Indian Down Under E paper Nov-Dec. 2013

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The Indian Down Under PO Box 99 Thornleigh NSW 2120 Ph (02) 9875 2713 Mobile: 0414 155 402 Email: [email protected]

VOL 26 No. 1Print Post Publication No. 23572300014

Annual Subscription incl. postage & handling $17Newsagencies $1 inc GSTNovember - December 2013

Shanali Martin - the changing

face of beauty in Australia

16 year old MelburnianShanali Martin, of Fiji-IndianAussie heritage, made it to thefinals and was the popularchoice in Australia’s Next TopModel Contest

Inside this Issue:8: TIDU talks to PatrickSuckling, Australia’s HighCommissioner in Delhi21: Neeru Saluja inter-views Master Chef con-testant Rishi Desai22: Shanali Martin - NinaDavuluri redefining thenotion of beauty55: Kersi Meher-Homjisums up the thrillingIndia Vs Australia ODIseries in India

02 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER November - December 2013

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Pravasi Divas recognisesIndian presence in Australia

Editor's Letter

November-December 2013 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 7

Editorial/Advertising Enquiries: 02 9875 2713Postal Address: PO Box 99, Thornleigh NSW 2120.Email: [email protected]: www.indiandownunder.com.au

EDITORIALPrincipal Editor: Vijay BadhwarAssociate Editor: Neena BadhwarNorth America : Parveen Chopra

CorrespondentSports Editor: Kersi Meher-HomjiDelhi Reporter: Ritu Ghai

WRITERSThird Eye: Rekha BhattacharjeePolitical Columns: Karam Ramrakha, Mallika GanesanFilms and Art: Neeru Saluja, Abhishek Sood,Monica Daswani, Sumi Krishnan, DevakiParthasarthy, Neena Badhwar, Rekha Rajvanshi,Manju MittalBody-Mind-Spirit: Dr Sunder Das, KanakaRamakrishna, Faith Harper, T Selva, Dilip MahantySport: Kersi Meher-Homji, Dilip MahantyFiji Diary: Karam RamrakhaCookery: Promila GuptaChildren Section: Esther Chaudhary-LyonsClassical Music: Sumi Krishnan, Kris Raman,Lokesh VarmaTravel: Vijay Badhwar, Kris RamanHumour: Melvin Durai, Santram BajajSeniors Column: Santram BajajBeauty: Devaki Parthasarthy, Ritu GhaiCommunity: Neena Badhwar, Kersi Meher-Homji,Vijay Badhwar, Sumi Krishnan, Neeru Saluja,Savitha Narayan, Manju MittalPhotographers: Neelesh Kale, Raj Suri and JordanAnjaiyaGraphic Design: Nayanesh Gandhi, Dinesh Verma,Dhiraj Kumar,Bharat Bhushan Chopra/Bhagwati Multimedia

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The two months leading toDeepavali are the busiest monthsfor the Indian community. Couple

to this Independence Day functions andthe latter half of the year becomes fullyoccupied by celebrations, which we, as acommunity love, inculcated in us as partof our cultural heritage. There are manyfunctions – Navaratri, Durga Puja,Garba, Parramasala, Eid, Diwali Fairs,parades, variety programmes and cruisesall in the name of getting together andcelebrating as a community.

This year, even the Opera House litup for an evening, as well as the NSWparliamentarians joined the community intheir Deepavali celebrations at theParliament House in a bid to announcethe Indian community’s major presencein the City.

Another event, Regional BharatiyaPravasi Divas (November 10-12, 2013)in Sydney, has made its way into thebusy November calendar this year.Originally marked as an occasion to con-nect with non-resident Indians, beginningon the day when Mahatma Gandhireturned to India from South Africa, itsterms of reference have now beenextended to hold the event around theworld in order to focus on the regionalIndian Diaspora. Holding the conventionin Sydney this year is a testament to thevalue Indian Government assigns to thePacific region and the growing Indianpopulation in Australia.

While the topics proposed to be dis-

cussed at the convention – Diasporaissues vis-à-vis Indian Government, tradeand Investment, resources and culture –seem relevant to the community and thegovernments, there is not much freshabout the script which seems to follow abeaten track. The agenda has largelybeen hijacked by business and trade inter-ests rather than the people that form theDiaspora. The stark omissions in thethree-day programme are sessions devot-ed to issues related to seniors in the com-munity and a travel segment: learningfrom the Chinese experiment who giveincentives to their overseas counterpartsto visit home and connect. There couldalso have been a culminating sessioninviting the whole community to partici-pate and celebrate the ‘divas’.

It would have been nice to share theexperiences of Indian Diaspora from thewider Pacific region, especially fromSingapore and Malaysia who are earliersettlers and provide a different contextbeyond the Anglo-Saxon background.Thankfully Fiji is represented by formerPrime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, butif the idea was to knit together the Indiancommunity in the whole Pacific region,where are those members who easily out-number the smaller communities inAustralia and New Zealand and couldprovide the backbone of a relationship.

There is also disquiet in large sec-tions of the community that the forum isnot inclusive of the community it feignsto represent, rather formed randomly on

advice from a few powerbrokers of par-ticular political affiliations for their per-sonal benefits rather than the communi-ty’s. No wonder the attendance at theforum is aimed and deliberately skewedto make it an exclusive domain of busi-nesses and a privileged few other thanordinary ‘pravasis’.

The convention (let’s not call it aPravasi Divas) is still a step in the rightdirection to promote trade and investmentbetween Australia and India, share acommon platform to promote mutuallybenefiting ideas and recognise talent inthe community. Let’s just celebrate inline with the spirit of Deepavali – letthere be light for all.

In India, meanwhile, the politicalscene has hotted up with the BJPdeclaring Gujarat Chief Minister

Narendra Modi as the party’s prime min-isterial candidate for the 2014 parliamen-tary elections. He may carry a taint ofGujarat riots, is considered divisive –even in his own party, where seniorleader LK Advani hasn’t quite acceptedModi’s ascension—but he has electrifiedthe party giving it a good shot at power,which has eluded BJP for long.

A skilled orator, Modi is directingthe political debate, the Congress reducedto reacting to his statements. RahulGandhi has not shaped up to take onModi’s charisma, and the scandal riddenCongress party will be content gettingabout 100 seats in next Lok Sabha, opin-ion polls show. The problem for Modiwill be that his party even with allies willstill fall short of a simple majority andwill have to find more allies to form agovernment. But the wind is blowing hisway for the moment.

Visit us at :

www.indiandownunder.com.au

There is disquiet in large sections of the community that the PBD in Sydney is notinclusive of the community it feigns to represent, rather formed randomly on advicefrom a few powerbrokers of particular political affiliations for their personal benefit.

BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi.

8 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER November-December 2013

Patrick Suckling's interview

He exudes a certainsense of calm. Hishumble candour and

unassuming smile are infec-tious. His vision and enthusi-asm for Indo-Oz relations isendearing and his love forIndia is further fuelled by thefact that he holds a post-graduate diploma in Hindifrom the University ofSydney. He is AustralianHigh Commissioner to India,Patrick Suckling. A father ofthree, he agrees that he is inIndia at an important time ofhis children’s life, who willcarry a life-long impressionof what India is as a countrywhile he handles the busyschedule of carrying outdiplomatic duties in strength-ening relations betweenAustralia and India.

In a talk with NeenaBadhwar, Editor, and RituGhai, Delhi reporter, at theAustralian High Commissionin New Delhi, he shares histake on various topics thatcan lead to a great future forboth countries.

Excerpts from the inter-view…

India is important….Australia is keen to foster

better relations with India.India holds a prominentplace in our thinking. The2013 Australian DefenceWhite Paper outlines the pro-found economic and strategicchanges occurring and theshared interest of India andAustralia to address thesechanges. Australia holds itsrelationship with India inhigh regard and is committedto further strengthening thebilateral relations in manysectors.

Setting Trends…Australia and India are on

a fast track for talks to fosterbetter relations between Indiaand Australia. Post the TonyAbbot Government cominginto power, many changesare being made to cement therelationship. Australia, oneof the world's largest urani-um reserves holder, isalready into a series of nego-tiations that will enable ura-nium sales for India'snuclear power plants, on thekey condition that India willutilize the uranium for peace-ful purposes. We are com-

mitted to stronger trade andinvestment ties with Indiaand seeking cooperation inareas of Education, Biotech,Infrastructure,Pharmaceutical Agribusiness,and IT sectors.

Bilateral trade is on theupswing, and India isAustralia’s fourth largestexport partner and the eighthlargest trading partner. Thereis a lot of positive growthlooking up at the next level.Investments in renewableenergy (solar and windpower), bio-technology,urban design and water is onthe agenda. Since India has awater crisis, we are chippingin with the technology forwater management. India is asignificant investor, thelargest source of skilledmigrants to Australia and thesecond largest source ofinternational students.

Working with the dynam-ic country of India is des-tined to result in continuedprosperity for both thenations.

‘Young ones’…The future of Australia-

India relations rests in thehands of the youth armedwith dynamism and an open-ness of spirit.

The Australia IndiaYouth Dialogue (AIYD)sows the seeds for a strongrelationship among thenations. Australians likeHayley Bolding, who at theage of 23 set up Atma, anNGO in India and Jennifer

Star who runs Tara.Ed, anNGO training teachers inIndia, are a part of AIYD.

Already a growing num-ber of young people inAustralia are taking a keeninterest in India - in itstremendous social, political,cultural and economic prob-lems and potential. India hasbeen Australia's largestsource of immigrants andstudents. The youth can playa key role in helping to shiftold attitudes and find newavenues for collaboration andpartnership. This engagementbetween the youth inAustralia and India is boundto see positive bilateral rela-tionship with deeper appreci-ation of Australia's political,economic, strategic andsocial concerns.

In ‘defence’ of a greatfuture…

We also want to improvedefence cooperation withIndia. The year 2015 will seethe bilateral navy-to-navyexercises, stepped up mili-tary exchanges and regulardefence dialogues to mar-itime security and a jointnaval combat exercise in2015.

Both countries need tohave regular ministerial levelmeetings, professional mili-tary exchanges and navalexchanges to continue tocontribute to the peace andprosperity of the Asia-Pacificregion and to promote coop-eration in the Indian Oceanregion (IOR).

Investments and interestsin Australia…

Tatas have been here fora long time. Infosys isequally active in Australia.State Bank of India ATMsoperate on Australian tech-nology. There are more than30 Indian IT companies inAustralia. There is a lot hap-pening on this front.Similarly Australian compa-nies have also establishedtheir hold in India. Toll, ahuge logistics company, hasits headquarters in Chennai.The largest employer isAustralia New Zealand(ANZ) Bank with 6,000employees in Bangalore.Mining companies such asThiess and BHP are involvedin India. Australia is strongin education, mining, voca-tional sectors especially agri-culture, water managementand logistics.

Students’ safety atAustralian universities…

Australia has taken stronglaw enforcement initiatives toensure that past incidentsagainst Indian students donot happen. More policingand mentoring services tointernational students andcriminal prosecution ofoffenders have done awaywith such incidents. We wantinternational students includ-ing the ones from India tofeel safe in the country andin their campuses.

In conclusion…Australia and India have

always looked at strengthen-ing ties with each otherwhether it is curry, cricketor Commonwealth. Veryrecently ten Indian teacherstravelled to Australia as par-ticipants in the Australia-India School Leaders'Professional LearningProgram, organised by theAsia Education Foundation(AEF) with support fromAustralian EducationInternational (AEI), under apopular teacher exchangeprogram. Such programmeswill help build enduring tiesbetween the two school sys-tems, and also between thetwo countries.

Also the AustralianGovernment will provide2.53 billion (AUD 47 mil-lion) over four years for theAsiaBound program with584 million (AUD 10.6million) for the program'sfirst year of operation.

Jointly announced by thethen Australian PrimeMinister Kevin Rudd andMinister for HigherEducation and Minister forInnovation, Industry, Scienceand Research, Senator KimCarr, the first group ofAsiaBound student grantswill allow 3700 Australianstudents to study in Asia,from which more than 400Australian students havebeen offered subsidies tostudy in India.

For Australian students, astudy experience in India isan invaluable way to broadentheir understanding of India’srich culture.

This program will boostessential people-to-peoplelinks between our twonations, forging deeper part-nerships.

Under the newGovernment, robust Indo-Australian ties are predictedin the years to come.Australia and India are alsoworking on ComprehensiveEconomic CooperationAgreement (CECA) whichwould facilitate increasedtrade between two IndianOcean Rim countries. Indiais also turning out to be asignificant investor in vari-ous mega projects inAustralia.

Threats to the democraticsetup in both the countrieslike terrorism and transna-tional crime are also on thediscussion table.

Australia is alreadyinto a series of

negotiations thatwill enable uranium

sales for India'snuclear power

plants on the keycondition that India

will utilize the uranium for peace-

ful purposes,Australian High

Commissioner toIndia Patrick

Suckling tells TheIndian Down Under.

Oz in talks for uranium sales to India

By Rekha Bhattacharjee

With a change of the government inCanberra, the Indo-Australian bilat-eral ties are likely to experience

another upswing.The new Australian Prime Minister Tony

Abbott has made the better relations with Indiaas one of his government’s top foreign andtrade policy priorities.

As expected, China continues to occupyprecious space as far as the foreign policy ofthe new government is concerned. Judgingfrom his recent media statements, Tony Abbottis all set to toe the line followed by his prede-cessors while interacting with Beijing but Indiais not too far down on his priority checklist.

“India also is a good friend of Australiaand I hope in the years to come we'll have amore developed relationship,” Abbott saidrecently.

He reiterated his government’s commit-ment to take the Indo-Australian bilateral tiesto the next level when he met his Indian coun-terpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines ofASEAN and East Asia Summits in Bruneirecently.

"Abbott said he is committed to coopera-tion on nuclear issue and other areas and hewants to bring this agreement to closure at anearly date," Secretary (East) in India’sExternal Affairs Ministry Ashok Kantha toldmediapersons soon after the first bilateralmeeting between the two Prime Ministers.

According to media reports, the talksbetween Tony Abbott and Manmohan Singhcovered economics, security and nuclear rela-tions.

Abbott, who has spent three months inIndia as a young Jesuit, seems to have clearidea of the roadmap he is going to follow inarchitecting a new era of Indo-Australian rela-tions.

As an evidence of his sincerity to strength-en Canberra’s strategic relationship with NewDelhi, Australian Prime Minister has asked foran expedited finalisation of the ongoing discus-sion on nuclear cooperation between the two

Indian Ocean rim countries.It is expected that the nuclear trade deal

between India and Australia would be conclud-ed by the end of the year thus removing one ofthe most contentious issues out of the way.

It was the Labor Prime Minister JuliaGillard, who had weathered strong oppositionfrom within her party ranks, cleared the wayfor export of Australian uranium to India inDecember 2011. While previous Liberal PrimeMinister John Howard had flagged a thaw inthe frosty Indo-Australian relations, it was thesuccessive Labor governments led by KevinRudd and Julia Gillard, which took the bilater-al ties to new heights.

Besides facilitating uranium supply toIndia, Tony Abbott is also expected to contin-ue with a number of initiatives taken by hispredecessor Labor governments to bolsterbilateral ties with India which is the fourthlargest trading partner of Australia.

Energy supplies (including uranium, gasand coal), defence cooperation, vocationaltraining, higher education, joint scientificresearch and water management are some ofthe areas where both of the countries wereworking closely under Labor government.

Most of the India watchers and foreignpolicy experts believe that the change of guardat Canberra would not translate into a change

in how Australia perceives India’s position inthe regional affairs.

Rory Medcalf, Director of theInternational Security Program at the LowyInstitute, is one such political commentatorwho firmly believes that the new governmentin Canberra “marks the best kind of continuitywhen it comes to strengthening ties betweenthe Indian Ocean democracies”.

Tony Abbott has never pretended that for-eign policy is his forte. It is believed in thepolitical circles that he would continue to prac-tice, though uncharacteristically, rhetoricalmodesty while dealing with the global heavy-weights.

"It is not the job of the Australian PrimeMinister to stand up and give lectures to thewider world," proclaimed the new AustralianPM at the recent summit.

The Liberals’ approach of ‘business first’augurs well for the Indo-Australia bilateralties. As one of the political commentator GregSheridan has recently opined: “Two govern-ments -- Tokyo and New Delhi -- were partic-ularly happy Australia changed government onSeptember 7. They both felt neglected underLabor and didn't like the obsession Laborseemed to have with China, even if this obses-sion did not routinely produce good, calm,predictable Beijing-Canberra relations.”

Want smart offspring?Marry an intelligentwoman.

Research has proved whatwomen have known instinctivelyall along – they are the brainsbehind their men – not just theirpartners, but their sons as well.

In a magazine called TheLancet Medical Journal, GillianTurner said that the genes a maninherits from his mother play agreater role in determining hisintelligence than those he acquiredfrom his father.

“A woman may be driven tomate by her partner’s physique butthe brightness of her children lieswithin her,” said Prof Turner.

The genes which determineintelligence appear to be located onthe X chromosome, the one meninheris from women. A woman

inherits two X chromosomes – onefrom each parent – while men haveonly one which is matched with theY chromosome inherited from thefather. The Y chromosome doesnot carry enough genes to matcheveryone found on the X chromo-some.

Prof Turner said this mayexplain why some men are extraor-dinarily intelligent – and mostdimwits are men. Certainly genius-es throughout the ages wouldappear to have been profoundlyinfluenced by their mothers.Shakespeare, Mozart, Einstein andNewton all owed their brains totheir mothers, said Prof Turner.

Charles Dickens’ grandmotherwas famous for her story tellingabilities. Pablo Picasso’s father wasa farmer but there were twopainters among his mother’s ances-

tors. Winston Churchill was anoth-er Mummy’s boy who adored hisbrilliant and sophisticated motherJenny.

None of this would surpriseSigmund Freud who analysed hisown passionate love for his motherAmalia; at the same time introduc-ing the concept of the OedipusComplex.

Recalling his childhood, hewrote, ‘A man who has been theindisputable favourite of his motherkeeps for life the feeling of a con-queror, that confidence of successwhich often induces real success.He later went on to say, ‘Mystrength has its roots in my rela-tions with my mother’.

So perhaps the old Jewish jokeis right after all: What does it mat-ter as long as he is a good boy andloves his mother?


The Third Eye by Rekha Bhattacharjee

Analysis

New Australian government flags better ties with India

Intelligent men ‘owe it to Mum’

New Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott with his Indian counterpart ManmohanSingh during the 11th India-ASEAN Summit in Brunei.

Charles Dickens’ grandmother was famous for her story telling abilities. Pablo Picasso’s father was a farmer but there were twopainters among his mother’s ancestors. Winston Churchill was

another Mummy’s boy who adored his brilliant and sophisticated mother Jenny.

Abbott, who has spentthree months in India asa young Jesuit, seems tohave clear idea of theroadmap he is going tofollow in architecting anew era of Indo-Australian relations.

New Delhi:Many thingshave changedrapidly in Indianpolitics in thepast few years,but not the tex-tual patterns inRahul Gandhi'sspeeches.Typically hestarts off withUPA's petschemes, getsinto current affairs and theninvariably veers towards hisfamily, while lashing out atthe BJP in between.

On October 14, he told arally in Shahdol in MadhyaPradesh how his mothersought to make sure that theFood Security Bill was passedin Parliament despite beingunwell.

Then on Wednesday, theCongress vice-presidentreferred to the violent deathsof his father and grandmoth-er, telling the crowd at Churuin Rajasthan that "even I mayget killed".

Will such an allusion tosacrifices and martyrdomwork? Political scientists andsociologists say such "pro-family scripts" may haveworked in the past, they donot go down all that well withyounger voters now. Thisbloc could well be critical atthe next election -- the medi-an age of the population

is 28. Rhetoric is important in

speeches, but rhetoric is notan area of Rahul’s compe-tence. Invoking history maynot have much of an impactin a country where the major-ity of voters are looking tothe future, said a seniorCongress party functionary,who didn't want to be named."Enterprising young men orwomen are sick of such talkand such speeches cut no icewith them," he said.

Now, what worriesCongressmen more than a badscript is the rhetorical flourishand skilled oratory of theBJP's prime ministerial candi-date Narendra Modi.

"Modi clearly has greatappeal among India's middleclass and business elite, what-ever their religious and casteidentity and it remains to beseen if this popularity willdilute Hindutva as a politicalagenda," Devji said.


India

New Delhi: The BJP has pickedup support since naming Hindunationalist Narendra Modi as itscandidate for prime minister inSeptember, but would need alliesto form a government, two newopinion polls show, Reutersreported in late October.

The world's largest democracyis due to hold its largest ever gen-eral election within the next sixmonths. Modi, three times chiefminister of Gujarat, was put for-ward by the main opposition partyin September, cementing the riseof a leader who many think iscapable of turning round the econ-omy but who remains tainted bydeadly religious riots that brokeout on his watch in 2002.

The ruling Congress party hasled a coalition government fornearly a decade but is headed forits worst ever performance in ageneral election as it battles allega-tions of corruption and a sluggisheconomy, a survey by pollstersTeam Cvoter for two televisionnetworks showed. The surveyforecasts the BJP to pick up 162

seats. The last Cvoter survey con-ducted in August, before Modiwas named, forecast the partywould get 130 seats, up from the116 it now holds.

The Congress tally would dropto 102 seats from the 206 it nowholds in the 545-member lowerhouse of parliament if voting inthe election were to reflect thepoll, conducted for the India TVand Times Now networks.

A coalition led by the BJP isexpected to win 186 seats, mean-ing the BJP would have to findnew allies among regional partiesif it were to form a government.To rule, a party needs the supportof 272 members of parliament.

The BJP and Congress areIndia's largest national parties butpolitical power has shifted inrecent years to smaller regional orstate-level parties, making them

kingmakers during coalition build-ing and giving them more influ-ence over policy.

Modi is credited with helpingGujarat's economy achieve aver-age yearly growth in the doubledigits in the past decade and he ispopular among many wealthy busi-nessmen. But he remains a polaris-ing figure, even within his ownparty, and some analysts believehe would struggle to cobbletogether a coalition.

A federal government beholdento regional parties with their owndiverse agendas could be fragileand unwieldy, making it harder tomanage Asia's third-largest econo-my, whose growth rate has alreadyslowed to a decade low after aperiod of policy paralysis.

However, another opinion poll,released on Thursday, suggestedthe BJP could make major gainsagainst regional rivals in UttarPradesh and Bihar, home to aquarter of the population of 1.2billion. In Uttar Pradesh, whichcontributes more seats to parlia-ment than any other state, the BJP

will emerge as the largest party,ending years of dominance by twolocal politicians, the poll, carriedout by Nielsen for the EconomicTimes newspaper, showed. It pre-dicted 27 seats for the party out of80 at stake, almost three times itstally in the last election.

Survey respondents said riotslast month that pitted Hindusagainst Muslims in Uttar Pradesh,killing at least 50, were likely toconsolidate Hindu votes behind theparty. Elections are notoriouslyhard to predict in India, which hasvery complex demographics.

The Cvoter study was based ona national sample of 24,284 ran-domly selected respondents. Thedata was collected between August16 and October 15 - the periodfour weeks before and four weeksafter Modi was declared as theBJP's candidate.

The Nielsen poll used a sampleof 8,494 respondents, a mix ofvoters and opinion leaders, in ruraland urban areas of two states. Thedata was collected betweenSeptember 4 and September 26.

By Rekha Bhattacharjee

The Indo-Australian bilateral rela-tions are showing signs ofstrengthening further under the

Tony Abbott government as both thecountries have decided to hold thethird round of negotiations to finalise aCivil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement(CNCA).

The talks to finalise the nuclearagreement would be held in New Delhifrom November 25 and are likely toclear the way for the supply of thecrucial nuclear fuel to India.

The CNCA was also on the top ofthe agenda as the Foreign Ministers ofboth countries, Salman Khurshid andJulie Bishop, met in Perth recently.

The Liberal Government's will-ingness to expedite the process isbeing seen as a sign of the robustIndo-Australian ties in the years tocome. Australian Foreign Minister hasalso been clear about herGovernment's willingness to make spe-cial efforts to bolster the bilateral tieswith a country which is the fifthlargest export market for Australia.

“Advancing relations with India isa priority for the Australian govern-ment…Our discussion followed veryproductive talks between PrimeMinister Tony Abbott and PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh at the annu-al Leaders’ Meeting in Brunei onOctober 10,” Julie Bishop said in amedia conference after meeting herIndian counterpart Salman Khurshid.

Indian Foreign Minister was inPerth to attend the Indian OceanRegion Association for RegionalCooperation (IOR-ARC) meeting.

“We agreed that conclusion of ahigh-quality comprehensive economiccooperation agreement would underpina further significant expansion of thetrade and investment relationship tomutual benefit,” Julie Bishop said.

Both the countries discussed theimportance of building a strategic rela-

tionship focussing not only energysecurity but also various other mattersincluding trade, defence, environment,etc. Julie Bishop also gave an indica-tion that both the countries are work-ing to finalise dates for the secondministerial meeting on energy security.

“Following the successful visit byIndian Defence Minister Antony toAustralia in June, we also had gooddiscussions on how to strengthen oursecurity and strategic cooperation,including reviewing progress towardsconducting a bilateral maritime exer-cise in 2015,” Australian ForeignMinister has been quoted as saying.Interestingly, India and Australia havealso added cyber security dialogue tothe bilateral talks' agenda. The first ofsuch parlays would be organised in thefirst half of 2014. Threats to the demo-cratic setup in both the countries liketerrorism and transnational crime arealso on the discussion table.

Australia and India are also work-ing on Comprehensive EconomicCooperation Agreement (CECA)which would facilitate increased tradebetween two Indian Ocean Rim coun-tries.

India is willing, according to themedia reports, to strengthen the eco-nomic ties even further as multibillion

dollar contract for sourcing Australiangas has been inked.

The defence cooperation betweentwo countries is also fast turning into areality as navies of India and Australiahave staged joint exercises. Both thecountries have also laid stress on thesecurity of sea lanes in an era whenChina is beginning to exert supremacyand is flexing muscle all over theregion.

“We agreed that conclusion of ahigh-quality comprehensive economiccooperation agreement would underpina further significant expansion of thetrade and investment relationship tomutual benefit,” Julie Bishop said inPerth.

Australia's first woman PrimeMinister Julia Gillard took someimportant initiatives to improve Indo-Australian relations. The last LiberalPrime Minister John Howard alsodeserves the credit for showing fore-sight in listing India as among thecountries with whom Australia shouldhave strong ties.

