Summer Rendezvous @ The Grind - August 2, 2006

A cozy gathering of handful of orbits! Some who confirmed couldn’t make it and yet some turned up without confirming! The surprise element as usual was there :-)

I reached The Grind at 7:45 and our forever punctual Mr. Iyer was already waiting with a friend and was accompanied by Baxi who is freshly returned all freshened up from a short break from the UK. It was great to see you after weeks KB!

We were later joined in by Ashwin, Achyuth and his friend as we settled on the cozy sofas of the grind! Some conversation flowed followed by a presentation on his laptop by Ramesh of the various projects he has designed! Awesome work Ramesh! Achyuth was particularly impressed with the work and suggested Ramesh take up animation work as he is so good!

I followed up with some of my poetry and one of the write up on my brother all of which can be found on my blog. We were then joined by Mayura who missed both the presentation and the poetry reading.

This is the first time we combined a meet along with sharing of creative work and I feel we should keep this trend on. Next time I’d like to bring along some art work and hopefully there will be more artists participating.

KB, Achyuth and his friend left us a little around 9:30 but not before Achyuth paid up the bill for everyone without informing us! A special thanks to Achyuth for his magnanimous nature! Too bad I had already paid my bill before he came! Next time he decides to come along we will plan a trip to Burj Al Arab:-P

The remaining four of us enjoyed a very yummy veg dinner at Sukh Sagar post the meet to end our pretty cool evening.

Until the next rendezvous!

Cheers!

Sabiha

Dhow Cruise - 9th June 2006

Thank you Maliha for posting the pictures!

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lapizlazoolee/album?.dir=/b4a9re2&.src=ph

A humid evening in June, the Dubai Creek, an open Dhow & absolutely awesome company!

We started around 8:15 from the Bur Dubai Creek and had good two hours cruise all the way from the Shindagha to Garhoud!

The weather was humid to begin with but when the dhow went in motion there was decent air to cool us down.

Some singing, some dancing, lots of conversation and loads of pictures! It was fun going under the Maktoum Bridge instead of over it for a change :-)



Dubai from the creek looks totally different, especially the area across the Dubai Creek Park� From this point it�s so difficult to know that this city is so fast paced and crowded! It�s nice to be out and away from the crowd, enjoying the soft breeze and sailing away while the waters of the creek are lapping in calm serenity.


This was a different experience from the usual meeting for coffee or having a party. Thank you to all those who joined in to make this a memorable evening.

Cheers!

Sabiha

Coffee Meet @ Burjuman Barista - Mar 11, 2006

Thanks to all the members who joined us at the meet yesterday! I had a good time and hope to have more such meets regularly!

Here's a list of all those who came:
1. Teresa
2. Maliha
3. Ashwin
4. Megha
5. Amir
6. Ramesh
7. Kalpesh

Cheers!

Sabiha

Orb Meet 4 2005 - 12th Dec - Report

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Tue Dec 13, 2005 11:20 am
Subject: Orb Meet - 12th Dec - Report sabiha_orb
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
Remove Author | Ban Author
Hi to all!

Very quickly a brief report on yesterdays meet! It did happen and I
must say for a meet that was organized in such a short time, we had
quite a few members attending!

Here's a list of members in the order that they arrived at the venue
(country bakes):

1. Tushar & Nikhil (Tushars friend)
2. Sabiha & Shahbaaz
3. Sanjay
4. Mayura
5. Rishi
6. Vinod and Raj

Vinod and Raj did not stay for long as they had to catch a movie
however we did have a good time sipping tea and chatting away to
glory! Loads of leg pulling and general discussions on creativity
and the group activities went on. The meet lasted for about 2 hours
after which some of us headed for dinner together!

Here's hoping to more such gathering and meeting more new people!
The pics will be posted shortly!

Cheers!

Sabiha

PS: I know that's the shortest, hurried report ever posted by me but
that's all you guyz are getting! To enjoy the fun, next time attend
the meet! :-P

ORB Meet 3 - 2005 - Trip to Al Ain

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sun Nov 13, 2005 1:19 pm
Subject: Trip to Al Ain - Report sabiha_orb

The trip to Al Ain was a success despite a lot of last minute drop
outs (four people dropped out for various reasons). The following
people attended the trip:



1. Abdul Kadir
2. Kelly
3. Edna
4. Sajjas
5. Thyaag
6. Sandeep
7. Saurabh
8. Shahbaaz
9. Yours truly



We started from Dubai at 8:30 and reached Al Ain by 10:00. During the bus ride
to Al Ain we had introductions and getting to know each
other with Abdul Kadir being busy with his handy cam and Kelly
entertaining us with her dancing and live commentary! Sandeep and
Thyaag who had both had a late Thursday night caught up on some
sleep on the way!



