indian down under e-paper aug - sep. 2011

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The Indian Down Under PO Box 99 Thornleigh NSW 2120 Ph (02) 9875 2713 Fax (02) 9980 6349 Email: [email protected] VOL 24 No. 2 Print Post Publication No. 23572300014 Annual Subscription incl. postage & handling $17 Newsagencies $1 inc GST August - September 2011 Free at Indian Outlets Rabindranath Tagore 150th Birth Anniversary Story Page 23 Inside this issue: 27: Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, Gandhi’s grand daughter visits Australia in October 14: Neeru Saluja interviews Rahul Deshprabhu, Visual Effects Technical Director of ‘Avatar’ movie and now working on George Millers’ ‘Happy Feet 2’ 65: Australi-a-sia Independent Film Festivals’ star attraction Abhishek Bachchan, Madhavan and director Madhur Bhandarkar come to Sydney to attend AIFF from September 23-30. “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” Pankaj Udhas live in Sydney Sept 3 Madhavan - Guest at AIFF Rahul Deshprabhu Tara Gandhi with Dalai Lama

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Page 1: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

The Indian Down Under PO Box 99 Thornleigh NSW 2120 Ph (02) 9875 2713 Fax (02) 9980 6349 Email: [email protected]

VOL 24 No. 2Print Post Publication No. 23572300014

Annual Subscription incl. postage & handling $17 Newsagencies$1 inc GSTAugust - September 2011 Free at Indian Outlets

Rabindranath

Tagore

150th

Birth

AnniversaryStory Page 23

Inside this issue:

27: Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, Gandhi’sgrand daughter visits Australia in October

14: Neeru Saluja interviews RahulDeshprabhu, Visual Effects TechnicalDirector of ‘Avatar’ movie and now working on George Millers’ ‘Happy Feet 2’

65: Australi-a-sia Independent FilmFestivals’ star attraction AbhishekBachchan, Madhavan and director MadhurBhandarkar come to Sydney to attend AIFFfrom September 23-30.

“Where the mind is without fear and thehead is held highWhere knowledge is freeWhere the world has not been broken upinto fragmentsBy narrow domestic wallsWhere words come out from the depthof truthWhere tireless striving stretches itsarms towards perfectionWhere the clear stream of reason hasnot lost its wayInto the dreary desert sand of deadhabitWhere the mind is led forward by theeInto ever-widening thought and actionInto that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

Pankaj Udhas live in Sydney Sept 3Madhavan -Guest at AIFF

RahulDeshprabhuTara Gandhi with Dalai Lama

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Editor's Letter

August - September 2011 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 ChopraCorrespondent Sports Editor: Kersi Meher-HomjiDelhi Reporter: Ritu Ghai

WRITERSThird Eye: Rekha BhattacharjeePolitical Columns: Karam Ramrakha, MallikaGanesanFilms and Art: Neeru Saluja, Abhishek Sood, MonicaDaswani, Sumi Krishnan, Devaki Parthasarthy, NeenaBadhwar, Rekha RajvanshiBody-Mind-Spirit: Dr Sunder Das, KanakaRamakrishna, Faith Harper, T Selva, Dilip MahantySport: Kersi Meher-Homji, Dilip MahantyFiji Diary: Karam RamrakhaCookery: Promila GuptaChildren Section: Esther Chudhary-LyonsClassical Music: Sumi Krishnan, Kris Raman,Lokesh VarmaTravel: Vijay Badhwar, Kris RamanHumour: Melvin Durai, Santram BajajSeniors Column: Santram BajajBeauty: Devaki ParthasarthyCommunity: Neena Badhwar, Kersi Meher-Homji,Vijay Badhwar, Sumi Krishnan, Neeru Saluja, SavithaNarayanPhotographers: Neelesh Kale, Raj Suri and JordanAnjaiyaGraphic Design: Nayanesh Gandhi, Dinesh Verma,(Bhagwati Multimedia) Bharat Bhushan Chopra

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The second half of the year is usual-ly busier for the Indian communitywhen the beginning of the celebra-

tions are marked with Independence Dayfair and continue with Ganesh Visarjan,Navratri Garbas, Dussehra, Diwali fairand many festivities.

This year there is not one but twofairs which celebrate the IndependenceDay. It’s both good and bad: good thatthere are more fairs to enjoy, more vari-ety, more fun, and importantly, that itprovides an alternative leadership in thecommunity. It’s bad that it portrays asplit in the already small Indian commu-nity and wastes resources that are mea-gre.

There is no shortage of aspirant lead-ers, especially the ones who only are crit-ical. They do not add value but only hin-der progress and divert the focus of criti-cal issues relevant to the community.

But it’s not entirely fair to be negativeas change is sometimes better than thecontinuing lethargy of a race, a commu-nity or an organization. We, as a migrantcommunity, know that as we bring a newlease of life, fresh energy and ideas tothe local community to move forward.The life, otherwise, is dull and boring,lifeless, as it carries the same routineswithout new visions and directions.

The natural life progresses into newspecies by arbitrary mutations of genes.There is no slow and gradual progressthere; the change is in quantum. It’salways followed with an improvement ordeath of a species.

We have experienced that in theIndian community in Australia organiza-tions which are dynamic and welcomechange in leadership are more progres-sive. There are others which drag onwith the same people at the helm who areunwilling to leave their positions ofpower and are comfortable without athreat. In some of these institutions theyalso enjoy financial benefits for doingvoluntary work.

Hence it is ‘wait and see’: if theoption of a new umbrella organization

emerging in the community is good ormerely a grab for leadership, whether itis constructive or merely critical of oth-ers doing an average job. We should notbe hasty to pass a judgment.

Meanwhile in India, the issue todeal with corruption is notdying down as more scams,

bigger and more daring, are exposed.Now it’s the Reddy brothers in Karnatakawho join the corrupt league, having madetheir billions in mining contracts.

But the Government is not serious todeal with the issue, judging from theapproval of the draft of the anti-corrup-tion Lokpal Bill in the Union Cabinetwhich excludes the Prime Minister andthe judiciary from the ambit of the Bill.The Lokpal Bill will be tabled in parlia-ment during the forthcoming monsoonsession.

It is not clear why the Government isso keen to exclude the PM and the judici-ary from the Bill’s purview when this isan open secret about prime ministers andjudges who have been blatantly corrupt inthe past. It is no wonder that AnnaHazare judged the Bill as "too weak andineffective and having a very narrowjurisdiction". Civil Society member KiranBedi cynically referred to the Bill as‘Jokepal Bill’.

The draft Bill is really a joke as itexcludes all the recent mega scams like

in the Commonwealth Games, JharkhandMukti Morcha scam, fodder scam, Tajcorridor scam, Adarsh Housing, Reddybrothers, to name a few.

The Government is also treading oncivil liberties as it went on to ambush theBaba Ramdev protest and now hasallowed only one day to Anna Hazare tofast at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.These are Sonia ‘Gandhian’ values thatone will be ill at ease to associate withthe Mahatma.

Last month India was terror hit yetagain when three synchronisedbomb attacks on July 13 in

Mumbai’s busy localities at rush hourtook the lives of 23 and wounded 130.Ironically the terror visited within days ofHome Minister Chidambaram’s statementthat the first six months in 2011 havebeen India’s most peaceful in years. Thefrequency of terror strikes in the country,particularly in its financial capital,Mumbai, only goes on to show that Indiahas not progressed much in preventingsuch attacks through better intelligence.On the plus side, Pakistan was notblamed for fomenting trouble this time,and the scheduled peace talks betweenthe foreign ministers of the two neigh-bouring countries were held as per sched-ule later in July. Secretary of StateHillary Clinton also did not postpone hervisit to India.

Irequest all Indians living in Australia tohelp our community boost its numbersin the current Australian Census to be

conducted on 9th Aug 2011.If you speak Hindi please write Hindi

as a language spoken at home in question16 in the census form.

* Government policies, e.g. whichlanguage to be taught in schools, dependon official statistics

* ACARA (Australian CurriculumAssessment and Reporting Authority) has

not included Hindi or any Indian Languagein its draft shape paper for national lan-guage curriculum

* ACARA selection criterion includeslanguages “widely spoken at home”

* Hindi is India’s national language* Hindi is spoken by over 600 million

people worldwide* Hindi is 2rd largest spoken languageQuestion 16 - Does the person speak

language other than English at home –Yes,others - please specify:

Please write the language we speak athome e.g. Hindi,

* We also appeal to those who speakHindi as well as regional IndianLanguages, Please write Hindi.

Tara Chand SharmaCo-ordinator

Australian Hindi Committee

Lots of fairs but where’s the vision

Letter to the Editor

File picture of UIA fair in Sydney

H I N D I

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Comment

By Rekha Bhattacharjee

Australia and India are onceagain in formal negotia-tions to double two-way

trade flows within five years andhave also agreed to work out a far-reaching free trade deal to under-pin further growth.

The current round of free tradeagreement negotiation was held inNew Delhi recently.

The FTA bi-lateral talks areaimed at sorting out a comprehen-sive agreement that will lower bar-riers, tariffs and also to enhancecooperation on various fronts.

India has become the ninthcountry with whom Australia is incurrently in free trade talks. Othereight countries include China andKorea.

India has already signed withcountries from the subcontinent,Korea and ASEAN nations.

Experts believe that an FTAbetween Australia and India couldlook into lowering existing tradebarriers and addressing behind-the-border barriers impeding

investment to further boost tradeand investment flows to the benefitof both economies. The reductionof tariff barriers would also havepositive fallout on inflationarypressures on the core inputs togrowth in India.

With Australian mining com-

panies taking keen interest inIndian resources, this would helpIndian companies as they get expo-sure to the international best prac-tices including environmental man-agement and logistics.

Even without an FTA in place,trade between Australia and India

has grown strongly over recentdecades, with a particularly sharpupswing since 2002. Two-waytrade between Australia and Indiain 2008–09 reached US$16 billion,of which goods trade was thelargest component, at US$12.9 bil-lion. Two-way services trade hasrisen markedly off a low base andamounted to US$3.1 billion in2008–09.

“Exports from Australia toIndia have grown rapidly in recentyears. India was the fourth mostimportant export market forAustralian goods and the fifthlargest export market forAustralian services in 2008-09,”wrote Ian Bennett of AustralianBusiness Marketing Servicesrecently.

Australia needs to have equalaccess or, even better, preferentialaccess to the Indian market.Australia’s financial stability hasdeveloped due to our ability toexport manufacturing inputs tocountries like China, Japan andKorea. As each of these strongmanufacturing economies devel-

oped, benefits have flowed toAustralia. India is now in oursights to become a major tradingpartner,” Ian Bennett wrote fur-ther.

According to the figures pro-vided by India's Department ofCommerce, a free trade agreementcould be worth as much as $30 bil-lion over the next 20 years.

The creation of a forum ofbusiness chiefs from both countrieswas announced in previous roundof FTA talks in Canberra in May.Billionaire trucking magnateLindsay Fox was nominated as theAustralian co-chair of the newgroup.

"You have the people, we havejust about everything else,"Lindsay Fox had told his Indiancounterpart Naveen Jindal MP andExecutive Vice-Chairman andManaging Director of Jindal Steel- co chair of the Australia IndiaChief Executive.

This quote pretty much sumsup the synergies which could beharnessed if both the countrieswork together for mutual benefits.

By Neena Badhwar

Census Australialaunched its multicul-tural marketing cam-

paign on August 2, with ShebaNandkeolyar, the CEO ofMulticall Connexions – anagency in Sydney working onmulticultural marketing forCensus Australia, at LeMontage in Leichhardt in thepresence of members from var-ious multicultural communities,media representing Print,Radio and TV and Internet,CRC chairman StepanKerkysharian and politicians.

Census Australia celebratesits 100th anniversary with thefirst Census conducted in 1911.Explained Sheba, “What isCensus? We ran a campaignthat drove home the message tovarious communities that it isan important activity whichgives all of us an opportunitywith which we can shape thiscountry in the future from whatit looks like in the year 2011.”

Paul Lowe, Head of CensusProgram, said, “Census 2011aims to take a snapshot ofAustralia, Australians and theirkey characteristics, on whichmany state and federal deci-sions are based such as trans-port, health and education.”

Census reveals many inter-esting details. For example, inevery 1 minute and 29 secondsa migrant arrives in this coun-try, 36 percent of Sydneysidersspeak a language other thanEnglish and 32 percent speak adifferent language at home thanEnglish. Indian subcontinent’scommunities are the fastest

growing along withVietnamese, Korean andPhilipino and Arabic com-munties. There are 400 diverselanguages and cultural groupssettled here despite English asthe most spoken language ofAustralia by 79 % of the peo-ple. 47 % of Australians areborn overseas.

Minister for Citizenship,Community and Minister forAboriginal Affairs, VictorDominello, said, “Census 2011is the 16th conducted in the last100 years. It has shown a mas-sive change in the mix of peo-ple here today than in Australiaa hundred years ago. TheCensus helps find new marketsfor the governments for multi-cultural marketing campaigns.Census data is a treasure trovethat will help discover popula-tion trends. You don’t need tofear as we know people have

fled from difficult circum-stances and should fill theCensus forms to give a true pic-ture of Australia. We can seethe rise of certain languagessuch as Hindi for trade anddiplomacy decision making.And most important is howCensus gives the governmentinformation to offer servicespeople need before they cancall Australia a home.”

2006 Census showed Indiancommunity was growing whileCensus 2011 should show thatwe as Indian community havegrown substantially to make adifference to the Australianlandscape. The decision forHindi to be considered as a lan-guage subject in normal schoolhours by ACARA’s nationalschool language subject cur-riculum can be concretely madebased on what the results of2011 Census would show.

Two years ago, Kyle Sandilandssuggested comedian MagdaSzubanski could lose weight by

spending time in a concentration camp. But the shock jock has once again

raised the hackles of some of his listen-ers ... this time by calling India a "shit-hole" and the holy Ganga river a "junk-yard".

Sandilands was teasing a listenerabout her criticism of western Sydneysuburb Mount Druitt during The Kyleand Jackie O Show last week when shebrought up India.

"Hey, I like Indians. I just thinkIndia is a shithole. And even Indiansthink it's a shithole," Sandilands saidon air, with his co-host Jackie O reply-ing: "No, they don't."

He continued: "They don't want tobathe in the river with the dead cowsand all these dead things ... those witha shower are very lucky."

Jackie O: "That's a holy, holyriver, isn't it?"

Sandilands : "No, it is not.Someone has told someone a furphy,because that river is just a junkyard."

In India, where 80 per cent - ormore than 800 million people - practiseHinduism, the 2500-km Ganges isconsidered holy.

True, the Ganges is one of theworld's most "at risk" waterways dueto pollution and water withdrawal, asper WWF.

Dr Yadu Singh of the Council ofIndian Australians, a Sydney-basedcommunity group, said that,Sandilands "crossed the line of decen-cy" with his comments about theGanges. “Going into people's belief

system, this is something that is notacceptable… We are a 5000-year-oldHindu religion.”

Sandilands's comments have alsotravelled all the way to India, withmedia outlets - including The Times ofIndia, the country's largest English-language newspaper - reporting on theincident.

But, in more than 800 commentsposted on the Times website, mostappeared to agree that the Ganges ispolluted.

Indian Australians have alsoexpressed their disapproval aboutSandilands's remarks. An apologyfrom Sandilands and 2Day FM hasbeen demanded and the station is look-ing into the matter.

Incidentally, Sandilands, a formerAustralian Idol and X Factor judge,was suspended for four weeks from hisradio show in 2009 for his remarksabout Szubanski.

He was also taken off-air in thesame year after a 14-year-old girlalleged on his program, while strappedto a lie detector, that she had beenraped when she was 12.

Australia, India in free trade talks

Census 2011 launched OZ radio host in hotwater for remarks on

India, Ganga

Prime Minister Julia Gillard with India’s Commerce and IndustryMinister Anand Sharma in Canberra in May this year

Minister of Citizenship, Communities and Aboriginal Affairs,Victor Dominello with Vijai Singhal and Mala Mehta

Kyle Sandilands called India a "shithole" and the holy Ganga river

a "junkyard".

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 9

Carbon tax, an investment for future generationsBy Rekha Bhattacharjee

Australian Prime MinisterJulia Gillard does notseem to have any delu-

sions about the precarious positionher Labor Party is in if the elec-tions are called today. JuliaGillard’s resolute stance onCarbon Tax has led to a serioustrust deficit among the voters andlegion of skeptics baring theirfangs.

If one were to take negativeopinion polls and scathing soundbytes on talk back radios into con-sideration, the first female PrimeMinister of Australia is facing cer-tain annihilation.

The latest Newspoll showsLabor's popularity has slipped toa record low at 42 per cent, two-party preferred. OppositionLeader Tony Abbott leads MsGillard as the preferred PrimeMinister 43 per-cent to 38.

To make the matters worse,Gillard government’s surpriseadmission that Treasury hasn'tproperly costed the carbon pack-age has not helped the matters atall. The embarrassing admissioncame from the Greens stating thatthe Treasury modelled the impact

on households based on a carbonprice of $20 rather than the $23that's been announced.

In spite of an orchestratedmedia campaign, Julia Gillard hasbeen showing exemplary resolu-tion to do something about climatechange which threatens to obliter-ate almost everything about PlanetEarth which we usually take forgranted.

While the Prime Minister isfacing the flak from media, theOpposition and general public; shehas also managed to get supportfrom various quarters.

Former Australian Prime

Minister Paul Keating is one suchbeliever in Julia Gillard’s cam-paign to do something pro-activeabout the climate change.

In an interview with ABCTV’s Lateline, the former LaborPM said putting a price on carbonwas vital for encouraging a shiftto clean energy. He went on todebunk Opposition Leader TonyAbbott's proposal to pay compa-nies to reduce their pollution.

"You know what TonyAbbott's policy is? If you don'tgive me the job I'll wreck theplace and we say, 'Well Tony,you better have it'. Tony's got to

have the political judo chop,”Paul Keating said in his usualcolourful manner.

Julia Gillard has also gotmoral support from unexpectedquarters as Liberal front-bencherMalcolm Turnbull almostendorsed her policies when hesaid this: ''There has been a veryeffective campaign against the sci-ence of climate change by thoseopposed to taking action to cutemissions - many because it is notin their own financial interests -and that this has played into thecarbon tax debate,” he said.

This Malcolm Turnbull speechhas not only exposed the chinks inAbbott armour, it has also fuelledthe speculation that the FederalMember from Wentworth maycross floor to support CarbonTax.

While there has been a minorchange in the tide for Labor Partyas reflected by the opinion pollstaken after the aforementioned‘Q&A’ show, it would be nothingshort of a miracle if Julia Gillardmanages to renew her lease forThe Lodge after 2013 Elections.

Whichever way the dice rollsin 2013 elections, the incumbentPrime Minister has shown exem-

plary grit by implementing theCarbon Tax as a step not only tocombat the climate warming butalso to put Australia on the fore-front of the developed world.

Most of the people in ‘Q&A’audience would remember JuliaGillard’s famous words: “Formed,as Prime Minister, I made achoice CSIRO or (Sydney radiohost) Alan Jones. I pickedCSIRO. I think Tony Abbottmight make the other choice”.

In conclusion, I would like tomention balanced views about theCarbon Tax issue by independentMP Tony Windsor (as quoted in arecent newspaper article): “Thereal beneficiaries of Australia'scarbon tax package will be peoplenot yet born, all over the world,who will be one step further on along journey to end global warm-ing. But the cost falls on us, hereand now, because it tackles ourpart in warming. If we care forthose who come after us, we can-not afford the risk of leaving thema planet where the icecaps aremelting, seas are rising, low-lyingland is being flooded and today'sfood bowls are turning into tomor-row's deserts. Let's stop thewhining, and make it work.”

Julia Gillard’s resolute stance on Carbon Tax has led to a serious trustdeficit among the voters and legion of skeptics baring their fangs.

Humanising the last Media MogulBy Rekha Bhattacharjee

While the ongoing saga of phonehacking by over-zealous journal-ists in Great Britain has dealt a

serious blow to the credibility of the NewsCorp media empire, in a way it has alsohumanised Rupert Murdoch who is oftenaddressed as the Last Media Mogul.

Never before the Chairman of NewsCorporation, and his heir apparent JamesMurdoch, looked so vulnerable as they didwhen appearing in front of a BritishParliament panel formed after the scandalinvolving hacking the mobile phone ofmissing 13-year-old Milly Dowler cameinto light.

The girl was later found murdered. Aprivate investigator hired by Murdoch-owned News of the World is alleged tohave hacked the then dead British teenag-er’s mobile phone and deleted some mes-sages.

Rupert Murdoch began his appearancein front of the British Parliament SelectMedia Committee with uncharacteristichumility, saying, "This is the most humbleday of my life." The ‘humble’ face was,however, discarded soon as RupertMurdoch started thumping the table claim-ing he had no idea about the wrongdoingsof the now defunct tabloid.

"I was absolutely shocked, appalledand ashamed when I heard about the MillyDowler case only two weeks ago,” hewould later tell the British MPs. It wouldbe interesting to find out if RupertMurdoch, known for his arrogance andruthless way of operating media outlets,had uttered these three words in one sen-tence ever before.

The two weeks after the scandal brokeout have seen a massive transformation in

Murdoch fortunes to dramatically shutdown the News of the World tabloid inBritain, abandon his ambitious bid to takeover the whole of BSkyB, forced to appearbefore a British Parliamentary panel afterrefusing initially and now faces unprece-dented crisis over his United States andAustralian media interests.

Rupert Murdoch, who presides over a40-bilion dollar empire, was also humbledone more time as the British Police arrest-ed his blue-eyed executive RebekahBrooks. She was the chief executive ofMurdoch’s British operations, NewsInternational and Rupert Murdoch hadmade it his “priority” to save RebekahBrooks.

Speculation is also rife that RupertMurdoch may be replaced as the Chairmanof the New York Based News

Corporation.In spite of a spate of recent reverses,

the battle-hardened Australian is not readyto call quits as yet.

But not many would believe RupertMurdoch’s proclamations about the suddenclosure of the London tabloid.

