As world shrinks…

These days Indians are travelling all over the world more than ever, either as professionals or for studies and then continue to work there. Half of my friends on facebook/orkut (social networking sites) are overseas. I, myself have travelled to 3 continents in my five years of career - London, Melbourne and now in Washington DC.

When I pick up Indian magazines every weekend I read about attacks on Indians in foreign land. It is very disheartening to read about the incidents and unfortunate that Indians are finding themselves in the news for wrong reasons. My friend asked me to blog about my experience in Melbourne. Lately majority of the attacks are happening in the land of Oz. so here is my take.

There could be several reasons why such attacks may be happening.

Job insecurity: Well this happens in India as well. People in Maharashtra protesting about migration of people from other states. Look at our own bengaluru. It is so cosmopolitan that one need not know Kannada to find his/her way around. Even the chaiwaala can converse in hindi/English. Infact there is a good chance he may be from another state.

Media: for all the unwanted hype. NRN once rightly pointed the way Indian media works. Any bad news makes the front page and constructive news is mentioned in a snippet at a corner. Even the Australian delegates pointed the same. Indian media is filled with many round the clock news channels. Bad quality video footage of attacks on Indians flash on the screen countless times a day. Remember the way H1N1 news created paranoia. Even I was worried when in India for a month at that time. Later constructive ads started appearing and the panic died down even though H1N1 still continued its death toll.

Australia is very outgoing country. Aussies are passionate and proud about their country. One of the least populated places on earth. If I were to make a point on their behalf, they would be quite taken aback with all the migration of other nationalities. But one question bothers me. Why are Indians being targeted? They are not even on the top of immigration ladder. Maybe aussies are afraid to test Asians martial arts skills or maybe the fact that India outperforms Australia in cricket.
Random attacks happen every night in Melbourne. If Indian media were not to hype about such attacks maybe the attacks will continue to remain random, instead of developing a pattern of bashing Indians alone. Many Indians who complain about these attacks also choose to be citizens of the same country. So why create a hoopla. No place is heaven in this age.

What should be done about the whole issue? Well my opinion is that there is no single/straightforward answer. Australian police has to get more vigilant, Indians should try and avoid being at the wrong place at even good times, and Indian media learn not to make a big fuss of it. Foreign nationals are raped and abused in India as well. No one complains about that or goes to their support. Things won't sort out in a jiffy. It will take its time. Let us learn to live harmoniously till there is oneness in reality. Peace :)

Australian cricket team equaled the world record??

Australia equaled 16th consecutive test match wins set by Steve waugh's team today. They defeated india in the second test match in the bordar-gavaskar trophy. But their win was not convincing and raised a lot of questions in my mind on the ethical behavior of the australian players.

Rahul dravid and Ganguly's wicket were clearly not out and the entire test match was a scene of foolish decisions made by the umpires which played significant role in their win. How much ever stressed or difficult it may be for the umpires to make decisions on the field they always have the choice of referring to the third umpire. But they continued to raise their fingers towards the sky again and again when not required.

I believe that the ICC should start thinking of imposing regulations on successive bad decisions of the umpires. I would also suggest giving limited chances of power to the players to bring in the third umpire and question the field umpires decisions, just the way it is in tennis.

By the replays it was also obvious that adam gilchrist and mathew clarke clearly had seen that they did not have wickets. but guess they were overcome by the greed to continue their winning streak and create a world record entering their names in the history books.

