“This is not a continuation of Maya I”

The alarm bell rang as loud as it could. He turned around to switch it off. Before he could do anything, the radio started playing loudly. It was Pink Floyd all over the space. He had this habit of waking up to radio. But this day he wasn’t all that comfortable in doing so. He had seen a weird dream. He was a dreamer. But this dream raised questions about his future. He had seen blood strains all across a face with the veins split wide open. He had seen a murder. He had seen the face that he had admired all his life. He had seen Maya. He couldn’t believe that it was his Maya. He didn’t want that to happen. Off course he didn’t.

It was as early as six o’clock in the morning. It was a misty-full morning in the city of Bangalore. He didn’t mind calling his beloved sweet heart right in the morning. Even at six in the morning there was no difference in the voice from the other end of the phone. It was as cheerful as ever. “Hi” was the tone from the other end, willingly. He explained what he saw. He was terrified at whatever he had seen. He had seen blood. More than blood he had seen the love of life lying down on the road as a morph. The voice at the other end pacified him. Told him nothing of that sort would happen ever happen. They would certainly be happily married.

He remembered the good old times. He had seen them together. He had enjoyed the most precious moments with her in his life. He shared everything with her as though they were the best pair ever made in reality. It was all serenity for him all across. But suddenly it all came to an end when they decided to part their ways to settle in a career before they could take anything further. They bought time for themselves to settle things. They wanted to meet at the same point at the same time, where he had told out his love for her. He always believed in a theory. A theory which not many people accepted. He wanted to fall in love with just a single girl, ask her out, go around with her, propose her to marry him, marry her & live his life looking at the very own sculpture that he had admired & wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

But that same own entity was in trouble today because of his dream. He believed in dreams. A lecture by some one great enough inspired him once. That great personality had asked people to dream, dream enough big that they could reach dizzy heights of success. But this dream was very unusual for him. He has never come across something like this. His friends had pacified him stating that weird dream don’t come true. In fact in few cases it acts adversely. But that fear deep inside always snubbed him.

They met the very day. In two hours time they were going to part ways. They met at the usual venue where they had been meeting for so many years. This was the most amusing place he has been ever too. It reminds him of the days that he had spent with her. Both of them knew what was good for them as individuals & together. So there was certainly no problem of immaturely coming into picture at any point of time in the whole relationships. They were old enough to even get married. She had decided to do her post graduation abroad & he wanted to prove a point to the society by becoming one of the finest students of his university by getting himself a Doctorate.

You could see the goals & aspirations in both their eyes. It was dwelling with big rays of light. They just couldn’t wait any more to hug each other. It took absolutely no time for her to get out of the car & run towards him. In a matter of time she was in his hands. He held her as close as possible to him. They hugged each other & kissed. He will never forget that kiss. It was like he was waiting for it ever since he was born. Their lips were sealed in action for sometime before the words came out without any desires.

He was the first to speak. “Are your tickets confirmed?!” He wanted the reply as “No”, so that he will get to spend some more time with her. The reply was “yes”, his heart was shattered. She said I have to go now. He knew he will certainly go to the airport to see her off but he also knew the significance of this meeting. They have always stayed within limits, physically. They knew it; they knew it that they were in love, deeply, madly over another but that didn’t get them going to do the wrong stuff. They had hardly kissed ten percent of the time they had seen each other.

She hugged him, hugged him for what it seemed to be one last time. The world around him collapsed. He couldn’t focus even a part of his attention else where other than her eyes. It was this eyes that he had fallen for. Those two small creatures of beauty, he used to call them. It always attracted him more than anything. The way it used to appear to him, as though it’s the most precious thing on the whole universe. Given the chance he would die but not to see tears from the same eyes he wanted to see his whole life at. And off course it was her attitude, she always used to say “you can”, when odds were against him. Those two words used to motivate him to fight any tidal wave. But now who would do that, he thought. The very eyes were now blurry. Tears were flowing out of it. He couldn’t control himself.

