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.

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...

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

Roop Tera...

Woke up this morning with a sudden yearning for old Bollywood songs. So got onto YouTube with a bowl of suji halwa that I managed to burn in my hurry to get into the retro mode. The burnt breakfast was soon forgotten amongst Shammi Kapoor’s body breaking dance moves and Rajesh Khanna’s head bobs.

At some point I came across the song Roop Tera Mastana…and realised that I had only ever watched the remixed version and never the original. Picturized on a very young looking Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore wrestling with the age old question…‘to do or not to do’…this is probably one of the most sensual songs from the 70s that I have seen. Forced to take shelter in some kind of a shed due to a very Bollywood istyle sudden thunderstorm, the hero with a lost puppy expression follows the doe eyed heroine around a fire trying to coax her into his arms. The clip goes on for about three and half minutes with nothing but the young couple gazing into each others’ eyes, holding hands, and the occasional half embrace which makes them both go pink in the face. Made me smile when I realised that my eyes had been glued onto the screen for the full length of the clip Without steamy scenes or raunchy moves…the song manages to tell the story without making parents jump for the remote. Kudos to whoever directed the intimate sequence with such innocent simplicity. Not quite sure if the same would work for 21st century Bollywood though… :)

“How many Test Centuries has Sachin Tendulkar scored?” asks my manager on a tipsy Friday evening after work. Seeing the blank look on my face he quips “You’re Indian, you’re a girl and you’re from Mumbai. How can you not know the answer to that question??!!!”

Cute guy from work…the first time we have an actual conversation he asks “Do you like sports?” Before I can figure out a sport that I may even remotely be able to have an intelligent conversation on, he remarks, “You probably like cricket don’t you?”

“Why aren’t you going berserk and taking pictures with the cricketers??!!!” a genuinely surprised Aussie friend asks at a celebrity cricket match at the SCG

After all, isn’t that what Indians are supposed to be…crazy cricket fans?!!
Somehow I missed that train...just didn't think it would come back this way...

This song makes me want to cry...maybe its just Meryl Streep...

why do I even bother!!?

Wrapped in my own thoughts, I got into the wrong bus yesterday after work. Didn’t realize it was the wrong one until the bus slowed down couple of stops before mine and took a turn in an another new direction. The next stop came a few more random turns later, dropping me off at what looked like one of the plushest locales of Sydney. Feeling pretty optimistic that I’d be able to track my way back, I started plodding in the opposite direction of the bus. A few minutes of walking (…it was more of sauntering down the stoned pathways, gawking at the classy houses and the jazzy cars) and realization dawns that I am officially lost.

Oooh...out comes the GPS enabled phone…who knew providence would present the prospect of putting my phone to good use so soon :D
Unfortunately, I still haven’t learnt to use the GPS functionality nor have I loaded the maps.
Hmmm…time for plan B. I can still connect to the internet and access Google maps…how resourceful am I! Although, by the time I managed to type in the address using that tiny little qwerty keypad on the screen, I truly started appreciating my laptop keyboard a lot more. Typing with the tips of your fingernails is not exactly an agreeable experience. Anyway, I got the job done and the map started to load…uh oh…what’s that little message on the screen…”NO CREDIT”. Serves me right for not topping up my phone credit.

Backup plan (sigh)…put on your best smile and run up to the next person you see on the street. I guess, sometimes its better to stuff technology and go the old fashioned way…just ASK for directions!