Gone Fishing

Cattle hypocrisy

2011-07-17T12:53:00.002+10:00

The government has finally given to the cattle
industry and allowed the Aussie cows to be shipped
to Indonesian abbotoires. When Four corners released
thier video on TV last month, it was a huge outcry
from everyone. Government had to appear to be doing
something. Correctly so. What bemused be was what they
did. They banned the entire cattle export, impromptu.
The knee jerk reation just seems to compound the public
sentiment that this govt has no idea about anything.
Simply the worst prime minister in Australian History.
I don't disagree. In my six yrs living here, I have seen
three of them, Howard, Rudd and Gillard. She is no
doubt the worst of the three.

But in case of the cattle saga, I cannot but feel amused at
the hypocrisy among the so called animal lovers. To start with,
what are the animals going to Indonesia for? For holidays?
No, they are going there to be slaughtered! Don't you know that??
Where does the beef you eat come from? Slaughtered animals probably??

And what about the halal and some other 'cruel' methods in
use in Australia??

Climate change and God.

2011-07-17T12:45:00.003+10:00

Been a while since I have last udpated.
Lot has happened since, politically around the world,
in Australia, in lives of people I know..

One thing that has been a red hot is the Julia Gillard
climate change issue. She broke an election promise,
she says she merely had to do what was best
for the country irrespective of her personal view
at any given time.

Climate change, as someone unfamously said, is
like a beleif in God. Now, imagine your faith, the
trust in the Lord, regardless of religion. A hidden,
underlying hope is that because you beleived in him
when you were alive, that you prayed for him and
trusted him, you will be taken to heaven after you die.
If you beleived and your beleif was right, then after you
die you will be taken to heaven, end of the story.
But what if you do not beleive in God? You have no faith?
And you are wrong after your death?
You will be subjected to an enternity of hell.

At a bigger picture, climate change resembles the same.
People are arguing it could be right or wrong. If it is right
then we manage to avert our extinction, if we are wrong,
then we are truly doomed.

Choice is yours.

Cleaning professional in Sydney

2011-03-03T10:15:00.009+11:00

I have always thought I am bit careless when it comes
to taking care of my flat, thought it has been a huge
improvement from the past. So it was no wonder when
the real estate complained that the kitchen was not upto
good standards when he visited last time. My flat, my home
of five years, I would have been kicked out. Basically it was
a wake up call, and I took it on my chin. Real bastard the real
estate agent was, he would count every missing blind sheet
from the window, and every speck of dark spot even in
need to be changed bathroom basin or other crap; there was
some truth in only one thing he was saying, the kitchen was greasy
and needed care. I accepted it, honestly. He suggested I get a
professional to do the job, hence started a search. Soon enough,
I found a professional cleaner ad in a Nepalese magazine that I took
from a Nepalese grocery near the train station. The owner kindly
reminded me to buy stuffs from his place, which I approved with a nod.

So here we go, the professional cleaner appeared soon at my place in
form of this rough looking, big lumber jack named Raj. He took stock of things
and sounded really nice. Next few weeks, and he was at my flat
with one of his helpers. I thought why not give opportunities to my
fellow country mates while I am living here.

So on saturday, he started work in the morning. I hung around in the balcony
and later went to the mall to get some stuffs, including drinks for
the cleaners. After about four hours the job was done. Kitchen cleaned,
carpet steam cleaned and all done, so he said. I paid a hefty sum, hoping
this will get me out of clutches of the wretched real estate guy.

Happily, I strolled around the unit, the smell of carpet cleaning agent hung
there for few days. My eyes popped out when I entered the kitchen. Lets just
say, it was a half cooked spaghetti spashed around. Oil was dripping from
the oven exhaust, the cubboards had all the black fluids running over.
Most of the kitchen was totally in ruins!

Thankfully my girl had all the ideas and we had to toil 4 more hours
to bring it to a good looking state. Had it not for her, I was in deep shit.

So bloody hell with the 'professional' cleaners.
Next time, do it yourself!!

Flu hell, coming trips..

2010-09-15T15:23:00.008+10:00

Coming out of a wk long bout with a specially horrible flu,
thanks to 24/7 pounding of the brain, joint pains, burnt
face and limbs, constant sweat baths;
the body feels like a train wreck.
Nothing can describe it, its a mini hell. I wonder how
I did not vomit even once though I came pretty close
few times. And guaranteed house arrest is a free bonus.
Luckily my nose wasn't running. The whole world
feels like a pain house.

Anyway, slowly crawling out of it, I feel like a survivor.
But now my tummy seems be trying to come back to life,
and its having trouble holding any food I take.
A small tornado starts to form inside whenever I eat
outside. The chilly fevers are gone, but still feel pretty
run down time to time, and I forgot the thermal today.
So my thighs feel like cold stone, rubbing them
whole day to keep warm.

Seems like a lot happened when I was sick. My brother
went and left Nepal after his short visit there. But I managed
to piss him off y'day by telling him not to come here next wk.
It just concided with my on call.

GF has drawn plans to go to East Europe instead of coming with
me to Nepal, there goes my romantic trip to the Himalayas out
of the window. My own trip is coming closer, I remember her
asking me if I am excited about it, honestly, I am not. Dunno why.
It just feelks like a routine and there is nothing in it, may be it
could have been different if she had came along, just the prospect
of showing the place to someone new is exciting enough. But yeah,
this time around, I am pretty businesslike about it. Its for my
parents who would otherwise be on their own during the Nepalese
fesitivities around the time of my visit.

Cats around the house

2010-05-23T17:33:00.017+10:00

I've got a full fleet of cute little cats straying around
the building housing my flat, 6 or 7 of them. There are
around 6 'natives' and 1 guest. Yes, a guest cat, that
comes around chatting to the natives from another
house. The natives are mainly greyish, one even has
a little boot like color on the tip of the toes,giving it a
distinctive marking among the lot. I have named one
'nikhur', meaning dark in Nepalese.
This one is the smallest and cutest, covered in
pure ash grey with green eyes but also looking a bit
more wilder and fiercer; bit haunting, but
sophisticated. The first time I noticed nikhur
was when he or she (I dunno the gender),
trying to hide in a bush under a neighbor bulding. It
was a bit dark after the sunset, he saw me walking past,
towards my place and was trying to hide. Inside the
small bush, but the eyes were shining in the reflection of
the moonlight. Was so cute, I bent down and met her
gaze and stayed laughing for minutes before standing
up and proceeding.

They laze around most day, in the driveways, in the open
space aorund the neighboring building's garage and their
lawn. During rain they can be seen sheltering under the
bushes around the building walls, in winter they are in
any available corner of the lawn or even climb up my
garage roof.

Its special to see their body stretching action, the typical of
cats around the world. Fed by an elderly lady, they come
around and 'hump' their backs at the time of the feeding,
their tails pointing upwards. Its qute a sight. They used to
fear me and run away before, but now they don't, just keep
looking at me whenever I pass by. Sometimes I see one or
two of them in front of my garage door, i normally stop my
car or just turn on the head lights on and aim straight at them.
They don't budge until the car is really near them. Even then,
they would leave reluctantly, I can almost feel them complaining.

The 'guest' one is a blak and white stripe, bit 'Chinese' looking
with a wider face and curved eyes. She normally sits facing the
others. It appears to me like the old ladies in Nepal who go
to others' houses and talk in a similar fashion, spreading the
news from around the neighborhood; complaining, back
biting, advising..socializing. The guest comes to socialize, or
he could be a playboy. I dunno, not sure about this.

These little creatures, always make me smile when I see them.
So it turns out, every time I am in or out of the house, I have to
smile. They make me do it. These shy little bundles of miracle
fill me with curiosity and joy everytime I see them.
Their innocence is a small reflection of a childish God.
Sometimes I question the Darwinian theory of evolution,
these guys have been around humans for zillion of years,
but have never actually 'evolved', and feel good about it.

Broken house dream

2010-02-28T12:31:00.003+11:00

I am looking to buy my own place under the sun.
It has't come easy though. Yesterday, Terry the
real estate agent broke my spirits when he said that
the property at Sloop st, Seven hills was 'gone'.
Gone..that's it. Just talked to Sanjiv, he was trying
to keep me up with a positive spin on things. But again,
everything happens for a reason. So hope its just
a matter of time. Seven Hills isn't a top of the list
anyway, so guess its a case of something better
on my way..God willing, really.

God saved

2010-02-07T14:40:00.006+11:00

Last wk at home late at night I was preparing to
go to bed after another long crappy day at work.
I was thinking about having to wake up at 6:30
in the morning after about 6 hours
of sleep and strain throught out for next 9 hours
doing something i really did not like, dispatching.
That is dispatching of tickets to colleagues in the
team rather than doing the work yourself.
Well, I shall not disclose too much about my work life,
so I will not go too far.

So, I had had few bouts of chess on chess.com
and as always fuming about my lost chances and
mistakes on the board. I noticed a small reddish
insect flying around, no doubt it was a nasty cockroach.
Instinctively I had to reach out for the baygone
spray I keep under the kitchen cupboard, by the fridge.
I am not a Tibetan, I don't beleive the insect could be
my grand mother reincarnated. So I never had trouble
smashing up any lower beings like the pests and insects.
I just don't give a fuck.
When people tell me not to kill spiders, I just feel how
hypocrytic it all is, like the 'fishterians' who call themselves
vegetarians without an ounce of shame because they
don't eat other forms of meat. Well on my bend to grab
the baygone spray can though I noticed
something that horrified me. A heater ring in my
kitchen was full blown on and red. Switch for one of the
grills was also turned on. I did notice a slight rise of
temperature in the room before, but the way the weather
has been in Sydney, its boiling hot every evening.
This is specially true to my top floor flat. My bedroom
is lot cooler though as it does not get any sun.
So two of the heaters were fully
on, for God knows how long. I was petrified and stared
at the red heater coil for half a minute before proceeding
to kill the insect. Unsatisfied, I even beat it to
death with a broom.

After disposing of it in the rubbish bin, I stood still in
the kitchen for a long time before I could sink into the
feeling of what might have happened if this cockroach
had not appeared suddenly in front of my TV.
A fire would have been most likely. Few days ago I had
got so angry with things going out of whack in daily life
that I had cursed God few times and claimed to myself that
I am becoming more and more atheist. With this incident
however, I could feel him looking down at me
with a sarcastic smile on his face.

On Saturday when I was at a friend's home, him mother
asked me if I killed the cockroach. Now I am feeling bad
I killed it. I should have just thrown it away alive. Not for
the bad karma, just genuine regret over violently taking
life of someone who might have accidentally saved mine.

Another fresh morning in Sydney

2009-06-07T16:16:00.004+10:00

Voice of times, Indian students did not protest in Sydney
today as they were said to be panning. It was going to
backfire anyway. They already have attentione of the
nation, and the Prime minister, after their tantrums in
Melbourne. Further restlessness in their part would have
hurt the entire South Asian community directly or
indirectly, cause we all look same, Indians, Nepalese,
Pakinstanis, Sri Lankans and so forth. To say Aussies
are not racist at all would bit stretch the truth too far.
But where does it not happen??

Jogging today at the Centennial park was another cool
experience of the same spring breeze touching my
face, like it used to in, China. China was really fresh,
I dunno why it feels that way. Much fresher.
But it was good this morning, my get-out-of-bed-
and-do-it activity. My small treat to leave the rat
race away for a while. Well, the theory behind it is
something I read a while ago, hit it while your liver
is not full of energy from food.

On the way back, I lost my way after Newtown and ended
up coming to Ashfield through Hurlstone park instead,
I dunno where it is in the Sydney map.

Biksh fried up the Chicken liver and Giblets I had bought
at the mall, Naveen was there too. It was a sunny morning
and early afternoon. Around 2:45 pm however, the sun
just disappeared in the cloud..and its like brrrr..now.
There is a ray of sunshine somehow managed to hit the
trees outside my flat.

Two lives of a book worm

2009-04-14T19:59:00.014+10:00

These days I am living two different lives.
The first one is of course the rat race, no
further explanation needed. The second one
however, is my dream world. Well, its not
really a dream. It is actually living the footsteps
of travelers who tread the highest and toughest
mountains in the world. I also visit the secrets
of the so called 'Hermit kingdom', North Korea.
Then I am shouting pro Tibetan slogans in
the Ten downing along with other protesters.

I have just finished Joe Simpson's 'Storms of Silence',
a vivid of walks in the Nepalese Himalayas,
small towns and villages around the bases of the mountan
range, and Kathmandu; the mysterious and haunted
hills in Peru, entire county sides, towns and villages
buried by landslides.

In the first part of the story, he sets about to climbing
Cho Oyu, one of the few that are above 8000 m.
The stories are of the valleys, rivers, gorges, glaciars,
the superhuman porters - the Sherpas, Tibetans running away
from the Chinese and crossing over the mountains in
nothing more than rudimentary garments and even
the yaks. The accounts of this great traveller and
writer takes you in the air freezing cold at the top of the
world, snow beneath your climbing boots, the winds,
the prayers, the flapping of the tents in the wind,
the Sherpa society, Tibetan History and present
and many other magnificient incidents that cannot
be imagined without being among the mountains.
I actually started reading this book when I was in
Kathmandu, mostly while sitting in the warm winter
sun, on my home rooftop. The book sat untouched
in my shelf in my Sydney flat since I returned here
about two and a half months ago.

This period I have gone thru two other books actually,
the first one called 'North Korea: Another country' by
Bruce Cumings and 'For Tibet with love' by Isabel Losada.
The first one was so gripping that I could not leave it
whenever I was home, I finished it mostly sitting in front
of tv. The insights the book gives into real North Korea is
really astounding. Even more of an eye opener is how
the west has failed to understand the whole history of
the Korean peninsula, how the americans have repeatedly
humiliated them (Koreans), killed hundreds of thousands
of their civilians, used all sorts of brutality and breached
war conventions and yet failed to understand why they
hate US so much and are so much fearful of the similar
history repeating and threatening very existence of their
country. But the writer also underlines the blind worshipping
of the Kim Il Sung and his son by the population, almost
in a state of trance.

The second one is not as strongly written but is a
loosely held story of a wannbe Tibetan activist London
woman. Amazingly she managed to fall for
a monk and make him like her too. But midway
thru, she sort of changes track too abruptly and
it was a bit too ordinary of a reading.

The books are a relief to me, adding spice to my
otherwise ordinary existence in Sydney. Things
here seem bland and mechanical compared to
thrills and peace that mountains bring.

Back in Sydney

2009-02-08T07:05:00.015+11:00

Out from the fridge to the furnace,
that is how it is feeling to be back in Sydney
from Kathmandu. Looks like the heatwave here is
making people forget everythings else.
Fires are raging in Australia, people are being
burnt alive. Last night I put my fan directly
at the foot of my bed, I was still kinda sweating.

However, when I flew in here on 5th Feb night,
Sydney felt amazingly calm and smooth after the chaos
and confusions of Kathmandu. The flight
was smooth mostly, minus few turbulence as
we hit a series of water filled clouds over the
equator. And inspite of the dangers, listening to
the rain falling on top of the plane was fun,
sounded like any other tin roof top, easy
to forget that it was 40,000 feet above ground.

Binayak and another of his friend were here, giving
me tonnes of marriage advices. The night before
we had a catch up with both the cousin sisters and their
husbands.

Kathmandu might be a hell hole for now due to
chaos, pollution and crisis, but still an awesome
place to be, very lively, easy to reach anywhere.
I feel previliged that I was born there.
Miss it a lot. My main achievement this time around
has been getting everything in order for my sister's
wedding. Thankfully, Nama and the rest of our gang
worked hard for a wonderful marriage ceremony and
the processes. It was simply the best wedding.

Being in Kathmandu is always a bliss; spiritual, mind
boggling, eletrifying and really good for your soul - things
that are not in plentiful in Sydney. With tall white mountains
surrounding you from up close and keeping a watch,
Kathmandu can feel like a permanent haven of excitement,
a sanctuary of Gods. Place where things really happen, not just
'might' happen. This time it was not much difference in that
aspect, I will always cherish my moments in the Himalayan
heaven - the fresh cold mountain breeze worth a billion dollars,
catch up with close mates, kings way, nanglo, Roadhouse cafe,
feeling the breaths of the Gods, laughs and smiles of the loved
ones (one new one in particular), my family, rekindling of
the past memories. All strengthened by the sense of
being loved and giving love in return.

