Rant 56: The Desert Diaries P3: Taking notes

Apologies for the break in field notes updates. I was, in fact, a bit bored of giving chronological accounts of my holiday here and was taking time to observe Kuwaiti life a little more carefully. My previous three visits to this country were pretty much about the awesome food, the fast cars and the pretty women. So on this particular visit, I hope to have acquired more than details of the afore mentioned superficial aspects. Here goes.

First up, since my folks are doctors and are employed by two different hospitals here, I managed to get a guided tour of one. This one is the Al Orf hospital (no it’s not Scooby Doo saying “wharf”!) where mom works. I could, of course, have also visited my dad’s employers, but that would have entailed me waking up at the unearthly hour of 6am (sigh! Holiday sleep is a bitch, what to do!). Nevertheless, I was given the full tour by mom, of what is purportedly one of the “low budget” hospitals here; low budget compared to the other hospitals I mean. Once you have a look around…

You realize, that perhaps even Apollo or Escorts will be hard-pressed to find the funds for such extravagant care. The rooms all have an ante room, complete with couches, coffee tables, LCD TVs, DVD players, you know, all the things you need when your loved one is dying from cancer. Oh and they have a bed for the patient too! Seriously though, you wouldn’t be blamed if you mistook this establishment (or any like this all over Kuwait) for a hotel instead of a hospital.

Anybody call for a Bell-Hop???

Secondly, Supermarkets. Now, I know India is developing in that area. Gone are the days when Sharma aunty’s monthly groceries were bought from either the Sunday haat or Nathu’s big store (helped by an overpowering rice+wheat smell, combined with odour from five overworked helpers). We now choose to have our already dead vegetables subjected to the autopsy of a barcode beeper (my name for it) which shoots a red laser into the critter’s ass, forcing it to reveal its price. Putting aside the fact that I adored Sunday haat sellers for being able to memorise purchase details for every single customer thronging the stall, I do believe that supermarkets here (talking about Kuwait now) are miles above our desi ones, as I believe, most “americanised” marts are. From TV sets, to washing machines, to frickin bicycles, you can pretty much buy it all! And I wanted to photograph them all. However, owing to a grumpy looking security dude standing next to the electronics section of this place, I was only able to grab snaps of two commonly placed items from this mart.

Here fishy fishy...aww poor fishy fishy!

and then there was milk....rows and rows of it!!

 Next up, the people of this fine country. Ladies first…my word! Such beauty…past compare (to quote the melodious Bianca Castafiore). I only regret that the women here choose to put on so much of make-up. I mean, it’s one thing to apply a slight blush mark, quite another to seem like you just came out of an obscure, dangerous medieval ritual where a spiked rod, full 4 inches in circumference, was poked through your cheeks, leaving you looking like Heath Ledger’s Joker after a make-over (you wanna know how I got these blushes??? …err maybe not). But all in all, yes, the women look absolutely gorgeous. I know someone at work who has completely given up on Indian women after only a year in the UK, and for once, I have to say, he may just be right. Keep up the good work ladies!!!

On the other side of the gender spectrum, the males tend to exhibit various idiosyncrasies. They all hold their mobiles in their hands as they walk, well mostly the ones with the flashy ones. I’m not going to jump to conclusions, or draw stereotypes. I’m just a spectator. Most of the dress sense here is – for want of a better word – metrosexual. No more on that. Plus, what is up with all the cheek kissing as a form of greeting. I’m going, guys get a room, seriously! A typical scene might go something like this. Five guys, each of whom manages to dress in the full rainbow colours spectrum, strutting around (mostly malls), holding PDAs in their hands (which 15 year old needs a fucking PDA I ask you???), and hair straightened. The obvious attempt is to look cool, which, in my eyes, takes a downhill direction the moment another group of guys walks up to them. And then the cheek kissing begins. Now, I’m not a homophobe or anything. But seriously, I’m ok with a guy and a girl doing that, seems polite (not to mention, two amazing arab women doing that…even more amazing!!) but this is a little too much for me. So without delving too much on that…

Of course, if you ever come across one of these,

you feel like going, GET ME OUT OF HERE! (celebrity or not mind you!!)

Enjoy the rest of the pics

The profession the country was founded upon...now a national pastime

Let’s hope this is not a national pastime as well

 

Sunset at Safat

Rant 56: The Desert Diaries P2: looking around

(PS: For part 1 of this series click here)

Had the laziest day in weeks yesterday. Woke up late, had a late breakfast, a late lunch and a late-afternoon siesta. Evening time

we went to the electronics district of Kuwait, better known as Hawalli, one of the six Governorates of this country, where bought a 1 Terabyte external hard disk. Most of the shops are run by people from the Indian subcontinent and it’s a welcome change (from listening to all that Arabic) to be able to talk to someone in hindi here. The market itself is quite fascinating. It’s sort of like a black market for electronic goods, only the prices are quite reasonable and the products themselves fairly reliable. To give you an example, I have myself bought – over three years – three different external hard disks from this area, two 80 gb ones and one of 500 gb, with all three running quite well. I wish the same for my fourth as well.