Labour MP Tom Watson is one suchskeptic. He said: "Rupert Murdoch did notclose the News of the World. It is therevulsion of families up and down the landas to what they got up to. It was going tolose all its readers and it had no advertis-ers left. They had no choice."

Rupert Murdoch and son JamesMurdoch are now subjects of an investiga-tion by Scotland Yard for aforementionedhacking scandal which led to a wave ofdisgust in the Great Britain. Numerousexecutives of Murdoch's News

International are also facing Scotland Yardinvestigation not only for hacking the mur-dered Briton teen Milly Dowler's mobilephone but also for other such previousinstances.

Australia-born Rupert Murdoch mayhave shut down the 168-year old tabloidNews of the World but he continues toface the heat over ‘gutter journalism’ hisvarious newspapers have been indulging infor really long.

Many commentators believe that thefallout of the News of the World onMurdochs’ Australian and US media inter-ests is but obvious.

There have been calls for an enquiryinto Australian media.

It is well known that the PrimeMinister Julia Gillard is no big fan ofMurdochs’ media empire.

“I do believe that Australians watchingall of that happening overseas with NewsCorp are looking at News Ltd here and arewanting to see News Ltd answer somehard questions,” Australian PM wasrecently quoted as saying.

While many believe the speculationabout the impending collapse of NewsCorporation, and Murdoch’s mediaempire, is exaggerated - much has beenwritten on the real damage to RupertMurdoch's legacy in the feud now ragingin the Murdoch clan. Not knowing wherethe scandal is heading or what the finalcost will be, they are at present closingranks.

At stake, apart from the vast fortune -there is the global clout that goes withowning the world's greatest media empire.For decades Rupert Murdoch has used hisnewspapers and TV Networks to endorsefavoured politicians in Australia, Americaand Britain.

Rupert Murdoch helped by his son, James, and wife Wendy Dang as they take theirseats to appear before a parliamentary committee on phone hacking in London July 19.

The Third Eye by Rekha Bhattacharjee

Comment

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10 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

India

As China looms, Clinton tells India to lead in AsiaChennai: US Secretary of StateHillary Clinton told India on July20 "it's time to lead", urgingNew Delhi to take a stronger roleacross Asia where China is flex-ing its muscles, and to bolstersupport for struggling neighborsAfghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton, delivering a speechin Chennai, said New Delhishould exercise political influenceto match its economic clout --both of which Washington sees aspotential counterweights toBeijing.

US officials billed Clinton'sspeech as a major address to out-line Washington's vision for theUS-India collaboration in thecoming century, a partnership ithopes will both stabilize Asia andhedge China's growing domi-nance.

"We are betting that India'spluralistic democracy will pro-duce results for your citizens andinspire others to follow a similarpath of openness and tolerance,"Clinton said. "We think thatAmerica and India share a funda-mentally similar vision for thefuture of this region."

President Obama, on a visit toIndia last November, publiclybacked New Delhi's bid for apermanent seat on the UNSecurity Council and US officialssay they now want the world'slargest democracy to become amore visible partner in facing

global challenges. Clinton urged India to start in

its immediate neighborhood byusing its influence withMyanmar's rulers to release polit-ical prisoners and engage withpro-democracy leader Aung SanSuu Kyi, promote politicalprogress in Sri Lanka and Nepaland improve ties with impover-ished neighbor Bangladesh.

She said India could do moreto build a leadership role in thebroader Asia-Pacific region,

pushing New Delhi to translate its"Look East" policy into astronger stance on everythingfrom maritime security to humanrights -- areas where Washingtonhas at times had frictions withChina. US officials are carefulnot to describe deepening US tieswith India as focused on counter-ing China, and Clinton empha-sized that New Delhi andWashington could still have "astrong, constructive" relationshipwith Beijing.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on July 19.

US' overtly pro-India stance will hurt Pak: ChinaBeijing: Against the backdrop of India and theUS firming up their counter-terrorism coopera-tion, an official Chinese think tank has claimedthat Washington's "overtly pro-India stance"will hurt its overall goal to fight militancy inPakistan.

"Not surprisingly, counter-terrorism is oneof the top issues on Hillary Clinton's agendaduring her visit to India," said the article titled'US-South Asia policy' published in the state-run 'China Daily'.

Written by Fu Xiaoqiang, Director of theCentre for Counter-terrorism Studies at thestate-owned China Institute of ContemporaryInternational Relations, the article expressedconcern over growing US-India cooperation infields of civil nuclear technology and counter-terrorism, much to the determent of China'sclose strategic ally Pakistan.

"Clinton said the US has made it clear to

Pakistan that confronting terrorism in all formsis in Islamabad's interest. Indian ExternalAffairs Minister S M Krishna responded by say-ing that terror sanctuaries in Pakistan need to beeliminated for regional peace and stability. AndKrishna welcomed Washington's decision tosuspend the $800-million aid to Islamabad," itsaid. Both the US and India are doing the"opposite of what they should have done to helpPakistan fight terrorists," it said, adding "theirhard stance could provoke Pakistanis and helpIslamic extremists strengthen their base inPakistan."

"The US may have its reasons for the overt-ly pro-India stance in its South Asia strategy.But that could harm Pakistan's national securityand the sustainability of US-Pakistan relations.Over the past 10 years, the US has treated Indiaas Pakistan's arch-rival, as a global strategicpartner -- providing it with civilian nuclear fuel

and technology -- and has let India spread itsinfluence in Afghanistan. Clinton's visit to Indiawill consolidate that cooperation," the articlesaid. In contrast, the US has treated Pakistanonly as a regional partner in its fight againstterrorism and its aid to Islamabad has alwayscome with set of conditions, some of whichhave harmed Pakistan's sovereignty and securi-ty, it claimed. Also, the US has thwartedPakistan's efforts to develop nuclear energy forcivilian use and build oil pipelines, it alleged,adding that inequity and distrust are rooteddeeply in US-Pak ties.

The tone and tenor of the article was sur-prising considering recent assertions by Chineseofficials that China wants to develop close tieswith India, independent of its relationship withPakistan, thereby bringing about a strategic shiftin the pro-Pakistan policy followed by it for thepast several decades.

New cross-Kashmir CBMs unveiled as FMs meetNew Delhi: Moving beyond theirpost-26/11 rancor, India andPakistan sought to open "a newchapter" of "peaceful and coopera-tive" ties by pledging to intensifycounter-terror cooperation andunveiling a host of initiatives tospur trade and travel between thedivided halves of Kashmir.

External Affairs Minister S.M.Krishna held over two hours of dis-cussions with his Pakistani counter-part Hina Rabbani Khar, who is 45years his junior that covered a widegamut of issues, including terror-ism, Jammu and Kashmir, liberal-ization of trade and simplificationof the visa regime.

Cross-Kashmir confidence-building measures (CBMs) were thecenterpiece of the joint statementissued after the talks.

"They agreed to simplify travelprocedures and increase the fre-quency of bus services for peopleof the divided Jammu and Kashmiracross the Line of Control (LoC),the de facto border that divides thestate between the two countries,"said a joint statement.

The enhanced travel acrossKashmir would now "include visitsfor tourism and religious pilgrim-age". Earlier, the bus service wasonly for families that separatedafter the 1947 war during whichPakistan occupied a portion ofJammu and Kashmir. They alsodecided to relax travel conditionsby having a system of six-month

multiple entry permits.Unlike earlier such occasions

when the talks ended in a volley ofmutual recriminations and rhetoricalgrandstanding on issues likeKashmir and terror, there was hard-ly any discordant note except forKhar’s meeting with separatistHurriyat leaders over which Indiaexpressed "concerns."

"This is indeed a new era ofbilateral cooperation between thetwo countries and it is our desireand I believe after having spoken toyou (Krishna), that it is the desireand commitment of both the gov-

ernments to make it an uninterrupt-ed and an uninterpretable process,"Khar said at the media stakeoutwith Krishna.

Krishna, too, struck a positivetone about the course of revivedties, saying the relations are "on theright track." "We have some dis-tance to travel, but with an openmind and a constructive approach,which has been demonstrated in thisround of dialogue, I am sure wecan reach our desired destination ofhaving a friendly and cooperativerelationship between the two coun-tries," he said.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna with Pakistan’s new, young,pretty Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who is 45 years his junior.

Pakistan won't acceptIndia's hegemony: Khar

Islamabad: Pakistan would notaccept the hegemony of anycountry in the region as it is "byno means inferior to India",Foreign Minister Hina RabbaniKhar, said before flying for herNew Delhi visit.

"Pakistan's role in the regionis by no means inferior toIndia," she told mediapersons atthe Lahore Airport on her returnfrom the ministerial meeting ofthe ASEAN regional forum.

US Secretary of State HillaryClinton had said during her visitto India that New Delhi must

play a more assertiverole in Asia.

To a query, Kharsaid strategic relationswith China were movingfrom strength to strengthwith every passing day.

On her meeting withClinton, she said astrong working relation-ship with the US was inthe national interest ofPakistan.

The minister saidthat the US secretary ofstate had expressed her

willingness to bring rela-tions back on track with

Pakistan as well as remove anyreservations between the coun-tries.

"Whatever be the role of acountry in the region, Pakistan'simportance cannot diminish andthe US acknowledges the fact,"she said.

Prime Minister Yousuf RazaGilani had said Saturday thatPakistan would not accept thehegemony of any country in theregion.

"We don't want anyChaudhry (regional chief) in theregion," he said.

Foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar:charm offensive

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 11

Gowda to be new chief minister,Yeddyurappa faces trial

Bangalore: BJP MP D.V.Sadananda Gowda will suc-ceed scam-hit B.S.Yeddyurappa as Karnataka'snew and 20th chief minister.He was elected the BJP leg-islature wing leader Aug 3soon after Governor H.R.Bhardwaj approvedYeddyurappa's prosecutionfor corruption.

Gowda, 58, defeatedRural Development MinisterJagdish Shettar narrowly in asecret ballot amid high drama that exposedcracks in the ruling party that took power forthe first time in Karnataka in May 2008.

Gowda got 63 votes and Shettar 55 as118 legislators took part in the voting todecide a successor to Yeddyurappa, who hadquit after being indicted for corruption by theKarnataka ombudsman, N. Santosh Hegde.

Bhardwaj gave the sanction to "initiatecriminal proceedings" against Yeddyurappabefore the swearing in of Shivaraj VirupannaPatil, also a former Supreme Court judge, asthe new ombudsman of Karnataka. Hegde'sfive-year term ended Aug 2.

Yeddyurappa was present at Patil's oathtaking and headed straight to the legislatureparty meeting held at a luxury hotel nearby.

Gowda, a known Yeddyurappa loyalist,will be the BJPs' second chief minister in alittle over three years and will have 22-

months in office as theassembly's term expiresMay 2013.

A two-time Lok Sahbamember and two-timeassembly member, he willbe the second chief ministerfrom coastal Karnataka afterM. Veerappa Moily, nowthe corporate affairs minis-ter in the central govern-ment.

As Gowda is not a mem-ber of the state assembly, he

will have to get elected to the house or getnominated to the council within six months.

Gowda was backed by the Yeddyurappafaction while Shettar had the support of thefaction led by Bangalore South Lok Sabhamember Ananth Kumar and party's statepresident K.S. Eshwarappa.

Yeddyurappa is facing five cases of cor-ruption and illegal land deals filed by twoBangalore advocates.

On July 28, the BJP parliamentary boarddecided that Yeddyurappa should go. Partyleaders said he was damaging the BJP'simage.

On Yeddyurappa's prosecution, a com-munique from Raj Bhavan said: "The gover-nor recommended the Karnataka Lokayuktato initiate criminal proceedings againstYeddyurappa ... on the basis of the ombuds-man's investigation report on illegal mining.”

D.V. Sadananda Gowda

India

Mumbai terrorized again in July

Police no to Team Anna’s protest call; Lokpal Bill in Parliament Aug 4

Mumbai: 26 people died and 130 more wereinjured in the series of three bomb attacks onIndia’s financial capital on July 13 at eveningrush hour. The blasts occurred at the OperaHouse, Zaveri Bazaar, and Dadar West local-ities.

Mumbai has been hit by terrorist inci-dents at least half a dozen times since theearly 1990s, with over 600 people dying inthese attacks.

There was speculation that the pattern ofthe blasts suggested involvement of IndianMujahideen. 13 July is also observed asKashmir Martyr's day, and the attacks mayhave been carried out by Kashmiri groups.

There is also a view that the attacks couldhave been plotted by those trying to derailthe Indo-Pakistani peace process. But themeeting between the two foreign ministerswent ahead as also the visit by US Secretaryof State Hillary Clinton as scheduled.

The Home Ministry classified the bombblasts as a terrorist act and dispatched aNational Investigation Agency (NIA) team to

the bomb site. The Chief Minister ofMaharashtra Prithviraj Chavan said that thebombs used could have been fuel filled, muchlike molotov cocktails. The explosives indi-cate some level of sophistication.

The Mumbai Police detained several menfor questioning. One of those detained—FaizUsmani—died while in police custody on 17July, sparking allegations of police brutality.Usmani was the brother of one of the accusedin the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings case.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Tuesdaydenied permission to civil rights activist AnnaHazare and his team for a month-long strikeat Jantar Mantar.

Hazare had sought permission to protestagainst the government regarding the LokpalBill. Earlier, he wanted permission for anindefinite strike, but two days ago his teamtold the police that the agitation would lastonly a month, from August 16.

“We denied them permission on twomajor grounds — first, they could not specifythe number of people who would be presentduring the agitation. Second, as Parliamentsession is on, people from across the countrycome and protest at Jantar Mantar. We can-not let a single group take up all the space

for such a long period,” said K C Dwivedi,Additional Commissioner of Police (NewDelhi). Meanwhile, the much-hyped LokpalBill, which aims to set up an anti-corruptionwatchdog in the country, will be introducedin the Lok Sabha Aug 4.

The Lokpal Bill in its present shape seeksto keep the office of the Prime Minister out-side the purview of the ombudsman duringhis term in office and also exclude higherjudiciary and conduct of MPs insideParliament.

The Lokpal, consisting of Chairpersonand eight members, half of them judicial,will have its own prosecution and investiga-tion wing with officers and staff necessary tocarry out its functions.

The 3 synchronized terror attacks claimed26 lives and wounded 130

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12 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

India

Corruption biggest cause of pricerise, says BJP

103 Indians attacked in Australiain 2010: Indian Govt

Ramdev aide appears before CBI

New Delhi: The BJP has mounted anattack on the government over risingprices of essential commodities, andsaid corruption was the biggest causeof inflation.Initiating the debate in Lok Sabha

August 3 on price rise, BJP memberYashwant Sinha said the key tochecking price rise was containingfood inflation and checking corrup-tion.

"Corruption is the biggest causeof price rise," Sinha said.

The former finance minister saidthe government had huge stocks offood grain but it was not being givento the poor.

The food grain are rotting inwarehouses, he said.

He said the government shouldbring 25 million tonnes of its stockof food grain to the market whichwill help bring down food prices.

Sinha said once food prices comedown, it will also have an impact onprices of other commodities

New Delhi: As many as 103Indians either lost their livesor were injured in attacks inAustralia in 2010, the gov-ernment informed the LokSabha on Wednesday.

Overseas Indian AffairsMinister Vyalar Ravi saidthe matter has been taken upwith the Australian govern-ment at the highest level and

the number of attacks onIndians there has comedown in recent months.

"The steps taken by theAustralian authorities havebeen useful as reflected inthe substantial decrease inthe number of attacks inrecent months," he said in awritten reply to a question.

Ravi said 52 Indians had

either lost their lives orwere injured in 2009 whilethe number in 2008 wasonly 11.

"It has been conveyed tothe Australian governmentthat it was the responsibilityof the Australian authoritiesto ensure the well being andsecurity of all Indians inAustralia," he said.

Dehra Dun: Yoga Guru Ramdev'sclose aide Balkrishna, whoallegedly used fake educationaldegrees for procuring a passport,appeared before the CBI in DehraDun Aug 3 for questioning. Incompliance with the Uttarakhandhigh court order, Balkrishnareported to the CBI office here,Balkrishna's personal secretarysaid.

While staying the arrest ofBalkrishna, the state high courthad on July 29 asked Balkrishna tocooperate with the CBI in investi-gations and appear before it for

interrogation.Balkrishna was earlier sum-

moned by the CBI. However,instead he had sent a fax to thesleuths seeking 20-days' time toappear stating that his passport iswith the British High Commission.

But the agency turned downhis plea.

The petition for stay onBalkrishna's arrest was placedbefore Justice P C Pant on July28. However, he recused himselfand referred it to chief justiceBarin Ghosh.

The next date of hearing has

been fixed on August 29.Balkrishna had gone "missing"

from his Divya Yoga MandirTrust residence in Haridwar onJuly 25, a day after CBI registereda case against him for cheatingand criminal conspiracy forprocuring fake degree and viola-tion of section 12 of IndianPassport Act for furnishing fakedocuments to get a passport.

Swami Ramdev’s trusts andyoga empire have been under gov-ernment scanner since he took upcudgels against widespread corrup-tion in the country.

BSE Sensex slips on US debt crisis

NRI IT professionals move back to India

Business

Mumbai: A benchmark index for Indianequities markets fell to a six-week low,below the 18,000-mark, and a bearishtrend gripped broader markets as thecrisis in the US over its high debt levelsspooked global bourses.

The 30-scrip sensitive index(Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE), which opened at 17,970.19points, closed at 17,940.55 points Aug3, down 169.34 points or 0.94 percentfrom its previous close at 18,109.89points.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of theNational Stock Exchange also ended in

the red at 5,404.8 points, down 0.95percent.

According to data available with theSecurities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI), foreign institutional investors

sold stocks worth $18.7 million.After the US Senate approved an

increase in the US debt ceiling, whichwill also require the government toreduce public spending, credit ratingagencies downgraded or assumed a neg-ative outlook on the country's sovereigndebt.

China, which is the largest holderof US bonds, saw one of its major cred-it rating agencies Dagong Global CreditRating Co., Wednesday downgrade USsovereign debt and warn of further suchmoves. The repercussions were felt inAsia.

New Delhi: With declining wages abroad, an increasing num-ber of non-resident Indian IT professionals are moving back totheir home country, says a survey.

IT and IT-enabled firms in India hired 28 percent morenon-resident Indian (NRI) professionals in the first quarter of2011-12, according to the survey conduced by recruitmentconsulting firm MyHiringClub.com.

Among 11 surveyed industries, IT and IT-enabled servic-es registered highest growth, with 28 percent increase year-on-year in the first quarter of the current fiscal. It is followedby pharma and healthcare, up by 20 percent, automobile andmanufacturing, up by 18 percent, telecom, up by 14 percent,banking and financial services, up by 10 percent and FMCG,up by six percent.

"The high economic growth in India with many goodopportunities has fuelled the NRI thought process to headback. In addition to that, many US companies are openingtheir offices in India and hiring more to target the growingmarket in Asia," Rajesh Kumar, CEO of MyHiringClub.com,said in the survey report.

He said an increasing number of high value NRI profes-sional recruitment is likely to take place in the coming yearsas wage gaps have declined sharply.

"Increasing number of people are now returning becausenow the advantages of returning back to India outweigh thedisadvantages by far," said Kumar. The highest number ofNRIs who returned home found jobs in Bangalore, followedby Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad.

Baba Ramdev with Balkrishna

IT and IT-enabled firms in India hired 28 percent more NRIprofessionals in the first quarter of 2011-12.

India to grow at 8.2percent: PM panel

New Delhi: Inflation will ease to around 6.5 per-cent by the end of this fiscal, the Prime Minister'sEconomic Advisory Council said, projecting thecountry's growth at 8.2 percent for 2011-12.

Headed by former Reserve Bank of India gov-ernor C. Rangarajan, the council said while agri-culture and industry will grow at a lower rate com-pared with the previous year, services will expandfaster in the current fiscal.

"The inflationary situation and investmentslowdown have necessitated a downward revision.The projected growth rate of 8.2 percent, thoughlower than the previous year, must be treated ashigh and respectable, given the world situation,"the council said in its economic outlook for 2011-12.

India's GDP had expanded by 8.5 percent in2010-11 and 8 percent the year before. For agri-culture, industry and services, the council project-ed a growth of 3, 7.1 and 10 percent for this fiscalrespectively.

The panel said as overall inflation would con-tinue to be high, at 9 percent in the July-Octoberquarter, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wouldhave to continue with monetary tightening meas-ures.

"RBI will have to continue to follow a tightmonetary policy till inflation shows definite signsof decline," it said, adding that inflation wouldstart to taper only from November.

It also said that achieving the fiscal deficit tar-get of 4.7 percent, as set out in the budget for2011-12, would be difficult.

The government needed to "redouble efforts tocollect larger revenue, resolve cases to reduce taxarrears. "The high subsidy outgo, especially onaccount of petroleum products, is placing a seriousstress on the centre's budgeted fiscal position."

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 13

ISI funneled millions to tilt US policy against India on KashmirWashington: The US has arresteda pro-Pakistan activist and aknown face of the Kashmiri sepa-ratist movement who allegedlyfunneled ISI's $4 million for ille-gal lobbying to influence theAmerican government's positionon the Kashmir issue.

With the arrest of GhulamNabi Fai, a 62-year-old Pakistani-American in late July , the FBIhas exposed Pakistan's two-decade-long covert game plan toinfluence American policy againstIndia on the Kashmir issue.

Fai, a resident of Fairfax inVirginia, and other accusedZaheer Ahmad, also US citizenbelieved to be at large in Pakistan,were charged by the FBI Tuesday.

Fai is the executive director of theKashmiri American Council(KAC) that was allegedly run insecret by the Pakistani govern-ment.

The FBI alleged that the twomen had "participated in a long-term conspiracy to act as agents ofthe Pakistani government in theUS without disclosing their affilia-

tion with the Pakistani governmentas required by law".

In its 43-page court affidavit,the FBI said Pakistan's militaryand its powerful Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI) funneled $4 mil-lion over two decades to tilt US'Kashmir policy against India.

