it's so quiet, that you can here hear hare's hair rustling

Yellow Brick Road Part 6

kepron — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:54:40 +0000

Once upon a time, we also decided that given that we would be going to Australia, it would be a good idea to go to the Great Barrier Reef, and so we went to a place called Cairns. It is on the north west coast of Australia, and is generally considered to be the gateway to the great barrier reef. It was during and after this trip, that I got to know a couple of facts about the reef, the bottomline of which is that the Great Barrier Reef is a well marketed place. One, barrier reef is not a continuous coral reef. It is patches of coral reef which range in their diameter, separated by kilometers of distance. The one which we went to would have been ~50m*25 m I think. Two, it is just a coral reef, there are also coral reefs in India, especially around Lakshadweeps, and it looks like they are much more beautiful than the barrier reef. Three, even in Australia, it seems the experience of accessing the reef through the Whitsundays would be much better. Whitsundays are a cluster of islands, and there is a Whitehaven beach there, which has sand that is as white as salt due to the high silica content in it. The water also makes patterns into the beach , which look amazing.

But then again, the experience of the reef was brilliant, it is almost divine. We went scuba diving and snorkeling into the water, and that is how one experiences divinity. For the reef, it is ~2 hours ferry ride into the sea. The sea around the reef would be ~20 metres deep I think. The sea bed has some bald patches too, so the sun rays reflect back up from those patches. You can see the rays coming up from the sea bed. Couple that with the silence around you (cause your ears are underwater, and so you can’t hear anything), it makes for a divine experience. Second, when you go diving , and are ~10 metres underwater, you look up to the sky, and you see the surface of the sea lit up by the sunrays, and couple that with the fact that you are suspended in water, it makes a divine experience. The third is if you do not know swimming and are drowning, it can lead o divinity (provided you have been good in your life). I experienced all three.

I do not know swimming, but that does not stop me from trying to swim. Anyhow, the way it works is that the ferry guys will take you to the reef. They provide everyone with snorkeling gear and flippers, and you can go around the reef to explore it. Those who want to dive, can go diving too, they have the gear for that as well. The boat is anchored for ~2 hours, and diving is ~30 minutes, we had signed up for both.

Anyhow, I have been in water before, and I can flap around, but I cannot breathe. But, I figured that the human body floats in water anyhow, so as long as I can breathe with my head underwater, I do not really need to swim. And the snorkeling gear is meant just for that ! so I wore the flippers, wore the mask and jumped into the sea. The mask covers the eyes and the nose. While it helps a lot in visibility, there is no way one can breathe through the nose with the mask on, cause there is not air around it. The only way to breathe is through the mouth. Anyhow, I jumped into the sea and moved ~10 metres away from the boat. I figured that if I get to drowning, I should be able to wade my way back. So there I was, in the sea, judging my comfort level, flipping the flippers, when I felt someone was tugging at my feet. So I looked towards my feet, and this got the top of the snorkel underwater as well, and it filled up with water. I tried to breathe, but all I got was water in my mouth. Generally it is easy to clear the snorkel, you just need to blow it hard , but with my inexperience, I had not taken a mouthful of air when I decided to look towards my feet, so there was no way for me to clear the snorkel. That was semi panic. Being used to land, and having been dutifully taught to breathe through my nose, that was my next instinctive step. So I tried to breathe through my nose, and I could not get any air. Now I panicked, it looked like a perfect setting to drown. So I decided to shout for help. I flapped the flippers hard, got my head out of water, took the mouthpiece out of my mouth and with all my might shouted “help !!!”. So I got air into my mouth, calmed down, cleared the snorkel, and swam back comfortably to the boat, a little shaken. Clear lesson in the advantages of getting comfortable. Breathing through the mouth is new, not instinctive, the idea of a gulpful of air before a dive was purely habit, and no one was tugging at my feet, the flippers created resistance much more than what I was used to getting with my feet.

So I calmed myself, and 10 minutes on, I was back into the sea. This time with trained divers. Good thing about the introductory scuba dive is that one does not need to know swimming at all, and there is a trained diver always with you to take you around. But it really helped that I had gotten comfortable with breathing through the mouth by then, made the dive experience much more than a ‘survive through this’ exercise.

Post the dive, me (and a couple of other non swimmers) tied a floating belt around the waist ( more like a boxing championship belt, but made of foam), help on to a floating tube ( similar to a tyre tube) and were tugged around the reef by a ferry guy. But given that I had figured out the logic in my head, I did not hold on to the tube but tried going around the reef by myself, got the snorkel underwater and all those other things, but always remained within one breath distance of the floating tube. Well, as it turns out, logic works, but does need some experience to get used to the logic. It was fun.

Next day up, and we were on our way to the other things to do there. We hired a car, and drove up to the Daintree river, we had to see crocodiles in the river. Got onto a river tour there. Crocodile fact: saltwater crocodiles do not really live in the sea, they are mostly along the beaches, and in the rivers just as they merge into the sea. .. so much for nomenclature. Crocodile fact: they can live up to 80 years, but they never stop growing ! Crocodile fact: they get their pray by feeling the water waves than through smell or visual methods…so no point in wearing perfumes or dressing up if you are to be eaten by a croc. We got multiple croc facts, and got to see one croc only in the half an hour. We had gone out in the expectation of a river bank full of crocs. Turned out that it was the mating season, and all the non alpha male crocs had hidden themselves to avoid being killed by the alpha male croc. Croc fact: they spend 99% of their time regulating their body temperature, so that they can do with minimum energy. .. talk about the heights of laziness.

And we went further upto Port Douglas and cape tribulation. The drive was amazing, and the beach was really good too, cause these were he beached where you have a rainforest right next to the beach. So if you want, you can tie up a hammock and chillout on the beach. We forgot to take our hammock. The highlight of the trip for me was the drive, for those who did not, it would have to be the icecreams. There are two ice cream shops around Cape Tribulation. Home made icecreams, with ~30 flavours, and most of them were quite unique. W reached one shop at 5 pm, unfortunately, the closing time was 5, and they had emptied out the stock. So we drove to the other shop, which was open till 5:30 luckily, and had a good assortment of icecreams. Ginger and passionfruit (good), sweet potato (not so good), honeysuckle, blueberry, jackfruit, and other like that. A good last stop before the drive back to Cairns.