We spent the 1st two hours in the Green Mobazzarah (finally got the
name right!) chatting away and listening to some spicy experiences
of Sandeep while Abdul Kadir, Shahbaaz, Sajjas and the van driver
went off to pray. Kelly and Edna made sure they caught up on some
sleep in the van while the men went for the Friday prayers.




Afternoon was spent near the lake where we were joined by Sandeep's
friend Azhar who stays in Al Ain and all the men playing cricket
except Abdul Kadir and Thyaag. Thyaag decided he wanted to catch up
on some more sleep while Abdul Kadir danced away to glory with Edna
and Kelly while each of them took turns catching their action live
on camera. They provide ample entertainment to other tourist who
stopped their cars to have a look at the cross-cultural dance
(Indian bhangra combined with Pilipino jiving!)



I entertained myself with the fish in the lake (boy were they huge!)
and joined a bit in the dance party and later caught up with some
sleep myself in the van! The weather was awesome not to get a bit of
a wink myself:-P!



Around 4 pm we all went boating. I, AK, Edna and Kelly in one boat,
and the other six people took two other boats. We did have a bit of
an energy lapse while peddling the boat with AK having lost all his
energy earlier on during the dance, so basically our boat kept going
round and round in the lake while some passing boats decided to give
it and impetus by colliding with our boat! (If it wasn't for those
other boats we would probably be stuck in the middle of the lake
still!)



Sunset was on the way to Hafeet and as usual an amazing view of Al
Ain on the way up (its nicer seeing from the van than a car for
obvious reasons) while lots of jokes were passing by especially
Thyaag comments like "Amazing sunset!" "This is the best sunset in
the world….8th wonder!" which we all knew was his futile attempt at
humour!



Jabel Hafeet was cool and we promptly got into our sweaters! There
was a huge crowd on the mountain top where we spent some time
clicking pictures and then headed back to Town for dinner in an
Indian restaurant recommended by our local guide Azhar! The food was
simbly amazing!

The journey back home was fun with word antakshari being played
manipulated by the brother and sister duo of the Majgaonkar family:-
P. We had some gazals by Thyaag with his every popular "aaj jaane ki
zid na karo" being sung with all the emotion that only Thyaag can
muster! Abdul Kadir and gang decided that the journey back home was
great for catching up on that ever eluding sleep so Thyaag, I,
Shahbaaz, Sandeep and Saurabh laughed our hearts out with some awful
singing and awesome mimicry by Shahbaaz while poor Sajjas drifted in
and out of sleep trying to cope up with his sickness (he was sick as
he had an altitude problem!)



We reached Dubai at 10 pm with most of us ready to reach home and
hit the sack!




Fun Trip!!

Cheers!

Sabiha

Orb Meet 2 - 2005

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:04 pm
Subject: Meet on the 8th July - Report sabiha_orb

Dear Orbits,

This report is late, actually by a week, but you can contribute it
to the fact that I have been busy with work and no one else seems to
take enough interest to put forth one after the meets...perhaps they
think no one can do it better than me ;-)!

This meet was usual in some ways and unusual in some. Let's take the
similarities and differences one by one:

Similarities:
1. Members (some) who confirmed to come did not show up without
giving a reason (except Dipti who had other plans with hubby)
2. Members who did not confirm turned up (Bobby as usual!) but
that's always a Welcome :-)
3. We had less female members and more male members attending
4. The regulars were there: Myself, Mufaddal & Abdul Kadir who seem
to be the loyal attendees of all meets:-P
5. We had fun. Well at least I did...don't know about others but at
the risk of making an ass out of you and me I ASSUME they did ;-)

Differences:
1. For the 1st time we had a meet in the Deira area.
2. We had the mall practically to ourselves so we could make loud
noises
3. Nikhil attended so I did not have to worry about having dull
moments because he was happy to spread around his brand of humour
and laughter and made sure everyone was entertained (at my expense
of course!) He also managed to shake a bit in an attempt to dance
only no one accompanied him so had to stop at that!
4. Part of the group ventured out to city center to see a movie so
our meet went out a bit longer.

Thankfully this time most members came on time on or around 6:00 pm
apart from Bobby (as usual) and Vishal who had a tough time finding
the mall.

Some members thought that the place was not the right kind of place
for meets...I and Saleem thought differently. For me any venue is
fine as long as we meet up and have a good time :-)

The meet lasted up to 8:30 and for the first time we didn't have
members wanting to leave in the middle of the meet for whatever
reasons (hey I guess that is another difference!)