The Washington-based KAClong known of lobbying for theself-determination in Jammu andKashmir organizes annual sepa-ratist conferences in the USattended by Kashmiri separatistleaders.

The two men face up to fiveyears in prison if convicted.

The money funneled into theUS was also meant for campaigndonations to members of Congress

and presidential candidates,according to the FBI.

The affidavit alleges fourPakistani government handlersdirected Fai's US activities. Hegot in touch with his Pakistanihandlers "more than 4,000 times"since June 2008. His handlers alsocommunicated with Ahmad regu-larly.

According to the affidavit, aconfidential witness told investiga-tors that the money was trans-ferred to Fai through Ahmad.

Another confidential witnesstold investigators that the ISI cre-ated the KAC to "propagandize onbehalf of the government ofPakistan with the goal of unitingKashmir".

Ghulam Nabi Fai, the arrested executive director of KashmiriAmerican Council,

Blog by Sikh girl survivor of the Norway massacre There are too many emo-

tions. Feeling grief, anger,happiness, God, I do not

know what. I’m afraid. I react tothe slightest sound. I will writeabout what happened on Utøya.

We had a crisis meeting inthe main building after the explo-sions in Oslo. After that therewas a meeting for members ofAkershus (a county bordering thecapital) and Oslo. We consoledourselves that we were safe onan island.

I was standing in the mainstreet [of the island] when panicbroke out. I heard shots. I sawhim shoot. Everyone started torun.

The first thought was: “Whyare the police shooting us? Whatthe hell? “I ran into a little room.Everyone ran. Screamed. I wasscared. I managed to get into oneof the rooms at the back of thebuilding. There were many of usin there. We all lay on the floortogether. We heard several shots.We became more afraid. I cried.I knew nothing.

I saw my best friend throughthe window and wondered if Ishould go outside and bring himto me. I did not. I saw fear in hiseyes. We were lying on the floorinside the room for a few min-utes. We agreed not to move outin case the killer came.

We heard several shots anddecided to jump out the window.Panic broke out among us.Everyone in the room rushed tothe window and tried to jumpout. I was the last and thought:“I am the last to jump out thewindow. Now I’m going to die.I’m sure, but it might be okayand then I will know that the oth-ers are safe.”

I tried to climb down, but lostmy grip. I landed hard on the leftside of my body. A boy helpedme up. We ran into the woods. Ilooked around. “Is he here? Is heshooting me? Can he see me?”

A girl had a broken ankle.Another was severely injured. Itried to help a little bit before Iwent down to the water.

I sought cover behind a sortof brick wall. There were manyof us. I prayed, prayed, prayed.I hope that God saw me. I calledMum and said that it was notcertain we would meet again, butthat I would do anything to staysafe. I said several times that Iloved her. I heard fear in hervoice. She cried. It hurt. I sent atext message to my dad tellinghim I loved him. I sent a textmessage to my best friend. Hedid not answer. We heard severalshots.

I updated Twitter andFacebook to say I was still aliveand that I was “safe”. I wrotethat I was waiting for the police.

People jumped into the water andstarted swimming. I was lyingdown. I decided that if he came,I would play dead. I would notrun or swim. I cannot describethe fear that took over my mind,what I felt.

A man came. “I’m from thepolice.” I was lying there. Someshouted back that he had to proveit. I do not remember exactlywhat he said, but the killer start-ed shooting. He charged. He shotthose around me. I was still lyingthere. I thought: “Now it’s over.He’s here. He’s going to shootme. I’m going to die.”

People screamed. I heard thatothers were shot. Others jumpedinto the water. I was there.Holding the mobile phone in myhand, I lay on top of a girl’slegs. Two others lay on my feet.I was still lying there. Themobile phone rang several times.I was still lying.

I played dead. I lay there forat least an hour. It was complete-ly quiet. I gently turned my headto see if I could see someonealive. I saw blood. Fear. I decid-ed to get up. I had been lying ontop of a dead body. Two deadbodies lay on me. I had aguardian angel.

I hurried down to the water. Itook off my sweater. It waslarge. I thought it would be diffi-cult to swim with it. I consideredwhether I should bring mymobile phone or leave it again. Iput it in my back pocket andjumped into the water. I saw sev-eral others in the water. Theyhad swum far. I saw that some-one had gathered around a float-ing lifeboat or something likethat.

There were many who fol-lowed those who swam out.

I swam, swam, and swamtowards the inflatable boat. Iscreamed, wept. I thought ofwhen I would drown. It becameharder and harder. After a littlewhile I thought the group whowere clinging on to the dinghywere moving away from me. Iscreamed. Begged them to wait

for me. I must have seen visions.I swam at least a few hundredmetres before I reached them.

When the boats passed us westarted shouting for help, butthey picked up the others whowere still swimming.

A man in a boat came to us.He threw out several life jackets.I got hold of one. Got it on me. Iheld on to the dinghy for a longtime, until the same man cameback to pick us up. We all gotinto it. He began to head towardsthe shore. After a little while hisboat started to take in water. Idid everything I could to get asmuch water out as possible.

I used a bucket. I wasexhausted. Another girl in theboat took over. We reached the

shore.We were given blankets. The

tears would not stop. A womanhugged me. It was so good. Iwept aloud. I sobbed. A man lentme his phone. I called my dad,“I’m alive. I made it. Now I amsafe.”

…..It has now been several hours

since all this happened. I’m stillin shock. I have seen the corpsesof my friends. Several of myfriends are missing. I am gladthat I can swim. I am glad that Iam alive. God watched over me.There are so many emotions, somany thoughts.

I think of all my family. Ofall I lost. Of the hell that is –and was – on the island.

Prableen Kaur, 23, is deputyleader of Norway's Labour Partyyouth wing. She was caught inthe shooting on Utoya island by

White Supremacist AndersBehring Breivik, that claimed the

lives of over 90 youths, Sheescaped by playing dead and

eventually swam to safety. Thisis an abridged version of her

blog.

India

India has no place in worldorder: Brajesh Mishra

New Delhi: Arguing that Indiahas 'no place in the worldorder' currently, former nation-al security advisor (NSA)Brajesh Mishra said August 2the country has to step up eco-nomic reforms and strengthenmilitary capabilities if it wantsto overcome the situation.

'I am a blunt man... Sorryto say we have no place in theworld order' now, Mishra saidwhile delivering the inauguralK. Subrahmanyam memorialannual lecture here.

West Bengal Governor andanother former NSA, M.K.Narayanan, presided over thefunction, organised by theGlobal India Foundation (GIF),in memory of Subrahmanyam,India's eminent strategic expert,who died Feb 2 this year.

The global situation and thepolicies of the US have pushedIndia to a limited role, engagedand embroiled with two enemies- Pakistan and China, Mishra, aPadma Vibhushan, said.

He said that the situation canbe altered if the country breaks

out of the present style of gov-ernance. 'Economic reformsappear to have stopped mid-way,' Mishra said.

Important defence purchasedeals are delayed to ensure per-sonal integrity, he added. 'If thecurrent defence purchase pacecontinues, many equipmentswill be obsolete when theyarrive after ten years or so,' hecontended, adding the purchaseprocedures followed at presentwere of the 19th century.

The former NSA said thatChina has objected to addingIndia to the Asian Group of 3 -China, Japan and South Korea.He said China and Pakistanwere militaristic allies.

He said though the US wasnot keen on better relations withIndia post-disintegration of theSoviet Union, it changed thepolicy gradually.

Now, India should lookbeyond the ties with the US andstrengthen its relations with theEuropean Union, ASEAN coun-tries and the Asian powers,Mishra said.

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14 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Bollywood

By Neeru Saluja

They look different to the main-stream actresses but audienceslove them. They barely are able tospeak Hindi but their fans love lis-tening to them. They sometimescan't perform the latkas jatkas likethe aamchi Mumbai girl but whenthey dance on screen everyonewhistles. Why not - they have thebest of both worlds with theircreamy complexions, drop deadgorgeous looks and slim figures. Gone are the times when halfIndians and foreigners wereoffered only typical roles - eitherthe item girl or the villain. Withexperimental scripts coming intoplay, the industry has becomemore open to half Indian actresses.Being half Indian is no longer abarrier in Bollywood, mixedparentage actors are garneringmajor roles for themselves inBollywood productions. A perfect example is the latest hit'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' - boththe main actresses Katrina andKalki are half Indians. With theintention of making cross culturalinternational cinema, a fairskinned half Indian not only addsa glamorous image to the film butalso speaks about the global themeof free movement of talent andcapital.For many of the new generation,Katrina Kaif or Lisa Ray willstand out fresh in their memory asmixed blood actresses. The Indian

Down Under takes a trip down theBollywood lane to track many ofour half Indian actresses who haveleft an ever lasting memory withtheir beauty and acting skills.

Katrina KaifThe all time favourite Barbie girl

Katrina Kaif was born to aKashmiri Pandit Indian father andan English mother. She lived invarious European countries beforeshe moved Mumbai on the call ofLondon based filmmaker KaizadGustad who spotted her during amodelling assignment. He gaveher a part in Boom which failed.Though she had the drop dead

looks and perfect figure, she didn'tget many roles due to her badcommand of Hindi.After her debacle, she caught theattention of actor Salman Khanand as their friendship grew, herroles in Bollywood started increas-ing - Sarkar, Maine Pyaar KyunKiya, Humko Deewana Kar Gaye.But the romantic comedy NamasteLondon in which she portrayed theBrit Indian girl brought her instantfame and since then Katrina hasnot looked back. Today she is oneof the most sought Bollywoodactresses today and has deliveredhit after hit.

Kalki KoehlinKalki was born to French parentsin Pondicherry who settled inIndia after falling in love with thecountry. Kalki studied drama andtheatre in the University ofLondon and later decided to moveto Mumbai to try her luck in cine-ma. After a few modelling assign-ments, she was shortlisted for therole of Chandramukhi in the criti-cally acclaimed 'Dev D'. Thoughshe knew Tamil, English andFrench, for her role in Dev D, shehad to learn Hindi. Her effortspaid her well as she was awardedthe Filmfare Award for BestSupporting Actress in 2010 forDev D. She was recently seen in'Zindagi na Milege Dobara' andnext seen in Anurag Kashyap's'The Girl in Yellow Boots' whichshe has co-written with Anurag,her now husband.

Actresses without frontiers

With the intention ofmaking crosscultural internationalcinema, a fairskinned halfIndian not onlyadds a glam-orous image tothe film but alsospeaks about theglobal theme offree movementof talent andcapital.

Giselli Monteiro

Jacqueline Fernandez

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Bollywood

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 15

Giselli MonteiroGiselli was the surprise package ofBollywood film 'Love Aajkal'. Noone knew that the Punjabi girlHarleen Kaur was actually aBrazilian model! She came to audi-tion for the role of Saif Ali Khan'sgirlfriend but ended up as HarleenKaur. Since then, she has featuredon the covers of leading Indianmagazines, walked the ramp and isall set to star in her next film'Always Kabhi Kabhi'.Lisa RayLisa Ray was born in Toronto to aBengali Indian father and a Polishmother. She was finishing highschool in Canada when the cele-brated Fashion Magazine 'Gladrags'spotted her and she ended up ontheir cover. She became an instantcelebrity and also became knownas the 'Bombay Dyeing' girl as sheappeared in their advertisementwith Karan Kapoor. Film offerscame flowing in but she only madeher Bollywood debut in 2001 withKasoor opposite Aftab Shivdasini.The film got a lot of attention andher work caught the eye ofacclaimed director Deepa Mehtawho cast her in the Indo-Canadianflick 'Bollywood Hollywood' in2002. In 2005 she worked withDeepa Mehta in the Oscar nominat-ed film Water' for which she evencut her hair. Declared as 'one of themost beautiful women', Lisa Rayhas always accepted challengeswith immense dignity - whether itwas the portrayal of varied charac-ters in foreign productions or herrecent struggle of fighting cancer.

Yana GuptaThe Czech model with drop deadlooks was already a famous interna-tional model (Victoria Secrets,Calvin Klein) when she venturedout to India. Soon she replacedmodel Lisa Ray and became theface of Lakme. Not only did shefell in love with India, but also gotmarried to Indian artist SatyakamGupta (though it ended up indivorce). After a few famous mod-elling stints she got the chance toperform in three item dance num-bers (Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo,Oh What a Babe, Aadatanamma).She recently surfaced back as astrong contender for the popularTV show 'Khatron ke Khiladi' and'Jhalak Dikhla Ja'. Very few knowthat Yana is the first WesternCaucasian woman to successfullycrossover into the Indian filmindustry. And many know about herrecent famous 'no panties' stunt!

Tulip JoshiTulip Joshi was born in Mumbai toa Gujarati Indian father and anArmenian Lebanese mother.Though Tulip had appeared in anumber of top advertisements,movies came by chance. She wasspotted on the wedding of Yash

Chopra's son for her debut film'Mere Yaar ki Shaadi Hai'. The filmwas a hit but her acting was moder-ate. After a two year break, shereappeared in a non commercialfilm 'Matrobhoomi' which wasappreciated by critics. BesidesBollywood, she also tried her luckin Telugu, Kannada and Punjabimovies.

JacquelineFernandezBorn in Colombo, Fernandezcomes from a Sinhalese family inSri Lanka. She was crowned theMiss Sri Lanka Universe in 2006and made her acting debut in'Aladin' in 2009 with AmitabhBachchan and Ritesh Deshmukh.But she caught attention with herhot cameo appearance in the song'Apni tho Jaise Theise' fromHousefull which was a big success.Now she is all set to appear as theleading lady opposite playboyEmraan Hashmi in Murder 2.

SulochanaChubby, petite and brown-eyed, theself-christened Sulochana (realname Ruby Myers) was among theearly Eurasian female stars ofIndian Cinema. Known as halfwhite and half Indian, Sulochanawas a silent film star of Jewishancestry. In her heyday she was oneof the highest paid actresses of hertime, when she was paired withDinshaw Billimoria in ImperialStudios films. Among her popularfilms were Typist Girl (1926),Balidaan (1927) and Wildcat of

Bombay (1927) where she essayedeight roles including a gardener, apoliceman, a Hyderabadi gentle-man, a street urchin, a banana sellerand a European blonde! In mid-1930 she opened Rubi Pics, a filmproduction house. She was awardedthe 1973 Dada Saheb PhalkeAward, India's highest award in cin-ema for lifetime achievement.Despite her fame, she died a lonelyand forgotten in her flat in Mumbaiin 1983.

NadiaFearless Nadia 'Huntervali' was anIndian film actress and stuntwomanknown for masked adventures inHuntervali. Originally from Perth,

Australia her family moved to Indiawhen she was one year old. Shetoured India as a theatre artist andbegan working for Zarko Circus in1930. She made her debut in theArabic film Makhazane el ochak(1932), which was filmed in Egypt.She was introduced to Hindi filmsby J.B.H. Wadia, the behemoth ofstunts and action in 1930s Bombay.She made her debut with Lal-e-Yaman (1933). The film became ahuge hit at the box-office and shebecame famous with doing stuntsin Hindi films. She soon becameknown as India's Original StuntQueen, after making more filmswith stunts. Her film career wentfrom 1933 to 1970.

HelenThe most popular dancer of theitem number, Helen was born inBurma to an Anglo Indian fatherand Burmese mother. Her fatherdied during the Second World War,so the family migrated to Mumbain 1943. As her mother's salary as anurse was not enough, Helen had toquit her schooling to support thefamily. She started off as a chorusdancer and solo dancer but foundinstant fame with her performancein the song "Mera Naam Chin ChinChu" in Shakti Samanta's film,Howrah Bridge. From there on,there was no looking back forHelen and she appeared in manyfilms and danced on many hitsongs, mainly sung by AshaBhosle. She has twice won theFilmfare award for best supportingactress and in 1999 awarded thelifetime achievement award.

Lisa Ray

Nadia

Helen

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Hollywood

By Neeru Saluja

The year 2009 revolutionizedthe visual effects industry withOscar winning Avatar. Whocould ever believe that theywould be able to visualise andexperience a fictional planet? Itwas like a dream world thatcame alive - where love, hatredand life existed, all visually cre-ated in a production companytucked away in Wellington. And behind the scenes helpingthe mastermind James Cameronwas an Indian technical directorRahul Deshprabhu who with histeam worked day and night tomake that virtual world close toreality. Working six days aweek currently on Happy Feet2, Rahul took out a few hourson Sunday on a sunny after-noon to talk with the IndianDown Under. "Don't make it sound as I worktoo much by six days! This is awalk in the park. I have alsoworked seven days a week. It'sjust the way the industry works.We get a lot more work donethis way. Right now I'm work-ing on Happy Feet 2. I workedon Happy Feet in 2004, so theguys said you know the drill socome back." When Rahul got his first creditfor his film 'The Day after

tomorrow', he knew there wasno looking back. "I have been working in thisindustry since 1998. I've beenin Sydney with Dr D Studiossince Feb 2010 and before thatwas with Weta Digital inWellington for a year where Iworked on Avatar. In Sydney Ihave also worked with AnimalLogic (Happy Feet) in 2005 andRising Sun Pictures in 2006where we made 'SupermanReturns'. I have also spent 6-7years in United States where Idid my equivalent to masters inULCA and worked with mydream company 'DigitalDomain' (the company behindTitanic) in 2003-04. Afterworking in US at a stretch foryears, I wanted to head back toIndia to work for a few monthsand ended up working for sixmonths in Mumbai PranaStudios in 2004. You would besurprised to know most of thevisual effects and animation forHollywood films are done inIndia. The company that doesShrek is based in Bangalorecalled Dreamworks DDU Indiaowned by Technicolor"acclaims Rahul. So, did he always dream ofmaking it big in this cuttingedge industry? Rahul grins: "A twist in fate

actually made me realize mydreams. I was born and broughtup in Mumbai, and like anyIndian family my parents want-ed me to become a doctor orengineer. After completing adiploma in electronics engineer-ing in 1996, I got admission incomputer engineering. After mysecond year, I was diagnosedwith kidney stones and wasbedridden for a while. One daymy aunt came with an articleabout EDIT, and it took myfancy right away. It was aboutanimation and without thinkingtwice I enrolled for the 18month course. When I finishedthe course, they asked me toteach at the same institution. Idid that for 6-7 months. Myparents went through the roof,when I told them this is what Iwant to do! I lined up an inter-view with Mumbai companyRajtharu and I got a job.Ghulam-E-Mustafa (NanaPatekar), Saat Rang Ke Sapne(ABCL), Duplicate (Shahrukh),Major Saab (Ajay Devgan)were some of the films that Ihad made the title animationsfor back in the days when Iused to work for RajtaruVideosonic in Bandra," saysRahul. Continuing on his journey,Rahul says, "When my parents

started seeing these animationsfor the movies, they started see-ing the reality. They realisedthat their son was not goingback to the engineering. Butthis was only a stepping stone, Iwanted to achieve more. I met aperson who was going to do thecourse in ULCA - New mediaand digital image creation, spe-cializing in film. Going toStates was the turning point inmy career. I wanted someknowledge before I further pro-gressed in this field. But myultimate dream was to workwith a company like DigitalDomain in LA - the companythat did Titanic." Titanic was known to be theepitome in visual effects indus-try. As a visual effects special-ist, how did you react when youwatched the film? "When I saw Titanic, I wantedto achieve those kind of results.It was made in a world that did-n't exist. Water gushing down,when the boat cracks and itgoes vertical you see a lot ofpeople sliding on the floor andcrashing on the sea, those wereall visual effects. If someonegets the feel that someone iscrashing, then that is theachievement for a visual super-visor. For no reason did it wonan Academy Award for best

visual effects!" Titanic left an everlastingimpression on Rahul and hisnext achievement was to workthe guru James Cameron. "Working with James Cameronwas a dream come true. Theday I met him in Wellington, Itold him that working in Avatarwas a masterclass in film mak-ing. It was revolutionary, hadadvanced film techniques, hemade a 3D camera just so hecan shoot this movie. It tookfour and half years to make thefilm. I interacted with a fewfriends from Digital Domain,and I came to know that thisscript was in his mind since 10years but he did not have thetechnology. Avatar was alwaysa stepping stone to make anoth-er technology film. If he couldstart with Avatar, then he canthink of this mega production.95% of the film was made inWellington," says Rahul. You work such a long hours,how do you balance personaland professional life? "When my projects are close tocompletion, my day starts at5.30 am and ends up quite late.But I always come home forlunch and dinner.”

Meet ourvery ownAussieIndianAvatar

"Working with James Cameron was a dream come true. The day I met him in Wellington, I told him thatworking in Avatar was a masterclass in film making. It was revolutionary, had advanced film techniques, hemade a 3D camera just so he can shoot this movie. It took four and half years to make the film.

- Rahul Deshprabhu

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Bollywood

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 17

I make a point to live fromwork at half an hour dis-tance. I take my cyclewhich takes 7-8 minutes, sothat's my exercise for theday. I have also worked sevendays a week because thereis a certain kind of levelyou want to achieve. If youmake Avatar you don't get abreak." What's the biggest challengefor a technical director? "For me mostly it's a chal-lenge to make it as real aspossible to begin with.That's the creative side of it.To show the finished prod-uct, and specially to see the'jaw dropped' reaction. Idon't want to see the screen,I want to see the reaction on

the face. This is what I keepin mind. If you want to seea waterfall in reality, I wantto show you the same expe-rience. For example, for mycurrent film I've been giventhe task of simulation of thefish where there are massivefish rivers flowing. I'venever seen fish river. After seeing my creation,my supervisor commented,"If fish rivers were flow,this is what it's going to be."So I aim for reality." Besides technical skills,what kind of assets doesone need to excel in visualeffects? "If you want to be in visualeffects, the biggest asset isobservation skills. Not justobjects, I sometimes even

stare at people. They mightfind it rude, but I'm observ-ing their facial expres-sions!" Rahul loves motor cyclingand photography. "I have aset of 8-10 pics on NationalGeographic. Overall, any-thing associated with adven-ture excites me," saysRahul. And where does he see him-self after ten years? "My first achievement wasworking at Digital Domainand my second achievementwas working with JamesCameron. Now I want toopen a restaurant - I'm notonly a foodie but love cook-ing! My signature dish isbutter chicken (smiles). "

Australia India BusinessCouncil (AIBC), NSW,launched the 'Women inBusiness' Chapter at theHilton in Sydney, as a part ofits 25th year celebrations.

