Month: January 2013

On the way to the wedding got down in Dubai, UAE. We got about 6 hours so Nisha Latif my sister-in-law’s sister took me to all possible places to show me what Dubai is all about. It is a massive city with a lot of people and very big buildings. As for a man who prefer to stay out of the concrete jungle I thought I may get overwhelmed by the busy city. But Dubai is a well planned place… so all went well and here are some images.

 

Mickey Ahamed my brother’s son in Dubai

This is a mall in Dubai designed in a medieval period architecture.

Another view of the mall

Me in the beach near the Burj Al Arab hotel.

From Left Aamina Mariam my brother’s daughter, Nishi Ahamed my brother’s wife, Nisha Latif my sister-in-law’s sister and Nilu Latif Nisha’s daughter

Mickey Ahamed about to jump into the sea. It was quite cool there in Dubai as it is winter time. Latif told me we went there at the right time as in summer no one will be able to stand out in the sun as the desert will heat and become hell.

My brother Shibili Ahamed holding Nilu and me on left with Latif behind… 

Mickey Ahamed joined us after his first dip. He understood it was not a great idea to take a dip in the sea as it was cold

Aamina Mariam ready to test the water.

Now she left all fear and walked into the water

Mickey Ahamed thought he can walk over water, but Hada Yoga is not his thing.

All walked into the water, Nishi Ahamed, Nisha Latif, Aamina Mariam, Mickey Ahamed and Nilu Latif.

Now kids started searching for shells 

We left the beach and reached the mall again and I am looking at some pretty looking Arab girls…

My smile when I realized most of the prettiness of those Arab girls is in the make up.

From Left my brother Shibili Ahamed, Nishi Ahamed, Nilu Latif, Me, Mickey Ahamed and Aamina Mariam.

I tried my best to pose for a picture with this object…

Smile didn’t come well as I looked down.

With this picture my brother said… I held my breath for too long but I like this picture.

Then we went to Atlantis Dubai, this is an incredible place.. here I am in front of it.

Nisha Latif knows well how to get me and the gate of Atlantis Dubai in one shot.

Here me my brother his family and Nilu Latif in front of Atlantis Dubai

A mural on the ceiling inside Atlantis Dubai

I don’t need to say what this is as it clearly says what it is

My brother, me, Mickey and Latif inside the mall area of Atlantis Dubai.

My brother’s attempt on vandalism.. even with the best of the effort he couldn’t do much. 

These are many shots of me near the Dubai Mall.

My brother  and his family in front of Burj Khalifa the tallest building in the world at night.

Me and my brother in front of Burj Khalifa

Me in front of Burj Khalifa at night.

Me and my brother found exactly what we wanted.. The Meat Co… woo together we weigh about 500lbs 

The beautiful Burj Al Arab hotel.

After all the visits around I found my throne and called myself “Lonely Khalifa” probably after seeing the Burj Khalifa a lot. Well people in Dubai will know what exactly this is..hehehe

Then we moved to India for the wedding of my nephew Omar Farooque Minty my only sister Neena Thaha’s son.

 

Here is the hero of the time. Omar Farooque Minty. My only sisters son the night before his wedding.

Minty with his uncle’s(Father’s brother) wife and kids. From right Sahela, Wasim Feroze, Minty, Sonia, Asma Nazar.

These are my Brother-in-law’s relatives.. I am not exactly sure about their names

 

My niece Niluphur Nowfal, Minty and my cousin, Humaid Ahamed Rifayee.

 Nowfal Salam, Rashid, Senia, Nilu, Minty, Sania, Sahela, Wasim and Asma, needed to do almost a stand up comedy line to get them all to laugh.

Minty thought he can walk downstairs… naaa see next

His friend helped him down

Minty being carried down with Aathiqa Mariam, my brother and his wife Nishi watching in astonishment…

The night before fun is over all coming to a grinding halt… The function on the night before the marriage is dominated by women. Men got no role there. The women from the Groom’s house goes to the bride’s place with Henna for the bride and that’s a lot of singing and dancing there. 