India is Australia’s fifth-largestexport market, the largest source ofskilled migrants and the second largestsource of international students. Indiais also turning out to be a significantinvestor in various mega projects inAustralia. The balance of trade isstrongly tilted in favour of Australiaand it is yet to be seen if India man-ages to improve her exports toAustralia in the future or not.

In another sign of the growing tiesbetween India and Australia, a majorregional conference of persons ofIndian origin, the Pravasi BharatiyaDivas is being organised in Sydneythis month.

It is heartening to note that whileIndians are finally getting over thealleged racism row, there is also reali-sation in Canberra that there is muchmore much more to Australia's rela-tionship with India than the clichés likecricket, curry and the Commonwealth.

Narendra Modi has energized the BJP and become atalking point in India.

Rahul Gandhi has displayed lack of energy and new ideas.

The Civil Nuclear CooperationAgreement (CNCA) was on the topof the agenda at the meeting of theforeign ministers of both countries,Salman Khurshid and Julie Bishop,

in Perth recently.

Rahul Gandhi may needa better script to

overcome Modi’s pitch

India, Oz to finalise civic nuclear pact

Modi as PM candidate boosts BJP's chances: polls


India spreads its wings inAsia-Pacific region

By Saroj Mohanty

India is so situated that it is the pivot ofWestern, Southern and Southeast Asia.Though not directly a Pacific state, India

will invariably exercise an important influencethere. India will also develop as the centre ofeconomic and political activity in the IndianOcean area in the Southeast Asia and right upto the Middle East."

Jawaharlal Nehru's words nearly 70 yearsago ring true today as Indian Prime MinisterManmohan Singh rounds off his major diplo-matic missions with visits to Russia and Chinathis week, after trips to the US and SoutheastAsia, indicating the strategic direction ofIndia's relations with the larger Asia-Pacificregion.

Asia-Pacific security figured in his talkswith President Barack Obama last month andwith East Asia Summit partners like Japanand Australia this month. It figured again inhis talks with President Vadimir Putin in lateOctober where they discussed cooperation ineconomic, energy, defense,counter-terrorismand people-to-people contact.

Russia has put up a proposal to create asecurity architecture involving the East AsiaSummit partners for the region, which hasemerged as a vital centre of economic growthand political influence. Russia is seeking toboost its presence in the Pacific, bridge thegap between its own policies toward Asia andEurope, and figure out a way to work withregional players.

"Russia's policy in the Asia Pacific isdeliberate and focused, aimed at a stable bal-ance of power and the development of trulyregional agenda. We are of course alreadybenefiting from our time-tested friendshipswith China, India and Vietnam," RussianForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov said inOctober, adding that Putin has "personallysignalled his commitment" to these efforts.

As part of a new charm offensive in theSoutheast Asia, Chinese Premier Li Keqiangat the 16th ASEAN-China Summit in Bruneilast month proposed cooperation in sevenareas, including boosting maritime coopera-tion and exchanges in the field of security anddiscussions on signing a Treaty on GoodNeighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation.

Earlier in April, President Xi Jinping toldthe Bao Forum that China will promotefriendship and partnership with neighbours.

Constructing a sustainable regional securi-ty architecture has been a much talked aboutissue amidst the growing military tensions --on the one hand between China and the EastAsian neighbours and, on the other, betweenChina and the US. Maritime security is one ofthe biggest concerns in the region. Brunei, thePhilippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia

are embroiled in territorial disputes withChina over several resource-rich islands in theSouth China Sea. India has its own issueswith the South China Sea. China has chal-lenged India' drilling on an oil bloc awardedto it by Vietnam.

And it is believed that any miscalculationsover territorial disputes could disrupt tradeflows and have global consequences.

"We should reaffirm the principles ofmaritime security, including the right of pas-sage and unimpeded commerce in accordancewith international law, and peaceful settlementof maritime disputes," Manmohan Singhreminded the East Asia Summit members.

And at the 11th ASEAN-India Summit,the PM declared India's readiness to respondto the ASEAN request to strengthen itsPolitical Security Community Blueprint 2015.

Also the situation in Afghanistan, MiddleEast and North Africa which directly affectsthe national interests of the two countrieswould be on the agenda. Both India andRussia share a common concern about thefuture of Afghanistan after the US and NATOpullout after 2014.

"We are in solidarity with our Indianfriends that we should continue to negotiateclosely our approaches to what is happeningin Afghanistan and around the country, partic-ularly with due account of the factor of2014," Lavrov said after talks with Indianforeign minister Salman Khurshid in Moscow.

"Trilateral relations are very important,"said Khurshid, adding that foreign ministersof India, Russia and China (RIC) will meet inNovember in Delhi. "The ASEM (Asia-Europe) ministers will also gather."

Russia is supportive of India's member-ship in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO), holding that the regional securitygroup will certainly benefit from this. "Webelieve that the time has come," said Lavrov.

Currently, India has an observer status inthe organisation. India has sought peace andprosperity throughout the Asia-Pacific and anopen and inclusive security architecture. It isnot known what would be the rules of theroad and how and in what way the gamewould be played. But one thing is certain.India, with its democratic governance leadingto transparency in foreign policy motives,would be right there playing the game with astraight bat.

The prime minister's regional swing isaimed not just at fostering a network of strongrelations among the region's major players,but reinforcing the strategic and economicinterests that India's Look East policy, nowextending to the Indo-Pacific, has long recog-nised.

(Saroj Mohanty is a strategic affairs analyst at IANS)

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the 8th East Asia Summit in Brunei, Oct. 10, 2013.

India


India

Festive fervor grips IndiaKolkata/New Delhi:With tears in their eyes, scrambling totouch her feet one last time, devoteesacross West Bengal bade goodbye totheir beloved Durga as her idols were

immersed in ponds, lakes and rivers onVijaya Dashami.

More than 2,700 community pujaswere organized in Kolkata.

In New Delhi, President Pranab

Mukherjee and Prime MinisterManmohan Singh witnessed Dussehracelebrations, marked by the burning ofthe Ravana effigy.

Vice President Hamid Ansari and

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi werealso at the Subhash Maidan here as theeffigies of Ravana, his brotherKumbhakarna and son Meghnad were burned.

Asaram Bapuadmits 'touching'

Surat-based woman

Jailed in fodder scam, Lalu Yadavdisqualified from Lok Sabha

An effigy of Ravana being burnt atGhatkopar in Mumbai

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi at Ramlila Ground in New Delhi

An idol of Goddess Durga being immersed on the banks ofHoogly river in Kolkata.

Ahmedabad: The self-styledgodman Asaram Bapu has con-fessed to 'touching' the womanwho has complained of beingsexually assaulted by him.According to reports, fearingthe lie-detector test, Asaramtold the interrogating team ofAhmedabad police that he had'touched' the girl in his person-al room at the ashram but hewas giving her mantra deeksha.Asaram also said that he used tocall the woman frequently to hiscottage, but denied sexuallyassaulting her. He admitted thathe knew the woman very wellas she was staying in hisAhmedabad ashram.

As the complainant refusedto face Asaram, they both hadto sit with back towards eachother, within the hearing range,at the Gujarat ATS headquar-ters. It has been reported thatpolice asked 40 questions toboth of them related to sexualassault complaint. The cross-interrogation, which has been

"videographed" went on for 8hours. The 33-year-old victim,who is married and stays inSurat was brought toAhmedabad on October 16.

Police sources said thatAsaram's face turned pale withfear, the moment he saw thevictim approaching him.During interrogation, thewoman revealed at least 17 newnames, who will be now ques-tioned by the police. She alsodisclosed names of two femaleattendants who used to 'trap' or'arrange' women for Asaram.She also alleged that Asaram'sdaughter Bharti and his wifeLaxmi used to send girls to hisroom. However, Asaram main-tained that his daughter andwife were "innocent". Potencytest conducted on septuagenari-an Asaram have been positive.

The victim's younger sisterhas accused Asaram's 41-year-old son Narayan Sai, who isstill missing, of raping her inSurat.

Asaram Bapu and his son, Narayan Sai (not surrenderedyet to police), have both been accused of rape.

New Delhi: Jailed RJD chief and for-mer Bihar Chief Minister LaluPrasad Yadav has been disqualifiedfrom Lok Sabha after being convict-ed in the fodder scam case.

The Lok Sabha Speaker MeiraKumar had issued notice to the JD(U) supremo in connection with the17-year-old scam. The disqualifica-tion came following the SupremeCourt judgement that struck down aprovision protecting a convicted law-maker from disqualification on theground of pendency of appeal inhigher courts.

Lalu was on October 3 sentencedto five years rigorous imprisonmentby a special CBI court. In a bodyblow to RJD before next year's LokSabha polls, the CBI court onSeptember 30 had convicted Lalu anda fellow party MP rendering themineligible for contesting elections forat least six years.

Also, convicted Congress leaderRasheed Masood became the first

MP to lose his seat after the July 10Supreme Court judgement that struckdown sub-section 4 of Section 8 ofRepresentation of the People Act,under which incumbent MPs, MLAs

and MLCs can avoid disqualificationtill pendency of the appeal againstconviction in a higher court. Theappeal has to be made within threemonths of the conviction.

Mumbai: Renowned spiritualleader andVipassanaguru SatyaN a r a y a nG o e n k adied due toold age lastmonth. Hewas 89.

Born in1924 in

Burma, Goenka learnt Vipassanameditation there from Sayagyi U

Ba Khin, an acclaimed teacher andadministrator. He later moved toIndia and made the technique pop-ular worldwide through a non-sec-tarian movement.

Goenka, who was conferredthe Padma Bhushan for socialwork last year, started teachingmeditation to the public in India in1969. In 1976, he set up theVipassana International Academy— also known as Dhamma Giri —in Igatpuri, about 200 km fromMumbai in Nashik district.

The ancient technique was partof prison reforms carried out inDelhi's Tihar Jail in early 1990sand it was taught to inmates there.Later, several prisons in the coun-try introduced Vipassana forinmates.

Besides India, Vipassana cen-tres have come up in countries likethe US, Canada, Australia, NewZealand, France, the UnitedKingdom, Japan, Sri Lanka,Nepal, Myanmar and Thailandunder his tutelege.

Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav

Vipassana guru Goenka passes away

India

Washington: Even asPrime Minister ManmohanSingh and President BarackObama vowed to make thenext decade "equally trans-formative" for their rela-tions as the last one, forIndia the focus at theirthird summit was unmis-takably on terrorism ema-nating from Pakistan.

Meeting on Sept 27under the shadow of a ter-rorist attack in Samba inJammu and Kashmir on theeve of the summit, Obamaacknowledged India's con-cerns over the menace ofterrorism as ManmohanSingh lowered expectations from hisupcoming meeting with Pakistan PrimeMinister Nawaz.

While he looked forward to meetingSharif in New York Sunday, he told thepresident "the expectations have to betoned down given the terror arm which isstill active in our subcontinent" and ter-rorists' presence "still remain focused inPakistan"

Affirming their deep concern over thecontinuing threat posed by terrorism, ajoint statement not only "strongly con-demned" the Sep 26 attack, but alsocalled for Pakistan to work toward bring-ing the perpetrators of the November2008 Mumbai attacks to justice.

Amid perceptions of a drift in theirrelations, the two leaders also notched upa couple of other successes with the firstcommercial agreement signed under theirlandmark civil nuclear and a pledge toexpand defence relationship.

Both governments, the joint statementnoted "are committed to reduce impedi-ments, ease commercial transactions, andpursue co-production and co-develop-ment opportunities to expand this rela-tionship."

Noting the transformation of US-India relations during the last decade, thetwo leaders pledged to "make the nextdecade equally as transformative, chal-lenging their governments to reach thefull potential of this partnership."

The joint statement specifically high-lighted areas of security cooperation,bilateral trade and investment, energyand environment, higher education, andglobal architecture.

The Leaders called for expandingsecurity cooperation between the US andIndia to "address 21st century challengesin the areas of counter-terrorism, cyber,space, and global health security," thejoint statement said.

Washington: As expected, Pakistan PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif failed to get anytraction with President Barack Obama onhis wish list - US mediation on Kashmir,nuclear parity with India and an end todrone strikes on suspected terror dens inPakistani territory.

Despite being rebuffed by both Indiaand the US, Sharif did once again dutiful-ly raise Kashmir during his two hourmeeting with Obama at the White House,but the joint statement made no mention ofit or the drones. Speaking to the mediawith Obama after their Oval Office meet-ing, Sharif said he was committed to coop-eration with India, including on Kashmir.

And while India has described Pakistanas the "epicenter of terrorism" and linkedany progress on peace talks to Islamabad shuttingdown its "machinery of terrorism" he told Obamathat "terrorism constitutes a common threat" forPakistan and India. "We need to ally our respec-tive concerns through serious and sincere effortswithout indulging in any blame game," Sharifsaid. He had also "brought up the issue of dronesin our meeting, emphasizing the need for an end tosuch strikes," he said.

Obama, on his part, made no mention of eitherKashmir or drone strikes in Pakistan that accord-ing to Sharif "has become a major irritant in ourbilateral relationship" besides being "a continualviolation of our territorial integrity."

Acknowledging tensions and "misunderstand-ings" between the two countries, Obama said heand Sharif had pledged to work together on secu-rity issues in ways that "respect Pakistan's sover-eignty.”.

Obama also praised Sharif for seeking to endtensions with India saying, "I think he is taking avery wise path in exploring how decades of ten-sion between India and Pakistan can be reduced."

Noting that "billions of dollars have been spenton an arms race in response to these tensions," hesaid those resources could be much more properly

invested in education, social welfare programs onboth sides of the border between India andPakistan.

The joint statement noted that "the twoLeaders stressed that improvement in Pakistan-India bilateral relations would greatly enhanceprospects for lasting regional peace, stability, andprosperity, as it would significantly benefit thelives of citizens on both sides of the border."

In this context, it said Obama welcomed recentengagements between Sharif and Indian PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh.

He "expressed hope that this would mark thebeginning of a sustained dialogue process betweenthe two neighbors, aimed at building lasting peacein South Asia and resolving all outstanding territo-rial and other disputes through peaceful means."

Obama also "welcomed steps taken byPakistan and India to improve their economic rela-tions, including by exploring electricity and gassupply agreements, developing a reciprocal visaregime, and expanding bilateral trade."

The word nuclear too figured ten times in thejoint statement, not in the context of India typecivil nuclear deal that Sharif wanted, but in thecontext of nuclear terrorism.

New York: At 16, MalalaYousafzai would have become theyoungest recipient of the NobelPeace Prize, if she had been award-ed early in early October. Instead,the Norwegian Nobel Committeeawarded it to the internationalchemical weapons watchdog that isdestroying poison gas stockpiles inSyria -- the Organisation for theProhibition of Chemical Weapons.

The activist from Pakistan,who has stood defiant against theTaliban in the face of death andwas shot, has become a global fig-urehead for a girl's right to an edu-

cation.Nobel notwithstanding, acco-

lades keep coming her way. Shewas on Time magazine’s cover inApril as one of the 100 most influ-ential people in the world. She wasinvited to address the UN YouthAssembly. She also won theSakharov prize. All in one year.

What is Malala’s own ambi-tion: "I want to become PrimeMinister of Pakistan, and I thinkit's really good. Because throughpolitics I can serve my whole coun-ty. I can be the doctor of the wholecountry."

New York: Diwali came early to NewYork City this year in the form of a cul-tural and entertainment extravaganzacalled ‘Diwali at Times Square’ onSeptember 22. This unique event, organ-ized by Event Guru, conceptualized andexecuted by ASB Communications,enthralled thousands at the crossroads ofthe world – Times Square.

Featuring a magnificent array of cul-tural events ranging from Lavani toBhangra, this first-of-its-kind interna-tional initiative to promote Indian cul-ture, heritage and diversity filled upTimes Square with vibrant colors andheart pounding dances. The finale, the“Light Up Times Square” concert fea-tured a soul stirring performance fromthe versatile and mellifluous ShankarMahadevan. The presence of two gener-ations of the legendary Kapoor familyadded even more buzz and excitement.The youthful heartthrob, Ranbir Kapoor,star of the upcoming movie, Besharamopposite Australian Indian PallaviSharda, was seen on stage together withhis equally famous parents, Rishi Kapoorand Neetu Singh Kapoor.

“I came to the USA over 36 yearsago and I still remember being awed byTimes Square when I first saw it. I toldmyself even at that time that I will show-case the diversity and richness of India atthis location. I am so thankful to all thosewho came here today," said NeetaBhasin, President, ASBCommunications, the conceptualizer ofthe event.

India, US pledge cooperation onnuclear energy, terrorism

Obama rebuffs Sharif on drones,Kashmir, nuclear parity with India

Malala was a contenderfor Peace Nobel

Diwali debuts at Times Square


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US PresidentBarack Obama during their joint media session at

White House in Washington on Sept 27.

Malala Yousafzai addressing Youth Assembly at UN on July 12, 2013.

Ranbir Kapoor was the showstopper at Diwali at Times Square

President Obama and Pakistan Prime Minister NawazSharif meeting in White House Oct 23.

At the annual Deepavali event organized by the Association ofIndians in America in Manhattan October 6, the highlights was DJRekha making history by breaking the Guinness world record for

the largest coordinated bhangra dance party.


Community

By Rekha Rajvanshi

"Take up one idea. Make thatone idea your life - think ofit, dream of it, live on that

idea. Let the brain, muscles,nerves, every part of your bodybe full of that idea, and just leaveevery other idea alone. This is theway to success, that is the waygreat spiritual giants are pro-duced." Swami Vivekananda, thefamous sage of India, gave thisMantra of success to the worldduring the 19th century.

‘Oneness-Voice WithoutForm’, a play on the Indianphilosopher and reformer wasstaged on September 17, 2013 atthe Playhouse Auditorium,Sydney Opera House, sponsoredby the Vedanta Centre of Sydneyas part of Vivekananda’s 150thanniversary celebrations. Theplay portrayed Swamiji’s lifejourney and the influence of histeachings on people of all creeds,castes and communites.

Introducing Vivekananda tothe multicultural community ofAustralia through the play was adream project of MadhuparnaSen. She conceived it in 2011,

and in less than two years, shehas been able to realize its fullpotential with support from theVedanta Centre of Sydney.

The brain behind the execu-tion of this beautiful thought waswell-known theatre personalityAlex Brown, whose plays havebeen performed internationally(including translations in Hindi,Kannada, Punjabi, Spanish,Arabic and Mandarin). He visitedIndia to carry out comprehensiveresearch for the play before final-izing the script. He also co-direct-ed the play, along with FelicityNicol, another talented theatrepersonality.

The play began with SwamiVivekananda sitting on stagechanting mantras, surrounded byhis devotees. As it progressed,the audience was taken on a visu-al journey through all the land-marks in Swamiji's life – fromwhen he was a student, to his visitto America, to leaving his mortalbody.

The first half of the play wasfocused on Young Vivekananda(Bali Padda), known as NarendraNath Datta, born on January 12,1863, in an affluent family in

Kolkata. His father, VishwanathDatta, was a successful attorneywith interests in a wide range ofsubjects, and his mother,Bhuvaneshwari Devi (played bySuparna Mallick) was endowedwith deep devotion and strongcharacter.

By the time Narendra graduat-ed from Calcutta University, hehad acquired vast knowledge indifferent subjects, especiallyWestern philosophy and history.He had practised meditation fromboyhood and was associated withthe Brahmo Samaj movement.

Academically, Narendra Nathwas doing well, but he was rest-less. He wanted to seek the truthand desired to find God. In thisstate of spiritual crisis, he firstheard about Sri RamakrishnaParamahamsa (played by RobertRhode) from one of his Englishprofessors at college. He met SriRamakrishna in November 1881and became his disciple. Thischanged Narendra Nath’s life for-ever.

The second half of the playpresented Vivekananda’s spiritualawakening and his journeys over-seas. A particular highlight was

his speech at the first WorldParliament of Religions inChicago in front of a crowd of7,000 people, where the Swamiemerged as the world’s ‘popstar’. Another heart-warmingmoment was when Vivekanandasang a Bangla devotional song inhis melodious voice a few monthsbefore taking his last breath in1902.

A cast of ten Australian actorswas chosen carefully from over200 applicants, featuring a won-derful multi-faith mix of Hindu,Muslim, Jewish and Christianartists from a diverse range ofcultural backgrounds. Thisunique aspect stood out in the per-formances and truly symbolizedunity in diversity.

Leading the cast were twotrue international stars: SahebChatterjee, Calcutta-based filmand theatre actor and singer, whoplayed Vivekananda; and DanaDajani, Dubai-based Palestinianactress, writer and poet.

Both the actors portraying thecharacter of the young, restlessNarendra, and the mature, talent-ed Vivekananda left an everlast-ing impression on the audience

with their sterling performance.In the acting cast, talent came

from all corners of the world –Robert has a South African back-ground; Carlosis is from SriLanka, John Gomez Goodwayfrom Philippines, and TadeAdepolyibias descends fromNigeria. Other Indo-Australianactors – Bali, Suparna and KateSanborn, were also outstanding intheir performances.

Australian and world musicicons Kim Cunio and Heather Leecomposed and played wonderfullive music to accompany the pro-duction.

The design and co-directionwas by recent NIDA graduatesTobhiyah Feller and FelicityNichol, along with movementconsultant Adelina Larsen. Thesets and costumes together creat-ed a visual feast, complementedby special lighting effects, whichtruly brought an aura of the 19thcentury.

It was a delight to see theplay, especially in a full multicul-tural setting. No doubt, this fasci-nating production succeeded inconveying the message of ‘one-ness’ powerfully.

Unity in diversity comes into play Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda meets Margaret E. Noble (Sister Nivedita)

Swami Vivekananda and his Western followers – (left to right)Mme. Emma Calve (famous Opera singer), Mrs. Dutcher (New

York) and Miss. Christine Greenstidel.

Young Narendranath and his moth-er Bhuvaneswari Devi

Concludingscene -SwamiVivekananda, at thetime of hispassingaway,meets hisMaster SriRamakrishna, 'Icome,Master, Icome'.

5. Young Narendranath in search of Reality - as a young man, sur-rounded by friends in Kolkata.

Community


By Neeru Saluja

Masterchef contestant Rishi Desaiwas a winner from the start. Hisunique style of cooking, friendly

nature and everlasting smile won the heartsof many across the nation. So when he exit-ed from the finale, it was no surprise he lefthis fans heartbroken and surprised.

A Queenbeyan resident, Rishi’s popular-ity is still going strong even afterMasterchef. With a pop-up restaurant inCanberra, an invite to join India’sMasterchef and 5000 plus followers onFacebook, Rishi has a bright future. TheIndian Down Under interviewed the ‘mussel’man to learn from the master more about hislove for cooking.

Congratulations on your rocking per-formance on Masterchef Australia 2013.How has life changed since?

Life has been busy since I have comeback from the show. I still work full time inthe public service and after hours on my fooddream. So the number of hours in a day arenot enough at this moment. I started a pop-up restaurant in Canberra on 28thSeptember, so my weekends are also occu-pied currently. But I am enjoying the experi-ence of meeting people and sharing my ideaswith them. Occasionally I get recognised onthe street which is a pleasant moment aswell.

What inspired you to join Masterchef?I migrated to Australia in 2008, which

coincided with Masterchef Season 1. Foodbeing the universal language, we took to itinstantly, and have enjoyed watching it eversince.

I used to cook the recipes I had seen andoften said to my wife, “I can do better,” untilone day she challenged me to prove it. Thatwas it! If you have seen me on the show youknow that competition drives me and I amnot one to shy away from a challenge.

I waited for my son to get old enough todeal with my absence. My wife has done an

amazing job of being a single parent for overfive months that I was away.

You have created some amazing disheslike the Liver lollipops during kids’ week,your modern take on the classic palakpaneer that wowed the judges and yourfans. What would you describe as yoursignature dish?

Well, there are two dishes right nowwhich are featuring on my pop-up menu andI will let the people be the judge of whichone they like the most. Coconut milkpoached Salmon with caramelised onionpuree and spiced velute. This dish is my takeon traditional fish curry. The second onecomes from my home town but I have madeit modern: slow cooked Kolhapuri Goatwith spiced cauliflower puree and pap-padum. The goat is cooked with tradi-tional spices from my home town.

Masterchef had its rollercoastermoments. What was your favouritemoment on the show?

There were a couple of them:spending time in the kitchen with HestonBlumenthal was incredible. He is my foodhero and learning from him and sharing akitchen with him was an honour. The otherhighlight was when I was cooking (unknow-ingly) for my family and sharing the food Icooked with them. My wife does not mincewords and can be quite scathing in herreviews sometimes, so a pat on the backfrom her that day was an excellent achieve-ment for me.

Every week had its own theme and anew set of challenges. What was the mostchallenging dish on the show?

The most challenging dish was the elimi-nation dish when Heston was on the show. Ihad additional pressure because Heston is myfood hero and I didn’t want to disappointhim. On top of that the challenge was con-ceptually very hard. We were asked to makea dish that surprises you when you eat, hasto have theatre and needs to taste great.

Combining the sur-prise factor and the-atre was very difficult.In that challenge, Imade Sichuandumpling with soycaramel. The Sichuandumplings had asweet filling ofM o d a k(tradi-

tional Maharashtrian sweet) but it looked likesavoury dumplings. So when you bit into ityou had a surprise of sweet dumpling insteadof the savoury and a numbing sensation fromSichuan peppercorns.The salted caramel wassalted using soy sauce so it looked like thedumplings and soy sauce dish. I made greentea with dry ice to provide theatre. It was anincredible challenge.

If you ever got to cook with HestonBluementhal again, what would you cook?

I would make the snow man again butthis time a proper one. I was very embar-rassed at that dish as the ice cream was rockhard. So I will make him ice-cream usingLiquid Nitrogen but properly this time.

Is there any dish that you would havewanted to cook on Masterchef?

I would have loved to cook the Kolhapuri

Goat dish as it is very dear to my heart.

You must have been asked this before,but who is the cook at home?

It depends on who gets home first fromwork. I take my son to activities such asswimming and sports after school so my wifewill cook on those days. But all other days Icook.

What can your fans look forward to inthe future?

I have started my pop up restaurant inCanberra and I am trying to see if I can havea few in all capital cities in Australia. I amalso working on a cookbook which will comeout early next year. I will be travelling toIndia later this year and will try and see a lotof people there. Finally, my own restaurantis on the cards but I am taking things slowlynow.

