Friends in the Past, Dubai

Hmm… still reminiscing about the past, and about friends long unseen, so here’s more of the people in our lives back when Justin was a wee baby, and before. Another tribute to the people in our lives.


Manjeet, wife of my Malaysian work colleague Ajit, and their 3 children, plus Aunt Helen and little new born Justin. Manjeet used to visit us and give little Justin baby massages, Indian-style. Wanna see how their youngest daughter Ravneet, has changed thru the years? Check out this post


Manjeet and Ajit, at the Mercato Mall, Dubai


Connie, wife of Bill Wong, another of my Malaysian colleague. Connie was a god-sent during the first month after Justin’s birth. She visited almost daily, gave us herbs and ginger wine, made Chinese herbal tea for Anu, helped prepare confinement meals and generally helped Aunt Helen out. What? You think Auntie Helen could do so much by herself, after err izit…10+ years of not looking after new born babies and their moms?!? Connie even called up her own mom in Malaysia for advice on confinement practices! What a friend!


Helen and Connie, at the Carrefour Hypermarket, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai

More work colleagues…


Ramasamy Kailasan, another Malaysian colleague in Dubai, at Dubai Festival City, 2008


With Indian colleague, Navab and Chinese colleague, Han Guang, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Dubai during our Company’s Annual Dinner in 2010 – Notice the mark that bloody shingles left on my forehead? Just recovered from it.


With Pakistani colleague and friend, Rana Sharafat Ali, who would occasionally call me up just to find out how I was, even when I was working in India!


Anu with some Chinese colleagues at the Al Mamzar Beach Park, 2008 – Hu Yiming is the one on the right, and umm… I forgot the one on the left, sorry


Project Manager aka Boss aka Papaji, Donald Wong, the maverick Malaysian Senior Project Manager of the project I was working in Dubai (…but I think this photo was from an earlier time, during our short working stint together in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India, 2007)


Livia (left), Ching (middle) and Anu at the Creek, Bur Dubai, on a really dusty day, 2008 – Livia and Ching were my Malaysian colleagues in Mumbai in 2007

Domain of the Rajas

Bundi, Rajasthan, India

OK, for a comparison (with the previous post), here’s a sample of forts from a small portion of Rajasthan, India. The state of Rajasthan is slightly larger than the whole of Malaysia (east & west combined) in land area. Rajasthan is landlocked and a large portion of it is desert (the Thar Desert). Camels are common and can be seen everywhere, mostly as beasts of burden for pulling carts, in market places, in the cities, plying on the National Highways, heck there’re weighing stations equipped with weigh bridges just for the camel carts.




The Palace, Fort and Town of Bundi in Rajasthan


Anu's eldest sister Manju and son, Kunal at Nahargarh Fort (aka the Tiger Fort), Jaipur, Rajasthan


The ramparts of Amber Palace from Jaigarh Fort, Amer


A watch tower on Jaigarh Fort


Some garden near Amer, Rajasthan (think it's called Kanak Vrindavan, not too sure)


Nephew Kunal at a temple pavilion near the garden

Bye-Bye Bharatpur

The mustard fields of Bharatpur

This update is long overdue.

It has finally come to the time when I had to leave the gorgeous wonderland of Bharatpur with its horde of birds and beasts, and mosquitoes, and my friendly smartass managers; and yeah, a few friends.

…That was more than a month ago. Since then, I’ve been back to my nomadic lifestyle, jumping from place to place, from the dust fields of Rajasthan to the green valleys of Assam, from the traffic jams of New Delhi to the traffic jams of Kuala Lumpur, from the Malaysian High Commission in India to the Indian High Commission in Malaysia, from the Ipoh Immigration Department to the UAE Embassy in KL, from Wisma Putra (in Putrajaya) to Butterworth, from Genting Highlands to Pangkor Island, from Ipoh back to the desert, and this time a real sandy one, in the Arabian Fantasy World called Dubai… Bloody expensive place! Let’s leave it at that for the time being since I’ve just started work, don’t wanna give my new employer the impression that I use company’s time and resources to surf and blog. Anyway here’re some pictures of Bharatpur… just to show case how ‘nice’ a place Bharatpur can be… cameras, they can do wonders huh?


Entrance to Bharatpur's Keoladeo Ghana Bird Sanctuary (aka our jogging ground prior to bloody winter freezing over) - entrance is free before 6am


In the grounds of Bharatpur's King's palace at Deeg village


Our landlord and his wife at the house during the Karva Chauth festival - dunno the significance of the festival, but it's supposed to bring good fortune and blessings to the husband. The wife has to fast for a whole day (which should be quite a feat for our landlady), wait for the moon to rise (hard luck if there're heavy clouds but luckily this was Rajasthan, bloody dry Rajasthan), see husband's face indirectly (i.e. from the reflection in the water, or through a sieve), touch husband's feet, ...pray for husband I suppose, and then she can eat. The husband in return, just needs to hang around doing nothing, great festival ...if you're male huh?

