Companions in the COVID Year

Three’s not a crowd… Anu, Jashna and Madhavi at the Desi Village Restaurant, Dubai – Dec 2020

This is my annual post on the people we met or were in our lives for the past year. I usually post it sometime around June (that’s when I usually finish sorting out the friggin photos of the past year, hehe. Yep, I’m that slow). But what the heck, it's only a month late. So, here’s a lookback at whatever gatherings we could have in a year ravaged by the global COVID-19 pandemic. I’ll let the pictures speak.

We were in a lockdown for a significant part of the year, let’s see mmm March to about July 2020. Then the government relaxed it a bit, praise God… And we’ve been like this since then. Masks and social distancing are still here (luckily) or we’d be seeing numbers soar like the rest of the world, praise God again…


Anu’s eldest sis Manju and son Kunal stayed with us in Dubai during most of the lockdown as they were stranded from returning to India due to the cancellation of flights. They were here to visit Karishma and was supposed to leave in mid March. The first time Manju and Kunal stayed with us was in 2007 in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India when Kunal was a wee toddler. That was before we had any kids of our own. Check out this old post on Agra to see how they look like then 


Whew, a relaxation – Fancy some chicken mandi? At Mandi Time Restaurant, International City, Dubai – Jul 2020


Finally, time to go back – At Sharjah International Airport to board a repatriation flight to India – Aug 2020. Come back soon!


Meeting our International City neighbour after a year – with a new kid on the block, Adam, son of the neighbour across our International City Apartment. We went back to our rented out apartment to kick out the bloody non-paying tenants of our flat – Jul 2020


This is life before the pandemic – At a function in Feb 2020 organized by Parsons, the consultants of the ITS2020 Projects, of which yours truly is one of the packages’ Project Manager – An Arabic lunch where the contractors' representatives of all the packages and the Client, the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai were also invited. At the front are senior officers of RTA's Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) Department, Sofiene Jegham, Salahaldeen Al Marzooqi (ITS Director) and Mohammed Al Ali – at Bin Laden’s site office, contractor of the new Traffic Management Centre at Al Barsha


Parsons ITS Project Director, Ammar Kanaan


And this is the ITS2020 Package 1B Project Site Office during the pandemic – a photo shoot to commemorate the completion of the erection of the last (and 112th) Dynamic Message Sign (DMS) in Jul 2020. The photo’s not very clear as it’s a Whatsapp photo compliments of Mubashir Wani (who’s not in the photo, what a pity. He’s the photographer, OK?) But these are the names of the people I recognize: - Squatting, left to right: - X, Aliasgar Numberdar (Planner), Mukadas (Office Assistant), X, X, Gul Saeed (Foreman), Shahid Alam (Surveyor), Abhishek Radhakrishnan (ITS Engineer), Sarvesh Nayak (ITS Engineer), Mohammad Saleem (Document Controller). Standing, left to right: - Trinu Rajan (Technical Engineer), Jaicin Joy (QS), Evika (QS), Syed Saadi (Procurement Officer), X (Safety Officer), X, X, Harsha Jayaramaiah (ITS Systems Engineer), Sathyajith (Draftsman), X (Draftsman), X, Baber Javed (Admin Officer), Safi Ullah Khan (Deputy Project Manager Package 1A), Rathinavel (QC Manager), X, Muhammad Waqas (Construction Manager), Devansh Raj Kanchan (Assistant Project Manager), Qamar Abbas (Assistant Project Manager Package 1C), Ayush Agarwal (Technical Manager), Danish Ahmed (ITS Engineer), Yours Truly, Abdul Saleem (Systems Project Manager), Laith Rababa (QAQC Engineer), Nizar Makdissi (Site Engineer), Antoine Atallah (Construction Manager), Bernar Makdisi (HSE Manager), Eldho John (Electrical Engineer)


Diwali – Nov 2020 at one of our neighbours in Oia Residence – KP Singh and wife Abha’s house


A return visit at our apartment


This is our other neighbour in Oia Residence – Milind Pandhare in a Bhai Dooj festival during Diwali 2020 at our house – This was supposed to be ritual between sister and brother but because we have no one here in Dubai, Anu decided to just adopt a brother. There you are, haha


Milind Pandhare et moi


Meeting our old friends, Madhavi, Roby and Jashna for dinner at Desi Village Restaurant, Dubai – Dec 2020


And here’re the kids – Mashel, Aria and Viva with our kids

That’s all for now folks! Ciao!