Masterchef Australia contestant Rishi Desai

Rishi Desai’s family watching him in action in the contest. Rishi Desai in the Masterchef kitchen


Bollywood

Sydney and Australiacame to witnessShahrukh – the

King Khan of Bollywoodwhose charisma pulled inthe great Madhuri Dixit,Rani Mukherjee,Jacqueline Fernandez, YoYo Honey Singh withMeiyang Chang hypingup the crowd into a fren-zy.

Organised by Sydney-based touring companyUrban Agent Events, ledby Ritchie Perera andEric Woo who got SRKto woo Bollywood fans in aworld class production ofTemptation Reloaded.

Sydney witnessed a dizzyingfrenzy of fans camped out atSydney airport hoping to catch aglimpse of their favourite starswhich they did as some got nearto get their photographs takenwith their heart-throbs in personhaving seen them on screen onlyin cinemas.

And the concert at AllPhones Arena at Olympic Park,the biggest complaintSydneysiders had was that theshow was delayed by good twohours to which the organisers

say that it was due to productionand technical checks, yet theTemptation Reloaded wasloaded with packs of fun, dance,mimicry and the jokes thatShahrukh played on some of thelocal fans. He won us all. Attimes one could see that the peo-ple he called on stage were allprearranged, not just a candidchoice picked out of the mad-dening crowd stretching theirarms just to touch theirBollywood gods and goddesses.

Dancing to his own medleyincluding Main Hoon Na,Chaiya Chaiya, Chammak

Chhallo, Yeh Kali KaliAankhen and Kuch KuchHota Hai. The best wasyet to come, however,with SRK exiting with theinfamous line,"Pictureabhi bakhi hai meredost".

Shahrukh Khan got onthe dance floor with his‘Chennai Express’ hit,Lungi Dance with anoth-er Sydneysider who wasquite uncomfortable in ityet went along withSRK’s jokes. Shahrukhwon the audience with his

witty humour, at times abit vulgar to the taste of familiespresent with kids, he himself afather of two could and shouldavoid. But he reigned supremeas he performed exquisite num-ber with Madhuri, Rani andJacqueline though Rani looked abit flabby.

Madhuri was a doll and shedanced into the hearts of all.Beautiful costumes, dancers,pyro technics and stage set upleft an everlasting experienceetched in everyone’s mind asSydney went in an overdrive ofBollywood fervour that SRK leftbehind. Wow what a night!

Wow what a night!

Temptation Reloaded in Sydney the

other day was a world class production

with Shahrukh Khan on overdrive,

accompanied by Madhuri, Rani,

and Jacqueline. The lungi dance from ‘Chennai Express’

The concert witnessed a frenzy of crazed out fans.Shahrukh danced to his own medley of hit songs.

Jacqueline Fernandez oozed the right amount of oomph.

Madhuri Dixit danced into the hearts of all.

Rani Mukherjee looked a bit flabby.

Community


By Usha Garg

Research suggests thatlearning should beactively encouraged in

older people as this can protectagainst cognitive decline (TheForesight Project on MentalCapital and Wellbeing,Beddington et al, 2008). Thechallenge to understand and carefor the physical and mentalhealth of an ageing population inAustralia cannot be overestimat-ed.

In this context, The U3AVictoria and Asia PacificAlliance InternationalConference 2013 was held inMelbourne on 14-15 October. Adelegation from Senior CitizensCouncil of Delhi attended theconference and this was fol-lowed by a sightseeing tourincluding Brisbane, Auckland,Queenstown (NZ), Christchurchand Sydney before flying backto India on 26th October.Besides networking, the confer-ence also provided opportunitiesto listen to relevant topics andrecent research in this area suchas: Origin of U3A and its Rolein the Future; Aspirations andLearning in Senior Years;Partnerships and theCommunity and Wisdom;Power and Passion.

Consul General of India inSydney used this opportunity towelcome the Senior Citizensdelegation and hosted a dinnerat his residence on October 24.He spoke of the importance ofage related issues in the ageingsociety and the need for moreaction and interaction in thissector.

The group had arrived in

Sydney from Christchurch thesame afternoon and had been toa couple of sightseeing places inSydney before arriving at theCGI’s residence.

After a very hectic day, thelovely 3-course home-cookeddinner with smiling and wel-coming hosts, Mr. Arun Goeland Mrs. Alka Goel, was notonly refreshing and relaxing,but also a welcome change from12 days of restaurant food forthe guests!

Mr. J R Gupta, Head of theIndian delegation, presented abouquet and shawls to the CGIand his wife on behalf of thecouncil and thanked them forhosting the lovely dinner get-together. Another delegate pre-sented a beautiful hand-knitteditem to the CGI’s wife. Mr.Gupta spoke about the growingmembership of the seniors asso-ciation in Delhi and the good

work being carried out. Some of the key achieve-

ments of the Council, Mr.Gupta said, include protectinglonely Senior Citizens fromhumiliation/abuse from theirown children and others, 50%increase in old age monthly pen-sion from Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,500and building pressure on theGovernment of Delhi to fast-track disposal of cases of SeniorCitizens in any GovernmentDepartment.

He extended a warm wel-come to members of variousIndian seniors associations inAustralia to visit Delhi andwork collaboratively with theassociation members in Delhi onvarious initiatives in the age-related health and social servic-es sector.

To this effect, Mr. Guptasaid, he would look forward tosigning an MOU with the

Australian seniors groups.Also present were Mr.

Dinesh Garg (invitee of the del-egation), Mr. Santram Bajaj,representing AHIA Seniors andMr. Dave Passi representing theHornsby Indian Seniors Group.Mr. Passi appreciated the goodwork done by the CGI Mr. Goeland the high esteem he was heldin by the Indian community inSydney.

He also appreciated Mr. J RGupta’s efforts and contributiontowards the Councils in Delhi.“Just because you are old doesnot mean you stop living”, hesaid.

“The work being done bythe Delhi Seniors Council is aninspiration for all of us and welook forward to more interac-tion with them on our futurevisits”. Seniors delegation with the CGI

Seniors delegation from Delhi visits Australia

About U3A MovementU3A stands for University of Third Age. A

University in the most literal sense refers to a com-munity of people who come together to educate,create and share activities with each other in afriendly learning environment. The Third Agerefers to the age of retirement which comes afterthe first Age of Childhood and the second Age ofProviding Responsibilities. In this sense, U3Asoffer learning opportunities for the seniors.

U3A originated in France in the early 1970swhen legislation was passed that required universi-ties to provide more community education. Theidea spread rapidly throughout most countries ofthe world including Australia. The U3A move-ment began in Australia in the early 1984 and inNew Zealand in 1989.

In India, the first U3A was formed in 2007 inRewa (MP) and it gathered momentum with theformation in 2008 of the Indian Society of U3As(ISU3As) which was seen as a networking con-glomerate of bodies and intellectuals working forthe welfare of the elders. By 2011, there weremore than 700 individual and 30 institutional mem-bers spread all over India. The first landmarkachievement was the successful "World U3A

Conference on Life Long Learning and AgeingWith Dignity" held in 2010. Online learning is notso widely used in India, but the members are wellnetworked through "U3A Patrika", a monthlyonline newsletter, which highlights their variousactivities and provides news from the wider worldof U3As.

According to the U3A Online at GriffithUniversity Successful Ageing Study conducted in2008, “The peer education model which underpinsU3A and similar organisations for retirees is both asocially and financially sensible way of harnessingthe growing mental capital embodied in the retiredpopulation”. This study found that in Australia in2008, volunteer tutors (course leaders) collectivelycontributed more than 667,000 hours towards theirU3A courses and activities. By 2011 there were240 independent U3As in Australia with 69,000members.

For further information, visith t t p : / / w w w . u 3 a o n l i n e . o r g . a u / ;http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/BISCore/corpo-rate/MigratedD/ec_group/116-08-FO_b.pdf ;http://sydneyu3a.org/; http://u3a-melbourneinter-nationalconference2013.org/index.htm

Language study-Have your say

CRC Chairperson StepanKerkyasharian is urgingeveryone to participate

in the consultation on the futureof language learning inAustralia. Says Stepan,“Learning a second language orthe language of your ancestrybrings many benefits to yourlife.”

“The number of studentslearning a second language hasbeen declining rapidly. Only8% of Higher School Certificatecandidates will sit a foreign lan-guage exam this year. Recentresearch has found that learninga second language will makeyou smarter, more decisive, bet-ter at English, boost schoolachievements and delayAlzheimer’s and dementia. Ithas also found that parents andcommunity do not place a high

value on language learning.”The Board of Studies NSW

which is responsible for thedevelopment of curriculumsundertook a review of languageseducation in 2012-13 by carry-ing out a stocktake of currentprovision of language coursesand an analysis of past State andCommonwealth initiatives andresearch into best practice.

The public now has anopportunity to participate in theBoard of Studies NSW consulta-tion process. For further infor-mation, please go to the Boardof Studies NSW website athttp://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/languagesreview.

All communities are encour-aged to participate in the consul-tation for which the final datefor submission is: 13 December2013.

Telstra offers a superiormobile network experi-ence but did you also

know that they’ve got the bestpost-paid mobile call rates toIndia? Now you can enjoy twicethe mobile coverage and a morereliable mobile network andalso save on mobile calls tofriends and family back home –all with Telstra.

The best post-paid mobilecall rates to India:

When you add the $10International Pack to yourTelstra post-paid mobile plan:

* Add a $10 InternationalPack to your Telstra ConsumerPost-Paid mobile plan and get

$10 of included value – that’s upto 500 minutes of talk time toIndia every month.

* Even if you talk morethan that, it’s still just 2 centsper minute and no connectionfee to share all your Diwali sto-ries the moment they happen!

* 0% discount on SMS sentto all international destinations(usually a flat 50 cent fee forEvery Day Connect Plans) with-in the pack.

* The $10 International packgives you $10 of talk and text tostandard fixed line and mobilenumbers in India, China, Hong-Kong, Singapore and Thailand(excludes use overseas).

Telstra’s $10 plan offers 500 minutes worth of talk time to India


Community

Lead up to Diwali was a busy time inSydney. Sydneysiders came out indroves as Indian community dressed

in dazzling outfits was seen all over town –at Martin Place, in the NSW ParliamentHouse, at Homebush Olympic Park, atNovotel hotel, in Castle Hill, Dundas, inStrathfield where a new Indian associa-tion has been created with its debutDiwali festival celebrated at the TownHall.

Hindu Council of Australia’sDiwali@Martin Place took the cake asDiwali atmosphere and the crowd wasthe loudest when a Flash Mob of over50 young girls and boys of ShiamakAustralia created a beautiful, energeticand colourful and funky mood with famousBollywood numbers. It was as if ShahrukhKhan’s concert had left a huge aftertaste ofthe star concert on October 7. Sydneydemonstrated that it has talent, Bollywoodchutzpah, energy, co-ordination as dancersranging from very young, as young as 6, toolder ones, proved that they can dance withequal, or even better skill, thrill and the rest.Sydney enjoyed the summer sun and satglued to the stage performances that came inperfect tandem with school kids from ‘IndiaCalling ‘program who performed and gave aglimpse of Ramayan dressed in charactersfrom the epic as their teacher KulwinderKaur accompanied them on a Bollywooddance. They were the cutest.

There were stalls in the arena promotingbusiness, selling jewellery, and then therewas one with novel idea of dressing peoplein Indian costumes as curious visitors triedto dress up and wear costumes and jewelleryto get a picture taken all in the name of thefestive spirit that is Diwali.

Diwali and Bollywood made an excellentmix at Shubha Kumar’s India Club Diwalifunction at Castle Grande in Castle Hill withAbhinay Australia’s grand performance cel-ebrating 100 Years of Indian Cinema.Traversing the journey of Bollywood

Diwalifervour in

SydneyDiwali Dressup,

Pic Courtesy Rajesh Kumar

All dressed up for Diwali, Photo Rajesh KumarIndia Calling kids

AHIA cruise Annakuoot at Parliament House

Raman Bhalla, Dr Nihal Agar, High Commissioner Biren Nanda and Consul General Arun GoelAHIA cruise AHIA cruise


Community

By Neeru Saluja

Sonia Gandhi, err, yes our ownSydney’s Sonia Gandhi as shemarried Sohum Gandhi earlier this

year. Sonia has carved a niche for her-self in showcasing multicultural India toAustralians.

Starting her journey 15 years ago inAustralia as a student, she realized thatthere was a huge potential to exploithere. From a student representative, aradio RJ, fashion model, Bollywoodevents organiser to establishing GandhiCreations, Sonia has come a long way.

An inspiration for the younger gen-eration and someone who has takenmulticulturalism to the Parliament, wecouldn’t resist interviewing her. Inbetween organising events and travel-ling from one city to another, Soniatook time out to answer our questionsand tell us more about her drive andpassion for event management.

You have come a long way in thepast decade. How would you defineyour journey?

My journey as an Australian IndianMuslim has not only been challengingbut has also been filled with opportuni-ties, growth, experiences, and mostimportantly cultural adaptation.

During my university days, I gotinvolved with many student union activ-ities. Australia was starting to structurea legislation act, the ESOS 2000(Education Services for OverseasStudents Act), and I found myself bat-tling for rights of International students.I went on to be an elected Internationalstudent representative two years consec-utively at CAPA (Council of AustralianPost Graduate Association). Soon Ibecame a voice for international stu-dents across 36 Australian universities.At this time I realised that to be a voicefor international students I first neededto intimately understand and appreciatetheir cultural backgrounds and ethnici-ties.

The decision to come to a new coun-try and call it home leaving behind yourmotherland is a life changing experi-ence. You have a tendency to hang outwith your own and are constantly askingyourself ‘where do I belong’. Until youstart belonging there is no sense ofadaptation. I believe resistance tochange stagnates growth and this iswhere the quest of my journey began inAustralia.

You have become a pioneer in mul-ticultural event management. Did youalways want to create a niche in mul-ticulturalism or saw it as a market tobe tapped?

Multicultural event management hascertainly evolved within our business. Ialways believed that there was a need in

Australia for an events consultancy thatsolely focused on events with a multi-cultural angle.

Today in Australia, one in three peo-ple you meet speaks a second languageand one in 10 people that you meet hasa parent who is born overseas. We inte-grate communities with the flavour ofour events

Australians speak more than 260 lan-guages and identify with over 270ancestries. So there is definitely anemerging market for multiculturalevents that we have tapped into not onlyin the corporate and public sector, but inthe private sector as well. The key tosuccessful multicultural event produc-tion is to understand cultural sensitivi-ties and differences while cultivating anintegrated society.

What is your role in bringingmulticulturalism to the Australiancommunity?

I am a very strong believer of inte-grating culturally diverse communities.

My role is to educate as many peopleas we can through our events at GandhiCreations by displaying diversity andcommonalities in language, religion,dance, music, food, and fashion.

We often have national dress listedon invitations which introduces guests toa whole new world of cultural fashion. Iremember one member of the Koreancommunity came up to me at one of ourevents and said, “I want to wear thismaterial that you are wearing, wherecan I buy this and what is it called?” Itis very rewarding when the eventinspires people to embrace their cultureas well as the culture of others.

I believe to integrate communitiesyou have to start from yourself. If Ihave made the decision to call Australiahome then it is my responsibility to edu-

cate others on my culture as well as edu-cate myself on theirs.

Tell us a bit about your upcomingevents?

Winter saw us celebrating culturaldiversity via Multicultural NSW for theCommunity Relations Commission.This event was a huge success withspectacular performances, award pre-sentations to significant members of themulticultural community and valuablenetworking opportunities at thePremier's Multicultural Media Awardsand Premier’s Harmony Dinner. Thecoming months are our busiest time inthe year. We have over 18 major corpo-rate productions to deliver.

Events that are open to public otherthan corporate events are:

"An Indian Summer" by TajFoundation Gala Dinner on 26 October.This event was hosted by MC’s GlennMcGrath AM and Sara McGrath. Itshowcased an exclusive runway showby Indian fashion designer ManishArora and Roopa Pemmaraju featuringthe original artworks of renownedIndigenous Australian artists on a can-vas of ethically hand-woven Indian fab-rics.

"Flavours of India" by AmoraJamisonfrom 29 October - 2 November2013 is another one worth mentioning.

Of course, we are very excited todeliver the NSW Deepavali event at theParliament House, hosted by The Hon.Victor Dominello MP Minister forCitizenship and Communities in thepresence of the Hon. Barry O’FarrellMP, Premier of NSW.

Which kind of events do you enjoy

organising the most?I am a master at multi-tasking and a

self-admitted excitement junkie. Mypassion for events helps me create pro-ductions out of a concept. It is whenthese productions leave the guest with asmile and a positive message that I feelmost fulfilled. My personal favourites inevent productions are- awards nights,gala dinners and trade shows.

It’s not easy to make a mark inevents scene. What would you callyour milestones and obstacles?

Milestones:* Successfully executing and direct-

ing inaugural Premier’s MulticulturalMedia Awards and the Premier’sHarmony Dinner in 2013

* Raising $27,000 for the AnnualRotary Charity Gala Dinner for thePolio Foundation of India by producinga Bollywood themed event for Rotary StIves

* Being honoured as a Paul HarrisFellow by Rotary International in recog-nition of community service.

Obstacle:Global Financial Crisis - GFC was a

tough time for most small businessesincluding ours, and am glad we are pastthat obstacle now.

What are the three mantras for asuccessful event?

Three mantras for successful eventsare: Bigger picture, Attention to detailand Return on investment.

The Big picture makes you realisewhy you are taking up an event projectin the first instance and how it will fitinto the community.

With a busy calendar of 45 eventsannually, attention to detail is crucial.This quality in detail has to be main-tained across all aspects such as: iden-tifying the intricacies of the brand,researching the target audience, devis-ing the event concept, planning thelogistics and coordinating all of thetechnical aspects before the eventlaunch.

Return on investment is one keymantra that I live and breathe by. Whatis the return on investment for all par-ties? The way to keep this constantly atthe back of your mind is to understand‘What is in it for me? For example,Why are you reading this article? Is itbecause you are in the industry, wouldlike to get into the industry or perhaps itis just light reading for you? As long asthis has brought a smile on your face orhas given you a positive message mymantra of ‘what’s in it for me’ hasserved its purpose. Oh, and one morething, don’t forget the people whohelped you to climb that ladder of suc-cess!

Meet Australia’s own Sonia GandhiSonia Gandhi is showcasing multicultural India to Australians and has proudly delivered the NSWDeepavali event at the Parliament House, hosted by Victor Dominello MP Minister for Citizenship

and Communities, in the presence of the Hon. Barry O’Farrell MP, Premier of NSW.

An Australian Indian Muslim, Sonia is married to Sohum Gandhi.

Community


Australia voted for a moretraditional type of winnerand opted for the estab-

lished route. It felt like a missedopportunity - an opportunity toredefine the notion of beauty inthis country,” quoted a mainstreammedia about statuesque ShanaliMartin – a 16 year old high schoolstudent from Melbourne.

Shanali and Duckie, thoughhaving reached finals and onlinesocial media favourites, lost toMelissa Juratovich who wasannounced the winner ofAustralia’s Next Top Model in livefinale held at The Star in Sydney inlate September. Melissa, whonever auditioned, was scoutedfrom the crowd, was surprisinglyshocked as she worried that herpersonality would not comethrough once the decision restedwith the public. She said, “Thewhole experience has taken me bycomplete surprise and I intend tomake the most of this amazingopportunity. I’m still finishing myfinal year at high school and oncethat is completed I will pursue mydream as a professional model.”

The winner took home $20,000cash from TRESemme, a NissanDualis, a one-year modelling con-tract with IMG Sydney andappeared on the cover of Harper'sBazaar.

Judged by a panel of four -Jennifer Hawkins, Alex Perry,Charlotte Dawson and DidierCohen chose the top three,bizarrely the winner came down toa public vote.

While Shanali and Duckie werestandouts throughout the competi-tion, Melissa was an interestingchoice for the final. She’s shorter

than the other two, and wasn’t ini-tially even interested in being amodel. However the public and thejudges eventually fell in love withher, and she received the mostvotes and was named the winnerduring live finale night.

Many protested on the decisionon the online vote with Perry bet-ting his sunnies on his head forShanali. Tall and dusky Shanalifrom Melbourne was a hugefavourite and is of Fijian-Indianand Australian heritage. Her moth-er is Fiji-Indian.

Martin, 16, said it was hard toknow how the public would per-ceive her hoping it would cast theirvotes more on ability than person-ality but that was unlikely. "Iwould love to think people wouldbe voting for me because theythought I would be the next topmodel, but I know that's not thecase, they will be voting on per-sonality," Martin said.

"It's pretty much a popularitycontest and we have to work oursocial media as best we can withour followers," said Shanali.

Host Jennifer Hawkins saidabout the girls before the final ver-dict: "They're very diverse. It'smuliticultural and that's great. It'snot just my decision, we all collab-orated and it's over the course ofmonths.

Shanali, who had kept thesocial media abuzz, said, “What anhonour it has been for my life to bea part of Australia’s Next TopModel for three precious months in2013. It was something I neverexpected myself to do, ever; but Iam so overjoyed that it has hap-pened and as much as I don’t like

to admit it I have only my mum tothank!”

After the final night 60% of thesocial media voted that the wronggirl had won as one fan onFacebook wrote, “Australian pub-lic is not yet ready for such aninternational look. Well best lucknext year.”

Shanali has also been signed byIMG for a worldwide contract. Sheappeared on the front page ofHarper’s Bazaar magazine inOctober along with winnerMelissa, both young and unawareof the spotlight they got becominggood friends with each other asthey spent time together forANTM and also the photo shoots.While competing for ANTM con-test Shanali wrote in her blog howshe loves Rugby and lives with hermum and dad and dog Cookie whois a joy in the Martin household.She loves cooking, baking anddesigning in Green the colour ofEarth as she is quite environmen-tally conscious. Shanali in fact haddesigned one of her outfits fromrecycled Hussian bags and won athird place for her entry. She says,“The dress I made was out ofreusable shopping bags cut andpanelled together and the colourfulparts were the netting bags thatoranges, onions etc come in. I’mquite fond of this garment as it wasall by my own initiative that Imade this one and I sewed it allmyself.”

Shanali loves sewing and hasentered her creations since year 8and won the first prize in Calicosection in year 2012. Surely herlove for dressing and sewing hasbrought her the reward as thisyoung girl is going to go places.

AVijaywada girl studyingto become a doctor inAmerica won ‘Miss

America’ beauty title inSeptember. Nina Davuluri, thefirst ever Indian to win the title ina yellow canary gown, bagged$50,000 in scholarship as theprize.

Contestants, who came fromvaried cultural backgrounds werejudged on evening gowns,lifestyle/fitness, talent, a personalinterview and an on-stage ques-tion to which when asked aboutplastic surgery Nina’s answerwas that people should make theirown choices and should be confi-dent of their appearances. Havingfought bulimia and weight lossproblem herself, Nina lost 60pounds before she appeared in thecontest.

Nina has learnt classicalIndian dance for six years and

presented a Bollywood fusiondance for her item.

Davuluri’s parents are bothdoctors with her mother has adegree from the University ofMichigan in brain behaviour andcognitive science. She plans tofollow in their footsteps tobecome a physician.

She says she’s a ‘Type A per-sonality’, and makes it a priorityto stay organised every minute.

Twitter in America went intooverdrive with comments thatNina is not truly an Americancalling her ‘Arab’ and ‘MissTerrorist’.

The controversy has turnedout to be godsend for the beautypageant as they provided a plat-form ‘celebrating beauty throughdiversity’ as Time magazineobserved in its report that ‘thedays of peroxide blonde barbiedolls are over’.

Trend in looks are changing worldwide as America chose Vijaywada girl Nina Davuluri studying there as theface of America and here in Australia, Shanali Martin made it to the finals as Australia’s Next Top Model

Shanali – changing face of Australian beauty

Nina – the new face of American beauty

Shanali Martin (right) was beaten in the final by MelissaJuratowitch (left) who won Australia’s Next Top Model contest.

Shanali on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

Nina Davuluri, crowned Miss America


Community


Incredible PATA Tourism Road Show 2013

By Manju Mittal

Incredible PATA Tourism Road ShowPress Conference was held in Sofitelhotel Sydney in September followed by

a presentation. This year Tourism roadshow was arranged and conducted byIndia Tourism Sydney, the overseas officeof the Ministry of Tourism, Governmentof India, in co-operation with the PATAIndia chapter.

In recognising the importance ofAustralia as source market for India in thetourism sector, Parwez Dewan, SecretaryMinistry of Tourism Government of India,recently led a delegation to Australia fromIndia, that made up of more than 20organisations for the Incredible India

PATA Roadshow. Mr. Dewan, who isalso Chairman of the Pacific Asia TravelAssociation ( PATA ) India chapter, saidthe country had witnessed a substantialincrease in the inflow of tourists fromAustralia in the past few years. More than214,000 Australians visited India in 2012,according to the Australian Bureau ofStatistics, an increase of 11.8 per cent onthe previous year’s figure of 191,300. It isan integral part of an ongoing drive to helpattract more Australian tourists to Indiaunder the Ministry of Tourism,Government of India’s Incredible Indiacampaign, said Mr. Dewan.

The delegation included executivesfrom Air India, Asia Travel & Tours,Distant Frontiers, Go India Journeys,

Impression Tourism Services ( India ),Indo Asia Leisure Services, LotusDestinations, Mercury Travels Limited,Network Travels Link, Travel SpiritInternational and Travel Corporation (India ).

Adventure specialist Shikhar Travelwas also in the party along with TrailBlazer Tours India Private Limited,Cruise Companies Jungle Travels India &Vivada Cruises and hotels Starwood AsiaPacific Hotels & Resorts, Taj Hotels,Resorts and Places and the Oberoi Group.

Air India’s daily non-stop flight opera-tions effective 30th August 2013, toSydney and Melbourne will only bring thetwo countries closer and enable enhance-ment of people to people contact through

tourism. The contribution made by theIndia High Commission and the IndianConsulates in Sydney and Melbourne aswell as the Australian Government incommencing the direct flights was over-whelming, Mr. Dewan said, adding goodAir-Connectivity is essential for thegrowth of the tourism Industry. AirIndia’s daily nonstop service to and fromcapital Delhi will be delivered by the stateof the art Boeing Dreamliner touchingdown in both Melbourne and Sydneyevery day.

Incredible PATA Tourism Road Showwas organized byMadhu Dubey, RegionalDirector India Tourism in Sydney and herteam who worked hard for its resoundingsuccess.