Me at the hotel I love this all brass lamp.  The most notorious part is my big belly. Most people said, you’ve grown fat. They don’t know this is me after losing nearly 40lbs but I know I have another 35lbs to shed before I reach my normal weight and that 35lbs is sitting around my waist.

Minty with Mickey and Asma, Asma is the daughter of Abdul Naser my brother-in-law’s brother. A little hard to believe she is about 6 months older than Mickey Ahamed. She was one of my first friends on Facebook.

I call her princess Aaliya, my niece Nilu’s daughter… this is after her handy work with lipstick

Nowfal Salam, my niece Nilu’s Husband. 

Wedding day shots

Wedding day shots. On top you can see me and my brothers with Minty. It is very rare to get all of us in one place.

 

Minty with Nowfal, Nilu, Aathiqa, Aalya and Abdulla.

Minty with my brother and his family.

Minty with his sister Nilu, she tried her best to put the flower on his coat.. but the design of the coat did not had a flower hole…

My brother Shibili, Minty and Nilu.

Mickey in the process of dressing Abdulla.

Abdulla all set for the party.

Humaid on wedding day morning with Minty

Minty with his mom, dad and nephew Abdulla. My sister Neena broke her hand two weeks before the wedding when she fell down from stairs and had to undergo surgery to put metal screws.

Minty with family members

Minty walking out of the house.

Stepping into the car is not easy, he knows well this is the last ride as a bachelor.

 

Achanpudur Thangam on wedding day morning. Thangam is a family friend and is the head of Achanpudur. He literally rules that place in Tamil Nadu.

Friends of Minty with my brother watching Minty getting out of the house.

Minty in the car

The last smile of Minty as a bachelor!

The groom garlanded by the brother of the bride.

This looks like lot of people bowing before Minty.. actually these are dancers who sang and danced all the way to the stage.. took a while for us to reach the stage because of these singing dancers.

That’s some serious look on Minty’s face right before the the Nikah which is the Islamic word for marriage. I wonder what was going through his mind but whatever it is made his future father-in-law all nervous and from where I was sitting I saw him shivering.

Abdulla became the icebreaker as he started his fun on the stage.

One shot of my brothers and Mickey Ahamed on the stage.

Here is me sitting right behind my brother-in-law watching Abdulla and Minty.

Abdul Naser, me, my brother Manzoor Ahamed.

The starting of the Nikah function where the priest asks the father of the bride if he is willing to marry his daughter to Minty.

The whole Nikah Function… 

The nikah is over with a shake of hands and a hug.

Some shots of us during the Nikah function.

Here the uncles of Minty on stage right after the nikah.

Here comes the bride brought in by Nilu, Nishi, Asma and Aaamina.

 

The bride rightfully looking at the groom on stage.

Here they are together.

 Nishi and my sister watching the bride and groom

Bride and groom joined by some elders.. my mother Sophia Begum on the left, and Howa umma my brother-in-law’s mother on the right

Here is the Mahar.. I think I spelled it right. This is the next part of the marriage. Even though this is not part of the religious function there is the so called “Thalikettu” this needs to be given to the bride for the marriage to be traditionally complete.

There is the ring

The groom only puts the necklace and it is his sister’s right to tie it for which she gets a gold ring.

I have not idea what Made minty show that face… but it was funny and then there was this singer who was singing at that time. I reserve all comments about that forever.

Mother in Law’s first food which is milk and Minty should drink it

Feed his wife a portion of it

And then listen to all the mockery of the women in the family. As this is a women dominated part of the function, rest of the men are out of stage.

Minty and his newly wed wife with his parents, sister Nilu her husband Nowfal and my mother.

