Back to cyberspace from holidaying

I'm back!

After a 4 day holiday up the north coast of NSW. I spent 2 days at Forster and 2 at Port Macquarie. Amazing places both.

Most of my time was spent at the beach and I must add that I've tanned heaps inspite of applying sunscreen! Relatives in India are probably going to freak out at just how black I've become!!!! :)

Anyway, I absolutely loved both Forster and Port Macquarie!!! For the latter though, two days were not enough. I'd love to go back and spend a week at both the places. Port Macquarie has a number of beaches but I visited just one --- Lighthouse Beach. It has got to the beach with the clearest water I've ever seen! And I find Sydney's beaches really clean and blue. I will try and upload my own pictures later.

And now, I'm back. Back to Sydney and the routine.

Funnily enough, I missed the routine when on holidays...I must be sick in the head!

Until next time,

Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year!!

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A Suitable Boy: Quite unsuitable

I finished reading the book 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth today.

I must warn you: To those who haven't read the book and wish to do so, SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I remember reading a bit of the 'Golden Gate' years ago when I was doing English literature and I'd enjoyed that bit. Hence, I was looking forward to reading 'A Suitable Boy'; particularly as it was recommended by the same friend that recommended 'A Fine Balance' which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I was disappointed.

First and foremost, it is a long book of about 1400 and some pages. Unlike 'Shantaram', though I read this book in one go. It definitely had it's good bits with characters such as Maan Kapoor and Meenakshi Mehra and Lata Mehra and Mrs. Rupa Mehra and Firoz and Kabir Durrani and Malati.

The story focuses mainly around Lata and her mother, Rupa Mehra's search for a suitable boy for her. Lata falls in love with Kabir, a Muslim boy, and therefore, she cannot pursue that love. There is the rest of the family as well and of course, a great deal about politics and India, which has only recently attained independence. I must confess, I tended to skip some of the political shit because it did not interest me in the least.

Lata started off as a promising character --- a girl pursuing her university degree, thinking for herself, trying to stand up for herself and her views. But in the end, she disappointed me. She gave in. She married the boy chosen by her mother. And mind you, the character of this guy was distasteful in my opinion, particularly his arrogance and need to name-drop.

It felt pointless.

I am still trying to figure out whether Seth was trying to mock the ridiculousness of Indian society to an extent with having ladies being extremely superstitious and blindly religious. And yet, on the other hand, I wonder whether he was trying to praise this. If he was mocking it, I get it. If not, I'm sorry, but I don't agree.

I know it was set in the 1950s but why have a strong-willed character, only to have her bow down to pressures of society???? It made the book very anti-climactic. It depicted that mixed marriages don't work. It depicted that a woman who wants to be independent and who is open-minded. is floozy (via Meenakshi's character).

And I for one, do not appreciate that.

If you have read the book, I would certainly appreciate your comments and views.

Have I misunderstood or misconstrued the whole thing? Am I missing something???

Do tell.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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Slumdog Millionaire

Last night, I saw the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' at the Dendy. (Again, I highly recommend the Dendy for great independent/atypical Hollywood movies!!)

The movie is about a guy from the slums in Bombay, Jamal Malik, now a chaiwala (or a waiter) at a call centre, who goes on the Indian version of 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'. However, he is arrested at the end of the show --- one question away from winning the big one. After all, how can anyone from the slums or a mere chaiwala know the answers to all these questions, right?

At the police station, he explains how he does really know the answers and how they are all in some way or the other connected to his past. In short, we get to see Jamal as a child growing up in the slums of Bombay with his brother Salim, losing their mother in a Hindu-Muslim riot, being found by an 'orphanage' along with their friend and companion, Lathika, going all the way to Agra and conning people at the Taj Mahal to survive, coming back to Bombay to find Lathika. He finds her, only to lose her again.

Anyway, he's on the show and doesn't really give a damn about the money. So what is it that he wants? Well, you have to watch the movie for that.