Guests at PATA Tourism Roadshow 2013

Indian companies will get the chance toinvest in Australia’s R&D capabilityduring the Australian Innovation

Showcase beginning on 11 November inNew Delhi.

The Showcase is the largest concentra-tion of Australian scientific and technicalknow-how ever to visit India, and will tourmajor tech cities including Mumbai,Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune andChennai. New Delhi-based Senior Tradeand Investment Commissioner NicolaWatkinson said R&D was becoming amajor priority as India sought to improveits competitiveness and productivity.

“India’s large multinationals includingthe Tata Group, Reliance, Aditya Birla,

Mahindra, Infosys and Wipro are all allo-cating significant budgets to R&D,” MsWatkinson said.

“The Australian Innovation Showcasewill highlight our expertise in areas suchas information technology, biotechnology,materials science for advanced manufac-turing and energy efficiency.”

More than 30 senior academics andresearchers will attend from Australia’suniversities, including University ofMelbourne, University of New SouthWales, University of Sydney, DeakinUniversity, University of Wollongong,Flinders University and key research bod-ies such as National ICT Australia(NICTA), CSIRO, the Cancer Therapeutic

Cooperative Research Centre, andNeurosciences Victoria.

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis said theShowcase would provide Australian uni-versities with a unique opportunity to meetwith some of India's biggest companies.

"Australian universities are competi-tive with American and British universitiesin the research they do, so we are gratefulfor the chance to share some of that greatwork with leaders and representativesfrom business in India," Professor Davissaid.

As well as promoting collaboration onindustry specific technology solutions, theShowcase will foster links with Indian

higher education and research institutions.“The interest in this program of events

from India’s major commercial entitiesand research agencies has been over-whelming,” Ms Watkinson said.

“India’s major conglomerates aresearching globally for new solutions toincrease their competitive edge. This is theright environment for attracting newinvestment into Australian technology andR&D.”

More information on the Australiandelegates and events scheduled across themonth-long program can be found at:http://www.austrade.gov.au/Export/ExportMarkets/Countries/India/Events/AustralianInnovation

Innovation Showcase promotes R&D collaboration with India


Community

Prepare your property against bushfireNSW has been ravaged by bush-

fires brought on by hot weatherand strong winds with 193 houses

destroyed in the Springwood andWinmalee towns of Blue Mountainregion. NSW Rural Fire ServiceCommissioner Shane Fitzsimmons saidthat the worst in the Blue Mountain wasthe State Mine fire, an enormous blazenear Lithgow that has burnt out more than46,000 hectares of bush. There werefears the fire would merge with another inthe area and spawn a “mega fire”, forc-ing firefighters to adopt aggressive tac-tics, he said. RFS says the fire whichthreatened the city of Lithgow was theresult of live ordnance exercises on theMarrangaroo Army Range.

The Department of Defence has con-firmed explosives training was takingplace on the same day and near to wherethe fire started, but it refused to confirmthe RFS findings and says it's conductingits own investigation.

The fire danger is far from over, withstrong, dry winds forecast for fire zonesin the coming summer months. The RuralFire Service has warned residents in fire-affected areas not to become complacent,after the downgrading warnings for majorblazes burning across New South Wales.

It is sad to see people sifting throughburnt down houses for anything they canfind even a small momento to remindthem of the lifetime memories and homeslost in fires. There are some streets inSpringwood which have lost all the hous-es. We as Indian community should doour best and fundraise for bushfire vic-tims as much as we can.

Here is a list of things to do to pre-pare your home against the threat of abushfire:

Regardless of your decision to LeaveEarly or Stay and Defend, you still needto prepare your property against thethreat of a bush fire or ember attack.

* A well prepared home is more like-ly to survive a bush fire.

* Even if your plan is to Leave Early,the more you prepare your home, themore likely it will be to survive bush fireor ember attack.

* A well prepared home can be easierfor you and firefighters to defend.

* A well prepared home is less likelyto put your neighbours’ homes at risk.

* A well prepared home will give youmore protection if a fire threatens sud-denly and you cannot leave and have totake shelter.

Some of the things you should doaround your property include:

* Cut back any overhanging trees orshrubs and dispose of cuttings appropri-ately

* Check the condition of your roofand replace any damaged or missing tiles

* Non-combustible fences are themost effective at withstanding the intenseheat generated by a bush fire

* Clean leaves from the roof, guttersand downpipes and fit quality metal leafguards

* Plant trees and shrubs that are lesslikely to ignite due to their low oil content

* If you have a water tank, dam orswimming pool, consider installing aStatic Water Supply (SWS) sign

* Enclose underfloor areas

* Store wood piles well away from thehouse and keep covered

* Keep garden mulch away from thehouse and keep grass short

* Make sure the pressure relief valveon LPG cylinders face outwards (so aflame wouldn’t be directed towards thehouse)

* Ensure you have a hose which islong enough to reach every part of thehome

· Remove and store any flammableitems away from the house

* Install metal flywire or solid screensto the outside windows and doors

* Have a non-combustible doormat* Check the condition of external

walls, cladding and seal any gaps* Maintain adequate levels of home

and contents insurance.In a bush fire many houses are

destroyed through ember attack, whenburning twigs and leaves carried by thewind land on or around the house. Evenhouses away from the direct path of thefire can be affected.

Look for the places embers could startfires - on the roof, under the floor andaround windows and doors - and takeaction to prevent them. Pages from Bush Fire Survival Plan

New South Wales has been ravaged by bushfires.

Community


Taking the State for a Ride

On the morning of 27 January1996, deputy commissionerAmit Khare stared at a

deserted animal husbandry officewith hundreds of bills scatteredaround, the officers having longfled the post. But what he and theteam he led to raid the Chaibasaoffice following damaging CAGreports were actually staring at wasa Rs 950 crore fodder scam or“chara ghotala” that, in fact,encompassed false purchases offeed, medicine and equipment at amassive scale.

Among the fantastic expenses ofthe department were Rs 15 lakhworth of mustard oil for polishinghorns of buffaloes and pigs (yes,pigs) and several crores for trans-

porting cattle on oil tankers, policevans, autorickshaws and scooters(yes, scooters).

In March, the CBI took over thecase on high court orders. UNBiswas, the then regional directorof CBI (now a minister in the WestBengal government) led the probe,filed an initial chargesheet on 27April 1996. But Lalu Prasad Yadavwas Bihar CM and the governmentat the Centre, led by IK Gujral,banked on his support. “I have novishwas in Biswas,” Lalu quipped.

In October, the Supreme Courtwarned CBI director Joginder Singhnot to meddle in the probe andticked him off for trying to replacea status report submitted by Biswaswith a watered-down version. Singh

has since alleged that Gujral askedhim to go slow in the case.

Exactly a year after the initialchargesheet, on 27 April 1997, aSunday, Joginder Singh said theagency had decided to prosecuteLalu. Three months on, paramili-tary forces surrounded 1 AnneMarg as Biswas controversiallysought the army’s help to arrestLalu. The Supreme Court steppedin but it was clear that Lalu wouldhave to go to jail. The wily Yadavthen pulled off the masterstroke ofhis career: stepping down and nom-inating his wife as CM. Nearly twodecades and several political machi-nations later, the law has caught up.Of the 54 cases filed by CBI in thefodder scam, 45 have been disposed

of. Charged with cheating, criminalconspiracy and under thePrevention of Corruption Act, Lalustands convicted of withdrawing Rs

37.7 crore fraudulently from theChaibasa treasury. It was too latefor Lalu to wonder, as he did in thecourtroom, “Yeh kya ho gaya ji.”

The 144th birth anniversary ofMahatma Gandhi was markedin Australia on October 2 with

prayer ceremonies, panel discussionsand book fairs. A prayer ceremonywas held in the capital, Canberra, byIndian High Commission to mark thespecial occasion.

Remembering the 'Father ofIndian Nation', University of NewSouth Wales held a ceremony in

front of Gandhi's bust at the univer-sity library, followed by a discussionon 'What Gandhi means to youngIndians and Australians today'.Moderated by Australia IndiaInstitute Associate Director, RoryMedcalf, who said it was a ‘time toreflect on Gandhiji’s life’ anddescribed him as an icon and avisionary. At the ceremony wasyoung Ashbury Public School

Student who spoke about meeting IlaGandhi earlier this year when shewas invited to open in Sydney a‘Sydney’s International Centre forNon-Violence’. He said it was privi-lege to meet the granddaughter ofGandhiji and how her visit hadhelped enlighten students of hisschool about the culture of peace.

A Sydney based non-profitorganisation, 'Gandhi Peace

Centre', launched book fairs at over35 libraries in New South Wales in abid to raise awareness among localsabout Gandhi's works and teachings.Director of the organisation, RonnieD'Souza, said Gandhi's philosophyof non-violence is very popular inAustralia. "Our approach is to reachout to people and make Gandhi beknown to them," he said. "In 2009Gandhi Peace Centre began National

Library Peace Project withParramatta Council, supported byMayor of Parramatta John Chedid,Councillor Prabir Maitra and ChiefLibrarian Christina Best who wereinstrumental in taking up this proj-ect," he added. "This year we haveextended this innovative project withthe Libraries in 35 Suburbs in NewSouth Wales are celebrating 'GandhiJayanti'," D'Souza said.

Among the fantastic expenses of the animal husbandry deptt underLalu as Bihar CM were Rs 15 lakh worth of mustard oil for

polishing horns of buffaloes and pigs (yes, pigs) and several croresfor transporting cattle on oil tankers, police vans,

autorickshaws and scooters (yes, scooters).

How the CM & Co gamed the system – Chara Ghotala as reportedin Tehelka magazine.

Gandhi Jayanthi celebrated in Australia

NS Sahyadri Captain Sanjay Vatsayan and his officers with High CommissionerBiren Nanda as it docked in Sydney to participate in International Fleet Review

from October 4-10. Guests at a reception held at Garden Island by INS Sahyadri Commanding Officer


Community

Racism & Women Symposium held The bulk of race discrimi-

nation complaints areexperienced by women as

was revealed during speeches atthe Racism & WomenSymposium held at NSWParliament House on 17October. An initiative of PallaviSinha, Chairperson ImmigrantWomen’s Speakout Association,she says that “it’s very importantto give the community theopportunity to be able to hearspeeches from and discuss issueswith federal & state politicians,President Australian HumanRights Commission & Presidentof the Anti-Discrimination Boardof NSW Mr StepanKerkyasharian and highlightimportant social issues. Theplanned outcome is to preparerecommendations to be given tothe State & FederalGovernment.”

The Symposium was well-attended with attendees thatincluded federal & state politi-cians such as Pru Goward,Minister for Women, SophieCotsis, Shadow minister forwomen, and heads of ethnicorganisations such as theFederation of EthnicCommunities Council, theEthnic Communities Council &the Community RelationsCommission. Speeches weregiven by Senator the HonConcetta Fierravanti-Wells whorepresented the HonourablePrime Minister Tony Abbott andis Parliamentary Secretary to theMinister for Social Services,with a special responsibility forMulticultural Affairs andSettlement Services and isSenator for NSW, the NSWMinister for Citizen &Communities & Minister forAboriginal Affairs & Memberfor Ryde Hon Victor Dominello

who also represented thePremier of NSW. He also host-ed the Symposium. NSWDeputy Leader of the Oppositionand Member for Canterbury theHon Linda Burney representedthe NSW Opposition leader.

Attendees also heard speech-es delivered by Professor GillianTriggs President AustralianHuman Rights Commission, MrStepan Kerkyasharian, PresidentAnti-Discrimination Board &Pallavi Sinha, Lawyer &Chairperson of ImmigrantWomen’s Speakout Association(IWSA).

Pallavi said, “IWSA is thepeak advocacy group for immi-grant and refugee women inNSW and actively representstheir interests and concerns. Ahighlight for me was workingwith the former Minister forImmigration & Citizenship, theHonourable Chris Bowen tomake necessary amendments tofamily violence provisions inmigration policy. He publiclyacknowledged the role of IWSAin bringing about these importantchanges… Australia is a multi-cultural society with somereports indicating that since1945, seven million people havemigrated to Australia. I thinkthat the success stories of peoplefrom different ethnic back-grounds should be celebrated inspheres such as politics, busi-ness, arts and culture. Australiais truly a ‘lucky country’ in thatthere are so many benefits to acountry having so many peoplefrom diverse backgrounds.”

She added, “One can wakeup in the morning, have veg-emite & toast, then attend aSymposium with Asian womenplaying drums, a PhillipinoExecutive Officer speaking fol-lowed by an Indian Chairperson.

We also have the good fortune ofhearing speeches from an ItalianSenator & an Italian Minister, anAboriginal Deputy OppositionLeader & an Armenian Presidentof the Anti-DiscriminationBoard. One can have tastyKorean food for lunch and aFrench croissant for afternoontea. If one fancies they can go toChinatown for dinner and attendan Indian Bollywood concert ordance at night. I believe that amulticultural society is some-thing to be proud of, and thatthere is only one race – thehuman race. Unfortunatelyracism does occur and that’swhat we are here to talk abouttoday. Some reports indicate that1 in 7 people report that theyhave experienced racial discrim-ination. Racism can also occurbetween cultures & within cul-tures. In relation to women,80% of women who come toIWSA as clients have reported

that they experienced Racism.And when a woman experiencesracism, it triples or quadruplesdiscrimination because it can bebecause of her race, her gender,her cultural background and herage. Sometimes women aremore vulnerable because theydon’t know their rights or theydon’t have the confidence tostand up for themselves. Racismagainst women affects individu-als and Australia adversely. AsChairperson of IWSA and acounsellor, I’ve seen womenwho have suffered a loss of self-esteem, have felt stigmatised andisolated with negative effects ontheir physical, emotional & men-tal health affecting their partici-pation in a household, workplacewith negative effect on produc-tivity and the economy. I thinkit’s very important that moreresearch is done in this area andthat the Government adopts anunbiased gender perspective inthe design, delivery and evalua-tion of all policies and pro-grams.”

Linda Burney, NSWOpposition Deputy Leadertalked about issue of sexual vio-lence mentioning ‘how aborigi-nal women were referred to bymen as ‘black velvet – a termstill used in country and parts ofNSW.’

She said, “Scratch under thesurface and see the racist under-belly that still exists here.Pauline Hanson drove politicaldirection in this country and weneed to be vigilant about thisparticular type of racism direct-ed at women.”

Professor Gillian Triggs,President Australian HumanRights Commission, said,“Though Australia is remarkablymulticultural yet the underbellyof racism exists, at times one cansee verbal abuse in public withover 20,000 complaints aboutracism received every year.

“Women face discrimination

that is systemic with multi-faceted impediments as migrantwomen live a life of poverty,unpaid caring work, face hugegender pay gap and social isola-tion.”

“There is huge lack of educa-tion and training for women andthey are victims of visa 457 con-tracts, some 28,000 of thememployed in the health indus-try.”

Stepan Kerkyasharian, presi-dent Anti-Discrimination Board,said, “Racism is evil and racistscan only satisfy themselves byeliminating the race just to satis-fy their contempt. In extreme sit-uations it can lead to genocide,”

“Anti-Discrimination Boardhelps inform people of theirlegal rights and advises employ-ers about their responsibilitiesunder the law thus helping tominimise racism and acceptracial diversity. It is our respon-sibility, by each one of us, tofight racism or help deal withit.”

To change the tempo, therewas also a vibrant and colourfuldisplay by Asian women playingdrums, a flash mob by migrantwomen.

Two women shared storiesof racism they experienced asone of them said, “Racism canbe quite subtle and not overt.That ‘Racism is a feeling’….” asshe described her tragic story ofhow when at her work she wastold to operate on the samemachine which had injured herhand in the first place.

AQ&A session betweenattendees and guest speakers fol-lowed with active participation.

As an outcome of theSymposium, Pallavi and IWSAwill be working with theAustralian Human RightsCommission (AHRC) and Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB) toprepare recommendations whichwill be presented to both - Stateand Federal Governments.

Pallavi Sinha, Chairperson Immigrant Women’s SpeakoutAssociation, with President of the Anti-Discrimination Board of

NSW Mr Stepan Kerkyasharian

Immigration women flash mob at NSW Parliament

Women face

discrimination

that is systemic

with

multi-faceted

impediments

as migrant

women live a life

of poverty,

unpaid caring

work, face huge

gender pay gap

and social

isolation.

Community


Aglittering event ‘An IndianSummer’ was held inSydney in October which

saw the cream of Sydney cometogether for a black tie fundraiserby the Taj Foundation. The galadinner and runway show, attendedby over 550 guests included thelikes of Brett Lee, Steve Waugh,Melissa Doyle, Anna Plunkett andLuke Sales of Romance Was Born.The event raised funds for 3 differ-ent charities - Artisans of Fashion,The Steve Waugh Foundation andBrett Lee’s Mewsic IndiaFoundation.

The night featured a spectacular

Fashion Show by Manish Arora,Roopa Pemmaraju and the Artisansof Fashion, along with live enter-tainment, Indian dancers, aerialacrobatics and Glen McGrath andhis wife Sara Leonardi as MC.Mewsic featured with the unveilingof their new AV film to a resound-ing response, and Brett Lee spokeabout his love and passion for hisfoundation – even choking up a lit-tle on seeing the way theFoundation had grown since itsearly days some 3 and a half yearsago.

The fashion show had models inexquisite creations by Manish who

takes inspiration from myriad aes-thetic layers of India with dressesin opulent embroideries and intri-cate craftsmanship. Roopa’s cre-ations have been inspired by mixingIndia’s artisans and aboriginalcolours and designs.

In the first ever joint effortIndian high fashion collaboratedwith Australian social enterprise,Artisans of Fashion to raise inter-national awareness of the plight ofthe artisans of India who remaininvisible but are key to the successof haute couture the world over.

The collection showcased wasan impeccable blend of India’s true

essence and Manish’s vision ofexperiments in contemporary artand fashion.

“It’s great to see such keeninterest in securing the threatenedfuture of our Indian craftspeople byArtisans Of Fashion. The country’srich artistic legacy of ornamenta-tion continues to inspire the world,with its vibrant colours, decorativearts, intricate architecture andunique handicrafts. While Indianorganizations and some internation-al NGOs have been doing the samefor a number of years, AOF inAustralia has raised the bar to getthe attention at the luxury end of

the market and aimed straight at thebuyer. This is innovative and itgives me great pleasure to partnerwith this initiative and share mycollection which is an impeccableblend of India’s true essence withthe Australian people," said ManishArora

Roopa Pemmaraju, based inMelbourne, showcased her luxuryready-to-wear line featuring theoriginal artworks of IndigenousAustralian artists on a canvas ofethically woven Indian fabrics. Itwas a fantastic night of fashion,glamour, company and a goodcause.

Roopa Pemmaraju and Manish Arora Roopa Pemmaraju’s creations

Brett Lee, Glen McGrath and Steve Waugh

Manish Arora creations

Fashion, fun and charity

By Vijay Badhwar

Trans-Siberian travel has its unique‘wow’ appeal. With embellishmentslike the world’s longest train journey

along the borders of the Gulag country, theTrans-Siberian travel becomes once in a life-time experience.

When the intrepid traveller K.K. Gupta,formerly Air India’s Manager in Sydney, ini-tiated the idea a year ago with two fellowlovers of adventure - Ashok Malik and myself- it immediately bonded into a team eager toexperience the never never land replete withstories of intrigue and hardship, a land ofextremes which, once upon a time, only hadan entry but no exit.

Regular meetings to plan the journeybecame an excuse to down umpteen glasses ofbeer at the Bowlers’ Club in Sydney, a jour-ney more pleasant than the rigours of apply-ing for visas and going through the trainschedules. In the end there was nothingorganised (did not like to be tied down withitineraries), laissez faire, except doing thebare minimum – to obtain the visas, air tick-ets and the first accommodation when welanded in Moscow. What could happen tothree old men, we thought.

Russia is certainly not looking fortourists; the country is still in a paradoxwhether to open itself up to the world or

remain in the shadows. Its embassy inWoollahra still bears the authoritarian rem-nants of the old – no discussions, do as youare told.

The visa rules require an invitation from aRussian hotel which they provide at a fee andcan be arranged directly or through a travelagent. The invitation is emailed or faxed andattached with the application, a mere formali-ty. But the visa officer just made up a rule forone of us who holds an Indian passport to pro-vide the invitation in original, which had to beurgently couriered. He also insisted that thevisa application must be lodged in India to ourbewilderment, retracting later due to pleadingon our behalf by the travel agent.

We prepared for much more as we hadbooked our Delhi-Moscow flight withAeroflot. But to our surprise the aircraft wasa shimmering airbus, the service even betterthan most top-rung airlines.

The stark Moscow airport lacked energybut the six-lane roads beyond slowly openedup a mega city. The mid-rise buildings oneither side of the road were unostentatiousand of a similar character. It is said thatStalin, after his visit to US, was so impressedwith the Empire State Building that he gotseven of them built all around the city.

Colourful domes and spires of orthodoxchurches add spice to the city architecture,each one a masterpiece in its own right. More

than 10,000 of thesechurches were razed tothe ground in the Stalinera to eradicate reli-gion from the society,we were told duringthe free bus tour of thecity.

Big cars lined thekerb side along allroads - latest modelBMWs, Mercedes andAudis with silhouettesof drivers visiblethrough darkened win-dows. We longed forthe sight of a realOligarch getting intothe car but were disap-pointed.

There was a timewhen we heard of longqueues outside shopsbut the shelves wereempty. But now therewere huge shoppingcentres with exclusiveshops which sell label

brands galore but there are no buyers. Therewere only shop assistants who wanderedaround the shops aimlessly.

The Kremlin area, Red Square and thefamous landmark – St Basil’s Cathedral(Church of the Saviour) were the main attrac-tions in Moscow besides many world classmuseums and art galleries. The area, indeedgrand, swarmed with tourists. A cruise inMoskva River was another way to see thearchitectural highlights of the city.

Public travel in Russia is very cheap.While taxi fares are most times negotiated andmay cost anywhere between $40-70, a metroor a bus ride to far flung places within the cityare only about a dollar. The Metro stationsare also a must see, built deep undergroundand accessed by massive escalators. Each oneis a sculpted piece of art in granite and mar-ble with chandeliers that will befit a palace.These are indeed a sight to behold.

Language remains the biggest barrier forEnglish-speaking tourists. As all the signs andnames are in Cyrillic script (thankfully thenumber of letters provides the clue) and vir-tually no one speaks English, it becomes hardto move around.

We had gone unprepared not havingbooked our Trans-Siberian journey and virtu-ally reached a desperation point at the ticketwindows unable to explain either orally or inwriting. This was until a guardian angelarrived asking if he could be of any assis-tance. We were flabbergasted. Lev, a younglawyer, met us every evening after work andsorted out all our travel arrangements. Wecame across many other instances when theotherwise stern looking Russians went out oftheir way to help.

St PetersburgThe train from Moscow to St Petersburg

is the most modern mode of transport in

Russia has developed with German collabora-tion. It covers a distance of 650 km in lessthan four hours at speeds touching 200 km/H.

St Petersburg rivals successfully withBrussels and Paris as the world’s most beau-tiful city as for as architecture starting fromRenaissance period is concerned. The prodi-gious public square outside the HermitageMuseum where the human dimensionbecomes inconsequential relative to the spacearound is absolutely awe-inspiring.

The Hermitage Museum itself is amongthe world’s best where just walking throughwould be a sin. It would need several days, ifnot weeks, if justice is to be done to appreci-ate its art collection. One is at a loss where topay attention to: should it be the ceiling or thefloor, the walls or the artefacts.

Travel


The author Vijay Badhwar (second from left) with Ashok Malik, K.K. Gupta and aguardian angel from Moscow, Lev.

Church of the Resurrection in StPetersburg known for its mosaics

Some of the 147 fountains at Peterhof on the outskirtsof St Petersburg, a sight to behold

One of the colourful churches' spiresin Moscow that are all over the city

Hermitage Museum - one of the best in the world

Travel


The Hermitage Museum had a humblebeginning when a Russian banker gifted somepaintings to Catherine the Great. These werestored in an annexe of the Winter Palace. Butin the following years it became a tradition todonate artwork to win state favours as withthe Nizam of Hydrabad in India. There arenow more than three million cataloguedworks which cannot be displayed at one timeeven in the entire three wings of the palace.

For a casual visitor to St Petersburg, avisit to St Isaac’s Cathedral and the Church ofthe Saviour on Blood are famous touristhaunts. The former is a colossal work of artof stained glass windows and carved doors,walls laden with mosaics and gold-trimmedpaintings. The interior of the Church of theSaviour is exclusively of mosaics that is asight to behold.

On the outskirts of St Petersburg isPeterhof, a palace built by Peter the Great thatis famous for its gravity-fed fountains. Thecity is full of other attractions, among them itsworld-renowned metro stations. We spent anentire day just admiring the underground sta-tions, getting on and off from the metros, fora mere three Roubles (15 cents), the publictransport being so cheap in Russia.

Back in Moscow, we started the Trans-Siberian train journey eastwards towardsVladivostok, a distance of 9289 km, longesttrain journey in the world, announced proud-ly on a pillar at the station. We had plannednot to go all the way to Vladivostok butchanging over at Irktusk, Lake Baikal, toTrans-Mongolian towards Mongolia and thenChina. In hindsight, it turned out to be theright thing to do to escape the long monologuewith an unchanging landscape.

The railway built in the early 20th centu-ry was a major engineering challenge not onlydue to the inaccessible terrain but also due topermafrost in large sections under the tracks.It was constructed by nothing more thanwooden shovels by Italian, Turkish andChinese labour earlier and then by convictlabour whose sentence was reduced by fourmonths for eight month’s work.

The Trans-Siberian train is alike an Indianexpress train that also travels at a comparablespeed but powered by electricity. Its four-berth, two tier kupe’ is also similar to itsIndian counterpart, smaller and with compart-ments replacing the curtains that separate theaisles from the berths. Two attendants(provodnitsa) work alternatively in 12-hourshifts to clean the carriage, lock/unlock thetoilets when the train is 10 minutes on eitherside of a town, lower/raise steps when thetrain stops at a station and provide hot waterin the samovars.

Although August is the peak season oftravel, our carriage was mostly empty virtual-ly all through the journey. Whoever boardedthe carriage ended up in our compartmentsharing many cans of beer and conversingwith mere looks and appreciative laughter.

The dining car many carriages apart wasalso empty and provided the option of thesame soup, same grilled chicken for break-fast, lunch and dinner. Passing the carriageson the way to the dining car we realised thatlocal Russians carried their own bread, cheeseand cold meats which they supplementedwhenever the train stopped at the stations.