All in all it was a nice get together with some eating and drinking
and loads of fun and laughter. We even managed to do video shooting
which BTW is hilarious if you ever get a chance to see (you can ask
Abdul Kadir for a viewing!)

Until the next one!

~Sabiha

Orb Meet 1 - 2005

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:19 pm
Subject: Report - Orb Meet 1 - 2005 sabiha_orb

Hi All!

The meet did happen on the 15th (yesterday) and I must tell you it
was one of the better ones so far!

Most of the people who had confirmed attended and some who had not
turned up! Waseem couldn't make it because he was too busy working
on a Friday for his company (you must sue your employer Waseem!).
Shabaaz too was held up with work.

The venue was excellent. The weather was so unusually good for this
time of the year. I mean normally we can't think of sitting outside
(read without AC) during this time of the year, but we did yesterday
at the Country Bakes and it was so pleasant with nice breeze through
out the evening. I am glad Umesh suggested this place!

Amazingly most members were on time and started arriving at 5:00 and
soon after. Teresa and I had reached Country Bakes at 4:30 to make
sure we are there to give directions and to meet early arrivals.
Teji arrived sharp at 5:00 (and I was impressed!) followed by Abdul
Kader, Umesh and Muffaddal. Ranjith and Sachith came around 5:30 and
so the meet began.

After introductions and pleasantries (it was the first attendance
for Teji and Mufaddal and some of the other members had missed each
other in the previous meets) we got on to the main agenda of the
meet and that was to discuss organizing an exhibition for work of
the members. A lot of ideas were shared for organizing the
exhibition and more new ideas were introduced to do other kind of
work which we shall hopefully take up once we make the exhibition a
success. (I will be posting about the exhibition in a separate post)

One question which we face at every meet with new attendees is the
name of the group. All people have a question as to what Orb stands
for. Well for the sake of all members here's a clarification. Orb is
not an abbreviation of any name. Orb itself has meaning. Orb stands
for globe or sphere or planet and we have this name for the group
because we started the group visualizing it as a world of creative
and likeminded people. To us, Orb represents "the world".

The best part of the evening was we got one individual interested in
the group who later joined us from an adjoining table after hearing
what the group was all about and who hopefully would become a member
of the group soon! His name is Amjad. We also got to meet his wife
Darshana who is on her way to motherhood.

One of the other topics of discussion was the Orb Reporters. The
attending members, as Mufaddal pointed out, were under the
impression that since we already have one reporter each for the
three main emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah) they did not come
forward to be reporters. Let me take this opportunity to tell you
all that there is no limit to how many people can report for one
emirate. If you have something interesting or informative to share
about an area or about any activity in any emirate, please go ahead
and post it. Since most of our members are working people its
difficult for them to cover their emirate all the time, so having
more than one reporter will actually be good as someone or the other
will be having something to share at some point of the week.

Going back to the meet, Bobby joined us later in the evening for a
little while and Teji made sure he kept irking me throughout the
evening with his obnoxious sense of humour (I am sure you know what
that means Manoj and I know to be better equipped next time Teji!).
Towards the end of the meet, Veena, the owner of Country Bakes
joined us and gave some ideas about displaying work done by our
members which we shall look into. We also clicked some pictures at
the meet, which will be posted in the next few days.

All in all a successful meet I must say. We had all members
including Ranjith and Abdul Qadeer chipping in with their valuable
views and tips, which we shall definitely work on in the coming
days. The attending members have decided to meet again after two
weeks (29th of April) to discuss and finalize the Exhibition. Those
who did not attend are very welcome to join in this time around.

With thanks to all the members who attended for making this a
success, I shall bid adieu for now!

Cheers!

Sabiha

ORB-UAE Meet 4

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:39 pm
Subject: Orb Meet 4 - Report sabiha_orb

Well, there is not much to report on the meet, coz there practically
was no meet!

It drizzled this Friday (around the time of the meet) and even though
the weather was "BEAUTIFUL" I guess most of your guys preferred to
stay in doors with a hot cup of coffee (or tea/chocolate as you may
please)...

I reached the venue (gate # 4, Creek Park) at 4:00 and the only
person who contacted me prior to that was Ranjith, so I told him
where I would be. Of course Ranjith is not the typical "on time" guy
so I was not expecting him until an hour or so late :-)

I waited for others to call, but got no calls. Got out of my car at
6:00 (by then the drizzling had stopped) and waited at the gate for
Ranjith, who turned up at 6:20 and we both went in the park, walked a
bit around, sat on a bench and caught up with news as we had not met
for quite a while....so basically the meet turned out to be a date
with a dear friend :-P.