They kissed again for one last time. It was an aggressive one. He had waited 23 years to find true love. Now after three years he can say he has found the right one. He can vouch his life on it. She was just two years younger than him. “Maya” she was, of his life. Her name said it all. Even she was no different. She just couldn’t imagine a life without him. They have always made plans together. Whatever they did they did in consultation with each other. Once a stranger wanted to take a snap of them since he thought they were the perfect couple, Made-for-each-other types, the ones which used to come on television advertisements. All were jealous, jealous of the way they lead their life. Now even the best of relationships had to come to an end.  

The lips stopped kissing. Engine sounds were louder than the tears shedding. The cars raved so much that dust never settled for few minutes after the cars had left that place. No one will know if the cars will ever come back.

In two days time the Singapore Airlines flight hit its ceiling in matter of seconds it took off from the ground. It was no longer an illusion, it reality. And this is where life has taken these two significant people. He did go to see her off at the airport, but it was not for more than two seconds that he spoke to her. He wished her good-bye & bought her a bouquet with some chocolates. He always bought her gifts every single that he met her. In matter of minutes the Indispensable relationship was dispensed. “Nothing is indispensable” he said to himself.  

Normal routines killed him. He hated this life now. He had never been through this for the past few years. He always had Maya to spend the time with & he always made time to spend with her. Now that she is gone he had no clue himself about what’s happening to his life. One week had gone by; it was life in hell for him. All of a sudden the door bell rang.  He was still sleeping. It was just then that he had gone to bed. He struggled to get up thanks to lack to sleep due to thinking about her. Now when he did get some sleep the door bell seemed to punish him.  

He crawled out his bed at the far end of the apartment, which he had bought for himself. This was the very place that he wanted to live & make love with the love of his life. But he knew deep inside that that love will come back to him sometime or the other very soon. He believed in that.

Now the door swung open. It was maya. He was stunned. He pinched himself to see if he is not dreaming again. No he wasn’t, it was indeed reality. The words which followed the stunning looks were even more astonishing “Let’s get married!”……….

“Belated Happy Valentines day”

There is nothing new about me getting embarrassed in my life. But this is something which I really don’t know if I will have to be giving the same heading as the LKG incident one. So if you haven’t still checked that out yet, please do!

There is this big inspiration in all of us to become an all-rounded individual, like in one of those adds where banupriya comes up saying “en paiyan schoola extra pannuran”. I didn’t know who the hell invented this word, since most of the time all of us would get into this kind of situation. I don’t mean to give out a mini lecture of how not to be extra, though basically I mean how I got embarrassed when I did something like that.

The final year of my college life was nothing short of exuberance. I did everything I could. If anyone comes up to me & asks me to do something, I would be like “Come on!” screaming the hell out. Apart from being in the final year of the college life, captaining the college cricket team, captaining the university cricket team, captaining the Bangalore city cricket team, being the sports secretary of the year, conducting the All India sports festival & trying to be normal, I wanted to participate in another sport apart from cricket. So bang the opportunity came one day when a swimmer asked me for a help since they were short of one in the university games team.

“Somebody stop me” was supposed to be the slogan, which I ignored. “I will” came the reply from me & even before I realized I was standing with a swimming shorts which was no better than an underwear, on the jumping jack. My job was just to participate in an event in which they were just two participants from my college, which would help my college grab some points even then I finished sixth. Apparently there were just five participants for that particular event, which was 50m breast stroke. The other two guys participating from my college were pro’s, out of which one guy won the overall title in that competition. There was shikha tandon, the Indian Olympic swimmer from my college in the girls section, too.

There were few instructions given to me as to how to complete the swim. It was not that I didn’t know to swim. I had learned to swim when I was about ten, but that didn’t mean I was a fish. All I was told was to take my own time to complete the swim since there were just four more apart from me taking part. There was a decent crowd in the venue, owing to the fact that my college was in vicinity. So almost half the lecturer strength was present that, which itself sent me a shiver up my tummy. I knew all of them personally & they had come to plenty of my cricket matches, some of which I had played exceeding well too. But this was different, standing half-naked in front of a big crowd. It was not that I had a great body to “blow my own horn” about. So this was very unusual.

