Sydney Stories - Week 40

Hello,

Spring is settling in here. However the weather has been just a tad crazy with temperatures going up and down within a day.

People continue to talk about racism down under against India. However some happenings keeps me wondering otherwise. If not for anything at least with food. One of the coffee chains here called Gloria Jeans (comparable to Starbucks) has samosas amongst other pastries. Nandhitha's recent day care (yes we changed one last week) has a list of suggested meal items of which there is a special section with Indian suggestions for lunch and snacks (idli, roti etc.). However the one that has topped the list so far is to find butter chicken masala and lamb rogan josh in an Italian restaurant. Simply shows the number of Indians and their impact here. Wonder if UK has similar things going on too. I remember getting excited to see chicken tikka masala in a cross country train in UK. 

Finally got to finish watching Enthiran (Robot) this week. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I haven't watched any of the Hollywood movies that have been used as "sources of inspiration". It definitely didn't feel like watching a Tamil movie. Of course Shankar did ensure to give that feel by having Super Star chase around mosquitoes. Was that a copy of something too? 

Nandhitha is becoming more and more dangerous day by day. We used to spell words in English to say something that we don't want her to grasp. Last time Uma spelt a word to me and spat came the reply from Nandhitha. I know some of my friends had resorted to Hindi...but unfortunately that cannot be an option here.

Oki doki. Have a Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 39

Hello,

Happy Hump Day!!

Last week was extremely busy with work with a lot of "entertainment" in multiple projects. The trend is still continuing this week as you can see that it took me till now to write.

Here the trend seems to be celebrating events much in advance. One of my northi friends borrowed a ven pattu dhoti from me. Apparently they were having a Diwali party over the weekend and he and his wife were supposed to be dressed up as south indian wedding couple. The annual Christmas party which is a huge mega event for every company is also conducted sometime in November. 

Yet another Aussie word (or is it British?) that I am hearing often these days is "narky". Apparently it means sarcastic (or some similar tone). I tend to hear this more often at work when the "entertainment" gets more and more exciting. :-)

The era of what, why and how has started for Nandhitha. Recently she has discovered shadows and echoes. She gets thrilled by echoes in particular and tries it out every other time we are in the parking lot where there is a good effect. The other times she does a "manual echo" is when she doesn't want to listen to something that we ask her to do. Whatever we say gets echoed back verbatim by her and she calls it "echo".

The all smart GPS has some interesting functionality. It can read out every other street / road name in Australia, but it cannot read out the words "Metro" or "State". Whenever I have to take a highway ,say "Metro 88" it spells out "take M E T R O 88". Go figure!! 

Thass all for now.

Have A Great Week!!

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 38

Hello,

A fairly quiet week and weekend so its going to be a short one this time. :-)

While I was getting out of the Town Hall train station there was a lady handing out the free advertisement booklets to the commuters. In front of me a turban wearing sardarji was walking out and the lady said "Namaste" to him. That guy didn't care for it and went on. I did a quick wiggle to acknowledge the Namaste and she says "It was for him. Not for you." I had to stop for a few seconds there. Did I not look Indian enough? Oh well...

Thank You in Oz could be "Thank You - Ta" or just "Cheers". It does look funny as  you rush into the toilet and hold the door for someone and he says "Cheers". Sorry mate, am in a hurry. ;-)

Thanks to CWG, the local grocery chain Coles has been running an Indian special. The store employees were even wearing an Indian designed apron. Aussie - India Mate Mate. 

Some things our guys do does make us cringe. The other day a fellow desi was caught travelling without a train ticket. That guy had an absolutely shameless grin. Am sure he must've been a pro at this since he looked so confident not to have been carrying any sort of identification etc.

Oki doki. Have A Great Week.

