Sunday, June 14, 2009

time to say goodbye...

Parting is never easy they say... Seated on a flight back to India, my mind wanders back to the day I arrived in Sydney. The summer night was crisp as I walked out of the airport to meet AV, a colleague who barely knew me but had still cared enough to come pick me up and take me to her home for the night. I’m not really sure when I lost my heart to this city; maybe it was the next afternoon on the train when I saw Sydney Harbour in its full glory, or maybe it was when I saw that childlike gleam in AV’s eyes when she saw the opera house. AV if you’re reading this post; have really missed you after you left Sydney... Tuesday movie nights and pizzas at Encasa haven’t been the same without you. Even the hot chocolate at Bill’s coffee place on wintery evenings is not that much fun without your gossip

Life has been quite a ride with my quirky house mate S. I think I have lost count of your peculiar aches & pains...now that I think of it, maybe it has something to do with your chilli fanaticism. My drinking mate and a great cook...it’s a pity we never got around to that salsa pub. Good luck for the future and do remember what I said about the Irish men in your life 

AN...just another friendly face at work...soon became my friend, counsellor and mom in Sydney. Thanks for all your care and concern...wish I could have come around to your place for fish curry once more before I left.

J the stoic man of few words, who would break into a smile at the unlikeliest of moments. Thanks for always being my saviour at work. M & E, my foodie friends....I think we have discussed food more than work. J & M, seemed like school kids when I first met them....turned out to be excellent work mates and great friends. I’m not really sure what the story is but I hope things work out great for you two.

Walks along the beach...sneaking sushi into Max Brenner’s and falafel rolls into the boat club... racing across the Sydney university courtyard...watching the ships from Lady Macquarie’s Chair...I will always cherish the sweet summer evenings spent with BW. I still have no clue how you would get tickets to all those bizarre movies that nobody else seemed to want to watch...btw you look way better than the real BW:)
I’m glad for all the laughs we had...wish they could go on a bit longer. Wonder how things could have turned out if I had stayed back...but I hope I have made a friend forever in you. As the plane leaves Sydney airport, my mind goes back to the evenings spent on Brighton watching the planes take off in the distance...it hurts to say good bye which is why I didn’t. Another time, another place, things could have ended differently... so until our paths cross again...au revoir.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Stay...

Lately this song seems to follow me wherever I go. Brings back memories from the early nineties when this used to play quite a lot on MTV. One of the few songs I liked...probably coz it was one of those videos that seemed to narrate a straightforward story to my kiddie mind.

The hero is deathly sick...the heroine (who I referred to as the ‘Stay girl’) is singing to him to stay and not die. Partway through the song, the ‘Doom Doom” girl enters... (mind you this has no sexual connotation but twas just coz of the change in music beats when she appears)...and tries to take the hero away from the heroine. Finally the ‘Stay’ girl’s love triumphs and the ‘Doom Doom’ girl has to leave. Woohoo...wonder why they don't make such bollywood movies anymore...!!!

The song "Stay" is a 1992 single from UK based pop duo Shakespears Sister

For a long time though, I thought these two girls were actually Shakespear’s sisters...

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Australia is not racist they say... hang on... who’s ‘they’...??

Some Indian bloke representing the Indian community in Australia comes on the morning show to say that Indians in Oz don’t believe that Australians are racist. Personally I don’t have anything to refute this comment...lived for over a year in this country and I have never faced racial bigotry myself. If anything, I have dealt with more prejudice in India; I was kaali or blackie in school (referring to my dark complexion), called as south Indian or madraasi in Delhi, north Indian in Chennai...to the Australians however, I’m always the young Indian lady... sounds so much better...

But eight attacks on Indian students and hundreds more similar cases now coming out in the media...c’mon people...get real... there has to be something wrong somewhere. Who knows what the truth is... some say the attackers are not Aussies but kids from other ethnic communities...some say the attacks are on another community and it’s being twisted by the media to look like Indian racist attacks.

But the fact that Indian students continue to be soft targets, makes it a tad difficult to believe that these are purely opportunistic crimes. The so called well settled, well paid Indian community representatives need to realise that the victims are students coming from India; ones who don’t have the money to live in the better suburbs of Sydney, who have to work late shifts to make end meet, who cannot afford to take a cab home on late nights...

Again, I do not make any claims of racism; but the fact that these attacks continue unabated does indicate an underlying apathy towards Indian victims

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