Melbourne Mantra

This is the written version of some video I saw, found it really funny, customization and additions have been done for the adoption purposes ;)

I come from India from its capital city, New Delhi. About 1 year back I was lying in the Sun…getting a head massage…eating oranges…while maid cleaned dishes…chef cooked food…chauffer washed the car…and I thought to myself …to hell with this life!!... I am going to the first world. And here I come for my studies to Australia. It’s a shared flat with too many Chinese, in a messiest possible way, paying huge rent in dollars every week. Frozen food, no rotis (Indian bread), no maid, no car, buying fruits & vegetables, daily grocery shopping, cooking my food, cleaning utensils, doing my laundry, cleaning room, public transport …I am living the dream! And given the weather in Melbourne…I am living an erratic dream.

But I have been making efforts to settle down in the grid and be like an Australian. I joined a global business school here, where I believed there would be no demarcation between any races. However, in the first diversity class, everyone was made to sit separately only with the students of their race!!! Truth is that I came to this place to find a better job and all the jobs that are here are going back to India.

I dunno what this fuss is all about. You heard people complaining that there are no doctors in India, coz they are all here. People complain that there are no plumbers, no car mechanics, no nurses in India, coz they are all here. For same reason, there are far less dumb people in India these days. After seeing the level of single students doing their graduations here, however, I hope people in India should not complain anymore. That said, India is quite different than one imagines… no Safeways or seven elevens…no cab drivers…no console operators…no cleaners…no fruit pickers…no bloody Indian curry… whole country is full of computer programmers and call centers. I was passing through a rickety road in New Delhi last year, and suddenly the mobile phone rings of the poor guy (seemingly) sitting in a road-side shack, when I was looking where is mine. To give him some credit I thought the homeless guy would not have a landline and then he suddenly opens his laptop and responds on the phone, “Customer Service. This is Christopher speaking”. I dunno what this fuss is all about created by these people that Indians come here and take our jobs, what a lot of rubbish…we could take your job…sitting at home!!

The other day I was moving around on the streets of Melbourne, and I saw a white guy driving a cab!!!! Really! It was a rare site, and there were these Indian people talking among each other, “These white guys are stealing our jobs!!” In fact, I feel, it’s high time now that an Indian company should start outsourcing to poor Americans. Imagine someone at the other end of the call at customer service saying in heavy American accent, “Thank you for calling Air India! This is Mahatma Gandi”

My siblings were very keen to see me in some big foreign city and get me to Melbourne, used to say that the city never sleeps there and people are always partying, and I came here to find that there are hardly any people here to be awake! When I came to this country and in immigration, they put me to an Australian Test, I wonder if I am so different from these people!! What I mean is…are we so different really?? Half of your public transportation is slow moving vehicles (read, trams); half of our public transportation is slow moving vehicles. You have to wait for 5 minutes to cross the road (as you wait for the traffic signal); we have to wait for 5 minutes to cross the road (as we wait for the traffic to jam). You can throw rubbish anytime while on the streets (as there are so many bins); so can we!! You waste far too much time talking to a person who you think is an idiot at the other end of the call centre telephone call; so do we!! You show sex in your movies, we show men and women running around flowers and trees, yet, we have hit the population of 1.2 billion!!! Apparently, through cross pollination ;).

I can’t think but they put me to this Australian test, the most confusing MCQ, complete the sentence – ‘To be or not to… a) be b) see!!!’ Of course I passed. The officer came to me and said, “you(r) English…you(r) English… is pretty good for an Indian…good on you maite.” I said, “well, you are not doing too bad yourself…for a man with low career prospects and looming pension crises!! by the way its not ‘maite’… its ‘mate’, you asshole.” See…you can’t afford to mess with us Indians!! These Europeans may have ruled us for more than 200 years, but they didn’t expect us to follow them back everywhere…did they? If anyone has been upset by anything I have written above… I don’t give a shit… we Indians have come from the land of ‘Kamasutra’… we can f*** in more ways than anyone can count!

Sambhar of 69

I had my first real six rupees,
stole it from my father's pants,
went to a madrasi hotel,
to eat the sambhar of 69.

Me and some kadke dost,
had it all and we caught bukhaar,
annie puked, mohit got ulcers,
and ganje ne maari dakaar.

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 2008,
still the sambhar was being served over there,
that was the worst food of my life...

