3 Days!

From Wednesday evening, I am glued to the TV. I cannot imagine all this is happening in real life. It looks straight out of a movie or a video game. Everyone is talking of Mumbai spirit - which doesn't want to bounce back this time. Hats off to all the men in uniform - Police, NSG, RAF, Army, and all the journalists giving minute by minute details. It was live on all the channels including BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. I wonder if there were no American victims, the foreign media/governments would have really cared. The terrorists' mission is accomplished in that sense.

Yesterday I was quite upset because those are the areas where I have my cherished memories. Oberoi hotel is where Indrani and I went to that Mahesh Bhatt's party - we were on Sony TV! We were enjoying eating and watching the stars while Sandipa was shooting the stars. Nariman point is where Lakshana and I had our tonga rides. This is where Pallavi and I enjoyed our strolls eating salted peanuts. Her hostel/college was nearby. Taj - I never went inside but had frequented 'Bade Miya' behind it in the bylane. The kababs were the best! I used to go to Strand bookshop and I went on my own around this area a couple of times - just like that. And VT station? OMG! Cannot imagine it was not spared either...

Better sense prevail on everyone is what I can pray for today!

Of Babies and Moms!

I think this is the season of talking of pregnancies! Three of my students are pregnant - Adwa may deliver anytime now, Mody and Nadia have EDDs in Jan, Roy in summer and yesterday Paru said her sister is pregnant!

Here most of the girls marry young and then they have babies while studying. Some handle it well, some cannot. As it's a women's college, you see lots of pregnant women working efficiently. In this age and time, I feel surprised to see some with 6 children, 8 children - and all in their thirties. The eldest babysit the youngest! Saudis have no problem of course with nannies and maids for each child!!

Lovely weather!

From a couple of days the weather in Riyadh has been very pleasant. Yesterday - my most busiest day of the week is Sunday - after reaching home I changed and went for a long walk with water and salted peanuts for company. It was so lovely - I felt everything was 'normal'. I sat by a fountain in a small garden between two roads behind the UN building and had the peanuts. I was in such a good mood I plucked a few flowers on my way and took a few pictures of them and finally saw them float in the water... Back to nature!











I had mushroom soup in the fridge. I heated and had it watching the movie 'Monsoon Wedding'. I really enjoyed my evening.



Today as I have no classes [Monday and Saturday are my free days - I needn't come but I do come to work for the lectures or write the blog:-)] I took the pleasure to come late with Fraser. It had stopped raining and it was cold - at 11am!!

At home, I made pulav, fried aalu, baigan fry and deep fried papad also. When I go back in the afternoon - I will enjoy my lunch! Here are some pictures....





















Riyadh is flooded! It has been raining like in India. I watched the girls getting wet and enjoying the rain. All this took me back on a nostalgic train.... Perhaps in the next entry on this. Philhaal will have my chai.

Here's a picture of the flooded cafeteria in our building.

CALL in class

I am teaching a new course CALL - Computer Assisted Language Learning. For their project, I have asked them to BLOG. How cool, na? None of the 6 girls are familiar with blogging. Facebook yes, but blogs no. So I showed them how to do it and what the contents should be like. Actually this entry is a demonstration to them:-)

A restful Saturday!

I start the week with no classes. I just tie up the loose ends or do the needful for the following days. I did all that and it is just 11am. I explored the net to look at the ad of Ayesha Takia and Shahid Kapoor's Complan ad and then went from one place to the other - reading about child artistes - I always loved Master Raju - and how good or how bad they are now etc etc - till I reached the blogs on Marketing - I love you Rasna was catchy - and then I found the treasure - Amitabh's blog. I had read about it but never remembered to read his blog. I read a few of his entries - quite good. I will as well put a link to that.

Yesterday I was watching 'The Burning Train' and a few days back had watched 'AAA', 'Dharmatma'... I think I enjoy the movies of that era. The heroes were HEROES;-) I don't think the personalities of Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra, Feroz Khan or Amitabh can be matched with that of the current heroes... I do like the Khans and Khannas, but still woh woh hai and yeh yehi honge.

So that is how I spend the time - watching movies, sitcoms, cookery shows - now I watch the food channel 'Fatafeat' regularly. Now a days, I am catching up my reading on Pragmatics. For once leaving NLP behind, focussing on Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis is as refreshing as having a cup of black tea with fresh mint leaves in it!

Ciao till my next entry...