When the whistle was blown, I was still looking at Ankur (one of the pro’s, who won the overall, from my college) to say the “dive”. I was given a lane at the right end of the pool so that we leave the rest to compete, since it was obvious that they were pro’s. The dive itself took like few seconds & when my head was out of the water, ankur was half way. I was blown. The mistake I did was trying to come within three ranks, which made me to push as much as I could.

Ten minutes after the rest of the gang finished their swim, I reached safely. There was once a point of time when the rest finished seventy five percent when I had just gone one third of the way. So when the swim was over, I was surprised to see my name displayed in the list as third.

One guy apparently did a free style for a breast stroke & the other guy climbed out of the pool half way towards one end of it, which made me crowned as the third. It was like an advertisement when I reached home with my mom asking me the result. I was like “I finished third ma”. When my dad came home he had the brains to ask how many people participated. You would all guess the obvious answer- THREE!!!!

The orientation program for which I was giving a solid “build-up”, finally commenced to day at the University of Technology Sydney. I knew the University was called before as The New South Wales Institute of Technology or something very close to that name but it was a surprise when I got to know that the land in which the uni is located belonged to the aboriginals, actual Australians.

I am certainly sure that all would certainly know that Australia was once a British colony. But the first people to come to Australia where not the British people instead it was the Dutch. The Dutch came in first & landed some where near Brisbane in the state of Queensland. But when the British came in, the country continent got the population moving in. The convicts of British were thrown into a ship & dumped here, basically imprisoned.

That’s the primary reason why the country itself didn’t develop into a populated one. In fact even today the density of population per square km for Australia is the least in the whole world, 3 persons per square km. Guess which is the one that heads the chart. No it’s not India; sorry it’s not China too. It’s Japan. According to a survey conducted some time back, Japan headed the list with close to 330 people per square km.

I haven’t explored much about the history of the uni as such. But as soon as I get to know some valid ones I will feed it in here. But I did find some important information that may be resourceful for people who are looking for something like this. Australia is a rich country as such with minerals. Even when I was flying in the air before I landed in Sydney I could find ‘heaps’ of coal mines around the whole place from the top. They have big coal export industry topped up with exports in milk products, meat & wool. Almost 87% of the population living in Australia lives in the coastal line. Well I am sure if I really want to get into the plains in the middle since I really am not sure if I would come back alive from the other side in the thickness.

Australian was the place where the ever famous Magnetic-compass was first found. It was invented in Australia & I guess is still helping ships to find directions. This is also the places which is not so much renowned for gambling as such, but have a big name in manufacturing them. Yes, they are the largest manufactures of gambling machines.

Coming to the orientation program, well I doubt if I have mentioned about this some where before in this post. Never mind, it was something like a never-seen-before kind of experience. It was very unlike one of the Indian university ones with big lectures for three-four hours, by the end of which almost eighty percent of the people would be snoring. It is not that you are not allowed to sleep here but it was the way it was designed. I have heard of this before. But when I underwent the whole process, it was even more delightful.

It started traditionally with a small & crisp speach by one of the coordinator’s which was followed by a unusual welcome dance by “EDAKI”, an aboriginal performance. I got to learn my share of the custom dance when I was called upon the stage to do it in front of people from 80 countries. There were few on the stage along with me who was doing it though. Even then it was a refreshing experience which everyone would have, if were on stage. “BAYAMI” which they believe is the creating spirit was summoned upon & requested to clear the evil spirits out of the place. Then there was a “PIPPY” collection, which was nothing but something close to an oyster.

There were few sessions on the visa regulations & also a excellent session by two international students counselor’s about studying in Australia, basically the methodology used for the valuation & related things. In the evening there was a Barbeque with a small performance by a band which called themselves as “Optimystics” from a place called Bayern Bay near the corner of the New South Wales state border.

I met heaps of fellow students in the whole process. Met students from the US, a chick from Canada who is in the same course as mine, a guy from Peru, a British gal, a guy from Germany who is doing his engineering, few from Malaysia doing UG Business & loads of Desi students.

I tried my best to configure the Wi-fi connection on my laptop, failing miserably. But I have roped in a guy from a Uni Shop who can get that done for me for $10, now that’s 350 INR bucks. Ooops!!! I better stop converting.