"The Women in Businessgroup will drive bilateraltrade relationships betweenAustralia and India," saidSheba Nandkeolyar, Chairof Women in Business, inher welcome address. "Thisincludes setting up ties andstrategic links withChambers of Commerceand Trade Associations inAustralia and India."

The current members aredrawn from various indus-tries ranging from Marketing& Communications, Cross-Cultural Consulting &Training, Government,Manufacturing & Sales, andInvestment & VentureCapital, among others. Thecommittee members areSanushka Seomangal,Claire Tynan, Naina Gill,Theresa Assaker and ShebaNandkeolyar.

The launch on 12 Julyreceived immense supportand acclaim from Businessand Industry leaders acrossAustralia, especially womenin business who are keen toforge stronger ties betweenthe two countries.

AIBC NSW President,Dipen Rughani, spoke aboutthe changing face of workingclass woman in India andtheir spending power.

The Consul General ofIndia, Amit Dasgupta, high-lighted the challenges facedby seven

semi-illiterate women

and the success story of'Lijjat Papad' (pappadum),an organisation started inthe 1950s and run solely bywomen. This is now a $80million (USD) industry world-wide.

The NSW Minister forFamily and CommunityServices and the Minister forWomen, Prudence JaneGoward, was the ChiefGuest on the occasion. MsPrudence, who lived in Indiafor a short period in the1970's, was enthusiasticabout the initiative and relat-ed several interesting per-sonal anecdotes during herspeech. She urged womento break the cycle of disad-vantage in the modern busi-ness world and also look atnon-traditional businessesto excel in.

Present on the occasionwere several successfulbusiness leaders, membersof foreign Consulates,Presidents of businessassociations andGovernment representa-tives.

A panel discussion on"Doing Business with India"was held. Panel speakersincluded Larke Reimer(Head of the Women'sMarkets Unit, WestpacGroup and chair of GlobalBanking Alliances forWomen in Banking), ClaireTynan (Tynan Group ofCompanies and former CEOof Mahindra Automotive),Saba Abdi (Founder ofVision Asia) and PatriciaVerma (Leading businesswoman for over threedecades).

AIBC boosts women in business

MP Prudence Jane Goward addressing the guests

Women in Business committee members left to right: Sanuskha Seomangal,Theresa Assaker, Naina Gill, Claire Tynan and Sheba Nandkeolyar

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 19

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Religion

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 21

By K Raman

Discovery of staggering amount oftreasure of gargantuan propor-tions in Sri Padmanabhaswamy

Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Keralahas drawn world-wide attention to thisrather humble shrine, which is now con-sidered to be one of the richest temples notonly in India but throughout the world.The huge quantity of wealth of nearly Rs100,000 crore in the form of preciousmetals, priceless stones and other Puranicobjects of art inside the hitherto unknownunderground vaults of this temple surpass-es the Rs 52,000 crore treasure chest ofBalaji Temple of Tirumalai in AndhraPradesh.

The wealthiest six shrines of India noware Padmanabha (1 lakh crore rupees,Tirupathi 52,000 crore, Vaishnao Devi500 crore, Puri Jagannatha temple 90crore, Shirdi Baba shrine 32 crore plusinvestments of 427 crore, Sidhivinayakatemple in Mumbai 46 crore plus 125 croredeposits and Guruvayoor 2.5 crore plusdeposits of 125 crore.

According to sources, the temple wasbuilt around the year 1560. The templecorridor (prakaram) has 365 and one quar-ter sculptured granite pillars, a majesticnataka shala, an eight foot tall flag staffand a hitherto biggest 'Charakku' (vesselto cook). Any flower stuck to the deityafter performing poojas is removed by acluster of peacock feathers to avoid dam-age of the Katu Sharkara coating.

Among my recent pilgrimages to adozen of famous South Indian Hindu tem-ples, the highlight was our visit to the SriPadmanabha Temple. We conducted theday long Udayasthamana Puja at this holyshrine. The temple is located in

the heart of Thirvananthapuram(Syanadoorapuram) inside the East Fort,off the NH 47 (National Highway). Theshrine is considered to be one of the 108‘Divya desams’ (holy places) ofVaishnavism.

Unlike the typical South Indian shrineswith the Sikhiram (Gopuram) pointingskywards, this temple has a flat top‘Gopuram’ and looks very unique.Padmanabha in Anantha sayana posture(in Yoga Nidra position) as ‘Seshasaye’ isa massive vigraha, with a ‘sowmyamukha’. He is very elegant and pleasant(shanth swaroopi) to look at. The lord isalso known as ‘Thamarai manalan’.

In Brahmananda Purana, a major chap-ter is devoted to describe the glories ofAnanthapura Mahatmyam. The glory ofthis shrine is amply described in very oldscriptures viz: Skanda Purana, PadmaPurana, Varaha Purana and Vayu Purana.The creation of this majestic temple isbased on a story of playful Unni Krishnaand Tulu desa Sanyasi VilwamangalamSwamy. The hermit wanted to see thevishwaroopam of Mahavishnu who oblig-ingly revealed his true form (vishwa-roopam). It was too huge with the head atTiruvallam (5 km from the present templesite, the holy feet at Trippappur (8 kmfrom the Fort) and the middle portion atAnanthankadu which is the location of theactual temple.

The sage could not visualise the largeimage and pleaded with God to reduce hissize to see Vishnu filling his eyes. Theresult is what we see at the temple now.The holy sage gave ‘Deva Bhoga’(neyvedyam) of what he could get then, onthe spot consisting of ‘Kanji and saltedmango pickle’ in a coconut shell. We, too,were given the same prasadam of 'Uppu

manga' and cooked rice when our poojasconcluded. I also managed to get theRoyal silver medallion from the palace,with a reclining Padmanabha on one sidewith the king’s symbol of ‘ValampuriShanku’ on the flip side for doing the daylong pooja and Deeparadhana at night, asa gesture of thanks giving. This system isvirtually non-existent now.

The Padma teertham (Lotus spring), asprawling clean and tidy bathing place, islocated by the side of the temple, said tohave come into being when the Lordthrew a lotus flower in the direction wherethe holy tank is currently located. He is‘Sesha shayee’ and his roopam can be seenin three portions (face, navel and paadam)through three separate doors. Brahma sitson a blossomed lotus flower white stememanates from the Lord’s nabhi. His con-sorts, Sri Devi and Bhu Devi, stand by hisside along with the galaxy of ‘saptharishis’ (sages) standing in reverence nearthe lord.

The deity is 18 feet long from head totoe and is made up of 12,008 Saligramshandpicked from Gandhaki River (Nepal).The huge Vigraha is made of thesaligrams encased in gold except for thehead and chest parts. The kankanam,Kamalam, sacred thread worn by the lord,are all made of solid gold. A specialAyurvedic mix of ‘Katu Sharkara Yogam’is used as plaster to cover up the deity todistract the preying eyes of invaders aswell as to prevent small insects, ants andflies entering the Garbha Griha.

Travancore Royal family’s ruler,Marthanda Varma surrendered himselfand all his possessions to the Lord by theact of ‘Trippadi Danam’ and he becamePadmanabha Dasa. He, earlier, construct-ed and maintained Shabari Sasta Temple,

which is not among the top six wealthiestIndian shrines. It used to be a tradition inthis part of India that the Maharaja alwayscarried out the daily morning darshanamof the lord. If he failed to do this, he willhave to pay a fine of one Rs 151.55 to thetemple for his failure to turn up.

To avid listeners with an inquisitivemind, standing near the God’s feet closeto the third door, a mild sound of thebreaking waves of the sea can be heard. Inone instance, it is said, the lord movedslightly and the priest felt a mild tremorand rattling of smaller pooja vessels keptinside the Garbhagraha.

At one stage the temple was owned bythe powerful landlord ‘Ettu VeettilPillamar’ who was defeated by the king ina combat and had to surrender control ofthe temple. British rulers respected thetemple and the king and honoured the tra-dition by daily 21-gun salute, which wascontinued till the abolition of Privy Purse.

Under the directions of the SupremeCourt of India the secret treasure cham-bers were opened to check and take aninventory of items stored inside the vaults.On July 2011, 500 billion Rupees worth ofGold and precious stones were unearthedfrom one vault alone. Besides, there weremany antique items and 118th centuryNapoleonic era coins. There was a mas-sive Vishnu Vigraha (believed to havebeen gifted by Maharaja ofVijayanagaram), ceremonial attires of thedeities studded with precious stones, a 16part ‘Gold Anki’ of 230 kg weight,coconut shells made of solid gold andstudded with rubies and emeralds. Thevalue of the treasure found so far is morethan Rs 90,000 crore, not including theantique value of most items.

Continued on page 53....

Sri Padmanabha Shrine: the richest temple in the world

Sri Padmanabha temple flat gopuram and (right) the deity Padmanabha in Anantha sayana posture

The mammoth wealth of Rs 100,000 crore in the form of precious metals, priceless stones and other ancient objects of art inside the vaults of the Padmanabha temple surpasses the Rs 52,000 crore treasure chest of Balaji Temple of Tirupathi.

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Dr Vijay Kumar, a Sydneybased nuclear scientist andconsultant at UN’s

International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA) in Vienna is a fre-quent flier who goes around theglobe working on issues which areserious for the survival of humanrace and the planet as such.

Dr. Vijay met Dr APJ AbdulKalam when the former IndianPresident came to Sydney to dis-cuss issues ranging from Vijay’srole in IAEA on applications ofNuclear medicine for developingcountries to using nuclear reactorsfor power generation in India,using bio-fuels for transport, andChina & India as the growingindustrial powers. Dr Kalam hadtalked about use of Thorium fornuclear energy needs and wanted tomeet people in the related field.

Says Dr Vijay Kumar, “It wasan inspiring meeting with Dr Kalamas he was impressed when I toldhim of my rural upbringing andmodest family background.”

Talking about his work atIAEA, says Vijay, “I was attendinga regional course for nuclear cardi-ologists in Sydney when I met peo-ple from IAEA and developed 8different modules for DAT forinternational circulation. They wereso impressed that they used it inmany languages and I got invited to

give a plenary lecture at an interna-tional conference on NuclearOncology in Brazil in 2004. Sincethen I have not looked back and thework I do with them has becomemy passion which comes from myown conviction for a safe, secureworld which is what IAEA standsfor that is ‘Atoms for Peace’ as itfosters co-operation in Nuclearfield within UN family.”

Dr Vijay goes on to add,“IAEA employs 2200 multi-disci-plinary professionals and supportstaff from 90 countries with 6major divisions headed by DirectorGeneral. When you work for UNyou are a citizen of the world andrepresent no country, not polarised

or biased with your decision-mak-ing. As I entered the UN officebuilding for the first time I couldsee with pride some great Indiannames who served the organisation.At the entrance is the statue ofHomi Bhabha, the founder ofBhabha Atomic Energy centre inBombay. Incidentally, he was oneof the key people responsible toestablish IAEA organisation inVienna.”

Historically, IAEA was createdin 1957 in response to the deepfears and expectations resultingfrom the discovery of nuclear ener-gy. Its fortunes are uniquely gearedto this controversial technology thatcan be used either as a “weapon” or

as a “practical and useful tool”.These ideas helped to shape theIAEA Statute, which 81 nationsunanimously approved. The Statuteoutlines the three pillars of theAgency´s work: nuclear verifica-tion & security, safety and technol-ogy transfer. The road to achievingglobal nuclear peace is a long strug-gle. In 1954, Pandit Nehru, thethen Indian PM, was one of the firstworld leaders to initiate such amove in the UN at New York topush for nuclear test ban. In 1962,President Kennedy passed the legis-lation through UN to conductnuclear testing only underground.In 1968, came NPT – non-prolifer-ation treaty. But in practice only in1974, the nuclear scientists fromIAEA have developed documents to“Monitor and Verify” nuclear test-ing related activities. This historicmoment for UN led to establishingthe Comprehensive (Nuclear) TestBan Treaty Organisation withinIAEA in 1993.

Vijay says that when one workson UN projects, it gives a globalperspective of many events for har-monization and advancement ofhuman race, irrespective of colour,religion or status. “I have cherishedthe experience in Vienna as it wasboth challenging and rewarding. Itwas an excellent opportunity tomeet international experts and work

with them closely and I found thatit is an ideal organisation for net-working.”

Currently Vijay is working onanother project - an invitation fromHarvard Medical School, Boston tospeak at their seminar series onNeuroendocrine tumour diagnosisand treatment using the latest tech-nology.

He admits this is ‘a dream cometrue’ to go to Harvard. He was alsoinvited to speak at Society ofNuclear Medicine Conference inUSA to deliver a CME (ContinuingMedical Education) session in June2011 and also was an invited speak-er at the first World Ga-68 confer-ence in Germany in July and at theSouth American Congress (ALAS-BIMN) later in the year. Vijay alsoserves as secretary, InternationalRelationship Committee of ANZS-NM (Current) and the Secretary forthe World Federation of NuclearMedicine & Biology BidCommittee.

Vijay lives in Sydney with hiswife Shan and has two children – adaughter working as an IT Businessmanager and a doctor son. Vijayloves spending time and playingwith his granddaughter. Little doesshe know that her 62-year oldgranddad is working hard to makethis planet a safe place for genera-tions to come.

Making the planet a safer place

Dr Vijay Kumar, now working for IAEA, with Dr Kalam

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150th Birth Centenary of Tagore

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 23

The great sentinel of India

Rabindranath Tagore with Gandhiji

Alo amar alo oga alo bhu-vanbharaAlo nayandhoya, Alo hridayhara!Nache alo nache, bhai, amarpraner kachhe...

Light, my light, the world fillinglight,the eye-kissing light,hear-sweetening light!Ah, teh lght dances, my darling,at the centre of my life...

- GeetanjaliIf only had he not lost his

fathers’ manuscript on a fatefultrain journey on a London train,Rathindranath, son ofRabindranath as he went toretrieve the recovered translationscame into the notice of Englishpoet W B Yeats who was pro-foundly moved by the verses of‘Geetanjali’ and he carried thetranslations for days as he readthem. India society of Londonbrought out the translations in theform of a book in a limited edi-tion with introduction by Yeatswhen Macmillan Press boughtout the rights. The book receivedwonderful reviews and was rec-ommended by the Royal Societyof Literature as a literary master-piece fit for a nobel prize.

Tagore’s name was finalizedfor the award in 1913 from a totalof 28 nominations “because of hisprofoundly sensitive, fresh andbeautiful verse, by which withconsummate skill, he has madehis poetic thought expressed inhis own English words, a part of

the lietrature of the West.”Thus Tagore became a world

famous poet whose poetry wasuniversal, beyond physicalboundaries and spoke in a lan-guage that touched chords ofeveryone’s heart. Though headmitted to Rothenstein, hisfriend, in 1913 that Nobel prize‘was as bad as tying a tin can to adog’s tail making it impossiblefor him to move, without creatingnoise and crowds all along’,Tagore had a restless spirit and amultifarious personality who notonly covered diverse terrains ofcreative expression - music, the-atre, painting, song writer and athinker, social reformer, founderof Shantiniketan school. “Worldis my home,” he used to say, anascetic who looked at what ailedthe world and became its healer inhis own unique way.

This ‘myriad-minded’ spiritu-al was lovingly called ‘gurudev’by Mahatma Gandhi while thesobriquet of ‘Mahatma’ wasgiven to Gandhiji by Tagore.Though he strongly objected tobeing called and that he was noguru to ‘anyone’ the title stuckdue to his aristocratic appearncein flowing robes, silver hair and along flowing beard. He stoodsplendrously tall next to thesmall, diminutive frame ofMahatma Gandhi both contrast-ing each other’s persona yet rep-resented an India to whom allIndians looked upto with prideand affection.

Tagore’s deep thinking was

harnessed at a very young age byhis father Debendranath Tagoreby the sounds of shlokas ofUpnishads in his childhood andhis wayfaring, restless travelerspirit when he took a trip toHimalays in 1873 which inculcat-ed a bonding of nature providingthe young boy with a sense offreedom and exploration. Tagoretraveled widely as he was invitedto Europe, America, China,Japan. In Europe his poetry waswidely discussed as it offeredhope for the war riddled countriesfull of death and destruction,

In 1940 Tagore travelled toEurope exhibiting his paintingswhich he used to say that they had‘crossed all barriers’ than hispoetry. He traveled to Iran vsitingthe tomb of famous poet Saadiand interacted with King of Iranemphasising communal harmonya necessary condition forprogress.

Tagore’s mission was and is -divinisation of man and humain-ising of God and he was influ-enced by Buddhism as well .Though he said salvation throughthe practice of renunciation wasnot for him. He wanted to tastethe freedom of joy in the midst ofinnumerable ties. He wasimpressed by the Vaishnavapadavali (lyrics) which imbibedin him the concept of beauty andlove that became the keynote ofhis writings. He was infludencedby Baul philosophy that there’sGod in every man’ heart and Hemay be realized only by sincere

love and devotion. Tagore com-posed many songs in the Baul tra-dition:

O my Mind, You did not wake up when the

man of your heart Came to your doorYou woke up in the darkAt the sound of his departing

footsteps My lonely night passes on a

mat on the floorHis flute sounds in darknessAlas! I cannot see Him

Tagore looked for this inti-mate relation with ‘the man of theheart’ the ‘Eternal friend’ whichhe calls ‘lover’ in Jeevandevata -the ‘lord of life’ as the guidingprinciple of his life.

Romain Rolland, a Frenchwriter and mystic, was fascinatedby both Tagore and Gandhi andpaid tribute to the two great river-like souls, overflowing withdivine spirit .

Rabindranath Tagore movedout of Kolkatta to start a brah-macharya Ashram - his vision ofan authentic education whichunfolds a child’s potentialities,his service to village folk with anaim of simple life - village beingthe centre of Indian culture andtraditions and close to naturalenvironment for personal growth.

He said, “If we could freeeven one village from the shack-les of helplessness and ignorance,an ideal for the whole of Indiawould be established.”

While Gandhi provided a

political leadership in the free-dom struggle of India, Tagoreconcentrated on education, indi-vidual disocvery and believedhimself to be citizen of the worldcrossing all boundaries. Tagoretranslated Macbeth at the age ofthirteen and is also known for alot of bilingual work fromBengali to English as people gotexposed to a fine lietrature ofIndia through his relentlessefforts. Tagore was a walking uni-versity in himself .

Tagore was saddened by theplight of Bengali women andargued for their emanicipationthrough his lectures, stories andessays and letters to people. Hesaid about women, “They are anintegral part of the human raceand God has created them as partof society and not as docilelychained to walls of the innermostchambers of the houses.”

Once when he went to Chinahe wrote a poem:‘A Chinese name I took,dressed in Chinese clothesThis I knew in my mindWherever I find my friend thereI am born Anew.’

And about Death he wrote:Kissing Dusk’s face, Night gentlywhispers,I am, death, your mother,but not to fear.With each dawn I renewthe deaparting days in birth evernew.

Neena Badhwar

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24 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Karam C. Ramrakhaadvises his clients that

he is still in active practice but is now with Macquarie Legal Lawyers

who operate from Level 11, 3 Spring Street Sydney 2000

(just behind Australia Square). The new phone number is (02) 92352500.

Kirath C. Ramrakha is also with this firm as a Senior Associate. This firm handles conveyancing,com-

mercial work, and litigation of all types and level. Werefer immigration but can handle immigration appeals.

ACARD

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 25

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26 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Community

By Maya Narpatsingh

The price of freedom has been wrought with blood, sweat and tearsSacrifices, family separation and tragedies of yesteryears;Indians fearless, nonviolent struggled to achieve this goal All with one voice and one will, fulfilling determined quit India roleThe storm continued till they completed their pledge

14th August 1947 freedom voices echoed from every hedge;Pandit Nehru first Prime Minister of partitioned India announced“At the stroke of midnight hour when the world sleeps India will awake to life and

freedom”A new chapter commenced for Indian history

Now divided with Kashmir with unsolved mysteryThe two countries that were one India survived many invasionsEven struggled together fighting for freedom from all foreign persuasionsSoon followed few years of tremendous bitterness and destruction

Human lives lost and tormented under the thoughtless partitionBrother killed brother from mad frenzied border sedationsHumane values dropped to deplorable conditionsGuns exchanged riots broke out and hatred grew

Tales of war were pathetic in every day’s news reviewHostile incidences occurred and fear holding swayAlas! 30th January 1948 was Mahatma Gandhi’s tragic passing awayCritical conditions called worldwide concernFreedom at midnight had brought in colossal damages to mournThen followed few years’ struggle of survival and rehabilitation

While retaining the hard earned freedom from British dominationThree wars and a huge loss of lives couldn’t solve the Kashmir issue till today

While many terrorist activities aggravating the wounded stateMother India is tired of man’s abuses manyLeave her in peace from enemy without while a leader of vision is needed from with-

in.This leader India needs to cull out country’s cancer of corruption

It’s not an outside enemy as for the enemy within it seeks a leader of convictionPerhaps we need a Gandhi again for India to rise out of its current disruptionThen only can the country run peacefully without any interruption.

The Indian Down Under’s poets celebrateMaya Narpatsingh’s 75th birthday this month.A prolific poet Maya’s poems touch life and shealways writes about current topics. Mayaji, asshe is lovingly known in the Indian community,thinks in verse before she even pens herthoughts on paper. She is the wife of late R KNarpatsingh of Idar who worked for Air Indiafor 30 years as the couple travelled all over theworld and made Maya see life closely at post-ings around the world. She is now settled inSydney with her three sons and daughter andgrandchildren. She is also a member of theSociety of Women Writers of NSW and lovesIkebana, Japanese art of flower decoration. Ifnot writing, Mayaji is busy reading, knittingand cooking.

