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Showing posts with the label eid holidays

Turtle Beach Resort

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Dad, Kunjunni, Kunji chechi and I held hands as the waves crashed on the shore. We could hear the roaring sound of the sea and feel the sand beneath our feet. The cold water pooled around us until we were hip-deep, before rushing back. The private beach was a beautiful one. The horizon stretched on with nothing interrupting its flow. No other people, not a single footprint. There was a breeze and everything was serene. Turtle Beach resort had plenty in store for us. But we were going back home in the evening so we couldn’t try out everything. My parents had arranged for a taxi to drive us in the morning, along with Kunjunni and Kunji chechi, to the resort. Valyamma and Valyachan would join us later. At the resort, we could hear the faint sound of roaring waves at the beach, which proved to be just too good to resist. Mom chose to stay out of the fun and watched us instead because a) she didn’t want to get wet and b) the waves were so huge anyway. “You won’t get wa...

3 movies and 2 books

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A complete week of Hajj holidays has been over and now it is the second week. As Dad too has holidays for one week, he wakes me up every morning in a different way. One day, he shook me awake and sat next to me and kept talking until I forced myself out of bed. Another time, he placed the alarm clock under my bed. It did not wake me up, but instead it woke Mom.  I watched 3 movies this week- “ The Syrian Bride ”, “ Psycho ”, and “ Baran ”. After watching “Psycho”, I got a bit scared and never moved an inch away from my parents. But that was only for a day. “Psycho” is a classic 1960 horror-thriller movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It  wasn't  the plot, but the sudden-scary music that really got me. Seriously. Like ‘Scree! Scree! Scree!’ ‘‘The Syrian Bride’’ was full of suspense, mostly like “What’s going to happen? Will she be able to go? Huh? Huh?” “Baran” is very touching and sad, but it is funny also sometimes. According to Mom, I am now ol...

Bahrain Diary (Part 2) - Tree of Life

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A group of women wearing short dresses got out of their car. The car’s tire had sunk in the sand, and refused to move.  Some men surrounded them, giving them smiles and offering their help to the girls. Their own car had got sunk in the sand, but they hardly paid any attention to it or the “ Tree of Life ”, now that they had something else better to look at …… . I gazed at the tree from a distance. This ancient tree was called the “ Tree of life ” as it had survived in the desert for 400 years without any known water source. When we were just about to reach, I had seen a tree next to the roadside but it was only my size and I had felt disgusted, since I thought that was the great ‘Tree of life’. But when the real tree appeared in sight, bigger than its imposter, my disgust turned into wonder and amazement. Many people, the newborn, the middle-aged and the old, were sitting on the tree happily and trying to climb it. Some branches of the tree touched the ground while th...

Bahrain Diary - 1

I groaned while I lay on the back seat, feeling bored and tired. The traffic crawled, moving 3 inches in every 10 minutes. My Mom had adjusted her seat so that it leaned back. Her eyes were closed and had her hands folded on her lap. My Dad rested his hands on the steering wheel. We were on our way to Bahrain. We had started out early in the morning and had been going for 4 hours. We left Khobar and reached the middle island though King Fahd causeway. Finally, when we got past all the traffic and visa checks after 2 hours and reached Bahrain, I became more relieved. We reached Hotel Ramada . It was a really grand hotel, with a swimming pool and breakfast every day. We would stay there for 4 days. Mom was tired and asked me and Dad to have lunch and get a take-out for her. But that was where the trouble started. I and Dad went out, ready to go to ‘ Saravana Bhavan ’. Ajay Valyachan lives in Bahrain, so he had told us about this restaurant. He gave us directions. We ...

How 'bout a cheetah cub as Diwali gift?

I can’t believe this!!!  We are going to have Thursday classes in school!!!! Noooo!!! (For those who do not know about Saudi Arabia, here the weekend is Thursday & Friday.) My Thursday schedule is to sleep and get up late and then study after half an hour.  Afternoon I have to go to my drawing class at 5. Dad said that we would protest against this, so I am not going to attend this Thursday class.  But when we saw the circular that said our field trip is on next Sunday, it lifted our spirits up.  Oh, and Happy Diwali!! Tomorrow we have a holiday because of Diwali. And on Wednesday we are also allowed to wear colour dress.  Yaaaaay!!!!!!! I am so excited. Dad had subscribed National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler’s magazine and National Geographic Kids magazine for me. In one ofthem the following line was written; ‘Cheetahs remain highly fashionable in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where a cub can fetch upwards of $1...

No more Zzzzzz..... back to school

Today is the last day of Hajj holidays, Oh noooooooo!!! I wonder how lousy my classmates must be feeling. I now find it difficult to wake up even at 10:30 .I just keeps on sleeping till its 11:30. Then how am I going to get up at 6:30 from tomorrow???? I can sleep even if there is an alarm next to me. One day Dad set up an alarm clock under my bed so that I would immediately wake up at 9:30. It didn’t work out, though. Still, I am excited to see my friends. I saw a lot of movies these holidays. Some of them are Megamind , Ella Enchanted , Enchanted , The Black Stallion , Corpse Bride , etc. Dad looks jealous when he watches me sleep for a long time while he has to get up early to go office. But he seems happy that both of us can leave home together from tomorrow. Morning Dad drops me at school and I reach home by school bus.

'Zucchini' lunch at Steak House

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“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...

Weekend at Al Khobar

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“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 d...

No more floral designs

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 ...

A sandy day

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“Janu! Janu! Wake up!” I opened my eyes and stared at Mom groggily. “Get up” mom urged me. “Remember we have to go to the farm.” Helped by my mother I got up and blinked until the room came into focus. I stared at my parent’s bed, Dad had already gotten up. I washed my face and sleepwalked into the living room. One hour later we were ready to go to the farm. One of uncle Loy friends worked in farm and we were looking forward, especially me, to see all the cow, goat and sheep since I love animals. Most of my compound friends were coming too along with Melvin and his elder brother Milan. To my joy Alana and Niharika climbed into our car (I hate sitting alone) and we sped off. As we went further we saw the hanging bridge of Riyadh and the beautiful view of mountains on both sides. Later when we reached the fields which spread out like a green carpet, my eyes caught a strange figure in the middle. It was a scare-crow! It had an Arabic dress and a scarf as its head.  We giggled and ...

Ramadan holidays and fireworks

BOOM! BOOM! I nearly jumped out of my skin. BOOM! BOOM! My father rushed out of the house. “What’s going on?” I asked Mom. The front door opened and Dad came in. “Fireworks!” he said. “because of Eid”. I had finished my dinner and was lying peacefully on the sofa, watching TV. Dad and Mom were in the dining room, chatting. We ran to the pool side and saw fireworks being blasted on the sky outside the compound. There were yells of excitement. I climbed on the top of the slide, which leads into the swimming pool and sat there watching. After sometime fireworks stopped and there was peace all around, we quietly went back home. Dad’s Eid holidays have finally ended. I just wish he had a few more holidays. It’s more fun when he is around the house.