This is the section of our pictures before I left the stage… I was very sick had high fever and while taking the picture felt a little dizzy. I was afraid that I may fall down and people will start saying, Minty’s American Uncle got all drunk and fell on stage.

Minty and Wife Aysha Thaniya with her parents.

Time for Minty and wife to have food.

Happy Groom leading his wife out.

Into the car, Usually the groom should get his bride first in the car and then get in.. my nephew is my nephew… he decided to get into the car and let Ayesha get in by herself.

Some smiles and cheers during the wedding and night before.

The evening party was good… both bride and groom relaxed and started their normal way of talking

Here my cousin Dr.Junaid telling me never to talk to his son as I told his son not to get married until he reaches 30. I told his son, I will write him a poem called “The Theory Of Marriage” well I am very well qualified to write it… I never married in my life and in mid 40s I have to accept the fact that I know nothing about marriage.. which makes me the best guy to talk about it. hehehe

Here I got a young friend my grand nephew Abdulla… he is cute, smart and super active…

Minty eventually found sometime to eat.

Ayesha all relaxed by evening.

Before the bride and groom left for bride’s home the kids blocked the car asking for candies… and minty was not able to go at all and he gave.

Well it was one great function and trip. I felt glad and I believe I made a lot of people smile. When thinking about the whole thing this is the best shot of the whole event.. The shy filled smiles on the face of my sister and brother in law and that made it all worth it. I have seen these two from the start… and glad all ended pretty well. As for Ayesha and Minty.. I believe one day they will smile this way when their son gets married and I wish them all the best for that.

As for me I fell apart right after the wedding with heavy fever and was bed ridden for three days. Not a big deal, I saw most of my family during the wedding and I am glad that I did. I promised that I will go to India for a longer visit after this summer. So for now… May God Smile Upon You All Who Made Me Smile And Whom With Every Effort I Made Smile.

 

Here I am in front of the tallest building in the world. I will give more about this trip later

 

You all know, have read in books, saw in movies, T.V shows and newspapers about people going into adventures. They all go through a lot of issues, fights, some goes in great lengths to face the problems, some find ways around the problems and many just have to fail. In it all there is one point that they all were born in one place and as per the world around them they were all destined to do something and their adventures takes them to places, meet people and they do things they were not destined to do. That’s why it all becomes adventures.

Before sun rises in the morning I will return to my roots from my adventure. Yeah all the things I say, write and do are my adventure and very soon I will be back at it.

One more thing hurting someone is easy, I believe in all the good I tried to do in my ‘adventure’ I did hurt someone almost insulted someone or at least gave that person “stress”… My sincere apologies.

Have a great life everyone.. I will be back at mine with some new poems. That’s another side of my adventure.

Outlook For January 14-20 Category R1 (Minor) and R2 (Moderate) radio blackouts are likely through 20 January. Data used to provide space weather services are contributed by NOAA, USAF, NASA, NSF, USGS, the International Space Environment Services and other observatories, universities, and institutions.

Now many people may ask what can it do. These space weather alerts are based on Solar Storms. They are geomagnetic storms that comes from the Sun. As they are geomagnetic and our brain functions with the use of electric pulses better don’t make any major decisions, do not enter into arguments and postpone any activity that needs a lot of thinking. This may all sound silly. But believe me I have first hand experience with these.

Good night.

The image is of my all time favorite actress. Audrey Hepburn.

The Greenbay Packers my darling football team did not break my heart, they just disgraced everyone who passionately believed in them. Bad preparations defensively cost the Packers everything everyone dreamed about. Anyway this season is over and it is time for Mike McCarthy to go back to the drawing board and start over and make some tough decisions. I love my Packers and felt a bit disappointed and getting over it now, needed to take some deep breaths to keep the blood pressure from going sky high. 