That was the day after the dive. The day before the dive we went quadbiking. A 250 cc bike on four deep tread wheels, running through the Kuranda rainforest track. I would have expected all offroad vehicles to be four wheel drives, but quad biked are two wheel drives… but good fun. And we met a guy who lived there, was a butcher by profession, but god .. what an interesting discussion we had with him on international finance. On the dependence of Australia to Chinese growth, the employment imbalance in favour of mining and the rise of the exchange rate. He was very well informed, I would not expect that from a person in his profession. A surprise.. a huge surprise.

You get to meet people you would never expect to meet, sit down and talk, Sydney is interesting.

Yellow Brick Road Part 5

kepron — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:40:53 +0000

And then there was Diwali. It’s a fun festival in India, and in the past few years I think I have come to figure out that I would prefer to spend the Diwali in India, with friends, if I cannot make it to the family in Amritsar. But here I was, in Sydney, celebrating Diwali in a piecemeal basis, cause here the weekday takes precedence over Diwali. Diwali was on a Wednesday, I attended one Diwali function the previous Saturday, on the day of Diwali I prepared for an exam, and after the exam on Thursday, I went for a ’Diwali ‘with the others from the university. The funny thing is it does not hit you till it gets to the evening. So it was all fine till the afternoon, studying and all, but towards the evening it starts to get get on to you. The houses are not lit, and neither is the sky. There are no sweets in the house, and the like.

But I did manage to view some fireworks in Sydney. I was told that in the months preceding Christmas (and no, not all 12 months before Christmas), there are fireworks in at Darling harbor. So I checked out the website (that’s a good thing, all info is available online), and figured out a day to go. That day arrived, and went, I missed it. So I checked the website again, and noted down another date. That day arrived, and passed too. This led me to go to the website and note down the next few potential dates, and then I watched them go by, one by one, till finally one day, I landed at Darling Harbour, in time to watch the fireworks. The fireworks were supposed to start at 9 pm, and I know that the firangs are a punctual lot, so I reached there at 8:00pm (also because the alternate was to reach there at 9:30 pm). I looked around to figure out where would the fireworks be, and then I placed myself at the centre of the bridge. Advantage1 : I could see both sides of the bay, so I would catch the fireworks whichever side it took place. Advantage 2: there was a good breeze there , Advantage 3: I could get a good view of not only the sky, but of the entire harbor, so seemed appropriate. 8:30 pm: I tried to figure out a good side of the bridge, I could not. So I waited at a side that offered a view of the sea. 8:45 pm : I see that folks are congregating on the other side, so I changed my position to the other side. 9:00 pm: nothing. 9:05 pm: I see people are looking at their wrists now, instead of the sky. So I look at mine, I find my wristwatch there, and figure out that people are getting impatient. 9:10 pm: I figure out that the firangs are not such a punctual lot after all. 9:15 pm, I hear a whistle, I look up and see a rocket going up .. yay !! the fireworks have stared !! In the very limited area of the sky that it occupied, it was a good show. There fireworks were being launched from three different rafts in the bay, and were nicely coordinated. But I think I like the Diwali sky better cause that lights up the entire sky, and because it lasts a lot longer. This one lasted 10 minutes. And then everyone went home. So did I.

Now let me rewind a little to the story of how did I land up at the harbor that evening. I first got up at 6 am that morning. We were supposed to go to Hunter valley that day. Hunter valley is ~3 hours drive from Sydney (and 3 and a half hours if the drive is an 80 year old veteran). It’s a wine growing region, the plan was to go to a few vineyards and taste wine, and I had to reach the university at 7:30 am for that. Anyhow, so I got up at 6 am, then I got up at 6:15 am, and then I got up at 6:30 am, and then I got ready and reached the university at 7:40 am. I turned out that I was the second last to arrive there (the last on e was my housemate who arrived there at 7:50 am. The others were not very happy, and I reminded myself that firangs are a punctual lot, and the Asians in firang land become unpredictable, they are not punctually late.






So we got on to the bus and got to the first vineyard. It was long and slow ride between the ‘got on’ and the ‘got to’ part. The first wine tasting session, 8 types of wine, 4 white ones followed by 4 red ones but the last one was amazing. It was a red wine with brandy in it, and it tasted really good and smooth. The first was a light fruity sparkling wine. Quick lesson on how to taste a wine: swirl the glass (to let the wine breathe), take a sip (you cannot do without it), and then swirl it in your mouth (to let it touch all parts of your ‘palate’), and then spit it out. Well, apart from the few people in our group who were the local maxima in wine tasting, the rest of decided to skip step 4.  We were supposed to go to four vineyards, and by the third vineyard, all wines tasted the same. And no, it was not because we got drunk, but in general. I tasted 34 wines that day, 15-30 ml each, over the course of five hours. I used to like white wine, and now that desire has been killed (damn the abundance). I’d like to drink Tawny though (the one with wine + brandy), which bring up the point.. do I like wine or the brandy   ? 




While coming back to the university from the vineyard, I had to take a call, either go back home and then come back, or get off at Darling harbor itself. I chose the latter; the former would have been cutting it too close. So I also explored the central business district a bit, and it is quite a good place.



It is debatable if we are known for efficiency or not, but there is a good story on efficiency that I have, not necessarily the most recommended one. I have a cousin sister in city that is ~1.5 hours by train from Sydney, and I have gone there on some weekends, and take the Monday morning 7 am train. The first weekend, I got to the station at 6:58 and the train arrived as soon as I got into the long queue. The queue disappeared as people must have rushed onto the train with/without tickets, so I was able to get a ticket and rush into the train. The next weekend, I got there around 6:55, and the train arrives just as I got my train ticket. I got the ticket and rushed. The weekend after that, I went to the station early morning, got a ticket and came back home to have a comfortable breakfast. Thus, from efficient ways of getting onto a train I moved to using the systemic efficiencies available. The house was 2 minutes walk from the station.