India Update: A Great Start to 2008

2008 has started off pretty well. Bharatpur is bloody freezing. The daily power cuts have sharply increased and some times last the entire morning (on and off, according to its own liking). They still routinely happen from 6.20am to 6.50am every morning without fail. That’s about the same time I wake up and take a dump at the freezing toilet every morning. The sun doesn’t really come up till 7am in winter which makes reading while I shit a bloody hassle (not impossible, after all I have a candle! hehehe). I have nightly headaches; …looked up the internet, it may be cluster headaches, it comes every night and goes away in the morning, (interfering with more pleasurable nocturnal activities, shit!) Not that the occasional pegs of whisky, rum or / and tequila help. Everything is bloody cold – the toilet seat, the woolen jacket (just before I put it on), the pants, the drinking water, … as opposed to summer when the bloody shower is hot even at 5am in the morning.

Coming to the office is a bloody drag. My room must be in the colder part of the office, opening the door to the office room feels like opening a fridge door, and then a flick of a switch and the feeble tube light comes on (also like a fridge). The room only starts feeling warmer after lunch, thereby affecting the ever-strong performance of the very efficient Quality Manager for more than half of the day (yeah, IT IS the bloody weather!)

The mosquitoes are still around, but they hardly bite. Most of the time they just float around slowly (like they’re high on something) in front of your eyes, while you’re watching TV. The few nights when the temperature went up a bit, they actually bite, the bloody critters. The lizard should be having a field day if they’re around but there’re no signs of them – nature sure is kind to mosquitoes here.

The crooked TV Technicians of Bharatpur pulled another one on us, again. We found out that the recently replaced satellite dish is also a low-quality dud, and so are the cables connecting the dish to the box. Bravo! The local foreigner’s registration officer (aka the police, not all, only one greedy a#%$&le) was giving yours truly a hard time, thanks to the unbending (read, stupid) principles of yours truly of not wanting to comply with his local enrichment scheme. Screw him!

All else here is fine otherwise (thank God). Anu’s as sprightly as ever (but not too contented…).

And that sums up what a wonderful year it’s been so far. Things can only get better right?

India Update: My New Blogging Strategy

I have decided to change my strategy for updating my blog, by being assertive, and pro-active, instead of just waiting for inspiration to hit me. At this age, and being married, and beginning to start to be ‘serious’ about work, I don’t think inspiration is going to suddenly pop-up from nowhere anytime soon.

I have therefore resolved to –
Update my blog at least twice per month, through happy times or hard times, busy times or times where I can browse the net for 2 (or 3) hours in a row (the perks of being a Quality Assurance Manager, as opposed to a lousy Works Manager where I hardly have time to shit).
Use a maximum of one hour per day (of my official work time) to do this, and to browse the internet, check personal mails, and day-dream (compliments of my ‘generous employer’ but without their knowledge, not yet anyway).
Post pictures, if I have nothing to write about.

By the way, just a short update to keep my loved ones in the know, I am well and so is Anu. Bharatpur is slightly cooler. Our China-made cheapo air-conditioner works! (surprised?) Evil monkeys of Bharatpur destroyed our satellite dish yet again, exposing dishonest installation by crooked TV technicians (they gave us a Kancil for the comparative price of a Toyota!). The neighbourhood animals have pools to wade in now. The neighbourhood mosquitoes thrive and sting us to kingdom come. WE ARE NOT HAVING KIDS YET. Anu has a Passport now, and will be made available soon to family. Quality Assurance is great for lazy people, like me. I am currently still in lazy mode, but I don’t want to be lazy forever. Can I go from Quality Assurance Manager to Project Manager next? (Hey, I can spread self propaganda because this is MY BLOG). Bosses / potential bosses, if you’re reading this, please keep me in mind ok? I look lazy, feel lazy, sound lazy, am lazy sometimes, but I can actually do great things if given a chance, really. Don’t believe, just gimme a try, guarantee you’ll not regret it.


Photo of our living room in Bharatpur, with mascot of the season - nephew Kunal. That blue monstrosity at the back is a desert-cooler for those of you who wanna know.

India Update: To Bake or to Steam

Greetings from Bharatpur! Bharatpur has been our new home since the 20th of May, and the house we’re now at, is our 7th home in line since our runaway marriage (and you thought marriages were predictable). Bharatpur is in the state of Rajasthan and is located along a highway connecting Agra (the site of the Taj Mahal, India’s most famous landmark) and Jaipur, The Pink City (another tourist attraction), and therefore lies within the so-called Golden Tourist Triangle (Delhi-Agra-Jaipur), where most tourists to India visit.

Bharatpur has been consistently hovering at about 47 degrees Celsius for the last few days (I’m not exaggerating). At home it is about 41 degrees (well, that’s what the digital read-out says on the air-cond in our living room anyway). Our brand new China-made Sensei-brand split unit air-cond is super-efficient at bringing down the temperature, …from 41 to a minimum of 39 degrees, after 2 hours (no, we didn’t leave it on for a longer time, …what if it overheats?) We’re in the process of getting the wireman who installed it to come back to have a look at it (still not much success – his mobile phone has miraculously stopped working, hopefully he’ll come before winter).

