calm in sydney

Hi guys,sorry for the delay in posts but I was waiting to comment on something concrete regarding the attacks on students in Sydney and Melbourne.Unfortunately,it seems that China has hijacked that issue and the media and government seem more content in being answerable to them.Very enraging and demeaning but true.Now why is that? By that, I meant,why is China being given more importance.
Now,as a student in New York I did fairly well in F.I.T,which for the uninitiated stands for Fashion Institute of Technology and is considered the Harvard of Fashion when I studied there during 1994-1996.My only competition were Israeli and Chinese students who took more credit per semester than any of us.Credits were the points allocated for a certain subject and an average student would take up to 16 credits which could equate to 4-5 subject depending on how much credit each subject held.It was tough competition from Israeli kids as they were smart,hardworking and intelligent.The Chinese kids were smart,hardworking and intelligent.I was over smart,hardly working and assumed an air of superiority.How did I manage to stay above? Well, a little bit of work was required and in subjects where the exams were essay types,I scored hands down as my English was good.The Chinese kids had a major problem there.This is one of the biggest legacies the Brits left us.....the English language.I read somewhere that 40million Indians(In India and worldwide),speak English as a first language and have better written and comprehension skills in the language.So much so that Indian teachers are being imported in hordes to England to teach English to the English.Now,isn't that ironical?Even when India was a colony,the Brits sent Indian teachers to some of many other colonies like West Indies,Fiji etc. to teach the locals English.

Coming back to the Chinese,right from my New York days I had understood that China enjoyed an MFN status with the US and despite arming themselves,they got away with it.I think many forget or don't even know that China along with the U.S,Russia,UK and France is the fifth member of the UN permanent security council members.Isn't that amazing? One Asian country among all these anglophiles,considering Russia also as a White nation.Maybe White Caucasians would be more appropriate.Even during the pre-colonisation days,unlike us Indians who welcomed Europeans with wide arms to help sove our infighting's,the Chinese always fought off invasions.I remember seeing this programme on SBS channel on how the Chinese captured the first French arrivals and put them in a cart,paraded them and beat them with poles.China also was an ally in the second world war.So as is usual from ancient days,after the battle's won,the spoils are split.So did the allies,and today the power equation that we see are the results from the spoils that were split.China also got away with being a communist regime and has emerged so powerful.In one of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, they refer to Chinese Air force as the biggest Air force in the world.Their Army is also a force to reckon with I believe.China has flooded the markets over the last decade or more with Chinese cheap goods and people are dependent on it as recession has been on and off world over.

India figures nowhere in the top agenda's of countries like USA and even Australia.Its very natural why.There's been no love lost between China and India over many issues like border and water disputes and the most touchy one being Tibet and harbouring Dalai Lama over which a deadly war was also fought in the 60's in which the Indian army took a good beating.India was a country coming out of 200years of colonialism and its army was new and weak.China had superiority in man power and weapons.The terrain where the battle was fought was again alien to the Indian soldiers who didn't stand a chance.When a country which is a permanent security council is the aggressor,the media coverage is not much but if a country like India helps Bangladesh to break away from Pakistan there's a lot of media outcry.Since China has an old axe to grind with India,Australia which needs China to buy their minerals and keep that boom going won't supply India with Uranium.I was shocked to read that China has been supplying arms to Pakistan which in turn gave it to militants who use it to spread terror in India.Isn't it obvious as to who put a spoke in the wheel of India's many attempts to get US approval on various issues like Nuclear and defence developments.

I was watching this Nicholas cage movie in which he was an arm dealer and at the end of the movie there was a caption saying that the five security council members of the UN are the five biggest arms suppliers in the world.Isn't that ironical?

As a student in New York,one of my social sciences Professor's remarked that India has everything going for it,but unless it has strong lobbying in the US at the senate levels,India's status would remain weak.Fifteen years have passed and the status still remains the same.

We need a leader who not only can provide stability and peace but also be an International leader.Rajiv Gandhi was the only one who could hold his own amongst leaders of other nations,but he was not allowed to live.

