Sahba weds Adnan Notes from the better half

Setting up home away from home can be a daunting task. But if its you and your loved one trying to set up your little nest, nothing can be more romantic and charming. Chances are, you are a young couple starting a new life with little cash. This situation should automatically lead you to IKEA. Its a great store for low budget shopping, all under one roof and great looks.

First trip to the IKEA-you look around and love almost everything. Turns out to be the most romantic outing of your married life. You decide you want to buy all your furniture from IKEA and prepare yourselves for the next trip.

Second trip to IKEA – this is your buying trip! You realize the big differences in your marriage. You fight. You argue. You quarrel. You swear. You pull each others hair out and pledge to have no sex with your spouse, ever. The furniture never seems to match your floor color or fit into the place where you want it to be. The “so cheap” furniture turns out to be not so cheap and nobody seems to be interested in you at the sales counter.

You choose different assets in almost every case. You are hungry and now have different ideas for where you want to eat. Your feet start hurting and you don’t want to carry anything you managed to buy back home. So you pull yourself out of the store and swear never to come back. Once home you do make up and start thinking about your next trip to IKEA. Alone this time!

Adnan and I moved to Hong Kong last month and that explains much of why we haven’t been active on this blog. We have been spent most of this time settling in…

We have moved into a nice small house ( big by HKG standards!) by the South China Sea. Work has been great, great office and even better people. I have also been to Vietnam for a ten day road trip, about which I will write later. First about living in Hong Kong.

Our house is on a small island off Hong Kong and the view from the windows is great. But the catch is that I have to travel for one hour to get to work. But it is nice. I get on a jet ferry and then ten minutes on the underground. It is called MTR here in Hong Kong.

Adnan is working from home, and I think he is enjoying it but I feel bad for him. No friends, no family and no work. It can be pretty bad, but he tells me, it’s great! That’s how much Adi loves me.

He cooked dinner for me the day I came from Vietnam and if you know Adi, he cannot cook to save his life! I don’t know how he did it! Missing him now, gotta get home to my baby!

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary on 14th of July. Adnan’s parents, who are here from Chicago, hosted a roof top Kabab and Biryani party.

But the highlight of the day was this.

Adnan surprised me by calling my parents to Delhi for our anniversary. I was chopping mangoes on the dinning table with my neck brace on ( you all know I have been having a neck problem) when I saw my parents walk into the house with Adnan. I almost died.

If you know my parents well, you would know how bizarre it is to see them in Delhi.They never come. They think it is too hot. I have been in Delhi since 2003 December and my parents have visited me exactly three times ( out of which one was for my wedding. They landed a day earlier).

The credit to get them to Delhi lies with Adnan. I still can’t imagine what he must have said to convince them. Anyways, the point is that I was genuinely surprised. What did not come as a surprise to me was that they left as soon as the party was over.

Adnan and I went to a Mall in Noida today, called The Great India Place. It is the hugest Mall I have ever seen. It has massive shopping arcades with seas of shops of furniture, clothes, perfumes and what not. It is endless. I had a headache by the time we were out of that place.

Malls drive me giddy and I hate them. They lack character and are vulgar. The GIP is one of the many Malls that dot the NCR area. And every mall is packed with people shopping in a frenzy. Enough to drive even an ardent shopper like me crazy. I have my favorite market places in Delhi. I love Lajpat Nagar, GK- 2 ‘s N block, Khan Market, Dilli Haat and Jor Bagh markets very much. For me , they are the fine New Delhi bazaars where one can find whatever they are looking for and have a nice outing too.

You can find different kinds of people in all of these various markets. For example, Lajpat has the old Punjabi women haggling over the price of a dupatta, GK has the cute social workers adding to their Khadi wardrobe, Dilli Haat is full of students and Jor Bagh has my favorite ice tea shop while Khan Market has good book shops.