I loved the way the movie was done i.e. the present and the flashbacks merged together. The child stars were, in short, amazing! I don't know if they've acted before, but they were brilliant. I also liked the realism regarding the slums. I don't know if they did, but it certainly seemed to me like they actually shot it in the slums of Bombay. The actors were quite good too especially the guys playing Jamal (Dev Patel) and Salim (Madhur Mittal), and surprisingly enough, Anil Kapoor as the host of 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'. The one flaw: In India, the currency is not in millions unlike as shown in the movie. The only thing I didn't like: the song-and-dance number at the end of the movie --- very Bollywood and not my cup of tea!

It probably is a movie with the usual formula --- love is everything, rags to riches, the underdog trying to overcome the odds and all of that. But it works and seems different in its own simplistic manner.

Would recommend it if you are in for a light and optimistic movie!

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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I'm so thankful

I'm so very thankful

For the family I have

For the friends I've made and kept

For the opportunities I've been given

For my education

For the jobs I have

For residing where I am

For the love and care I've had

For the people I meet

For being able to walk on the street by myself

For independence

For freedom

For being able to speak my mind

For being able to wear what I want

For the roof over my head

For the bed I sleep in

For the food on the table

For nature

For life.

I'm so very thankful.

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It's a scary place

Taking up a new job is scary
--- meeting new people, learning new rules, being in a new place, opening up to people, trying to build a relationship with them...

Making a decision is scary
--- things could not turn out, things may turn out but bring a whole lot more than expected, other changes could occur...

Going to a new place is scary
--- not knowing anyone, making new friends, getting a feel for the place, not having the familiar pathways and shops...

Finding a new house is scary
--- the move, the people, the place, the whole thing...

Starting a different path in life (e.g. uni) is scary
--- not knowing what to expect, learning the ropes of the place, not knowing if you are doing the right thing...

Meeting new people is scary
--- what will they think of me, what will I think of them, will we agree, will we have the same values, what if we don't get along...

Starting a new relationship is scary
--- will it work out, what if it doesn't, will either of us be scarred for life, will I learn something from this, will I trust again...

Change is scary
--- It makes you wary...about things to come...about things to come...

But what is life, if not filled with change ever so often?

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Helping Hands

How many of us are altruistic?

Altruism is when you do something good for another person without expecting anything in return.

I would like to rephrase my initial question: How many of us are really and truly altruistic?

I remember some years ago thinking I was altruistic. But then, I realised, I tend to do good things/nice things for others with the underlying belief that what goes around, comes around.

In other words, I think at some level, I believe that something good will happen to me in future if I do something good. And just for that, I don't think my actions were altruistic since I expected some outcome. I expected something back, albeit not immediately nor from the person I was giving something 'good' to.

Having given that example, I would like to know:

Have you ever done anything truly altruistic?

If so, do share.

It's the season to be feeling good, and something like that will bring a smile.

Until next time,

Cheers!

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Criminal Minds

What is wrong with Channel 9????

Early in the year, they had the series Underbelly which in my humble opinion, glorifies the underworld and all that comes with it. To those not from Australia, this is equivalent to the underworld in Mumbai or the mafia if you like. It was supposedly a big hit and apparently everyone was watching it. Not me. While I enjoy a thriller and a crime show (e.g. Law and Order SVU), I am not so sure about shows representing reality and then, in some way, glorifying the criminals --- and that's what I got from 9's promos on Underbelly.

If the show was not bad enough, Channel 9 decided to glorify the wives of these criminals. The show, 'A Current Affair', which by the way, is journalism at it's very worst (just like 'Today tonight') glorified Roberta Williams by interviewing her at the start, then having her pose semi-nude for men's mags, and more recently, having her cry at the death of her mother-in-law. If I remember right, ACA also had some other episodes with someone else from the underworld --- I vaguely remember the 'reporter' having a kind of boxing spat with this guy while flipping through channels. How fucked up is all of that???