Yellow Brick Road Part 4
kepron — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:53:57 +0000

And today I shall talk about memories. Not memories per say in the sense of dissection in ‘inception’, but of the memory of a good week long break that we took. But, in simpler words, I shall talk. So we took a long break and based ourselves in Brisbane. There are a couple of reasons why Brisbane was a good choice, and free food and a place to stay is definitely the basis of the hierarchy of needs, but the story starts in Sydney itself.



I had been aware for a period of time, that we would base ourselves in Brisbane in near future, and so had been the others; and as goes with all things that one is aware for a period of time, nothing is done till the near future becomes dangerously close to present. In this case, it was the flight tickets from Sydney to Brisbane, which started shooting up like crazy the day I decided to book my tickets. They were going up in the air by the hour, so I grounded myself, I booked a train.



As it is will most natural landscapes in Australia, the landscape was amazing. For ‘you cannot miss it even if you sleep off’ part of the journey, the railtrack goes by the side of the ocean. (No it does not go through the beach, yes, you can see the ocean); and the ocean views are generally flanked by islands of greenery, it would not have been surprising had I heard Jurassic sounds in there. So I had my lunch at 2:30 PM, I took a train at 4:30 pm, it was dark by 6:30 PM, and the served dinner at 7PM. Dinner @7pm !, I was still burping from my lunch and it was time to have dinner. But I figured that it would not be a wise decision to ignore food and spend a sleepless hungry night, I had dinner and slept, happy and content with the thought that I am wise.



After spending a day in Brisbane making plans, we went to the Stradbroke Island, which is some distance away from Brisbane. We took a bus, then we took a train, then we took a bus, then we took a ferry, and then we took a bus, just to get there. As we approached reached the beach, I thought to myself “it is absolutely worth getting here, the ferry ride was amazing. Let’s see if the island is worth going to.” And it was. Apart from the turquoise blue ocean and the sand coloured beach and the multicoloured rocks, there were also dark brown coloured kangaroos and dark green coloured turtles. And if you see photographs of a couple of us in a surya namaskar pose, you should know that it was for those five seconds of our lives when we wholly embraced yoga. And then after spending the day at the island, we returned to the base.



Next up was a road trip to a couple of other place. We took a self drive car on and headed towards Noosa. As had happened the last time we rented a car, this time too we got an automatic transmission even though we had booked a manual transmission. I do not think automatic transmission is as much fun to drive as is a manual gearbox. But maybe the car rental agencies have their own business models.



Noosa is a small city, with a couple of beaches and a number of backpackers. My highlight of the place being our experience of (not)surfing and (but)bodyboarding. Since I did not know how to surf, body boarding seemed to be a good option at the beach. Since I do not know how to swim, it seemed to be a good option to venture only so far as I could have my feet on land underwater. So I took the body board and ventured into the sea. I stood in chest deep water for some time, saw a good wave coming turned my back around to the wave, climbed onto the board , and waited as the wave passed under me, without taking me with it. Oh well, I stood upright again and waited for another good wave. All in all, in a span of an hour, I think it was thrice that I managed to have the wave carry me all the way to the beach. Having watched innumerable surfers surfing on all other beaches, I would have thought that I would do a decent enough job of bodyboarding. But as elders say, not till you do it, will you know what most important observation that you made was. In simple terms, experience is good even in simple things. What I now know is that I should have always been on the body board, and should have paddled with my hands when a wave came and that’s how one catches a wave. One does not catch a wave by standing in the sea and jumping on the wave as if it was a wild horse.



Next up was Byron bay. It’s a bay, like any other, just a little less touristy and lot better. And this time, we ventured into the sea. Of course, we were on a kayak, and for a couple of times, the kayak was on us, but it was a very good experience. We saw turtles and dolphins and whale tales, and a lot of sea water, and we drank a lot of sea water too. It’s a good thing we had life jackets. For a start, the kayak needs to be pulled into the ocean against the waves. I think that is the toughest part of the entire excursion. One needs to hit the wave head-on, and then as soon as the wave crosses from under you, the front portion of the kayak falls one meter through air till it touches water. It’s a very bumpy ride. So the chain of events sounds like whoosh, right, thwack, thud; whoosh, right, thwack, thud; whoosh, right, thwack, thud. The whoosh when we hear the wave, the right (or left) is the frantic shout of the people in the boat to signal which side of the kayak to oar so as to hit the wave head on, the thwack as the wave hits your body, and the thud when the kayak falls back into the sea. In case the ‘right’ sound goes missing, it is substituted by ‘glug glug’ after ‘thud’, because the kayak capsizes and the occupants are drinking sea water.



Then you go deep into the ocean, where the sea is much calmer, and there are no waves. The ocean surface of course rises and falls about a metre and half, so much so that there are times when you cannot see a of the other kayaks as your view is obstructed by the ocean. It is there, that you hear a whisss and  a whale creates a blowhole, and then you see a tail disappearing into the ocean. apparently the whales that loud a sound to signal to the other waves, the other more interesting phenomenon is whats called  a body mark. The ocean surface generally has ripples, but when a whale splashes into the ocean, the surface become absolutely plane, and this mark travels for some distance. It is as if there is a pond within the ocean.



After feeling refreshed with the experience, and tired with the paddling, we set out back towards Brisbane, via a town called Nimbin. It’s a small village of about five hundred people, it was not so much about the town, as the journey was fascinating through the countryside. The roads are deserted so one can attain high speeds. The terrain is over hills, it is like a giant roller coaster some, 200 metres of rise and then 150 metres of fall. Through the hills, with green all around, and the cows and the horses absorbing their fair share of the greenery. Side note- we travelled a long distance to get to  a petrol pump in Nimbin, and it turned out that it had shut down for the last two weeks, and will reopen in another 3 weeks. Good old GPS, we were out of fuel ! but thankfully, after a great number of phone calls and talking, we got some in jerry cans from road assistance.



