems i'm reinventing myself. The issue is why do i feel i need this reinvention, and whats wrong with just being me as I was.. Considering these questions of pesky existential kind which don't neccesarily have any answers which shall satisfy me.. and since these questions are always plauging me as are uncertainities as to what I am doing, ought to be doing and what will work, it sort of figures that I lose myself in these activities.
( Just talking to a friend on MSN and realised that I am infact uncertain, ambigous and maybe pessimistic about future. Too much at stake, too many responsibilities. So I'm maybe simply turning away from practicle realities of life.. into a world as I would envision it, full of creative , fun and nice things.. its withdrawal rather than growth!)

On the flip side there is an advantage that a more balanced mind, and a relaxed mental state results in better output even though the time devoted in actual WORK per se is less. Atleast in my case it seems to be working out like that for a while. Long term effect of this attitude cannot be deduced yet .. will know soon enough I guess :)

A note of caution

While the earlier post is all positive.. there is some realization that has burdened my heart with fear of doom and gloom since morn.

World is getting more and extremely polarised. World realpolitik is becoming ever murkier and I think bodes not well for future. Consider the following recent news and alliances -

US has openly warned Turkey to stop pushing for holding Isreal to account Isreal's attack on Gaza Aid ships and their killings of activists in international sea! This after Barak having stated he was sorry for the attack. US infact has told Turkey that Turkey has never aligned with western interests inspite of being part of Nato ( I would very much like to know how western insterests are aligned with Isreal's actions) Considering that Isreal's a non NPT nuclear state. Is a radical state with religion and ethnicity for its foundation and as part of its constitution, a constitution that supports not human rights and equality rather religion and superiority of a group of people over others based on their belief system. This bodes very very badly for future. Turkey is not a weak nation. It is a resurgent nation which is one Islamic country which has stayed consistantly on a secular path. US is acting irresponsibly.

Similarly China is acting worse than so. Their support for Pakistan's nuclear program - the one country where nuclear trigger is in hands of army rather than in the hands of Civilian elected authority is beyond belief. India is ofcourse concerned and should be. China's action are self limiting. India and China togather can create enough momentum to change the future equation of wealth distribution and inequality world over. Apart and at logger heads, two of the most populous countries in the world are making the world a worse place for our children to inherit. Pakistan currently is a nation in turmoil. Its religious identity and constitution is its undoing. Ahmedi commuity's mosque was brutally attacked recently with scores killed in random killing by some Gunmen. I was at a pakistani client's place. And the mention came up of this incident. Immediately his first comment was "Ahmedi's are not muslims ofcourse"... this statement shows the core of his belief. People are who they say they are. But for this guy muslim is who he agrees is a muslim. Hence Ahmedi's , bahai's and tons of minorities are repressed in Pakistan. It can never be a proper nation with this kind of fundamentalist thinking. China supporting Pakistan may be some sort of stupid strategic role play and games by some bureaucrats. In reality it is worst thing for the future of even China ( Consider Xinjiang and recent Urmuqi unrest). Fundamentalists can never be anyone's friends... China should know that by now!

Russia came out openly critical of the Europe and US over sanctions against Iran. Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy is moot question here. The issue at stake is its lack of transparency and unclear intentions. Issue is its stated goal of wanting to ELIMINATE ISREAL from face of the earth. Issue is its despotic religious regime who very much suppress their own people as well. Iranian's are lovely people with modern outlook and winning ways. Iran is a prison state where its own people have no freedom to express themselves as they wish. Russian support in its favor is Oil & Gas politics. Ahmedinajad infact openly warned Russia not to support sanctions against it. Seems Russian's chose cowards way of self interest and short term short sighted world view. After all hawks everywhere tend to be the same! and Russia is in hands of hawks so is Iran and Pakistan and Isreal. Russia also refused to use its considerable influence and force for acting assistance in Khyrgystan even after the govt. itself requested it. In past they had been the ones who had stopped ethinic conflict here. Their influence is not inconsiderable. They can do so again! Think of 100,000 already displaced and hundreds killed and more being slaughtered. ( Since this blog i've come to realise that Russia infact sided with UN sactions but is against unilateral additional sanctions advocated by EU and US.. I fully comprehend and agree with Russian stance.. we are going towards same path of attack on Iraq with this. UN Sec Council should be adequete and sufficiant means towards dealing with all issues. Russian actions in this case are to be applauded no matter what their motives, I stand corrected)

Also continuing Chinese support of North Korea is questionable. They forget that their political goals have human costs.. millions of starving, humans living in slave conditions .. an entire nation bent to the will of one despot.. this is the result of their support. Same so for India's support of Burma... Needless to mention Europe and US's support for Isreali blockade of Gaza.