Irkutsk, the fur capital of Russia and atown at the edge of Lake Baikal was fournights away from Moscow. As there were noshower facilities in the train, we managed torefresh ourselves with a wet towel soaked inboiling water from the samovar. The time vir-tually stood still as did the landscape of theUral forests. We just imagined that it wouldbe only a month when everything would beunder of blanket of thick snow for the nextnine months.

Irkutsk is a busy trading town. Shared

Mercedes vans ply frequently to and fro toLake Baikal, some 60 km away, to run a con-tinuous stream of tourists. The lake is like avast sea of fresh water, which, it is said, cansupply drinking water to the wholehumankind for 40 years if there was no othersource of water left on earth.

The Trans-Mongolian from Irkutsk travelstowards the southern tip of the lake and thenalong its western bank for more than eighthours as it heads towards the Russian border.

To Mongolia and ChinaIt is an irksome process to cross a border

in the train. The guards take the passportsaway; so the passengers can not leave the car-riage. The toilets are locked as the train is ata station. It is put on hold for the next four orso hours.

As part of the cross-border checks, thedogs entered to sniff around. And the policestarted going through the luggage and then allthe nooks and corners. They got theMongolian attendants to remove the runner inthe aisle and then unscrew a lid in the corri-dor where the linen was stored. They askedthe attendant to get inside the pit and removeeverything. This was right outside our com-partment. We watched with bated breath asthe rather heavy attendant was sweating insidethe pit. Out came from underneath the pillowsand blankets boxes after boxes of something.It took more than an hour as the corridorfilled with stacks of those removed items.There was a problem and we were witness tothat, we thought.

But, to our surprise, after all this sweatingand drama, the boxes ended up in the atten-dant’s cabin and everyone was drinking andwe heard bouts of laughter. Matters had beensorted out to mutual benefit, we thought.

Mongolia is a tiny nation. Only recently ithas begun to find its own identity free fromSoviet guardianship. Nearly 80 per cent of itspopulation is Buddhist and it prides itself withthe conquests of Chengis Khan.

In recent times, the country is experienc-ing an invasion from mining companies due toits large reserves of gold, zinc and copper. Itscapital Ulaanbaatar is now a booming townbustling with construction of new buildingseverywhere. There is also a rush of four-wheel drive vehicles which choke the citystreets.

Thankfully, you can wave to any privatecar and they will drop you at your destinationfor a charge per kilometre. It feels perfectlynormal to share a ride with a housewife withshopping in the backseat.

An excursion out of town, Terelj NationalPark being the most common, is what mosttourists do. It includes a visit to a Buddhisttemple, Turtle Rock, traditional lunch in aGher, and a long drive to Chengis KhanMuseum whose claim to fame is the largeststatue on a horse which is rather a brutalimposition on an expansive terrain. The visitto a Gher, a nomadic living space made out ofa wool blanket on a timber lattice, is interest-ing as a peek into the local way of living.

The Trans-Mongolian train towardsBeijing chugged along vast steppes and grass-lands with gently undulating hills in the back-ground, occasional drill rigs and cranes beingthe only interruption to the otherwise lifelessdesert.

At the China border, the train again halt-ed for several hours for the routine checks butalso for an unusual experience as carriageswere lifted one by one to change their axles tosuit the narrower gauge of the Chinese rail-ways. The passengers remained in their nor-mal seats and hardly experienced being up inthe air except for the comparison with theother bogies on the ground.

Immediately on entry into China there wasa noticeable change: dams and reservoirs, six-

lane highways and smog in the air even out-side the towns. Unending corn fields followedthe train continuously albeit the appearance ofan occasional township comprising high-riseapartment blocks. Welcome to the 21st centu-ry. Beijing Railway Station swarmed withpeople, an overwhelming experience arrivingfrom desolated lands. This station was onlyone of many in the city and each one was sohuge that it defied imagination. One wrongexit may take you a few kilometres away fromyour desired destination.

The roads were majestic with statelybuildings on both sides. The tourist sites wereetched in the memory even without a visit –the Great Wall, Forbidden City andTiananmen Square were all too familiar.Virtually all the tourists were local.

All tours must include shopping detours,we were told. But we protested and sat on the

steps outside the shops, the Gandhian way.The inter-city trains are superfast that

travel at 300-310 km/hour. Within a fewhours you are in Xi’an or Shanghai more thana thousand kilometres away.

Xi’an is a lovely city known for itsTerracotta Warriors. The story goes that theking was told to build an army to protect himafter death. And he built many thousands offull size statues in clay, each one differentfrom another. There they stood in vaultsroofed with timber beams and then pavedover. A farmer discovered the warriors whiledigging for a well.

The bazaars in Xi’an remind of MughalDelhi, the food, specially, a welcome change.

Shanghai, our last stop before we took offfor Sydney, was a mega-town of skyscrapers.It was also good for the last minute shoppingto end the trip.

Terracotta warriors in Xian.

Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing - a piece of art

Shanghai, a city of skyscrapers.


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Community

Bathukamma is a spring festi-val celebrated mostly byyoung Hindu women of

Telangana in India. They pray toGoddess Gowrie for a good part-ner while the married women wishfor the health and prosperity oftheir family. The festival is cele-brated for eight days duringNavarathri until the Durgashtamiday, called Saddula Bathukamma.

There was more enthusiasm tocelebrate Bathukamma this year asthe new Telangana state has beenannounced in India. People ofTelangana have been fighting for aseparate state since India got itsindependence. There is a goodchance that Bathukamma festivalwould become a part of the state’sfestival. Australian TelanganaForum’s (ATF) one of the objec-tives has been ‘To PromoteDemocratic Movement for forma-tion of Telangana State in theRepublic of India’.

ATF ladies and young girlsdressed in traditional dresses pre-pared Bathukamma (floral display)in big flat baskets in cones with 10layers of flowers to resemble 10districts of the proposed Telanganastate in India. They moved in sim-ple rhythmic movements andclapped while singing. As itreached its crescendo, the ladiesmade two concentric circlesaround the floral arrangement ofBathukamma.

Parramatta MP, Dr Geoff Lee,related the importance of this festi-val to Telangana women inSydney. V. Prakash, PoliticalAnalyst from India, explained how

Bathukamma was connected to theTelangana society and the wayBathukamma flowers purified thewaters after rituals whileMuralidhar Rao, SP, shared hisexperiences related toBathukamma festivals in India.

The participants carriedBathukamma was to float them atthe Parramatta Lake.

ATF general secretary VenkataPrasad Ragipani shared theForum’s long term vision to makethis festival as ‘ParramattaCouncil’s regular annual event’.

Debolina wins best research paper award Spray-drying methods for

milk based products such asbaby formula or other pow-

dered milks could be improvedaccording to chemical engineersat the University of Sydney whohave analysed current processes.

Postdoctoral ResearchAssociate Debolina Das’ researchpaper titled Solid-PhaseCrystallisation of spray-dried glu-cose powders: a perspective and

comparison with lactose andsucrose won the Best ResearchPaper Award at the annualChemeca Conference. She saysher project investigated the ten-dency of spray-dried glucosebased powders to crystalize overtime.

The results of Debolina’sanalysis could mean better scale-up and prediction of crystalgrowth in commercially produced

lactose based powder products.“Spray-drying is a method of

producing a dry powder from aliquid or slurry by rapidly dryingwith a hot gas.

All spray dryers use sometype of atomizer or spray nozzleto disperse the liquid or slurryinto a controlled drop size spray,”explains Debolina.

“We compared moleculardynamic simulations with empiri-

cal theory and now have a newview on the ‘activated-rate one’,or put simply the chemical reac-tions involved in the spraying-drying process of glucose pow-ders, ” she says.

Debolina’s Ph.D. supervisorProfessor Tim Langrish, Head ofthe School of Chemical andBimolecular Engineering, saysDebolina’s work will assist in theengineering of new combined

approaches to controlling the par-ticle properties of sprayed-driedglucose products.

Milk powder is added to liquidmilk products, particularly intropical climates where fresh milksupplies are not available. It isalso used confectionery and milkchocolates, processed meats,ready-to-cook meals, baby foods,ice-cream, yogurt, health foodsand reduced-fat milks.

ATF celebrates Bathukamma festivities

Bathukamma is a spring festivalcelebrated by young Hinduwomen of Telangana who prayto Goddess Gowrie for a goodpartner.

Bollywood


By Manju Mittal

The Tokyo Film Festival started out in1985 and was held every two yearsuntil the festival became an annual

event. Tokyo is a place for people to havefun. Japan is a truly unique place wherepeople can be inspired to create new kindsof entertainment. Tokyo is the best city towatch films not only Japanese, but alsointernational. This year Tokyo film festivalhad the highest number of Internationalcelebrities to grace it with Hollywood big-gies such as Tom Hanks, Robert de Niro,Director Paul Greengrass, Francis FordCoppola and Sofia Coppola attending thefestival.

The 26th Tokyo Film Festival kicked offon October 17, 2013 with a parade of starsalong its green carpet to the theatre wherethe festival opened with actor Tom Hanks’movie ‘Captain Phillips’. Tom Hanks anddirector of ‘Captain Phillips’ joined Japan’sPrime Minister Shinzo Abe on the red car-pet. The 57 year old actor Tom Hanksflashed a handsome smile while attendingthe opening ceremony. He then sent out aninspiring message to movie fans in Japan. Itwas an amazing moment for me to watch asthere were numbers of fans out to catch aglimpse of their favourite stars. Film direc-tor Chen Kaige was honoured as the presi-dent of Jury along with other Jury Membersdirector Chris Weltz, Producer ChrisBrown, Actress Shinobu Terajima andMoonsori.

It was truly a joy to experience and seefilms from all over the world for their bigpremieres with thousands of people and attimes in the company of A list celebrities.There were two Indian movies screened atTokyo film festival. Indian cinema is cur-rently witnessing a new wave in terms of itsscripts and screenplay, although Japan andIndia seem to be close to each other spiritu-ally through movies but their movie genresare miles apart. Japanese are attracted toBollywood movies like everyone in theworld.

The special screening of movie ‘Bhopal- A Prayer for Rain’ took place in Tokyo on

October 18. It is a brilliantly made movie bydirector Ravi Kumar. Bhopal tragedy isdeeply etched in my mind and this moviefreshened my memory of how tragic theevent was and how it impacted the victimsof Bhopal Gas Tragedy. All that came pour-ing into the present as I saw reels and reelsof tragedy unfold a reminder that I person-ally felt close to being from Bhopal regionand where I was present myself in 1984 dur-ing the unforgettable tragedy brought on theinnocent poor of Bhopal while they weresleeping. I remember the chemical smokethat filled the city that eerie night.

After the screening I interviewedDirector Ravi Kumar when he said that hefelt extremely honoured that his movie‘Bhopal A prayer for Rain’ was chosen bythe Tokyo Film Festival. He was veryhappy with the response it received.Another Indian movie I enjoyed watchingS.S Rajamouli’s ‘Makkhi’, this movie cameas a total surprise to me, I did not expectthat I would love it so much. The computergenerated Fly (Makkhi) does everythingthat a human does, Makkhi is a landmarkfilm and has taken Indian cinema to a nextlevel. It was good to see that India is gettinga lot of recognition on the global platformsuch as Tokyo. I personally enjoyed watch-ing Japanese, Chinese and Indonesianmovies as well at the festival. My favouritefilm of the festival was Japanese movie‘Walking with a friend’ directed by directorAkira Ogata. In his Q & A Okira said, “Thefilm is like a bowl of simple noodles with-out any garnish—only noodles and plainsoup. The soup is the screenplay, and theactors are the noodles. What I wanted to dowas to bring out the simple, yet full and richflavor of the story and the acting.’

‘Walking with a friend’ is something sospecial a movie that I have seen after a long,long time. This beautiful movie was madeon a shoestring budget as Ogata said that hestarted it off with the savings he had for aguitar and asked most of the people to workin it for free including the main actor Aoki-san.

As the movie title conveys, there are alot of walking scenes in the film. “I’ve

always liked roads, especially junctions ofthree roads. There’re such junctions inevery movie I’ve made.” The poster forWalking with a Friend is shot at a three-road junction as well. Ogata described thischoice of road as “an interesting idea for afilm in terms of choosing which way to gowhen at crossroads.”

The 2013 Tokyo International FilmFestival ended on October 25. President ofJury Chen Kaige commented, “For the lastseven days we have worked very hard to doour duty, we must say that we are veryhappy with the final result.”

Awards were announced at the closingceremony. Best film was ‘Forma’ directedby Ayumi Sakamoto, Best director wasBenedlkt Erlingsson for the movie ‘OfHorses & Men’ and Best actress was EugenDomingo for ‘Barber’s Tales’ and Bestactor Wang Jingchun. Award for best artis-

tic contribution went to ‘The empty hours’directed by Aaron Fernandez and Best audi-ence award went to ‘Red Family’ directedby Leeju- Hyoung.

Tokyo film festival was divine and I amnot exaggerating as it was one of the mostsatisfying Film Festivals I have ever attend-ed and loved every single moment of it.Well organised, well coordinated and con-sistently of high quality all the way. Tokyois an absolutely gorgeous place besides thefestival and I loved Japan for its exception-ally good food, the culture and the people. Istill can’t get over how amazingly politeJapanese people are, they went out of theirway to be helpful and I made a few goodJapanese friends. Tokyo film festival was anunforgettable experience. As Tokyo hasbeen chosen to host 2020 Olympics I defi-nitely plan to be there and see rest of thecountry with more time on my hands.

Tokyo Film Festival 2013:Rich fare from all over

A Bollywood style performance at the film festival

Tom Hanks (second from right) and director of ‘Captain Phillips’ joinedJapan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the red carpet. The author Manju Mittal (right) attended the film festival


Diwali is a festival of lights, of loveand laughter, of good food and nicenew clothes, of parties and celebra-

tions. No wonder Diwali is a much awaitedfestival in the Indian community.

There is a group of people in Sydneywho eagerly wait for Diwali for all the abovereasons. However, they also have anotherimportant reason to look forward to Diwalias they celebrate the festival - they also raisefunds to support a worthy project to help theless fortunate. This group of people proudlycall themselves the members of VISION2020.

On the eve of Gandhi Jayanthi inOctober 2002, a group of friends met and setabout discussing their vision of the future, afuture where they could make a difference tothe lives of the less fortunate and in theprocess, find an additional dimension and anadded meaning to their own lives. The out-come from the discussion was VISION2020.

What started as a small initiative has nowgrown into an organisation known for itsintegrity, transparency and efficiency. In thelast decade, Vision 2020 has raised money tofund thirteen projects. Each of these projectshas been solely based on need and merit.The projects range from funding for wheelchairs to the Muscular DystrophyAssociation in Chennai India, to making asubstantial donation to the cause of starvingchildren in Somalia.

This name of the organisation, Vision2020 - normal vision, is based on a visionfor the future that includes the welfare of allhuman beings by empowerment.

The new charity was formed realisingthe fact that in most of the large charityorganisations, only a small part of the dona-tions went for actual welfare.

All the activities in Vision 2020 are freefrom any form of discrimination. It does nothave any preference based on political orreligious grounds, nor is it limited by anynational or geographical boundaries. “SinceIndians are the pre dominant group in thisorganisation, it’s but natural that most of theprojects funded by Vision 2020 are based inIndia. However, we were only too happy tofund a project in Nepal called Hope for theHimalayan Kids. We provided financial sup-port for the purchase of bunk beds, kitchenitems, and for the construction of soak pitsfor the Sahara Children’s Home,” said onemember.

Vision 2020 is a voluntary, not for prof-it association registered in New SouthWales, Australia. There is a group of com-mitted life members and the membership hasbeen growing continuously as more andmore people are convinced about the trans-parency and integrity of the organisation

There are two major events conductedeach year to raise funds: an outdoor event, awalkathon, and an indoor event, the Diwalidinner. The walkathon, where the focus ison fitness and fun, has been a huge successin the past years.

The indoor cultural event is organisedduring the Indian festival of Diwali – the fes-

tival of lights. A festive atmosphere is cre-ated for family and friends to get togetherand celebrate the festival with good food andentertainment. Fresh sweets are also customdelivered from India for which there is agreat demand.

“The Diwali event is so much fun,”gushes one young volunteer, as she practis-es the garba dance steps with her friends.There will be music, dance and heaps ofgood food. I can’t wait to taste the Diwalisweets adds a senior who is also getting his

dancing gear ready. “The best part is that wecan reach out to the needy and share ourjoys,” the young and the not so young, bothagree.

For further details about this organisa-tion contact: Vision [email protected].

Community

In the last decade, the charity named Vision 2020 has raised money to fund 13 projects.

Community


CIA collects funds for Kiran Bedi’s charity The Council of Indian

Australians Inc. (CIA),organised a charity dinner in

honour of Dr Kiran Bedi at theKashi Indian Restaurant,Annangrove, NSW on September29, 2013.

During her half day stay inSydney, Dr Bedi attended two mainevents and also addressed over 400women at a ladies only event called“Sakhi ‘G’ Sakhi” via Skype organ-ised by the Marathi AssociationSydney Inc.

As part of the first event, DrBedi attended an afternoon tea ses-sion hosted by Dr Vijay Gupta andhis wife, Mrs Sneh Gupta at theirbeautiful home in Wollongong.This session was attended by overforty prominent members ofWollongong’s medical and widercommunity. In his welcomeaddress, Dr Vijay Gupta outlinedMs Bedi’s many achievements andstressed the importance of her workin supporting the education programfor the children of prisoners and the

fundamental social change she isbringing about at grass root levels inIndia. Dr Bedi appealed to the audi-ence that only a ‘dollar a day’ sav-ing would help educate a needychild. She further said that IndiaVision Foundation is undertaking ahuge task in the field of educationand its primary objective is to pro-vide children with social skills,vocational training and ampleopportunities to increase theiremployability and to enable theirsmooth transition in becomingmainstream citizens. Dr Bedirequested people to come out oftheir ‘comfort zones’ and lend ahelping hand. She cited that manyof her students were being educat-ed, their skills upgraded either inpublic or private schools due only tothe donations she receives frompeople within India and abroad.

As part of the second event, acharity dinner in Sydney kicked offwith the screening of an award win-ning documentary film on Dr KiranBedi titled YES, MADAM SIR pro-

duced byAustralian film-maker MeganDoneman and dis-tributed byAntidote Films.At the conclusionof the film, DrKiran Bedientered the hall toa standing ovationand roaring wel-come.

Mr SubbaRaoVarigonda,President of theCouncil of IndianAustralians wel-comed Dr KiranBedi as she startedher speech with aquiz from themovie followed bya Q&A sessionwhere she inspired,engaged and connected with theaudience. She touched on varioustopics covering women empower-ment, corruption in India, Indianpolitics, update on her charity -India Vision Foundation as well assharing her life experiences.

Replying to a question from thefloor about the secret of her beingwell ‘empowered’ and independent,Dr Bedi gave lots of credit to herparents who taught her strong val-ues to be independent in life.Playing competitive sports and tak-ing up a career in Police forcehelped her further. Dr Bedi stressedupon the important role that parentscan play in making women inde-pendent and empowered.Competitive sports helps in life asthere are real challenges, and oneneed to play by the rules as well asdigest the taste of winning or losingon the field. In India, not too manyschools encourage women to play

competitive sports while encourag-ing males in the Indian society.

Dr. Bedi shared her vision,mission and objectives of IndiaVision Foundation. The Vision ofIVF is “To build a community richin education and moral values freefrom crime and gender discrimina-tion” and their mission is “To upliftthe masses and merge them with themainstream to build a strongerIndia”.

Dr Bedi explained why it wasimportant to support the children ofprisoners as they are exposed toenvironment where they talk andlearn only the language of prisoners(murder, chaku, etc.) at a veryyoung age and hence education wasvery important and a game changerfor their future.

On insensitivity of Delhi Policein the recent Delhi rape case, DrBedi expressed that after this casethere is a greater awareness about a

genuine need for Police Reforms inIndia. In fact, there is a lot going onin India and many more reforms arein the pipeline with the DelhiSupreme Court.

Mohit Kumar, CIA ExecutiveCommittee member, auctioned sixbooks written by Dr Bedi on varioustopics covering her reforms, leader-ship and inspiring articles. Theentire proceeds from the funds gen-erated are being donated to the IndiaVision Foundation.

Dr Bedi also presented certifi-cates to all those who sponsored thechildren from her last visit and per-sonally went to each table, whilegiving an opportunity to engage ona one to one basis.

The Council of IndianAustralians assisted in raising$9,400 for Dr Bedi’s charity andalso secured six, yearlong sponsor-ship for children of India VisionFoundation charity.

Dr Vijay Gupta with Kiran Bedi and his daughter Sarikaand wife Sneh

Kiran Bedi with the Executive Committee of the Council of IndianAustralians – (standing from left): Keyur Desai, Jaspreet Chopra,

Dr Balu Vijay, Dr Kiran Bedi, Shail Wadhwa, Praful Desai, Mohit Kumar, and Nitin Shukla

Parramasala Festival in October this year had main attraction as the Star-Studded performance of ‘Temptation Reloaded’ live concert by Shahrukh Khan. Another equally importanthighlight was Sydney’s own young and old stars who took part in Parramasala’s Parade as it kicked off on October 4. Seen here IABBV Hindi School children, parents and teachers.

Parramsala had a screening of an Indian silent movie ‘Diamond Queen’ at Riverside theatre, accompanied by live orchestra and Malakham acrobats from Mumbai who performedfree at Parramatta’s Prince Alfred Park. Parramasala festival director David Malacari

Parramasala Snapshots


Hindi Humour



Santram's Grey Page

The month of October has been chock ablock full of Indian festivals andevents. Vijay Dashmi (Dussehra),

Durga Puja and even Pre-Diwali functions.Everybody was in festive mood. Here inSydney functions have arranged by variousorganisations like Hindu Council, India Club,and Australian Hindi Indian Association(AHIA).

It is good to see that people are being edu-cated about the Indian culture and Heritage.NSW Parliament House celebrated Diwali on30th of October and the Parliament HouseBuilding will be illuminated. There are simi-lar functions in other states of Australia and inparticular in Canberra ACT.

Food combos tomake you lean

Combination: Eggs and MangoGives you: Firm skinThere's no need to apply several products

to get good, firm skin. Just eat some eggs andmango, especially now that the fruit is in sea-son. Eggs are naturally rich in amino acidsthat are essential for formation of skin-plump-ing collagen. And mango, which is rich inVitamin C, works with these acids to boostcollagen production. This helps build backlost stores in the body, which can significant-ly improve the appearance of skin.

Do it right: To give a boost to your nextbreakfast, pair an omelette with a cup of freshmango chunks, which supply nearly an entireday's supply of Vitamin C.

Combination: Red Bell Peppers andBlack Beans

Gives you: Better ImmunityYou'll absorb more immune-boosting

plant iron by adding in some red bell pepperson your plate. Iron in black beans is hard forthe body to absorb, however, adding a dose ofVitamin C-rich produce like red peppers con-verts the iron into a type that's easier for thebody to use.

Do it right: There are great recipes onlinethat show you how to mix your beans with redbell peppers and make the meal a tasty onetoo.

Combination: Extra-Virgin Olive Oil andTomatoes

Gives you: Better protection from diseasesTomatoes boast of four major carotenoids

(alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein, andlycopene) besides three potent antioxidants(betacarotene, Vitamin E, and Vitamin C)which may help fight cancer and heart dis-ease. These protective chemicals are betterabsorbed with extra-virgin olive oil, which ishigh in healthy monounsaturated fats.

Do it right: Leave the tomato skin on,since it is packed with phytochemicals. Extra-virgin olive oil is the least processed form, soit contains the most beneficial compounds.Store it away from heat and light to prevent itfrom going rancid.

Combination: Broccoli and Tomatoes

Both are individually known to have can-cer-fighting properties, but research hasshown that together they are the Hulk of can-cer fighting foods. Scientists found consumingtomato and broccoli at the same time wasmore effective at slowing the growth of can-cerous prostate tumours than eating eithervegetable alone.

Do it right: Have one-and-a-half cups ofbroccoli along with twoand-a-half cups offresh tomato, with pizza or spaghetti.

Combination: Oatmeal and StrawberriesGives you: A healthier heartOats contain two important phytochemi-

cals called avenanthramides and phenolicacids, which are known to work with

Vitamin C to reduce harmful effects ofbad cholesterol and help prevent plaque build-up that lead to heart attacks.

Do it right: Enjoy a half cup of slicedstrawberries with your morning bowl of oat-meal.

Combination: Green Tea and LemonGives you: A healthier heartGreen tea, a rich source of powerful

antioxidants called catechins, is known to helpimprove the heart's health. However, accord-ing to studies only about 20 per cent of thesecompounds are absorbed by the human body.Adding lemon juice to green tea has beenshown to increase the catechins level to 80 percent.

Do it right: After brewing yourself a cupof green tea, squeeze in the juice of one wholelemon.

Combination: Cinnamon and WholeGrain Toast

Gives you: Extra energy and quickerweight loss

Sprinkling cinnamon on your toast mayhelp keep your blood sugar at a healthierlevel, which prevents dips in your energy andspikes in your hunger level. In a study pub-lished in the American Journal of ClinicalNutrition, cinnamon was found to slow therate of stomach emptying after meals andreduce the rise in blood sugar after meals tonegate more bingeing later.

Do it right: Use whole grain bread, trans-free margarine and a teaspoon of cinnamon

Combination: Garlic and OnionsGives you: Full-body protectionBoth these veggies contain a number of

organosulfur compounds and heart-healthyplant chemicals that help keep arteries free ofplaque. Some of these compounds have evenbeen studied for their power to detoxify car-cinogens in the body.

Do it right: Most Indian cooking com-bines the two, however if you are in the moodfor something else, the combination evenworks for soups and sauces.

What you eat is whatyou digest

What you eat can say a lot about yourdigestive system. Consider some of theseguidelines:

1. Go slow on dairy products: If you arelactose intolerant, that is, your body can'tdigest milk sugar in dairy foods, you maywant to have alternatives.

2. Reduce sugar consumption: Excesssugar feeds yeast and bad bacteria in the intes-tinal tract. This causes an imbalance betweenthe yeast, bad bacteria and helpful bacteria. Italso suppresses your immune system.Balanced gut ecology is a key factor in restor-

ing your digestive health.3. Opt for small meals: Eating five to six

meals a day will help your system.4. Drink plenty of liquids: water being the

best option.5. Beware of food that causes problem:

Cut back on gassy food like chhole, rajma,cabbage, cauliflower, green pepper, caffeineamongst others.