So we reached the base Brisbane back, and followed the neon lights to Gold Coast the next day, before heading back to Sydney.


         


Yellow Brick Road Part 3
kepron — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:37:53 +0000

The first weekend in Sydney, we were off to pay our respects to the Sydney Harbour bridge and to the Opera House, they are about 500 metres away from each other, and are in viewing distance. Friday we went there because there was a AGSM get together there, Saturday we went there because we took a guided tour of the opera house, Sunday we went there because the enthusiasts wanted more pics. Had it been a temple my mom would have been so happy. We have shots of these places from every angle. Mathematically speaking, x1=taken from opera house or taken from the harbor x2 = taken of the opera house or taken of the harbor x3= taken in the day or taken at night x4= with no one in pic or with one person in the pic or with two people in shot or with three people in the shot x5= from the front or the back or the sides. So photographs of all permutations of x1…x5 are there with us, and some of them are really nice.  We took a photograph of us with the Opera house in the background, and captioned it “the opera house’. We took a pic of the three of us with Harbour Bridge in the background, and called it “the Sydney harbor bridge.”

The next weekend, or a few weekends after that, we rushed to the Blue Mountains, as they were slowly turning normal brown with green trees. Apparently they have a particular variety of trees whose leaves secrete a particular variety of oil which in particular weather conditions make the mountains look blue. But if they named them ‘particularly blue mountains’, I guess that sounds even more misleading, so to the normal mountains called blue we went. Good road, cows and horses, sheep and kangaroos, and this was our first experience of aboriginal names. They’re in a town called Katoomba. Side note : there is also a town called Wollongong. I misspelled it as Woollywong, and I was told it sounded like a Chinese sheep. Anyhow, in Katoomfba, there are three large rocks jutting out of land, and they named them the three sisters, so the three of us took pics together with the rocks in the background, and captioned the pic ‘The Three Sisters’.

We heard that there were bushfires reported in that area, looked like some teenagers thought it would be fun to warm themselves, but they were charged with the crime. So they closed down the forest and other waterfall and creeks for the public, which limited our ability to explore. Of course, what actually limited our ability to explore was our stamina, but it is good to have a back up reason as well.

Since we had been troubled by the forest fires the previous day, the next day we decided to go and find out the forest fires for ourselves. But the gods did not want that, they had made the weather misty and rainy, and it was in such weather that we took the tourist attraction of a cable car with a glass floor that goes above the valley. It was not what we expected, we were supposed to see far and wide and deep into the valley, but all we could see was the white mist through the windows, through the roof, and through the glass floor. I now know what heaven must feel like with clouds and walking on clouds. On second thoughts, it would also be a traffic hazard, with the angels bumping into each other.

On the way back, many cars overtook us, many bikes overtook us too, and a few of them sounded as if more than overtaking the other vehicles, they were more interesting in letting other vehicles know that they would be overtaken, and in no way am I referring here to police cars and ambulances. The point is that these bikes and a few of the cars looked new, were definitely not vintage, but sounded like the ancient roar of a drone. Maybe it is just the owners way of expressing themselves.

On another occasion, we took a walk from Bondi Beach in Sydney to Coogee beach in well, Sydney again. In terms on infrastructure, the Sydney council has created a path by the side of the ocean, over the rocks at  some places, close to the beach at other places, which goes by the side of the ocean. It is used a lot by some Australians for their daily jogs. For that matter, lots of places are used by Australians for other daily jogs, the harbor bridge, the beach, the parks, the gym… the Australians just jog a lot. Anyhow, the two of us were walking on the beach walk, and passing by some bushes. It was twilight, an in flew a small bird, flying straight into our faces. I realized the bird was flying straight into us, Harsha realized the bird was flying straight into us, the bird realized it was flying straight into us, and what followed was a symmetrical delight. The bird retreated exactly to the path it can come from, I restreated at 120 degrees from the birds line, and Harsha retreated at another   minus 120 degree from the birds line of flight. It was an interesting second of that day.

And now I shall turn my attention to another topic food, and narrate a story. Once upon a time in Prussia, there was a king Fredrick His people used to grow wheat as a staple crop, but wheat was not a sturdy crop. It was afflicted by weather conditions, and the people went hungry sometimes. So Fredrick figured that people should grow potatoes as staple than wheat. He issued a decree to instruct farmers to grow potatoes, and decreed that those who did not grow potatoes would be fined. But people did not grow potatoes. They were happy with wheat. So Freddy was unhappy. But he was a smart man too, and started protecting them. He instructed his gardeners to grow potatoes in the royal vegetable patch, and stationed armed guards around it, and figuratively, also grew gourds around the potato patch. Our dear Freddie figured that what is good to be protected is good to be stolen and used and cherished. So in a couple of months, farmers had stolen potatoes from his patch and taken to growing it, and that is how Fred succeeded in his plan and people lived happily. Even to this day, on the grave of king Fredrick the great, people offer potatoes along with flowers.  [What all I have written above is not strictly factual]

Talking of food, kangaroo and duck and crocodile and quail and emu.




         


Yellow Brick Road – Part 2
kepron — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:58:05 +0000

So there I am, at the airport, waiting at the immigration counter, waiting for the line to move, reading through a tourist guide book. The book tells me two things about Sydney. One, pick up the Sydney guide book at the airport, it has discount coupons that you may use. I look around, I find it, I pick it up. A job well done.

Two, it says, do not get into a taxi cab on a sharing basis. The taxi drivers will charge full fare to all passengers, and that’s the scam. Aha ! I think, conjuring up an image of a sly conniving taxi driver Point noted, and I make a mental note.

So I get out of the airport, and follow the signs for a taxi, and then I get into a long winded queue rails, the kind of which they have at roller coaster rides, the shape of which resembles the only way to play Snake when it gets really really long. Would have taken me around 2 minutes to get through all the turns (there was nobody else in the ‘queue’) before I realized that there was a side path that had been opened and I could have zipped right through it.