What finally pushed me over the edge to have a rant was when, on Monday, following an incident where ex-con 'Chopper' Read was allegedly attacked, 9 news when interviewing him, had the caption 'Crime figure' underneath!! Crime figure!!! This is a guy who was part of the underworld and jailed for 23 years. My problem here is that either he has paid his dues or he hasn't. If he has, don't call him a 'crime figure'; if he hasn't he doesn't deserve a term like 'crime figure'! Do the news channels call Osama bin Laden a 'terror figure'???

I guess though, in the end, it's not Channel 9 alone.

There are others to blame.

The trashy magazines that hype things up even more.

The people that subscribe to these magazines and shows.

And finally, the common man, who has apparently become so desensitized that he watches these shows without blinking an eye.

The 'human' part of a human being appears to be lost.

Sadly enough.

Until next time,

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Updates

I've been away from blogging for a couple of days and it felt weird. Basically, I was busy finishing my Christmas shopping and although I don't have many people to buy gifts for, it's so very time-consuming!

Anyway, in the mean time, I received an award (yes, another one!!!) from Joel. Thanks mate!!!

In other news, I bought a car! It drove well and I just went with my gut in the end. The people I bought it from seemed nice. So now, all I have to do is take it to a mechanic. It felt great driving by myself though (as I drove to and from work yesterday) I have never driven on my own, considering when I was on my Ls, I needed an instructor and once I got my Ps, I didn't have a car to drive! I will upload a pic of the car once I take one.

Until next time,

Cheers,

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Artistic Tag

Smita tagged me the other day with this artistic tag --- and for someone who is pretty much intellectually disabled when it comes to art, I have made an effort to not disappoint :)

Anyway, the rules were:
1. You must use all the 5 words given to you by your tagger and draw pictures using paint or GIMP or any other photo editing tool
2. Each picture must be self-explanatory when you relate it to the given word.
3. Each word MUST have at least one picture attributed to it
4. None of the pictures must be copyrighted i.e. you have to draw them yourself
5. Upon finishing the tag, you must pass it on to other people with a new set of 5 words.

So anyway, the words I was assigned by Smita included:
Chalk, Cheese, Coffee, Australia, Gossip

And now, be prepared to view my artistic abilities...

Chalk:

Cheese:

Coffee:

Australia:

Gossip:

And now, it's up to me to tag people.

Since I'm feeling lazy, here's the deal. I tag everyone who visits my blog with the following words: Beach, Summer, Nerd, Happiness, Freedom.







I'm separately tagging Magali with the following words: Independence, Rebel, Creative, Journalist, Dragon

Enjoy,

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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Makes it all worthwhile...

Thursday was the last day of school for the year.

Thursday night was a presentation night at the school where students were rewarded for effort, performance, community service and the like.

Now, I have earlier talked about sometimes, my job can be frustrating and thankless to a certain extent.

Anyway, the night of the presentation, I had a student (who I'd seen a couple of times) thank me for helping them and prior to that, had a parent who said that treating their anxious child had made a big difference and that they child had become way more independent and less anxious.

It made me really happy.

I realised that I am willing to have 10 kids who don't want to be in therapy and don't see a problem if I can have the 2 or 3 that I make a difference with.

It makes all the work and all the effort so very worthwhile.

It makes me realise that I am in the right area.

And that I'm willing to put up with the downs every now and then if I can have a few ups. :)

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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Confused about Cars

So I have been thinking about buying a used car. I must say --- I am bloody confused.

I have an idea about the car I want --- a small one, hatchback, automatic transmission, with rego of at least 4-6 months, costs around 5000 and preferably, a Toyota. I have been looking at websites such as www.carsales.com.au and www.tradingpost.com and looking specifically at private sales. That's the easy part.

I'm more concerned about the actual going and looking at the cars. Why, you ask? Because I don't know a goddam thing about them. The last two days I managed to get some information from a colleague about what questions to ask and what to look for when going to look at a private car. But then, I have also been scouring the internet and coming up with a zillion things --- take a mechanic, book it in with a mechanic before buying, don't sign anything, go with someone, go with someone who's an expert, haggle,....argghhhh!!!!

