Google

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The Perfect Gift

60 years ago on this very day, the 15th August, 1947 India became independent from the British rule.We all celebrated the day in different ways, attend the flag hoisting ceremony, listen to patriotic songs, distribute sweets, some may even buy gifts for their loved ones on this auspicious occasion.
In a way we celebrate our freedom, or independence by propagating peace, harmony, love, respect for all fellow-indians which is a priceless gift.
Being away from motherland I celebrated the Independence Day by visiting the Indian Embassy and attending the flag hoisting ceremony.
In the evening I went out with my friends for some work. On the way back we stopped at Car wash station. Besides was a car accessories shop.Instead of just seeing the car enjoying the bath after a long time, and getting cleaned and neat, i preferred to enter the shop and have a look at the various accessories.My friend wanted to buy a front window sun shield(shadow).As expected an Arabic person was at the counter and we, with the habit of playing dumb charades started explaining our need.He guessed it in the very first chance and told us it was out of stock.
We pondered along for a while looking at the different accessories, right from key chains to gear cover etc, etc ...
I was just besides the counter looking at a key chain with keen interest when, the Arab man congratulated me. I was taken aback and asked him for what ???
The reply - "Dekha kyon karke puchata hai" he said to his assistant, I was not much surprised as i knew that some of the Arabs could speak a little bit of Hindi.
He said congratulation on the Independence Day of India. I thanked him for his greetings.
I made my friends aware that he understands and can speak Hindi.

The Big Surprise - As we were at the counter to pay the bill, we all were stunned by the Arab man's statement "Tumchyasathi discount". Yeah Yeah he knows "Marathi" also. Each of my friends expressions including me resembled the different "Emoticons" , smiling,exclamation,thinking ...
We then had long chat with the Arab, the story unfolds from way back in 1970's when he was in Panchagani for his studies.He stayed in Pune,Mumbai,Panchagani and still remembers a lot of places and more than that he still remembers the language - "marathi". He then tried to converse with us with some more marathi sentences.

Rashid is basically a Yemenese, his father was a Yemenese and mother from Pune. Even he like a proper "Punekar", says Pune khup badalala atta .....
He know about 13-14 languages - Arabic, English, Hindi, Marathi, French, German, Irani, Punjabi etc etc ..., may be i can say he has a flair for languages and is also his hobby.
Conversing with him i realised one thing that this was emitting positive energy, was down to earth, had respect. After having an "Istikana" (Arabic chai) we took his leave and headed to have some delicious food.

This for me, came as The Perfect Gift on the occasion of our 60th yr of Independence.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Home Away From Home

Home ... Away .... From Home ... The journey to Kuwait started a year back on 14th Mar-06 ... when i waved a bbye to my parents , mom's eyes were filled with tears ... some rolled over because of the happiness and some in respect for concern,care,separation and importantly love. Dad ... as u all know didn't display his emotions,but somewhere in corner of his heart he had the same feelings ...

I cleared the immigration and waited to board on the flight. Finally the time came ... I boarded on to the flight , placed myself at the seat , and looked around to see a huge number of labour class accompanying me ... the question followed "Where am i heading ?" , finally i settled down as the aircraft was ready for take off ...



Embarkation form - Sir ye thoda fill karke do na , continued ...



The flight landed in Kuwait and i put my first foot onto a foreign soil ... Clearing all the formalities i was waiting for the pick-up person "Mr.Abu Mustafa" - my first friend in Kuwait. He dropped me at the company's accommodation which was at "Hawally" renamed after a few days by me to "Hawalat". Fortunately there was one more person accompanying me Paresh Patel . We both got along very well.

The cooks - Once we came to know that we will have to starve if we will not learn to prepare food , the hunger , gave us the energy and the motivation to cook food , and within a month i was able to cook rice, dal , sometimes sabji ...

The food was always accompanied by a new movie DVD everyday ...

After a month or so i shifted to a place called "Salmiya". By this time it was June-06 and my first experience of Kuwait's heat had started . Made a new friend Gautam ... or Jautam in arabic he he he ... we shared an apartment ... and our main problem for food was solved by the restaurant mentioned below

Sagar - Blessing for the bachelors ... This famous restaurant is the best source of food for a bachelor . Served with hot rotis are several sabjis , rice, dal,achar,salad,chas, etc etc ...
We used to be the first one to taste his food at around 6.45 p.m .

After having a heavy dinner , a can of coke and a moive was always on serve ...

At this place "Salmiya" , i got introduced to many maharashtrians ... Bhupesh(the first one) , Rajesh , Vivek (the then President of Maharashtra Mandal), Shailesh(the mallu guy) ... I was relieved and thanked god for this ...

On the 1st of Sept-06 i shifted to a bachelor accommodation ... that night i was invited for a party at Vivek's place and swear never felt that i was new to the group ...

Our friendship blossomed like the "Gulmohor Tree" ... soon i got associated with the Maharashtra Mandal ... and attended the Ganapati festival ...

My family ... As days were flying my friend circle was growing day by day ... made new friends worth mentioning Ashwini, Milind, Savita, Prasanna,Vaibhav, Suruchi,Vaishali, Nandan, Milan, Tanvi, Viraj ....

Gradually the trust , love , affection between us grew, to me it became my family ...

Never felt alone or rather was never made to feel alone ... always there to help, to share be it a joy or sorrow ...

As Dec-06 was nearing the annual day celebration of Maharashta Mandal was in the corner ... On 22nd Dec-06 we had to stage the program , preparations started , everybody working hard to make it a success .

The Annual day celebration ... The day started with youngsters giving a stupendous performance through gracious dances and musical plays ... worth mentioning was "Ramayan" .

The second half was the play wherein we had decided to assemble 5 parts from different marathi plays. Prasanna the Director, Ashwini the writer, Vivek the music director for the whole program, put in whole hearted efforts.
The show was a grand success which was praised by each and every one ...

To conclude ... i must say that i am lucky enough to be a part of this wonderful family ... which is my home away from home ...