Punam Sarin writes poetry and runs asuccessful business ‘BharatInternational’ an Indian shop in

Canberra. Creativity is in Punam’s blood asshe not only creates hermusings in couplets sheis also good at cook-ing, being an excellentchef who can blendspices in various waysthat helps her cus-tomers source all kinds

of Indian food in Canberra.A well known and a celebrated poet,

Punam started writing poetry at the age oftwelve. She has been honoured with manypoetry awards that include International Poetof Merit Award 2008. She says her poemshelp her ‘express herself freely’. Punam haspublished six poetry books and her poems

are based on her thoughts on topics thatrange from intimate love, God, human rela-tionships, children, mother earth to warsand terror that dog our world today.

Always thereWho picks me up when I fall down?

Who comforts me without a sound?Who soothes my spirit from within?Who forgives me when I have sinned?Who strengthens me when times are

hard?Who can I let drop down my guardWho wants me when I look a mess??Who listens when I feel distressed?Who sits with me into the small hours?Who accepts me in all my colours?Whom do I yell at and hope they stayWho is here with me each and every

day?

Who is my cheerleader and rewarder?May be a guardian angel, may be the

lordWhoever hits with him a special chordmay be through this silent pleagoes out to someone inside of meI am here when times are toughA refuge when I have had enoughseek and you will seeyou are never alone while you have me

Walk With MeTake my hand and walk with me

Down the path of discoveryLook and you will seeListen and you will hearTouch and you will feelThis beautiful life that is so realMany things for us to learnMany things to desire and yearnWhere the path leads, I don’t knowIt’s time to just go with the flowSo many discoveries to be made

The foundations of our future to be laidWalk beside me now and alwaysFrom the darkness of night into the

brightness of daysBe a little anxious, be a little scaredBut rest assured, there is nothing to fearCall out my name you’ll see I’m right

hereSo please take my hand and walk with

meIt’s a long journey into eternity

My TearsSilently a tear kissed my cheekI felt it fallI caught it in my handHeld itFelt itTasted itThen suddenlyIt wasn’tSo bigAfter all

By Mala Suthakar

The Vedanta Centre of Sydney organ-ised a school holidays camp for chil-dren with the theme ‘For the good of

One and All’ during July 5-7.The camp days commenced with Swami

Atmeshananda leading the children with ashort prayer session. The topic of the daygenerally centred on ‘Knowing God throughGuru’ and ‘Guru Poornima’ which was tofollow soon after on July 15.

The discussions included the six mainreligions of the world and their religiousMasters. While touching on the superficialdifferences of religions, the learning, moreimportantly, highlighted the main similarityamong religions: the common goal of attain-ing everlasting peace and happiness throughthe good of one and all.

Recitation of Vedic chants (shlokas andmantras), and yoga and bhajans sessionswere some of many activities that the chil-dren undertook on all three days. All theparticipants, more than fifty in number,received colourful booklets, which were notonly informative, but also comprised educa-tional activities that kept the childrenengrossed for a great duration of time.

To the participants, all activities were

play as was their art, craft and cookery ses-sions amidst much loved games. The funactivities included ‘decorating and icing cupcakes’ which taught them to offer, shareand care, and also their craft project, of

building a hexagonal pyramid with symbolsof the six religions on each of its faces.

The children spent some time afterlunch to rest and watch educational videoson the life and times of Lord Buddha and

the Prince of Egypt. The Vedanta Centre’s kitchen supple-

mented the contributions of many volun-teers and provided healthy and sumptuousmorning and afternoon teas. “Yummmm”was a familiar sound during the foodbreaks.

Enthusiasm was full-on, even while theparticipants prepared for their recitation,singing and enactment of skits depictingscenes from the lives of Buddha and Moses,and stories based on Christian values. Theseculminated in a performance – a presenta-tion in front of parents and visitors on thefinal day of the Camp.

The children and the many volunteerswere privileged to receive ‘sweet-prasada’from Swami Sridharananda, the abbot of themonastery.

The children were also awarded certifi-cates of participation and were doublyblessed as they received bookmarks with thelabel 'PRAYER' from SwamiDamodarananda.

Swami Atmeshananda ended the daywith a reflection about each day’s activitiesand a short prayer session. It is little won-der that the participants are looking forwardto the next children’s camp during 27-29September.

Perhaps we need a Gandhi again

Vedanta children camp is a fun fair

Poems by Punam Sarin

Children busy in activities in a holiday camp organised by the Vedanta Centre, Sydney

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Community

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 27

Mahatma’s granddaughter Tara toattend Gandhi Samaroh

10-minute plays bring the best of talent in the Indian community

AFL India to participate inInternational Cup in Sydney

and Melbourne Bharatiya Vidya BhavanAustralia is organizing theGandhi Samaroh

(Symposium). The chief guest andmain speaker will be Mrs. TaraGandhi Bhattacharjee, granddaugh-ter of Mahatma Gandhi who iscoming especially for theSymposium from New Delhi.

Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee isthe Vice-Chairperson of GandhiSmriti and Darshan Samiti andKasturba Gandhi NationalMemorial Trust. All these organi-sations are initiatives of theGovernment of India. GandhiSmriti is the site in Delhi ofMartyrdom of Mahatma Gandhifor truth and Non-violence. Tarahas been working for the welfare ofthe spinners and the weavers ofkhadi.

Gandhi Samaroh focuses on thelife of Gandhi and his relevancetoday, multicultural awarenessnowadays and fostering the bondbetween India and Australia.

The event will be held from 3to 10 November 2011 in Sydney,

Canberra and Melbourne. Therewill be lectures, exhibitions andworkshops. The Bhavan has pro-posed to launch a special medal inthe name of Mahatma Gandhi forSocial Responsibility.

An application has been sub-mitted to Australia-India Councilfor a grant to cover the travel costsof the chief guest Mrs.Bhatacharjee.

AFL India team had par-ticipated in theInternational Cup 2008

held in Melbourne which wassupported by Bhavan Australia.

This year AFL India willhave a team of 30 players and 4support staff including a coachready for the 2011 AFLInternational Cup. They haveapproached as for supportingthe team stay in Sydney from 11to 22 August 2011. India's par-ticipation in this year’sInternational Cup is very impor-tant, to set a platform to carrythe work forward.

Last time Bharatiya VidyaBhavan School in Saltlake,Kolkata invited the AFL Indiamembers as well as the AFLIndia players to take part in acurtain raiser to their Inter-school soccer final.

AFl India are planning toinvolve the 100 plus schools ofBhavan's group to start with,

and Kolkata and Raipur havealready been involved. Both ofthem are eager and willing tolend supporting hands, to usetheir school premises for devel-opment purposes.

One of the key elements ofthe AFL’s InternationalDevelopment strategy is theannual International Cup. Thecountries that have nominated toparticipate in this unique tourna-ment include: Canada, China,Denmark, Finland, GreatBritain, India, Ireland, Japan,Nauru, New Zealand, PapuaNew Guinea, Samoa, SouthAfrica, Spain, Sweden, Tongaand USA.

A key feature of this eventis that all players must be citi-zens of their country (no expa-triate Australians are eligible toplay in the International Cup).Teams are comprised solely ofamateurs who must be nationalsof the country they represent.

Abhinay School of Performing Artsconducted an intensive play-writ-ing workshop with Short+ Sweet

Theatre Festival’s artistic director AlexBroun during July 8-10 at ShopfrontTheatre in Carlton, Sydney. Participantsranged from as young as 15-year oldKaruna Darwesh to 70-year old KamalKakwani.

The ideas they came up with were var-ied - Karuna as a young student thinking ofthe issue of climate change affecting ourplanet. Another idea that developed into a10-minute play was by Neena Badhwar ofan Indian bride and her dilemma in gettingmarried to a robot when she suddenly getsthe jitters as doubts rage in her on her wed-ding night.

Another interesting plot was bySukhpreet Dhamoon where a talk backradio show host is stripped of his so calledmedia power by no one else but his ownmike as it comes to life as Mic the Mike.

Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia’s play in Hindiwas well received about families caught inbetween the curfew post 1984 riots andhow a Hindu family is helped by a Sikhneighbour as tensions built up due to amember falling critically sick. YoungShourya came up with a tense drama abouta long lost son taking his father hostagewith a tragic end. Kamal’s play was abelated epitaph to her 99-year old motherwho died last year.

Seven participants were KarunaDarwesh, Shourya Nidhi, Neena Badhwar,Jasbir Singh Alhuwalia, Robert Bellon,Sukhpreet Dhamoon and Kamal Kakwani.They learnt about all the aspects of theatrethat included writing a script for 10-minuteplay, to casting, acting and staging theirplay. Alex brought out the best in everyoneand said that it was like a reality show likeMaster Chef where the contestants had tocome up with a script over the weekendworkshop that could hold the audience. Hereminded everyone that theatre was a

‘shared act of imagination by actors andaudience’. “Connect to your characters asthey’ll start speaking to you,” he said.

“They say that we all have a novel or afilm in us. I don’t know about that but def-initely everyone has a 10-minute play inthem,” said Alex, “And you can see yourown idea being performed in front of you.”

On Sunday, July 10, many actors,playwrights and directors were invited torehearse the scripts the whole day. Theypresented eight plays in the afternoon.

Karuna Darwesh produced ‘Human

and the Earth’ played by MurrayRobertson and Ngahiiti; Shourya Nidhi’splay ‘Hostage’ acted by Jim and Aiden.Neena Badhwar entered two plays ‘RockyII and the Indian bride’ with robot playedby Aiden and Marni as the Indian Bride.The play was directed by Vee Malnar.Neena’s second play was based on the lifeof ‘Buddha’ and four women who helpedhim achieve Nirvana. Nasrin playedSujatha, Cheryl played Maya, Olivia asYashodhra and Maurine as Ambapalikawith James as the waiter brought a comic

interlude in between some serious dia-logues. ‘Buddha and his four women’ wasdirected by Uma Kali Shakti.

Jasbir Singh Alhuwalia’s ‘Ek NayiSubah - ‘A New Dawn’ had SukhpreetDhamoon, Dixit Thakkar, AishveryaaNidhi, Rohit Kalia, Mona Grover, ShouryaNidhi, Nishthha Nidhi and SubeykshaPyekural playing different characters.Robert Bellon’s ‘Birthday Party’, directedby Vee Malnar, was hilarious. SukhpreetDhamoon’s ‘The Power’, was played byMarty as a radio shock-jock Jay, and Benas Mic the Mike. Kamal Kakwani wroteand staged ‘Delayed Epitaph’ – a dialoguebetween a daughter and the ghost of hermother played by Fabiala and Rhonda.

Hindi Gaurav’s Anuj Kulshrshthadonated a prize for the best play whichwent to Jasbir Ahluwalia’s ‘Ek Nai Subah– a New Dawn’ declared by HarpreetSingh Narula, editor of Punjab Times. TheIndian Down Under newspaper gaveencouragement award to young KarunaDarwesh of a Family Pass to Taronga Zoo.

All the plays were of such high calibrethat it was difficult for Alex Broun to judgethe winner as he decided to declare theresults later.

Aishverya Nidhi, director of AbhinaySchool of Performing Arts, said, “It isquite a satisfying experience to nurture tal-ent and see people grow. Talent is some-thing participants already possess. We, atAbhinay, can only help polish it and bringout their best in them.

“At present there is a huge vacuum intheatre of multicultural ideas. Although weare a sizeable part of the Australian popu-lation, yet we have not expressed how wethink and feel. I have been striving for theIndian talent to come forward and partici-pate in the mainstream theatre. I think it’sa great opportunity for the Indian commu-nity to feel proud of its talent,” she said.

The plays will be showcased in Hindion September 11 as part of the Hindi Divasin a program called ‘Indradhanush’.

Mrs. Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee with the Dalai Lama

Abhinay's workshop under Alex Broun with writers Karuna Darwesh, Shourya Nidhi,Neena Badhwar, Jasbir Singh Alhuwalia, Robert Bellon, Sukhpreet Dhamoon andKamal Kakwani. Writers seen here with actors who took part in the moved reading.

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Community

By Neena Badhwar

Ispent an afternoon with modern guruDeepak Chopra for his enlightening threehours on the topic: Healing,

Transformation & Higher Consciousness aspart of the event ‘I can Do It’. Organised byHay House, the Sydney Convention Centrewas full of people brimming with vibrationsof universal energy that filled DarlingHarbour space which Deepak calls as the‘Unified Field’ and when like-minded peoplecongregate in a precinct synergistically cre-ating a great spiritual environment one canonly but say and feel ‘Yes I can do it’.

Deepak said that its’ all part of knowl-edge revealing itself as time passes.“Yesterday’s miracles are the science oftoday and today’s miracles may be the sci-ence of tomorrow”.

Deepak talked of Body, Mind and Spiritand how to create a transcendental existenceby simply being aware. The body, he said,“That it is not real but the real is somethingelse. Body is a process, an activity. TheDeepak who came two years ago is not whoyou see today. He is dead and gone that is ifyou believe in life after death!”

“Body is recycling all the time with ele-ments from the universe through sensoryperceptions and activities such as eating,sleeping, exercising, imagining, thinking,which are constantly changing the body.”

“My travel suitcase has a better shelf lifethan my body,” He said.

“And what is Mind. Mind is an embod-ied relational process. There is no mind thatexists by itself. Mind is the regulator of flowof energy and information. Today it is possi-ble to monitor thoughts and how they affectour brain. At the current level the informa-tion which is being generated has bypassedthe knowledge of entire history of humanrace.”

“And what about the soul? A scientistwill ask where is it? Show me. Who is hav-ing this thought? We are always makingchoices what we want to be in the future.There was one Dr Penfold who is known forhis experiments on brain who concluded thatthe interpreter is the choicemaker andtermed it as the ‘soul’.”

Deepak said that the scientists have notbeen able to monitor an in-body experiencewhile a lot of people talk of out-of-bodyexperiences. “Where is this person who islistening to my lecture?”

All the Sufis, sages talk of this hugespace…a discontinuity…anything in the uni-verse is vibration referred to as discontinu-ity. In all the on-off, on-off there’s this gapwhen there is no energy, no vibration, nospace, no time…and there are infinite possi-

bilities. It is the off field of potential, all thatwas, all that is and all that will be.”

“So everything is co-related in this uni-verse – a synchronicity – it’s an intentionfield – a place of karma, memory and desire.A silent, self-regulating field of peace con-nected to everything – ground of your beingis the ground of universe. That is the part ofyou that is real that transcends birth anddeath beyond space and time. It is immanent,evolves through time but exists beyond timeand cannot be destroyed – a great field ofpotentiality – as Bhagavad Gita says, ‘Youcannot wet it, fire cannot burn it and windcan’t blow it and that it exists beyond timeand space. Your body is in your conscious-ness. You are not in the body but the body isin you. You are not in the universe but theuniverse is in you.’ Key to healing lies in thisprinciple.”

Deepak quoted poet Rumi who said,“You are not the drop in the ocean but youare the mighty ocean in the drop.”

He went on to explain the three brains –the reptilian – which controls the flight orfight response; the limbic brain that is theemotional response and the cortex – the self-reflective, intuitive, choice making part ofthe brain. He recommended that we shut offthe reptilian brain altogether and switch onthe limbic and the cortex for rewiring withthe higher consciousness. “People who havebest of friends have the best of health. If youhave happy friends and they have happyfriends and so on and so forth this wholeworld will be a happy place because we areall connected. Consciousness is a field andwhen it is disturbed there are ripples all theway through entire collective consciousness.Spend time in happy activities, happy faces,send happy smiley icons, healthy foods,healthy lifestyle habit, yoga, all help yourwell-being. Support each other and lead ahappy existence with like minded friends.”

Then we all did a meditation together asDeepak asked us to be aware of ourselves,our body, body organs, blood circulation tovarious regions.

It was a relaxing experience as everyonejoined in and felt better after the session asDeepak explained what sort of work he isdoing with Gallop Foundation and hisChopra Foundation. Deepak was totallyrelaxed though he did mention quietly to hisminder that there was a lecture due in NewZealand the next day while a huge line ofpeople built up for his autographs on hisbooks and CDs people had bought. Theyalso took the opportunity to say hello fromclose and get a picture taken with theirfavourite New Age guru who explains thingsconcretely and scientifically yet in laymanterms.

We are all co-related

Deepak Chopra with his admirers in Sydney

By K Raman

May I begin by stating thatVishaka Hari’s Kathaparayanam held in Sydney

recently was incomparable to any othershow of its kind because of the style ofpresentation of sacred stories was of herown invention? Someone has yet toemerge with more appealing style andmodification to supersede Vishaka’sHarikathakalakshepam. She presented twoshows back to back; Sita Kalyanam(Ramayana) at Macquarie University the-atre on July 16 and on the next day shepresented a brilliant Prahlada Vijayam (atRyde Civic Centre).

People living in Oz land mingling withan alien culture and with or without profi-ciency in Tamil language, packed theauditoriums to capacity. A charismaticVishaka is a well-established and highlyregarded Raconteur, a great singer and aclassy act. I spoke to some patrons beforeand after the first show. Their verdict wasunanimous; this was the best Harikathathey heard so far. I concur, because to thelisteners’ ears it was sheer ecstasy.

In Sydney she presented her showfrom a sunken English drama stage of theUniversity theatre she raised to a highstanding podium of the Civic Centre with-in the passage of 24 hours’ time. Herimpeccable credentials preceded herarrival on our shores. She is full of charm,an artist devoted to her craft, a strict dis-ciplinarian and a lady of methods. Talkingto her I gathered that this qualifiedaccountant is deep into HarikathaKalakshepan, thanks due to her guru andfather-in-law Sri Guruji Krishna Premi,whom she mentions often and addresses asSri Anna. We know that any successfulperson needs certain inborn God-givengifts. Vishaka is a highly gifted classicalmusician, well taught by the great ViolinMaestro Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman, a doyenof Carnatic music. With an excellent com-mand on her mother tongue, Tamil as wellas English she could cleverly mix andmarry music and enunciation. Her knowl-edge of Veda, Sastras and Puranas is nextto none. Her association with Sri Krishna

Premi widened her horizon. Her owninputs of deep thought and dedicated storytelling practice took her to meteoricheights. The presence of house full audi-ence on two successive weekend days in aplace where Harikatha is a misnomer is aclear indication of her name, fame andability. Her dedication to her profession isimpeccable. Never once during the showdid she fumble for words. During thethree hour shows she never sipped a dropof water, because while delivering thestory of the lord, hunger and thirst fadeaway to the background. Impeccablydressed in eye catching colourful andfashionable sarees worn in ‘Madisar’ (sixyards sarees in traditional Tamil style)style she sits cross legged at the centrestage.

On ‘Madisar’, Vishaka says that “it isnot stage attire, this is what I wear everyday.”

I was surprised to hear her state that –‘I don’t ever read the newspapers’. Nowonder her mind is unpolluted.

She added that while telling stories “Idon’t consciously weave in modern refer-ence, they exist there to be spoken about.“

In contrast to the tufted pot-belliedmale story tellers, she looks a picture ofbeauty and tradition, evoking reverence.She talks with confidence in her ownstyle. “I generally uphold the way myfather-in-law delivers the story, while themusical aspect is delivered as directed bymy Guru Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman. I justmix both judiciously”. In the Sydneyshow of Sita Kalyanam she dwelled indetail on the glories of Sri Rama as bril-liantly portrayed by Saint Thyagaraja butlack of time prevented her from going fordetailed description of the wedding part.

Vishaka’s husband started both theshows with an Upanyasam. His knowl-edge is immense with no gimmicks in thepresentation. Ananda Krishnan on Violinand our Bala Shankar on Mridangam gaveadded lustre to the story telling. Kudos toSwara Laya for bringing Vishaka and herteam to Australia. I am sure she will beback here having proven her mettle in thisvisit.

Divine discourse byVishaka Hari

Harikatha exponent Vishaka Hari talking to Kris Raman. She says, “One does notneed to understand and be learned in music or know the Ramayana in detail to

understand my narration. They just tell themselves.”

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Community

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 29

Sakhi Sangam pampers ladies By Neeru Saluja

After four days of relent-less rain, at last the sunsmiled on Sunday. Well

it had to - because all the gor-geous Indian ladies of Sydneywere looking forward to deck upand celebrate Teej at the 13thannual Sakhi Sangam event atthe local Croatian Club!

The mere mention of SakhiSangam takes me down thememory lane when I migrated toSydney seven years ago. As anewly wed with dreams in myeyes and working with theIndian Down Under, the beauti-ful ladies dressed in their bestsmiling ear to ear reminded meof my homeland and the colour-ful festivities there. My lovelyeditor noticed the spark in myeyes and told me 'Neeru, oneday you should definitely attendthis event – you will love it'.

And yes, that day finallycame! Dressed in my best, I wasall set to have some girl fun, notthinking of household choresand family duties. As soon as Ientered the room, I knew thiswas going to be one of my bestSundays. Tables full of ladiesdressed in designer suits, silkand chiffon sarees, trendy jew-ellery, sexy blouses and beauti-ful hairdos – it seemed as theincredible India was right infront of me!

Hosted by MC Aastha,Divya Dhingra and Preeti, theevent was highlighted by per-formances by artists Anu,Chirasmitha, Nayana, Priyankaand Purnima and students ofIndian Dance Centre. Not toforget the Indian sakhis whodanced to their heart’s contenton the dance floor thanks to thelatest songs belted out by DJDimple. And who can forget thedelicious food by ManjitConcord Centre, a regular sup-porter of the Sakhi Sangam.

And which ladies’ event iscomplete without tambola?Tambola, lucky draw and lots ofprizes sponsored by UIA,Mehre Da Dhaba, Billu'sEatery, Apasara Beauty Parlour,Appearance Beauty Clinic andmany more. There were alsostalls of henna, clothes, bangles,bindis, jewellery and snacks.

What else can a woman askfor? A day where she is pam-pered and gets a chance to catchup with her girlfriends. Therewas not a single lady who wenthome without a big smile on herface. A big thanks to the organ-isers Nandini Thadani andSushma Ahluwalia who everyyear make the effort to bringwomen from various platformstogether to celebrate woman-hood.

Shobha Ingleshwar, Sunita Raheja, Ranju Chadha, Anju Kalra, Lajo Bhojwani and Lavina Tolani

Guess who?