Now I don't know a single person who is an expert on cars. So while I have a mate accompanying me (and one who drives), I don't have a mechanical genius. And so, being the anxious individual I am, I'm worried about getting ripped off!!! Plus it doesn't help that I have to depend on someone (who is not family) to take me to these places to check out different cars. (Read: They may lose patience after the first two)

Anyway, I have made about 4 phone calls so far and I've deicded to have a lookie this Saturday. But it's obviously making me nervous --- last night, I dreamt about sums of money and cars!

Anyway, just wanted to have a little rant.

'Tis the last day of the school term for me!

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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'Tis the season to be giving

It's Christmas season and as I have been walking through the exceedingly commercialised shopping centres, I couldn't help but wonder --- has Christmas totally lost it's meaning (just like festivals like Diwali and Holi)???

On the telly, all we see are ads to buy more and to spend more --- Playstations, Nintendos, IPods, Laptops, Cameras...you name it.

This Christmas, wouldn't it be nice to give something meaningful to someone actually in need?

Or to something that could help out a number of people?

I think I'd like to do that.

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Of Awards and other things...

I have been given my very first blogging award!!! You'd be surprised to know just how excited I was!

I received the award from Smita who also requested I change my template back to the old one. As a token of thanks for the award Smita...I've done it! :) I was going to anyway, since I've found it hard to actually find something as good as this template.

Anyway, here's the award:


And now, I pass it on to the following readers, with the hope that they pass it along:
Orhan
Tash
Joel
Braja
Louisa
Jessica

On another note, I have a dilemma --- I'm finally thinking of buying a car --- a used car, mind you (could not afford a new one!) I am more inclined to buying one through private sales rather than a dealer (because I am under the assumption that dealers just fix up crap cars and sell them) but my biggest fear is --- getting ripped off!

I'm a dunce when it comes to cars. Any tips would be most welcome.

Thanks again Smita for the award.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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Family

They are the people
You cannot choose
You are born into one
So it’s either win or lose

When you are a little child
They are your life
You cling to them at all times
Particularly in moments of strife

You family back then
Is what keeps you alive
Not just with food and shelter
But by filling you with hope for life

As a teenager
You tend to grow apart
Your peers become more important
And your parents are old farts

You can have arguments
As you want to stay out long
Your family is quite boring
And the bonds of friendship are far too strong

As a young adult
When you move away from home
You realise the value of family
And all that your parents have done

You become closer to them
Even if miles apart
And the bond continues to grow
As your own family you start

It’s a pity that we argue
It’s a pity that we fight
When we are young and naive
Most things with family don’t seem right

We make friends as we grow up
While some may go, others will stay
But one thing’s for sure
That one’s family will remain

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Mirror, mirror...who is the fairest of all?

In my previous post I mentioned about the bias towards fair-skinned people in India. I have always wondered --- can this be classed as a form of racism? Racism is after all, discriminating people on the basis of their race, which in addition to the traits and values, also includes the colour of their skin.

In India, since God alone knows when, there appears to be a preference for the lighter skin.

This can be seen through the Bollywood stars and the individuals in the fashion and modelling industry that have made it big. It can be seen in the matrimonial ads (Seeking: slim, fair girl...) that appear in the papers. It can also be seen through the products been advertised --- products that make your skin lighter, and therefore, more appealing to the boy you want to charm or the boss you want to impress. Funnily enough, if I am remembering correctly, most of these ads are catering to women. (Not a surprise considering the value of the male gender in India)

With respect to Bollywood, while I know dark-skinned women are becoming more acceptable such as Rani Mukherji and Bipasha Basu), it still seems that the lighter skinned women are more popular. Take Aishwarya Rai. She is probably the Indian male's fanstasy with her light skin and light eyes. But, she CANNOT act. Yet, she is making big bucks. She is known around the world. All for what? The most beautiful Indian woman? I'm sorry, but she does not represent most Indian women. And she is not the most beautiful Indian woman. I can list several others including Sushmita Sen, Rani Mukherjee, Konkona Sen....