There was a notice at the taxi stand, mentioned the rights and duties of the customers. Must wear a seatbelt, can refuse to share a cab. The taxi driver did not fit the image which I had though turned out to be a smiling Korean who had jumped the taxi queue to get a passenger before anyone else did.

He dropped me home, and on the way we did pass through a bay/creek or some water body. It was night, so its fine that I could not figure out what that was, but it looked beautiful. There were three series of lights, one the lights on the bridge, second the lights of the boats and three the skyline beyond the other side of the banks, but the point being, it was beautiful.

So I got off at the exact address that I knew of (thank you GPS, and city maps) and I climbed up the stairs to the door, and I looked for an address plate to confirm the house no. There was none. So I decided to announce my arrival and looked for the doorbell. There was none. So I knocked. Then I waited. Then I knocked. Then I waited. The other two were supposed to have reached in the morning. Then I waited. Then I panicked. Note 1: it was night, and the streets were not really bustling where I could go ask for help Note 2: my Indian cell was not working Note3: I was not sure if I had given the driver the correct address (self doubt) Note4: I was not sure if I was knocking at the correct door. Note5: It had started to rain, though very lightly. Then I waited, I assumed that the both of the then would have gone for dinner or something of the sort, so I waited some more (while cursing them of course) by the clock, I would pay homage to the door every 5 minutes and knock. Finally, one guy opened the door, and it was the correct guy. My happiness exceeded the self congratulations I had afforded myself by picking up the Sydney guidebook at the airport. .

Admin information… then I took a bath after a very long time and distance, and readied the ready to eat and ate the ready to eat, and slept.

This was the Sunday night, and Monday morning I had a class, 930 AM  (sharp ? ). So I put up the alarm for 8 o clock, got up and 815, got late by 900 and walked briskly in the general direction of the university, while praying that hopefully the mba school is somewhere close by. The general direction was governed by the fact that I had seen the university signboard the previous night, and assumed that forty five minutes would give me sufficient time to refine the directions the next morning. Of course, given that I had lost 30% of the time, brisk walk would be my only salvage. So I see a board of the university, see a reception signboard, and march right in to get directions. I wait there for 5 minutes, ask for AGSM (the name of the mba school) and draw a blank. I do draw out a page from their map book though, and give her other details I knew. She looks at the map, and draws a circle when she figures out where the school is, then she draws a smaller circle where I was, and I mentally draw the perimeter of the university campus, where me and the school form opposite end of a diagonal. And then instead of drawing a straight line between the two end, she draws a thick road at the perimeter of the rectangle, and that is tha path I need to take. I thank her, take the map and run !

Thankfully when I reached the school at 930, I had very little trouble figuring out the classroom, and the class had not yet started, I take stock of the situation, and smile. Then I take stock again, and frown. In a class of ~20, I was the only one in jeans and t shirt. Everyone else was in a suit ! Now I know that I had missed the orientation class a week ago (Visa issues), but even so… suits !!!

So the class goes on, and it is a fun class, I think marketing mostly is. But the first class was particularly fun. There were examples from all over the globe, and getting to one consensus was really difficult. I actively shared my thoughts from the Indian scene, and I did not share my passive thoughts on the suit and the tie and the name tags.

After the class, it hit me [because someone told me  (because I asked him) ], that the suits were because those guys had a recruitment presentation to attend. Had that not been the case, I would have looked formally dressed in my jeans and the t shirt.  Ah! I thought, students are always students, be it the 20 year old undergrads, or the 30 year old MBA grads. On that note, I am one of the younger ones here at AGSM, where the average work ex is 7 years. It’s is a reversal from IIMA, where I am one of the older ones.

So there is another thread in here, one different stages of life and the affect it has on people. How one moves from planning for future to thinking what did I do in the past, without a jump in the between. But I’ll humour about it later.
 

         


Yellow brick road – Part 1
kepron — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:20:40 +0000

So I took the yellow brick road to the Oz, a couple of them actually, and as options go, especially the ones without data, I took the one based on perceptions. So much for marketing.

So why did I take the yellow brick road? In food terms, I had the option of either going off to eat kangaroo meat, or the option of going off eating grasshopper candy.  In area terms, I could go to a larger than India, or I could go to a country with an area smaller than India. In terms of language, I could either go to a country which speaks 28 roman characters, or to a country that speaks 40 hangul characters. Summarily ,  I could have either chosen to go to Sydney or to Seoul. I chose Sydney.

And I had the choice because of the brilliant system of student exchange. When in the second year at IIMA, you get to chose if you want to stay in IIMA to welcome the exchange the students who shall be coming in, or you can be an exchange student and go to another university and see if they welcome you or not. I chose to move out, I wanted to try it out again, do I or do I not like not being home.  Clearly I have an answer, the answer is not clear enough.

So an update on the background contextual facts – I am here at the Australian graduate school of management, Sydney for a 3 month exchange program form sep to dec 2011. I know that Sep to Dec is four months if you start at Sep start and end at Dec end, but that is not when I start, or when I end. So figure!

I’ll start from the beginning, and cut off the parts that are either boring for me to write, or might be boring for me to read later on; though I very strongly doubt that. I shall do either of them. The randomness in my universe still exists, and thank the word spell check for that.


I took a China southern flight from Delhi to Sydney with a place change at Guangzhou. I’ll devote some part to the Chinese ingenuity and communication skills. Delhi to Baiyun (Guangzhou airport)  is a 6 hour flight. Further to Sydney is a 9 hour flight. The Delhi to Baiyun was almost like an indigo flight. [the approximation is necessary] .  The plane had a sitting arrangement similar to all domestic flights. Single central aisle with three seats on either side. Two differences. One, the seats were non reclining. I was not on the emergency window row, so that does not count. Second, the earphones were ingenuine.  [pic: http://www.scansound.com/]. Of course, the plane did not have a video system and my stethoscope stopped working after 2 hours is a different story. But I had never ever thought of the possibility [ of stethoscopes, of no video system, and dysfunctions stethoscopes]. But to be highly fair, the flight was the lowest fare. On the day I booked, return flight cost me Rs43K , the next closest was 25% higher at Rs54K.