I must say here that dad has really gotten the driving concept here down pat. Never could I have imagined him driving in a country with a minimum speed value. My dad, who in India, would let rickshaws overtake him, looked quite at ease behind the wheel, when I myself get a minor chill down my spine every time a car literally zooms past us. He himself admits driving is a pleasure here, and I can see why, what with amazing looking “Freeways” (yes yes, u can shoot me now!) where you can basically rip to your heart’s content.

 
McDonalds in Hawalli...or is it???
Next stop was the main city area, officially known as Kuwait City (popularly known as Mallya).

Other than Hawalli, this is probably the one area where you find the most number of expatriates, and not just subcontinental folks, but people from south east asian countries as well. I also saw a lady in a saree, which was yet another welcome change from the myriad of Dolce Gabbana fashion ants I’ve seen since arriving here.

Made a stop at a mall called the Multhana complex. Pretty sweet place. Visited the bookshop on the basement floor and bought some football magazines, (October edition of Four Four Two, November issue of Inside United, official Man Utd magazine, and November issue of Champions, the official UEFA Champions League magazine). Incidentally, I had to get my watch repaired, and if I had assumed that one of the many big watch shops in this mall – those that sold practically every branded name you can think of – would be able to do the needful then I was rudely surprised. Not a single one had a workshop for repairs. In the end, an Indian doing watch repairs on the roadside was more than glad to help us.

Topped off the evening’s  enjoyment with some lovely food from this blessed place. No prizes on guessing what I ate.

A touch of home @ Mirqab area

Rant 56: The Desert Diaries P1: Tired beginnings

(field notes from a holiday in Kuwait)

And so the holdiays begin. Over the past 32 hours, I’ve had a total of four hours of sleep and the rest of it, either flying or eating something. To put it tersely, I’m knackered.

It began right from my hurried taxi ride at 5pm on Friday, wherein I ended up paying the princely sum of 450 for a mere 30 Kms to the Mangalore domestic airport. You see, guys like me (who look more like Martians than Kannadigas) it’s very easy for the taxi guys to rip us off. You reach the taxi stand, where a paan chewing mundu (apologies for the poor stereotyping) awaits your arrival gleefully. “Boss airport jaana hai,” I said half-panting. And without realizing, I added in the dreaded word, “jaldi”. At that moment I had entered the seller’s market of taxis. Immediately, the price was quoted. I mumbled a meek protest, completely aware that my lateness was obvious on my face, which pretty much meant that he could grin his way around my protests. He ranted away about how it was not upto him to decide the rates, “road bad, traffic bad, time bad”. I pictured a new version of the stock market, with rates being decided not just by angry truck drivers but also the number of potholes alongwith any cows, buffalos crossing the road. Some kick-ass fuzzy logic I’m sure. Nevertheless, I had to consent.

An hour and a half later I found myself on board IT-3144 to Mumbai (via Cochin) and for the first time realized, that there was only one difference between the aircraft that KingFisher uses in this sector and the medium distance buses that operate out of Mangalore. The airplanes have air conditioning and pretty girls in short red dresses. (not that the buses don’t have women in red dresses occasionally, but as far as pretty is concerned…well…)

Apart from that, the seating itself is so cramped, I half expected a 21” TV to pop down from the oxygen mask location and start playing some obscure kannada movie, just so the whole Mangalore to Manipal bus experience could be thoroughly replicated.

Reached Bombay at around 10:40pm. Managed to catch one of the Domestic to International terminal shuttle buses. This is one of those buses that run inside the runway area between the domestic and international terminals.

More boring ticketing and formalities later, I reach the waiting lounge, a few hours prior to boarding a Jazeera Airways flight to Kuwait. To be precise, I had around 3 and a half hours with a host of opportunities ahead of me. Food, duty free, still more food, and of course booze. Since I was about to enter a country with a prohibition law tougher than my self-made bread toasts, I decided to go for the last option first. Lo and behold, there lay the IIFA café. For the uninitiated, IIFA stands for International Indian Film Academy (known best for their fancy awards ceremonies in far of lands…actually I think that’s the only time we hear of them). In true metropolitan style, it had good ambience, a sense of class, and a menu where the cheapest drink could pay for a month’s education for an underprivileged kid. Still, I decided to indulge and ordered a KF draught (pronounced Draft btw…NOT ‘drawt’). Chatted up Marselos (not sure of the spelling), a French dude, on his way back to Paris after having lived in Mumbai for two months. Funny thing was, he said Paris was a lot like Mumbai. Go figure!