Get sambharred!!!
Filtered by sambhar….

University of Technology Sydney is located in the centre of the city, Sydney. Its like I guess the fourth biggest university in the whole of New South Wales State in Australia. According to whatever details that I could grasp from people living here, they are renowed for their business programe which is what luckily I am doing. I find lot of desi students here in this uni. The first visit to the uni was on the third day I arrived in Sydney, since it was something I was looking forward to see ever since I boarded the flight. Infact I was more excited to catch a glimse of the Uni than the Air-hostress, to be frank.

Yeah it hasn't disappointed me one bit for their professionalism at all. The first time I came into the Uni campus which was my B-School building(Graduate School of Business), situated in another place other than the Tower building called Haymarket, was a near dreatfull one. They were re-constructing few parts of the place around the B-School. I wasn't able to get a major feel about the university as such due to maybe the reason that I wasn't been given a proper demonstration of the capabilities.

But it was my enrolment day that I realised that this is something with recongnisable amount of professionalism. Everything was ready went I went in. All I had to do was to go ahead & fill them up to submit it. Off course it was different than lot of Indian universities as far as I have known since here everything was electronically inclined. The technology according to me is used to the optimum here. So everything was a miere speacatble, I mean the whole experience of enrolling into an University.

There were guidance all throughout to help us out to figure out few suprises which we hadn't explored, but in a way it was a tremandarous & showcase, I would say. But even in that to make it better channelised, for reaching the International Students they need not considerably improve the platform in which they are serving instead add more guidelines structures by which the experience would be optimised & delivered in a much better way. For me it was enriching but may be not the same case of with all students.

'O' week, the orientation for the 'firangs', in this case we are the 'firangs' here, is flagging off from tommorrow for another week followed by a week for the Local students. In these two weeks I am expecting to explore the university as much as possible to increase my capabilities of understanding things better.

Today it just looks great due to various factors but I really don't know if I would be wanting to stay back here after my MBA is over. I need to decide that before the end of the first semester since it depends primarily on my specialisation. They have a big demand for accountants in this country, so I would get a Permanent Residency(PR) if I were to specialise in Professional Accounting. My flair has always been in field of Communication & Marketing. So I if I choose this as my specialisation then I may not be allowed to stay back here since I won't have enough points to qualify as a PR.

Just because I get a PR to work in this country I would never want to do something which is thrown at me. I would rather play my cards in a better way such that I get to do what I want instead of doing something out of force. So lets see, I will keep the blogosphere offcourse updated with all the happening.

Lets see what life has in store for me!!!

Oh yeah, as you may now by now that Sambhar has officially reached Sydney. I didn’t really tell you the story about so many enterprising encounters that I faced in my four days at this place.

Dada was there at the airport to pick me up along with Deepak (brother in law of another friend named Bharath, oof how many bharath’s!). I was imagining the kind of things which anyone traveling abroad would feel. Like dada would be so happy to receive me from the airport & would jump in jubilation as soon as he grabs a view of mine. But it was totally the other way around. Dada was like ‘inkeum vandutiyada!’, I was like ‘What the hell’. But that’s how our friendship over the years has been. I would have been surprised if he would have turned the other way round & done some extra-ordinary stuff like jumping over me.

First two days were jet lagged to the core. I didn’t know what the hell I was saying. All I knew is I want to talk something & ended up doing something similar to that. I am happy that those two days I didn’t get hit or something by anyone for saying something out-of-the-box, because it was all the more a possibility then more than any other time in my life.

The people here are different. Off course they are all white, but that’s not what I mean. For somebody to come to a western country for the first time, it will take some time to get accustomed to this environment. It’s not that they aren’t friendly, but that feeling deep inside that may be they don’t seem to like what they look.

I met a friend of mine on the second day. He was working very close to the city, the place where I live. He took me to an Indian restaurant for lunch. Thank god he said it was his treat, since every damn thing was so expensive even to Oz standards. Believe me, I will be a better cook at home than to spend money outside. A naan was AUD$5, so that equals to 35 times 5, whatever that turns to be. I am too lazy to calculate now.

