I am going back home for sometime and the thought just keeps me awake till late at night. The book club I joined in all eagerness has not really found a vacant spot on my calendar, though each month I religiously go to the bookstore with my 10% discount voucher and then devour the book.

There are times when I attack the kitchen with all my energy and cook myriad different dishes in one day and my husband enters the main door, all googly eyed, smacking his lips wondering whether the roasted chicken legs are better than the bread and butter pudding. “Must be nothing on T.V then”, between loud slurps is all that I hear. And there are days when I go job hunting and come home all flustered and cook nothing except my own skin. Pre-occupation is bad (pun intended) because it makes you put a wet spoon in hot oil and splatter thick whipping cream on freshly mopped floor whilst you reach with your blending stick to scratch your head, tickled by a pink bubble of an idea hovering there. My hubby comes in those days and silently applies toothpaste on my burns and orders fast food.

Ramadan is racing on now. I wish Allah could help us squeeze in a bit more prayer and meditation. I sorely missed my ‘masi’ this year but ‘hey it was my first Ramadan without a masi’ is what I keep reminding myself. And Ramadan can be a month spoilt brats mend their ways too!

Ramadan Kareem
My husband’s phone started beeping incessantly late in the evening. We knew finally Ramadan had arrived. I was very excited as this was to be my first Ramadan here in the U.A.E. I don’t know sounds cheesy, but I half expected the moon itself to part the curtain and beam in on me and say, ‘Happy Ramazan! (please note the ‘z’), I wanted the air to be filled with the sweet sound of the muezzin reciting the beautiful Quran, and not to forget smells of food wafting out of kitchens.

Living in an apartment building, there was no moon sighting on a brick layered terrace. Nor standing on my toes, looking up the dust filled horizon, over the rooftops and minarets, to spot a thin nail of a crescent, screaming in delight and dashing endless flights of steps to be the first to greet everyone with ‘Chand Mubarak’.

For our first Sahar, we relied on an alarm clock and ate ‘khubbus’ silently while surfing on the television to find ‘Azan’. Interestingly this Ramadan in Dubai, I sorely missed waking up to muezzins giving sermons, saying ‘Azan’ or even coughing up on the microphones. There was no magical nocturnal commotion, no parathas with golden ghee melting on them, no white haired grandma saying the ‘tasbih’ and dua’s in my ears.

Only walking in some shopping centers did I notice huge placards proclaiming, ‘Ramadan Kareem’. Or that in some sections of Carrefour there were items on sale. It made me smile for a moment when the thought of my tailor sitting on heaps of clothes, suddenly materialized in my mind. Yup, we do Ramadan a bit different in our country.

Ramadan is not just about fasting and praying, its about man's relationship with Allah, and in turn with Allah's men. Its about sharing and giving. I just cannot swallow the idea of eating alone. There has to be noise, and excitement when we eat and also when we are preparing to pray. It is a special, special time.