As it turned out, I managed to nurse a 500ml beer can for close to two hours, by which time it was almost time for my flight. I paid the bill, left a generous tip and walked off to board flight J9-607.

That was pretty much the journey of it all. Slept most of that flight. Didn’t even have a window seat to enjoy the view. For those who’ve never seen a middle-east country from the plane, it looks like this

Once in Kuwait, I was met by a beaming father and an almost hysterical mother. Mom insisted on photographing me doing the lamest things, from standing like a dork holding luggage to posing in front of their new car (yes we have a corolla!!!!)

Spent the whole day with folks. Slept for a fair bit in the morning (minor jet lag). Evening time, we stepped out to explore possibilities for my new laptop. For this we visited the one mall where there was an Apple store, the Avenue Mall, popularly referred to as the IKEA mall.

Apart from scouting laptops, I bought a Sony cybershot digicam. Its pretty sleek and I hope to get shutter-crazy starting tomorrow.

plenty of other cool electronics to check out here as well including xboxes, PS3s and a 100 inch TV!!

Gorged on some lovely prawns made at home, topped off with some weird looking (and tasting) Holsten…a non-alcoholic malt beverage (I’m not sure about that cos I’m actually a wee bit buzzed right now. Maybe it’s a withdrawl symptom…I dunno)

Hope to take this travel diary further tomorrow…till then enjoy the following shot of the Kuwait Liberation Tower (taken through the car windshield)

Ciao!

Rant 55: Diwali Delights

Realise this is probably a little late to be posting diwali pics but what the heck...

Now even though I'm not the biggest fan of crackers cos I think it's almost literally money going up in smoke...The Reach Out Club had organised a diwali celebration at the Twin House, a place for underprivileged kids ...managed to have some fun myself with the fooljhadis and the rockets and bombs...

enjoyed messing around with slow shutterspeed as usual, but realised its not so convenient to take really good shots without a tripod...still learnt loads about keeping the cam steady in really low light situations (thus far i was able to get away with shaky hands cos i had a tripod...damn you Mr. Goa Thief...!)

This one's one of my favourite shots. Completely captures the moment and the spirit of firing a rocket...I know i used to get a rush at the moment of lift off in my younger days...Hope this fires a memory or two for ya'll...oh and thats a budweiser bottle we used as a launch pad

Living it up with the kids of twin house...

cheers!

Rant 54: Animal care trust blog

Hi all,
the Animal Care Trust (Mangalore) has its very own blog up now. I had posted about this place back in August. If you want a glimpse of what the place is like you can check out the pics here.
Although this trust is probably not your state of the art facility when compared to say the ones in metros, it has one major characteristic that sets it apart.
While most major animal centres may put to sleep those that are deemed even remotely as unfit (even something like missing a leg), the centre here in fact takes on more "unfit" animals than the latter. Its safe to say, even injured animals deserve dignity in life (to quote Dr. Gregory House: "There's no dignity in dying, you only live with it!").
However, the facility does need a fair amount of revamping in terms of sanitation etc if it is to match up to the standards set by its metro counterparts.
So a formal request to all those who want to and are able to help, to contact the people behind this cause. and just so you know, they prefer kind rather than cash. If you know anything about dogs, cats etc, it won't be hard to figure some basic needs out (gunny bags to sleep on, belts, medicines etc).
The ACT blog is run by the members of the Reach Out Club. On the latter's blog you can also read about a recent pup rescue (of no less than 8!!) made on our very own office premises.

Rant 53: Diwali joy at Twin house

The most useful and satisfying Diwali ever spent.
celebrations courtesy ROC (The Reach Out Club)

Pics (taken by yours truly) and description on the following link
http://therocstars.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/little-diwali-of-smiles/   

Enjoy!

Rant 52: On the 7th day...Sheeba created Murudeshwar

A couple of weekends ago, we visited the scenic locale of Murudeswar. Situated around 3.5 hours away from Mangalore (by train) the visit required no more than a day, but was quite fulfilling despite it being a totally god-filled place and all. The structures were overwhelming and the beach was amazing. Lots of legends and myths to deal with, a whole lot of crowds, topped off with a relaxing dip in the sea... All in all, a great setting for shutter-buggery  ...(apologies for the bad formatting, the browser in this cyber cafe is screwed up...will rectify ASAP)