Shobha Inleshwar and Rekha Rajvanshi Sakhi Sangam also gets friends from other multicultural communities

Guess who?

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34 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

On the Occasion of Hindi Divas Australian Hindi Committee (AHC) , IABBV Hindi School

and ILASA(Indian literary and art society of Australia) Present

Hindi Mela (rnk=e bbujt) on September 11, 2011 Venue: Thornleigh West Public School, Giblett Ave, Thornleigh NSW 2120

Program Schedule:

No entry fee.We request all Hindi speakers / supporters / teachers / schools / students to join in the celebrations and present a united face to promote India's national languageHindi. We would like to extend our deep gratitude to the Consulate General of India, Sydney for supporting this event. We would like to acknowledge the continuedsupport of: Hindu Council of Australia; United Indian Association; Australia India Business Council; Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan; Hindi Samaj; Australian Hindi IndianAssociation and various other Australia-wide Associations; all Hindi schools, Print Media: The Indian Down Under, Indian Link, The Indian, Hindi Samachar Patrika;Hindi Gaurav; Hindi Pushp, Melbourne; Radio: SBS Hindi Radio, Voice of India Monika Geetmala, Indian Link Radio, Darpan Radio, Radio Sur Sangam and RadioNavatarang; Web Media Desi Kangaroos and Indo-Aus Times.

If you are a Hindi writer or a poet you are invited to participate in the Kavi Sammelan.

For further information and entry in poetry competition please contact:Tara Chand Sharma(AHC): 0409 981 355, Sanjeev Bhakhri(HCA) 0414 971 122, Mala Mehta OAM (IABBV-Hindi School): 0412 283 677,

RekhaRajvanshi (ILASA): 0403 116 301

1. 10.30am-11am Student Session display of student's work and resources

2. 11am -12.00 am Children's Hindi poetry recitation competition1stgroup of children - Year1-Year 42nd group of children Year 5-year 73rd group of children Year 8-year 12Anybody can participate. Entries will close on 20th Aug. 2011

3. 12pm - 1.00 pm Light snacks 4. 1pm-3pm KaviSammelan by ILASA

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Children’s Corner

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 35

Children's Corner By Esther Chaudhry-Lyons

"Long years ago we made a tryst withdestiny, and now the time comes when wewill redeem our pledge, not wholly or in fullmeasure, but very substantially. At thestroke of the midnight hour, when the worldsleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.A moment comes, which comes but rarely inhistory, when we step out from the old to thenew, when an age ends and when the soul ofa nation, long suppressed, finds utterance....We end today a period of ill fortune, andIndia discovers herself again."

- JawaharlalNehru

(Speech on Indian Independence Day, 1947)

On 15 August 1947, India attained freedomfrom the British Rule. Every year, August 15 is

celebrated as theIndependence Day inIndia. This national festi-val is celebrated withgreat enthusiasm all overthe country. TheIndependence Day of anycountry is a moment of

pride and glory. On this special occasion, richtributes are paid to the freedom fighters whosacrificed their lives and fought to free theirmotherland from the clutches of the oppressors- British who ruled the country.

The British had initially come for trade butgradually took over the total administration of

the country. At the strike of midnight of theAugust 15, 1947, India shook off the shacklesof British Rule and became free. It was a nightof celebration all over the country.Commemorating the day India attained freedom(15th August), Independence Day is celebratedwith flag hoisting ceremonies and cultural pro-grammes all over the country. The main pro-gramme is held at the Red Fort where thePrime Minster unfurls the National Flag and itis saluted by Guns. The Prime Minister'sspeech at the Red Fort in Delhi is a majorhighlight. Patriotic presentations by school chil-dren add colour to the celebrations. Delhi’sskyline gets dotted with thousands of kites tak-ing to the sky this day. Similar programmes areheld at all the State capitals also. The prepara-tions begin a month in advance. Roads are dec-orated with flags and buntings. Buildings ofnational importance are illuminated.

The one time Gandhi lied

Freedom Fighters of India

Independence Day of India "When I despair, Iremember that allthrough history theways of truth and lovehave always won. Therehave been tyrants, andmurderers, and for atime they can seeminvincible, but in theend they always fall.Think of it always".

Mahatma Gandhi

Ma h a t m aGandhi led atruthful life.

However, that doesn'tmean he never lied.Read a small incident inGandhi's life that madehim realize the value oftruth.

Gandhi's motherPutlibai observed every-day a vow known as'Kokila Vrata'. As soonas she completed the rit-ual, she would wait forthe call of the Kokila(the Indian Cuckoo)before her breakfast.She would not touchfood until the Cuckoosang in his sweet voice.

One day, she kept

waiting for a long time,for the fortune bird togive her the permissionto eat food. She calmlywaited near the windowlooking for some signsof the cuckoo bird, butalas she found none.Little Gandhi noticed hisdistressed mother nearthe window. He quicklydrafted a plan in hishead and went out of thehouse to imitate the coo-ing of the cuckoo. Hesnuggled behind thebush and imitated theCuckoo's voice, andthen ran inside the houseto tell his mother,"Mother you can eatyour food now as it hasmade its call."

Gandhi's mother hadbeen following this ritu-al for past many years.She quickly came toknow about her child'ssilly prank. Unable tocontain her grief, sheslapped Gandhi andwailed, "What sin have Icommitted that such awicked liar should beborn to me! Oh Lord!"

Her misty eyes andbroken heart of beliefdeeply moved Gandhi.That day he made apromise to her, "Fromthis day, I will not utterfalsehood. I will not doanything that would hurtmy mother's gentleheart". Thus began hissaga of truth.

‘Free India’ was a dream of allIndians under the British rule.Everyone during that rule

fought in some way or the otherwith a common aim of endingBritish and other colonial authori-ties in India. After a century of rev-olutions, struggle, blood shedding,battles and sacrifices, India finallyachieved independence on August15, 1947.

The country lost many men andwomen who were filled withundaunted courage and spirit ofpatriotism. Today, they are knownas freedom fighters because theysacrificed their lives for their moth-erland. Indian freedom fighters withtheir true spirit and undauntedcourage had faced various tortures,exploitations and hardships to earnus freedom.

The pioneers of the freedommovement were Mangal Pandey,Tantia Tope, Rani of Jhansi and thegreat Indian leader MahatmaGandhi who introduced non-violentways of fighting the enemy, he wasthe greatest of all the freedom fight-ers and got India the Independencethrough NON - VIOLENCE. Othernotable freedom fighters of Indiaare Annie Besant, Lala Lajpat Rai,Bal Gangadhar Tilak, BhagatSingh, Bipin Chandra Pal,Sukhdev, Gopal Krishna Gokhale,Chandrashekhar Azad, Sarojini

Naidu, Dadabhai Naoroji, SuchetaKriplani and ChakravartiRajagopalachari, Dr. RajendraPrasad, Purushottam Das Tandon,and Motilal Nehru.

There are endless number ofmen and women other than theabove list who daringly fought forIndia’s freedom.

ProminentFreedom Fighters

Vallabhbhai PatelHis brave deeds earned

Vallabhbhai Patel the title of theIron Man of India. For his role inthe Bardoli Satyagraha, Patel cameto be called the Sardar. Sardar Patelwas a famous lawyer but gave uphis practice in order to fight for thefreedom of the country. After inde-pendence he became the deputyPrime Minister of India and playedan important role in the integrationof India by merging numerousprincely states with the IndianUnion.

Bal Gangadhar TilakBal Gangadhar Tilak was one of

the firebrand freedom fighters ofIndia. He gave the slogan- "Swarajis my birthright and I shall have it".To serve the cause of freedom andcountrymen Tilak founded schools

and published newspapers. Tilakwas famous as one of the trios- Bal,Pal and Lal. People loved him andaccepted him as their leader and sohe was called Lokmanya Tilak.

Ram Prasad BismilRam Prasad Bismil was one of

those young revolutionaries wholaid down their life for the sake ofthe motherland. Bismil was a mem-ber of the Hindustan RepublicanAssociation and an important mem-ber of the group that was involvedin the Kakori train dacoity.

Bhagat SinghThe name of Bhagat Singh is

synonymous with sacrifice,courage, bravery and vision. Bysacrificing his life just at the age of30 Bhagat Singh became an inspira-tion and symbol of the heroism.Along with other revolutionaries,Bhagat Singh founded theHindustan Socialist republicanAssociation. To warn the Britishgovernment of its misdeeds, BhagatSingh threw a bomb in the CentralLegislative Assembly. By embrac-ing death at a young age BhagatSingh became a symbol of sacrificeand courage and made a place inthe hearts of every Indian forever.

Khudiram BoseKhudiram Bose was one of

those young revolutionaries andfreedom fighters whose deeds ofbravery and sacrifice have become

the subject of many a folk lore. Hewas one of those brave men whochallenged the British rule in theirown style. At the age of nineteen,he became a martyr, with "VandeMataram" on his lips.

Ashfaqulla KhanAshfaqulla Khan was one of the

firebrand and young revolutionarieswho laid down their life for thesake of the motherland. An impor-tant member of the HindustanRepublican Association, Khan,along with his associates executedthe train dacoity at Kakori and wassubsequently hanged by the British.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was

an active member of the IndianNational Congress and a great free-dom fighter. Maulana Azad tookpart in most of the important move-ments. He presided over the specialsession of Congress in September1923 and at 35 years of age, was

the youngest man to be elected thePresident of the Congress.

Gopal Krishna GokhaleGopal Krishna Gokhale was one

of the moderate leaders of theIndian National Congress. He wasthe political Guru of MahatmaGandhi, the Father of the Nation.He also presided over the annualsession of the Congress at Benarasin the year 1905. He was opposedto the entry of extremists in theCongress.

Jawaharlal NehruPt Jawaharlal Nehru was one of

the key people who struggled forthe freedom of India and becamethe first prime minister of freeIndia. He was also the author of thefamous book "Discovery of India".Nehru was extremely fond of chil-dren and was fondly called "ChachaNehru". It was under his leadershipthat India embarked on the plannedpattern of economic development.

Gandhi as boy and his mother Putlibai.

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36 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Santram's Grey Page

The Prime Ministers of India andAustralia look like ‘tortured souls’, butfor different reasons.

Dr Manmohan Singh’s clean image isbeing tarnished as a result of the variousscams. The latest statement in the court by hisex-minister A Raja (present residence- TiharJail, Delhi) points a finger at the PM. I hopehe clears this before it is too late.

Julia Gillard, on the other hand, is worriedby her ‘popularity rating’ taking a nosedivebecause of the Carbon tax. From next July,the polluting industries will have to start pay-ing a tax of $23 a tonne on their carbon emis-sions. This extra burden will naturally resultin price-rises of commodities and job losses,particularly in the mining industry. There is astrong opposition to the tax. Government saysit is a bitter pill we have to swallow but theeffect will be minimal. It has promised a sub-sidy to pensioners and the self-funded retirees.If the increase in prices is as predicted by theOpposition and independent sources then thisGovernment handout may not be enough. Wecan only wait and see.

Exercising for arthritisExercising is an essential tool in combat-

ing arthritis.Exercises should be done in a sitting or

lying down position, so that the patient is notloading the knee when the exercises are beingdone. The exercises should allow the patientfull range of joint movement with moderateamount of stretching of the ligament. Indianyoga exercises serve this purpose very well.

We should realise that all yoga exercisesare not necessarily good for all types of arthri-tis. For example, sitting in Vajrasana is notgood for patients with knee arthritis.

Impact activity exercises should be avoid-ed (for example, running, jogging, jumping,skipping and step aerobics). Simple walkingon level ground or on a treadmill withoutinclination is fine. Cycling (without tension onthe pedal), swimming and rowing are other

examples of non impact aerobic activity. Swap It, Don’t Stop It

There are some simple everyday changesyou can make to get you on your way to ahealthier lifestyle without losing all the thingsyou love.

Healthy eating and getting active can helpyou lose centimetres and prevent or delay theonset of chronic diseases such as some can-cers, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The great thing is, you don’t have to stopit. Just swap it. Swap inside for outside, or abig meal for a small meal for instance — it’seasy and these basic changes can make all thedifference. Plus, you can make them as yougo about your everyday life — at work, athome or even while out shopping.

We’ve included some great swap tipsbelow.

*Swap watching movies with the kids forbike ride with the kids.

*Swap Big for Small - don't overcrowdyour plate. Think twice before going back forseconds.

*Eat slowly to give your stomach time tosignal it's full.

*Share a dessert rather than have yourown.

Swap often for sometimes.*Swap fried food for fresh.*Swap take-away for home-made.*Swap fizzy drink for water.*Swap sitting for moving—walk and deliv-

er a message at work place rather than email.*Park the car farther away and enjoy a

short walk.*Take the bike for short trips instead of

the car.*Get off the bus one stop earlier and walk

the rest of the way.Swap watching for playing sport.

*Don't just watch sport — get out and getactive!

*Get outdoors with the family — go to thepark or for a bike ride.

*Meet friends for a walk instead of coffeeand cake.

*Swap a family movie for bowlingIron deficiency

Iron deficiency or anaemia is a problemthat plagues India. Yet it can be quite easilyprevented. Here are some quick tips.

Anaemia can be prevented by includingiron-rich foods in your diet and by increasingthe bioavailability of iron from the diet.Bioavailability means the ultimate absorptionand utilisation of iron.How to maximise iron content in the diet:

Include a source of vitamin C at eachmeal.

Avoid drinking tea/coffee with meals Include green leafy vegetables 4-5 times a

week Add coriander-mint chutney with roasted

‘til’ to your meal

Make chutney from apricots, dried datesand fresh apples

Add small amounts of nuts wherever pos-sible

Eat sprouts and fermented foods regularly.This enhances vitamin C, reduces tannin phyt-ic acid, thereby increasing bioavailability ofiron

Include textured soy protein regularly Use jaggery instead of sugar Limit use of tamarind and turmeric Don't drink more than 500-750ml of milk a day Use iron pots for cooking Some examples of Iron rich foods are

Soybeans, Roasted chana, Dal chana, Sarsonka saag, spinach, watermelon, fish and eggs.

Ginger can help reduce side-effects ofchemotherapy

Doctors at AIIMS, New Delhi, are nowworking on a herbal way to help cancerpatients cope with the side-effects ofchemotherapy. Oncologists at the hospitalthere have been experimenting with gingerroot powder to reduce the severity of thechemotherapy induced nausea vomiting(CINV). Nausea and vomiting are the majorside effects that a cancer patient encountersafter chemotherapy treatment.

Dr Bakhshi, who led the study, said,“Even though ginger root powder was effec-tive in reducing the severity of acute anddelayed CINV, it did not eliminate them com-pletely. The capsules were well tolerated bythe children and young adults in our study andthere was no side effect.”

The work has been published in the inter-national journal Paediatric Blood and Cancer.

Some of the sayings that we should trustAn apple a day keeps the doctor away.A garlic clove a day chases asthma away.A carrot a day keeps the ophthalmologist

away . . . a dentist away and cancer away.Deep breathing exercises 20 minutes a day

can keep most diseases away.A few yogasanas a day can keep most dis-

eases away.

15 Spectacular and Interesting tricks toteach your body

Don't know how well these work, but noharm in trying.

1. If you've got an itch in your throat,scratch your ear. When the nerves in the earget stimulated; they create a reflex in thethroat that causes a muscle spasm, whichcures the itch.

2. Having trouble hearing someone at aparty or on the phone? Use your right ear…it's better at picking up rapid speech. But, theleft is better at picking up music tones.

3. If you need to relieve yourself BADLY,but you're not anywhere near a bathroom,fantasize about RELATIONSHIPS. That pre-occupies your brain and distracts it.

4. Next time the doctor's going to giveyou an injection, COUGH as the needle isgoing in. The cough raises the level of pres-sure in your spinal canal, which limits the painsensation as it tries to travel to your brain.

5. Clear a stuffed nose or relieve sinuspressure by pushing your tongue against theroof of your mouth…then pressing a fingerbetween your eyebrows. Repeat that for 20 sec-onds…it causes the vomer bone to rock, whichloosens your congestion and clears you up.

6. If you ate a big meal and you're feelingfull as you go to sleep, lay on your left side.That'll keep you from suffering from acidreflux… it keeps your stomach lower thanyour oesophagus, which will help keep stom-ach acid from sliding up your throat.

7. You can stop a toothache by rubbing iceon the back of your hand, on the webbed areabetween your thumb and index finger. Thenerve pathways there stimulate a part of thebrain that blocks pain signals from yourmouth.

8. If you get all messed up on liquor, andthe room starts spinning, put your hand onsomething stable. The reason: Alcohol dilutesthe blood in the part of your ear called thecopula, which regulates balance. Putting yourhand on something stable gives your brainanother reference point, which will help makethe world stop spinning.

9. Stop a nose bleed by putting some cot-ton on your upper gums…right behind thesmall dent below your nose…and press againstit hard. Most of the bleeding comes from thecartilage wall that divides the nose, so press-ing there helps get it to stop.

10. Nervous? Slow your heart rate downby blowing on your thumb. The vagus nervecontrols your heart rate, and you can calm itdown by breathing.

11. Need to breathe underwater for awhile? Instead of taking a huge breath,HYPERVENTILATE before you go under,by taking a bunch of short breaths. That'lltrick your brain into thinking it has more oxy-gen, and buy you about 10 extra seconds.

12. You can prevent BRAIN FREEZE bypressing your tongue flat against the roof ofyour mouth, covering as much surface area aspossible. Brain freeze happens because thenerves in the roof of your mouth get extreme-ly cold, so your brain thinks your whole bodyis cold. It compensates by overheating…whichcauses your head to hurt. By warming up theroof of your mouth, you'll chill your brainand feel better.

13. If your hand falls asleep, rock yourhead from side to side. Your hand falls asleepbecause of the nerves in your neck compress-ing…so loosening your neck is the cure. Ifyour foot falls asleep, that's governed bynerves lower in the body, so you need to standup and walk around.

14. Got the hiccups? Press thumb andsecond finger over your eyebrows until thehiccups are over usually shortly.

15. Finally, this one's totally USELESS,but a nice trick. Have someone stick their armout to the side, straight, palm down. Pressdown on his wrist with two fingers. He'llresist, and his arm will stay horizontal. Then,have him put his foot on a surface that's halfan inch off the ground, like a stack of maga-zines, and do the trick again. Because hisspine position is thrown off, his arm will fallright to his side, no matter how much he triesto resist.

(Disclaimer: The Health tips in the articleare taken from various well established andreliable sources and are given to you in goodfaith. However, readers are reminded to takecare and consult their doctor if not sure, as noresponsibility can be accepted by the writer ofthis column or The Indian Down Under)

Just for SeniorsBy Santram Bajaj

Impact activity exercises should likejogging should be avoided by those

suffering from arthritis, but simplewalking on level ground or on a treadmill

without inclination is fine.

Get outdoors with the family — go to thepark or for a bike ride.

HUMOUR

Health & Well-being

My doctor is better than your doctor! Two old men were arguing the merits of

their doctors.The first one said, "I don`t trust your

fancy doctor. He treated old Jake for a kid-ney ailment for nearly a year, and then Jakedied of a liver ailment."

"So what makes you think your doctoris any better?" asked his friend.

"Because when my doctor treats you fora kidney ailment, you can be sure “y’ll dieof a kidney ailment."

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 37

Vasthu brings bliss at home

Tariq Ali, born in 1943 inLahore, is a Pakistaninovelist, political cam-

paigner, filmmaker, leftistcelebrity and above all a pro-fessional heretic. Oxford edu-cated, witty and insightful, Alidissented from every kind oforthodoxy.

He says:* I never believed in God,

not even between the ages ofsix and ten when I was anagnostic. This unbelief wasinstinctive.

* We live, after all, in aworld where illusions aresacred and truth profane.

* For all their incoherenceand senseless rage, their mes-sage is attractive to those lay-ers of the population whoyearn for some order in theirlives. If the fanatics promise tofeed them and educate theirchildren they are prepared toforgo the delights of CNN andBBC world.

* Proximity to power has anunsurprising ability to mutate a

politician’s spinal cord into abright yellow jelly.

* That natural disasters arerequired to provide Americanswith a glimpse of reality intheir own country is an indica-tion of the deep rot infectingthe official political culture.

* This is the permanent ten-

sion that lies at the heart of acapitalist democracy and isescalated in times of crisis. Inorder to insure the survival ofthe richest, it is democracy thathas to be heavily regulatedrather than capitalism.

* The government of theUS has no moral authority toelect itself as the judge over

human rights in Cuba wherethere has not been a single caseof disappearance, torture orextra-judicial execution since1959, where, despite the eco-nomic blockade, there are lev-els of health, education andculture that are internationallyrecognised.

* Time is here for all patri-otic forces to band together anddemand the return of Jinnah'sPakistan. This country has tobe rescued from the insidiousconspiracy of trying to turn thisstate into a land of religiousbigotry and fanaticism.

* Jinnah's Pakistan is acountry full of hope, optimismand security. It is the land ofour dreams.

* It’s hardly a secret thatPakistan never totally aban-doned the Taliban after 9/11.How could they?

* It was Islamabad that hadorganised the Taliban's retreatfrom Kabul so that the US andits allies could take the countrywithout a fight. The Pakistangenerals advised their Afghanfriends to bide their time.

* My father arranged atutor of Islam studies for me at

a young age. Nizam Din. Heremembered the good timeswhen all the villages in whatwas now Pakistan had Hinduand Sikh inhabitants. Many ofhis non-Muslim friends hadnow left for India. "They arepygmies, look at India.Observe the difference. Gandhiwas a giant. Jawaharlal Nehruis a giant.”

TARIQ ALI—a dissenter from everykind of orthodoxy

Inner Space

By Faith Harper

Observe Vasthu Sastra rec-ommendations withoutcompromise, even if they

are not to one’s taste. That’s mybest suggestion.

Dwellers interested in livingaccording to Vasthu Sastra princi-ples should follow the recommen-dations without compromising theancient wisdom as failure to do someans they will not achieve thedesired results.

It would be unfair to say thatVasthu failed if an individual hadfollowed the system in a half-hearted manner or bargained on itsfundamentals.

