Chronicles of Hummus: The headbutt, the snow globe and the harem (Shawarma for the soul: Episode Two)

After another round of courtesy calls, we stopped by at our ol’ neighbours place. The “how you’ve grown” banter followed me here too – although I knew for a fact that from the last time they saw me there was no way I could’ve grown – all expansion would have been horizontal than vertical!! –
I refused to prod ‘em on that.
We were then privy to a host of home videos of their grand children and just when I thought I couldn’t smile through one more of those infernal recordings, my father took the cue and suggested that we leave. But as fate had it in for me, the grand ol’ dame of the house suggested that I can’t leave without the navrati puja prasad… And before I knew it, I was forced to fall at her feet (I have never fallen at anyone’s feet… I don’t particularly like courtesying people’s toes, I’d rather match noses with ‘em!)
But the shocker came when she headbutted me and started chanting some sort of prayer to save my soul… (It reminded of that time in Shirdi when on
seeing me simply staring at Sai Baba, one of the pujaris thrust my head in front of the idol’s feet as though he was about to break a coconut. That wasn’t a pleasant experience is all I’m gonna say!) After the whispered mantras, I was promptly presented an orange and a hideous necklace set.
For all I care, it was some sort of witchcraft practice and I was a hapless victim. The significance was lost on me.
The highlight of this evening was that I got to see the place where I grew up. My mom couldn’t hide her disappointment when she rang up and I told her that I had no recollection of the place. It beats me how I could’ve forgotten this pivotal part of my existence. After all, I was all of two when I went to this nursery!

Cousin with a cause
It’s funny how getting a job can transform people. The last time I was here, this cousin of mine couldn’t stop talking about gurls, partyin’, gurls, cars, gurls…This time around, I was in for a shocker. He picked me up in his modified Honda City and we actually conversed about the economics of the Emirates, the real estate divide, how the “goras” had the best deal – the education expenses of their children was paid off, their car loans were part of their pay packages and they enjoyed the sedentary lifestyle here after spending years in the European and American countries they grew up in.
Cousin come-of-age brought me up to date with the scene in this country.

To the moon and back
We then went to “one of the biggest malls in the world” – the Mall of the Emirates. Yup, there ain’t too much to see here apart from the malls… or at least that’s what everyone wants me to believe.
Once we were there, we caught up on each other’s lives – loves lost and found, cantankerous aunties who we wished dead, relatives still single and the sorry souls married off.
That done, he guided me to this ride that looked like it was for those training to take off to the moon. And that’s exactly what it turned out to be. Strapped in, there was no escape… as it started winding up and down and then upside down, my string of curses grew much more louder, regularly interrupted by my cousin’s peals of laughter and my screams for help… I didn’t see my whole life flash by but did manage to catch a glimpse upside down of the nostrils of the guy controlling the ride. Though I inevitably did enjoy it, the fact that the shopping population of the mall had stopped to see us make a fool of ourselves, made me run for cover after we got off the ride.

Inside the snow globe
And what a place I found to hide. Ski Dubai, the largest indoor snow park in the world, (roughly three football pitches wide) was the perfect option. We changed into frumpy ski wear and bought fleece gloves (that we later hosted our puppet show with!!) to prevent frost bite. As my cousin cursed me for having talked him into doing this “touristy” thing, an evil grin broke out on my face – this was the perfect revenge for the NASA ride.
Once in, Filipino chicks with cameras hounded us for pictures they wanted to take of us for a small price… We relented once we realised there was no escaping them. My cousin charmingly complied with her every suggestion – “stand by the ice dragon”, “peek through the igloo” – until she casually asked me to sit in his lap… That’s when he turned a deep red and snapped, “Hellllllllllllooooo, she’s my sister!” That was clearly a Kodak moment. Sadly, this professional photographer missed it.

The next such moment came when both of us got thrashed during our tobogganing and icy bobsleigh runs … We had this “how could something that looked so harmless be so painful” look on our faces. But the clincher came when one of the ski instructors saw me fumbling and falling and told my cousin as if he approved of my histrionics, “She’s so fruity!”…That’s when my cousin laughed so much that he lost his balance and went free falling down the slope. He deserved it now, didn’t he? J
The weird part was – as much as we tried to scoop the snow – it stayed stuck to the floor. I found out later that the snow was made by shooting water at high pressure into an atmosphere maintained at around freezing point by coolers both below and above the slopes – it was minus freaking 5 degrees inside. They also had an ice maze and an ice theatre that was aptly screening “Jack Frost”!
Funny that I had to have my first snow experience in the deserts of Dubai. Weird, that I felt like one of the little people inside a snow globe…what with several mall rats pressing their noses against the glass to get a better view of the place. The only thing left was for someone to pick and the globe and shake it hard!
Loo Bega

Once out, I don’t know whether the cold had clouded my vision but I walked into the gents loo and had it not been for a lady attendant’s shrill, “EXCUSE ME!”, I would have surprised quite a few local gentleman in the loo. If you are wondering what my cousin was doin’ at around this time – he was simply relishing every moment of my blunder. Sheepishly, I avoided the lady attendant’s eye and ran for cover from there too. I paid for the weirdest pic of my cousin and me and decided to blackmail him for posterity. Yes, we were the proverbial cat and mouse that day!

Almost harem
Our next stop was Madina Jumeirah….Now as much as I want to write an epic on this misadventure, my dad is breathing down my neck. So I’ll make it quick. We were joined here by another cousin and his friend. Madina is a luxury hotel resort or as they’d like to call it a “city within a city”. It’s completely self-contained - with a man-made lake at its centre.
Strobe lights swayed in the sky as we drove into this replica of what an opulent yet quaint Arabic village may have been. Artificial lake, recreated souk (or market), authentic entertainment - it was tailor-made culture at its shiny best.
Two cafes vied for our orders as we settled in front of the lake from where we could see the Burj Al Arab cleave the night sky. Serenaded in Arabic by a man who sang “as though he was dying”, with an ambience bathed in a red light and my brothers dragging on sheesha – the only thing missing were undulating belle dancers. Then, we’d have been the lords of this psychedelic harem.
Adventurous that I was, I wanted to order an exotic Arabic drink. When the waiter suggested “Jhulab”…none of us were amused! As it turns out jhulab is a drink made out of dates and milk. Well, the name kind of put me off and I stuck to fresh kiwi juice!
While my comic cousins tried to frighten me with tales of camels biting people’s head off and promptly pointing to the camel meat dish that had just arrived…lets just say I was neither amused…nor hungry.

Next episode: My encounter with the Cheap Chinese Dragon and the slippery-when-wet Soapy Football!