India's image abroad is poor and Indian's in India and abroad have to change attitudes so that people sit up and take notice.We are a great nation that has survived for 2500 years and more and we need to be respected and remembered.And others will only do so if we are proud of our heritage and our culture.If we ourselves deride our own culture and people,why will others respect us.All of us at some point are guilty of that to fit in with the "Saheb".That should stop and we must fight for our rights peacefully.We are from the land of Gandhi,violence was never our way.Gandhi threw out the Brits without throwing a single punch.Lets remember that great man and learn from him.Jai Ho!

Renting a Unit in Sydney

Is the hardest thing in the world! At least it will be on the top of the ten hardest things in the world.Getting a Unit in Sydney that is.For the uninitiated,in Australia, an apartment or flat is referred to as a Unit. Two months after landing in Sydney we moved out of my cousin's Unit as they needed privacy and we needed ours.We moved to a room in a boarding lodge which thankfully had an attached bathroom which was a big blessing.It had a common kitchen where we could cook and a common TV room and a pool table etc.I being the hardcore Indian I was, helped the manager in moving some stuff the day we moved in.I didn't have to help him,what with my bad back,but I did and I asked for a small TV in our room as compensation for my back.That was another blessing.We stayed there for almost a year and as the noise in the night by fellow boarders got unbearable we started shopping around.Hope everyone remembers what shopping around is? We went for many inspections and to many real estate agents.We didn't leave a single agent.We had heard some of them were racists and its probably true to a certain extent,but then ignorance is rampant and Australia being cut off from the rest of the world its understandable.The prices for rental were very high and the units were not that great and some of them were dumps.Let me tell you that at this point we both had jobs, and that topic I will discuss in another blog,but yes if two people are staying then two jobs are required.When I hadn't found a job many shop owners wanted to help out and said they would testify saying that I worked at their establishment.But the agency wanted to see pay slips or bank statements.It was nice of these guys,but we had to wait till I found a real job,the one with pay slips or money deposited into bank a/c. Once we had jobs the hitch was that we hadn't held jobs for a year or that we didn't have rental history.There were places where the agents or owners didn't care about all these prerequisites but then those areas were shady.I didn't want to stay with my partner in such areas,as security was important.

Agents kept calling and telling me that our application was unsuccessful and we were getting really disappointed with the rejections and with our stay at the lodge.Sleeping at night was becoming a big hurdle as some people loved messing up our sleep.

Then one day my wife saw a nondescript advertisement on the Internet for a unit inspection in a suburb called Dulwich hill.We had heard relatively good reviews about this suburb.But me being a person who can do one thing at a time only was hassled that the inspection was at 10am,we had to take the bus since the trains were not running,it was raining and we had a lunch appointment at 1230 at the house of a lovely Australian couple from church.All these were doing a ping pong match in my head and I had a big pow-wow with my partner and then she said that we would skip the inspection as anyway the unit would be given to some cash rich Chinese or some person with more rental history.I then thought of what my dad always accused me of.In his words "You will always give up when success was lurking in the corner".So, I decided to rough it out.Took the bus in the rain,got lost and wet,and finally landed up at the unit with some guidance from the owner on the phone.We had a nice chat.The owner was very jovial and he said the reason why he kept the timing as 1030 am on Sunday was to keep the Riff Raff's away.He knew most people would've got piss drunk on Saturday and would never make it to a 1030am inspection.He wanted dedicated and disciplined people who would brave the rain and come for an early inspection.We were all drenched.We went back to the lodge,changed and went for our lunch which was just down the road.The lunch was lovely and it was nice just to sit and have meal with people.In our lodge we didn't have any tables to sit and eat.The owner did the checks on us the next day and on Wednesday we had paid him an advance and had the keys to our unit.Can you believe what going an extra mile can get you?That was a lesson for both of us,to never give up.

Now we have been renting for a year and a half and boy it feels good to have an address.We have an excellent landlord and we are thankful to God for that.So my advice to all seeking to rent a place is to keep looking and attending inspections and applying.You might get lucky.I personally would go for a direct arrangement with the landlord as there's a more personal touch involved in it.Happy hunting mate!