Kathmandu was a joy ride for me, in spite of all the load sheddings.
dust, engine smoke, garbage, chaos and inconvenicnes.

Now, getting slowly soaked up in Sydney's mundane rat race
would be really difficult, starting with the perpetual truth of
fact for everyone here, getting a job. I might take it easy for
few days.

Suryabinayak - Devotion and animal sacrifices

2009-01-24T14:25:00.005+11:00

Today I and my father went to pay our

homage to Lord Suryabinayak, our Kul

Devata, or ancestral God, at Bhaktapur.

In bid to stop my fast eroding bank balance

we opted to take cheaper modes of transport.

I was mulling whether to take my bike, but

I knew that it was having problem with the

side indicators since the battery started to die

out. On top of that in chat with Shashi the early

morning he strongly advised mom not to send

me and dad on the bike. I called my bike mechanic

if he could look at it, he seemed still in bed and

said he would be at his workshop in couple of

minutes and asked me to bring the bike there.

But I thought I would not take it for the trip this

morning, so thought about going there later.

In our family tradition, every new born male

has to be brought here to the God to take

his blessings. I still have my pictures taken

when I was brought here as a young kid.

Discussing which way to go, we took a taxi

up to Maitighar and as suggested by the taxi

driver, waited for a bus to take us to Suryabinayak.

It turned out, no buses go up to the Temple

itself, all the buses stop at the highway only.

Its a 20 minute walk from the highway to the

temple. So we took the public bus. But the

inconvenience soon got us and we got off the bus

at Koteshwar from where we took another taxi.

It was about 400 rupees, about 8 Australian dollars.

Bit too expensive.

When I last came here about 6 years ago ,

the way from the highway

to the temple was open on both sides with beautiful

view of farms, laden with their crops, all gold,

green and yellow. A small newari style shelter built

for the benefit of the pilgrims still stand on the midway.

But now, the sideways are all lined up with ugly

cocrete buildings, shops and restaurants. The whole

area looks like another shanty town. I felt

devastated to see the whole natural beauty turned

into this mess.

I could feel dad laboring to reach the top of the

temple climbing the stone stairs. It was a bit

taxing even for me, thanks to lack of exercise

for months now. It was moderately crowded

and there was a short but very slow moving

queue to reach the God's statue. There was even

a small marriage taking place at the temple

which just stalled the line. A woman right behind

me was complaining all the way and asking

the temple carers to clear up the queue breakers

and devotees who were taking too long.

What struck me was a couple of animal sacrifices

that were made in front of the temple. First there

was this goat that had its throat slit. The

executioner let it stand still for a while, then with

a bolt he grabbed it by it skin on its uppper neck

and body and stuck its fore and hind limbs between

a large rectangular rock. Then he bent the head

backwards and just cut its neck with his knife.

Blood shot from the animal got into the shirt of

a young boy standing nearby. Most of the people

in the queue with me looked away, I did keep

watching against the advise of dad.

Little later, a large rooster was similarly butchered.

I did not feel particularly struck by the sacrifices,

as I have watched this all my life, but this time

I felt totally alien to it, and shameful.

Dunno how and if the fruits of such brutal killings

at sacred places like temples can be materialize,

or satisfies Gods. Its merciless and inhumane.

Its totally un-necessary, ugly and disgraceful.

I might sound a bit hypocritial as I am not a vegetarian,

but I still think sacrifices should be stopped in temples.

People here make sacrifices for various reasons -

religious rituals that are done in particular Hindu

festivals like Dashain, as 'Bhakals' - a promise

made to Gods if they fulfil what the devotee asked

for, on occasions like the birth of a male child and

so forth. Its still a kind of medievel thrill for many,

like some Inca sacrifices in South America.

For me its just barbaric, a tradition unfit for

a modern society.

Now, more than the scared animals that were sacrificed, face of

the young executionar looms on my mind. He was

a young fair fellow with a protuding belly, looked

built for the job with his pockmarked cruel looking

face. His mother and sister, I guess from their

appearance were taking care of the

businesses of the Temple.

We had a small meal of Sel roti and some

chana in a nearby restaurant. We took the same

taxi that took us from Koteshwar to the Temple

earlier to get back home.

Chinese Spring Festival - Kathmandu

2009-01-19T14:03:00.006+11:00

Today I went to the Chinese new year
celebration at Hotel Annapurna,
organized by Araniko Society
-the only organization of Chinese speaking
community in Kathmandu. The society mainly
consists of the engineers, doctors and other
graduates who were once students in various
Chinese Universities. Oddly though I was in
a very informal attire wherease the majority
came in suits. Speaking of the suit, I cannot
help but laugh inside when I think about the
suit or rather its attributes of that worn by
my friend Ravi Manandhar, my name
sake in China. A very stocky and short fellow,
this big Ravi - as he was known in China (Da La wei,
meaning big Ravi. I was called by peers and
teachers as Xiao La wei, small Ravi
when we were studying Chinese in Beijing),
wears his suit always with a pen on the upper left
pocket. I checked yesterday to seewhat kind it
was, an old dot pen. I tried to ask him about it,
but he just ignored.

The program started off with a very lengthy speech
by the Chinese ambassador, explaining all aspects
of how the new year is celebrated in China. Well
he said in Northern China, people do it by eating
dumplings, and lighting fire crackers and so on.
I don't remember now what he said about
what speciality the people in the South follow.
I thought it was all firecrackers and chinese
dishes of the locality all over China, no speical
place for the dumplings.

It was then followed by a short speech by the maoist
minister for culture and Chinese dances. Oddly
though, there was a troupe performing dance on
a song from Indian movie. The young kids
looked to be picked out straight from one
of the hundreds of dance bars in town.

Liquor and food was in overflow in the party
that followed. Though a new threat of bird flu
has hit Nepal, most people did not seem to care,
except for Bhuju, my doctor friend who kept on
calling any chicken dish as 'bird flu'. Raj's french
cut beard and spiked hair was a good match,
only that he is a bit 'unstable' fellow and most of
what he says are rubbish. But he says he is
doing well in business.
Met a lot of other China returned Nepalese friends.
Bhuwan told me how he worked with a
Japanese company for a season somewhere
in Russia before returning to Nepal, to utter
dismay of his Japanese boss. Lots of people
probably did not recognize me as I have lost
so much weight. Manoj Man seems to have
become a chatter box and he was welcoming
guests as they came in. Baikuntha's son has
almost become a kid now.

Its scary how time flies..

Shuddered..

2009-01-14T15:25:00.005+11:00

Couple of days ago, a young journalist
has been hacked to pieces in Southern Nepal.
She was attacked while she was preparing meal
at her rented room by about 15 men armed
with knives, khukuris and other weapons.
15 men, needed to mercilessly kill a small girl?
I cannnot contemplate the cowardice so low,
and how she might have tried to
protect herself, yell and cry for help.

I am in pieces myself, this callousness is beyond
my understanding, but something that is
being a day to day affair in Nepal. Especially
the journalists are being targetted.

Things ample in Kathmandu streets

2009-01-07T01:42:00.006+11:00

Things that come to my mind, things that
I feel are in abundance in Kathmandu streets right now -

1. Dust in every single street or road
2. Finance companies in every street corner
3. Colleges and schools
4. Potholes on every road - every foot of it
5. Indian Bikes - all very nice looking by the way
6. Shops everywhere
7. People - pretty lively inspite of the whole chaos
8. Dust in every wall of the houses, every windows,
virtually everything. Thanks to dry season
and some of the worst maintained roads on the planet.
New Road would be the best example for this.
9. 'Dance' bars - all advertised with porn grade
pics of white women
10. Study/migrate abroad agents

Bike Repair in the morning

2009-01-05T13:33:00.004+11:00

Its 8:18 in the morning and I am scribbling
this blog. Why so early? Because I have to
do so it while the electricity lasts for the day.
Well the dark out routine seems to have
changed now, this morning when I checked
to see if there was light, there was none.
Instead it has started at 8 and supposedly
will last till 2 in the afternoon.

Today we will be going to Nama's for seeing off
lunch for Ritu and her husband leaving for
Sydney.

I have just left my bike at the repair shop to
have it looked for bit stressed engine. The
throttle seems to be having blanks as is heats
up, could be carborator, dirty fuel tank or
even mis-firing spark plug. The mechanic is
a young guy called Umesh. When I was there
this morning, just found few bikes lying around.
His shacked hut was not locked but closed at the
bottom only from inside. Umesh's assistant,
a young Indian boy speaking no Nepalese
was sleeping inside. Woke him up to inform
his boss and also that I will be back at 10.
Also called Umesh on his mobile.

Attacks in the backyard of Lord Shiva

2009-01-05T00:25:00.010+11:00

Today there was a live feed on a local tv
(we managed to watch it when the light
came for about 4 hours for the entire day)
where a press conference at the Pashupati
premises was interrupted by blows and kicks
of an 'unknown' group. Its called unknown
though everyone knows who they are, seen
clearly by the camoflouge combat dresses of
the attackers. People were targetted and
attacked savagely, not even the journalists
were spared. It was just another show of
how low we have stooped to become uncivilized.
Reminded me of Lebanese-local people
riots in Sydney some time back.

The conference was called by the supporters
of the traditional appointment of south indian
priests in the greatest Hindu temple, that of
Lord Shiva. I guess its the 'People's' religion..
if you can see the pun intended here.
It was another display of the current lawlessness
in the defeated nation and helplessness of the real prople.

Cup of tea..waiting for rain to subside

2008-12-27T20:07:00.005+11:00

Today I went to Binayak's home and met his
family - Mom, Dad and his small daughter.
On the way back though, had to take shelter
in a couple of tea shops just above the bridge
(Kalo Pul) first for about half and hour, then
a shop just beyond it. A cup of tea cost me Rs7.
Spent time watching people trying to get away
from the rain mud water splashed from
potholes on the roads, as the vehicles slowly
went about.

Discussion at Binayak's revolved around
the current situation of load shedding and light-less
days and nights Nepalese have been forced to
spend. His dad had apparently worked in the
Nepalese National planning comission and advised
ministers on Hydro issues. He talked about
the comission based approval of hydro power
and subsequent collapse of Arun III as both
Nepali Congress and UML both did not let
the project get through due to not enough
comission and predicted that the situation
will not change for another 6-7 years to come.

Sister's wedding

2008-12-10T02:00:00.006+11:00

I have been in Kathmandu now for nearly
a couple of weeks. The main reason this time
is my only sister's wedding. Main tasks have been
fixing the venue, catering for dinner for two
parties - on 12th and 13th December, massive
shoppings, distributing cards to relatives and
friends, and other small stuffs. A hindu marriage,
and especially an intercaste one, is a pretty
delicate matter for families involved. Its a bit
complicated affair than in Australia, as it mixes
a lot of culture, religion and rituals with facets of
relations, relationships and usual human tandems
associated with a normal marriage.

Heated debate and foreign students

2008-11-23T12:49:00.009+11:00

An otherwise nice get together at Binayak's was
dominiated by the debate on whether the Australian
govt policy on foreign students was fair.
On one side was Anup and Sanjiv arguing for it,
on the other hand myself and slightly, Binayak against.
It got heated in the middle and personal sometimes.
I wish it did not happen but probably its not unhealthy
to have discussions as well..hope everybody takes
it positively. At least it goes on to show we are not
bunch of dumb binge drinkers.

My argument was fairly on ethical grounds, and
based on what I have observed here. To see the
students, specially the Asians, struggle like paid
laborers in Middle east and Korea, it seems hard
for me to beleive that the govt is doing truly enough.
Though the students already agree to terms when
they first come here, and the govt allows them with
multitude of facilities, the life here is extremely harsh
for them. Limited to 20 hrs per week, unavailability
of any reasonable job other than washing dishes and
cleaning buildings and floors, they are virtually shut
outside from the job market and they are full fee
paying students actually paying many times more
than the local students. Handicapped, they need
to turn to their poor families home for further support.
My point is, govt can and should do more, without
having to put any extra strain on the national economy.
Anup and Sanjiv were saying that the Aus govt is
generous enough already..well well..its a pure cash
cow industry, the students business, being the third
largets contributor of revenues while the students
who clean up the dishes and city itself live in
constant financial misery, threat from the
immigration, sqeezed up with high costs of transportation,
living, food and so forth.

Pope fiasco

2008-07-20T21:40:00.023+10:00

And pope is here for the last day today.
Anybody miss him?
The ones that would do so, half a million of them
presumably, are beginning to leave. I have been
hearing of the traffic logs and packed Sydney airport
on the FMs while on the way to work.
Fun times..kinda anti climax for Sydney siders.
Dunno why, I just can't beleive when they
try to feed us down from our throats,
the craps that are cruxed around the mystics of
of a dead man coming from out of nowhere (heaven??)
to save, well, only the chosen ones.
What would happens to non beleivers, to
billions of animals, plants and the Earth
itself? My purely simplistic curiosity gets
better of me when I try to look from thier eyes,
is God only for humans?? And in particular,
only them..how different is this from
any other in-tolerant religious beliefs?
This is why I choose to side with the fact
of natural law, and karma,
what goes around comes around.
That is God, nature.Can't help thinking
but the robes and hypocrisy surrounding all this
Papal mass and Christian fiasco is a bit
underwhelming to me, kinda too lame,
may be I am ignorant, may be I choose to
think for myself. May be people have too much
emptiness in lives, anything would fill,
anything that dulls your mind to give yourself
a false sense of fullfulment, 'belonging to
the Universe', false sense of enlightment. It
seems like a big creed, a cult and a mass hysteria to me.

Churches have always been fraught with
politics, sexual abuse of children, men and
women, greed and lust. Its all too familiar.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24076648-421,00.html

There was this bishop who in an open
press conference dared suggest a
family whose daughter was repeatedly
abused by a priest (a priest!!??? what's
going on here, isn't something terribly
stinky to ignore??) to basically shut up and
move on..'as the others have'!!
And a hollow and hurried apology from the
Pope was to follow, somehow too ringing,
somehow devilish. He even met the victim's
family today, but where does it hurt most?
Would this bring about the 'cleanup' in the
churches, something bizarre. Do we need
a church police? If the good of Christianity
is to be found, it can be found in the
peoples' hearts and kindness, openess and
tolerance, forgiveness and morality;
basics that are built into every human
being.

Why would we have to believe in this lesson of
tolerance and openness from these
self appointed servants of God?
To me its so twelvth century, backward
and sheepish; how could people turn
out for this so called 'pilgrimage'is beyond me.
Are we sure this is not a part of a big
power play? Isn't vatican comparable to
the clergy of Khomeini in Iran? Something
that controls the political and social
life of that country?

Sydney by itself is a beautiful city,
worth visiting, no need for a stupid pretex.
And a huge boost to brothels trade in
Kings Cross during this 'piligrimage'
is not a coincidence, as everyone knows.

Weeks of get togethers

2008-07-06T18:14:00.002+10:00

Emm..its been a pretty beer soaked week.
From office to boys from HVM, we had a good
one yesterday at Binayak's. The purpose was
to give a surprise to Wife of Sanjiv, who
is expecting in a couple of weeks. This was
to wish her a good delivery???
Was fun anyway.

Hei Bao

2008-06-17T20:12:00.008+10:00

Hei Bao, Cui Jian (pronounced Chhui Chi-an)
and Tang Cao (Tang Chhao) were few of my
Chinese fav bands and singerswhen I was in China.
They stood out as men in the crowd
of boys from Hong Kong and Taiwan,
chocolaty boys and half men 'stars' who were multi
skilled package of singing,dancing
and acting. Craps like Zhang Yue You, Liu de Hua,
Aaron Kowk etc were quite popular though..
(I still remember the names!)

Memories..