Chetty

Sydney Stories - Week 37

Hello,

Its been crazy weather out here. One day it is in the mid-20s and another it goes down to 17 degrees. It's a long weekend here and it has been raining the whole weekend. What a waste!! Took Friday off as well. We celebrated Labours day in NSW. Yes, here the Labours day is a different day for each state. Had the best long weekend ever just lazing around the house. Friday night got SMSes from my boss and colleague from Gurgaon that I got the award for the best project manager for the past quarter. Not a bad start for a weekend. :-)

This weekend has been very important to Aussies. There were 2 major sporting events - AFL (Australian Football League) and NRL (National Rugby League) grand finals. AFL a.k.a "Footy" as the Aussies lovingly call it has a weird rule if the game ends in a tie. The finals has to be replayed all over the NEXT weekend.  The first finals happened last week which ended up in a tie between Collingwood and St. Kilda teams. The re-match happened on Saturday where Collingwood snatched the trophy. Not that I am a footy fan, but being here one doesn't seem to have a choice to get away from it. Last year while I was in Melbourne I was "officially" asked to pick a favourite team. I picked Collingwood since it was one of the stations on the way back home while I was there. Apparently the Collingwood Magpies were the most infamous team where people just loved to hate. I was given very strange looks by my clients when I told them I picked Collingwood. Last year they lost the very next day I announced my choice ended up making myself the joker for the day. This year they somehow pulled it off and won the "premiership". 

In Australia there is a perennial clash between 2 cities, Melbourne and Sydney. Melbournians hate Sydney and vice versa. It had to come up with a sporting event as well. AFL is a Melbourne based event (even though there are a few teams outside of Melbourne). NRL is a New South Wales or more Sydney based where all the teams are in and around Sydney.

I wrote to one of my ex-clients today that I was thrilled to see Collingwood win y'day and that I remembered them from last year's story. Apparently he remembered that incident too. Now the more funnier part is....I came to know today that they have yet to fill in the position I held last year!!! 

Keeping up with the sporty theme saw the opening ceremony of the CWG. Definitely was grand and a good show case to the Commonwealth. The one I was impressed the most is how they had created a mehendi on cloth. CWG has been the talk of the town here for the past few weeks thanks to all the infamous publicity. Hope some of my customers had a chance to see the opening.

Enough of ra ra ra (the Aussie version of blah blah blah) about sports.

One place I hate to like is Aldi. It's a german supermarket chain whose specialty is to provide low cost groceries (and others). They have the cheapest diapers without compromising on quality. As I was paying up I asked the billing clerk to get me a cardboard box to carry the stuff. It was a practice there to do so if we did not want to shell out extra money for their fancy shopping bags. That guy said "I don't have any here. Look in the other aisle, most probably you wont find one." So I did look around and came back empty handed. So I asked him again for a carton. He said "It is your responsibility to make sure you get a carton if you need to carry things out.". That was it... I just asked "Is that so?". Not sure if it was those words or my stare. He immediately ran around and got me a box to carry the stuff out. Unfortunately I will have to go back again there next time I need to buy diapers. :(

We made "tex-mex" cuisine for my relatives visit to our place. There were a few dietary restrictions this time as well (no preservatives, no soy sauce, no tomatoes) and of course mostly vegetarian except fish. The menu was "inspired" by one of our favourite restaurants in Phoenix called Sam's Cafe. Started with home made "red rock" lemonade (thanks to Emeril - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/strawberry-lemonade-recipe/index.html), chilly fish (this was a deviation from the theme), mixed lentil soup, veggie quesadilla and pasta. The soup was a hit with the kids. 

The day light savings for AU started this weekend. In other words more longer work days since we wake up an hour earlier and India wakes up an hour later. :(

Nandhitha had a good time at Lollipops playland. It's like a mega version of a Mc'donald's play area for kids to jump around. Went around for a drive at the Parramatta park today. Unfortunately couldn't spend much time since we went a bit late in the day. Hopefully a trip in the cards for next weekend. 

Guess my looong weekend has made it a looong story too. ;-)

Have a Great Week!!

Chetty