So as long as there is a seat in the plane and the seat goes along with the plane from city a to city b, I think I can live with that. Is it decides not to while in transit, and the life jackets work perfectly,  I might even live without that. Another item necessary for living is food, and the air hostesses might have been very good at eating the food, but they were definitely not the best ones when it came to communicating the food. All attempts to differentiate between veg and non veg were met with smiles, and quizzical looks. The paneer snacks were not good, I have never had crunchy paneer in my life, and I hope to not have it again. And there was alcohol. They were serving white wine and red wine, and after a lot of prodding, they also had beer. The division of labour was amazing. The food trolley has two attendants with it, each serving one side of the aisle. One of them served white wine when asked for wine, and the other served red wine when asked for wine. I guess colour difference was either lost on them, or lost in translation. I narrate an observation

Flight attendant: Do you want something to drink. (and I am not even going into accents)

Passeneger: white wine please

FA: there you go ( and pours him a glass of water)

Passenger: mmm..Wine. can you give me wine

FA pours him a glass of  red wine .that was closest to her. She owned it.

Passenger: I want white wine

FA: this is wine, this is all we have

Passenger: This is red wine, I want white wine.

FA: this is wine, this is all we have

Passengers sighs and drinks up the red wine while longing for the white wine that the other attendant was pouring to her dismayed ‘I want red wine’ passengers.

But it worked out. I landed happily at the Baiyun airport ( the flight was boring). It is quite a simple transition between terminals. Took me just half a n hour I think, as opposed to the ‘there are huge queues’ at Baiyun that I was expecting. I also managed to scout a few duty fre shops and had a first hand experience in what reading in Chinese would be like. The packaged food manufactures do not seem to have a liking for putting anything useful in English on their covers. The Chinese wine labels were in English, but lacked details (though I do not profess to be a connoisseur, I do profess to be able to read english).Then I hopped onto the second flight  i.e from Baiyun to Sydney. This was an upgrade, like a full service jet airways domestic flight. Video with 10 channels ( and five with oriental programs with chinese subtitles. The subtitles were of first class , i.e a kid who is in class 1)  audio with 10 channels ( and 5 of them in oriental music), but  I repeat, I reached Sydney safe and sounds, and on top of it, my baggage reached safe and sound too !

         


What do you do on Friday night ?
kepron — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:43:21 +0000
If the day was grilling it’s a barbeque night
Are you sure of barbeque on a fry day night ?
The February rains, should be a rainy night,
But a western state ruled, a dry day night 
 
So in this parched land, the gist of the tale 
Is that put in all you like to get a  mocktail
So relax in the lawn and sit in the grass
But why just sit, when you can fire up the grass? 
 
Used to go out, to wine and dine
In a dry state but, you whine and dine
Yes you followed the rules, and you followed the line
But you sniffed it up, the powdered line
 
It’s end of the year and a particular slot
The freedom of Friday all comes to a naught 
Now it’s a six day week, it’s a Saturday mate
The Friday freedom comes a day too late.

         


INT_RW_AV_ EEE
kepron — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:30:53 +0000

Munni was giving her exam. ‘What percentage of the earth’s atmosphere is nitrogen?’, was the question. ‘70%’. She confidently wrote. Maybe there are benefits of arguments too. 




She was praying for the school bus in the morning at the bus stop, praying that the nail she religiously placed in the middle of the road would embed itself in the tyres today. There was another guy on a bike who was there too, apparently waiting for someone. He seemed bored, and time to time, he would start the engine, rev up the bike and do a short 100 metre round trip. Munni was increasingly looking at him as a threat to the nail.




Her mom was waiting with her too, getting a little annoyed standing there, maybe because of revving sound, maybe because dad forgot to take his tiffin box, or maybe because she missed her dose of ‘Kyunki…’ yesterday, but her mom was getting a little annoyed standing there.




He was now talking into his mobile “Cell problem, I’ll just be there.”, he said into his phone, and turned on the ignition again.
“Why are you creating all the noise and sound pollution?” her mom demanded. “And you are also wasting petrol unnecessarily, creating smoke. We used to inhale pure oxygen when we were kids, and now all we get is fumes”, she fumed.

He looked at her straight in the eyes. “Auntiji”, he said, “You never inhaled pure oxygen, 70% of the atmosphere is nitrogen,” he laughed, and sped away.




Raj was in a frenzy. He could not decide; ‘but how can I not decide !!!’ , he thought ; ‘It’s going to be the same anyhow in the end!!!, and when the end is the objective and not the journey, how does the path taken matter ?’. That was too philosophical, was he already drunk? 




‘Vodka, not whiskey’, he decided, and quickly downed a half a mug of lemon, with half a mug of vodka. Then he repeated his drink. He had just broken up with his girlfriend and wanted to get sloshed. Now an urge was rising in him, because of the drink, and because of his emotions. Maybe he should go to her, try to patch up things. ‘I am too drunk to drive, but, if I can apply that logic, then maybe I am not drunk enough’.
‘WTF’, said he, as he walked out and got into an auto, and mumbled the address.




He heard a mobile vibrating on the seat. ‘Hello’ he said, as he put the phone to his ear. There was a man on the other side, singing a popular number, urging him to forget the past and move on. Raj tried to talk to him, but the man kept on singing, exasperated, Raj pressed a button on the cell, which finally connected the call. 




“Hello”, he said again. 
“Hi. Yeah, I lost my cell a little while ago, and the cell that you are talking into right now is mine. So it would be great if I could get it back”
“Hmmm, getting things back isn’t easy. You have to fight for it. But why do you want it ? As you were singing a little while ago, move on !!!, move on !!!” 
“I wasn’t singing !!! It’s the ringtone !!! I am comfortable using it, so why should I change it if I don’t have to. “
“Maybe it is good that you lost your cell. It’s an opportunity to explore what all is out there, look at what you would have missed had you not lost the cell… move on !!! I am the messiah of change.”, he proclaimed. “You think about it. Think about it. You’re just afraid because it has shaken you from your comfort. Call in 7 days and let’s see if change is good”; inflected Raj, as he asked the rickshaw to turn back home. Things do fall into place by themselves.