Even now as I sit down & write this post, I am cooking by the side. That’s how life is going to be I think. That’s how life is been for desi students here atleast. They have to literally slog their ass to make their ends meet. But that’s ok. I have always liked these kind of things, I have craved for these things to be true, not the slogging the ass stuff :P. All I need to do is to focus on enjoying whatever awaits me out there in the future than to bother about something & cry!

In these five days I have been here, I traveled in the train once, traveled in the car almost like five times, and walked all the way everywhere. So that’s like the life here. And more importantly for me everything is just walking distance away. If I need to go to the uni its like ten minutes walk, in fact I can see my uni from my apartment. If I have to get to the city, I don’t even have to catch a bus or a train, its all the more closer to anything.

So I am expecting a life which will be full of walking milestones. May be when I come back to India I can join the Indian walking team or something!!!

Singapore through the lens of sambhar

“Idhu endha oru….Singapore!!!” was a film dialogue. I totally patronage whoever had the brains to say that. Aaahaa…. What a place, especially when you are coming from a place like Bangalore you will cherish it to even greater heights. There is nothing much significantly different in the tourist’s spots across the city-country. Few places like the zoo & birds park still console the visitors with their amazing shows.

Back home in India you find a much different system set up all together. But when you sit down and compare the possibilities of India souring to such heights, I would say it’s not at all possible, just because of the space & the population constraint. If you take Singapore it’s just a dot compared to a place like India. The total diameter of the country is not more than 24 kms, I guess. So the problem of maintenance is out of question. Beat the cleanliness to the public transport system; it’s just the perfect place to guide as a leading torch for the fellow countries to look upon.

From a more global point of people, like I mentioned in the above paragraph it’s absolutely impossible for any country to match its standards of infrastructure & other stuff. But even then with all these things around the place they still have their flaws which cannot be controlled in such an insistent system.

My journey was fun, as I had mentioned right from the time the flight landed to the time I took off. I was taken care of superbly by my aunt there, so there was no problem of the food thing coming into the picture. But I did realize what kind off a life I would be leading once I reach Australia, simply because of the fact that I will have to cook on my own.

The journey to Sydney was a pleasant one with not too many surprises coming my way. I enjoyed it thorough to the core. With two German’s to my company by the side of me, I was enjoying myself to the optimum. It was the first time I flew in a Boeing, so it was certainly a delightful experience. Just before boarding I got myself a digital camera thanks to Random Access. It was the basic camera available in the market since I was too keen on a Canon one (3.2 mega pixel & 3x zoom). So hence forth you can expect lot of pictures in this very blog.

Ohh….I almost forgot to mention, this is my first post from the island-continent-country of Australia!!!

I got this from my friend very recently, wished I could have been still in Bangalore to do this. Anyways for the benefit of folks in Bangalore this is a golden opp for you guys....


How many Indian volunteer efforts that you know survived 3 years ?

How many volunteer efforts that you know are from software engineers “( read as BUSY people J ) “ and yet successfully managed to coordinate & implement voluntary efforts
Can many members across city coordinate themselves on activity across city by JUST a yahoo group and run voluntary projects not just activities ?

Is “ helping poor students” with free tuitions / spending time with Visually challenged ( Don’t say them BLIND) / mentally challenged, just the hero/ heroine act just shown in films .. Does that exist only in reel life and not in real life ?

Here are the answers ! .. Coming 6-Feb-2006 a Bangalore based volunteer group called “Individuals for Voluntary Activities” {IVA} celebrates 3 years of existence …It’s Activities include Free Tuition classes to poor deserving students { Education , extra curricular , computer orientation}

A Project on “Gurrappana Palya” area BLR, was major success. Helping Visually challenged to their carrier betterment. Like working with G Ranjani , India’s first Visually challenged CA (http://www.chennaionline.com/health/News/2005/02cavinkare.asp ).