The only other person who called (much later at night) was Teji to
check how the meet went (atleast you bothered to call Teji..thanks)

So what happened to all those who wanted me to shift the dates from
2nd so that they can attend??? Perhaps next time huh?

Cheers!

Sabiha

ORB-UAE Meet 3

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sat Oct 2, 2004 12:20 pm
Subject: Orb Meet 3 - Report orbitsaby

Well first of all the venue….wow! I am not sure how many of you
members have been to the Grand Hyatt but if you haven't been there
you must visit it once…. its just beautiful! The ambience of the food
court is really cool. It's like a mini jungle out there with
waterfalls and trees and stream and bridges over the stream….

The meet started a little late this time than the time given because
for once I was late! Only 15 minutes though. I and Nisha reached
Hyatt at 6:15 and Ranjith and Sachit joined us at around 6:40.
Basically we were THE members who attended the meet and since we are
good friends it was more a friendly outing then an Orb meet. Teresa
was stuck in Garhoud traffic and just couldn't get out of there…later
when she was free by 8:30 it was almost time for us to leave so she
decided not to turn up.

I got a call from Vishal at 7:10 saying he won't make it because he
was late with his driving lessons and he had to catch a bus to Jabel
Ali by 9:00. Abdul Qader called at around 8:00 and because of the
traffic and short attendance of members he decided he did not want to
risk wading through the heavy traffic all the way from Deira.

Bobby turned up at around 8:30 (?) and Vishal finally decided he
wants to remain the dedicated member who has to his credit full
attendance as far as orb meets are concerned (apart form me of
course!). He made it a little after 8:30 and we did have some Chat on
NLP with Bobby and a little general talk.

Umesh, Charmaine and Teji did not show up nor do we know the reason
why…perhaps next time :-)

We were stopped form clicking snaps though at the café we were
sitting and so I managed to get only a couple there and a few we
clicked while departing outside the Hyatt. I'll post them shortly.

Some conclusions after this meet that I came up with:
1. The venue should preferably be somewhere near Bur Dubai as
most people found it inconvenient to travel to the Hyatt.
2. Thursday's is not a good idea. I think Friday afternoon is
the coolest time for meets as most people do manage to make it.

So next time we will keep these point in mind while organizing a
meet. Also we definitely want to go out of Dubai for a picnic
sometime in November so guys please come up with locations that you
all would prefer to go to.

The meet ended at around 9:15. We had a great time yesterday despite
a small attendance and it was really a good change having the meet at
the Grand Hyatt…

Cheers!

Sabiha

ORB-UAE Meet 2

From: "purrcepcion"
Date: Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:18 am
Subject: Orb Meet 2 - Report purrcepcion

Dear Orbits,

The 2nd orb meet took place yesterday at Al Khaleej Center. Just like
last time many of the people who had confirmed of coming did not turn
up, however we had a bigger gang this time around!

Shahbaaz and I reached at 4:00 and Waseem joined us at 4:25. He takes
pride in the fact that he is always the first one to come apart from
me and Shahbaaz! Good for you Waseem!



We were later joined by one of our new members, Abdul Kader, who had
not confirmed but joined us none the less! It so turned out that he
took away the day's cake in terms of talking and amusing us with his
various theories and giving advice to some of the soon to be married
guys who attended the meet! (Any unmarried girls on the forum, if you
are looking for a caring hubby, try contacting Abdul Kader!)



Vishal followed with four of his friends, Ajit, Nikhil, Sachin and
Iqbal. Iqbal happens to be an orb member and I am hoping that the
other three will join us soon too! It was tough remembering the names
of the guys actually all at once...but I was suggested an easy way to
remember...by remembering the cricketers! (Yup some time WAS devoted
to CRICKET TALKS, courtesy Shahbaaz and Vishal!) So I was told to
remember the names as Ajit (Agarkar), Nikhil (Chopra), Sachin
(Tendulkar), (Asif) Iqbal and hey even Abdul Kader use to be an old
cricketer!



All the guys are new to Dubai (around one year old!) so we did have
discussions on jobs and job conditions here and seems the guys do not
find much difference between India and Dubai...

Finally Mr. Umesh made his grand entry at around 5:45?? (Don't even
remember except he was late!) So we did have a flow of conversation
and at times different groups were discussing different topics with
Waseem giving some ideas on Stock Exchange to Ajit (Sorry about your
25000 Rs loss Waseem!) and as mentioned earlier Abdul Kader was
giving advices to Iqbal and Sachin who are engaged and soon to be
married. All the men had one common agreement though: Marriage is end
of life! Wonder why they get married even though they know that :-)!!!