I don't like the visuals of this one, but I feel the song is solid.
Listened to it this morning in the car on way to gym,
misty Sydney morning. It did help situation a bit.
I stumbled upon CDs of Chinese Rock CDs in Ashfield mall.
The CD boxes and wraps were quite old and game me few itches when
opening, but the CD quality is good still.

One live from Cui Jian below:

With the birds I share..

2008-06-14T23:27:00.003+10:00

The view from outside of me, curtains wide
open on a dark day. Drooping over the course
stuffs..exam on Monday, no clue about the real
subject, thanks to my expert classmates.

Its been a screw tight week, like the one before,
the one before, the one before that..and so on.
Its been one tight strech of a one foot string
to a mile, that is my brain at the moment.
The printer stuffed up and I have to go to
office to get something printed out tomorrow
morning.

Is it all worthwhile??
Shashi hasn't contact after going to Chennai.
Supposed to land in KL first before arriving
in India. Mom is worried as usual, he should be fine.

Oh my sleeping..cat..

2008-06-14T16:19:00.001+10:00

Lonely westie

2008-06-07T21:03:00.009+10:00

After a 12 hour sleep..woke up at 1:30 pm this afternoon..
there was nothing to do, except head for a wanderlust drive,
towards my eternal search..for a fitting jacket! WTF!!
My weight has dropped below 60 in may be 10 years now,
stands at around 59. So as guessable, all clothes hang
by my body, David Wong certified the obvious truth yesterday,
the one I have been trying to get by. No clothes fit
me anymore..I got to buy all different sets.

Well, direction less walk around IKEA was waste of time,
as it always is. But I found the parking right outside
Rhodes shopping town, and a picturesque view of the lake.
I bought Memoirs of Geisha, something I have been wanting
to watch.

On the way back I stopped by at a Croydon cellar. After
parking the car bit far from the store, I was walking by
a dark street, and he was there, sitting behind the
glass in an unnamed store, watching out, sadly. So cute,
swear to God nothing ever looked so pretty to me.
This little dog, little westie, was even smaller than
normal ones, somehow unusually colored, kinda bluish
gray. So tiny, would fit in one hand. He(or she??) had
his chin on his stretched legs in front of him. and
seemed so lost and care less, of anything going around him.
I bent on my knees and knocked on the glass, it looked up
slowly and met my eyes. God, they were lovely, and really
captivating. It tried to follow my knocks, in vain.
I stayed for a while and looked at him, he staring back.
Could not help think of one particular doll who would
have felt much more like this about this little puppy.
I bought another of my red Shiraz and headed back to
car. Little westie was gone. Just imagening what she
might have wanted to do, may be ask me to go and look
for him.

Well, for myself, I might go and try to look for him
again someday.

Rock music..music of Rock

2008-06-07T00:07:00.004+10:00

Rock music..what the hell??
Why its so pervasive??

Rock music..rocks.
Been working since 9 this morning, its 12:14 now.
Working whole day..ain't worth nothing.

Listening to some British pop crap everyday
on the way and back home has set my mind
numb and dumb.

Well perhaps, bad music can ruin your life,
drag you down..slowly, like warming water
does to the lazy frog. Good music,
sometimes on the other hand, is like a
good meal. you want to taste it, again
and again. But eventually the effect wears out.
And it starts to stale out your soul as well.
Current music scene is more crap and junk, some
fresh ones, like a good food. Change from
Chinese to Indian, from fast food Italian
to roasts..change and innovation apply to music.

Rainy dark Sydney..again..and loving it

2008-06-01T15:35:00.003+10:00

Another gloomy day in Sydney, its beautiful.
Rained whole night and surprisingly there was a
glimmer of sunlight early in the morning when I
was working on a problem for the office, I am on
call this month as requested by Torsten.

I am in front of TV sipping coffee. Cuddled up
in my quilt keeping an eye on the screen
and another outside, watching the drizzle
and marveling. Perfect day for staying home
and just relax, though my mind seems to drift
away on windy roads to woods and lakes of
Northern Sydney.

Futbol Mundial and Euro 2008 programs in SBS.
I am liking the depth of color as much as
the soccer itself.

Good day for momo! Niwas just sent a message
and that's it for today.

Yesterday we had a good gathering at Sugam's.
I thought I would hate playing cards with the boys.
It seems too old and unfashionable to me, but
turned out quite a fun with all of us shouting
and laughing.

2008-05-18T22:31:00.001+10:00

Everything and nothing..

2008-05-10T22:10:00.003+10:00

Just to shake off the prolonged stress at work and
tiredness with force of will, I left for gym right after
waking up this morning. Driving there would have
taken 5 minutes normally, but dunno what's going on
today ( I found out later - some road works going on at
HomeBush), the traffic was so horrible it took ages
to reach there and I had to go round and find other
ways on the way back

Went around DFO store looking for some tight fitting
sweaters and jackets. Since I have slimmed down, all
my old clothes hang in my body, none of them fit
anymore. So I have this huge piles of useless clothes
sitting around in my closets. Giving away to friends.
I bought a pair of light sweaters at Essential Men.

Called Srini in the evening if he was around, I stopped
outside his flat, he was in Parramatta. So came home
and relaxed instead, trying to pick up some study
anyway. My laptop monitor is really screwed now and
the replacement is half the cost of a new one.

Niwas wanted to go to Sanoj to visit him and his new baby
tomorrow instead.

I felt so tired waking up, with ever present tonsils and
swollen pharynges, but with exercise, I seem to be
fresher, I thought I would not be able to do much in
the gym. Instead, I felt fine with jogging and weights.

Sleepless

2008-05-02T18:28:00.003+10:00

I haven't slept in two days, and I feel fine. This Active
Directory migration we are doing for a client spread
across Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra has got me totally
hammered down. On top of that, another problem with
a fax server kept even Jeff awake till 3 in the morning.
Well, for myself, it was work as usual yesterday morning,
after starting my day at seven the day before that.
I am busy, making others richer, making companies
stronger, banks richer; at cost of my own life,
health and happiness. Dunno what's the point of
all this labor, why do I have to work so hard and still
be poor and barely surviving? While its true the rich guys
at the top work hard, they don't take vacations,
I feel I am becoming a workaholic, burning myself
out, for what, I don't know.

Well well, what's the point in whinning ? Everybody's
life is like that in Sydney.
It started to hit me, with my head going a bit dizzy,
only after Niwas arrived after his work.
He has been brining the roast chicken from Franklin's he
works. Today's was plain and tasteless. And we had some red
wine.

We watched a movie called 'Provoked', starring Ash, the story
itself is about domestic abuse of a woman. But a line from it
lingers in my mind, this is when her cell mate asks Ash how
she feels about being in jail for murdering her abusing husband
by burning him alive. Her reply 'I feel, free' in a broken tone,
was just too powerful.

Sore throat with antibiotics

2008-04-26T09:35:00.007+10:00

What a disastrous start to the long weekend.
My tonsils just elongated by an inch, and the pharynges
swollen so much I could not even swallow.
Struggled whole day yesterday, could do nothing except
watch with envy as Niwas came and finished my wine.
Lucky bastard. Its a good cheap red wine, Yalumba
Shiraz, introduced to me by Raju ji back in Melbourne.

I imagine Andre enjoying is time in Hunter valley with
his wife and Jeff lazying around with his animes - manga,
family guy, futurama..I am sitting here listening to I shot
the Sheriff, finishing boxes after boxes of tissues wiping
my nose and sipping fifty gallons of hot water, coffee and
lemon tea. Uhhh..sick of being sick, really.

I talked to a pharmacist in St. Leonards last week, she said
my sinus could be dropping off fluid down to my throat,
I have to fix that first. How disgusting is that?

My guitar lies sleeping inside the box, next to the tv,
what have i done? Finally the rain has stopped and I was
able to hang my clothes in the sun. And its sunny today.
Niwas is against me buying the big HD tv I wanted.
I need some furnitures anyway, some good racks
for lobby and to sort things out in the lounge.

My expert classmates

2008-04-25T13:15:00.007+10:00

My UNSW adventure is back on, been five weeks now.
I am taking Risk Management and Management of Innovation
and Change. The first one is taught by a very enthusiastic
and always 'on' facilitator Harry Rosenthal. He brings a
lot of energy in the class, I was totally 'hit' in the first one.
But with over supply of that, its effect seems to have worn
off now. His style of all out encouragement for students to 'participate'
means there is basically no discussion on stuffs in the course
material itself at all. Everybody seems to have a free
ride to blur out their 'views'. What started as a free flowing
strong forum for course related discussions now seem
totally direction less, I normally don't have clue what
these student 'experts' are saying. If they already knew
so much about the topics, why are they here? Each
seems to be so eager to speak first, that they basically
drown out the other once when they can. Its a joke.

The second subject is by Jeff Bentley-Johnston.
This one is far more orderly and in line with the course.
Its not all fireworks in this one, but feels balanced
and useful. But yet, there still are these over charged
self experts who try to show off their 'expertise'
whenever they can.

Well, I guess this is the new way of learning. But the
level of materials and facilitators are pretty good.
This is vastly different from other typical MIS
facilitators, who seem to be coming from last century.

ANZAC day

2008-04-24T21:52:00.007+10:00

On a TV program this ANZAC eve, there was
a short report containing an interview with a frail
eighty something year old. His casual but humble
and honest expressions matched his watery, sad
looking eyes. On an occasion where he was explaining
how he and thousands of his mates were tortured by
the Japanese in Thai Burma rail works during the
World war, the interviewer asked him if he felt any
repulse of the Japanese today. This was at the back
drop of the event he was referring to, the Allied
PWOs, numbering around ten thousand, mainly from
Australia, UK, US and surrounding local countries,
were made to work almost eighteen hours a day, for
nearly two years thru the thickest forests. Most died
of diseases like malaria, open ulcers, hunger,
dysentery and anything imaginable that can kill.

There are picture of these POWs lying like skeletons,
resembling jews in Hitler's chambers in Auschwitz.

Thousands of mates of this old soldiers perished,
the brutality they were inflicted were
horrendous and unspeakable, like in China or wherever
Japan invaded. He came home at the end of the war,
lost and poor, shattered both physically and inside.
At the end, the Japanese surrendered, the prisoners
were now the masters.

He held back tears and remembered an incident that happened
in the jungle after the Japanese surrendered. He asked
a mate of his if he wanted to give the surrendering Japanese
the payback, the same torture and brutality, after all,
they had it all within their grasp now. He chocked for
couple of seconds, before recalling what his friend replied,
if a digger were to do the same, what's the difference,
between him and them, it was stunning, untainted greatness of a man.

Nepal,Tibet,China and myself 2

2008-04-24T21:26:00.009+10:00

Tibet is a unique entity. Its location with world's
highest mountains as background, its plateaus that
are wonders in themselves, its beautiful skyline and most
importantly of course, its religious flair, culture,
serenity and colors. Its a land of all the peace, more
peaceful than all the peaces of the world combined.
The only living, ancient teachings and learnings about
Buddhism, philosophy, medicine, are done
in its monasteries, where oil lamps are still common.
This is the land of monks with red robes and shaven
heads, of beautiful chants and clear blue skies; of
stories of the caravans of people and yaks crossing
the mighty Himalayas in the thickest blizzards and
snow falls. Its truly, a paradise where people seem to
always smile and welcome you with their folded
hands and offer you their butter tea.

Tibet, needs to be kept alive, it needs to be saved,
from encroaching pollutions of haphazard constructions,
invasion of Han Chinese, the type of modernity it barely
needs. It needs a good standard of living, I don't oppose it.
But not at the cost of eroding its divine culture, peace
and immortal sense of higher life, something you cannot
find any where else, it seems. And like any other species,
this truly, is now at the verge of extinction. Once gone,
it won't survive long in the Dharmashala of India, and
meager Tibetan diaspora in the western world or Nepal.

Tibet is no doubt the last standing ancient civilization.
Tibet is a life, we cannot get it back if it dies.

Nepal,Tibet, China and myself 1

2008-04-24T20:23:00.024+10:00

My earliest memories of school history books is the
constant politics, business, scholarly exchanges and wars
between Nepal and Tibet; and Tibet and China; and China
and her neighbors.

At that time, Tibet was a sovereign, free country,
like Nepal or Australia.

I wanna go back to where it all began.

In around mid sixth century, there was a Nepalese
princess, Bhrikuti, who was married off to a Tibetan Emperor,
Shreng Cheng Gampo, by the girl's father, Anshubarma,
to forge a diplomatic relation so that the wars between the
two countries would cease by virtue of this. The Nepalese
bride is thought to have spread Buddhism in that part of
the world. She is still known and revered as 'Green Star'
among the Tibetans. If not for her, there would have
been no Tibetan sect of Buddhism, no monasteries, no
monks and no Dalai Lama or any Lamas.

There is also a very touching story of a young teenage
sculptor named Araniko from Kathmandu who
was invited to participate in the decoration of Chinese
Capital, Beijing, upon invitation by the then Emperor of
China, Kublai Khan. One of the monuments Araniko himself
built still stands in downtown Beijing, by the name of Bai
Si Tha, or White Pillar. Today, hundreds of Nepalese youth
have been trained in China as Doctors, Engineers,
environmentalists, business experts and so forth.
The bond is ancient, modern and alive. Today the Chinese
companies dominate the building of roads, bridges,
and other massive structures in Nepal. I am here,
well and prospering in a way, powered by Chinese
education, Chinese food, Chinese love and care. I owe,
a huge part of my life to China, Beijing and a town
called Wuxi in particular.

At that time, Nepal was protected from Chinese invasion
by the buffer zone of Tibet, who had to bear the brunt of
the super power of the time. Kathmandu people, the
Newars, were the major tradesmen supplying goods and
commodities to Tibet. There still are various families in
Newar families of Kathmandu whose grand fathers or great
great ones travelled to Lhasa. Its no wonder the trade between
Nepal and Tibet is still one of the biggest revenue generators
for both states.

But today, fate has it, owing to Tibet, Nepal is still a free
country and not a part of China. Tibet is a region in
China, poor and backward. China on the other hand,
as everybody knows, is already a super power, slowly
consolidating her position in the world she rightfully
deserves, among the top nations.

War and Karma

2008-04-23T21:28:00.004+10:00

War is brutal to the core.
There is no fun for those on the ground,
it might be fun for those watching on TV.

Differences in view points is stark.
Iraqis think they are fighting invasion,
Americans think they have just liberated
them from a dictator. Both sides can't
see each other's view.

North Vietnamese thought they were fighting
another invader, French were the first. For Americans,
it was an element of cold war, saving the world
from domino effect of communism. They did not
know, Vietnam had been fighting the Chinese,
for hundreds of years. There was truly, no wave of
communism.

What could make me believe that they are right
about Iraq today?

You fight and you could lose, like Milosevic, Kladic,
Tojo, and end up a war criminal. You could kill
a hundred thousand people a night, like in Tokyo or Hiroshima
or Nagasaki, and win, and become a hero.
I dunno if Kennedy would have authorized to nuclear bomb Japan.

For every Chinese they killed and tortured in Nanjing,
Japanese lost two in American bombs.
Like it or not, sooner or later, Karma, does catch
up, I beleive. Who's next?

Numb

2008-04-21T20:42:00.009+10:00

Hope Shashi is coping well with his flight delay.
He is heading for Mumbai. The plane was diverted to Bangkok
after the bad weather prevented it from landing
in Hong Kong . Back home, my parents and sister are worried.
Just heard from his colleague in Mumbai in the afternoon.

Back to rainy weather life again.
Sydney has been drenched numb.
My already washed clothes lie next to the washing machine in my kitchen,
no sun to dry them up, no where to hang them.

Ashis made a great lamb curry tonight.
Feel guilty for stuffing myself. And I fell asleep on the sofa.

Watching a doco on Child kidnapping in Yunnan, China.
The misery of the mother and rest of the family is unbearable.
Link to the one China policy is unmistakable.
Kidnapping, selling of children, abortions, secret pregnancies
and births, who can't get 'birth certificates' to even
give birth. And there are parents selling their own children.
Combination of this kind of unnatural policies with poverty
and weak laws and police is lethal.