6. Chew your food: Healthy digestionstarts in your mouth. Chew slowly and thor-oughly so food mixes with saliva enzymesbefore passing into your stomach. No gulping.

7. Consult a dietician: Consider diet rec-ommended by an expert for a balanced meal.

8. Take multivitamins: If your diet or yourability to absorb nutrients is limited, consultyour doctor to take multivitamin supplements.

5 most common nocturnal problems.. and the warnings they may be signal-

ing.For most of us, night is a time for rest and

recuperation. But it's also the time when youmight experience symptoms that are clues thatthings are not well. A problem with sleepingcan be a symptom in itself. Here are somecommon nocturnal problems and what theymay mean:

Symptom: HeartburnCould be: Barrett's OesophagusExperts say that up to 40 per cent of peo-

ple have heartburn at some stage of their lifeand the majority have nothing wrong withthem.

However, long-term, persistent heartburnisn't normal and should be investigated. It canlead to changes in the lining of the gullet —this is called Barrett's Oesophagus. It makesthe oesophagus more resistant to acid butmore prone to cancer. Regular check-ups cancatch cancer early. It can also be treated withlifestyle changes to reduce acid. Many peoplewho are troubled by heartburn get it day andnight. At night, you lie flat on your back, sowith no help from gravity, more acid canenter the oesophagus.

Could also be: Gastritis, oesophagitis,gastro-oesophageal reflux or hiatus hernia

See your doctor if: Heartburn is longterm, you have difficulty swallowing, you'relosing weight

Symptom: Teeth grindingCould be: StressThis is either clenching the jaw and teeth,

or teeth grinding. A lot of people make somuch noise with their teeth that their partnercan't sleep. Teeth grinding is a recognisedsleep disorder — the third most commonbehind insomnia and snoring. There are manydifferent causes, including stress and anxiety.Don't pop the sleeping pill, it can make thingsworse.

However, hypnotherapy may help find thecause of the stress. Other treatments include

mouth guards and mandibular advancementdevices, which hold the lower jaw and tongueforward. Bruxism can also be affected bylifestyle — alcohol, smoking and excessivecaffeine can bring it on. Could also be: Linkedwith obstructive sleep apnoea where you stopbreathing at night

See your doctor if: You're suffering fromstress and anxiety, or have sleep apnea. Else,see your dentist.

Symptom: Night sweatsCould be:TuberculosisWith TB, the body temperature tends to

rise in the evening and at night, rather thanduring the day time. It tends to be severe thekind of sweating where you need to changethe sheets. In such a case, the body tempera-tures could go up to 100.4oF.

However, be warned that night sweatshappen with other conditions, too, so youneed to check for those.

According to WHO, India accounts forone-fifth of the global TB incident cases. Eachyear nearly 2 million people in India developTB, of which around 0.87 million are infec-tious cases.

Could also be: Menopause, pneumonia orleukaemia, or lymphoma. Or you could bewearing a ticker blanket

See your doc if: It lasts longer than aweek and you have lost more than three kilosof weight

Symptom: Visiting the loo a lotCould be: diabetesGoing to the loo at night is a common

symptom of undiagnosed diabetes. The bodyhas high sugar levels and is trying to push itout with the urine, which makes a person wantto relieve their bladder often. People above 40years of age often put it down to getting old,but it's a symptom that needs to get checked.

Other symptoms may include drinkingmore than usual and excessive tiredness. If achild who has previously been dry at nightstarts to wet the bed, parents often think thatthey're upset about something at school. Butit's also a red flag symptom of type 1 diabetes.

Could also be: Pelvic floor and urogynae-cological conditions (women), enlargedprostate (men) See your doctor if: It's a newproblem, especially if you have other risk fac-tors for type 2 diabetes

Symptom: Leg crampsCould be: Poor dietLeg cramps can be a sign of deficiency in

electrolyte nutrients, such as, potassium andmagnesium, which help control the balance offluids in the body. This affects the muscle'sability to function. Calcium is also needed foreffective muscle fibre contraction. Magnesiumhelps with nerve impulses across muscle tis-sue. Build up magnesium by eating pumpkinseeds, fish and green vegetables. Stock up onpotassium with bananas or a supplement. Legcramps in healthy people can be due to lowlevels of sodium (salt). This happens if youexercise and sweat a lot. Drink plenty of flu-ids. Coconut water is a good hydrator andcontains electrolytes.

Could also be: Caused by your medica-tion, especially diuretics

(Disclaimer: The Health tips in the articleare taken from various well established andreliable sources and are given faith. However,readers are reminded to take care and consulttheir doctor if not sure, as no responsibilitycan be accepted by the writer of this columnor The Indian Down Under).

Just for SeniorsBy Santram Bajaj

Health & Well-being

NSW Parliament House has been celebrat-ing Deepavali acknowledging the

richness of the culture of the people ofIndian Sub-continental heritage, since 2003.

Children’s Corner


Children's Corner By Esther Chaudhry-Lyons

Mongol leader GenghisKhan (1162-1227) rosefrom humble beginnings

to establish the largest landempire in history. After unitingthe nomadic tribes of theMongolian plateau, he conqueredhuge chunks of central Asia andChina. His descendents expandedthe empire even further, advanc-ing to such far-off places asPoland, Vietnam, Syria andKorea. At their peak, the Mongolscontrolled between 11 and 12 mil-lion contiguous square miles, anarea about the size of Africa.Many people were slaughtered inthe course of Genghis Khan’sinvasions, but he also granted reli-gious freedom to his subjects,abolished torture, encouragedtrade and created the first interna-tional postal system. GenghisKhan died in 1227 during a mili-tary campaign against the Chinesekingdom of Xi Xia. His final rest-ing place remains unknown.

Temujin, later Genghis Khan,was born around 1162 near theborder between modern Mongoliaand Siberia. Legend holds that hecame into the world clutching ablood clot in his right hand. Hismother had been kidnapped by hisfather and forced into marriage.At that time, dozens of nomadictribes on the central Asian steppe

were constantly fighting and steal-ing from each other, and life forTemujin was violent and unpre-dictable. Before he turned 10, hisfather was poisoned to death byan enemy clan. Temujin’s ownclan then deserted him, his motherand his six siblings in order toavoid having to feed them.

Shortly thereafter, Temujinkilled his older half-brother andtook over as head of the poverty-stricken household. At one point,he was captured and enslaved bythe clan that had abandoned him,but he was eventually able toescape. In 1178 Temujin marriedBorte, with whom he would havefour sons and an unknown numberof daughters. He launched a dar-ing rescue of Borte after she toowas kidnapped, and he soonbegan making alliances, building areputation as a warrior andattracting a growing number offollowers. Most of what we knowabout Genghis Khan’s childhoodcomes from “The Secret Historyof the Mongols,” the oldestknown work of Mongolian historyand literature, which was writtensoon after his death.

Genghis Khan Unites the Mongols

Going against custom,Temujin put competent alliesrather than relatives in key posi-tions and executed the leaders ofenemy tribes while incorporatingthe remaining members into hisclan. He ordered that all lootingwait until after a complete victoryhad been won, and he organizedhis warriors into units of 10 with-out regard to kin. ThoughTemujin was an animist, his fol-

lowers included Christians,Muslims and Buddhists. By 1205he had vanquished all rivals,including his former best friendJamuka. The following year, hecalled a meeting of representativesfrom every part of the territoryand established a nation similar insize to modern Mongolia. He wasalso proclaimed Chinggis Khan,which roughly translates to“Universal Ruler,” a name thatbecame known in the West asGenghis Khan.

Genghis Khan Establishesan Empire

Having united the steppetribes, Genghis Khan ruled oversome 1 million people. In order tosuppress the traditional causes oftribal warfare, he abolished inher-ited aristocratic titles. He also for-bade the selling and kidnapping ofwomen, banned the enslavementof any Mongol and made livestocktheft punishable by death.Moreover, Genghis Khan orderedthe adoption of a writing system,conducted a regular census, grant-ed diplomatic immunity to foreignambassadors and allowed freedomof religion well before that ideacaught on elsewhere.

Genghis Khan’s first campaignoutside of Mongolia took placeagainst the Xi Xia kingdom ofnorthwestern China. After a seriesof raids, the Mongols launched amajor initiative in 1209 thatbrought them to the doorstep ofYinchuan, the Xi Xia capital.Unlike other armies, the Mongolstraveled with no supply train otherthan a large reserve of horses.The army consisted almost entire-ly of cavalrymen, who wereexpert riders and deadly with a

bow and arrows. At Yinchuan,the Mongols deployed a falsewithdrawal—one of their signaturetactics—and then initiated a siege.Though their attempt to flood thecity failed, the Xi Xia ruler sub-mitted and presented tribute.

The Mongols next attacked theJin Dynasty of northern China,whose ruler had made the mistakeof demanding Genghis Khan’ssubmission. From 1211 to 1214,the outnumbered Mongols ravagedthe countryside and sent refugeespouring into the cities. Foodshortages became a problem, andthe Jin army ended up killing tensof thousands of its own peasants.In 1214 the Mongols besieged thecapital of Zhongdu (now Beijing),and the Jin ruler agreed to handover large amounts of silk, silver,gold and horses. When the Jinruler subsequently moved hiscourt south to the city of Kaifeng,Genghis Khan took this as abreach of their agreement and,with the help of Jin deserters,sacked Zhongdu to the ground.

In 1219 Genghis Khan went towar against the Khwarezm Empirein present-day Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iran.The sultan there had agreed to atrade treaty, but when the firstcaravan arrived its goods werestolen and its merchants werekilled. The sultan then murderedsome of Genghis Khan’s ambassa-dors.

Despite once again being out-numbered, the Mongol hordeswept through one Khwarezm cityafter another, including Bukhara,Samarkand and Urgench. Skilledworkers such as carpenters andjewelers were usually saved,

while aristocrats and resisting sol-diers were killed. Unskilled work-ers, meanwhile, were often usedas human shields during the nextassault. No one knows with anycertainty how many people diedduring Genghis Khan’s wars, inpart because the Mongols propa-gated their vicious image as a wayof spreading terror.

Genghis Khan's Death andthe Continuation of the

EmpireWhen Genghis Khan returned

to Mongolia in 1225, he con-trolled a huge swath of territoryfrom the Sea of Japan to theCaspian Sea. Nevertheless, hedidn’t rest for long before turninghis attention back to the Xi Xiakingdom, which had refused tocontribute troops to theKhwarezm invasion. In early 1227a horse threw Genghis Khan tothe ground, causing internalinjuries. He pressed on with thecampaign, but his health neverrecovered. He died on August 18,1227, just before the Xi Xia werecrushed.

Genghis Khan conquered morethan twice as much land as anyother person in history, bringingEastern and Western civilizationsinto contact in the process. Hisdescendants, including Ogodei andKhubilai, were also prolific con-querors, taking control of EasternEurope, the Middle East and therest of China, among otherplaces.

The Mongols even invadedJapan and Java before theirempire broke apart in the 14thcentury. Genghis Khan’s last rul-ing descendant was finallydeposed in 1920.

HISTORY OF OUR MOTHERLAND INDIA

The Fox and the Crow

AFox once saw a Crow fly offwith a piece of cheese in itsbeak and settle on a branch of

a tree. "That's for me, as I am a Fox,"said Master Reynard, and he walkedup to the foot of the tree. "Good-day,Mistress Crow," he cried. "How wellyou are looking to-day: how glossyyour feathers; how bright your eye. Ifeel sure your voice must surpass thatof other birds, just as your figuredoes; let me hear but one song fromyou that I may greet you as the Queenof Birds."

The Crow lifted up her head andbegan to caw her best, but the momentshe opened her mouth the piece ofcheese fell to the ground, only to besnapped up by Master Fox. "That willdo," said he. "That was all I wanted.In exchange for your cheese I will giveyou a piece of advice for the future:

"Do not trust flatterers."

The little Red Hen was in the farmyard with her chickens, when she found a grain of wheat.

"Who will plant this wheat?" she said.

"Not I," said the Goose.

"Not I," said the Duck.

"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she planted the grain of wheat.

When the wheat was ripe she said, "Who will take this wheat to the mill?"



"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she took the wheat to the mill.

When she brought the flour home she said, "Who will make some bread with this flour?"



"I will, then," said the little Red Hen.

When the bread was baked, she said, "Who will eat this bread?"

"I will," said the Goose

"I will," said the Duck

"No, you won't," said the little Red Hen. "I shall eat it myself. Cluck! cluck!" And she called

her chickens to help her.

The Little Red Hen


Community


By K. Raman

Hijras, in India, are malesphysiologically who tradi-tionally identify them-

selves in the female gender group.They are counted as the ‘third gen-der’ and dress and behave asfemales. In India they are outcastesbecause of poverty and discrimina-tion meted out to them by a major-ity of the population. Many ofthem are sex workers just for sur-vival.

Hijra is a derivation fromArabic word ‘Hij’ (leaving onetribe), whereas Hijra is translatedin English as ‘Eunuch’ (hermaph-rodite). They are known as the‘third sex’, and ‘impotent one’ inUrdu. In Tamil Nadu they areknown as ‘Asravani andAravarni’. They are construed byothers as female, feminine male,transsexual and androgynous.There are female Hijras as well butvirtually unknown.

Most eunuchs are born with thephysiology of men. Generally theyhave female names and would can-didly say that “we are born asboys, and we get spoilt and we getsexual desires only toward men”.Some males opt to becomeeunuchs by engaging into a con-version ceremony called ‘Nirwanceremony’ (Nirwan means salva-tion), a sort of sex change proce-dure. This involves removal ofmale sex organs. The process isnot a pretty one, rather a verycrude procedure carried out by‘quacks' without the aid of anaes-thetics and antibiotics.

Hijras are the worshippers of‘Bahuchara Mata’, an incarnationof Mother Goddess. In Tamil

Nadu the Goddess is ‘KutandavarArayan’. They believe that as apenance they undergo emascula-tion and the Supreme Goddessbestows them with the power ofblessing those who become infer-tile. That is why they are invited todance and bless newly marriedcouple after the wedding ceremo-ny.

Hijras have a very old standingand even get a mention in theMahabharat epic. While on exileand living incognito, the mightyArjuna, the Pandava Prince, dis-guised effectively as an eunuch andwas engaged as a dance teacher ofPanchala princesses. He did so tosave the princesses from amorousmen hounding them.

From a story in Ramayana, justbefore Rama was banished to theforest (Vanavasa lasting 14 yearsand one year of Ajnathavasa livingunrecognized) he instructed allwho followed him to the forestboundary to go back and faithfullydo their duties. Hijras did not obeyhis commands to go back butstayed at that spot. They waited forthe full term of ‘Vanavasa’ and‘Ajnathavasa’, living at the samespot and were the first to see thereturn of Rama. Rama, highlypleased of their extreme devotion,bestowed on them the right to rulemankind before the end of theworld by ‘pralaya’ (almightyflood) in Kali Yuga.

Prior to the British rule inIndia, eunuchs were engaged toguard royal harems. This waswidely prevalent in Muslim domi-nant Hyderabad province wherewealthy households engagedEunuchs as household servants andguards. The harems contained

hundreds of female mistresses ofthe ruler. In ‘Hava Mahal’ (WindPalace) also known as Pink Palacein Jaipur, the massive façade withcountless one way facing windowswere the viewing windows ofharem members always guardedby groups of Hijras staying dis-creetly in the background. Theruler Jai Singh was rumoured tohave 400 mistresses in his harem.It is common knowledge thatHijras are very trustworthy andloyal to be left in female company.The nobility were so happy of theirloyalty that the Hijras were treatedas members of their family.

There is a popular story fromHyderabad wherein two sons ofthe Nizam stabbed each other over

a combat to win the love of a beau-tiful Hijra called Rahman.

Hijras are a unique groupformed based on caste system aswell as influenced by cult groups.A majority of them are citydwellers. They live a well unitedcommunal life. Hijras always trav-el in groups and are a whirlingflock of sari clad people, singing,dancing and clapping their handsin an unusual noisy way. Theyspeak in a coarse manly voice.Like men they have facial hair andthey mask it up with a clean shaveand heavy makeup.

On a conservative estimatethere are close to 500,000 of themliving in India alone. Because theyrenounce their family, next of kin,and religious identities they claimto be ‘Sanyasis’ (hermits). It isbelieved their ritualized perform-ances done during marriages andchild birth (Badhai ceremony) hasthe power to ward off evil spiritsand ushering in prosperity andhappiness to the family theyblessed. Orthodox people believethat if Hijras curse them it materi-alises sooner than later. During theblessing ceremonies, they sing anddance in gay abandon to the rhyth-mic support of a two sided Dholak,supported by their loud hand clap.Generally, Hijras inspect the sexof the child they bless. In bygonedays if the child wasHermaphrodite, they claimed theinfant to become part of their clan.

Severe discrimination is stillprevalent as far as this outcastegroup is concerned. The govern-ment is slack in improving theHijras’ plight: they have no votingrights; they are not eligible to getpassports, cannot get public hospi-tal treatment among untold abusesthe society metes out to them. It ishigh time they be treated ashumans, coexisting with us onearth.Hijras often appear at weddings and at households with a new born. It is believed that courtesy the Supreme Goddess,

their blessing can remove infertility.

They are construed by others as female, feminine male, transsexual and androgynous.

Hijras, the Indian outcastes

Hijras (commonly

called eunuchs)

are males

physiologically

who dress and

behave as

females. They

are counted as

the ‘third gender’

and denied

certain citizen

rights in India.


Reiki Therapist

Manju is a qualified Reiki therapist. Reiki heals Physical,Mental, Emotional and Spiritual states. I can offer a widerange of Reiki services to heal the body, mind and spirit. Iam dedicated to my clients and takes pride in assisting theirhealing by channelling this wonderful energy.

Reiki is simple natural healing system through the laying onhands energy is channeled to the area most needed for bal-ance. Every treatment is different and healing occurs fromthe inside and out. Reiki with Manju is truly a positive andspiritual experience.

To see if Reiki could possibly help you

please call,

Manju Mittal - 0425 204 364



Food


Indian homes are mostly centredaround kitchen as food iscooked lovingly by mum and in

Australia, even by dad to helpshare the burden of running ahome.

Festivals bring a different fer-vour as normal daily run-of-the-mill cooking deviates and one islooking for all the recipes basedaround festivities and the cook ofthe house is in demand for disheswhich are delicious and have last-ing impression on our memories ofchildhood and celebrations centredon festivals. These dishes not onlytake one into the nostalgia but alsoa life that was lived under grandmas, mums and aunts who wouldshare the cooking and take part inthe ritual of cooking while fullyfollowing the regimen of festivals.The ingredients are sourced anewand kitchen thoroughly cleaned tomake an environment which is purenot only on the outside but alsoinside that the dishes should becooked with a pure heart. Andthese dishes are devoid of onion,garlic and of course no alcohol.They should be cooked after onehas bathed and clean, separateutensils are used in which no meathas ever been cooked.

Puffed Rice Honey Balls(In the North they are called‘Maroondas’)

Ingredients:Puffed rice - 2 cupsHoney - 1/4 cupWater - 1/4 cupCardamom - a pinchMethod:Take the honey and water in a

pan. Boil until the honey reaches 1string consistency. Once it reaches,simmer the stove and add the car-damom and puffed rice immediate-ly. Stir well until the puffed rice iscoated well with the syrup. Take itoff the flame and allow it to coolfor few mins.

Now grease your hands withghee and roll out balls. Store themin air tight container.

Crispy and yummy puffed ricehoney balls are ready :

This quantity would make 12medium sized balls.

Puli Aval(Tamarind Flavoured Beaten Rice)

INGREDIENTS:Beaten rice (hard variety) – 2

cupsTamarind – a ball the size of a

small limeSalt – 1 ½ tspTurmeric powder – 1 pinchJaggery – 1 tbspSambar powder – 1 tsp

Cooking oil (Preferably sesameoil) – 2 tbsps

Mustard seeds – ¼ tspSpilt Black gram dal (urad dal)

– 1 tspBengal gram dal (chana dal) – 1

tspGround nuts - 2 tbspsDry Red chillies – 2Curry leaves – a fewDry Roast and powder the fol-

lowing ingredients:Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tspPepper – ½ tspCumin seeds – ¼ tspWhite sesame seeds – 1 tbspMETHOD:1. Soak tamarind in enough

warm water and extract the juice tomake 1.5 cups.

2. Add salt, turmeric powder,sambar powder and powdered jag-gery to the tamarind juice.

3. Wash the beaten rice twotimes at least.

4. Soak the beaten rice in theprepared tamarind juice for half anhour.

5. When the beaten rice bloatsand soft, it is ready to be seasoned.

6. Heat oil in a pan and add themustard seeds.

7. When it splutters add theblack gram dal and the bengal gramdal.

8. When the dals become gold-en in colour, add the ground nuts.

9. When the ground nuts crack,add the broken red chillies andcurry leaves.

10. Add the soaked aval andblend well with seasoning.

11. Add the dry roasted andpowdered ingredients and blendwell.

12. Cover and cook on lowflame for a few more minutes.

13. Switch off the flame whenthe pleasant aroma draws youtowards the dish.

This can be offered to LordSiva as it one of His favourite dish.

Peanut Sundal Recipe

Prep time: 30 minCook time: 5 minYield: 5Main Ingredients: peanutsIngredients* Peanuts - 1 cup, boiled till

soft in salted water and drained* Green chili-ginger paste - 1

tsp (optional but recommended)* Coconut - 2 tbsps, freshly

grated* Lemon juice - 1 tsp (option-

al)* Fresh coriander leaves - gar-

nish* For tempering:* Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp* Urad dal - 1 tsp (split gram

dal/minappa pappu)* Curry leaves - 1 sprig* Asafoetida - pinch

(hing/inguva)* Red chili - 1, tear and de-

seedMethod1. Soak peanuts in water for

at least 20 mts to 30 mts. Pressurecook the peanuts with 1/2 tsp saltand 1 1/2 cups water upto 3 whis-tles and drain the liquid. If cookingover stove top, boil in salted watertill soft. Drain and keep aside.

2. Heat a pan, add oil andonce hot, add mustard seeds. Allowthem to splutter. Add urad dal andas they turn red, add asafoetida,curry leaves and red chili.

3. Immediately add thegreen-chili ginger paste and sautefor a few seconds. Add the boiledpeanuts and toss the contents onmedium flame.

4. Turn off flame and addgrated coconut and mix well.Remove to a serving bowl. Addlemon juice and garnish with freshcoriander leaves.

Tips§ Another variation is to add a

tsp of kura podi. Kura podi is pre-pared by dry roasting a tbsp ofcoriander seeds, a tsp of channa daland a red chili, cooled and groundto a fine powder.

Vada

Prep & Cooking: 20 mts,Soaking time: 1 1/2 hrs

Makes: 10-12 vadasCuisine: Andhra.Ingredients:1 cup whole urad dal/skinned

whole black gram dal/minappappu10-12 black pepper corns,

lightly crushed1/2 tsp cumin seeds, lightly

crushedsalt to tasteoil for deep fryingSoak whole black gram dal in

water for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.Strain the water, and grind the

dal to a paste sprinkling very littlewater. Use small portions of dal togrind batch wise as its easier togrind into a soft paste. Add salt,

crushed cumin seeds and peppercorns and beat till fluffy.

Heat oil for deep frying in aheavy bottomed vessel and heat tillpiping hot. Reduce flame to medi-um.

Wet your hands with water,take a lemon-sized ball of batterand flatten it into a vada on agreased sheet or banana leaf. Makea hole in the centre of the vada sothat it cooks evenly all over.

Slowly drop the vada into thehot oil and fry it on both sides onmedium flame to a golden browncolor. Deep fry 4-5 vadas per batchdepending on the size of the vessel.

Remove the vadas onto a serv-ing plate. Serve warm while thecrust is still crisp and serve warmwith chutney and sambar.

Gujia

Gujia is a fried pastry filledwith an aromatic nuts mixture. InIndia, Gujia is traditionally madefor the holidays like Diwali andHoli and is a must have treat.Recipe makes 20 to 24 gujia.

Ingredients:Crust:* 1 cup all purpose flour

(plain flour or maida)* 1 tablespoon sooji

(semolina flour)* 2 tablespoons oil* 1/3 cup lukewarm water

or as neededFilling:* 1/2 cup heavy cream or

whipping cream* 1 cup milk powder* 1/4 cup coconut powder* 1/4 cup sliced almonds* 1/2 teaspoon cardamom

powder· 2 tablespoon sugar* 2 tablespoon melon

seeds (optional)Garnish:* 1/2 cup sugar* 1/4 Water* 2 tablespoons sliced

almonds and pistachiosAlso needed:* 1 tablespoon all purpose

flour (plain flour or maida)* 2 tablespoon water* Oil to fryMethod:Crust:1. Mix flour, sooji, and oil

in a bowl, make a soft doughadding water slowley as needed.Knead the dough until the doughbecomes soft and pliable.

2. Set the dough aside andcover it with a damp cloth. Let thedough sit for at least ten minutes.

Filling:

1. Mix the cream and milkpowder in a frying pan.

2. Cook on medium heatuntil mixture starts leaving thesides of the frying pan and becomessoft runny dough. Stir continuouslyso the mixture does not burn on thebottom of the pan.

3. Turn off the heat and addcoconut, almonds, melon seeds,sugar, and cardamom powder. Mixtogether well.

4. After cooling, the mix-ture will be lightly moist. Keepaside.

Making the Gujias:1. Mix 2 tablespoons of

water with 1 tablespoon of flour tomake a paste. Set aside.

2. Knead the dough againfor a minute.

3. Divide the dough intoabout 20 equal parts and roll intoballs with the palms of your hands.

4. Roll each ball into about4-inch diameter (like a roti orchappati).

5. Dip your finger in theflour paste and spread it around therim of the rolled dough, but just onthe half the circle.

6. Take the rolled dough inyour palm and put about 1-1/2tablespoons of the filling mixture inthe center and fold it into a semi-circle. Now press the edges togeth-er with your fingers. Make sure theedges are completely sealed other-wise they will open while fryingand oil will get in and filling willcome out.

7. Continue filling the restof the gujia in the same manner.

8. Heat about 1-1/2 inchesof oil in a frying pan on mediumheat. To test if the oil is hotenough, drop a small piece ofdough into the oil. It should sizzleright away but come to the surfaceslowly.