On another note, a lot of people are saying one should not watch ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ or give any awards for that movie. Couple of my friends while having coffee with me have had this discussion, usually I will jump into this conversation but most of the time I was thinking about the movie for which Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar. My bad memory didn’t get me anywhere in the end as people as patriotism, political partisanship all where getting heated up between my friends I asked,

“Folks do you remember the name of the movie for which Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar?”

They both looked at me, then in a dramatic way they both looked at each other. Surprisingly both took their phones and started browsing IMDB one even misspelled Kathryn’s name.

I told them “Stop, just stop” they both looked up at me. I continued “See the movies Kathryn Bigelow makes are powerful emotion seekers, like a seer sucker missile it goes and hits and then what remains is only damage. She is one of the best directors I know but the material she brings are horrible”

The girl beside me told “Riaz, don’t be..” by that time I put my hand on her mouth and told “Hey you both were not able to remember the name of the movie so I rest my case” her boyfriend by that time said “hmmm it is Hurt Locker”

I got up and said..”See you both need to see the movie couple of times before you decide if it should get an Oscar or not, just because it shows torture scenes doesn’t mean it is a bad movie, I will judge none before I see the movie at least couple of times. But like I said earlier, if it were me I will make or write movies that will leave a long lasting impression in the mind of the viewers than make movies people will forget in couple of years.” then I said byes to both of them and got out of Alterra Coffee shop and walked into the parking lot. On my way to downtown I thought about how people come to quick conclusions. Be it a movie, job, politics or anything else in society stereotyping is a dangerous move then I asked myself “Did I just stereotyped Kathryn Bigelow as a horrible movie maker?” I smiled and looked ahead and said aloud “No, she is a fantastic movie maker” and drove into a night filled with people trying to party away the depression their love (Packers) left in their hearts.

“The White House would be taking a risk if it tries to make a constitutional end-run around Congress’ authority to raise the debt ceiling, legal experts said.”
Really? The legal experts can say whatever they want. They can define the constitution in many different ways. Party appointed judges can write any decree. But above all there is something called the will of the people. The Judiciary is part of the government, which of course is created by the people. If the judiciary is not going stand with the government to avoid an economic collapse then the judiciary is against the people for a piece of paper called the constitution. We are heading towards that crisis. I don’t think the judiciary will stand against the will of the people for some interpretation of the constitution by some mindless partisan politician. What Obama should “DO” is make couple of trillion dollar coins and go in that direction telling congress to follow or congress can sit on the potty they are sitting now. Americans needs action and no matter what action happens people will stand with those actions.

Full Article

There are many versions of this video, many angles, lights… but this is the one I liked… Hope you all enjoy this 

Fountains Of Bellagio – My Heart Will Go On By Celine Dion. 

Roots, yeah, roots, I smell them. A true follower will know exactly what I mean. I wrote some of these lines as part of another poem. I first discarded those lines then I pulled it out and wrote a reality, a truth.

 

Isolation.

 

Water bubbles upon the cold pebbles danced

The stream purified the nature from the impurities

Left by humanity in their brutal cruelty

Ah’ Mother Nature her virginity regained.

 

The broken bubble added a new note

To the music of the flowing river

The chirping birds took a dip and shivered

In the water made cold by the northern winds.

 

The air so good, the feeling so great at the end of fall

The fallen leaves as green summer’s monuments gathered

Ah’ in my mind too a monument of feelings built

With loving words as building blocks you gave.

 

Now the love I felt you leave under summer’s monuments

Ah’ I let the cold winds of fall with smell of winter, freeze

The images and feelings of a sunny summer of wonders

Oh’ all I feel is the Earth and all in there moving far, far.

 

© RIAZAHAMMED.COM. All Rights Reserved-2013

Truth at times can be very explicit, accepting it is not easy, that’s the reality that drives many youth to drugs, alcohol and violence these days.

Good Morning everyone… Actually the morning is too bright to be good and damn cold too here in my neck of the woods. In the coming days you are folks are going to see some real nice poems from me.

Have a great weekend.

Lone.