Melbourne Trip.

Well I took the flight down to Melbourne on the 25th. Firstly i found the streets of Sydney very nearly deserted. The people celebrate here differently than in India. Back home we go out and celebrate festivals, here they stay home and celebrate. A friend was supposed to take the flight with me, but he slept off and missed the flight and took the next flight. I landed in the Avalon airport in outskirts of Melbourne. It was a small airport with just one terminal. And in the following five days i had more fun than i have had in the three months in Sydney. Thanks to Sibi, Deepak and Prashant.
On the evening of 25th, we went to a temple outside melbourne, had laddus there. Then we went out to an Indian restaurant and ate good. Following which we hit the sack. Next day, we went out to see the city. Before that we went to "the National treasure, book of secrets". It was an alright movie. Then we went to the so-called Eureka towers, which has more than 95 floors. The 88th floor is dedicated to tourists. The lift was amazing. It did 88 floors in just 40 seconds!! We got nice view of the city from up there. Then we came down and visited the much famed Crown casino. Was it huge?? It seems it is the second biggest following the Vegas ones. Then after walking around for some more, we hit the sack.
The following day, we got up at 5 a.m. and left for the Great Ocean Drive!! It is about 350kms out of which 200kms is along the coast line. It was a beautiful drive, with beautiful beaches and forests on the way. The whole drive took about 7 hours and more. The great ocean drive leads to a major tourist attaction called the 12 Apostles. These are 12 huge rock formations along the coast line. We took a helicopter and had a good aerial view of the 12 apostles. On the way back, though, we were greeted with bad Indian batting. That night we went for a night show of "Aliens VS Predator". Although they liked the movie, i slept through it. After the tiring day, we slept the next morning, but managed to go to another temple and eat in the canteen there. I had my first Idli in the aussie soil. The next day, we went to the MCG for the fourth day of the first test. I had wished to see all the Indians bat that day, and was my wish granted!! The best thing that day was that Saurav was looking good. He hit lovely boundaries in the off-side. He was in good nick.
That night we went home and I packed my stuff, and took the bus back to sydney. Deepak was coming here with me. The Bus was nothing like those I have seen before. It looked just like a flight from inside, with more leg-space. It even had restrooms in it. The drive was about 14 hours and here i am in Sydney now.

We took some good clips there. Will post them soon.

Miracle at the end of the day!

Today something miraculous happened. I resisted the temptation to see the Lord of the Rings finally. I have seen the movie just some 20 odd times. But till now i have never been able to resist its charm. The movie is still running and my resistance might fail any time. I dont consider Lord of the Rings as a movie. So i will not be breaching my resolution in any way. What a story? It has everything - emotion, action, tragedy and sentiment. And add to that beautiful locations, breath-taking background score and costume and the actors. It is a pure classic. But my only wish is that Jackson could have done a little better. He has done an excellent job, could have been an extra-ordinary job. Sitting in my room, I can hear Saruman shouting curses in the Caradhras sequence.

Well another exciting thing was that when i 'googled' my name, i found 4 its among the first 10. T0 score 4/10 in google, is i guess good. And when i "yahooed" my name, i got 3/10 again. My goal is to increase this result to about 6/10 by the end of 2008. How does it sound??
Well the resistance has lost, i got to see the movie now. So will catch-up later. Bye.

New Year and the resolutions!!

Hmm, so how are you today? 2008 has come, so you will be ready with a resolution for the New Year, I suppose. Well what we actually celebrate as new year is not the actual new year. In 153 BC Romans declared January 1st as the New Year. And again in 46 BC in order to synchronize the calendar with the Sun’s movement, they let the year extend for a staggering 445 days. I wonder how people would have taken it, because the taxes are calculated annually. And the Church always remained against the celebrations declaring them as Paganism. It has been only for the last around 400-450 years that the West has been celebrating January 1st as New Year.

The Babylonians used to celebrate the New Year in the last days of the March, and their celebrations lasted for 11 days. The Romans continued to celebrate in the last days of March, till the above said changes took place. Those who continued to celebrate in the last days of March were made fun off. This is the reason for celebrating “fools day” on April 1st.

Are you ready with your resolution or not? Think of one fast. I think I have got one.
I wonder how many keep their resolutions, and how many repeat the resolutions every year. Some may take the resolution to repeat the resolutions. I have a friend who has resolved to get rid of his smokes. But this is the fourth year he has taken this. I know it is tough, by that I do not mean first-hand knowledge. What are the different resolutions that people take? How did this tradition start?

Well some of the common ones are like spend time with family, regain fitness, quit smoke, quit drink, get out of debt, help others, learn something new, etc..

The tradition of making New Year resolutions dates back to Babylonians. The famous resolution in their time used to be “to return borrowed farm equipments”.

Well I have successfully kept a resolution. It was in my 7th grade, and I resolved never to use tamil swear words again. And it is a miracle that I still haven’t broken that resolve. But there are many others that I have failed to keep up. And i dont even remember what was the 2007 resolution. Well for this year, I have resolved to see fewer movies. See this is a vague one, because I haven’t mentioned what is fewer? But I know what I mean by it. And I hope to keep it. And I wish you all keep up your respective resolutions.

Bollywood war movies

Hi good to see you back. Today was very hot here, while it washed away another day of the practice match for India. Dada again got out early in the morning. Please do not let him sleep when he is not out. Once he goes to sleep, he loses his touch and gets out early in the morning. The team management should take turns in keeping Saurav awake throughout the night. I am his big fan and it pains to see the management not taking care of its players.