9. Place the gujia in the fry-ing pan few at a time.

10. After gujhias are floatingon top of the oil, turn them slowly.Fry the gujias until they turn lightgolden-brown color on all sides.Don’t fry on high heat; the gujiacrust will be too soft and notcrispy.

11. When they are done cook-ing, lift them out of the oil with aslotted spoon.

Garnishing:1. Boil the sugar and water

on medium heat until syrup is aboutone thread or 230 degrees(Fahrenheit) on a candy thermome-ter.

2. Dip the gujias into thesyrup making sure they are coatedwith syrup all around.

3. Place the gujias on a wirerack to allow the extra syrup drain.

4. Garnish the gujias withsliced almonds and pistachios whilethe gujhias are still moist withsyrup.

5. Gujias will be dry in anhour.

6. Gujia can be stored in air-tight container up to a month.

Prashad recipes during festivities


Columns

By Punam Jain

Iweave my morning magic, witha handful of herbs and flowers;freshly picked from my garden.I take: a sprig of mint, a spray of

basil , a blade of lemongrass, ababy’s fist full of stars from the jas-mine, pink love from a rose, an or-ange glow from a rosehip, the reju-venating freshness of a fewmarigold petals, a pinch of heavenfrom the petals of the Brahmakamal(Star of Bethlehem), a finger lengthof giloy (Tinospora cordifolia), ananti-oxidant shot from 2 leaves orflowers of Lakshmi taru (Simaroubaglauca), the tangy perk of a smallpiece of ginger and cinnamon andthe sweet caress of a dash oflicorice.

I stir it into a sunny bowl, madefrom the earth, and set it in the so-lar cooker. The water bubbles intopure delight and adds its sweetnessto the potion.

I pour the brew into the glassand trap the sun beam of the earlymorning, as it filters through greentree canopies, shot through with joy-ous rainbow colours. Ahah! the joysof arising to a cup of tea, served byMother Nature! It sure perks up myday!

RECIPE: Herbal tea�1 large mug water.v 4-6 flowers and leaves of each

variety (from above).�Large flowers- few petals.�Stems (half a finger length)

and rhizomes (small piece).METHOD

a) One boil. Cover a whileand strain.

b) Pour hot water over in-gredients, in a kettle. Steep mini-mum 5 mins.

c) Set out in the sun in a glassbowl, minimum half hour ormore...

d) Can add lemon and honeywhen cool or raw sugar or stevia, ifhot.

PROPERTIES & USESThe mix is designed to balance

the cooling or the warming proper-ties of different herbs, correspon-ding to a harmony of vaata, pitta andkapha.

Anti-oxidant, rejuvenator, di-gestive, acidity, calming, blood pu-rifier and skin tonic. Use externallyfor beauty bath, face wash, hairrinse or paste for skin ailments,mouth wash.

Properties and applications ofsome of the above herbs

Giloy (Tinospora cordifolia):Part Used: Stem. Indicated for:

Fevers, cough, acidity, skin ail-ments, particularly itches or ur-ticaria (use externally also) and tonic.

Jasmine: Used externally: PartUsed : Paste application of flowers,leaves or root. Indicated for: Forskin ailments, wounds, swellings orheadache. Juice: lice or dandruff.Tea is relaxing, digestive and anti-bacterial and mouth freshener.

Holy Basil (Tulsi); Ocimumsanctum. Indicated for: Excellentfor respiratory problems, fevers andblood purifying.

The quinine and tannins increasewith boiling, so, do not over boil.

The taste of sweet basil may notadd to this potion, on non-availabil-

ity of holy basil, replace with apinch of elder flower or rosemary ordrumstick flowers.

On non-availabilty of Simaroubaglauca: Use 2-3 leaves of dandelion.

Lakshmitaru (Simaroubaglauca): is a nutrient fixer in soil,seeds yield oil, used for edible andbio-fuel. Air purifier. In tea: anti-oxidant, rejuvenator, good for dia-betes.

(Punam Jain is a qualifiedNaturopath, Homeopath, Aro-matherapist and practices BachFlower remedies, acupressure and

yoga. She lives inMumbai and hasextensive experi-ence conductingworkshops fromhome – a place ofhealing she hascreated by grow-ing wonderfulplants around her house. She will bewriting this column regularly andcan be contacted by email: [email protected] +91 (0)9322819214 (m), +91 (0)2225566694 (l)

Cupping the morning sun!

Secret to naturally healthy teeth and gums!

Punarnava – Born anew!


We Indians do have a very goodset of teeth but as busy lifestyletakes over and grabbing food aswe go which at times can be junkwe tend to overlook teeth and gumhealth. Gone are the days whenthe practice of rubbing teeth withsalt mixed in simple mustard oiland using neem twigs to brush ourteeth was a daily morning ritual.Nadine Artemis, an Americanreporter famous for her revolu-tionary vision on beauty andhealth care, who has advocatedself-dentistry advsises that ‘we getrid of the tooth paste and justchuck it away’ saying, “A simplesaltwater solution made up withmixing Himalayan salt, Rock saltor Celtic salt should be the part ofour bathroom cabinet.” She sayswe should rinse our mouth with ittwice a day – in the morning andat night. “Just take a swig of thissalt water and gargle it all aroundinside the mouth and spit it out,”she says.Another advice from her is toscrape the tongue with a tonguescraper as the tongue can carry alot of bacteria on it. ‘By scrapingwe can get rid of 40 % of the bac-teria,” she says.Nadine also suggests that we buyionic brushes and brush in the sun

so as to make the saliva ionic andhelp it to alkalise it which will takefurther care of the plaque that getsbuilt around the teeth and gums.Another suggestion from her isneem ioniser which is an antifun-gal, antibacterial and she advisesto use her gum drops which havein them rose oil and seabuckthornoil that help in regeneration of

gum tissue.We have forgotten that our Indianspices in the kitchen cabinet canbe quite potent and useful forgum, teeth and oral health. Spicessuch as cardamom, aniseed, cinna-mon, cloves are all antibacterial,mouth fresheners and help growhealthy gums. “Strong gums holdour teeth and we should try to

avoid build up of food debrisbetween the gum and the teeth.Teeth are alive and are directlyconnected to gut health hence theysymbolize general health. Whatwe need is a diet that providescombination of Vitamin A,Vitamin D and Vitamin K 2 alongwith minerals which come fromgrass fed animals as they process

the organic content and mineralsof plants for us to assimilate andgive us healthy strong teeth andgut.”With the powder made fromneem, clove, cinnamon, olive oiland cardamom we should with thehelp of gum drops brush our teethfrom gum towards the teeth whichwill help get rid of the debris andhelp healthy and strong gums.According to Nadine we finallyneed an electric brush that canhelp polish the teeth – whichshould be used only on the teethand not the gums.Nadine also recommends flossingby rubbing the floss with gumdrops and then flossing betweenand all around the teeth and thenooks and corners.And finally do not forget to takethat final swig of salt and watermix sitting in your bathroom clos-et at night before you retire to bed.All of the above will give you anever-lasting smile with healthygums and help solve problemssuch as bad breath, gum diseaseand halitosis and other oral healthissues.(Please use above advice as adviceonly and before making anychange in lifestyle do consult yourqualified health professional)

Gone are thedays when the

practice of rub-bing teeth with

salt mixed insimple mustard

oil and usingneem twigs to

brush our teethwas a daily

morning ritual.

Ahah! the joysof arising to acup of tea,served byMother Nature!It sure perks upmy day!


Body-Mind-Spirit

Crystals have the power todeepen our inner andouter sense of peace and

enrich the spirit.Drawn by the powers and

energy of the place, I made anawesome journey to the CrystalCastle in Brisbane recently togive a magical exercise to mymind, body and spirit.

My trip to the sacred site atByron Bay was a “wow”moment because it offered a rareopportunity to connect with myinner self via crystals and holysymbols.

It was an extraordinary,breathtaking moment when Ireached the hills ofMullumbimby to be greeted bythe sight of more than 20,000small, medium and giant crys-tals.

The 310kg rose quartz whichrotates on a mere 0.3 mm ofwater is an extraordinary featurein the courtyard.

The special site created byNaren King and his wife Sono isnot known to many but anyonearriving there will instantly expe-rience the energy of peace, tran-quillity, calmness, healing andrejuvenation.

According to Naren, thebeauty, peace and charm that anindividual may feel at CrystalCastle is purely a reflection ofwho we are really.

Hugging, holding, touchingand marvelling at the radianceand purity of the crystals wouldremind anyone of those qualitiesin themselves.

Besides adorning the hill witha variety of crystals importedfrom Brazil, the Kings have cre-ated a huge labyrinth symbol onthe ground lined with hundredsof pieces of rose quartz.

The powerful sacred geome-try is a classic symbol found inspiritual sites and it is said to bea portal into a revered time andspace, where one may seekinsights into life.

As I walked on the mysteri-ous winding path that took me tothe centre, it gave me a sense ofentering the unknown andembarking on a journey of self-discovery.

By walking towards the cen-tre, it is believed that the neuro-logical pathways between the leftand right hemispheres of thebrain are activated.

At the point of entering thelabyrinth, I was requested topose a question and invite exis-tence to reveal the answer.

On my way to the centre, Iwas told that there would be an

opportunity for me to let go ofthe details of my life, sheddingthoughts and distractions, and atthe same time opening the heartand quieting the mind.

Many thoughts rushedthrough my mind as I walked andreached the midpoint where Ifound a beautiful rose quartzflower signifying a place ofprayer and contemplation.

A bamboo canopy walk at theShambhala Garden which is dec-orated with plants and amazingsculptures and crystals was aunique experience.

I stopped there for severalminutes to wait and receive theenergy and messages.

My walk back out along thesame path was calmer and moremeditative, and provided mewith rejuvenating insights intomy current situation.

According to regular visitors,each journey is unique, noresponse is the same and guid-ance appears in many ways.

The labyrinth is increasinglyused as a legitimate medical toolto help calm the agitated and toprovide people with a quiet place

to meditate. It is also a spiritualtool for reconnecting with ourinner voice.

Walking the single pathassists us in bringing together theanalytical and rational part of ourconsciousness with the intuitiveand spiritual aspect.

As I finished my walkthrough the maze in 30 minutes,in silence, I was sweating but felta complete sense of satisfactionand unexplainable bliss.

Following this activity, mynext stop was at the site’sShambhala Garden which hastwo tall amethyst caves, plantsand amazing sculptures and crys-tals.

Among the statues found inthe sprawling garden are DewiSri, the goddess of rice;Ganesha, the remover of obsta-cles; Lakshmi, the goddess offortune; and Avalokiteshvara,the embodiment of compassion.

A mural which incorporatesthe symbols of 12 of the world’smain faiths is etched in the stoneof the archway to represent theoneness of humanity.

One extraordinary feature at

the castle’s courtyard is a 310kgrose quartz crystal which rotateson a mere 0.3mm of water.

I collected some crystal-ener-gised water from the fountainand sprinkled it over my head toperform a cleansing ritual.

A giant statue of BlessingBuddha with its lotus base isanother major attraction and itinvokes meditative and peacefulenergies in anyone walking intoits space.

I joined others to throw acoin at the Blessing Buddha stat-ue and made a wish in silence.

A few steps away, goosepimples appeared all over mybody when I approached a rare8-metre Kalachakra Stupa(sacred monument) structure,created by Tibetan monks, in thepicturesque garden. It was filledwith sacred objects, scripturesand relics and highlighted theteachings of the first DalaiLama.

As I circled around the WorldPeace Stupa, spinning the 54brass prayer wheels – each con-taining over 130,000 Om manipadme hum mantras – I could

instantly feel the spiritual vibra-tion and connection.

Spiritual connection:Visitors spinning the 54 brassprayer wheels at the WorldPeace Stupa in Crystal Castle.

I further energised myself byhugging a giant sodalite, thecrystal for understanding, andembracing a rose quartz to tapinto its energy of love.

The holy garden also inspiresvisitors with words of wisdomfrom the Dalai Lama, NelsonMandela and author of spiritualbooks Eckhart Tolle, allengraved on huge rose quartzcrystals. The Crystal Castle wascreated over a 25 -year period. Itwas originally meant to set peo-ple along the paths of conscious-ness but has now also become asanctified site for those seekingharmony and realisation.

T. Selva is the author of thebestseller book titled VasthuSastra Guide. To get a copy, callDevi at 0412 623 017. He can becontacted at [email protected]. Websitewww.vasthusas-tra.com

VasthuSastra

By T. Selva

Crystal Castle in Brisbane wows you

A garden table and seating area made up of rose quartz crystals allowsvisitors to sit and enjoy its healing energies.

A sacred symbol allows people to walk into the circular path lined withrose quartz to understand the journey of life at the Crystal Castle.

The 310 kgrose quartzwhich rotateson mere 0.3millimetres ofwater is anextraordinarywater featureat the CrystalCastle courtyard.

A giant statue of blessing Buddha with its lotus base invokes meditativeand peaceful energies on anyone walking into the Crystal Castle

ground.


Zen has always interestedme, with its emphasis onlooking within and enjoying

the present. The overriding themesseem to be detachment, compas-sion and living in harmony withnature.

Zen offers a different way oflooking at things. Someone said"it’s like looking through the otherend of a telescope."

Here are some quotations toillustrate its subtlety.

Just as you see yourself in amirror, form and reflection look ateach other.

You are not the reflection yetthe reflection is you.

--TOSAN

Enlightenment is like the moon

reflected on the water. The moondoes not get wet, nor is the waterbroken. Although its light is wideand great,

the moon is reflected even in apuddle an inch wide.

The whole moon and the entiresky are reflected in one dewdropon the grass.

--DOGEN

Where there is great doubt,there will be great awakening;small doubt, small awakening, nodoubt, no awakening.

--ZEN SAYING

The perfect way knows no dif-ficulties except that it refuses tomake preferences:

Only when freed from hate andlove, it reveals itself fully andwithout disguise.

--SOSAN

He who knows he has enoughis rich.

--LAO TZU

Attraction and aversion are twofeelings that keep people withinthe bondage of ignorant repetitive

behaviour... if people do not craveto be pleased they will not be dis-pleased.

What causes mental sufferingis not the environment but themind itself.

--MUSO KOKUSHI

Where beauty is, then there isugliness: where right is, also thereis wrong.

Knowledge and ignorance areinterdependent: delusion andenlightenment condition eachother. Since olden times it hasbeen so. How could it be other-wise now.

--RYOKAN

Thirty spokes join together inthe hub.

It is because of what is notthere that the cart is useful.

Clay is formed into a vessel. Itis because of its emptiness that thevessel is useful.

Cut doors and windows tomake a room. It is because of itsemptiness that a room is useful.

Therefore, what is present isused for profit.

But it is in absence that thereis usefulness.

--LAO TZU

There is no greater disasterthan enemy-making, for then youlose your treasure,

your peace. When conflictarises, Compassion always pre-

vails.--LAO TZU

It is necessary to be noble, andyet take humility as a basis. It isnecessary to be exalted and yettake modesty as a foundation.

--SENSAKI

An inch of time is an inch ofgold: treasure it.

Appreciate its fleeting nature;misplaced gold is easily found,misspent time is lost forever.

--LOY CHING-YUEN

Praying is not about asking;it's about listening... it is justopening your eyes to see what wasthere all along.

--TULKU RINPOCHE

What a delight it is when Iblow away the ash, to watch thecrimson of the glowing fire andhear the water boil.

--TACHIBANA AKEMI

To get rid of your passions isnot nirvana to look upon them asno matter of yours that is nirvana

--ZEN SAYING

Zen is like looking through the other end of a telescope

Inner Space

By Faith Harper

Columns

Bodhidharma took Buddhismfrom India to China, which

became known as Cha’n (fromdhyan) in China and Zen in

Japan.

Important questions on the Mars program

The Mars One Astronaut SelectionProgram recently asked peoplefrom all over the world to submit

applications to become the first human set-tlers on Mars. More than 200,000 peoplesubmitted applications, eager to make aone-way trip to the red planet. About 25percent of the applicants were Americans,each paying a $38 application fee. Onemiddle-aged, divorced man from NewYork paid $380 to submit 10 applications,hoping to increase his chances of going.He called it a “small price to pay for aonce-in-a-lifetime chance to go as faraway as possible from my ex-wife.”

After conducting some in-depthresearch on the Mars program, I decidedto answer questions from readers about it.

Question: How much will the firstMars mission cost and who will pay forit?

Answer: The first mission will cost$6 billion. Organizers hope to sell broad-casting rights for shows and movies aboutthe colonization of Mars. If that doesn'twork, they will sell naming rights toMars. In a few years, it might be calledthe 5-Hour Energy planet.

Q: Before sending humans to Mars,shouldn't they first send monkeysthere?

A: They tried to do that, but couldn'tfind any monkeys willing to pay the appli-cation fee.

Q: If we are called earthlings, whatwill people who live on Mars be called?

A: They will be called marsupials.

Q: I heard that Mars does not havea Pope yet. Do you think I could gothere and become Pope?

A: No, Mars already comes under thejurisdiction of Pope Francis. But theVatican is accepting applications forArchbishop of Mars. The application feeis $38.

Q: What happens if I go to Mars, donot like it there and want to come backto earth?

A: The Mars program, unfortunately,does not have a return policy. The appli-cation fee will not be returned and neitherwill you.

Q: Is it true that people on Mars willlive longer than people on Earth?

A: Yes, scientists believe that peopleon Mars will live 20 years longer thanpeople on Earth, largely because they willhave far less exposure, on a day-to-daybasis, to Bill O'Reilly.

Q: What if the Mars rocket ends uptaking me to another planet by acci-dent? Or worse, what if it lands onanother part of earth, like North Korea.I do not think I could survive in NorthKorea.

A: Don't worry. North Koreans do not

bite. Unless you happen to be SouthKorean.

Q: I heard that Mars does not haveoxygen. Will I have to breathe anothergas, like fluorine?

A: While oxygen does not exist natu-rally on Mars, it will be produced there(by splitting water into hydrogen and oxy-gen) and sold at special oxygen stations.The price of oxygen will be controlled byOPEC (oxygen-producing exploitation car-tel).

Q: What will people on Mars do forfood and entertainment?

A: Details are still sketchy, but it'sbelieved that they will eat lots of Earthbars and listen to music by some guynamed Bruno Earth.

Q: If I go to Mars, will I have to paytaxes there? What will happen to mytax debt in America? Will it be

forgiven?A: You will not have to pay taxes on

Mars, at least until Mars has its own gov-ernment. As for your tax debt in America,I asked an IRS agent if it will be forgivenand he responded with the Internet slangFCOT, which stands for “fat chance ofthat.”

Q: Is it possible that the Mars pro-gram is a total scam? Are they just try-ing to make money from all the applica-tion fees?

A: I checked with the FBI. Theyadvise you to exercise caution when deal-ing with individuals who are eager for youto leave earth, whether it's the Mars Oneorganizers or the people in your will.They also warn you not to give money toa Republican organization that has beencollecting millions of dollars for a spacemission, calling itself MARSBOM(Movement of Americans Rallying to SendBarack Obama to Mars).

THE HUMOR OF MELVIN DURAI


Column

By Karam Ramrakha

On December 6, 2006, a MilitaryCommander, Vorege (Frank)Bainimarama seized power in Fiji

intending to save Fiji from LaseniaQarase's government which sought to vestseashore and Fiji seawaters in indigenousnative hands.

Fiji had been wracked by coup aftercoup since May 14, 1987. Frank's coupsought to work with a clean slate andcurbed freedoms, outlawed dissent andintroduced press censorship. Today Frankhas relaxed these curbs but old habits ofsilence and old fears do not die easily.

A coup government is always paranoid.I was surprised when I went to Fiji havingnever criticised Frank and indeed givinghim muted praise and lauding his reforms, Iwas subjected to questioning and restrictedto 14 days in Fiji. It was a real shockreturning to your ‘home country’ as astranger on a non Fiji passport and subject-ed to such restriction.

As Australia and New Zealand threat-ened and boycotted Fiji after Frank’s coup,China rushed in to fill the vacuum and toseize opportunities. India has remainedambivalent and our Mother Country alwaysfinds itself in an uncomfortable positionwith Overseas Indians and has never deliv-ered a strong statement on their behalf. Bestit can do is to urge us to be loyal to thecountry we live in, irrespective of whetherthe country is loyal to us Overseas Indians.

Fiji was ceded to Britain on October 10,1874 and became a Crown Colony bychoice. Some 60 thousand Indians wererecruited from India to work in Fiji's plan-

tations and thus the indigenous way of lifewas saved. While this fact was acknowl-edged and credit given to the Indian Labourwhich underpinned Fiji's progress in agri-culture, the British fostered open hatred ofthe Indians in a classic divide and rulemodus operandi.

We, Indians, won no favours from theBritish by protesting British Rule in India.When Pandit Nehru died, Mr Hamilton, theAustralian High Commissioner in Fiji, arabid supporter of White Australia andfamous for the Nancy Prasad saga wasopenly shocked when Indian shops andschools closed to mourn Nehru's death.

As for politics, we Indians are alwaysdivided. Is it apocryphal or did PanditNehru say Put two Indians on an island andyou have three political parties.

In spite of the fact that we Indians werelandless, finance-less, and virtually sittingon sand we, nevertheless, felt we could ekea good living in Fiji. By the Grace of Godwe had survived in Fiji for one hundredyears and so much depended on us.

It was, however, in 1977 that theIndigenous Government fell. It was a rabidsend-the-Indians-back-to-India movementthat split the indigenous vote and handed usa majority which we did not expect. Therewas much heart burning in 1977 when theGovernor General using traditionalWestminster powers vested in him contro-versially appointed the defeated leader asthe Prime Minister, a controversy whichdogs us to this day. But the die was castand soon we had an Indian Prime Minister,a phenomena which had come to pass inTrinidad, Surinam and Guyana.

No longer would Fiji have to pander to

the indigenes.We were all Fijians, a term which the

indigenes resented for use by Indians.There would be no what was called positiveor any other form of discrimination infavour of the indigenes. As for votingrights for one man, one vote, one value.

For almost a year Frank held his peace andasked Lasenia Qarase's indigenous weight-ed Government to hold fire and back awayfrom racially loaded legislation. Incredibly,he has held onto power ever since, that'salmost seven years without a majorupheaval.

Fiji's constitution is an enigma. Itincludes Bill of Rights; it includes equalityof votes and gives all Fiji citizens a votewhether from home or abroad. But it doesnot divide the country into electorates. Thewhole of Fiji is one electorate.

Yash Ghai, a constitutional expert whodid the spade work for Fiji's constitutionwas non-plussed by this and opined that aparty would find it difficult to make thepercentage required by the Constitution tobe recognised to send members toParliament.

Many Indians have left and now com-prise only some 32% of the population.Without guaranteed land rights and foreveron tenuous leaseholds many Indians haveopted to find greener pastures.

Fiji’s flag has still a Union Jack in thecorner. Except, I am told that the currencyno longer shows the Queens’ Face, a slightdeparture. Perhaps the New Parliament williron out these minor irritations.

Contact: Karam C Ramrakha, Barristerand Solicitor, Notary Public, PutneyChambers, 36 Pellisier Road, Putney, NSW2112. Phone: 02 9808 2760, Fax: 02 98025014, Mob: 0434 986 123

Email: [email protected]

Fiji Indians are a neglected lot

Many Indians have left and now comprise only some 32% of the population.Without guaranteed land rights and forever on tenuous leaseholds many

Indians have opted to find greener pastures

A coup government is always paranoid. I was surprised when I went to Fiji having never criticised

Frank and indeed giving him muted praise and laudinghis reforms, I was subjected to questioning andrestricted to 14 days in Fiji. It was a real shock

returning to your ‘home country’ as a stranger on anon Fiji passport and subjected to such restriction.

Fiji Diary


M

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Body-Mind-Spirit

By K Raman

I write this based on a wellwritten book titled ‘KadampuzhaDevi; Chaithanya Rahasyam,’ byAppu Warriar, Superintendent ofthe temple. His family has beenassociated with this temple sinceAadi Sankara’s time.

Ihad a long-standing wish to visit‘MoolaKshetram’, established bythe Advaitha gnani Sri Aadi Sankara

well over 1900 years ago, that I fulfilledduring my recent trip to Kerala. Thistemple is dedicated to Goddess supremeVana Durga.

Aadi Sankara, during his travels,once passed through Kadampuzha(Forest River). This area was a forestand unfriendly for travel. To his sur-prise he saw a dazzling light emanatingfrom a small cavity in the ground. Hisdivine power told him that the GoddessMother was present there.

Without wasting time he consecratedthe Goddess Mother there and built ashrine with the help of a WarriarFamily. Even now the Warriar familylooks after the temple management.

He performed the first pooja with‘Thechi Poovu’ (Ixora Conninea),available in plenty in the nearby forestand offered fruit offerings, a systemstill followed to this day. Thechi floweris the favourite of Mother Goddess.

It is also said that Lord Siva andParavathi Devi took the form a hunterand huntress to test the discipline ofArjuna before blessing him with thepowerful ‘Pasupathastra’. Arjuna’scousin evil Duryodhana had planned tokill Arjuna and deputed Mookasura who

assumed the form of a wild boar andcharged towards the meditating Arjuna.

Siva, who was already there, andArjuna shot arrows and the boar waskilled. Both claimed the kill. Argumentbetween the two ended into a combatand the arrows despatched by Arjunaturned into a flower shower. Arjunarealised his folly while the Lord blessedand gave the Pasupathastra. The Kiratapair vanished through a hole on thatspot. The worships are done on thisspot.

There is no idol of worship in thistemple. Ancient temples are builtaround ‘Aithihyas’ (legends) and this isno exception either. Two of the famousofferings here are Poovu Moodal (cov-ering the hole with Thechi Poovu(booked for the next 40 years) and‘Muttarukkal’ (Muttu neekal, a ritual inwhich coconut is broken by the priestand the coconut water is poured into thehole).

It is believed that the MotherGoddess who resides there is pleasedwith the ritual and removes all obstaclesof the worshipper. Around 30,000 suchofferings are done daily and the templeearns two crore rupees from that ritual.

To get this ritual done a five-hourwait in a long winding queue is com-mon. Worshippers do this for gettingknowledge (Vidya muttu), welfare ofchildren, getting free of disease, gettingmarried, having a trouble free life etc.The devotees claim the deity to be verybenevolent and experience powerfulmagnetic vibes at the temple.

This shrine is located in an isolatedsalubrious spot in Malappuram District,Kerala, about 60 kilometers fromGuruvayoor.

