Daisy Paul had not bargained for air raid sirens and missile alerts when she applied for a Kuwaiti work permit last July.

The 24-year-old secretary from Kalyan near Mumbai used to work for import-export agents Himmat Lal and Co until her sister and brother-in-law encouraged her to join them in Kuwait and look for a job.

Now, after living next to a war zone, the St Xavier's graduate says she is learning to cope and has no plans of returning to India.

"I was panicky when I first heard the air raid sirens," she says.

As a well-paid secretary in one of Kuwait's leading hotels, Daisy earns $450 per month. She has to find her own accommodation, but right now she is staying with her sister and brother-in-law, who is working for a petroleum company.

"I enjoy the job; it's a new experience for me working in a hotel… and the wages are good."

This is her second job and she earns thrice as much as she was earning in Mumbai.

When the sirens sound, Daisy, her sister, brother-in-law and three-year-old niece head for a safe room on the ground floor of their apartment block in the suburb of Salmiyeh.

The room is taped to protect against shattering glass, but like most of the 300,000 plus Indians in Kuwait, they don't have gas masks or chemical protection suits. Nor have they been given the antibiotic tablets that protect against anthrax.

By all accounts, it is families in India who are more worried. Daisy's father rings up every Friday to make sure that his family members are safe.

"So far, so good," says Daisy.

The war has affected only her regular trips to the city centre for window-shopping. Now she and her sister's family spend the evenings watching television. It is their chief source of entertainment and news.

rediff.com Senior Editor Shyam Bhatia is the co-author of Saddam's Bomb, on Iraq's search for nuclear weapons.