I know many people who readthis column and follow the tipsenthusiastically but when they arehalfway through the rearrangementof their house, they give in to theirown gut feelings, thus affectingthe Vasthu friendliness of their

house.I write this column based on

an e-mail from a reader who hadrequested me to do an analysis ofhis property in Sydney.

The businessman moved intohis house recently after renova-tions and although he was unableto follow the Vasthu suggestion100 per cent, he wrote to say thathe had done as much as he could.

The main gate and door of theman’s house are located in thesouth-east.

This is favourable but it can bechallenging to strictly followVasthu orientation in a diagonalproperty.

There is more space in the rec-tangular shaped garden in thesouthern and western quadrants ofthe semi-detached house which is

not encouraged because such aspace should be available in thenorthern and eastern stretchesinstead.

He should have gone for hisneighbour’s house, which has thegarden and open space in the east-ern and northern quadrants.

Anyway, what the businessmancan do to remedy the situation isto increase his built-up area in thesouthern and western regions inhis future renovation plans.

In the meantime, he shouldplant tall trees in the compound asthere should be tall structures andweight in these areas.

A fountain with fish placed inthe south-west quadrant is inauspi-cious.

A water feature in the south-west will affect the financial stabil-ity of the breadwinner and rearingfish and marine life is prohibitedin any part of the house as theybring tension to the family. Heshould free the fish and drain outthe water immediately.

As for the kitchen, he shouldrelocate his stove from the northto the north-west quadrant wherehe has placed his maid and moveher to the west room.

Vasthu places a lot of impor-tance on the location of the kitchenbecause food prepared and con-sumed in the correct quadrant

would ensure a healthy family.The placement of his dining

room in the west and the livingarea in the south on the groundfloor is fine.

The businessman placed theprayer room in the north-east,which is ideal, with the altar fac-ing south-east, the second choicein direction for tilted properties.

On the top floor, the masterbedroom currently occupies threequadrants (south, south-east andeast) which should be the secondchoice for a couple.

He should go for the smallerbedroom, which occupies thesouth-west and west quadrants,and give the master bedroom tohis daughter.

He is using the north-east bed-room for study and his son’sfuture room, which is favourable.

On the whole, I find that hecan make the changes immediatelywithout renovations, simply byrearranging things.

This should bring the familypeace, happiness and prosperity.

T. Selva is the author of thebest selling book titled VasthuSastra Guide. To get a copy of thebook or for private consultationcontact Devi 0412623017. He canbe contacted at his email: [email protected] and Website:www.vasthusastra.com

VasthuSastra

By T. Selva

Tariq Ali, leftist and professional heretic, best knownPakistani living in UK

Jinnah's Pakistan was notcreated to be a safe haven forterrorists. Never in his wildestdreams did he father a nationthought of creating "strategicassets" that have now becomestrategic liabilities or rather

strategic horrors.

Rearing fish and marine life is prohibited in any part of the houseas they bring tension to the family.

Body-Mind-Spirit

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Columns

Soya is an excellent source of protein andespecially very useful for vegetarians andvegans. For those who have lacto intoler-

ance, soya curd (Tofu) is a very good substitutefor paneer dishes.

SOYA KHAMAN DHOKLA�3/4 cup Besan Flour�1/4 cup soya Flour�2 tabs. Semolina�1/2 tsp. Citric Acid�3 tabs sugar�1 tabs. chilli-ginger paste�1 1/2 tsp. Eno Fruit Salt�Coriander Leaves�Salt to tasteTempering:�1/2 tsp. mustard seeds�1/2 tsp. sesame seeds�2 green chillies chopped�2 tsp. oil�A pinch of asafoetidaMethod: Mix all the ingredients and use

enough water to make batter. Add Eno fruit andsprinkle a little water and mix well. Pour themixture into greased plate and steam for 10-14minutes.

For tempering- Heat oil, add mustardseeds, sesame seeds, asafoetida and green chill-ies and pour this on cut doklas.

SOYA ICE CREAM�2 cups strawberries - cleaned�3 tabs. ground sugar�500 ml. soya milk - vanilla flavoured�3 tabs. fresh creamMethod: Puree strawberries in electric

blender till smooth, add sugar, milk and freshcream. Blend till smooth. Set in ice tray. Allowto set.

SOYA DOSA�1 cup soya flour�1/2 cup rice flour�1 onion chopped�1 cup tomatoes�1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

�Salt to tasteMethod: Mix all the above ingredients,

make semi thick batter with 1/2 cup water andmix well. No lumps should be allowed to beformed or they must be smashed. Heat on non-stick flat pan a ladle of batter spread, add littleoil, cook till it is crispy.

SOYA PALAK�500 Gms. frozen spinach�1 chopped onion�2 tomatoes�1 Tabs ginger-garlic paste�salt to taste�1/2 tsp coriander powder�1/2 tsp. turmeric powder�1 cup soya nuggets�2 green chilliesMethod: Heat oil in a pan, add onion,

chopped green chillies and ginger-garlic paste

and cook till it is light brown. Add choppedtomatoes, add spices, spinach and nuggets(soak in water for 15 minutes and remove theexcess water). Cook for another 5 minutes.Serve hot with chapattis.

CHILLI SOYA BHAJI�6 big green chillies�2 cup besan flour�salt to taste �1/2 cup soya mince�1/2 tsp chilli powder�1 tsp chat masalaMethod: Soak soya mince for 10 minutes

and drain the water. Heat 2 tsp oil, add soyamince and spices.

Cool and then add enough water in besanflour to make a batter.

Add salt. Deep fry the chillies and serve hotwith mint chutney.

By Devaki Parthasarathy

Ever wondered why yourgrandmother’s skin shone theway it did even at 60?

TURMERIC!!! That is the answer.This innocuous yellow ginger-likeplant whose roots are gathered, driedand made into a spice is found inevery Indian home. Not only did sheeat it in every meal but also applied itlavishly as a cleanser each day!!! Itkept her healthy from inside and kepther skin glowing and acne free till theday she lived! I have been reading upa lot lately on this wonder herb andtrust me, the more I delve into re-search the more it seems as thoughTurmeric is perhaps the most legiti-mate of the so-called superfoods.

The most interesting nutrient inturmeric is Curcumin. It is this plant-based polyphenol found in turmericthat has received attention in the me-dia because of its strong anti-inflam-matory properties and its ability tofight Cancer and Alzheimer’s dis-ease. Apart from Curcumin, turmer-ic contains high levels of iron andmanganese and moderate levels of vi-tamin B6 and potassium – all vita-mins and minerals that are part of ahealthy, balanced diet.

Here are some reasons to addturmeric to your diet:

As a skin genie: I remember mygranny telling me about a nasty burnon her hand vanishing with the use ofturmeric, which not only speeds upthe healing of wounds but also assistsin remodelling of damaged skin. Apinch of turmeric mixed with sandal-wood and rose water and applied to

face overnight can get rid of not onlythe acne, but also the blemish. Regu-lar use of Turmeric on the skin cantreat psoriasis and other inflammato-ry skin conditions. Turmeric hasbeen found to cut the skin’s melaninproduction. It also helps suntannedskin return to its normal shade faster.For that stubborn boil which antibi-otics cannot cure because the bacteriahas for some reason grown resistantto regular antibiotics (which is hap-pening more and more often),Turmeric is an extremely effectiveand natural cure and is found to workwell when all other methods fail.

As a liver detoxifier: The livereliminates toxins through the bile thatit makes and turmeric helps to in-crease bile flow helping it detox mak-ing Turmeric a natural liver detoxifi-er. People on juice diets to cleansethe liver can take a tea made fromthis magic root as a catalytic incleansing the liver. Turmeric’s pow-

erful anti-inflammatory effect makesit a great natural remedy for jointpain relief but it can also help calmliver inflammation. Its antioxidantproperties help mop up free radicaldamage in the liver during detox.

As an Antibiotic and anti-inflam-matory: Turmeric is a natural antibi-otic and can relieve intestinal gas bylowering the numbers of gas formingbacteria. When used in a gargle, itsoothes the throat and kills the bacte-ria causing inflammation of glands.Turmeric is a potent natural anti-in-flammatory that works as well asmany anti-inflammatory drugs butwithout the side effects. Because ofits anti-inflammatory properties, it isa natural treatment for arthritis andrheumatoid arthritis. It is a naturalpainkiller and cox-2 inhibitor.

As a Cancer inhibitor: Tests on

mice has shown that the active ingre-dient in turmeric, Curcumin preventsbreast cancer from spreading to thelungs. Melanoma kills more than1400 Australians every year. Cur-cumin not only prevents melanomabut also causes existing melanomacells to kill themselves. Adding Cur-cumin to daily diet boosts the effectsof chemo drug Paclitaxel and reducesits side effects. It has been shown tostop the growth of new blood vesselsin tumours. This wonder herb re-duces the risk of childhoodLeukaemia. When combined withcauliflower, it has shown to preventprostate cancer and stop the growthof existing prostate cancer. Promis-ing studies are underway on the ef-fects of turmeric on pancreatic canceras well. As a brain drug: Turmerichas long been used in Chinese medi-

cine as a treatment for depression.But lately, Turmeric is being hailedthe new era wonder drug for variousbrain related disorders. It may pre-vent and slow the progression ofAlzheimer's disease by removingamyloid plaque build-up in the brain.Study on mice has shown that thiswonder spice may aid in slowing theprogression of multiple sclerosis.

As a weight loss aid: Curcumin islinked to weight loss managementand control. This ingredient inturmeric is said to help break downfats in the body. In doing so, turmer-ic may help to regulate the body’smetabolism and it may contribute tosuccessful weight management. Stud-ies using mice have drawn interestand have led to more discussionsabout how turmeric may curb weightgain in humans.

Apart from these, turmeric re-duces cholesterol, aids metabolism,prevents heart disease and aids in theabsorption of calcium. With so manybenefits at hand the sagacious ancientIndians treated this as an auspiciousherb. It is used extensively at wed-dings! With increasing number of re-searches going on, it is not surprisingthat more and more people are turn-ing towards this root and including itin their daily diet. We don’t need toeat huge amounts of it. Just a pinch inevery meal is enough to reap the ben-efits. But remember, as I have alwayssaid, go to the source. Use a bit of theroot itself in your cooking. It adds anunmistakable flavour and of courseits characteristic colour to your food.Be as natural as you can and avoidharmful additives.

Turmeric - supercream plus superfood

Soya delights for vegetarians

Look Good and Feel Great Naturally

By Promila Gupta

Eating turmeric in curries andapplying it lavishly as a

cleanser each day kept ourgrandmothers healthy from inside and skin glowing and acne free

till the day they lived!

Soya beans and flour, Soya milk, and Soya chunks

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Body-Mind-Spirit

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 45

It’s my destiny, and it I can change By Anil Sharma

Why am I, always, at the wrongplace at the wrong time, andeveryone else, I know, at the

right one every time? Is this fate, mykarma, myd e s t i n ywhich I cannever avoid.I have nooptions, haveI?

A friendin the 1980smade a lot ofmoney in theshare mar-ket, particu-

larly from shares in a speculative min-ing company. Another friend followedsuit buying the shares at 4 cent a pieceand staking his savings for building ahouse. The shares went up a cent, thenstabilised for a few weeks before theirdownward slide. After they came downto 1c, the company sent a notice to con-solidate the shares – 50 shares to one.My friend had lost all his savings in lit-tle over two months.

Fate or free-will, which determinesone’s life? Which of these two is thedecisive factor in life?

It is the ‘I’- thought, says MaharshiRamana, from which arise the twonotions. He, who has that enlighten-ment, has transcended both and is nomore interested in the question.

‘Fate has a beginning - a cause andthat is action. This cannot be withoutfree will which, being the first cause, isthe predominant factor. By cultivatingfree will one can conquer fate.Cultivating free-will implies the processof inquiry, surrendering of oneself toGod as the One Reality. What is com-monly known as self-reliance is nothingbut ego-reliance. Reliance on God isalone true Self-reliance, because He isthe Self,’ says Ramana.

The omission of the factor of fate inour life is due to ignorance. To put ourhead in the sand like an ostrich andrefuse to see the existence of an elementof predestination in most of the majorevents of our personal life does notcross out its existence. It is still there.But the ‘omission’ or ‘acceptance’ of‘fate’ in our lives is both due to igno-rance, as the question would arise onlywhen there is a concept of the individu-alised self.

We live a two-fold life, an outermaterial life and an inner emotional-mental life. Our outward deeds andactions are simply the result of our innerthoughts and feelings. They may takecenturies to materialize, often not till alater birth. The world that we do notsee, the unseen world of thoughts andfeelings, is the real world that entailscause; the world that we see around isthe world of effects.

God, Himself, cannot escape fromthe cycle of cause and effect. Lord

Vishnu suffered for making fun ofNarada who had fallen madly in lovewith Lakshmi and went to the‘Swamvayar’ as one of the suitors. LordVishnu gave him a monkey face whichhumiliated Narada. For this LordVishnu suffered as Rama with the lossof His wife, the same fate He hadaffected on Narada.

We tend to express our inner self byour outer actions. Our outer life corre-sponds to our inner life. The world as awhole is nothing else but the expressionof Divine Ideation, the very thought ofGod expressed. We, in our own littleway, are also creators and create ourown world, the world of our own expe-riences and the expression of theseexperiences in our lives. This chain ofcausal connection between our innerthoughts, our inner feelings and our out-ward experiences, is unseen, managedby a subtle force, the law of destiny.

Destiny is something entirely self-created, self-earned, whether it is forgood or for evil. Whatever we give outin life to the world is ultimately thrownback to us by destiny. We are thebuilders of our own life, the creator ofour own fate, both outward and inward.Destiny is not a blind force; it is oneexpression of that greater cosmicIntelligence which rules the universe.

Destiny is like a balance, if wedepress one side of the scale we find theother side goes up in proportion.Destiny restores the balance in our lifebecause she wishes us to understand

ourselves, our powers and possibilitiesas well as the fact that we are here tofulfil the higher purpose of our incarna-tion.

Destiny is quite impersonal and uni-versal. It has no sense of retribution.We are here to learn, to learn who andwhat we are. That is the purpose of ourincarnation, and the experiences of lifeare the lessons which will ultimatelyteach us. Mostly we learn subconscious-ly, but still we learn. It is unfortunatethat most of us learn more from suffer-ings than from pleasures.

There is a second kind of destiny,the fate which has been stored from pre-vious embodiments and which is allot-ted in a future life. But future destinycan be altered by stopping fresh actions.

So long as there is body, there isdestiny attached to it. But the reactioncan be altered. You can react to the mis-fortune of losing all that you love andpossess by taking it calmly. You cansay, ‘Another cycle of my life is fin-ished and I must begin a new cycle; Iwill therefore readapt myself to the newcycle without fear. I will do everythingthat common sense counsels to mendmatters and meet results.’

The best way to escape is to get tothe region where forces do not work, tobecome fate-free. You can do that onlyby returning to your divine centre andstaying there. If you do that whilst youare in the flesh, then that vast store ofdestiny which was awaiting you infuture embodiments becomes dissolved

and disappears. It is the destiny of the personal ego

the ‘I’- thought, and when you haveeliminated the tyranny of the latter youhave eliminated the tyranny of the des-tiny attached to it; you are free, andwith death that vast mass of accumulat-ed stored-up destiny disappears com-pletely. That is what Buddha meantwhen he said that you enter into Nirvana(liberation) to escape the terrifyingcycle of unending rebirths.

If you wish to avoid the misfortunes,the unpleasant experiences of life, youmust learn to nullify the so-called evildestiny. If you live in the materialworld, then you must go through worldexperiences. But you can conquer yourdestiny inwardly. You can give up bothpleasure and pain so that they do nottouch you within your innermost being.You can stand aside from the processesof life inwardly, and although theseexperiences come to you, you can seethem for what they are and realize themat their true value.

To find yourself is to find perfectmental equilibrium. Even if the greatestsufferings come to you they cannot dis-turb your peace. Neither can the great-est pleasures disturb you. You remainrooted in your divine centre, which isthe only place where peace can befound.

It is, however, within your power tomodify and to alter your destiny. Fate isonly one of the forces that are playingupon us. There is also the force of freewill, and the stimuli which once createdyour present destiny. Now you can cre-ate future destiny.

Do not repudiate your own innatedivine power. The abuse and misuse ofthe truth of destiny is the cause of manytroubles. You cannot become weakthrough knowing truth; but you dobecome weak by ignorance. So, bestrong!

In the face of adverse fate we have tolearn two things: when to accept it andwhen to resist it. There are times whenit is wise to resign yourself to over-whelming circumstances, learning theirbitter lesson. But there are other timeswhen it is wiser to fight them withcourage.

There are times when misfortunesare cups of blessing and they should beaccepted. There are also times whengood gifts are cups of poison, and theyshould be rejected. Only by becomingabsolutely impersonal can we judgebetween them.

The ‘I’- thought, the ego, is theenemy, but only if it monopolizes yourattention. It becomes your friend whenit stands aside and says, ‘Not my will,but Thy will be done.’ If you look forthat which is behind your personal self,your personal life, your mind, yourbody, for that which is true reality andspirit, you will find peace. No one canrob you of it; no one can take it awayfrom you. You would have found lifeeternal.

It is the destiny of the personal ego the ‘I’-thought, and when you have eliminated thetyranny of the latter you have eliminated thetyranny of the destiny attached to it; you are

free, and with death that vast mass of accumu-lated stored-up destiny disappears completely.That is what Buddha meant when he said thatyou enter into Nirvana to escape the terrifying

cycle of unending rebirths.

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Body-Mind-Spirit

By Kanaka Ramakrishna

People have always heldirrational beliefs to wardoff ill, to bring good,

foretell the future, heal or pre-vent sickness or accident,believe in the evil eye or in theefficacy of amulets. These prac-tices have been prevalent for along time in every part of theworld.

Many people believe inlucky and unlucky numbers, orsome days of the week thatbring bad luck. For example,Friday the 13th is a bad day and13th is a bad number. It is badluck to leave a house through adifferent door than the one usedto enter. A dog howling at mid-night when someone in thehouse is sick is a bad omenwhile wearing new clothes on anew year day may bring goodluck through the year. If theright eye twitches, it bringsgood luck and if the left eyetwitches, it is bad luck.

Individuals believe in goodand bad omens. If a cat crossesone’s path from left to right it isgood luck and if it crosses fromright to left, it is bad luck;wearing a ruby results in goodhealth and wearing opal bringsbad luck. How these beliefsaffect the future and how theydestroy cause and effect, no oneknows. There is no possiblerelation that future events maybe influenced in some mysticalway by one’s behaviour bybelieving in superstitions.

Why do superstitions ariseand prevail? Human nature byitself is prone to superstition. Itis the weakness of human brain.In nearly every brain is foundsome cloud of superstition.

Tendency to succumb tosuperstition is too deeply rootedin human beings. When ordi-nary human nature is exposed tostress and strain inherent in thehumans, it succumbs to super-stition. When the blows come tous, we find that we must seekhelp. The weakness and hope-lessness without the future,makes us prone to irrationalsuperstitions at the individuallevel.

In India, belief in supersti-tion is like a cancer in each andevery aspect of life in the nameof religion and caste, for indi-viduals as well as for the com-munity. For example, certaincommunities believe it is auspi-cious that communal or certainkind of formal worship shouldbe performed only by marriedcouple barring widows and sin-gle women, though it is a beliefincompatible with reason.Would God reject worship bysuch women?

Swami Vivekananda carriedout a vigorous battle againstsuperstitions. He said, “I amready to give ten thousand livesif twenty persons would give uptheir superstition.” He declaredthat “we need reason to driveout an old superstition. A truebelief as against a superstition isone that stands the scrutiny ofreason and passes the test oftruth. The test of truth is that itmakes the believer strong in thesense of helping him to gain anappropriate orientation to hiscondition and thus deal with itboldly and effectively.”

Superstition distorts thenature of the world in the per-ception of the believer. It is a‘cobweb in the brain’, saidSwami Vivekananda. Manygreat and famous peoplebelieved in many such supersti-tions and could not shake themoff, believing in the old tradi-tions without inquiring into itstruth or rationality.

Swami Vivekananda recog-nised the distinction betweenindividual superstitions and col-lective superstitions. Individualsuperstitions are described as‘defence mechanisms’ believingin the eccentric superstitiousbeliefs among the individualsnot accepted favourably bymembers of one’s own culture.This is the innate superstition ineveryone.

Collective superstition is thebelief that is reinforced by allmembers of the community.Since this mass superstition isreinforced, it is very difficult toeliminate it. Families are inte-gral part of the community and‘a package of superstitions’ ishanded over to children auto-matically. This is carried overand passed on to future genera-tions. Any new thought espe-cially of a high kind of reason-ing, creates disturbances.Therefore they resist anychange.

Sometimes collective super-

stitions may help individuals toovercome stress of an immedi-ate situation but does not help tosolve the problem. “They cre-ate morbidity in the mind, makeit weak, so that in course oftime, it will be almost impossi-ble to receive the truth or liveup to it.”

Superstitions retard individ-ual, social and cultural develop-ment. They scare the individu-als for every change for better-ment because the tendency tosuccumb to superstition is toodeep-rooted in human natureand too widespread.

Though religion has beenalleged to be the source ofsuperstitions in India, herancient religion is based on theexperiences of the seers and thesages, which is open to all forscrutiny and personal verifica-tion. On this basis, superstitionin India was social rather thanreligious.

Swami Vivekananda assert-ed that individuals can get rid ofsuperstitions as they grow spiri-tually.

Here is the best concreteexample of Sri Sarada Devi,who got rid of her superstitionsthrough her spiritual strengthand showed the way for modernpeople. When her husband SriRamakrishna passed away, SriSarada Devi removed all herornaments one by one, whichwere the auspicious symbols ofa married woman. Finally,when she was about to take offher bracelets, Sri Ramakrishnasuddenly appeared in front ofher and told her, “have I diedthat you are removing the signsof a married woman? I havegone only from one room to theother”. She then stoppedremoving her bracelets.