Anyways coming to what i wanted to talk about today. When i reached home from the university, tired after a hard days work (just a figure of speech), my room-mates were watching the movie "border". I had not seen the movie before so i just sat down with my coffee. I am not very sure what the director was trying. We all know Sunny Deol is a super-hero, immortal being and all, but still this was way too much. Sunny bhai and Akshaye were stabbing the enemy Pakistani soldiers, in tens and tens. The Pak soldiers were very disciplined enough to attack them one after another. Should never outnumber the enemy!! As if that is not enough, Akshaye gets shot, but that won't deter from stabbing more. We know that nothing can stop Sunny, so i am not talking about it. There is also Sunil shetty. I dont know if he has a sister in this movie too. He takes an anti-tank mine and walks to the enemy tank formation, (don't be stupid, ofcourse they shoot him with 10, 20 bullets), and then shouts at them and frightens their tank leader. The fellow puts the tank in reverse and tries to outrun Sunil, but is that possible, he drops the mine on the tank, and kills them all. So till here, the director has successfully showed the Pak soldiers to be brainless, cowardly and stupid. But no, it seems that was not his aim, he later shows the flags of the two countries and begs them to be friendly. Is there anyone with common sense in Bollywood??


Nobody is asking you to make movies on the wars, but if you are doing them at least do not insult the memories of the soldiers. That is the least you can do. It is sick to make commercial movies based on the life of the soldiers who have died on the fronts.

Well this post became a bit serious one. Sorry about that. I think i really felt a bit strong about this attitude of the directors. I will try to keep the posts on the lighter side from now on.
Bye.

Bye 2007!

Yes, vacation time has set in. Tomorrow is the last official working day. Already 3/4ths of the department has disappeared. 2007 is breathing its last. It has come to an end very fast. Now you would say it is a cliche and i would agree with you.

2007 has given me lots of memories. And as always it has been mixed. But being an optimist i would say more of happy memories. And that doesn't mean i have forgotten the bad memories Because they teach a man more than the happy ones.

Well the year did not start with much promise, but it sure ends with many. When the year started i did not have much clue as to what i would be doing after the april, but things have happened as they always do and here i am sitting comfortably with future known for the next three years.

Well coming to the happy memories, this year i became a post-graduate, my younger sister got married, many of my friends have gone to foreign lands, aussies have retained what is rightfully theirs, Dada has made a remarkable come-back, and many other such things. I got made many new friends, got in contact many old ones - most of them who have travelled to the other side of the ocean. Why is it so?? Well that will figure as the topic in another post. Not here. I know you are very interested, but there is always time and place for everything.

Even though I did not start the year with much joy, I sure have made plans to enjoy the last weeks of the year. I am meeting a couple of my old school mates whom i haven't met for a long time. One of them, I haven't met for a year and the other for five years. It is going to be a very exciting one. Looking forward to it.

Well it is time to say "good bye" to 2007 and say "hi" to 2008. Hope that will bring smiles to every one's face. That would not be enough, it has to sustain those smiles. I am an eternal optimist, I am sure it will.

I am ending this post with my favorite quote, "Even the smallest person can change the course of the world". Remember this.

And don't think this is the last post for this year, come back tomorrow.

Food!!

Well today is the second day. I was actually nervous today, as to how many would have come across my blog. To be honest, i was pleasantly surprised. there were ten visitors to my profile.
Later i found out that even my visits are counted and every time i came to my profile to see the number of visits, that was also counted!!!

Today i want to talk about food. Just so you know, i have been self cooking for the last three months of my life, and for this reason i am glad that i had spent five years in hostels. we normally don't cook in the hostels and when i used to visit home for vacations, i was prohibited to enter the kitchen. My loving amma was a house-wife (now she is working, to avoid being alone at home!), so she was there to cook all that i wanted. It is not as bad as it sounds. I don't eat a lot, just normal rice, sambar, rasam will do for me. Ok, coming back to what i was telling, when i landed here in sydney all i knew about cooking was to make a cup of coffee.

Do you remember the times when we used to find fault in the food our mother cooks? "there is no salt in this!", "this is over-cooked", "you never cook that, you always cook what akka wants!". All these came to haunt me the first time i stepped into the kitchen to cook a dinner, and needless to say, i burnt my roti.

But now i can say, i am better at cooking than many bachelors, thanks to the lifeless tongue! (an ever-lasting parting gift from five years hostel life!!)

should I say, visit again? or is that understood??

India in Australia

Hi all,

I am starting with a my favorite topic, cricket! As per the Indian tradition, i love cricket.
But i love Australian cricket. So here is my dilemma, i am an Indian living in Australia. So whom do i support?? Well some say, being outside one's country makes you long for your country. They are right. I do long for India. But does that mean i should support for India?

I have been a staunch supporter of the Aussie style of cricket. I can say that i have played a bigger part in the success of the aussie cricket fortune, for from the time i started supporting them (which was right after the '96 world cup), they have been steadily dominating the world!!

So when i go to MCG in a week's time, i would have completed 12 years of utter devoted support of the aussies. Would it not be back-stabbing if i change sides now??

There is another piece to this dilemma (i might as well call it "trilemma") - Dada. I just love him. And after making a spectacular come back to the team, he is in the peak of his form and it will be the hundredth time when he steps out at MCG.

I want a century from Dada but i also want Aussies to win!!
It wouldn't surprise me if i haven't decided whom to back when i go to the ground on saturday.

Well i forgot the most important thing, I have ticket for the fourth day, and i hope the indians play till then.

Well this is my first blog. Keep coming back. i promise to keep them lively.