Happiness

2008-03-24T22:49:00.007+11:00

Source:
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/happiness-without-the-hype-
what-it-really-means-and-how-to-find-it/

When people think about their lives and what
they want to change, it’s natural think in terms of
what we have and what we don’t have.

In reality, our happiness is largely determined by what we expect.

To paraphrase John Adams:

The vast majority of our pleasure and pain is caused,
not by the reality of our lives, but by our hopes and
fears for the future.

Do you recognize this truth?
When we face uncomfortable conditions they are
generally bearable. When our suffering is concrete
we can manage it and take action to alleviate it.
But when our pain is caused by fear of the future,
it feeds on itself. We imagine the worst possible
scenarios and are powerless to change them.

The opposite is true of hope. Even the most miserable
conditions can be endured, even relished,
if the mind expects a positive reversal.

Blue Mountains with Niwas and Keshab Family- Just how many times!!

2008-03-24T00:50:00.005+11:00

Windows illusions..

2008-03-21T00:14:00.002+11:00

(Got these from a friend)

1. Try to create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer
named "CON". Just try it..

2. For those of you using Windows, do the following:

1.) Open an empty notepad file

2.) Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)

3.) Save it as whatever you want.

4.) Close it, and re-open it.

Confused?

HVM Group meeting at Ravi's place 08 Mar 08

2008-03-09T01:21:00.005+11:00

Ten days of rain

2008-02-08T20:32:00.000+11:00

Seems like ages
the last time I saw a ray of sunshine,
its been raining
for days, weeks, months.
Earth seems to be soaking up
quenching her eternal thirst
I stand and watch from my window
listening,
birds tucked away in trees,
heads buried in their chest,
trees, helpless,
like a student punished,
like a soldier on guard,
yet standing tall
pools and patches on land,
I tread carefully,
thankfully its not been too gushy,
the umbrella still holds.

Horoscope

2008-01-29T07:29:00.000+11:00

By:Jonathan Cainer

It's easy to find fault. Really and truly,
no special skill is required. It's not so easy to
find forgiveness. We can all try, but sooner or
later we will encounter something that simply
takes us a step too far. Then what are we
supposed to do? Put up walls and barriers?
Pull down psychological shutters?
Grow angry and resentful?
Or learn, somehow, to be big?
Big hearted. Open-minded. Compassionate and
caring. Amenable and understanding.
You can manifest all that now, if you truly want to.

Lazy, sunny, coffee, pubs..

2008-01-16T19:03:00.000+11:00

View from my balcony.

..and Aussie open..that is my current life in Sydney..
jeans and shorts, and slippers and sandals..
Met Pye in the Parramatta CBD last sat, the guy has lost so
much weight, he looks kinda funny now. The Area,
corner of Church and Phillips, is almost
picturesque of a small corner from Italian towns, bit
narrow and cobbled stoned streets lined up with tons
of beautiful cafes, small shops, eateries and shops. There is a
river running parallel to Church st., with serene
bridges and banks, spectacular atmosphere.
Parramatta is the second big city in Sydney, after
Sydney city itself, and is a hub for the western NSW.

Pye came back from his vacation in Malaysia and
Thailand. We were both eager to catch up.
The week has been dotted anyway with pub stops with
a network of friends, our favorite being the Windsor
in the Park st in city. Got my fav pair of black Rip Curl
slippers in Billabong in the Burwood Westfield.
Neglecting my studies for today..emm.
Its raining and windy now, after a hot and sunny day.
This evening breeze is fresh as a heaven sent gift for a
desert. Sharapova just crushed Davenport in Melbourne.

Grave of the Fireflies

2008-01-15T11:57:00.001+11:00

Last night was one of those moments when an unexpected
piece, like a poem, story or a movie can catch you totally
off guard and leave you dumbfounded.

Set in the midst of WWII Japan, 'Grave of the fireflies'
is an anime depicting two orphans living in a rural village.
Mother of the siblings die in the air raid, and their father
is serving the imperial Japanese army. Kicked out by
relatives out of their home, they are forced to live their lives
in the streets and in abandoned, bombed shackles. The pain
of the sister, tiny four year old Setsuko, who cannot
understand the harsh realities of full blown war, escaping
from air raids, missing her mother, battling hunger and
rashes all over her body, watching his brother beaten up
by a farmer for stealing food for her while trying to help
him in her own small ways, is just heart wrenching.
The brother, fourteen year old Seita, though being a proud
male, is just a small boy with too much pride and cannot
compromise that with the world, which is partly to blame
for the death of Setsuko. This is a story of two orphans
with no hope except the fireflies in their hands to light up
their little ravaged shelter. The movie does not try to take
advantage or leverage itself on the portrayal of war and
chronic poverty, but instead keeps those issues subdued and
builds around total anonymousness of two helpless children
surrounded by war and deprivation. Deprivation if of lost
childhood, running from bombs falling down and left to die.
That in turn succeeds in carrying out pain of the whole
nation in a numbing silence, the famine, the destruction,
the humiliation of ordinary people in a proud nation, whose
Emperor threw them into the world war.

I dunno if I will be able to watch this movie again, if I do,
it will definitely not be without my eyes going watery.

Ravi's poems blog

2008-01-08T21:12:00.000+11:00

sprayhomme.blogspot.com

True Friend

2008-01-03T21:42:00.000+11:00

Trains are definitely a place to listen, whether you like it or not,
to people and their lives. I have had numerous experiences
where I could revel a life right thru my ears, just broken
couple, just broken lives, students in despair and regretting
why they came here in the first place with so many sacrifices,
grandmothers who can't have their grand children to even setup
an alarm in their mobile sets, drugged and drunk people ..
and so forth. Public trains, in spite of the open air,
are free territory where people relax, as if its their drawing
room back home, or the one they don't have so their train
seat becomes the one, its a short term sanctuary where people
actually can find their senses calmed down, breath,
think, cry, sleep and laugh; all without shame, in spite of the
train cars being totally open and in obviously, public view,
yet strangely, very private. Sometimes more private than
your own flat, office, homes and basically everything that
bothers you.

I hate trains technically, in pure technical sense I mean.
I hate to think of my everyday journey thru one of Sydney's
pack commute, crowded platforms, specially in the city,
specially in summer, and specially if the one that stops at
my platform is the old cabbies without A/C. I prefer buses
instead, despite their slower rides and stopping too many stops.
Its much more comfortable than trains, and all of them are
air conditioned, so you don't have to worry about getting your
shirt wet with your sweat when you are going to a meeting.

But, if you want to observe lives in motion, or even enjoy it in its
slightest of form, trains provide with an excellent opportunity,
all for free, well almost, except for an expensive City Rail ticket.

Today I left office an hour early, at 4. Train cars at Wynyard
were nearly half empty, probably because of the hour and
the time of the year, hardly half of people might have returned
from their new year holidays. I was carrying my laptop bag and
had a couple of heavy uni books that a friend had handed back after
she had finished with her semesters, during the afternoon.
Hot steamy day it was, I was mentally preparing myself to head
to gym after reaching home, a long due, I had not hit it for months,
even before I left for my vacation in Asia.

Slumping down, I had noticed a figure in the seat
behind me. A guy, his elbow resting in the window and his
palm holding his chin, obviously in some kind of
distress. Suddenly out of no where, came a blasting cheer to the guy
from behind, clearly one of his buddies, so loud that I had to look
back in complete surprise, as I was drooling over the pages in my
book. I thought to myself, what the heck!

The guys were talking in Hindi. One advantage of being born in a
country that is sandwitched between two of the world's largest and
most populous nations is, you learn their culture, and language.
So without much fuss I have this ominous fortune of understanding
almost all languages spoken in Sydney trains, English, Chinese,
Hindi, Nepalese, scores of other South Asian dialects and some
French and Japanese..this ability is a part of my unbound wealths.

I held back for a while and realized, I am listening to a an Indian
guy comforting his friend, in his language, in Australia.
I am sure this has happened in Chinese before, only that this
time it was really something.

I listened in silence as the new comer friend fired up
straight away addressing his distressed looking friend,
even before seating himself beside the sitting one.
I gather the sad one was somehow mired in some visa problem
for himself or his family. He also was separated from his family
for some time, his friend sounded like he was consoling him
on something serious, something that only a friend could help
with. with nothing but words, but words do move worlds,
situation where you need and want badly to listen to a friend
like this. His words were shooting down my ears like arrows,
but as the topic was interesting, it wasn't too unpleasant
to listen anyway. So I let go of my pages and my antennas were
pointed backwards intently. What the guy said was meaningful,
though it was loud, provocative, and brash, but very confident,
and convincing to the core. He was trying to pull the sad one out of
his misery. He was basically telling him to climb up the well that he
had found himself fallen into. The sad one was mentioning an issue,
that he thinks about it, and then cannot sleep at night.
Something was clearly eating him from inside, and he had no high
hopes of fixing it by himself. His disappointment,
worry and fears were so visible in his words and expression that I
shuddered for a while, I was in similar rot before, feeling desperate,
hopeless and alone. It was scary to listen to him what a mess he is in,
cause it resonates into my own psyche, that this seems a familiar
territory to me as well. Well, no matter how hard we try, sometimes
we cannot stop shedding tears in bed, feel like a lonesome battered
dog left out in street in winter. All the knowledge and philosophy,
all the TV fixations and self help books cannot come to our defense.
We act strong outside, but are crumbling inside.

But often, we forget that we all have this strength within us
and give way to worries, we lose count of how many times we have
pulled ourselves out of the negative , yet get totally smashed up
by smallest of inconvenience and problem. We neglect our own
strength and totally ignore that giant within us, that can fathom
anything, and let ourselves be trampled upon by needless worries.
Like the situation when an artist feels he has lost his ability
to paint, or like a witch who has lost her ability to fly. But
if you can find your own inspiration, of which God has enabled
you with, if you are a painter you can discover your own style
when you thought you had lost your ability or find out that
its the trust in your spirit that acted as the inspiration that enabled
you to fly, if you are a witch.

The guy had this depth of terror in his voice, it just sent chills down
my back, he did seem to be in a really bad and hopeless situation.

But listening to his friend was a complete transformation.
Ok, you have a problem and cannot sleep at night, but the
problem is magnified by yourself, there is nothing you cannot
deal with. He was going on, you have to figure up the worst case
scenario, think what is the worst possible outcome, then think of
alternatives. The need to divert your mind is the best short term
cure. His immediate solution was his offer to watch a movie
together, it could have been anything. Anything that would
take your mindaway from that self destruction zone. He was
jostling with confidence and asking why he had not called him,
they could have sat down together and talked it thru.

To my own embarrassment, I felt this was kind of a
mental bash that I needed myself. God bless, a strong and
positive friend like this is a God sent. Not all of us have such people
around, and we have to be our own best friend, our best support.
Once we have that toughness ourselves, then we become really
self confident, and will not fall back into the holes of despair and
worries, and will be able to help others in need, instead
of feeling crumbling inside ourselves.

Well, I spent half an hour at gym, and stuffed myself with
some fried rice and some chicken back home. I was feeling so
full that I had to drive to the park for a quick stroll hoping
to help digest. Life is basically like weather, isnt't it, specially
like Sydney weather? It was so hot and bright when I came back
home, now its pouring down and cool breeze is soothing Sydney.

Bhutto : murder of hope

2008-01-02T11:56:00.000+11:00

Assassination of Benazir Bhutto brings another major destabilizing
changein South Asia. Al Qaeda was quick to beat their chest and
declaredthat they murdered her for being a' Sweet puppet' for
Americans. Who killed her, is still an unsolved crime for me, there
are many who would have wanted her removed. Was she the target
of well known terrorist groups or was it something on the other side,
she definitely knew too much and was a headache for the government.
She was meeting the leaders from the region and was scheduled to
hold crucial discussions with Americans on the evening of her death.
Whoever did it would not care that she was a hope for hundreds
of millions in her country, a hope for democracy
( no matter how flawed it is), freedom and dignity of a
nation. Its a misfortune of poor nations, the people who should die
never die, and the onesthat shoulder the hope always die early.

I acknowledge the drawbacks of Benazir when she was in power,
twice.Although touted heavily by the west as the last hope for
Pakistan,she actually never initiated modernization of the country,
she didnot do much for the women, she did not touch the traditional
mullahs and mujahiddin who are still the cause of much trouble
and bloodshed in Pakistan. Corruption was rampant at her reign,
even her husband was embroiled. In spite of all these, she was
still better than anyone that was there in the Pakistani politics,
much better than Musharraf or Nawaj Sharif. No matter how
badly she mishandled the overall management of her government,
she was a civilian and civilized democratic leader. She was a
woman Prime Minister, in a country of hardline Islam. She did
not send troops to help Taliban, she did not send in ISI to murder
journalists and opposition leaders, or hang them with order from
puppet judiciary on false charges to enhance her own political game,
she did not try to nozzle up the press, she did not carry out a coup
against an elected government. She was truly a mother, a daughter
and a wife who was bringing Pakistan out of the dark clouds of
military rule. Her father was executed by General Zia, she lost
her election to another popular party, in a fair election.
She handed over power to the opposition as in any other normal
democratic nation without bloodshed or force of reluctance to shed,
probably the only leader to do so in Pakistan.

She provided hope to other small South Asian nations who could
not stand up to Indian hegemony and aggression in the region.
She said she will fight for even an inch with the Indians if needed.
She was the only leader in South Asia who could stand up to the West
and talk the talk, walk the walk. She was truly the only Global
statesperson to come outof the region, after her own father.

To me, the cowardice and callousness of this murder represents
and symbolizes the uncluttered view of the terrorists who carry
out their vicious 'Jihad', that they can never be a part of a civil
world, they ought to be hunted down and exterminated, since its
them or us.This is the kind of situation where you have to take
sides, where even a moderate like me is forced to make judgments
based on people's identity in relation to their faith and race.

Its not that Pakistan will stop existing because of her death, this
nation has withstood peril many times and won, but the seemingly
vacant top leadership is a worry to everyone in the region and the world.

NYE 2007

2008-01-01T01:58:00.001+11:00

New Year arrived with a spectacular bang in Sydney, but to be honest
the fireworks at Darling Harbour at 9 pm, which was supposed to be
the smaller compared to the one on the Harbor Bridge, looked more
cracking to me. Srini came to my flat too early, at 6:30, and we had a
typical boys outing, playing a video soccer game and I having some bbq
with a beer, first time in days after my dental surgery. The crowd was
good as usual for the NYE celebration, but thinner I guess than last year.

The CBD was sealed off for traffic and for once in a year the Sydney siders
had a chance to walk in the middle of the streets. We spent couple of hours
wandering around, sittlin in the kerb before entering the Circular Quay
section where we could have view of the firework. As I mentione earlier though,
the firework this time was not as good as I expected..but the feeling of
peace and order is stronger, people are cheerful and much less rowdy.

Rainy Sydney, a moment (Going back years..) and Ying Zi

2007-12-27T11:23:00.000+11:00

Today, first day after Christmas at work . Its a bit chilly and raining
lightly. I woke up to the freshness of my room that I had just
reorganized (in basic sync with Feng Shui). I was feeling little cold last
night so I had completely closed the window. In retrospect that should
have prevented rain from coming in. Apparently it must have rained
quite a bit during night, leaving Sydney with a
wet but crispy, teary morning.

My jaw and my cheeks are still a bit out of shape from the
Dental surgery, and I could have well worked from home
( turns out there are hardly anyone at work, except for Nick
and few others in our floor). But I decided to venture
out anyway, and I have few software to copy from the
iso site at office. I had my light jacket on when I started from
room, but had to take it off after I reached the platform,
I was feeling bit too warm.

Once seated on train I put on my iPod and started shuffling
thru my latest purchases and oldies, Korean, Michael Jackson (!),
Faye Wong blah blah.. The whole trip today was worthwhile for a
couple of observations, at Central, the trains were parrallelly sitting
in their tracks on each platform in a way that I could see right
from my window and look at people on the next one, then thru
to next one..and next one..and all thru to the last platform in sight.
It was almost like looking at a mirror placed opposite to another.
You can't possibly do this in a normal office day because the
trains and platforms will be full of people.