Things seemed to be looking up a while back. Resurgent confident China proving as an engine of prosperity and growth in spite of huge population. India with stable economic outlook and seemingly sensible party at the helm with statesmen like Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram etc Obama the shining light of murky US politics winning the post of worlds most powerful Man.. Turkey looking east as well after decades of looking westwards and proving to be a catalyst to stability in region (take kurdistan, armenia, iran et al)

But I think humans have base need for conflict. Prosperity without control and power doesn't appeal to lot of humans. Idea of one truth above others still holds the sway. This idea has to be given up. Else future looks bleak as of now. I fear for me and mine.

Drunk on life!

Home alone pouring myself a chilled Pepsi along with awesome leftover Mandi (Chicken and Rice an arabic dish) mixed with boiled lamb (boiled with hint of garlic ~ginger). Thought crossed my mind to pour myself a shot of brandy. It was soon dismissed though. Lots of highs today.. no need for one more

For a start crossed my barrier of 50laps and managed 55 laps in the pool. Not being a guy with any particular affinity to water this change has of course been brought about by as always ... you guessed it right - Naqiyah!.. She takes to water completely and twice this week she's even swum in morn in the pool at her summer camp and than again swam with me in the evening in our pool. And i'm always the one who has to insist we finally leave the pool. Infact the one promise i'd made to her when i was moving into a separate apartment is that it would have a pool. Am so glad I managed to keep it. Anyway with all the time I spend in the pool with her, I've also at times gotten around to taking few laps whenever I get a chance ( not very often since with her in the pool, i simply have to stick by her). Also on and off, I prod myself to swim, when she's off to Umaima's place. All of it has added up to my technique getting more streamlined and I actually myself swimming faster, and effortlessly. I can simply swim more than i ever could earlier. A downside that I've noticed is, that it doesn't seem to have much affect on my weight which has been on steady increase and the outlook still is positive!

Another awesome first today was - my guitar Sang!! thats the only way I can describe the melody.. Guitar is obviously a lovely piece of instrument, and i am sort of enthralled by mine (Its a beautiful Yamaha, will post a pic soon).. even visually it looks sleek and elegant, full of possibilities. However unfortunately I was trying to study playing guitar via internet tutorials and the one I am following (http://www.justinguitar.com/) starts off with chords and than move on to playing chord based songs after much practice. Again due to the fact that I'd gone and got Piano for Naqiyah (again a Yamaha) I finally found a music class in Qusais near my place and on enrolling her ~ at the same time enrolled myself for Guitar. So we have a joint class where she's supposed to learn piano and me guitar. However our first class to-gather was more of the instructor instructing me ,to show her how to play piano and me helping her practice the notes (CDEFG). This was lovely fun and it seems i'll by default be learning to play piano if only to teach Naqiyah. Meanwhile good part of the institute turned out to be that they train students for appearing in Trinity college London exams. So the course book I got needs me to follow sheet music based studies wherein I have to read and play music rather than just learn chords and try to memorise songs. Luckily this also meant that the book starts of with notes rather than directly with chords ( I often used to wonder why all the sweet sounding notes were never supposed to be used while playing guitar because seemed to me only focus was on chords). Anyways today played a song while following the music sheet and the sound was awesome.. I kept getting distracted by how lovely the music was sounding (if I may say so myself) :).. It was truly enlightening to experience first hand how the musicians must feel ! Needless to say I'm hooked. I only made myself stop after about an hour as I don't want to create impossible expectations and targets for myself for my music practice... 30mins to 60 min is max I hope to practice about 2~3 times a week. More than that will be bonus but certainly not a commitment that I make.

Also happened to be Naqiyah's Nana's birthday. So since Umaima was coming to pick Naqiyah up from my place, I brainstormed with Naqiyah what she'd like to give her Nana as a gift. Initially after explaining to her that she can't buy clothes etc for her Nana as she's a kid, she decided writing some songs was a good idea. So she came up with impromptu songs while playing the piano which I took a video of. Unfortunately for some dumb reason windows movie maker doesn't work with the file that my Cam creates and hence I couldn't upload it yet. But have promised her, that I shall do so, so that she can show it to her Nana. Also I tried to print lyrics of two more songs which she sang onto back of her picture which I printed out so that she could gift it to her nana, unfortunately my photo printer didn't quite print on the back side of photopaper well and it was smudged. In any case seeing her makeup and play songs made my day!

Also yesterday was a special nite. Being a weekend evening, first time ever I and Naqiyah watched a whole movie togather. The movie I wanted to see with her was Alice in wonderland. Unfortunately its print was bad and hence while browsing through dvds, started up a film Donkey Xote. Turned out to be dubbing of Spanish cartoon in english and was quite a strange movie. But Naqiyah insisted on seeing it, and we enjoyed the show with her constant questions as to what was going on.