We also discussed about a trip to Hatta or Khor Fakkan after Ramadan
and a few heads did nod on that! Let see if that materializes.

Bobby called in between saying he will "probably" come but that never
happened! And I am not sure I want to forgive Nisha and Ranjith for
ditching us 2nd time around....maybe some chocolates will help...

We did get to know some nice people during the course of the evening
and the meet ended around 6:35 with everyone getting restless...sorry
if some of you were bored, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Meet!

Until next Meet...

Cheers!

Sabiha

PS: The pics will be put up by Umesh soon!

ORB-UAE Meet 1

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sat Jun 26, 2004 4:04 pm
Subject: Orb Meet sabiha_orb

Orb Meet

Well the orb meet finally happened! Here's a report on the happenings:

Shahbaaz and I reached sharp at 3:00 at Al Khaleej Center and unlike
what I had anticipated the food court had buffet organized yesterday
so there was a crowd already! All hopes of the orbits making halla
gulla and attracting attention were lost! :-)

As I sat there I realized I had not given my contact number in the
reminders and it struck me that many of the people who will be
joining do not know me or anyone else in the group by face and would
perhaps have a hard time finding us in the crowd! So Shahbaaz went
around Khaleej Center tying to find material to make a placard with.

As I was sitting there alone I saw this guy who looked a bit lost, as
if he was searching for someone. I thought "Waseem?" or "one of the
orbits?" but did not dare to go and ask. The poor chap kept looking
around and went upstairs near McDonald. I could still see him thanks
to the open space of the food court (basement area) I was sitting in
which gives the view of the ground floor close to McDonalds. The guy
searched around a bit, came down and then I saw him purposefully
walking towards my table. "Excuse me, are you Sabiha?" and I go "yes
and you are Waseem!" and finally Waseem managed to find the right
table! (NOTE: Next time Sabiha, do give your number for people to
contact!)



Shahbaaz came back with a paper placard, which had orb meet mentioned
on it by pen, which was hardly visible. So much help that would be
for people trying to figure out which bunch was the "crazy orbits"!

Around 3:15 Azeem called saying he would reach in the next 10
minutes, which did not happen for many hours to follow.

Then we were joined by Vishal and Vinita around 3:30. And Folks that
was the only attendance of the first Orb Meet. Us five!



Umesh had called in the morning stating he would come late (around
5:30) as he had to see his mom who was in the hospital. Nisha
informed me she had chain prayers going at her house for two days so
she cannot make it. Farukh and Charmaine did not turn up either!
Ranjith called at 4 to say he had to go to office for work (on a
Friday for Gods sake!! He must sue his company!) and would not be
able to make it.

So the five of us did a lot of talking. The topic went on from
personal interests, to families, work, creativity, weather and what
not. The three guys being cricket fanatics there was a lot of cricket
talk and I wondered towards the end if the meet should have been
named "Orb Cricket Meet".

We did come to know that Vinita just got engaged to be married in
October. Congratulations to Vinita. Vishal has been transferred to
Abu Dhabi on a better position and my company is moving his boss's
residence! Waseem complained about being lonely in the UAE and was
missing home (but now you have found us Waseem so you shouldn't have
that feeling for long). We all missed our popular member Shazz who
unfortunately is in US.

We also discussed how we could come up with ways of getting work of
the members published. A tentative idea – one on which we will
definitely deliberate for some time and I am sure we will find means
and ways to have that goal accomplished. We also planned a picnic
sometime in Winter, to Hatta or Al Ain or Khor Fakkan. (I just hope
we will have more than 5 members attending though)

Conversation flowed really well as if we all have known each other
for ages and have met many times before. There was not one awkward or
dull moment. I must say all those who attended are good
conversationalists (ahem…. that includes me!).

We were at Al khaleej upto 6:30. Vinita had to leave around 5:30 to
catch her fiancé online :-) (He is in India) Umesh never turned up.
But today he called to say sorry and to inform he got stuck up at the
hospital (Mom's first Mesh…we all forgive you!) And finally at 8:00
when I was driving home I got a call from Azeem. Poor chap met with
an accident on the way to the meet and was stuck up the whole time
with the Police :-(. At least he intended attending the meet. Better
luck next time :-)

All in all it was a wonderful day out and we have set the ball
rolling! We also clicked some pictures, which will be posted soon for
all to see.

Until the next meet….

Cheers!

Sabiha