Like many games, cricket is also not a fool proof game but with so much of money being invested in the game and so much of high profile coverages being made guess the rules of the game has to be amended to make use of the technology used in the coverage. it will then be only the quality of the teams that will drive the outcome of the match and not bad decisions of umpires.

some articles which reveal the details more clearly
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329392.html
and more
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329405.html

Great Ocean Road

weekend number 11 and still i had not seen the most beautiful place in the state of victoria or maybe even in the whole of australia. so it was high time that i must be visiting this place. the wait was for the right initiation.
my friend venkat was returning back to india after his long stay at melbourne and somehow he had missed visiting this place.. that is until now.. so we grabbed on this chance..
the gang was made up of venkat,santy and myself from 3J; ramjee (sunil), srini and praveen from 6W and sandeep. sandeep had been there before and knew the right places to pitstop. he was also a great driver and enjoyed it. so we booked a toyota tarago which would be tested by sandeep's driving skills and our messing around.

the gang: (from top) venkat,santy,srini,sandy,ramjee,me

nobody minded to get up early on saturday morning..but we boys never make it on time.. whether its meeting a girl on a date or getting up for a trip.. so even though we had planned to leave at 7:30 it was 9 by the time we were belted in the toyota seats.
we had charged up our camera batteries formatted the memory cards and updated our ipods for the 3.5 hour journey from melbourne to the apostles.
even though i was the only one from karnataka in the gang (the others were from Andhra) time in the vehicle was not really boring. we managed to crack jokes on each other.. feed fruits, snacks and coke to our ever growing bellies and listen to favourite songs on ipod. so it was not long before sandy stopped at the first place. we were really amazed by the scene beholding us. mild waves, virgin beach and surprisingly no one else on the beach other than a few surfers. after a few shots for matrimony sites ;) we started playing the favourite winter sport of australia the australian footy. we tried a few kicks and catches at the weird shaped ball and managed to kick it into the ocean a couple of times as well.. but it always managed to come back to us like a favourite dog.. wish girls were like that as well in life ;).

first stop

we unwillingly got back into the toyota with sandy promising more beautiful places ahead. so it was more PJ's,music and feeding again...
next stop was the devil's elbow. its along the road and a very picturesque scenes of the waves dying silently along the road side. we took some snaps and hopped in again for our journey ahead.

devil's elbow

next stop was apollo bay, a small coastal town. since the snacks were doing no good we pulled over here for some burgers and cappuccino.
our next stop was the port campbell national park. 12 (well actually 5 now) apostles is its famous attraction. the best part was the helicopter ride. for 80 AUD for 10 mins you can hitch a ride with a pilot and get the spell bouding views of the apostles. the pilot even explains some of the features of the apostles but who will be willing to listen when there is such a beauty in front of your eyes. it was nature at its best and really amazing. i was so happy to be seeing this in my lifetime and kept saying to myself i am gonna get my parents here as well..

the helicopter ride

after the chopper ride we thought of viewing them with a closer proximity so walked along the pathways to get some better matrimony shots :)

12 apostles

London bridge (now london arch) is one of the attractions. they were formed and now being eroded by the waves. it become so weak because of the erosion that the bridge broke away leaving two tourists stranded who were to be rescued using helicopters.
After that we moved on to Loch Ard Gorge. oh... what a place that was.. not just because of what it is now.. but even because of the history. a ship by name loch ard crashed at this very spot and around 50 people aboard were killed. only two survivors were washed away into this gorge and found shelter over there. it is a great example of nature at work. it is like natures workshop or laboratory where every strike of wave is leaving its mark on the gorge. i was truly amazed by its beauty and spent some time over there.

Loch ard gorge

Getting down the human made stairs takes you to the beach where the waves lash with all its fury. it appears like white racing horses running towards the shore with full speed. oh what a sight it was. we managed to reach there at the sunset time and i just sat the edge of the cliff watching the white waves lash. the sound was amazing and the scene like that of heaven.

the virgin beach

we then tried to get some great shots of the waves lashing the cliff and us standing in the front on the cliff. some came good but most of them were a failure.. common we are amateurs.. it was dark then.. and as the sun set we started returning talking excitedly of the great day and some wonderful things we had seen that day. the return journey was silent.. most of us slept.. thankfully sandy ( who was driving the vehicle did not).
all in all one amazing trip i will cherish forever in my life for more than one reason.

below is the clip of a beautiful song shot at the apostles. its from the movie "dil hi dil mein".


if your appetite is still not quenched then go ahead and view this album..
Great Ocean Road