Going on to the ads on telly, well, you are constantly bombarded by either fair-skinned models or you have ads for fairness creams. Yes, there's the 'Fair and Lovely' or the 'Fairever' and I don't know how many more have come up in the last few years. These ads depict the dark-skinned women as not achieving what they want, be it a guy's attention or a job. But hey, once you use the cream --- everything is attainable! In short, these ads spread the message that it does not matter whether you have brains or good values or are just a nice woman in general; rather, you need to be light skinned! Nothing else matters.

What is wrong with people?

Indians for instance, complain about racism but again, they are the first to treat light-skinned foreigners with more respect than they would treat a dark-skinned Indian or even individuals of African backgrounds. One example of this was the crowd in India calling Symonds, who is of Aboriginal background, 'monkey'. Now I know there will be people jumping up to say the Aussies are racist and similar things --- yes, we know Lehman called Jayasuriya the same but he was suspended and hasn't done something like that since. You can see this poison being spread in schools in India as well --- when a child enters kindergarten, unconsciously, the light-skinned child becomes the teacher's favourite. (It's only later they choose favourites based on marks)

In short, what message are we sending young girls? Not only do they have to combat being skinny, but in countries like India, they have to be fair. If not, the message they get from the television and probably some relatives, is that they are not going to achieve anything in life and are just a waste of space.

This form of racism is probably more subtle in that it happens within the same race. It therefore tends to go unnoticed.

But it has to stop.

Until next time,

Cheers,

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Blogging Blunders 2

I've done it again --- trying to change my template. And now, I want to change it again because I'm not satisfied.

I may just go back to the previous one I had.

All this work, for nothing...

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Want what you can't have

So summer has officially begun.

It means beach time for some (to get away from the heat) and tan time for others.

I recently had a conversation with a colleague (And have had several similar ones with other people in the past) about tanning. This colleague of mine was supposed to be going for a wedding. She is as white as they come and so she decided she was going to a tanning salon to get a spray-on tan which would last a week but she would supposedly then be as dark as I am (and mind you, I’m dark --- not one of the wheatish Indians --- and Australia has only made me darker). So anyway, then I got in to the whole story of how back in India, they prefer it if you’re fair-skinned (a look at the matrimonial ads and ads for Fair and Lovely will tell you that) and how I find it funny that here, where most people are generally fair-skinned, they’ll go through lengths to get dark.

Just as an example, I have had relatives back home worry about how dark I am (in comparison to my sister and dad) but out here, I have had some Canadians, Australians etc envy how I tan so quickly in spite of already having apparently a great skin colour. The grass is always greener on the other side, eh?

I just remembered --- back in 2002-2003, there was this advertisement for a cream called ‘Fair and Lovely’ (or was it Fairever?). This dark-skinned girl gets turned down at a job interview because she is dark-skinned. Then she applied the cream and lo and behold! In a few weeks, she is fair-skinned. And of course, she gets the job because the interviewer is now stunned by her beauty! (P.S. I could dedicate a whole other post on how Indians can sometimes discriminate based on colour)

It makes me wonder why though --- I mean, why is it that Anglo-Saxon individuals, as a generalisation, prefer to have darker coloured skin and why do Indians prefer to have whiter skin?? I am not sure if Africans feel the same way as Indians do (I doubt it!) and I think we’ve seen fair-skinned Asians carry around umbrellas in the heat in order to prevent freckles and tans (Again, as a generalisation)

As human beings, I think in some weird way, we are all susceptible to wanting what we cannot have. We prefer what other people seem to have. And then, we try to attain the same despite possible dangers in some cases (as in skin cancer and tanning) or we end up not attaining this and get depressed.

If only more of us could be happy with what we already had or achieved.

Is there anything you would like? Do you compare yourself with others? Do share.

I know I do.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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Finally!!

I am officially an Australian Resident!!!!!

Words cannot describe how excited I feel today.

So I'll leave it at that.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

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First of the month

Another 30 days and we say good-bye to 2008.

Another 24 days and it is Christmas.

Another 22 days and I get two weeks off.

Another 12 days and the school term ends.

Am I counting down the days?

Nah, not me!

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