Jhule Lal and Mast Kalandar were out looking for eye candies that weekend, and what better place than the malls ? Jhule Lal was a straight guy, he always said what he wanted to. Mast Kalandar wasn’t exactly straight, and he could not say what he wanted to. 




They were standing against the railings on the third floor, looking at the world below them. There were couples all around holding hands. MK noticed a particular couple moving about on the ground floor. The girl was holding the guy’s hand, she kissed his hand, he stopped walking, looked at her for a millisecond, and gave her a quick peck on her lips. She stood dumfounded for a second, and she gushed. Then they moved on again. MK too wanted to hold hands, atleast.




“You see that showroom there ?” questioned MK
“Yeah, what about it ?“ winked JL
“So why is lingerie called so ?” questioned MK again
“Dunno, do you know?” was JL’s bewildered reply
“Because when all other clothes are off, it just lingers on”, MK punched in the PJ
“What are the six Ls ?” asked MK. 
“No idea”, said JL. 
“Love, Luck, Lust, Long, Large, Lewd”, replied MK
“Interesting”, pondered JL, associating each with an image.
“So why are the six Ls so popular ?” asked MK again
“Tell me”, answered JL. 
“We all have sex cells, that’s why sex sells”, beamed MK, and they both laughed.





There was a step in the right direction, but then, for a better headway, a bolder step was required. His palms had started to sweat. He could not let sweat on his palms be !!! He took out his handkerchief, opened up its folds, was about to wipe his hands, when he lost hold of it and it glided down. He watched it go below the railing, between the two banners near the first floor and fall right between the lips of the couple, just as the guy was about to kiss again. The handkerchief effectively blocked the guy’s advances. Ah, he thought, A nerdy guy named Laxman, and his sugar babe Sweety. Laxman graduated from computer science, with a binary view of the world. Sweety loved music, painting, dancing, her theme was the living of art; but she switched her theme to the art of living after her repeated frustration in the former.






Sweety was waiting for Laxman. She had been trying to call him up, but he wasn’t picking. Finally he picked up.
“I’ve been calling you for so long !!! Why weren’t you picking up , I am waiting“, she complained.
“Cell problem, I’ll just be there”, he said into his phone, and hung up.

“I’ve had to call you for so long !!! Why weren’t you picking up?“, she complained again.
“Calls I am not interested in picking up, you I am interested in, which is why I am here now”, he grinned, but followed with an explanation. “I guess there is something wrong with the cell. Sometime it just does not give any indication of the call, vibra or ring. I think I need a new cell. Anyway, let’s go. We’ll park the bike at the station, and take an auto from there.”




Sweety loved shopping, and she loved the sales, so visiting the malls in discount season was like heaven before death of her credit limit. Laxman was bored. “I’m bored”, said Laxman. “Oooow”, she said, feeling happily sorry for him. She kissed his hand, he stopped walking. He looked at her for a millisecond, and gave her a quick peck on her lips. She stood dumfounded for a second, and then she gushed; then she moved away, dragging him along for another circle around the mall.




“This is a public place !!! I am sure someone saw you, how could you !!!”, she happily exasperated.
“Well, I could do it again, and I am sure no one cares”, he replied.
“Nooo!!!!!! Don’t do it here, it would embarrass me”, she unconvincingly pleaded. “You’ll pay for this” she cursed.
“OK,I won’t, but I could, just like this” and he leaned towards her quick as lightning, but he was blinded by the flash of white, and he kissed a handkerchief which had fallen right between them. Sweety could not stop laughing. Ah, she thought, things do fall into place by themselves.




“Oh damn !!!” cursed Laxman.
“Hehe, see”, giggled Sweety.
“C for cell, D for damn, I think I misplaced my cell”, he said, as he searched his pockets. “Call up my number”, he requested.
“It’s ringing”, Sweety handed him the cell.
“Hi. Yeah, I lost my cell a little while ago, and the cell that you are talking into right now is mine. So it would be great if I could get it back”, said Laxman to the drunken voice at the other end.

“You’ve had a hard time convincing the guy it seems, what’s the status”? enquired Sweety
“Dunno, I think I am going to need a new cell”. 




Things do fall into place by themselves.

         


Because we care …(about ourselves)
kepron — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:27:03 +0000
Recently, I along with a friend of mine went to attend the ‘annual function’ of a software firm.


Software firm: A firm where people make codes or make changes to existing programs. The 3000+ employees originate from all over India and the work originates from all over the world.



Annual function:Similar to the school annual function, the teacher (manager) decides the events, the students (employees) toil for 2 weeks to prepare themselves only to occupy the sidelines when the manager makes a 10 minute guest appearance in a 15 minute show for which he/she practiced for 5 minutes and the principal (CEO) hands out the prizes. To ensure that audience stays on till the end, long after the food is over, there is a lucky draw at the end for the last men standing (because the tent-wahlas too have packed off the chairs by then).





The experience in itself was quite nice, reminded me of my college days. There were interesting performances on the stage, interesting people/incidents off stage, and I commented infinitely. Whenever you look at a out of ordinary expression on a person’s face, and combine it with the surroundings of the person and his current situation, you can always come up with  a really accurate ( hilarious) understanding of the background to his situation.


Couple of interesting things to note there



Sighting of the waiters: And hence I coin a new phrase, they swarmed upon the waiter like a group of hungry guests. There were these waiters who were roaming around (actually, tried their best to, with little success) carrying chicken tikkas, paneer tikkas, spring rolls etc. to serve snacks to people. People probably figured out that they were too hungry and that you need to take the horse to the lake if you want it to drink water. So they arranged themselves in concentric arcs around the door of the kitchen to ensure that the horse gets the snack. In preparation and anticipation, they were ‘far sighted’ enough to be standing with paper napkins ready in their hands to get the snacks. Of course, those who really-really wanted the snacks were easily differentiated as they were carrying bigger paper napkins. As soon as the waiter was sighted, he was stopped in his tracks, his tray emptied, and he was sent back to get new dishes; and many horses who had already had some snacks, got new paper napkins.



