Time Moves On........

 I made a wonderful gujju Khadi & Jeera Rice…..I felt so happy as it reminded me of my most fav Khadi taste. It was just like the khadi I always adored – Geetar’s Khadi…yummmmmmm People who have been in UAE can understand what I mean!

This brought about a nostalgic moment & a recent conversation I had with my “DARLING” niece. ( that is how she calls herself! :D) She was asking me what I was going to write next, I said that is reserved for weekends as my mind is full of work during the week. So she was giving me ideas & one such thing was to write about her…”Write about me no….your darling niece!!” This conversation & my most yummy khadi is taking me down the memory lane, to those days in UAE…..so here it is, my darling niece, this blog is dedicated to you!!!

The main thing I remember & miss the most from UAE is FOOD!!!! My SIL says, “you say that now, but you were always complaining about food then!!!” may be I did, but I don’t remember that, I remember only that FOOD, whenever & Wherever we want, it would be available. I remember those small cafeterias that would be opened until 3 a.m. & close for just about 2 hours & start again at 5!!!

 I remember those days when Raja & I would go for a late night or should I say an early morning movie! 1 a.m. shows….we will return home, pick up a tea from chetta’s cafeteria, before he closes at 3 & go for a long drive, watch the sunrise at 4:30 a.m. & come back home fresh to sleep!!!! Wake up at around 12 noon & the whole family would assemble (around 15 - 20 of us) to go to a restaurant to have lunch….most probably it would be Geetar – the most lovely Gujju thali! Or Dwaraka – the lunch buffet, or Rasoi Ghar – to a Rajasthani thali!!!! Then we will all assemble at someone’s house, mostly ours or my Sil’s for a tea!!! This was sort of a ritual for us. We were 4 families with extensions.

Another thing I miss the most is Loooooooong drives. I miss the fights with my nephew & niece to take up the front passenger seat! Sometimes the 6 of us used to assemble in 1 car. It was initially very easy with these kids being small & very comfortable, later it used to be much loving shovels between my nephew, niece & me. But nevertheless, we still preferred travelling in the same car & fighting for comfort-ability rather than travel in 2 cars. Another thing we used to fight is for which FM station to listen!! Or which song to listen to! I remember those days when my niece was anti-hindi songs. She wanted to listen ONLY to tamil songs..I wish she remained that way!! Esply my nephew, who never listened to songs, is all the time on English music now!!

Another thing about long drives are the drives Raja & I used to have almost everynight….I would return from office, Raja would be waiting for me at some restaurant, we would have our dinner & then we would go for a long drive to pick up a tea 150 kms away. Come back home at around 12 midnight. While parking, the FM would start putting up Kishore Kumar songs, so we would take the car again & leave, pick up a 1 dh icecream from McDonalds (I think that is the only thing I have ever eaten in McDonalds) & go for another drive until about 1:30 a.m. come home, sleep until 5 & get ready, in a sleepy mood to the office. Then go to sleep for another couple of hours in the car!!!

How we wish, all the 6 of us, that we go back to those days! But, that time has moved on! Our lives have moved on……Geetar has also closed :(. We can never go back to those days, but we can definitely create much better memories in the days to come! Hoping for more lovelier times!!!!!!!!