But this morning it was a bit like looking
at people and their lives..and a nerve soothing beauty of a young
Sydney girl sitting at seat in front of me. Bit skinny and fragile
looking, but radiant like an olive Sun.

She was also listening to her nano.
And with few exchange of glances backwards she must have measured
me up as well.. ha ha.. or just been aware sitting next to me. Her
frothing with the music was a good sight, so was her glances looking
out, watching the rain drops rushing down the window,
for a moment we were sharing the same views. Reminds me of
fewJamese Blunt lines..

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Flying high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end..

God.. the moments you create,
who else can have such spontaneousness?

Good drifting away.
But yeah, nothing to remember or forget, but a small picturesque
moment, confined in a train car, watching the rain outside,
and smelling the radiance of an unknown fairy. .not bad
start for the end of the year.

The guy seated next to me probably was Chinese, as he kept on
intently looking at my iPod screen when I was changing song and
noticed Faye Wong, and her blockbuster number Ying Zi. The song
basically dances around the fact of being in complete love with
someone, that you cease to exist beyond nothing but a
shadow of that person.

Ying Zi (Shadow) by Wang Fei ( Faye Wong)
----------------------------------------------------
You've got a name
I am just a shadow
In your heart there is a shadow
I am just a name.

I can't put it clearly
or see what it means
this thing inside
doesn't have an explanation
or is it just a show of
Wrong assumption..

Bill O'Reilly, Australian TV, my swollen jaw..

2007-12-25T15:52:00.000+11:00

I have been sitting in front of my Japanese tea table, watching lots of TV
and getting myself lost in the Internet, recovering from the teeth pulling this week.

The swelling has set in and remained constant, but not too painful as I feared.
I have cut down on the pain killers and remain solely on guards of antibiotics
and strong mouth rinse. As the girl in the pharmacy said, the antibiotics is
for killing the bacteria from within and the mouthwash from outside.
I've got the TV on most of the time while seated in blue IKEA sitting pads,
with my laptop placed at the brown Japanese table, on day and night.
Right now there is a slow movie set in Emperial India is on in ABC. Its a
train journey of few British and an injured Indian train driver.

I stumbled upon this vicious Fox News talk show, O'Reilly Factor in Youtube yesterday.
The host is the most loud mouthed arrogant moron named Bill O'Reilly. I remeber
watching him while I was Nepal, years ago, and I think I liked the show then.
But watching him vomit his outrageously stupid and one dimensional attacks makes me stir at the thought of how one right wing American evil can take a damning swipe at the entire American Goodness and taint it in front of the entire world. He is a vehement pro Bush,
pro Iraq War fool with full bred blind support and I would say almost a Bush-faith, but no
trace of wisdom or civility. While he seems to have a bit of intellect as to understand
his version of war, saying invading Iraq in spite of a horrendous mistake by Bush
is just a 'mistake', he has no idea about what is going on in the ground, what the American
troops there think of the war and the errie similarity of fighting in vain as their
forefathers did in Vietnam, or what are the other options that could bring about an
immediate or long term solution to the explosive crisis. Watching him is like
watching a mad bull in a crowded market. But disappointingly no one seems to be
able to fully quash this garbage mouth. I have seen some people having a free ride
on rampages like this, believing they can say and what they like just on the strength
of their arrogance and people's tolerance, but this guy is grand daddy of them all..
don't know how the Americans put up with him.

Christmas in Australia

2007-12-23T19:17:00.000+11:00

Christmas in Australia is more in sync with the inherent Australian
nature of life - Outdoor activities, beaches mostly. People talk more about going places,
traveling, family vacations, rather than a traditional dinner or Churches
or other more conventional ways of celebration more prevalent in UK,
Europe or North America. I hardly hear about the type of family gatherings
as seen in movies, people here rather make most of the holiday and take it
as a long week off.

This might probably have to do with the season of the Christmas here, its
mid summer in Australia. Its not snowy, white, shivering boxing day.
Its rather full blown sunny day, partly raining, again, beautiful sunshines.
Temperature in Perth on Christmas eve was frying 40 degrees, it was bit
better in Sydney at around 27. So naturally you are enticed to go out, rather
than sit around the fire and sing Christmas carols ( ha ha..imagine doing this in Perth) .
But they do a lot of shopping, and buy gifts for each other to the degree where they spend a
small fortune out of their pockets.

How about us, non Christians in Australia? Well, its a good resting time for us
as well. We won't have huge fat layered turkey dinner, which I think is bad for this time of
the year anyway. We relax and go around as well, or do things on our own, or
get our rotten teeth pulled..like I did.

Teeth pulled

2007-12-22T22:46:00.000+11:00

Visit to the dentist..just an imagination is enough to send chills down
my spine. I actually woke up at 1 in the afternoon by by Dentist's call.
I had setup an appointment yesterday and forgot about it.

One of my wisdom tooth has been rotting for long time, and I had seen
a dentist about a year and half ago, I was advised to get rid of the rotting
teeth then. I had been pushing it. Today was the day to do it.
Although I was prepared mentally to remove this one, he told me that
the upper one also rotting and would have no use since its lower partner
would be gone, I would not be able to chew with it. I thought it was sensible, since
this would just rot more and cause trouble later on, I would eventually
have to remove it as well, so I agreed to have both pulled.

It was in a clinic on Liverpool Road, I had to ask the dentist about the
exact location as well, he was a bit pissed of I guess. Young and energetic
looking, my dentist was ethnic Korean and was excited to know that I had
visited Seoul just last month. But I did not agree with him when he said that
the city was clean for its size, well..Seoul is a dirty city.

The upper wisdom teeth came out easily, in the dentist's own word,
just 'pull, and bang..it will be out'. It was like that indeed.
But lower one was bit of a mess.
It was indeed scary, specially when he started to flutter as the tooth was
found to be really deeply and strongly rooted. The dentist had to use all
his force trying to uproot it, it would not budge. It was terrifying to hear him
feel he was having problem with it, and say that if he kept on trying to shake
it up with brute force he would end up breaking my jaw. He had to
cut open my jaw bone a little, and finally he was able to pull the teeth out.
Well the minor surgery did not hurt as much as I imagined. It was also
comforting to hear from the girl at the Pharmacy that she too had pulled
out her tooth last year and apart from swelling it hurt only for couple of
days. Emm..I have a small swelling now and I am drowsy with the pain
killer. I hope I will be able to pull it off without much drama..I have to
visit the clinic in 2 wks to remove the stitch on my jaws.

I am thinking about my dad's frequent visits to dentists in Kathmandu,
and his days suffering the pain back home. Just called home this evening
and it was good to be comforted by both Mom and Dad.

My Current Verdict on Asian / Australian Cities

2007-12-17T17:18:00.001+11:00

City	Infra	Size	Places	Culture	People	Livability	Overall

1. Tokyo	100	100	100	100	100	100	100.00
2. Beijing	60	30	140	130	100	80	90.00
3. Shanghai	70	40	120	115	100	75	86.67
4. Hong Kong	80	40	110	100	85	90	84.17
5. Bangkok	65	35	100	100	100	70	78.33
6. Sydney	80	20	90	50	105	120	77.50
7. Melbourne	70	10	60	50	110	130	71.67
8. Seoul	70	35	70	80	85	65	67.50
9. Kathmandu	5	2	110	125	80	25	57.83
10. Pokhara	3	1	90	95	90	65	57.33
11. New Delhi	35	30	50	75	20	15	37.50
12. Bangalore	25	8	40	30	90	30	37.17

A dream: simple but fuller life

2007-12-08T19:37:00.000+11:00

When Brad Pitt said 'Life is pain', for me it was like a staggering
affirmation of what I have just been realizing, and what pundits of
enlightenment have been saying for centuries. That just by having
fame and fortune, you are not going to be happy.Just by having what

you wanted, does not ensure your happiness. If a couple of million dollar

a movie, a woman the whole world lusts upon, a fame like on one else,
a career that everyone dreams of, cannot make u happy, cannot fulfill
your heart and desires, not only unable to make u happy but u actually
feel that its pain!, then what else can you do materially to be happy??

I admire Brad for his class in real life, his no no-nonsense and humbleness
in spite of being such a super star.

I don't know..chasing up career and day to day here in Australia, being
away from family members and loved ones for so long, sometimes I feel
happiness has been snuffed out of my life. But As Pitt said, life is pain,
there is no different definition to better understand it.
Life is a serial soap of pain and problems, its never gonna end till your last day,
the trick would be to learn to flow with it and try to enjoy probably.

I used to imagine I was just a small carpenter down in Kathmandu.
I contemplate a simple but fuller life with my family near beside me.
Lot of this imagination comes from a young carpenter, Krishna, who used to make
furniture for us at home. Like him, I would have a bike to move around,
I would be working with logs of wood, nailing down while joining legs of
chairs and tables and beds. I would have my wife making tea for me nearby
and my small kid would be playing around. My parents would be watching me
or advising me on this and that. Wow, what a lovely life that would have been.
Only the things were that simple..

I am sitting here, missing my family, every moment, wishing they could see
my progress, my success and disappointment, live and breath with me.

Staring out of a small window, at..life.

2007-12-05T14:57:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was a day of a small dissapointment, and a lesson in life
for me.I was excited to brim about something, then it slipped off my hand.

I was after a property, a two bedroom flat, in Inner Sydney, I wanted
to commit for it the moment I saw it. The property agent wanted me to
sign the initial contract right away at his office, but being a first
time buyer and totally new to trade I wanted to confirm with a friend
of mine who has been here for a long time. Well, my friend came to
the inspection with his new girlfriend, and had a look around too.
The flat was just immaculate, big, spacious, very well renovated and
sunny. He said that its a nice bldg but a bit overpriced, so I might
need to do my homework and find out more before I make a formal
offer. So I stopped my temptation, did not sign the contract with the
agent, that I was about to do, and set out to find out more about the
area, the property and so forth in the region and around sydney. My
little research did a lot of good to me, I came across different
vendors and builders, had a chat with lots of them, and few of them
recognized the property I was interested in and immediately
recommended me for the price. In fact I was getting a very good
bargain it turned out. So I called up the agent and wanted to put
down pen to the paper as well as the 0.25 percent deposit that was
required to show my formal commitment. Well at first he was happy I
was making up my mind and told me that he already had an offer for
it, and mine had to be a bit higher than that. So I agreed and told
him that I will see him at his office with the cash and will sign the
contract there. I was brimming with confidence and joy, a property
for me, in Sydney, wow that was mouth watering. And to add to it, it
was a really good one. How happy would my family be..and so it went,
I was very excited. He called back after a while, I could feel it right away
and as expected, he poured cold water on my dream.
The owners are fearful of losing the offer they
already had, in case I backed out in the crunch hour. The agent then
asked if I would want to go a bit higher in offer that would make
them change their mind. I could have tinged a sense of a game here,
but the honesty in his voice ruled it out. So I agreed, five grand
more.He called back later and completely dashed my hopes, the owners
were still interested in the offer at hand and were leaning towards
it inspite of my higher offer. I did not want to further chase up (
lack of heart? or being too cautious?)I told him that I am not
getting good vibes about it and would back down then. So it went
puff. He later called me up to console me as if I had lost something
really big ( which is not true) and wanted to comfort me by saying he
will find something good soon for me.

So, a bit of a disappointment, a lot of local learning.

Japanese Evening

2007-12-02T00:37:00.000+11:00

Last evening was all Japanese. I had my first lesson, an hour, with
Mika, myJapanese teacher. She gave me quite an amount. Its hard
enough trying to remember 10 japanese characters already..

Then I joined some Japanese boys and girls I met thru the net, and we had
a long gathering at Shark bar, Liverpool street..
Kazu was the main organizer, seemed like 27-28 year old, student and working
as a cleaner, renting in Bondi Beach.
Masa, from Kyushu island, just finished his college and is looking for work.
Akiko, from Hiroshima, has been here for 6 years and works for a travel agency.
Tetsu also been here for 3 years and also works for another travel agency.
We talked for hours about life in Japan, life here for Japanese, differences
on people, blah blah..just wanted to get some insight on Japan.
But most of them seem to feel that they like Australia more than their
own country, Tetsu says that after tasting the freedom of western society
in Australia, its now impossible for him to go back and live in his society.
He finds it too strict, too disciplined. The rest seem to feel same way.
Kazu was openly hoping to be able to get the Australian residency if
he could. The girls have been here for years and told me that only thing
they want to go back is for short visits.

Asia, where my heart is

2007-11-20T22:14:00.000+11:00

Back to the grind of work in Sydney. Got back from Kathmandu
last week.Landed here at 7:30 on the saturday morning after
taking off from Seoul, and was back in my flat by 9. Contrary to
what I expected in the unit, the usualclamor of boys, I found Ashish
sleeping alone in the room shared by him and Dipu.
Dipu and Yadav had found a flat in Croydon park and had left a
week before.Wow..what a relief..I wanted to get at least Yadav out.

Leaving family was the hardest this time..I was so broken hearted
that I did notreally care about career or money or even the house
that I dreamt with them together,the one I would buy in Australia
did not matter at all. I just wanted them near me,all the time.

I am still like a lost soul and yet come out of this enclosure of missing
them. I felt like crying leaving my brother at the Tokyo airport, he
was looking down from a glass window as I went down the stairs at
the departure. I have called both Tokyo and Kathmandu several times
in half a week I have been here..well..life, it has its tough moments for
sure. My Asia tour was a blast. I did not expect it to be so exiting and
great. My time in Japan was full throttle travel around Tokyo and Kyoto.
Also adding spice were a couple of Shashi's friends who helped drive,
(yes drive! in Japan), go shopping or guitars. It was just an awesome week
there. I was so taken by the excitement and liveliness of the city, probably
helped on by the terrible lack of night life in Sydney ( terrible? it does not exist at all).
Shashi and his two friends helped with communication wherever needed,
and also entertained us at their homes. Residential areas in Japan have
narrow alley like streets, just like Kathmandu. The houses are made from
very light materials, mostly wood. The walls are also mostly paper made.
People are really nice are extremely considerate about others, its visible in
the trains mostly, shopkeepers and general service people are also very
corteous. I may not have stayed in Japan to judge how life would be like
here for me, but it sure seems very attractive now!

Guess how big is Tokyo metro? it must be at least 100 times the size
of Sydney..just breathtaking to look around the from a downtown
multistorey bulding. I was initially at shock at the state of Kathmandu,
but slowly as I expected the town grew into me and was in love with
it in days..inpite of its dustiness, unpreparedness, disorganization and
garbage dumps..it was my city..a city full of lovely ancient temples
that I grew up with, the stone cobbled roads, narrow alleys and the
mountains that stand right in front of my root top. Its a beautiful place..
one of a kind. And of course, I have my home there, inhabited by 3 people
that are part of my existence. I also spent 3 nights ( one at a time) in
Seoul, but did not like it much. It seems big, but very polluted and sort
of not as full of life as Kathmandu or Tokyo.

Weather is really nice here these days, warm and sunny days; cool
and pleasant nights, I sleep with half of my big window open. I am
working on my laptop, literally on my lap ( thighs) on the living room,
which is finally queit and peaceful. Watching SBS, there has been a
long story of Imelda Marcos, she has been talking and talking..

We have a huge task to move our Data Center, at work. Its going to
be a long weekend work. There is also the election coming saturday.
Still feeling strange and out of place in Australia,
I might not have found myself here yet, my heart is still in Asia,
probably that is where I belong.

Kathmandu 3

2007-11-08T16:16:00.000+11:00

Spending most of the time with my family at home,
helping them cook nepalese dishes, seeing relatives,
going around pubs with friends.

And Shopping! Yes, its really good quality and much much
cheaper than in Sydney, will buy some more stuffs formyself soon.
Also went to visit Saroj's wife, who had a miscarriage
unfortunately in a maternety hospital.

Last saturday was a big party at home for nearly 30
relatives and friends, a get together marking my stay here.

Also memorable was the evening at Dwarika's with Sandhya
and Prags.

Attraction at home has been our dog, Bruno, almost human.
Since I have been here, he does not leave me anywhere I go.

Thamel has become even much more busier and touristy.
Fixed Sister's computer as well..

