I have been searching for a Middle Eastern restaurant for quite some time .There are days I crave for some flat bread, dates and other Arabic dishes. Born in Kuwait I secretly call it my home, never felt the same back in India or out here in the US. The sandy Arabian desert, rows of palm trees, the large wooden ships, Sawt (the prominent type of music) the Bedouins and their heard of camels and sheep, I miss it all!!!! Even though I spent a lot of years in Kuwait (fortress built near water), it is a shame I hardly understand a word of Arabic. It was a miracle I even made it through my Arabic exams!! If not for the invasion by Iraq, I could have completed my schooling there and not have gone through certain sudden changes in my future.
Here in the US you practically get food from all over the world, but they lack authenticity as it is modified to suit the American taste buds. I love eating out; it does not have to be an upscale restaurant. I would rather go to a small place not having to butt elbows with the crowd. And since Taffy had never eaten anything from that part of the world, I wanted the first impression to be the best!! I always tell him how wonderful and great Kuwait is, so the food had to support my claims.
We got there and it was a small dhabba kind of setting, the smell of hookah and some traditional art work added to the décor. I ordered from the menu since the names looked familiar all the while hoping this would not be a disaster. I couldn’t be happier when I had a bite of my shawarma and it tasted just the way it should !!!!! I looked at Taffy and he gestured it was good since his mouth was too full. Relieved I got back to my plate and occasionally glanced at Jacob who didn’t want to try anything but French fries!!!
26 May 2009
24 May 2009
Loving life and not pretending to
Every day, each prayer has bestowed something new on me. It would either be a realization that my assumptions were wrong or having to change a habit or a belief. Life has been a tough school and experiences hard lessons. Kept going thinking that I have to get what I wanted, that was my goal. But nothing seemed to work. Gave it everything to achieve what I thought was my dream. It took years before I realized that I should consider an alternative.It was upsetting to see my life going downhill, nothing like I pictured it to be. There is no other explanation other than this is what my life was planned to be.
He had designed my life in a way that at each stage (when I wasn’t paying attention), He was molding me for my future. I did not see it as long as I was living my life, my way. I had to shut my eyes to stop looking at the world and ask Him. I fought my discontentment for years, finally he showed me the person whom He had created with a Divine Discontent. To see through His eyes and serve .While I focused on having a normal and simple life, he had bigger plans. It is a slow process of evolving into the person whom God wants you to be. It is not difficult to understand His ways but hard to do. Being a mom taught me how to be selfless, to put another person before me. The lessons from life, not from a book or a tale once told. There are days I feel good and days that I fail .The inner voice that I hear is the God within me, reassuring me not to give up.
He had designed my life in a way that at each stage (when I wasn’t paying attention), He was molding me for my future. I did not see it as long as I was living my life, my way. I had to shut my eyes to stop looking at the world and ask Him. I fought my discontentment for years, finally he showed me the person whom He had created with a Divine Discontent. To see through His eyes and serve .While I focused on having a normal and simple life, he had bigger plans. It is a slow process of evolving into the person whom God wants you to be. It is not difficult to understand His ways but hard to do. Being a mom taught me how to be selfless, to put another person before me. The lessons from life, not from a book or a tale once told. There are days I feel good and days that I fail .The inner voice that I hear is the God within me, reassuring me not to give up.
18 May 2009
Opening up to happiness
It is not easy being happy all the time .But it is worth trying to be happy. If you just break it down and look at your life day by day you will see what I mean. Are you happy today? Of course you are, you had a good night sleep, woke up healthy and have a normal day. It is only when you look at the past/future,or at someone else in your life,that is what makes you anxious. Clearly we are not going to be around forever yet we make plans, forgetting to live today. Everyone has a problem without a solution, now that we tried for so long and nothing seemed to work, we stayed up late thinking about it, fought it, analyzed it, discussed it, let us take a break..
05 May 2009
Christine Collins
Loving the “Red box” so now renting a movie has become part of grocery shopping. Saw the movie “Changeling”, after browsing through the synopsis rented it anyways coz it was directed by Clint Eastwood. Was happy with my choice, coz it turned out to be a good one. But I still didn’t know what the title meant. “Googled” it and was amused by the details. I can’t be thankful enough for all the online resources coz I can’t read anything that looks like a book anymore.
Changeling is an off spring of a fairy (troll or other legendary creature) that was secretly left in place of a human child, why it is done has many interpretations as to pure malice, love for a human child’s beauty especially blond hair, to be a servant and so on. Simple charms like an inverted coat or open iron scissor was left near the sleeping child to ward them off.