The root cause: Of course, the queues spilled over to the food scene also. So we waited for some time for the queues length to abate, then we waited some more, and then some more. Then at point we realised that there is little or no queue!!! Shocked, surprised but happy, we checked if the food was over. We were wrong; there was food, but few takers. We checked if there was something more attractive than food on stage, we were wrong, there was just a marvellous dance performance going on. So we decided that that was the time to finally have some food, which is when we realised the root cause of the no queue: the supply of plates had been exhausted.



Latent gymnastic potential: I guess it’s just ingrained in us. So I was in line for food and the queue is moving a little slowly. I am 1 feet away from the stack of plates ( which actually translates into 3 people), and I hadn’t picked up a plate as yet,  but the 5 people behind me executed full body arm extension to pick up a plate, and also pass it on to 10 people behind them. A true example of how we help out each other and how our nation has an untapped pool of some really good gymnasts.




The male provider: With all this jostling for food and plates and space, there was a substantial bunch of females who left it up to the men accompanying them to get for them the plates and food and all.  A particular instance of a newly married female (evident by her bangle covered arms) needs to be recounted. She sent her husband into the jungle to get some salad for her. The guy struggled with others and managed to emerge sweaty but victorious clutching the 3 pieces of radish and 2 pieces of carrot that he could manage. He pranced towards his wife to sing the saga of his struggle, only to be snapped at by the queen; “Just this much!!! (angry), we won’t enjoy food with just this much (emphatically, and notice the ‘we’), go get some more, I’ll wait for you (cajoling)”. And hence the guy lumbered on, once more, into the melee to find with his hurt pride another piece of radish, another piece of cucumber, and lemon and salt on them.




No one left behind attitude: Maybe we are used to running on scarce resources, or maybe we are too impatient, but in general, general disorder is what will follow if there is no one to police us. You should have seen the way people were pushing and shoving to get ice-creams. So there was a core 3 feet diameter semicircle of the people who were within an arm’s range of the ice cream, surrounded by 3 feet radius semicircle around them of people looking forward to getting the ice-cream, and then there was a 2 feet area around it, where, if placed, you shall be sucked into the crowd and return with the ice-cream. It reminded me of Bombay local, when all you have to do to get onto the train is stand near the door and the jostling will push you into the train. The reverse is also true, i.e.  The crowd will make you get off at the station in case you are standing anywhere close to the door, even if you don’t want to.




So there is a lot for us to see and observe, (and in my case to make fun of). All in all, it was a good experience. I would do it again sometime and let you know the new insights.
 
 

         


How Laxman waited till 21 to get fucked
kepron — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:31:55 +0000


It’s an office setup: office premises, office computer, office internet connection, office time, but the loss is all personal. Laxman lost another few thousand today in stock market. Laxman who was known among his friends as lux (pronounced ‘lucks’ or ‘lacs’) because of his marvelous run in the stock market, can’t wash his losses now.


Laxman was a prodigy in school, the batch topper. He had cultivated (actually, it came quite naturally) an image of a simple, hardworking studious type guy. Along with his fascination and understanding of the wonders which humans had created, came inexperience and ineptitude at understanding the wonders which god had created.



College did not help much in that area of social development, because of lack of opportunity. But anyhow, he slept through college (alone), lost the batch topper tag and was placed in a software firm. The environment was new (and it’s not just about the weather) and females everywhere. Laxman was in a frenzy. College hadn’t granted him the awesomeness of the core soft skills, and hard core skills he been visually inundated with weren’t any help.



So he started off on his job. He had his training and then was a shadow resource ( plus he was brilliant- geeky brilliant), so he had a lot of time on his hands. He wasn’t used to it. He had a sharp logical mind and was looking for ways to channelise his energy. Two unpredictable things homed into his mind: Sweety Sen and Sensex.



Cautious as he was, he took his first baby steps. He started talking to her in the lunch hour and sometimes dropped her home after office. He got to know her better, her likes, dislikes, past, present (thankfully she was available), developed a rapport, gauged if she would bid for him. He read about the economy, how it was reflected in equities. He read about the general principles of investment and return. He got comfortable with her peculiarities, and got comfortable with his niche stocks. And then he thought was well positioned in the market. So he evaluated his futures and options, and took stock.



Dec 2007 was remarkable month for Laxman. He was getting ahead with Sweety. The stock market was still on the rise. He had sent her a kiss on the office messenger. He had invested a good part of his salary in stocks. She sent a kiss in reply with an invitation for lunch that weekend. He was getting 30% return in the stock market. That weekend new ice was broken (his lips had frozen at the first kiss). On Friday, the Sensex had reached a new high. They had talked, she got to know that he would turn 21 in Jan. He had researched, a much awaited IPO in Jan. And both of them knew about a week long camping trip that a few office friends were planning in Jan. He was thinking if he should take things slowly. Maybe he should cash a part of his investments in the market. But the young heart, he wanted more. As she sat before him, he was wishfully looking ahead.



It was new year, and it brought new possibilities. He had a strong relationship with Sweety now. He was invested heavily in the stock market. Despite the vagaries and uncertainties, they thrilled him. Maybe he did not understand them, but it was all paying off handsomely. A week before the trip, he was told his project might get a soft start. The others were given similar hints. He worked harder that week to ensure that his leave wasn’t cancelled. He made harder commitments to work when he came back. To sum it up, his strong motivation made him work to ensure his vacation wasn’t cancelled. A few of the others weren’t so lucky or motivated. “The others backed out, so its just the two of us on the nature trip”, Sweet(l)y said. She looked beautiful. Laxman knew he would enjoy nature’s beauty.



In the second week of Jan, the index and Laxman, both were at 21. Then they went their separate ways. Laxman went up into the hills for a vacation. No phone calls, no emails. The index went down to 16K. No flats, no ups, it just plunged down.



And that’s how, in Jan 2008, after the phenomenon turned 21 , Sensex fucked Laxman.