Kathmandu 2

2007-10-29T02:24:00.000+11:00

Lazying around at home..foods by Mom and Dallu (sis)..

Kathmandu..God, what has happened to you..

2007-10-27T02:47:00.001+10:00

Arrived in my birthplace yesterday, at the nick of time for
the latest strike by the transporters - 'chakka jam', wheels stopped.
This time the occasion was the price hike in gas and petrol.
The taxi driver tried the 'Ring road', the main road of the town,
but we were told to stop the vehicle by the protestors. So I
had an oppertunity for a grand tour of gullys of Kathmandu,
same size as those of Japan, only a lot more different view
and experience. No wonder the driver had a perfect chance
to make his share of ponder as well, he charged me a thousand
rupees, 4 times the normal to my home.

Going around the relatives for 'Tika' . Will be meeting friends
from tomorrow.

There is no point denying hopelessness and desparation in
people's minds, the country is in real shambles, totally unfamiliar
and disarray, much worse than when I left. I wonder how anyone
would be able to hope and dream in a place like this, for those who
are still trying, my utmost salute.

The whole airport is totally disfunctional, there was only one conveyer
belt working when we arrived, for a number of flights that landed
almost one after another. I could see the horror in the eyes of the tourists.
I was lucky to find my luggages, but my suitcase was no more usable
for another trip,the carrying handle and one of the wheels were gone.
None would have lasted the journey anyway given the loads were being thrown
and tossed around like garbage. So I will need to buy a new one.

The whole town is like its been in a dust strom for a century, this
in a place of mountains and lakes! all the roads are potholed and
hardly treadeable for vehicles. People still smile and seem to go
around with their lives, but there is a stinging sense of who-knows-
what's-gonna-happen-next-second kind of desparation.

Incheon,South Korea

2007-10-25T07:02:00.000+10:00

Its now about 6 AM, I have just woken up in this ugly, polluted,
dirty town near the South Korean capital International airport.
We landed in Incheon airport last night from Tokyo. Because of
one more over-smart action by my travel mate, we ended up
driving around with a unknown hotel agent half the night here.
We could have easily found a reasonably priced good international
hotel like Westin or Hyatt and I was negotiating, well its morning
already and I hope the Korean appears to take us to the airport
as promised, the flight is at 9:30 this morning. Its about half an
hour drive from here.

Nobody speaks English here, there seems to be no International
phone line in the room.

Shashi dropped us off at Narita last evening. We slept till 1 after
the party we had whole night. He is still having some pain in his
groin, was not able to walk properly.

Japan - day 5- more Ginza

2007-10-24T03:03:00.000+10:00

- Having a really great time
- Loving Japanese architecture, house and flat designs
- all of us stayed at Pradeep`s last night
- awesome guitar by Pradeep, real talent
- shopping at Akihabara
- boat ride from hinode to Asahkusa-famous ancient city incide Tokyo
- more shopping at Ginza
- party at Shashi`s - still going on till 2:15, Pradeep at his best

Japan - day 3- Kyoto

2007-10-22T22:42:00.000+10:00

- Shinkansen ride to kyoto
- finally good view of Fuji on the way
- beautiful　temples in town
- hired a cab for whole day and booked room in Miyaki hotel near the train station
- Spend half day in Gion, the ancient preserved Japanese town, beautiful cobbled stoned
streets, pagoda roofs, old architectured houses- a real treat
- Met with a Japanese family - friends of Shashi, in a very good japanese restaurant, lots
of japanese delicacies

Japan - day 4 - Monday

2007-10-22T22:22:00.000+10:00

- back from kyoto,shinkanshen ( bullet train) ,2hrs to Kyoto. shashi, shankar and me.
- straight to Ginza- Akihabari -The electronic superstore, an iPod and a digicam for sis
- lunch in a malaysian restaurant in ginza
- back to ginza in the evening
- to the nepalese restaurant - Maya, for the `sukuti`-nepalese dried meat and good chilled japanese beer, good combination.
- pradeep`s home for momo party
-Guns `n Roses revisited , guitars

Tokyo

2007-10-20T14:31:00.000+10:00

Fuji..Shinjuku..the rest of the story soon..arrived here last week from Seoul, hectic going around..lots of rain though, city is humongous, way beyond what I imagined..

Motor Show and Momos before flying

2007-10-15T19:36:00.001+10:00

Today was an exceptionally sunny and hot day.
Considering it was raining sporacally yesterday,
it was a dramatic changeover of the weather, Sydney.
I had my clothes soaked in very heavy patches of rain
for a day and a night. I suspect the color of my fav
Converse light jacket has finally worn out, after going
through same itinary few times in the past as well.
Just a note that I once had my clothes soaked in the
rain that lasted one month non stop!I had better taken
them off, but was too lazy to do so, ended up paying
heftily to dry them up at a laundry.

Anyway, needed to draw some cash for Shankar, as he
had paid for the ticket for both of us. Did it in Ashfield
ANZ. I wanted to make some Travellers' Cheques,
rather than carrying stash of cash. But I guess the bank
was not in condition of getting anything further done.
The staff who served me had no problem getting cash for me
from my account, but apparently had never prepared the
cheques before, and had to repeatedly ask another colleague,
who in turn was busy calming down and 'shhh' ing a guy who
was yelling about something, right behind where I was seated.
I just hope that my cards work in Nepal. So I left for the city rather.

I headed for the International motor show at the Darling Harbor
convention Hall, that I had been wanting to go since last week.
Ticket of 17 dollars was just about worth it. The new models of
most of the cars were not really outstanding, except for an Skoda
Octavia sedan, that caught my eyes. This was a mid size 2L family car,
but looked stunning both on exterior and interior, and very well
priced. Octavia RS model with 2.0L/147 kw is a head turner.
The rest were pretty ordinalry in fact, Mazda was just above water,
other Japanese models Honda and Toyota were a huge disappointment
to me. Hyundai and Kia had nothing to offer either. Merc and BMW were
naturally the super models, but as you can guess, well beyond
my means. Holden was pretty good though, the newly designed
SUV , Captiva always forced my look on the Sydney roads,
it is pretty nice upclose. Other holden models were very good
looking too. Lots of others were mere presence and did not really
attract me much. I was shocked at the interiors of mighty Jeep,
cheap, plasticky and totally awful. The whole CD/FM/Control
section looked like a cheap TEAC cd player.

Well, this writeup is fast becoming a haphazard, ad hoc memoir
of a first time car buyer, let it be that way then. There should be
lots of others out their who bought their first car only after treading
into wrong side of thirties. Having said that, I bought my Mazda 6
after the very first look, yes, just after looking at it in their showroom
ground. I actually went there with Mazda 3 on my mind. I had been
researching about the stuffs, and was having sort of mildly hard time
deciding between new Toyota Rav4 and Mazda 3, my heart was heavily
in favor of the 3, unfairly. I actually received a call from a Rav4 agent
saying I feel sorry for me because I went for Mazda instead of Toyota.
But yeah, when I find my engine roaring at rock solid 120k in M4,
I feel I made a right decision. One of the reason I bought a new car
instead of much cheaper second hand was because of my near zero
knowledge about cars. Even now the dial is hardly up from ground.
I would not know a thing if it were to have any problem, so I thought
at least with the new one I would be safe for couple of years or so.
With my Mazda 6 I have had no issue so far, touchwood, I am one
fully satisfied customer of the Petersham Mazda.

As I was just about to enter the exhibition hall, I received a
call from my Manager, regarding a staff review stuff that
could not wait till I came back, he was kind enough to ask
me if he could fill it up himself. I think I did not understand
it completely and asked him if I had to fill something by
myself though he would be covering the most of the points,
which would require me to go to office as I have left my work
laptop there. I was just releived I do not have to. I could
hardly hear him clearly against the noise of the exhibition
halls. I actually walked past the ticket check, and the woman
there had to yell at me to stop me and produce my ticket
for her, I guess I even jumped the line, I now remember
that there were people lining up.Too engrossed in mobilel
I was struggling to listen to the other end. I might have
sort of lost my composure there.

My roaming at the show was interrupted my friends who wanted
me to carry their stuffs to Nepal. I now regret ever telling people
that I would be a happy carrier, in fact I would be the one
encouraging them, friends, my flatmates. This afternoon, one
of the boys in my flat came up with this damn leather bag
for someone in his family, with lots of stuffs inside it.
Why did I tell them!! Feel like my luggage weight would be
a problem now.

After spending couple of hours at the show, I had to find my
way back to the city, I had Martin Place in mind, the Harvey
Norman shop, where I wanted to buy the iPod. Well, I ended
up noy buying the iPod as I found out from the Harvey Norman
sales guy, just as he was filling out my details to generate
the invoice that the iPod batteries in the newly designed
iPods run out after about a year, ouch! Thanks to the guy,
and what a save at nick of time. You cannot go
thru that cumbersome process in Nepal. Whrere do you go
looking for Apple shop in Kathmandu? And irritatingly,
the new batteries themselves cost whopping 130 dollars!
Its half the price of the device itself. Forget it.

Apart from those I had an oppertunity to sit down for a 30
seconds massage at quiet Darling harbour Chinese massage parlour
on the street, the guy tried to incite me to go for a 15 dollars head
and neck stuff, after finding out that my muscles at the back and
shoulders badly needed it. Emm..no thanks I went..and there was
this lady in a Tissot showroom, trying to hand me a 1100 dollars watch
for just above 700..emm..no thanks..its cool and breezy now,
and I have a mug of Carlton Draught in front of me..cool.
And I am waiting for another episode of Californication on Ten,
at 9:30..soon, just few mins to go now..

The day before, we had a small momo party with some friends,
to Mark my holidays, was fun. A Nep boy has found a good job
in IT,and that is really good to hear as there aren't many in the
field, I was not aware of any other Nepalese in IT here in Sydney
other than myself so far. There are many in Melbourne though.

Last day at work before leave..

2007-10-13T21:12:00.000+10:00

Last day at work before going for a month long leave.
Not much to do during day, except for going for a change
of a damaged hard disk on a server in the data centre.
In the evening though had to go there with a colleague
again for a different change. The data centre host,
who also happens to be our Frame and ATM links carrier, had
to undergo some tests with the power changes and
had provided us with new different sets of outlets.
So we had to shift our servers and devices to the new
ones for their test duration. Involved restartings for all stuffs,
involving hours of outage for the clients. Lots of other
boys from other teams of our company were also working
to shifting their gears to the new data centre and we
were handy for them providing some extra hands.
You would expect issue with power to be a non
issue at a Data centre, you would take it for granted,
well not here, this is part of the reason we are moving
to the new one.

I had to come out at the middle of work outside on the
corridor to have half of the sausage sandwich left over from
breakfast,was starving to dizziness. Also had a piece of
tasteless pizza from the other boys later on.

Finally we were done at around 10 at night.Called boys at
home for our beer status, found out only 3 were left in the
fridge. I went straight to the bottle shop fetching my car
from the garage. Went to bed around 1 in the morning.
Feeling sleepy whole day today. Neither went to gym nor
to the International Car show at darling harbor
that I had thought about going. Got to prepare and pack up
now..being too lazy. Feeling too low on enegy, probably my
VitaminD level has not come up even after at least 10 mins
of sun bathing each day.

Will start packing tomorrow and buy some more presents,
specailly for motte.

If it makes you happy..

2007-10-12T13:49:00.000+10:00

..why the hell are yo so sad?

There is a growing concern here in Australia that people are
going in less and less numbers to Churches. The number has been
dwindling every year, and even the Prime Minister had to intervene
something about it trying to incite people to become more
religious in a sense. But so far with no effect. And why would it
have any effect? People have found a new Goddess here,
Goddess of shopping, who in turn reports to Goddess of Capitalism.

I am pondering the state of consumerism I have seen in Australia.
I wonder if this is the epitome, the 'face' of Capitalism.
Everywhere you go, people are rushing to buy things, shops,
department stores, street and hallway vendors are omnipresent.
And their owners and sales people make the whole thing look
like..a religion. Yes, the whole thing looks like an undeclared
religion to me, bigger than Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or
Buddhism. It would crush and win hands down against any smaller
ones, Bahaism, Judaism, Shinto, any cults, Taoism, Confusism, or
non believers.

EVerywhere you go, even in smallest of country towns, highways,
land, ocean, air, desert, there are these huge department stores
that are no less imposing than any real church or temples or
mosque; I call them temples of capitalism.

If you look a bit more closely, you will find that they are
indeed architechted like huge cathederals or churches, the ones
you find in Paris or Vienna or Prague or Moscow. Thier arching
roof decorated with modern day arts, pictures of the saints ( the
supermodels), huge pillars that run from ground up to the roof,
escalators and lifts. Multi storeyed, ever full and brimming
glitch, where people go and worship the goddess of capitalism.
Just go out there, you foolish slaves, fill the stores and buy,
buy, buy! Make the goddess happy.

In other words, make the banks richer, keep the Australian
economy floating.There are banks and financial institutions
who keep on their crusade to lend more, make people buy
more.So they are the preachers and fathers and nuns and so forth.

Its true, Australians buy far more than they can afford, I mean
really far more, they are trying to swallow and chew the whole
animal rather than just the bite they can not swallow. They buy
anything, whether they need it or not, 'stuffs' just have to catch their eyes
when they are passing by or visiting the shops, a shine,
a look, a flashback of a tv commercial or something from movie,
something that gets them into a transfix, a visual uplifting,
any of these superficial high would do.

To imagine that their glance here would make a living for a poor factory
worker in a newly popping up factory somewherein China is
kind of wayward imagination,nevertheless very real.

Buying in shops is just the tip of the icebert actually. Apart
from the Goddess of shopping, you have her sister, the Goddess of
Mortgage.The property market has never been hotter. You might
remeber the latest financial crisis brought about by housing
market crashing in the US. That crisis had ripple effects felt
here as well, because the biggest lenders are the same as those
in the states. So there is more to just traditional one race one
blood relation with the Americans. The people are taking loans
that are fives of times more than their annual income, and keep
on paying the loans till they die. Lots of borrowers default and
the financial law is so strict here that when people go bankrupt,
you are basically finished financially, you are simply 'sunk'.
Banks are so aggressive in their marketing that they will lend
money to even the beggars on the streets, so if you have a small
job, there is no problem getting a multi K(000) loan. Forget the
rates, because on the other hand the housing boom bubble is
continuin to grow and still has air for at least a decade. So you
are safe at least for ten years.

So you will see people buying latest cars, plasma tvs, home
theatres and other luxury like buying vegetables in Chinese market,
because the actual costs are hidden so beautifully, who
would care about the crunch that is bound to come, when the
cash is so near, who would be able to last the temptation?

Or you will easily be persuaded into by the real
estate agent that the price of your property will at least have
ten percent more value a year later. When the apple is so near,
who would not eat it, don't blame adam and eve.

Shopping for Generation Y is the most important, its part of
their existence. Whole lot of different 'rituals' are associated
with it. So looking 'sexy', eating out, binge drinking, dating
and even sniffing ( drugs) are the bi products of the same
tree. These are the small gods and goddesses are children
to the same Mother.

With all the fake riches and glamor brought about by this
mindless consumerism, are people really happy? Hardly so. The
social issues of racism, misplaced multiculturalism ( inspite of
global economic expansion, inspite of China joining the WTO),
drugs, broken families are ever growing and eating the Australian
Society from inside out. All the glitch on the outside has not
been able to bring shines on people's faces. If you go out to
those temples of capitalism, you will hardly notice any happy
face, people seems to be mostly alone and in their own world,
totally shut up. It addiction. Everybody is worried about how
long will thier current job last, how they are going to meet the
mortgage and loans. People seem to have very short tempers and
tust, morality and tolerance towards others is declining fast.
You have to adapt to this world to survive and thrive. You have
to be able to be in the game, but at what cost and where it will
lead you is rarely upto you.