I found it very true that the legend of the changeling must have developed to explain the peculiarities of kids who didn’t develop normally due to abnormalities and developmental delays, still born or died in early infancy. The greater proneness of boys to birth defect correlates to the belief that boy babies were more likely to be taken. So were children who were not baptized and made part of the church. There have been records of kids and women being murdered and then using the changeling story for defense!!
Now about the movie,
"Everyone around her had an agenda — a political agenda, a personal agenda," J.Michael Straczynski (the writer) says. "The only clear voice in the entire story was hers."
It was difficult not to feel for Christine Collins and also admire her.
A single mom whose 9yr old son, Walter went missing. Letters and photographs were exchanged before Christine Collins paid for the boy, who claimed to be her son, to be brought back home. At the reunion, Christine Collins claimed that the boy was not Walter. She was told by the officer in charge of the case, to take the boy home to "try him out for a couple of weeks," for he had been gone for months and Collins agreed.
Three weeks later, Christine Collins returned to see Captain Jones and persisted in her claim that the boy was not Walter. Even though she was armed with dental records proving her case,Collins was committed to the psychiatric ward under a "Code 12" internment—a term used to jail someone who was deemed difficult or an inconvenience. As Walter Collins' body had not been found, she continued to search for him for the rest of her life, but she died without ever knowing her son's fate.
12-year-old Arthur Hutchins Jr., a runaway, his biological mother died when he was 9 years old and he had been living with his stepmother. He said that he had pretended to be Walter Collins to get as far away as possible from her. After living on the road for a month, police brought him in; they began to ask him questions about Walter Collins. Originally, Hutchins stated that he did not know about Walter, but changed his story when he saw the possibility of getting to California, Hollywood so he could meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix
After Christine Collins was released from Los Angeles County Hospital, she sued the police department and won the second of two lawsuits. Although Captain Jones was ordered to pay Collins $10,800, he never did. A city council welfare hearing recommended that Jones and Chief of Police leave their posts, but both were eventually reinstated. The California State Legislature later made it illegal for the police to commit someone to a psychiatric facility without a warrant.
If you want to get the whole story just read about the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.
Changeling is an off spring of a fairy (troll or other legendary creature) that was secretly left in place of a human child, why it is done has many interpretations as to pure malice, love for a human child’s beauty especially blond hair, to be a servant and so on. Simple charms like an inverted coat or open iron scissor was left near the sleeping child to ward them off.
I found it very true that the legend of the changeling must have developed to explain the peculiarities of kids who didn’t develop normally due to abnormalities and developmental delays, still born or died in early infancy. The greater proneness of boys to birth defect correlates to the belief that boy babies were more likely to be taken. So were children who were not baptized and made part of the church. There have been records of kids and women being murdered and then using the changeling story for defense!!
Now about the movie,
"Everyone around her had an agenda — a political agenda, a personal agenda," J.Michael Straczynski (the writer) says. "The only clear voice in the entire story was hers."
It was difficult not to feel for Christine Collins and also admire her.
A single mom whose 9yr old son, Walter went missing. Letters and photographs were exchanged before Christine Collins paid for the boy, who claimed to be her son, to be brought back home. At the reunion, Christine Collins claimed that the boy was not Walter. She was told by the officer in charge of the case, to take the boy home to "try him out for a couple of weeks," for he had been gone for months and Collins agreed.
Three weeks later, Christine Collins returned to see Captain Jones and persisted in her claim that the boy was not Walter. Even though she was armed with dental records proving her case,Collins was committed to the psychiatric ward under a "Code 12" internment—a term used to jail someone who was deemed difficult or an inconvenience. As Walter Collins' body had not been found, she continued to search for him for the rest of her life, but she died without ever knowing her son's fate.
12-year-old Arthur Hutchins Jr., a runaway, his biological mother died when he was 9 years old and he had been living with his stepmother. He said that he had pretended to be Walter Collins to get as far away as possible from her. After living on the road for a month, police brought him in; they began to ask him questions about Walter Collins. Originally, Hutchins stated that he did not know about Walter, but changed his story when he saw the possibility of getting to California, Hollywood so he could meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix
After Christine Collins was released from Los Angeles County Hospital, she sued the police department and won the second of two lawsuits. Although Captain Jones was ordered to pay Collins $10,800, he never did. A city council welfare hearing recommended that Jones and Chief of Police leave their posts, but both were eventually reinstated. The California State Legislature later made it illegal for the police to commit someone to a psychiatric facility without a warrant.
If you want to get the whole story just read about the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders.
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