Ancient Devi Shrine that is all fulfilling

‘MoolaKshetram’, established by theAdvaitha gnani Sri AadiSankara well over 1900years ago, in Kerala isdedicated to Goddesssupreme Vana Durga.



Sports

By Gaurav Joshi reporting from India

Couple of years ago as RohitSharma played one of his effort-less cover drives at the

Brabourne Stadium in a Ranji Trophymatch, Dilip Vengsarkar stood up fromthe comfort of his seat, raised his hands,applauded and said to one renownedjournalist seated next to him “He is thebest I have seen since Tendulkar”. Inthe space of the next six balls Rohit wasclean bowled playing a reckless shot.Vengraskar stood up, slammed the doorand left the box stating, “When will thisboy do justice to his talent, because itwill be worth the sight”.

After watching Rohit’s master classagainst Australia in the final ODI inBangalore it is easy to understand thefrustration of Vengsarkar but also torealise why Vengsarkar has such highappraisal for the man from Mumbai. Inspace of those six balls Vengsarkar sawthe best and the worst of Rohit Sharma.

In the last six months Rohit Sharmais yet to experience a dour moment. Hehas answered all his critics and provedhe has matured to reach the expectationsof even his harshest detractors. Inhindsight he will continue to be blamedbut were he to be presented the opportu-nity at the right time to represent Indiaat the Test level he could easily be asdevastating as Virat Kohli in the lastcouple of years.

Last time Rohit was in contention togain a Test spot, he was forced to carrydrinks for over 3 months. An opportuni-ty went beckoning in the Mumbai testagainst West Indies two years ago wheninstead of blooding young batsmen likeRohit in a dead rubber match in homeconditions, they opted to give Dravidand Laxman an extended time despiteboth of them scoring tons in the previ-ous Test match. The decision was evenmore baffling because India restedUmesh Yadav just to blood anotheryoung bowler in Varun Aaron.

For the next couple of months Rohitspent most of time facing tired net

bowlers in Australia and watching thelegends of Indian batting fail miserably.On the same tour of Australia, his arch-rival, Virat Kohli learned the value andthe effort required to score each run inTest cricket in the most demanding con-ditions against a confronting opposition.Even in the final Test of the Australianseries with India down 3 – 0, the selec-tors decided to stick with Laxman and

deny Rohit the chance of learning thedurability, hardiness and toughness ofTest cricket.

To his credit Rohit has gone backand worked hard on his game which hasallowed him to regalvanise his career asan ODI opener. The improvements inhis technique are apparent. He nowstands more upright at the crease and theback foot goes across his off stump.

The bat which used to come from 2ndslip now comes more from the line of1st slip, allowing him to play a lotstraighter. Importantly, he has learnedto build his innings. During theChampions Trophy the most standoutfeature of his batting was the way he leftthe ball outside off stump.

The modification to his techniquehas permitted Rohit Sharma to play themoving ball more effectively. He hasalways looked at ease against pace andplays the short ball as well as any of hiscolleagues. Even throughout the ODIseries, rarely has he been rattled by thepace of Johnson. To sum it up, Rohithas tightened up his defence which hasenabled him to be a complete batsman.Giving him the opening has been ablessing because he has really put aprice on his wicket and his first instincthas been to defend early in his inningsand then flourish.

Despite having the most illustrioussix months of his career in which Rohitcaptained the Mumabi Indians to a win,excelling as an opener in ODIs inEngland, to win the Champions trophyand now the man of the series after hisrecord breaking double hundred,Sharma still declared playing for Indiawas the ultimate goal.

“Absolutely it is my goal to playTest cricket, I have been waiting for theopportunity for six years now and if ithappens, I will be the happiest person inthe world”.

In the space of six months RohitSharma has brushed aside all the nega-tivity to take his game to a new level.He is still only 25, an age many expertsbelieve is the right age to start playingTest Cricket. The West Indies series athome will allow him to settle just likeKohli did couple of years back. But afterthat the tour of South Africa will be thegenuine Test for him.

A similar opening escaped his grasptwo years back. This time aroundthough he will be ready to attempt toscore runs against a quality line upwhether he fails or succeeds it will bethe start of the new beginning.

Mark of new beginning for Rohit Sharma

Though he had to wait long for it, Rohit Sharma had a good Test debutin Kolkata against West Indies.

Rohit Sharma hitsa half century on

Test debutAt press time, Rohit Sharma

was instrumental in steady-ing the Indian innings against

West Indies on Day Two of the firstTest at Kolkata. India were reeling at83 for the loss of five wickets when

Rohit and Dhoni had a good part-nership, after which Rohit carried onwith an unbeaten half century by teatime.

Sachin Tendulkar was out for 10runs, a contentious decision.

The Kersi Meher-Homji column


By Kersi Meher-Homji

Accompanied by firecrack-ers, India won the grippingOne-Day International

(ODI) series against Australia 3-2this November.

The reports on the demise of50-over ODIs are highly exaggerat-ed. Just look at the just concludedseries in India. Five ODIs played(forget the two which were aban-doned due to rain) and four hadmarvellous climaxes, result indoubt till the end.

India won the enthralling seriesafter some incredible run chases.The batsmen’s mantra [philosophy]was: “Whatever you can do, we cando it better. Whatever you canscore we can chase it. ”

In the final ODI in Bangalore(now Bengaluru) on Saturday night,not only runs but also sixes werechased. Both Indian batsmen andAustralian batsmen skied 19 sixeseach. A total of 38 sixes is a recordin ODIs.

India’s opening batsman RohitSharma smacked 16 sixes in hismagnificent 209. This brokeAustralia’s Shane Watson’s ODIrecord of 15 sixes (v. Bangladesh in2011).

It was a sixathon in Bangaloreand worth staying up till 3 am in mySydney home, glued to the TV set.

After losing tamely to Australiain the first ODI in Pune, India

appeared doomed in the secondODI in Jaipur last month.Especially when Australia smashed5 for 359 runs at a run-rate of 7.18,thanks to their captain GeorgeBailey smashing 92 runs off 50balls with eight fours and five sixes.

It looked mission impossible forIndia. But cometh the hour, comeththe men! Openers Rohit Sharma(141 runs in 123 balls with 16 foursand four sixes) and ShikharDhawan (a dynamic 95 in 86 ballswith 14 fours) added 176 runs forthe first wicket at a fast tempo.

But the best was left for ViratKohli. He hit an unbeaten andswashbuckling 100 in 52 balls witheight fours and seven sixes as headded 186 spectacular runs for theunbroken second wicket withSharma as India bludgeoned 1 for362 and won by nine wickets with39 balls remaining.

What an amazing victory! In all721 runs were hit for the loss ofonly six wickets, that is 120.17 perbatsman. Many ODI milestoneswere reached or approached in theJaipur jugalbandi: ndia’s score of362 is the highest for the loss ofonly one wicket in ODIs.

India’s chase of 360 runs wasthe second highest in ODIs after theepic Johannesburg match in 2006when South Africa amassed 9 for438 in reply to Australia’s massive4 for 434. Imagine scoring 434 andlosing!

Kohli’s 100 in 52 balls is theseventh quickest and the quickest byan Indian batsman in ODIs, sur-passing Virender Sehwag’s 62-ballcentury against New Zealand atHamilton in 2009. The fastest cen-tury ever is by Shahid Afridi (102off 37 balls including 6 fours and 11sixes for Pakistan v. Sri Lanka atNairobi in 1996).

No one has scored a faster ODIcentury against Australia thanKohli. The series was level at 1-all.

Then the shoe was on the otherfoot in the third ODI in Mohali.India totaled 303 for 9 (Dhoni anunbeaten 139 with five sixes).Australia chased it down scoring304 for 6 to win by six wickets withthree balls in hand.

The visitors were in strife at 6for 213 but tail-ender JamesFaulkner smashed a spectacular 64off 29 balls and converted a certaindefeat into a victory. He hit IshantSharma for 30 runs in his finalover. Australia now led 2-1. Thenthe next two ODIs were rain-marred.

Another ODI and anotherthriller in Nagpur! After Australiasmashed 6 for 350 with centuriesfrom Watson and Bailey, Indiachased it down and incredibly wonby six wickets, Shikhar Dhawanscoring 100 and Kohli 115 off 68balls.

After this knock, SunilGavaskar predicted that Kohli will

break all ODI batting records. Theseries was now locked 2-2.

Now to the final at Bengaluruon the Diwali eve! India totaled amagical 6 for 383, Rohit Sharmaand Dhawan adding 112 for the firstwicket. Then Sharma went to thenext level, smashing a double cen-tury as he added 167 runs for thefifth wicket with Dhoni (64) in only94 balls.

Only three batsmen have hitdouble hundreds in ODIs and allthree are Indians -- SachinTendulkar, Virender Sehwag andnow Rohit Sharma.

Australia took up the challengewith Glenn Maxwell (60 off 22balls with seven sixes) and an

injured Watson (49 off 22 deliverieswith 6 sixes) in a run feast. Still itlooked a lost cause when Australialost eight wickets for 211, needing173 more runs to win.

But the hero of Mohali,Faulkner, again came to Australia’srescue, belting his maiden interna-tional century off 73 balls with 6sixes. He took Australia to 326 butfell to India’s seamer MohammadShami for an amazing 116.

It was a match to remember, aseries to cherish. Man of the SeriesRohit Sharma totaled 491 runs at anaverage of 122.75. The 26-year-oldis now ready to make his Test debutagainst the West Indies this monthin Kolkata.

The Ashes in Australiastarts in Novemberbut instead of trying

to recover the urn, it appearsthat Australian administra-tors are bypassing the issue.

Having regained theAshes at home in 2006-07,Australia lost it 1-2 inEngland in 2009, 1-3 inAustralia in 2010-11 and 0-3in England this August. Tolose it three times in a row ismorale-shattering. To lose itfor the fourth time in 2014 is a dis-aster about to happen.

The last time Australia lostAshes three times in a row was in1956, which is 57 years ago. Ifthey lose this summer, it will be forthe first time since 1888 (125 yearsago) that they will lose the Ashesfour times in a row.

The recent 3-0 loss in Englandshould have been a wake-up callfor Cricket Australia to start theSheffield Shield early and giveAustralian players practice for themust win Ashes this summer downunder.

What happens instead? Ryobi50-over matches were played inSydney in early October. Thenstarted the tour to India including

one Twenty20 international, fol-lowed by seven One-dayInternationals (ODIs) from October13 to November 2.

In which way the Ryobi Cup inSydney and further ODIs in eightcities of India going to help theselectors in picking a Test teambefore the first Test starts inBrisbane on November 21?

I was in India last month and allthe talk was on Sachin Tendulkar’s200th Test appearance.

The forthcoming tour ofAustralians for a series of ODIs didnot then receive any space in theIndian newspapers. The absence ofMichael Clarke will make this ODIseries even less rewarding and con-fidence-shattering for the Aussies.

It was almost eight monthsago that Australia and Indiawere engaged in a Test seriesin India where the visitorswere white-washed 0-4.

How will Australia understop-gap captain GeorgeBailey perform in India?Aaron Finch with his aggres-sive batting and ClintMcKay with his hat-trickwere behind Australia’s ODIwin in England last month.But India in India is a tough

opposition, especially with Clarkeunavailable.

Even though India are withouttheir stars of yesterday (Tendulkar,Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, AnilKumble...) in ODIs they have aformidable team led by the dynam-ic MS Dhoni and including promis-ing batsmen Virat Kohli, ShikharDhawan and effective bowlersRavichandan Ashwin, RavindraJadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

To regain the all importantAshes Australia should concentrateon the Sheffield Shield. That wasthe main reason Australia had dom-inated the international scene for solong when Sheffield Shield was themain dish on the menu and not anoptional extra.

As Sachin Tendulkaris all set to play his200th Test in

November, the rival Ashes cap-tains Michael Clarke andAlistair Cook will play their100th Test together this summerin Australia during the Ashes.

By a coincidence, rival cap-tains Michael Clarke andAlastair Cook have played 97Tests each. Their stats are sim-ilar; Clarke scoring 7656 runsat 52.08 with 24 centuries(highest score 329 not out) andCook 7801 runs at 47.85 with

25 centuries (HS 294).Barring injuries, both

Clarke and Cook will play their100th Test together in the thirdTest starting on 13 December atPerth. This will be the firstinstance of rival captains play-ing their 100th Test simultane-ously.

In the Manchester Test of2000 against the West Indies,England’s Michael Athertonand Alec Stewart had playedtheir 100th Tests together.Atherton scored 1 and 28 whileStewart hit 105.

Man of the Series Rohit Sharma totaled 491 runs at an average of122.75. He scored a double century in the last ODI with Australia

that won India the match and the series 3-2.

Alistair Cook (right) Michael Clarke

Why can’t Australia concentrateon regaining the Ashes?

100th Test together for Clarke and Cook

Happy Diwali, India wins a sixathon in Bangalore



In his final Test in Mumbai against theWest Indies in November, SachinTendulkar will become the first cricketer

to play 200 Tests.In 198 Tests so far he has scored 15,837

runs at 53.86 in 198 Tests, hitting 51 cen-turies (highest score 248 not out) and 67fifties.

He is the only batsman to score over15,000 runs and the only one to record over50 centuries. The next highest run scorer isAustralia’s Ricky Ponting, 13,378 runs at51.85 in 168 Tests and the next highest cen-tury maker is South Africa’s Jacques Kalliswith 44 centuries in 162 Tests.

England’s Colin Cowdrey was the firstbatsman to play 100 Tests (at Birmingham in1968 against Australia) and had celebratedthe occasion by hitting a century. WillTendulkar prove his doubters wrong by scor-ing a double century in his 200th Test?

In his 100th Test, against England at TheOval in September 2002, Tendulkar hadscored 54 runs in 114 minutes off 89 balls,hitting 10 fours. As Peter Roebuck later toldme, “I remember Sachin’s 100th Testbecause a century was expected but he waslike a cat on a hot tin roof and did not settle.His dismissal was not a surprise. He hates afuss and dislikes matches being about him.”

Now that no one expects a big score fromhim in every match, Sachin is hopefully lesslike a cat on a hot tin roof and more like amature lion on a run hunt.

Sachin also holds the record in one-dayinternationals (ODIs) having scored 18,426runs at 44.83 in 463 matches with 49 cen-turies including an unbeaten double hundred.Next best in ODIs is Ponting – way behind -- with 13,704 runs at 42.03 with 30 centuries(highest score 164) in 375 matches.

Some Indians call Sachin God; cricketexperts describe him as the best batsmanafter Don Bradman. To me he will remain acricketer with dignity and modesty.

From teenage sensation to mature maes-tro, Sachin Tendulkar will remain an icon.

Universally recognised as among the

world’s greatest batsmen, he has finallydecided to retire from all forms of cricketafter delighting spectators home and awaywith his attractive innovative batting andhumility.

And what an innings -- from his Testdebut in November 1989 against Pakistan inKarachi at the age of 16 to his swansongagainst the West Indies in Mumbai nextmonth aged 40!

His Test debut was a baptism of fireagainst the pace trio of Imran Khan, WasimAkram and Waqar Younis.

What can I write on Sachin which is notalready written about? When he completedhis 100th international century last year,seven books were written on him. I expectseven more on the eve of and after his finalTest appearance.

"All my life, I have had a dream of play-ing cricket for India. I have been living thisdream every day for the last 24 years,"Tendulkar said in a statement. "It's hard forme to imagine a life without playing cricketbecause it's all I have ever done since I was11 years old. It's been a huge honour to haverepresented my country and played all overthe world. I look forward to playing my200th Test match on home soil, as I call it aday.

"I thank the BCCI for everything overthe years and for permitting me to move onwhen my heart feels it's time. I thank myfamily for their patience and understanding.Most of all, I thank my fans and well-wish-ers who through their prayers and wisheshave given me the strength to go out and per-form at my best."

Rather than bore you with statisticswhich Sachin has dominated in the last twodecades, I’ll quote what eminent cricket per-sonalities have written about him.

The sign of greatness is when opponentspay you a complement. And when anAustralian opponent showers praises on you,you are a legend. Steve Waugh, not knownto give an inch to a rival, famously said,“You take Don Bradman away and

Tendulkar is the next up, I reckon.”Tendulkar hit his maiden Test century at

Manchester against England in August 1990,aged 17. England’s notable author DavidFrith headlined his story “Hail the BoyKing” and wrote, “How could anyone soyoung be so good at the highest level?”

Then followed his tour of Australia in1991-92 where he smashed magnificent cen-turies in the Sydney and Perth Tests. Afterhis Sydney masterpiece, Australia’s leg-endary batsman Neil Harvey eulogised, “Heis the best player I’ve seen since ages. I lovethe way he places the ball past fieldsmen andhis back foot technique is superb.”

On a bouncing pitch on the WACA inPerth Sachin hit a captivating 114. Thismade Allan Border rave, “If he can play likethis at 19, I shudder to think what he will beat 25.”

What indeed!Even the great Bradman was moved to

exclaim that Tendulkar bats more like himthan all other batsmen he had watched.

After Sachin received Man of the MatchAward in the 1990 Manchester Test, RichieBenaud commented on TV, “We’ll see a lotmore centuries from his bat. I hope I’ll bearound to see them.”

Yes, Benaud has been around, himself awitness to almost half of Sachin Tendulkar’s51 Test tons.

Tributes poured in as he continued hisjourney to immortality. Last November hereceived the OAM from the then Australia’sPrime Minister Julia Gillard. In an editorialtitled ‘Hail the great Sachin Tendulkar’, TheSydney Morning Herald wrote, “A careerlike no other has closed. Save for DonBradman there hasn’t been a phenomenon –in collective experience of the artist – likeSachin Tendulkar. Incredibly, almost super-naturally, the master has fulfilled all but thewildest of predictions.”

I was lucky enough to applaud all hiscenturies and double centuries in the SydneyTests. I consider myself blessed. Wellplayed, Sachin, raise your bat.

Sachin was allowed to choose his home ground of Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai for the farewell Test match of his illustriouscareer. He had also retired from ODIs last December.

Test ODI

Australia 11 9

Sri Lanka 9 8

South Africa 7 5

England 7 2

New Zealand 4 5

West Indies 3 4

Zimbabwe 3 4

Pakistan 2 5

Bangladesh 5 1

Kenya – 4

Namibia – 1

Sachin centuries against cricket playing nations

Sachin RameshTendulkar:

starting young.

The Kersi Meher-Homji Column


Sachin Tendulkar’s maiden international century came against England at OldTrafford in 1990. It was a Test saving ton and came within a

year of his debut against Pakistan.

His teammates hoist Sachin in the air after India’s 2011 World Cup win; the first Cup India won was in 1975.

Australiancricket legendSir DonaldBradman celebrated his90th birthdaywith SachinTendulkar athis house inAdelaide in1998. Cricketexperts describethe Indian greatas the world’sbest batsmanafter Bradman.

Sachin with his wife Anjali. Theirson Arjun, 13, has made a modest

debut at local league cricket.

Making SachinTendulkarimmortal is hiswax likeness atMadameTussaud’s inLondon.

Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary from Bihar is perhaps thegreatest Tendulkar fan.



Is it 2013 or late 1960s, or a dream,I pinched myself. I was in Mumbaiin early September and was invited

for Ravi Shastri’s Memorial Lectureon Dilip Sardesai at the BombayGymkhana.

I was surrounded by former Testcricketers EAS Prasanna, BishanBedi, Bapu Nadkarni, NariContractor, Ajit Wadekar, SalimDurani, Anshuman Gaekwad, MadhavMantri, Kenia Jayantilal..., most ofthem flying to Mumbai to pay theirrespects to the late Sardesai.

Mantri was Sardesai’s mentor andJayantilal’s Test debut coincided withSardesai’s double century in Jamaicain 1971.

And of course there was the tallRavi Shastri, the keynote speaker.That means 10 cricketers who playedTest cricket for India from 1950s to1980s – all in one room.

Sardesai remains one of myfavourite batsmen even though hepassed away in 2007 at the age of 66.In 30 Tests he had scored 2001 runs at39.23 hitting five centuries. His high-est Test score of 212 was against theWest Indies in Jamaica in February 1971where he captivated the spectators by hit-ting a six and 17 fours. He became the firstIndian to register a Test double centuryagainst the Windies.

Famous cricket commentator Harsha

Bhogle introduced the speaker in his inim-itable style and recounted humorous storiesinvolving Dilip Sardesai. Few of us knowthat Dilip was a prankster in the dressingroom.

To my disappointment, Shastri concen-

trated more on praising BCCI, SharadPawar, the disgraced Lalit Modi and IPL.Wish he had spoken more on Sardesai thecricketer and Dilip the man.

At the end of the lecture, I askedShastri his opinion when he had scored a

double century in the January 1992Sydney Test against Shane Warneon his debut.

“Ravi, what was your opinionon Warne then?” I asked. “Did youthink that after his forgettable initi-ation of 1 for 150 in Sydney,Warne would become a Test leg-end?”

Shastri replied that he did seetalent in the debutant Warne. “I didnot think that he would end up tak-ing more than 700 Test wickets butI was sure he would capture 200plus Test scalps.”

Then Shastri regaled the audi-ence by saying tongue-in-cheek,“Kersi, I owe that double centuryto your wife cooking ‘dhan-saak’for us at your home a few daysbefore that innings!”

It was a pleasant journey downmemory lane talking with theguests after the Lecture, especiallythe Test stars and friend MehliIrani, the former Bombay RanjiTrophy player, Clayton Murzello,the editor of Mid-Day and otherjournalists.

But the real pleasure was meetingDilip’s wife Nandini and son Rajdeep. Iwas elated when Nandini told me: “I havepreserved the beautiful article you hadwritten on Dilip in The Illustrated Weeklyof India in early 1960s.”

This 500-page coffee table book isillustrated with colour and rare photo-graphs and enlivened with cartons

and paintings. It depicts a centenary historyof the NSW Cricket Umpires and ScorersAssociation from 1913 to 2013. The birth ofthis Association was dotted with many falsestarts. The authors have put in years ofresearch and have converted a drab subjectinto an interesting story.

Umpires are the backbone of the gamebut noticed only when they make mistakes,hence the title. Call them the whipping boysof cricket. To some players they are the vil-lains. Just ask the English cricketers in thepast about Pakistani umpires, the Australiansabout Indian umpires, the Sri Lankans andIndians about Australian umpires and a quietroom is converted into a shouting gallery!

The umpiring mistakes have resulted inriots in faraway places, from Mumbai toSydney, West Indies to Pakistan, from hereto eternity.

With the appointment of neutral umpires,the angst against men in coats and countershas reduced but not completely. The recent-ly concluded Ashes series in England wasfull of howlers despite the DRS (DecisionReview System).

Like them or hate them, we can’t dowithout the umpires. Authors Jenkins andCardwell trace the umpires’ history in anenlivening style rich in anecdotes. FormerTest cricketer Brian Booth gives personalglimpses with umpires in an entertainingForeword. The book is full of human anglestories. The research by authors Jenkins andCardwell is mind-boggling.

They say, “The umpires have come from

different walks of life – professional crick-eters, Turkish bath operators, carriagebuilders, a trapeze artist, priests, account-ants, bankers and teachers.” Not to forget,Edmund Barton, Australia’s first PrimeMinister. Even the future PM was onceinvolved in a mini riot in Sydney.

There are fascinating stories on notedTest umpires from NSW; George Borwick,Ted Wykes, Tom Brooks, the controversialDarrell Hair, Dick French, Simon Taufel...Who does not remember the controversy ofthe century between Sri Lanka’s masterspinner Muttiah Muralitharan and Aussie

umpire Hair?There are also interesting stories on the

“invisible” scorers. To quote the authors,“It could be said that the scorers are anextension of the rope that links a cricketmatch together... The bowler delivers theball, the batsman scores and the umpireoversees the whole process with the scorerrecording the event.”

Ball by ball, how many runs did MichaelClarke score in how many minutes, off howmany deliveries, with how many fours andsixes, the scorer notes down. Not easy. Butwho knows the name of the scorers? Thebook fills in the gap with stories and a vividcaricature of scorer William Davies from an1842 MCC collection.

I personally knew David Sherwood, theeminent Test scorer as I chatted with him inthe press box of the Sydney Cricket Ground.His sad and untimely death in 1985 at theage of 73 caught many by surprise.

Another scorer I knew and admired wasErnie Cosgrove. Genial and knowledgeable,he scored in over 120 first-class matchesincluding 19 Tests at the SCG. His passingaway at an early age is a personal loss to me.The scorers’ area in the Bradman Standrecognises the life of Cosgrove.

These days it is a pleasure to ask detailedscores from modern scorers Merilyn Fowlerand Narelle Johnson at the SCG.

The Appendix gives lists of umpires atGrade, first-class and Test levels, as also theAward winners.

My one criticism: I wish the authors hadgiven their and the umpires’ views ontoday’s hotly-debated Decision ReviewSystem and the hot spot controversy.

Cricket stars at VIVA GOA’s Dilip Sardesai tribute in September 2013 in Mumbai. Sardesai wasGoa’s only Test cricketer. (inset) Sardesai

Shastri pays tribute to Sardesai & BCCI

No Dazzling Deeds with Bat or Ball, ByDAVID JENKINS and RONALD CARD-

WELL, $60 (The Cricket PublishingCompany, PO Box W27, West PennantHills, NSW 2125. Mob: 0432 699 937)

Rare spotlight on umpires and scorersBOOK REVIEW Rare

Stats

The recent Chittagong Testbetween New Zealand andBangladesh had one unique

and three interesting records.Bangladesh's Sohag Gazi became

the only player to score a centuryand take a hat-trick in the same Test.

Seven others, Johnny Briggs(England), Wasim Akram and AbdulRazzaq (Pakistan), Harbhajan Singhand Irfan Pathan (India), JamesFranklin (New Zealand) and StuartBroad (England) did manage a cen-tury and a hat-trick in Test cricketbut not in the same Test.

Only two have scored a centuryand taken a hat-trick in the samefirst-class match twice, MikeProcter for Gloucestershire andSohig Gazi for Barisal andBangladesh.

Two No.8 batsmen scored cen-turies in the same Test; Gazi forBangladesh and Bradley-JohnWatling for New Zealand in theChittagong Test this October. This isonly the third such instance in Testhistory; Ray Lindwall (Australia)and Clairmonte Depeiaza (WestIndies) in the Bridgetown 1955 Testand Zimbabwe's Paul Strang andWasim Akram for Pakistan in the1996 Sheikhupura Test.Incidentally, Wasim had hit 257 notout in that Test, the highest by anyno. 8 in Test history.



Documents

Indian Down Under E paper Nov-Dec. 2013