There's no use in complaining,
when you got no other place to eat,
rushed in the evening to the doctors clinic,
but he too was at the toilet seat, yeah..

Standing there waiting outside,
nurse told me I will wait forever,
oh and when I held my breath,
I knew that I had to use that loo there,
That was the worst food of my life..
Back to the sambhar of 69...

Man I was getting killed,
I was full and restless,
I needed to unwind,
I guess nothing can wait forever - FOREVER... NO!!!!

And now the dhabas are changing,
Look at everything that's come and gone,
sometimes when I think of those six rupees,
I think that I should have never stolen those...

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 2008,
still the sambhar was being served over there,
that was the worst food of my life...

Being Twenty-Something

Maybe we all are going through this ‘Being Twenty-Something’. They call it the ‘Quarter-life Crisis’. It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like to have. You start feeling INSECURE and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are even right now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you think you are so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with over the course of time, are some of the most important ones you could have ever met. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing the same thing too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you are. Or, perhaps, only you are confused still.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or perhaps you are looking for a job that suits your interest perfectly, but realizing that you would have to start right from the bottom level, scares you off.

Your opinions have got stronger. You see what others are doing, how they are behaving and find that you are JUDGING more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and what they are, you start to define them and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. You find that you have become opinionated.

One minute, you are insecure and the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and CONFUSED. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try to cling on to your dear life, which is happening right now with you and let it carry you through. You are scared to take decisions. You are scared to change things for you. You lose the courage to do anything, and start accepting that what’s happening with your life at present is the only thing which is real. Soon you realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or perhaps you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a CONTENDER!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out. We should take courage, take the steps, put ourselves in the driver’s seat and be in control of the life, rather than life control you. We should make efforts and take pains, to reach out for the stars, before the stars fall flat on the ground…

New Year Resolution

I used to make resolutions every New Year when I was little. Since I was also normal, I never followed them up, as usual. After I grew up, I realized that there is no point wasting time in first thinking about some innovative resolution which can make your friends go ‘wow’ and then consciously trying to follow it up for couple of weeks and then regretting that you are no following it. Sheer waste of time, I would say! But this year, I think I have got some extra time to make few resolutions again. Innovative one, I am not sure…but interesting, at least for me.

1. Get back to the casual attitude and no serious stuff in anything anymore. I know my friends who know me would ask, what do you mean by go back??? But seriously…oops…I mean not that seriously…but serious enough to make a point… and still with the casualness to it…ok…I agree…this resolution would be hard to maintain, but no harm in trying! What I was saying is, I seriously (now shut up this time) believe deep inside my heart… like I would have to go really deep inside for this…, there is this small part which takes things seriously for some critical issues of my life… this part is like little small part…I mean very small…in fact sometimes it becomes invisible, but it’s still there nevertheless. But I think now I should keep this small tiny sometimes invisible part as dormant only, as far as possible. ‘Coz this small tiny sometimes invisible part has never ever taken me anywhere in life.

2. Get 6 pack abs! This is a carried forward resolution, I didn’t make this as a part of any of the New Year, but this was made when I started doing more than mere 10 wraps of the leg raise exercise without any support after joining gym. Now this one gonna stay for long, I am sure. But I’ll get it some day… now that’s the spirit!!

3. Get a part-time Job. This world has ripped me off in the last few months and I have only been signing cheques as if I have got some coin minting machine. My parents would get a heart-attack if they come to know the real quantum of my expenditures and the purpose for that. I know I would have to screw my a** off to accommodate some job with my full-time MBA program, which is already so packed up that it barely leaves me time to see my face in the mirror. Oh well, I think it’s coz of the fact that we don’t have any mirror in our flat. But then, I never thought that I would only be sleeping for just 6 hours on a daily basis!! And to make provision for the time to earn money after that (I think my current bank balance would let me survive for only 3 more weeks), I am in for a real roller-coaster life ahead!

4. Having birds as pet. I always wanted some birds as a pet ever since I was little. But my dad I guess was smarter than me as he somehow always convinced me his weird reasons for not having birds as pet! But it would be really sweet to have few birds flying here and there in the house and chirping around J

These are all for now, or for this New Year. I think the hardest one would be the first one, coz if I start following it religiously, that would mean that the rests have gone for a toss!! But even if I follow one of them, should be great!