Still single in the city

Midweek ruminations – all for a reason

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
People, I am going to be out of town (and by that I mean, out of Dubai) for the next few days. I leave tomorrow, and am back only on Tuesday, so I won't be able to provide the Sunday dose. I'm going to now try and serve you a mix of midweek fare. It's getting cold in Dubai. I had no idea this place had such serious winters. Since I hadn't...

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The Vacuum In My Life

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I'm beginning to dread Fridays. It's my off day. Technically, Saturdays are also off, but I've been working a 6-day week. So Friday is the only day when I have time to take my apartment to the washers and the cleaners. Literally. I absolutely HATE washing machines. They drive me nuts. I don't even know how to operate one. There's...

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IKEA and Obama... AND the Omani Sheikh

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I've been playing hooky. Instead of blogging on Sunday - that I'm supposed to do unflaggingly on the day even God rested - I was romping around IKEA at the Dubai Festival centre. Yes, I finally paid obeisance to the home of all things homesy. I'd first heard about IKEA from a friend who lived in Long Island, New York, a homebody-type. He'd...

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Food for thought

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I know I'd promised that I'll write about The Omani Sheikh sauntering into my hotel room, but, before that, I want to take you on a gastronomic tour. Omani Sheikh will have to wait till next Sunday. You see, I need to tell you, first, about how I am hooked to the strawberry smoothies - AND the peach ones, glugging down the creamy contents, generously...

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Misadventure in the Serviced Apartment

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I am up to my neck with serviced apartments. Almost every big building I see in Dubai (and you mostly see big buildings on the main roads) houses serviced apartments. The synonym is hotel apartments. It's a convivial marriage between two sectors: hospitality and housing. You're supposed to feel you are endowed with all the trappings that come...

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Always on a Sunday

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
Pawandeep, this is the second post that has been triggered off by a comment made by you (remember your earlier one about how I've gotten serious post my Delhi departure?). Posting a blog every Sunday (or Saturday night) is a thought that I have been toying with for a while now. So, this evening, as I was (a tad) guiltily (since I have not posted...

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About Aruna: A True Story

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I have many stories to tell from Dubai - including the one about my Misadventure in the Serviced Apartment, that almost saw me taking the first flight out of here and go back home to Delhi. But let me save that for another time. I must, first, tell you the story of Aruna, a colleague and a friend. Here, where one tends to spend almost 80 per cent of...

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Very, very short take

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
Sorry guys, I've been very out of sorts, and have been missing in action for a while now. It's mostly because I don't have a place to stay, and I won't be able to get one till my permanent visa comes through. "It's on its way," promises the bespectacled HR chappie, who's from Bangalore, solemnly. "Tomorrow, before...

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Sushmita Sen and feeling a wee bit homesick

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
So Pawandeep wants to know why I've gotten so "serious" about life, and feels I have changed greatly since I left Delhi. Ummmm... Let me think. Have I changed? Well, er, no. But I'm in transition, having to find the ground beneath my feet all over again and, at times, feeling utterly sorry for myself. Being in a new city does that...

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What's common between Commonwealth Games and CR Park?

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
I don't know how the pre-Puja weather is in Delhi -- but in Calcutta, in the good old days, much before the epidemic of global warming had been foisted on to the emergency list of concerns, there used to be that touch of chill that gently nudged you to a state of wakefulness if you happened to be an early riser. At heart, I resolutely wasn't...

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Ties that bind...

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
It's been a strange turnaround for Bollywood. In the 1980s, when I was growing up and beginning to form my own opinions, it was hopelessly déclassé to watch Hindi films; if you even had a bone of pedigree in your skeletal system, you wouldn't be caught dead looking at Sridevi in a frilly dress and Jeetendra in his trademark white shoes singing...

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Delhi 2 Dubai: Postcards from the edge

Posted by Sushmita Bose at 
Returning to Delhi after a 4-day trip to Lansdowne - where I mustered up the courage to stand at the edge of what looked like a cliff, and got an unabashed view of mountain peaks and cleavages -- I logged in to my gmail account on a Thursday evening. Let me check the date: it would have been the 28 th of August. I wrote my last Single in the City for...

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