Be a Scribe { person who will write the exam on behalf of the blind person, while s/he dictates the answer}
Spending Planned activities with mentally challenged
Coordinating and volunteering medical camps /Blood donation camps
PR/Media/Campaigns for de-addiction and social upliftment
Attend Functions with poor and be part of the planned activity
And many more

Where can I get more info ?
1) http://www.pureportals.com/iva
2) Join member of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iva-all/ and look out the weekly mailer
3) http://www.ravixp.net/IVA/ ( Old Content )
4) More description about IVA

Hey ! I am a “See it to believe it kinda guy, do you have proof?”
1) Look at the old posting in yahoo groups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iva-all/ ---- First post on activity started from Apr 11, 2003
2) http://community.webshots.com/album/525436219QTxaJv
3) http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosh/

How can I be part of it and what do I need ?
All that is needed is you volunteer time on holidays and weekends .. Works on time sharing where you choose the best time and activity and co-ordinate with members VIA yahoo group iva-all…

You have to just do.......Join member of yahoo groups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iva-all/
Look out for weekly activity update
Choose best suited activity for you and contact coordinators listed
HAVE FUN AND SATISFACTION THAT YOU LIVED NOT EXISTED !!!!!!
Week end contacts listed in “Activity Mailer” in IVA-ALL group and in http://www.pureportals.com/Default.aspx?tabid=107205

I am in that "2" stage in the blog title of mine. Yes, I am on my way to Sydney through Singapore. I dont' remember the last time I blogged, guess yeah, after I came back from the monu'mental' tour of tanjore. Now it's after the delightful journey to Singapore.

Is going abroad a easy thing? If some one where to ask me this question I would reply saying, it isn't. First of all if you are lucky enough you will get a visa, that too after roaming around with documents, which you would have tried to collect for some months now. Then you try to apply for the visa, for which you will get to know the answer after 'their' own sweet time. In my case it was all the more sooperu, with the visa officer's clearing all my peers visa & then taking their own time to scratch their 'whatever' & realise that my IELTS marks card was missing. After a re-submission of the whole thing, my visa was granted. I never felt anything tremendorously different, I don't know why?!

Then comes the airlines. Aaaha...now you are travelling abroad, really you are. You get to the travel agents office where you would be given some inumerable number of options out of which you need to decide which is the bestest. What do you say? Which ones do you check? Am not sure, check the weight allowance, check the transit hours, check that, chck this. By the time you check everything it would be time for the doctor to check you!

Now is the real feel time. You are shopping for the trip & packing since you have only few days left for the journey. So one day you decide to stuff all your stuff's into the bag & weigh. You will not be suprised to know that it over weigh's. And then after one or two days and some deletions & rejections, you try again. Again its the same old story, "IT OVERWEIGH'S". No matter how many time you try its the same answer. What the hell you begin to wonder? Is this some kind of of joke or something. Naaa.....Its the beginning. Can some one please tell me if there is a PHD in airline packing?

Then comes the hardest or easiest part, depends on people what they think. You begin to meet friends, tell them bye, tell them "Hey I am going to US/Australia/Singapore/Europe" whatever. And then they would be like "Yeah?! awesome/amazing/sooper/ultra-cool" whatever from outside and from inside would be like "idiot". Then one day your granny will start crying, then your mum then ur house maid and then the strongest person, emotionally, in your family, your dad, cries.

You manage all these & get to airport. You are terrified, petrified as to the weight that you are carrying. And then the advice that you would have heard from thousand & thousand of people, which echos in your mind "Be carefull of the passport", "Don't go off some where off your own in Singaapore", "Do this", "Don't do that" & all those. You will be in the state of "no-thinking", for people like me "never-thinking".

Then when you check-in the over weighing baggage, they don't say a word & accept it. You are delighted, over joyed, happy! Now all you want to do is to get into the flight & sleep. When you get into the flight, the air hostress comes & calls you to sit in front. You fly "executive class". Then after some time you meet the captain to thank him, since he knows your uncle & that "kind" uncle has put in a word to take care of you, which never meant that you would be given an upgrade into the executive class. There you ask the captain, "how do u fly a flight?". For which he says "Why don't you join me in?". Aaaahaaa.....then for the most feared journey in your whole life you travel in the COCK-PIT!!!!....


to be continued.....