Though on the outself it may seem
you are free and in control of your destiny, if you dig deeper,
you will see who controls your every move, your life and even
your thoughts..well have you decided which shirt to wear
tomorrow? And which pair of pants.. I mean which brand..are you
even thinking by yourself..!! How about the set of pants you
saw on Myers the other day, and the pair of boots on David
Jones, the price slashed watch on the MidCity Centre..
Don't you feel it, can't you sense it..someone holding your mind
hostage, and makingyou dance like his puppet? Free world..the
only thing that is free is the air you breath, and thank god
the govt hasn't taxed it yet.

So next time you see an aussie walking down the streets of
Thamel, you can be sure that his vacation is costing him
at least his month's salary, or even more, and that he planned
this as another trip to the moon. It hasn't come easy to him.

I hate songs of Sheryl Crow, but this one she has really hit it hard..
if it makes u happy, it can't be that bad,
if it makes u happy, then why the hell r u so sad!!

Rendezvous house hunting

2007-10-12T11:48:00.000+10:00

So I am going to take a plunge myself, and join the
housing bandwagon, soon. Not sure if this is in line with
the 'Australian Dream', but after buying my car similarly
on a hefty loan, I am sure this is definitely an 'Australian
bug' that you have to contract.

After living in Sydney for two years, I am finally
looking to buy a house. Years of renting and living in
shared apartments with dirty flatmates and putting up
with their tantrums has finally got a visible light at
the end of the tunnel.

The usual place to start is online, there are a couple
of very good sites for the purpose, realestate.com.au
and domain.com.au . These sites list the advertised
properties in all suburbs in Australia, prices,
pictures and so forth. so rather than having to go to
the realestate office you can select the properties you
want and go for inspection as metioned in the site or
talk to them on phone.I find it quite convenient,
sitting home you can browse and move around house
hunting.

The costs of renting is about 260 dollars a week for a
two bedroom unit in sydney. With the loan for buying a
new house, that could be about a half of weekly
mortgage. So in a way, it does justify that you buy,
rather than rent. But the problem is you end up paying
three times more at the end when you mortgate, at the
current rates ( my bank gave me 7.37 before, now its
gone up to 7.62, thanks to latest rises, and awaiting
another one on christmas).There are some people who
argue you are better off renting till the end.

I looked around some affordable suburbs in the north
west before, in Seven Hills, Kellyville and Dundas. The
houses available are good there, relatively new
townhoses, quiet neighborhood, spacious. But the
problem is the transport. They are just too far away.
They are not well connected by CityRail ( Sydney
trains) and only means would either be slow buses or
driving yourself. And because I work in the City, I
can't drive, because there will be no parking in the
city. Then if you look at places where you can go by
trains, like Westmead, you don't find houses, you only
find units or flats. They are good for investment and
living by yourself, but do not fit in if you are
planning to bring your family here later on. Well,the
normal trade offs of living in big cities.

Distinctly there are no go zones even here, and you
have to listen to real estate agents, friends and
colleagues on the descriptions before you buy. Areas
from Lidcombe and further down west are considered 'bad'
areas, and prices are cheapest there. North Sydney is
exclusive and very highly priced, above a million
dollars for a small house. I have been finding the
prices of two bedroom units in Ashfield, the suburb I
live, is about 280 to 300K. Ashfield is a Chinese
dominated area, very close to the city, only 8 km. But
the problem is all the units are very old ones, at
least 30 years old. I have been to inspections, and
because they all look like they are falling apart, they
have failed to really attract me though it could have
been a good investment rather than go and live in it
myself. I did found a really nice one, refurbished with
large longue and bedrooms, timber floored and so forth,
in Croydon-Ashfield borderline, but the price tag of
400k just set me off.

I received a call from my Bank representative last
evening and I updated him that I would be looking
around when I am back from my holidays, which pushes us
one month behind.

Anyway, here I go, trying to set a foothold in Australia,
trying to 'settle' down a bit. To buy your own house is
a big thing and a life long dream here as well, just like
in Nepal. Because of this, most working Australians are
living lives crushed under heavy loans and mortgages.
Banks never had a better time than this housing boom
going on now. Seems like people here have everything
mortgaged, cars, houses, even vacations and furnitures.
The lust of consumerism is really in full throttle. Is this
capitalism? I wonder, I don't know economics and its
therories that well, but I am not so sure if this madness
of borrowed ownerships has brought people higher sense
of happiness and satisfaction. Having said that, who am
I to be judgemental and blame others, I am doing the same.
Its rather a survival act rather than a sign of properity.
Don't know if the two are related, or one enhances the other.

Some of my friends suggest I rather go back to Melbourne
and live there, they live there. The last time I
was in Melbourne, I really felt its gone a way past
Sydney in looking fabulous. It has always been nicer of
the two, but right now, its just looking really awsome.
But the problem there is lack of good jobs and oppertunities,
spcially if you want a change. And Sydney is much
more 'happening'. So I have decided to keep on living
in sydney for as far as I can see, unless I move to Europe
(which I really want to do given a chance) or back to China
as some of my friends suggest. But for the time being,
lets stick to Sydney.

My Physical

2007-10-11T10:48:00.000+10:00

Last monday I had a physical assessment with an instructor
at my gym. This came as an added facility for renewing my
membership for a year.They told me that this was to be
done every six weeks. The gym itself is at the heart of
Burwood and is underground. My previous flat mate
introduced me to this one about a year and a half ago,
the facilities are good, but I haven't been to any other
gym in Sydney.

Well, the instructor turned out to be a young, friendly
bulky fellow . I had to give information on my family
health history, my own health issues is any and so
forth, pretty much similar to any airplane forms or
driving license ones. Also done was the measurements of
my body parts, arms, waist, thighs etc, along with my
blood pressure.

Sadly on this particular day I wasn't feeling hundred
percent. I had sort of caught a minor cold starting the
morning and was feeling tired whole day. When he made
me run the bike on level 7, above my normal level (5)
for ten minutes and then peddle as hard as I can for
about a minute, I was just exhausted. My performance on
weights was not very good subsequently, though he kept
saying I was doing good. But he made me do heavy bench
presses, arms biceps and triceps, thighs and abs, I was
just not able to pick up my normal routine. I would
have done it at slower pace with heavier weights. He aked
how I felt and I replied I was okay, but I wasn't really
feeling that good. Weather suddenly has taken for a chill
and I am feeling not too good, missed my session yesterday,
I will probably go today, start with light bike and some
weights. But not too rigorous.

I will be going to Nepal in a week and I don't want to go there
feeling already flat out or with flabs around my waist and chin.
Fortunately or unfortunately I can gain weight very easily,
and lose the same way.

My Doc's view of Nepal

2007-10-10T09:35:00.000+10:00

I had to go and see a doctor last evening.
I had crushed a toe on my right foot when I accidentally
bumped upon the edge of my bed. The pain and severity
of the unwanted kick was excruciating, the flesh teared up
and it hurt like hell. Fortunately the doctor said it wasn't
serious and I have not cracked any toe bone. Dr Chan is a
very sought after one in this particular Ashfield Medical
centre because of his dedication and thorough examinations.
He put some betadine on the little wound and bandaged it up.
I should be on my sandals or slipper tomorrow at office.

During the chit chat while he was treating me, I told him
that I will be on my leave and will be going to see my brother
in Japan. He asked if I would be going to China. He was astounded
when I told him that I had lived there for five years, and I can
speak fluent Mandarin. I told him about my study there and
how I ended up studying in China in a Chinese government scholarship.

But we came short of talking to each other in Chinese,
not even a word. I feel the Chinese here normally don't like
to speak in Mandarin with non Chinese people,
its Australia, English please, Nepalese don't bother though,
you will not fail to hear at least one pair talking in trains,
dept stores or even the street, anywhere in Sydney. We might
number few thousand here, but we are omni present.
These days you will find Nepalese everywhere, biggest dept stores,
shops, taxis, basically any trade.

When our conversation turned on to where I came
from, he immediately recognized the bravery of the Nepalese
soldiers, he said even the Japanese feared them.
Now this caught me for may be tenth time in Sydney alone.
I feel there must be this particular piece of information somewhere
in Australian information on Nepal, nearly everybody who knows
Nepal seems to know of Gurkhas in combination with the fact that
the Japanese feared them, two related things together, but never in
isolation. I told him that I am from a different ethnic group in Nepal,
and not one of the fighters that he heard about. Even I have only
heard about the Gurkha bravery and the Japanese encounter few
times in Nepal, but dunno much about it in details. Was it in Burma??
I know about the Gurkhas in Falkland though, poor Argentinians..
we do have some legacy, though a brutal one, something that
people still remember other than the other eminent topic that
I am going to discuss later in this blog.

After a while while putting the tapes on my wound, he brought up the
subject of the royal massacre. He inevitably asked me if I believed the
crown prince killed everyone. I said lots of people don't believe it. He
even knew about the cause that was said to be behind the motive
for the prince to carry out the murders.

We then discussed about poor conditions in Nepal and the present
policital problems.He asked if the Maoists were backed by China, I
said it was probably the southern neighbor rather than China. He
was really surprised, but immediately recognized that India has
lot to gain from the instability in the country. Well, I thought Nepal
would not be a well known country here. I was wrong. I have met
lots of people who are pretty familar with the recent happenings and
current scenario there. In a world of information overload,
it should not a big surprise anyway.

He did have a somehow cliched, distorted view about youths leaving
the country because of economic hardships. I told him that the issue
is much more complicated than that, people do migrate around even
among the wealthiest nations, like thousands of British coming to
Australia to work each year, another the other way round of Australians
moving overseas. Nepalese in Australia number a mere few thousands
at most, though we started coming here almost twenty years ago.

UNSW blues

2007-10-08T14:06:00.000+10:00

I thoroghly enjoyed my student life. Being a good
studious fellow at high schools might have helped me
develop partially book worm genes in my cells. So the
formal education easily spilled over to a lifetime of love
affair with books, and reading in general. Not surprisingly
I still carry this somehow misplaced notion of giving college
and university education a high value.But my utopia about
formal education as a regular student has
taken a twist while I pursued it in Australia.
Specially in a skill hungry job market like Sydney's, you
do not need to have too many certificates to sell your resume,
you have to show that you have enough skills in what you do,
and that you are good at it, works enough.

When I first joined UNSW- University of New South
Wales, I had felt a sense of relieve inside as I was
able to finally work on my long cherished dream of
doing my Master's. It is now kind of a side interest for me,
as the degree would not really help me professionally
to a great degree. It is 10 years ago that I did my Bachelor's,
Engineering from a universityin China.
Though not of exceedingly high standards, the
Chinese education does work, as it gives you a basis to
start your new life as a professional,well at least in my case it did.
So I joined UNSW for a part time course, MIS- Masters'
of Information Systems,as a full fee paying student,
there went my month's salary for each subject.
No complaint with money, everything is enormosly
expensive in a Western World, it has to be, otherwise
its a third world. Not surprising in a place where a
kilo of bananas cost you 10 dollars, that is about 550
rupees. By the way, this is one of my favorite way to
envoke a 'Ammai!' on the mouths of my family and
friends back home, telling them prices of things here.

Anyway, back to my fav uni.

So I started a year ago.
My first course, IT Strategy, really hit me. The subject
contents and the standard of the course facilitator
really was so impressive that I thought, emm, finally ,
this is one good damn course, wow Australian Uni. The
fluency and knoledge of Ken really got me rolling, and
I absorbed the course whole heartedly. Working your mind on
how to strategically think beyond the technical sphere,
how to judge an organization from its IT/IS
positioning, its status and future, how to make
strategical decisions that make or break a company,
were few of the numerous things that I learnt, and I
was fully convinced that joining UNSW was indeed a
worthwhile thing to do.There were about 20 students,
mostly from Asian background, Indians, myself, one
Japanese and some Chinese, a Brazilian, a Thai, even a
Bhutani (who could speak Nepali) and few locals. The class
interactions were really lively and put my faith in
Western way of learning, by exchaning ideas, learning
from each other. Ken, was in fact a real facilitator,
inciting students to think, and be creative rather than
become a book roting parrot. Building ideas in right
portion of minds. The assignments encouraged a balanced
demand pertaining your own thinking and the researches
you would make as a conventional student. The marks
were aligned similarly.I thoroghly enjoyed the
class,and made a lot of scholarly, intellectual
friends, with whom I learned a lot in a short period of
time. From spontaneous Ashwin, thoughtful Yogi,
experienced Raj, talented Pye to meticulous Anne, the
class was a vibrant mix of young and capable minds.
Chinese were the most laborious and were able to get
highest marks in assignments and exams. There were of
course few exceptions like one German guy, who had
problem putting a correct sentence in English but score
top numbers. Bacially this particular subject was
something I had been wanting for a long time.

Then, the things stopped there.
And my good paragraph ended above.

Thus started the spate of disasters, one after another.
Our next course was on Information Dessimination,
taught by Mr. Ray, an Indian veteran. The course book
was written by himself, against the Uni norms. The book
was at best, a bad student's sketchbook. So ill written
and useless, none of us could beleive it was being
assigned to a Master's course in a prestigious
university. The guy did seem to possess some
theoritical knowledge, but that's where his
capabilities ended. He was just not good at all. While
teaching things on SLAs, I asked hime if he had ever
prepared one himself, he blatantly said no, so there
was a so called professor, who had never prepared an
SLA himself, teaching us different aspects of writing
stuffs for clients. On my request to bring one to
class, he reacted angrily, no wonder I got very bad
marks, I have very low tolerance for people's inability
to come to terms with their own shortcomings and remain
arrogant over it. He hated me, I was sorry for him. I
think he got posted to a new branch of the department
opening in Singapore, the whole operation collapsed
within a year. Did not surprise me at all.
On next semester, the courses comprised of Human side
of technology, taught by an aging lady teacher and a
relatively better one on Project Management by Ken
again. The human side of tech was another waste of time
and left me thinking do we need to go to a uni to learn
these stuffs? It was just plain crap. Ken was not
aseffective this time around, but the course itself was
quite useful.

The most interesting one happened the next year, for a
so called research oriented course. The course was
advertised as a platform to invenst on our acquired
knowledge on IT/IS so far and come out with something
of a synthesys, it was a big let down to be. The course
was actually learning about how to write a thesis for
PhD!! The teacher could hardly explaing things around
and she said blatantly that this course was meant to
attract students to go into PhD research once the
Master's was finished. I went to another class for the
semester, IT security. The instructor was teaching
stuffs that could at its best be suited for a high
school, not any uni. When I complained to the director
of the dept. the woman was so arrogant and ruthless
that she literally yelled me down because I was not
'helping her solve problem'. Well the problem was her,
problem was extremly poor quality or teachers,
unworthy fees and lack of concrete coordination to bring
different faculties help students when the need arises because
of their own incompetence.

It was so disappointing and unsatisfactory that now I
have dropped two semesters in a row, and do not have
heart to go on and study there anymore. A year spent,
and with a mixed sense of gain, I am bitterly upset
that I will not be able to finish my Master's in time
and in way I envisioned.

Most of the students feel the same, but have no choice.
Many of them are coming from overseas, with costs of
living in Sydney,career perspective and other obvious
reasons, they have to finish it in time. Many of them
are relying on their families for cash, and leaves them
virtually helpless with that regard. Some want to acquire
the degree ASAP and get the hell out of there.
Some just want the degree for their career progression, so no
bargain about the quality. That left me, only me, alone, in the unwanted
spotlight. And since I am out for now, Deborah, the MIS
program director, is very happy. So much for the reputation
of University of New South Wales. I would never recommend
anyone study IT there.

But no doubt I had other benefits, specially
the interactions and exchanges with fellow students and Ken.
An opening to a long desire to go back to uni and become
a student, rather than a teacher, which I had become in
Melbourne a couple of years ago, teaching Linux.

Don't sweat small stuff my buddy !

2007-10-06T01:03:00.002+10:00

"I´m disgusted with my life and myself,
but I´m not unhappy about that" - Hank Moody

To write about your visible, physical experiences is not
that difficult. All you have to do is go thru them, like

different notepad files and copy from your brain's memory

and paste it to the real notepad, on your laptop. I eventry

to sometimes list them, bullet point them, to be precise,

to capture the 'catch phrases', in case i forget themas I go down.
So its just the matter of filling inthe space as you go, cut

and brush here and there,and polish a little bit, there you go,

your next blog is ready. I often visit it myself and them come

back to edit mode to redo them. Just do an still

frame visualization,and jolt them down with words.

