Bridal Blog - Day One

Arrived in UAE safely yesterday night 9:50PM.

Top Stories so far:

• The landing fiasco caused by our very own Sarwar Raza: He insisted on getting a transit visa for 4 days before leaving for Pakistan, which ended up taking 1.5 hrs cos a gora sharabi broke a whisky bottle in front of him and caused an uproar. Then, by the time he was done in passport control (45mins) he went to get his bag but they'd moved it from the baggage carousel to a storage area and that took him 45mins to find. Basically, he showed up outside 3 hrs after landing.
  As for me, I went thru passport control and was out within an hour of landing. Unbeknownst to me, a lot of my khandan had showed up as the "dulha dulhan reception party" with flowers et al.. and then everyone insisted on waiting for Sarwar, but by 12:45am, dadi was feeling tired, lil Khadijah had to go to school and my cousin Lubna had work in the morning so they all left. They were quite upset as they had wanted to meet "Sarwar bhai" and give him flowers themselves.
  So, it's 1AM and Sarwar is nowhere to be seen. Then Papa and I had the brainstorm that since I still had my baggage and this is Dubai and there's no such thing as security, I could go back in and look for him with the line "my husband hasnt come out yet, etc".
  Naturally, it worked! The lallu security guy gave way as soon as I got aggressive with an Aamerican accent. So I checked by the carousel and in the lost luggage office but could not find him. Then miraculously, as I was roaming the area nonstop, we bumped into each other. Khair, finally he exited at 1:10AM. Whew.
  Papa was quite cheerful the whole time and trigger happy with his digicam shooting the first pics that go into the shadi album. (He's overjoyed with the 156MB memory stick I got for him).
  I was so exhausted and hungry that on the way home I stopped at Hardee's, got a Mushroom & Swiss burger and went home to binge!
  
• It turns out the shoes we bought for the shadi totally dont match the dress. So will have to go hunting for those.. looking for matching ones in what I now call "frosted magenta". If that fails, golden it is.
  
• Father and Mother shared their wedding clothes preparations. Papa's going to wear a cream sherwani (convinced him to get a cream churidaar with it, not a beige one - go figure) and Mum's gonna wear her lovely Banarasi gold and red sari (convinced her not to wear the red and gold lehenga and save that for the valima).
  
• I have lovely chudiyaan! Yay! My tayi went to Delhi and got me some and they're quite exquisite. Awesome stuff.
  
• Funniest moment of the day: I discovered my mom bought me lingerie. Ahem. And that's all I'm going to say.
  
• Second Funniest moment of the day: Front page of Khaleej Times. Under news and photos of the president and war in Iraq, there's a piece with the headline "Jackson's prints found on porn magazine!". Nowhere else in the world does the country's national newspaper put all of Mickey J's misdemeanors on the front bloody page. Gotta love 'em KT folks!
  
• Also in KT, Clinton's coming here tomorrow (again). Big fat blue dress deal.
  
• Nikhat arrives tonight - by the same flight that I did! 'Course being silly as she is she didn't bother getting onto the same plane as I and we have to do the airport thing *again*. Well, I guess we'll be making lots of those trips anyway, as the khandan filters in from the homeland.
  
• Spoke to Khala (Mom's sister). She insists I should not see Sarwar for 10 days until the shadi. Well, uhh, it'll be hard to miss him on the Mehendi. Plus, those last 10 days will be busy enough so I doubt we'll have a choice about seeing each other or not. Sigh.
  
• Am trying to eat as less as possible in order to avoid last minute weight gain as always happens in Dubai. Have not yet tried on dress for fear of misfit (get it?) so am waiting for moral support from older sibling before trying it on. I'm very sensitive about clothes not fitting. Makes me a wreck (even though I know a little adjustment will make it alright). PS: Yammie do not convey this to your mom. I will be most compliant with clothing that comes from you folks! I just like to throw a fuss at home!
  
• Okay, Papa is "hovering" (read: getting bored and wanting my attention) so I shall be off. More tomorrow.