We be (Gulab)-Jammin'

For the rose-syrup uninitiated out there - a gulabjam is a traditional Indian desert - comprised of a small pastry, flavoured with Pistachio, Cardamom and occasionally drowning in rose-syrup. My grandmother usually has some grated coconut on her GJ's (I just made that abbreviation up) and are only lightly dipped in rose-syrup - so the tasty larynx spasms are neglible.





Why all this talk of drippy, sickly sweet Indo-delicacies? We went to an Eid Party last night - at the Pax Christi Community Center and were gulabjammed! And Butter Chickened! And Burfied! (another dessert). And Baclavad! We discovered the location - at least the gathering place - of the Indo-Pakistani community that we have heard inhabits the Twin-Cities. There were lots of colourful sarees and high heels, three-piece suits and salwar khamees (traditional Indo-Pakistani clothing) and small brown children running amok - high on sugar and the lack of a dedicated babysitter. A fire alarm was pulled at one point. This was the annual Eid Party of a local community group here in Minneapolis and it was well attended - certainly over three hundred people, I think. We thought it might be nice to see if we could go and perhaps meet some people.

We decided to go and Muna and Hafsa got all partied up. Maymuna wore her red dress, white tights and shiny black shoes. Hafsa wore her Japanese shirt - which is doubly terrific: not only does it look great on her (thanks Datti), but it has bows that tie up on the front - which, when loose, are great because they act as strange gummable straps that she sucks on. Cute, but wet. At any rate, the hall was a gymnasium (searing memories of Abraar School functions in Ottawa came racing back), except in this gym was a giant paper lion and the phrase 'Wild About God' on one of the walls. There were balloons, a karaoke machine, microphone and powerpoint presentation (MSA memories) and representative personalities that made us quite homesick - plenty of cousins, brothers, sisters and community friends were strangely manifest in these people. Jen did a double-take thinking that she saw Betul (one of our Turkish Ottawa friends), and my cousin Ihsaan was channeled by a guy trying to load up my plate with cheesecake. They were all there and is was very nice - down to the plastic slightly see-through table cloths, aluminum foil serving trays and a chaotic parking lot.

We left the party and I was confident that I could negotiate our way back home. We discovered, as a result, the little town of Chaska in Chanhassen County, which is southwest of where we actually wanted to go - about half an hour out of our way. Minneapolis counties all look the same in the dark. There seemed to plenty of liquor stores and cheap gasoline. We made it home and Maymuna said when we were getting her into the car, 'When it's a nice day, we can come back to this party, whooohooo!.' Jen and I have postponed our movie night, so I'm going to finish this post so we can watch our movie - she's gone bonkers over the availability of documentary and foreign films from netflix. Tonight: Children of Heaven. Movie post to follow, I'm sure - but in the interm - rottentomatoes.com gave this one a freshness rating of 82%.