Fun. Easy, I can write for hours like that.

But try writing about stuffs that really occupy your mind,

things that are causing hurricanes inside you, something that

has been bothering you for whole week and keeping you awake

at nights, causing you unable to sleep at all, any time, any place,

except on trains! Or try writing about things that are deemed

outright personal, your issues with your spouse, friends and

loved ones. Your frustrations about your career, work,study,

salary, health, your regrets - big or small, mistakes that you

made,things that should not have been done and could have

been easily avoided (and you made the same mistake fortenth

time, even after reminding yourself aboutimportance of

learning from your mistakes)

Easiness stops. Now you are not sure about yourself,

probably negativity will swallow you whole,before you

can make any clear cut thinking pattern about the issue.

You are so overcome by emotions of all kinds,you evaluate

situation at 200 miles an hour, like a supercar race, like ten thunder

storms at once, try to rescue yourself from slipping away, to the

dark holes of negativity, telling yourself for the hundredth time

that you are losing the whole point, that it does noteven matter!

Its nothing, its ridiculous. You remind yourself again and again

and again, you should not be thinking like that.That your life is

fine, finally there has come some moment of peace in your life

without any problem, and you should enjoy this moment as much

as you can. But even when all seems well and calm, something

hurts youfrom inside, could be a very trivial thing, could be a

stingy doubt, or a big stuff like a breach of trust so magnanimous

it has left you speechless.

But yet, can you stop it? The waves never stop.

May be yes, for a moment,then you forget for a while, but the

satan always lurks behind, it actually never leaves you, it only

gets diminished in power for a while, then when you are on your

own again, when you sit down and want to concentrate,it comes

back, with vengeance. Demons, we all live withthat.But the best

and most effective approach in my experience is- basic. Okay,

you are so miffed up by that friend of yours, or that colleague,

you felt so humiliated and hurt, that you want to tear his head off.

Youtrusted someone with your whole innocence, and you got

kicked at the back in return, you feel you have justreceived a

low blow in a practice match that you werehelping out your friend

for the title fight. YOu comeback stunned, petrified, and wondering

why you keep on meeting this kind of low life creatures wherever

you go.What do you do? you go back to your rage, an internal one,

a furnace, where you are burning yourself. Stop it.Let go, its not

worthwhile. If it does not do any goodto you, you are better off without it.

How do you put down those things? Write where? How to you tell

your friend that its not the right way to go, like driving down the

highway with your mind lost somewhere else. You need

concentration, not a lost driver.

Okay imagine your wishes for a while,alternatively,

what do you want to do, wait for your revenge?

Swallow your anger for a while..and wait for a next turn?

and make sure you do not screw up that time? But have you

thought its really worth it? Isn't the other guy just another

sick creature? What good would it do other than satisfy your

hurt ego? To what level of negativity can you allow yourself

to go down to, and what is becoming of you,a devil? You

wanna be that for sure? Come on, you have better things to do!

Your life is beautiful and you know it. Change yourself a bit and

be cautious from now on so that you are not caught off guard,

but do not do down the path of evil and self destruction.
Do not lose the view of whole fun of life.

Canberra

2007-10-06T01:03:00.000+10:00

Trip to Canberra
was long due.
Living in Sydney
for past two and
a half years,
being so close to
the capital city,
and still never set
a foot there would
have been quite shameful.

Well, here we go, a 300 kilometres drive on saturday
that took about 3 hours. me and Prakash made it to
Bijay's home at Lyneham. the journey itself was uneventful
with couple of stops at fast foods on the way and a little
panick near the outskirts of canberra, near Collector,
as the fuel indicator in my car started to dwindle.

A guy in another vehicle near a highway watch spot
was kind enough to let me know that even if my gas
indicator was sqeaking, I should be able to make it
as it was not very far, 10 mins, max. No worries on that,
I was able to find a petrol station just after 10 mins.

The weather was really nice, but little windy. Dunno
probably because of strong winds the car seemed to
sway a bit at anything above 110 k. Usual stopovers
in Canberra were the Parliament house and the tower.
And there were lots of dead kangaroos on both ways,

probably killed when the animals tried to cross the

bushes between the two sides of the highway.
Not much to see in the place, we bumped into
a flower show ' Floriade 2007' though. Lots of patches
of beautiful flower, not very impressive though.

The city itself seems to be a posh little lifeless town.
Bijay and his wife Manika were kind enough to let us
sleep in their launge room for the night. Did not have
much of that anyway. Bijay is a hard working PhD student,
his wife also supports him. Met an old fried from
Save the Children, who is also doing his PhD in ANU.

About other nepalese in Canberra, Bijay says its about 2
or 3 hundred in total. Although the number is small,
most of them are in very high or good positions, specially
in the Australian Government or other areas of Governance.
There are Nepalese working as top govt. officials, and even

in Australian Defence planning. The Nepalese Embassy is
also here, doing nothing except relax in a rented hotel room.
If you need to make a new passport or renew your
existed one, you have to send it in Japan! There is no
presence of the Embassy in Sydney in any meaningful
way for the Nepalese, there is one consulate in Sydney
that is open only on Wednesday. All it does is issue visas
to visiting tourists. So forget it if you are from Nepal,
a visitor or a student, are in trouble here, and want to
seek help from Nepalese Embassy or consulate.

Few useless staff and Ambassador are enjoying much
expensive apartment in Canberra and
enjoy the companionship of their exclusive parliamentarian
country men, in invided lunches, dinners and parties, with usual
political bashing of Nepal and chicken-rice, beer stuffed stomach burps,
but for everyday folks like you and me, Nepalese Embassy in
Australia is like the myth of gold in lhasa, totally out of touch
with the rest of the Nepalese in Australia ( numbering thousands),
or even the rest of Australia itself.
In that sense I wonder why should we even have any
Embassy here in Australia, its virtually waste of money
and burden for Nepal, Australians wouldn't give a
sulk if we are here or not anyway.

Good stopover for a long weekend. Also happy that my Mazda 6

lived upto his zoom zoom billing and kept roaring all the way.

Is there any hope for Burma?

2007-10-05T16:00:00.000+10:00

Thinking about what might be going on in Burma does not
fill me with utter surprise, having seen it all in my
own backyard, all my life actually. Nepal has been thru
the usual political storms for a long time now, and
there is no dearth of it even as you read this time
wasting blog.

But I've got a friend of mine here, Burmese, we were in
the same class at our courses in UNSW. He is from the
ruling class, and when I asked him what was his view on
the demos going on, his answer was that he was on the
winning side. Emm that is not very funny.
Anyway, the protests in Burma seems to be different
from those that used to happen inNepal in some key
points:

- There does not seem to be a clear leadership at the
top of the protests. A strong leader with clear vision
would have been able to give a direction. The junta knows
this, as it makes their job too easy, just house arrest
the lady (you know who she is), the lone figure still guiding the yet
another frantic effort by Burmese people to set themselves free.

- It still seems to be waiting for mainstay Burmese to
come down and join the Monks and students. A hundred
thousand people in the streets may sound a lot, but its
nothing in a country of nearly sixty million people.

- The world seems to have made a wrong choice in hoping
China to intervene and stop the killings. China? Are
you kidding? Tian An Men..does it remind you of
anything? Its like asking one butcher to stop another
butcher from killing lambs. Same goes for Thailand, its
another neighbor, where the similar but bloodless coup
overthrew a democratically elected ( though later
corrupt) government.

It is also widely known that the Thai generals used
to travel to Burma for advises!
Rather than the other way round. So forget about
neighbors clamoring in to help the Burmese people with
their fight for freedom, actually the Chinese have just
today told the UN that it is all Burmese internal
affairs. So the situation is that nobody has time for
Burma. The whole world wants to close its eyes, not
because it does not want change, but because its too
complacent right now, and because Burma does not matter
that much in the order of everyone's priorities.

It ashames me to the core as an Asian when we have to knock
American doors everytime there is a major crisis anywhere in the
world. We never stop blaming them for every single
problem on earth,being a supercop, meddling in
everything, but still, we do not refrain from blaming
them for doing nothing ! We can't blame Americans this
time for ourselves being mental slaves to them. By the
way, has anybody seen anything by any of Burma's
neighbors saying anything about it? Voicing concerns
for Burmese prople and their freedom is a distant
thing.Otherwise, they would not have tolerated this
mindless regime that has been enslaving the country for
past forty five years would not have been successful in
their endeavor so long.

Having said that the Nepalese should have a distinct pride
in how they achieved their democracy, on their own, on
their own blood and sacrifices, rather than any other external
force, as did so many other proud nations to acquire freedom.
But the only shame is, even after our so called 'freedom' is officially
ours, is it really handed over to us? Can we say that we have one
(just one) leader that we think we respect, is moral, and can lead
us? Can we call our own army ours? Have they not shot at us
at each of our democratic struggle? Are we sure about their loyalty?
Who is their master?? Questions, no answers.

Anyway, that is a different topic, back to Burma..

Burma is a resource rich country, with vast natural
resources like forests, oil and stunning beaches with
the friendliest people in the world. I remember some
old folks back in Kathmandu talking about Rangoon being
sort of Modern day Bangkok at their times, vibrant and
lively. They used to have rock bands travelling around
the region. And now this mess.
Its just beyond my imagination how an illeterate,
stubborn set of stupid generals can hold on to power
for so long, using guns. Having said that, the Ranas
ruled nepal for 103 years..can't call them fools, can I?
But the similarities and common attributes of brutality,
tyranny, crackdowns, murders and atrocities are all
present in both cases at certain level.

Without any international stakeholder the movement
is maimed in one of the major ways. Only hope can
be from the UN security council. But the junta is notorious
for ignoring international pressures. Years of doing so
seems to have strengthened their resolve rather than
weaken them. If they can treat their revered monks
with such ruthless crackdown and severity,
in Burma monks are held in very high regard, what
would happen if the political parties were to bring
people on ground? It would be another bloodbath.
But the movement has not entirely gone in vain, though
it has fizzled out now, it has opened up the eyes of
the world and once again put Burma on the spotlight,
nevertheless that too, seems to be fading quickly.

Living with Nepalese Students in Sydney

2007-09-24T16:20:00.000+10:00

I live in an Inner West suburb of Sydney with three Nepalese students, all of whom are studying IT in many of sub standard Colleges in the city.

By sub standard, I am forced to look at the level of education these colleges provide. The teachers are nowhere near the required grasp of subject materials they are supposed to teach, the library and other facilities are there mostly just for a show. Plagiarism is not only prevalent but indirectly institutionalized because it’s easy for the teachers and easy for the students naturally, there is always four or five sets of papers students submit in a given class for any assignment. Most of the time even the names and student IDs of the passing on student is not omitted. The college management, as it exists in a pretty businesslike manner of any manpower company in Nepal, turns blind eye to any such activities, after all its not very strict in Australia and who bothers about learning anything or making any effort on the task? The college gets its easy cash, thousands of dollars, students get their degree, and most importantly get a chance to apply for Permanent Residency in Australia and live here in the future, or can extend their stay in the lucky country, legally. Inspite of that, they are not cheap and are extremely money hungry in nature, they will report a student to the immigration on slightest delay in paying the fees, which are by the way, on same level as any other university fees in Australia.

Anyway, all of the boys hold part time jobs, varying among cleaning to house keeping and so forth, enabling them to survive in one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

I met the first two through some other students who used to play soccer in the park nearby. The very first one even made me meet his elder cousin to look at myself and see what type of person I am, fair enough.Their lives seems to be that of a typical South Asian student, living and surviving hand to mouth. While students in scholarships can offer to travel a bit, inspite of very high costs of travel, these guys cannot even imagine that sort of life. Train Travel is very expensive, so is are the food, communication and other facilities.

Their indifference to being in a new country and among new people is obvious. They hardly go out to explore new places, visit beaches, or other attractions around the city or surrounding areas. Their lack of eagerness to learn anything about the country or city they are in, the people who live here, its culture is startling to me, not that I am poky enough to dig deep into Australian history. They haven’t even been to any of the world famous beaches here, even after living here for more than a year, just half an hour train ride away. Their whole day consists of going to work in the morning, coming back to the unit (flat), sleeping, cooking the same nepalese food – dal, bhat, tarkari all year round– and again either go to work or watch hindi movies. They listen solely to hindi songs anyway.Currently they have taken into the soccer video game that I bought a couple of months ago. Apart from that, their only extra curricular activity and modes of entertainment seems to be play dogs among themselves, teasing and laughing at each other. I have seen some other students going out on weekends to Blue mountains, or Dubbo or Newcastle, but these guys seem to lock themselves up in the flat for most of the time. Even when I ask them, they rarely want to venture anywhere out. I have managed to drag a couple of them to the swimming pool, two minutes walk, occasionally, even in summer. Thankfully one of them have a good skills with playing guitars and has taken upto his hobby recently. So even though its occasional noise, I have encouraged to keep it coming.It might have something to do with having to work to survive, which we as students in China did not have to do. But you don’t work whole day, and you have free weends anyway. I have contacts with several other bunches of our boys, who are just the opposite, playing soccer in different suburbs so that they could gather more people, going fishing, going hiking, sight seeing and so forth, which keeps my spirit high to see these guys being in sync with the world surrounding them.

I compare this to my days in China. I lived in Bejing for about eight months, before going to Wuxi, a southern city, near Shanghai to finish my Engineering degree.There is no place of interest we have missed out in Beijing - Great walls few times, every major temples and historical places, surrounding lakes and parks, cities – Tianjin even up north in Harbin. We basically never stopped travelling. Same went on in Wuxi. Almost every weekend we would visit our buddies in Shanghai – specially for night life, go to night clubs, I even worked in one of them for a short period of time, pubs and bars. In study holidays almost all of us would travel to different cities, I ended up going to every major town in China. Life was so enriching and exciting, every evening was like a carnival. Fortunately I had friends all over, and the fellow student friends I was with were also like minded, we all liked to explore, go places we had not been before, because it was all new to us and most of us had no major experience living in a new society. Impact of Chinese culture, way of life, history and education was very very deep on all of us. I admired their calligraphy, music, beautiful architecture, historical monuments and parks, people and their nature, everything was so new and fresh to me that I absorbed the experience like a thrist of thousand years. Lerning Chinese is definitely one of my favorites, so is going around in bike in the Cities. I remember Basanta and I riding in the snow in Nanjing! Life as a young student in a foreign land, fortunately it turned out to be China, was a blessing for me. It helped carve out the person I am today, my technical capabilites and looking at the outside world, enriched by the mingling with people from almost all countries in the planet.

I compare my experience with these guys living with me now, and can’t stop feeling frustrated and sad. These young guys have not been able to experience Australia in so many ways, the chance to expand the horizon of thinking and experience is flowing past them, while the next visa renewal date is arriving. Living with your countrymen definitely has its own obvious advantages, and I am fully supportive of the idea. But remember that this is not Nepal, this is a fully developed western nation, which is hightly encouraging and tolerant of multi culturalism. So you can taste any international flavour, see people of different nations, the locals of course and live in a totally different new world. Living with these guys have given me a sense of being among my own community, people and culture, but also deprived of a truly meaningful company that would have been brought about by living with different individuals under one roof. Because you might be going back to Nepal after a short while, its better that we enrich our stay here, see more, learn more.

Different aspects of living with Nepalese students is definitely worth it. But to have a sort of company that can be brought about by an eagerness and curiosity is vital to keep yourself spirited and upbeat. This is specially the case when you are not a fellow student but a career professional who is looking to grow in life and looking for a breakthrough in modern corporate world. This also highlights the importance of living with like minded people with whom you can share experience, talk in certain level of intellectual savviness and having jeal and eagerness to enjoy more from life, though its true,it means different things to different people.

2007-09-22T16:35:00.000+10:00

Got to admit, people are blogging like crazy these days..people power.
Living life little breezy, like Sydney weather..sunny with little wind.
Looked around few units in Ashfield to see if they are good enough or my dollars can meet them.
Not much..went around to some friends and with boys back in the flat..will go joggin later.