In morn we invented a new game. Having by some chance woken up at same time (Usually she wakes up earlier) we just lazed around and started talking. She asked me if (knight) in the last nights movie was night.. I explained to her it was knight with a k . As we were discussing spellings ofcourse night and knight both came up. Knight being mighty - might came up. Slowly words evolved into more and more words that rhyme, like light, fight, height, right(again confusion of right as in direction and right as in correct) etc.. With each additional word added we'd try to make a sentence using all the previous words, and the sentence would follow an earlier one forming a story.. I feel I have stumbled upon a great tool to get her interested in spellings of the words and meanings and a way to add to her vocabulary. As usual incentive is story telling.. She just loves stories, and I love to put all sorts of info into stories that I think she can deal with. For instance she now knows what Sirens are, the mythical ones are.. she infact knows most mythical creatures like elves, sirens, witches, goblins, gomes,unicorns and others, some sorts of ramdom information she collects while listening to stories are things like boats and their masts, deck,captain, sails and bow etc whirlpools and tornadoes (similarities and differences also experimentation in the pool to create a whirlpool)..basic geography like China(some provinces), Africa/egypt , european countries etc etc... basically anything and everything I think would get her become a more open, curious and well informed person, i make a story out so that she gets it naturally. Ofcourse she's still quite too young but I figure if in any case she's going to be listening to stories from me, why not add some value.

Anyway also got around to organising some of thousands of pictures i've clicked since I got my dslr.. and even finally used my photo printer to print them out!..

Work.. yes.. I did some work too.. but as usual seems like I anyway don't do enough, so yes.. a lot of it is pending :)

Best part is, my friend Bindi is gonna become a blogger. Gives me incentive to get back to blogging too.. so here I AM.

FINE = GOOD ?

A really funny incident happened recently. I was parking the car in reverse in Reef Mall parking lot, where I was taking Naqiyah while her mom went for Slum Dog Millionair. Seeing the obvious attention that I was paying to parking the car properly she commented:

Be careful how you park the car. If you park wrongly policeman will give you a fine.(Thats fine, however she immediately repeated) - If you don't park properly policeman will give you a Good!:)

Ofcourse explaining to her that a good is not a fine, although fine means good was not so easily done :)

Amnesty 100 days campaign

Obmama represents hope.. never more so evident as during my recent trip in Africa.. there you can see people selling Obmama portraits.. calling Kenyan Airlines - Obama Airlines, and surprise surprise Nigerian Foreign minister saying this shows that African people have to stop blaming the world for their woe's and backwardness and start taking their future in their own hands (One of the titles in Kenyan airport shop - 'How Europe kept Africa backward').


Besides these ofcourse we have middle east, global economy and many other things.. but close to my heart and for which Obama already has gotten thumbs up and brownie points from me is human rights.. Obmana has made a good start by many of his pr0nouncement for closure of Gautanamo Bay.. Checkout this wishlist for more that we hope is done:

You have something for me ?

Nigeria.. crossing the border is quite an experiance as recounted by friend of his first experiance. Luckily for him, now since he's a Member of Parliment of neighbouring Country (cant give specifics and his name, to protect his identity, he still has to visit Nigeria from time to time), from now on he only travels by his friend Nigerian Ambassador's official vehical when he needs to cross to visit Nigeria.. nyway story is relevant cause i'm in process of trying to cross over by land to visit Lagos ( foolhardy some say..) tommorow will know the final result.. seems some chinese crossed over from benin and decided to stay there ( God knows why!) and hence the difficulties to get visa are compounded..


My friend's experiance:

Guard : Welcome.. Hope you are fine
My friend: (thinking.. wow such friendly people) Bonjour!( Speaks french generally)
Guard : Passport please.
My friend hands it over...

Guard : You have something for me?

My friend: Doesn't quite understand and says no...

Guard: Keeps the passport aside.. now my friend is in one corner, parked to the side.. waiting..

after half an hour...

My friend: Sir.. my passport..? is it checked?

Guard: You have something for me?

My friend : No , Sir!

Guard: We need to do security check.. step into that room please..

My friend having clean concience goes into the room..

Guard: Starts searching him... You have something for me?

My friend.. obstinate as ever.. no sir! (Guards in question are young kids who generally we'd not take seriously)

Guard materialises a packet of Cocain from his own pocket..

Guard: What is this.. you are trying to smuggle cocain into my country!!!!...You have something for me??

My friend now sweating : No , No, Thats not mine...!!! I did not have that!

Guard: No! It was with you, You are trying to smuggle drugs into my country!!

Guard starts to file an official report of the drug catch...

My friend: What you want.. take , here 100 USD(removes from his shoes - cause most people going to Nigeria tend to tuck away money in different supposedly inaccessible places)

Guard: Thats not enough... 1000 USD....

My friend : What ??? 1000 USD for what!!!!

Guard continues writing the report till my friend has litereally stripped himself and given all he has...

Guard finally convinced that he's taken all stamps my friends passport and tell's him to go ahead.

My friend: No, No, I want to go back to my country... Now I have no money, no need to go to lagos..

Guard: No! You have to go, finish your business and come!!!

Ofcourse Guard doesn't accept my friend to go back to Benin.. finally my friend goes ahead and takes a long u-turn ahead to Benin border...

At the border crossing to cross over to Benin on the Nigerian side, to get an exit stamp...

Guard : You have something for me ?????