Janaki's Blog

“I think it’s better if I order” Dad said. He tore his eyes away from the menu.  We shrugged “Ok’’. “I will select something healthy too” said Dad, and then studied the menu carefully. We were sitting at a table at the restaurant ‘ Steak House ’ and were wondering about what we had to order. After 5 minutes, he motioned a waiter to come near. “We will go for some grilled vegetables, and the country fried chicken dinner… Oh and the black rock steak” Sometime later, the waiter brought us a large plate of grilled vegetables. “This is the healthy food you ordered?” I asked. Dad nodded. “Since we liked grilled vegetables from Smoke House, we will like these too. There will be different varieties of vegetables.” I poked my fork around the plate and ate 2 mushrooms and then stopped eating.  I felt I had enough vegetables, so I waited for the chicken. “There is only zucchini mostly. And it’s accompanied with only about 4 mushrooms, 3 carrots and 1 tomato. Do they

“Vrooom Vrooooooom”, Dad turned the key and the engine came to life with a start. Since it was Hajj holidays and Dad also had 5 days holidays, we decided to go Al Khobar. It was a great day and the weather matched perfectly with our moods. It was neither hot nor cold. October was certainly a great month. Sometime later, we were far from the city and the car sped along the Riyadh - Dammam highway.  The highway cut through the desert until we reached Dammam. It had smooth golden sand which did not have a single foot- print on it. There were some sand-dunes too. Camels or the “ship of the desert” grazed at the areas where there were patches of grass here and there. Finally when we reached Khobar, we became a little more joyful since we had sat for 4 hours in the car. We were simply longing to stretch our legs. Our hotel was called the Tulip Inn Sea View . It was a 4-star hotel, but not so good like we expected.   I went straight into the bedroom and drew the c

As usual our Thursday evening started with a discussion of where to go for dinner.  It was a hard choice. “You have 3 options” Dad said, “American, Indian or Arabic food”. “No Indian food tonight” Mom said. I added “No Arabic too”, Dad laughed.  “Why don’t we go to Awshal, the restaurant which I told you about?” Dad suggested and we agreed. We ordered seafood grill and bar-b-q. Altogether it was yummy. I wanted to end dinner with chocolate mousse as desert, but unfortunately it was not available today. In my last entry I wrote that I was going to beautify my hand. Yes, that’s exactly what I did. Last night I put on nail polish and mehndi on my palm. Today I did another design on the back of my hand.   I must say, it is beautiful. Thank goodness for the computer. Yesterday, I found something interesting in my new edition of National Geographic magazine which is a magazine for kids. It said: “If you eat cheese after every meal, it actually

Yaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two weeks of holidays, starting from tomorrow! The Hajj holidays are stretching out for two weeks so I have a lot of time to play. Lovely!! But that doesn’t mean that we can always fool around. I have to do Maths holiday homework and also learn for the FA-3 next month. But on the first day of the holidays I never study. Today I am planning to beautify my hand with mehndi and nail polish. Yipeeee!!! The only problem that I have every time is that I can’t get a good design in my head. So usually I end up drawing a flower and decorating it with dots. When I was younger, I would draw a lot of crazy and weird shapes on my hand. These included a flower, some lines, dots and circles. Now I am planning to look for easy mehndi designs with the help of my trusted computer. 2 weeks back, Mom’s old college friend, Uncle Anish visited us. Actually he had an important meeting in Riyadh and that’s why he was able to meet us. Mom was

“Who knows Hindi very well and would like to be in the Hindi skit?” Our school’s putting on a Hindi skit. I am not good at speaking or writing Hindi, so when the teachers came to our class and asked that question I didn’t say anything. Even though many of my classmates know Hindi since most of them are from North India, only 2 girls got up, their face beaming. I am a little nervous to be on stage anyway, I mean God knows if whether I will make a mistake or anything like that.   But the good thing about the skit was that we got some free periods. On Wednesday we got a free period from Hindi and art. Our school hasn’t shifted till now. But I do feel a little curious about the new school. Will it have a ground? Will it be spacious? Will it look boring? Many questions filled me even though I knew nobody would be able to answer them without seeing the school first. My friends are a little curious like me too. We don’t know when we are shifting and that is such a bo