At the mean time we’ve got a desert-cooler to do the job of cooling down our bedroom. For those who don’t know what this is, it’s a big fan enclosed in a box with a water pump. You fill the bottom of the box up with water, switch on the pump, and walla you get water flowing down the inside walls of the box. The cooler only cools down the immediate space in front of the fan, so our bed is aligned conveniently in the middle of nowhere and partially obstructing the door, no, can’t move the cooler, it has to be just outside the darn window.

Our entire floor is white marble. White marble is fabulous, for retaining heat. The white marble in our house retains heat so well, it’ll still be warm at 5am in the morning, and then the sun rises, and God heats up the marble again, and the cycle goes on. We tried flooding the bedroom with iced water to cool it down, …it helps for about an hour before the water dries up (or leaks to the landlady’s room below, …well, let’s say, she complained).

Our walls aren’t marble, there’re brick walls (with very little mortar I presume, since that’s how Indians do brick walls anyway) plastered all up and painted with white-wash (meaning if you lean on the walls, you get free chalk on your clothes, body, or whatever comes into contact with the walls), and yes, like the white marble floors, their heat retaining qualities are simply superb.

Bharatpur’s water is from the ground and is very rich with minerals, ...should be, since it’s bloody salty. The water in our bathroom, like the floors and walls, is perpetually warm. Doesn’t matter what time of day (or night) it is, the water is warm (or hot, in the afternoons), and so is the shampoo, soap, face wash, toothpaste, lotion, hair gel, etc. The best time to shit is early in the morning (like what your parents teach you). If you’re in need of losing some weight though, then shit at the other unrecommended times, and in the process, get yourself a fabulous free steam-bath.

Apart from getting cooked alive, Bharatpur is actually quite an interesting place (from what I hear, no, I’ve not gone around the place yet, not at this time, I’m not crazy). It has loads and loads of animals – monkeys to terrorize the shit outta you (yeah, they like to sneak into your house …real silently, and catch you unawares), dogs which wallow in the mud-pools together with the buffaloes and wild pigs (and I thought dogs hate water), but can’t blame ‘em, it’s either dirt or die by slow-cook. And the best of Bharatpur – a lovely tree-filled internationally known, bird sanctuary (really, no kidding) with wild peacocks, antelopes, cranes, etc etc etc but it’s just a mystery to me why any bird would wanna come to a hellhole like this???

The Pink City

Hawa Mahal, the Wind Palace, Jaipur, Rajasthan

The Pink City, that’s what they call Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajasthan in India. Story has it that once upon a time, the king of Jaipur (yes, Jaipur used to be an independent kingdom, with its own king, forts, castles, walls, palaces, and all other things royal), invited the King (or was it the Prince) of the UK for a visit to his beloved city, and to impress the royal visitor from the UK, he had the entire city painted, …Pink!, of all colours, the colour of Barbie! Luckily, for us guys, the shade of pink in the city ain’t really like the pink associated with cutesy girls, they’re more like dull red, like the red of red clay bricks if you catch what I mean. Anyway, it ain’t a city of Barbies, it ain’t a city of pink cutesy girls (how I sometimes wished it was, hehehe), and neither is it a city of gays or lesbians. It’s just a quaint ‘pink’ (or red) city surrounded, cut and partitioned by numerous city walls (all ‘pink’), palaces, hidden courtyards, alleys and lots of colourful shops.

Jantar Mantar, The Observatory, Jaipur

Actually, it’s a pretty interesting city, like something straight out of the 1000 & 1 Arabian Nights (although this is India you’re talking about). It’s located in a half-desert kinda place surrounded by arid rocky hills on 3 sides of the city with ramparts and watch towers, fantastical domed (Rajasthani-style) palaces and forts atop hills. There’re camels roaming around the city carrying goods (like some barter trade from the past). There’re turbaned, mustachioed & earring bedecked men, with baggy dhotis and pointed shoes smoking hookahs by the footpath. There’re veiled women dressed in the most bizarrely matched colours and the most imaginative jewellery you can find (like upper arm armour-like bracelets & metal breastplates, the men must be really ferocious people here).

View of Amber Palace, from Jaigarh Fort

Anyway, there’re lots of places to visit, lots of ethnic things to buy, lots of touts to drive you semi-mad, lots of guides to bug the hell outta you, and one corrupted police man to drive you outta the city (no, no, no don’t get me wrong, I love Jaipur, it’s a one in a million type case, and it only happened to me & Anu, and this is my third trip to Jaipur, and I have a feeling it’s not the last), so do visit if you have a chance, it’ll be a really enjoyable trip (if it’s in winter). In summer? …heaven help you.

Amber Palace, and Jaigarh Fort (on top of hill)