Somebody brought a whitesaree without border for her towear as a sign of widowhood asit was in practice. But evenbefore it was handed over toher, Sri Sarada Devi wore a

small red bordered white saree,which was a sign of auspicious-ness and worn by marriedwomen.

Soon after the death of herhusband, the grief-stricken SriSarada Devi went to live in theancestral home of SriRamakrishna at Kamarpukur,his native village. She startedher life there all alone and inextreme poverty and loneliness.The people in the village,steeped in old beliefs and super-stitions, rigidity and withoutsympathy, started to tease andaccuse her. Whenever she cameout of the house, they censuredand criticised her for wearingbracelets and bordered sareelike a married woman. The hurtand wound was too painful forher to bear.

When it increased too muchand unbearably vociferous, shewanted to remove her bracelets.Sri Ramakrishna appeared againand told her not to remove herbracelets. He asked her to go toGauri-ma, who knew theVaishnava Tantra very well andget advice from her. Sri SharadaDevi was advised that accordingto Vaishnava Tantra there is nosuch thing as widowhood sinceher husband’s body was a spiri-tual body. She was fully con-vinced and got over the fear ofgossip and boldly faced the peo-ple and continued to wear thebracelets and red-borderedsaree like any other marriedwoman till her end. She wasable to do this only because shehad great spiritual strength. Thescurrilous women of the villagecompletely stopped criticisingher again.

Today, Sri Sarada Devi isthe ideal role model and guideto all womanhood and she isworshipped by millions of peo-ple all over the world.

Spiritual growth, throughproper understanding of ourreligion as propounded byancient seers and saints of India,

can overcome the perception ofpetty minded divisions and lim-itations. Otherwise we becomeselfish and resistant to change.It is a lifelong learning process.Though hard and it takes a longtime to displace superstition, itis possible to change.

Swami Vivekananda advo-cated the kind of education,which focuses mainly on indi-viduals and not drastic anddirect changes at the collectivelevel, so that it can bring aware-ness among the individuals andavoid making life miserable byresorting to superstitious cus-toms and observances. He rec-ommended to strengthen thehuman psyche to ‘face the truthas it is’ at any cost. We mustgrow strong enough mentallyand develop spiritual strengthand not to go back into the dark-ness and yield to weakness andsuperstition and keep our mindsopen not falling into the oldruts. He upholds the truth ofVedanta as the only unfailingweapon against superstition.

We can overcome all super-stitions and get rid of all ‘cob-webs in the brain’ by using ourinner strength (latent spiritualpower) which, if activated canenable us to overcome all super-stitions. Religion as a forceshould help and sustain us in ourday- to-day life and bring asense of fulfilment within us.Swami Vivekananda believedthat one can realise this truthhere and now and overcomesuperstitions.

The spiritual power which islying within every one of us willopen to anyone by a little intro-spection and self-assessment.Thus our levels of conscious-ness can be raised to a newdimension, new understandingand mines of knowledge. Ourscriptures, if properly under-stood, are our real guides in thisrespect, which help us in thegrowth of our inner strength,harmony, peace and happiness.

Superstitions are only for the weakSwami Vivekananda carried out avigorous battle against supersti-tions. He declared that “we needreason to drive out an old supersti-tion. A true belief as against asuperstition is one that stands thescrutiny of reason and passes thetest of truth. The test of truth isthat it makes the believer strong inthe sense of helping him to gain anappropriate orientation to his condi-tion and thus deal with it boldly andeffectively.”

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August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 47

The enigmatic GodBy Dilip Mahanty

We homo sapiens,finite and limited,are a funny lot. Our

life span is limited; our physi-cal prowess has limitations; ourfive senses have a limited rangeof perception; our mind andintellect are limited to acquiredand perceptive knowledge. Butstrangely, our ego seems limit-less!

With a very finite and limit-ed BMI (body, mind and intel-lect) apparatus we try to fathomthe infinite and the limitless. Itis just like diving into thePacific Ocean with a tumbler tomeasure the volume of water itcontains.

When we find the immensi-ty and impossibility of the taskto unravel the infinite sourceregulating the entire cosmoslike clockwork, we refuse toacknowledge our failure due toour massive ego. We cynicallydismiss claims of more spiritu-ally elevated souls who havepersonally experienced thepresence of this infinite,supreme spirit because we can-not conceive of anythingbeyond our limited BMI scan-ner.

Atheists, agnostics, ratio-nalists and even some scientistsdismiss the existence of asupremely intelligent forcebehind the existence of every-thing we see and experiencearound us and deem its creationas accidental or a “natural evo-lution”.

The idea of an unfath-omable and limitless creatorand his creation is an anathemato them. At the same time theyare unable to explain many ofthe phenomena happeningaround them. It is just like see-ing fireworks sequentiallybringing out bright, vibrantcolours in the backdrop of adark night , in a prescribed pat-tern, and yet being told thatsuch things “just happen” with-out any intelligent input.

Be that as it may, majorityof people believe that there is adivine, limitless, supremelyintelligent power behind cos-mic creation that is popularlyknown as God. Every religion,even with its manifold deriva-tives, agrees that there is onlyone God and He (forgive thesexist connotation but it is apronoun used commonly) isomnipotent, omniscient andomnipresent.

There is acknowledgement

in all religious texts and opin-ions on the status of God butdifferences arise as to who isHis true messenger or prophetsent to earth to offer solace andlead the people out of their mis-erable existence. Hinduism,not a religion but a philosophyof life, is perhaps the only tenetthat points to many varied pathsand methods to reach Godaccording to each person’schoice, capacity and under-standing. Its appeal, comparedto other tenets, is the lack ofrigidity in following only a pre-scribed path.

The ancient Hindu textsproclaim that the choices avail-able to each seeker are manyand whichever path is takenultimately leads to God realiza-tion, if followed sincerely. It isan all inclusive, wide rangingphilosophy and does not lenditself to the claustrophobicexclusivity of certain othertenets.

As emphasized earlier, ourlimited BMI setup generallycreates confusion, doubt, irra-tionality and fear when we tryto unravel the unfathomablemystery called God.

The seekers manifest God indifferent forms according totheir preferences. Some mayseek God in the form ofLakshmi to acquire wealth andprosperity. Some may seekGod as Saraswati to gainknowledge. Some may preferthe form of Ganesh to acquirewisdom while others may

invoke Shiva and Parvati togain power and strength. Thelist goes on and on.

Relationship with God isseen in different hues and withspiritual progress these under-lying differences melt away toreveal a uniting force behind allthe diverse manifestations inthis world. Of course knowl-edge of this phenomenon isonly the first step but actualexperience of the presence ofthis supreme spiritual forcerequires tremendous intensityof purpose and will powerwhich, unfortunately, most ofus lack. The sages, seers andsincere seekers who are able todo this, realise God in all hismagnificence.

The transitional steps toGod realization, as articulatedby Shankara in his Vedantaphilosophy, make quite aninteresting read.

In Vedanta tradition thereare three distinct metaphysicalviewpoints in the process ofestablishing a relationship withGod. These segmental bound-aries melt away with greaterunderstanding and reveal thecommon underlying forceunderpinning such artificiallycreated boundaries

.1. Theory of Dualism

(Dvaita): Brahman (UniversalSpirit or God) and Atman (indi-vidual spirit or self) are distinctand Atman is dependent on theBrahman. Here the relationshipof the seeker (atman) with God

is similar to that of a powerfulmaster and a humble servant.The seeker accepts the para-mount position of the manifest-ed God and is apprehensive ofdisobeying the master’s ordersin case displeasure or wrathresults from this. Prayer andhelpless plea to this SupremeBeing is the only way to findredemption or mercy. There isthis constant feeling that “He isup there and I am down here”and there is nothing in commonin between the two.

2. Theory of QualifiedN o n - D u a l i s m(Vishishtadvaita): Brahman(God) to Atman (self) relation-ship is like the soul is to thebody or whole to a part. Therelationship here takes a slight-ly different hue. While the feel-ing that “He is up there and Iam down here” still persists,there is some common threadthat links the two.

The seeker feels connectedto God like a child is connectedto the father or mother. Due tothis feeling of “genetic” con-nection, the seeker regards Godas a strict but loving parentwho would not ignore him orher in times of need. This con-nected feeling provides a senseof intimacy and security to theseeker in this quest to reachGod.

3. Theory of Non-Dualism (Advaita): Here theAtman and Brahman are identi-

cal. The Atman (jivatma) is aderivative of Brahman orParamatma like a wave in theocean. It rises out of the oceanand goes back into it. Exceptfor its manifestation in differentshapes and sizes the waveessentially is part and parcel ofthe ocean. This relationshipvisualizes the seeker and Godas being one and the samethough the manifestationvaries. The seeker seeks merg-er with God and becomes onewith Him. Thus the Jivatma(individual spirit) merges withthe Paramatma (UniversalSpirit) leaving no separatenessbehind.

Of course these viewpointsand theories provide insightsinto how we, as individuals,view God.

But mere knowledge ofthese viewpoints does not meanmuch unless one really experi-ences or realizes God. This isthe real test but unfortunatelymost of us are not able to reachsuch heights during our life-times due to various worldlydistractions.

The fact, however, remainsthat though we fail to reachsuch dizzying heights due toour own shortcomings. Can weignore the experiences of thosewho have? We, with our ownlimitations, cannot afford todismiss the claims of those whohave outgrown similar limita-tions and have realized God.This will only highlight ourignorance.

All religious texts and opinions acknowledge the

status of God but differencesarise as to who is His true

messenger or prophet sent toearth to lead the people

out of their miserable existence. Hinduism, not areligion but a philosophy of

life, is perhaps the only tenetthat points to many varied

paths and methods to reachGod according to each

person’s choice, capacity and understanding.

Page 48: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

48 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Obituaries

Dhrubo Roy(June 1931 – June 2011)

We are saddened tolose our belovedDhrubo-da (Mr.

Dhrubo Roy - a pastPresident, Secretary and oneof the founding members ofBANSW – BengaliAssociation NSW) whopassed away on 29 June 2011after a prolonged illness.

He came to Australia in1971 and worked as an engi-neer. He is survived by hiswife, Purnima Roy and sonDr. Probal Roy, his daughterNeela Dasgupta now settledin America and four grandchildren.

Bengali association hasbeen very dear to Dhrubodawho has contributed to manyof its achievements over thepast 35 years, particularly indrama both as an actor and adirector, and in Probasi, ournewsletter, as a poet and astory writer.

In recent times, he has

been an inspiration for ouryounger members in variousevents.

We offer our heartfeltcondolences to the familyand our thoughts and prayersare with them. His passingaway will not only leave avoid in our lives but in thehearts of all those who knewhim.

--Bengali AssociationNSW

Rama Gupta moved toAustralia in 1983 with herhusband Tarachand Gupta

posted as chief executive repre-sentative of the Bank of Barodabranch in Australia, NewZealand & Papua New Guinea.Rama settled in Sydney with herthree sons as Mr Gupta travelledin the Pacific and kept busy withhis job. Mrs Gupta was a devot-ed mother and a housewife whoused to take freshly cookedIndian lunch for her husbandeveryday when she took train tocity on weekdays.

In 1989, she started RamaGem Co which had Australian Distributorship forHMV & T-series Audio and Videos. She also man-aged and ran successful retail shop specialising inaudio, videos and Indian ladies fashion. The companyslowly evolved itself into kitchen utensils, steel wareand lots of handy kitchenware that included pots, pansand pressure cookers that the Indian housewife cannotdo without. Rama Gem Co now is run as Bon Appetitby her son Neil and daughter-in-law Charul Gupta.

Rama had a stroke in 2003 which paralysed leftside of her body and was wheelchair bound. Retired

Tarachand Gupta, her husband, now stood besidesRama as a caring companion taking her in wheelchairanywhere he went. Though Rama was not the one togive into her handicap, she went on working even inthe wheelchair organizing her household and freshlycooked meals like always. She had the strength to

carry on without asking any-body’s help and did all the dailychores of washing, cleaning andcooking herself and always show-ered loving hospitality to visitors.She was a pious religious ladywho inspired and helped every-body in their lives. She had agreat respect for elderly peopleand had keen wish for buildingShivanand Education Centre inSydney. She had great love forchildren and was a regular donorat Westmead Children hospital.

She philosophised life in asimple way following MotherTeresa’s footsteps:

‘Let nothing perturb youLet nothing frighten youAll things passGod does not changePatience and hard work achieves everythingWhoever has GodLacks nothingGod alone suffices.”

Rama is survived by her husband, three sons,their wives and six grandchildren.

Rama Gupta(July1943 – June 2011)

Pushpa Lalchandani, 70, died June 19,2011, with her family by her side inSydney. Born on June 28, 1940 in

Larkana Sindh to Gangaram and Sadori BaiLahori, Pushpa’s father worked for thenational Railways and managed a largeancestral property. They moved to India in1947 due to partition, leaving all propertyand possessions behind and settled inRatlam, Madhya Pradesh.

Initial years were hard for the family.Excelling academically, with a passion forliterature, moving with her family to Poonaand Bombay, Pushpa graduated with aMaster of Arts & Literature (in Hindi andEnglish).

After completing her M.A., she got ajob as a lecturer in Sydenham College,Churchgate, Bombay.

It was in 1969, she was introduced toDr. Anand. They got married the same yearand moved to Australia. She completed adiploma in education at the University of

NSW to qualify, and began work as a high-school English teacher.

Australia was a very different place towhat it is today as it emerged from theWhite Australia Policy. Indians felt left outand alone. Pushpa played a role in bringingIndians and Hindus together – both estab-lishing early consumer trade links withIndia, developing the community throughsocial events and functions, and having asignificant role is forming Australia’s firstHindu temple – the Sri Mandir, and laterothers. The Lalchandanis also invited Holypeople from India to visit from variousgroups including Chinmaya Mission,Parmarth Niketan, introducing toAustralians and re-introducing AustralianIndians the rich Indian culture. Her teach-ing background and love of children helpedher establish children’s classes, as well ascommunity groups and the like, work whichshe took back to India and continued to herlast days.

Pushpa even started a genuine and sin-cere service before the commercial match-making era of Shaadi.com andBharatMatrimony.com set in. Pushpa startedSanyoga Relationships Australia where she

used to keep a register of prospectivematches and she personally interviewed peo-ple who went into her register for referral topeople who came looking. Thus she wasable to help many a people find genuine lifepartners the way arranged matchmaking hasworked in India for times immemorial.There was a lot of love that flowed fromPushpa as she patiently listened to anyoneand gave her advice as a senior wise Indianwoman to members of the Indian communi-ty who came to seek her help.

We take these moments to be gratefulfor the work the pioneering senior membersof our community have performed, to helpmake multicultural Australia what it is today– and to make our local Indian populationfeel more at home in a distant land.

Pushpa is survived by her husband, Dr.Anand Lalchandani, 3 children and 4 grand-children. A memorial service was held atHelensburg SVT on 2 July 2011.

In loving memory of Mrs PushpaLalchandani:

Anand LalchandaniNikesh & JagritiV inita & StephaneSunay and rest of the family members

Pushpa Lalchandani(June 1940 – June 2011)

Page 49: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

August September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 49

Hindi Humour

IIyse mwl;u ntu, btlfU fUe btberfUme fUu mt: Ctd dRoOO, rbmu\s muXec\zu Qkau ytih W;tJ u ôJh bü yvlu vr;fUtu ne lné Ntg= nh Wm fUtu stu CeWl fUu Dh fUe hüs bü :t gn Fch mwlthne :e> rbmu\s muXe d˜e fUu fUtloh Jt ubfUtl bü hñ;e nî ytih bnÖ u bü nh ytlustlu Jt u vh l\sh hF;e nî ytih R"hW"h fUe mc ct;tü fUt çgtuht Wl fUu vtmntu;t ni>u simu IrfUm fUu Dh bü fUtil yt;tni, rfUm fUe cuxe fUt rfUm \zfUu mua¢fUh a˜ hnt ni gt rVUh rfUm rbgtâceJe fUt Sd\zt a˜ hnt ni ytr= ytr=>

muXe mtrnc, stu YfU ytprVUm büfUtb fUh;u nî, yvle ceJe fUe Rm ;tfUStâfU fUe yt=;tü mu fUtVUe vhuNtl ntust;u nî, vh fUn;u fUwA lné ¢gtürfU rVUhWànü ne yvle vÀle fUu dwômu fUt rNfUthntult v\z;t ni> Wànü Ce yakCt ýyt,II¢gt fUn hne ntu? Jn Yume ytih; lné:eOO

IIytv fUtu fUimu bt qb? fUime ytih;:e bî mc stl;e nqâ> bwnÖ u fUu mc b=tuovh Wm fUe l\sh :e> ytv Ce ;turF\zfUe bu F\zu Wmu ;tfUt fUh;u :u>OO

II;wönü ;tu Jnb fUe cebthe ni ytih=qmhtü fUu VUÕu bü xtâd y\ztlu bü ;wönü b\styt;t ni stu rclt mtuau mbSu ctu ;ehn;e ntu >OO

btlfU fUe btbe fUt ym˜ ltbcý; fUb ˜tudtü fUtu bt qb :t> \fUhec30, 35 JMo fUe dà=be hkd fUe, fUt\VUedXu Nheh fUe,U=hbgtlt \fU=, fUt uDwkDht u ct˜tü Jt˜e fUe mc mu \ßgt=tmwà=h ytih ŒCtJNt˜e :é Wm fUeytâFuk, ytih Wl bü sc fUts˜ ˜dt ntu_ cm ¢gt lNt :t Wl bü rfU =uFluJt u Wl fUe ;tc l mn fUh yvleytâFü SwfUt u;u :u>

sc btlfU fUe btbe d˜e bürlfU˜;e :e ;tu fUtuRo Wmu IRdltuhI lnéfUh mfU;t :t - Ftm fUh sc JnnÖfUu ve u hkd fUe mt\Ze ytih birakd xtRoxc˜tQ\s bü, gt rVUhtu\se hkd fUu vkstcemqx ytih =wvÕu bü ntu;e :e ;tu 30, 35fUe lné ˜d;e :e crÖfU 25 fUeyÖ \z sJtl ytih Wm vh Jn lNe˜eytâFü !

bwnÖ u bü fUt\VUe vtpvq h :e > ytihgne Wm fUe mbôgt Ce cl st;e :e >rbmu\s muXe sime fUwA ytih Ce brn˜tYk:é stu Wànu vmà= lné fUh;e :ek > Wm

fUe Nt=e fUtu 10 mt˜ ntu a u :u vhk;wWm fUe yvle fUtuRo yti t= lné :e,ytihbtlfU,stu Wm fUt Ctkst :t Wl fUu Dhhn;t :t, Rmr˜gu Wmu ˜tud Wme fUu ltbmu stllu ˜du :u>

btlfU buht =tuô; ni, nb YfU ¢˜tmbü v\Z;u :u ytih nb y¢mh YfU =qmhu fUu

Dh ytgt stgt fUh;u :u> btlfU fUebtbe nb =tultü mu Ce cý; Ëgth fUh;e:e, crÖfU bî ;tu fUnqâdt, Jn mc cåatümu Ëgth fUh;e :e>

btlfU lu bwSu YfU cth yvle btbefUu cthu bu YfU ct; c;tRo :e, stu ycWm fUe \sctle ne ytv fUtu mwlt;t nqâ >

IIbî Wl r=ltü rmVUo dbeo fUe AwrÕgtkrc;tlu yvlu btbt fUu vtm ytgt :t,buhu ltlt ytih ltle Ce :é, mc mt:mt: hn;u :u>

dhbe fUu fUthK ht; fUtu vkFt a˜tltv\z;t :t ytih bwSu vkFu fUe nJt yåAelné ˜d;e :e, Rmr˜gu bî chtb=u bü mtust;t :t> bwSu XefU mu lé= lné yt hne:e > bwSu mt: Jt u fUbhu mu fUwAFxfUt mwltRo r=gt, fUné atuh l ntu, Yumtmtua bî awvfUu mu fUbhu fUe rF\zfUe fUuvtm výkat ytih yà=h StkfU fUh =uFlu˜dt> xuc˜ iöv fUe b"pb htiNle bu,¢gt =uF;t nqâ rfU btbe WX fUh ciXe ýRoni, rVUh Wm lu btbt fUu ;rfUgu fUu leaumu atce rlfUt˜e, mu\VU Ftu e ytih dnlurlfUt˜lu, YfU YfU fUh fUu vñlu, rVUhmu\VU fUtu ˜tpfU rfUgt, atce rmhntlu fUuleau hF =e> Rm cea btbt c\uFchFhotxu bth;u hnu > btbe lu =hJt\st Ftu tytih ctnh rlfU˜ munl bü yt dRo> buheWÀmwfU;t c\Z hne :e > bî ysec W˜Slbü v\z dgt :t rfU gn yvlu ne Dh büatuhe!

yc btbe mer\Zgtü fUu htm;u A; vh

výka dRo> bî Ce =cu vtâJ Wm fUu veAuvýka dgt> A; vh cý; ne nÖfUe mehtiNle :e stu d˜e bü ˜de ýY rcs˜efUu Föcu mu yt hne :e> Wmu buhu ytlufUe ytnx ;fU lt ýRo> ¢gt =uF;t nqâ rfUbtbe \sbel vh vt˜;e bth fUh ciXe ýRoni ytih Wm fUu nt: bü YfU cý; c\ze

dwr\zgt ni, rsm fUu ct˜tü vh Jn fUkDefUh hne ni ytih Wm fUe \V{UtfU fUe m˜JxüXefU fUh btbe lu Wmu At;e mu ˜dtgt>fUCe Jn Wmu aqb;e fUCe At;e mu˜dt;e ytih Wm fUu fUtltü bü fUwActu ;e, stu buhe mbS bü ;tu l ytgt>

\¢hec =m rbkx ;fU gn rm˜rm˜tsthe hnt,ytih bî bwÉÆt, cw; mt clt Wmu=uF;t hnt> buhe rnöö; lné v\z hne :erfU bî Jtvm ˜tix stQâ >

btbe lu ytrFhe cth dwr\zgt fUtud u ˜dtgt ytih YfU Atuxe me mà=qfUaebü cà= fUh A; vh cle Ichmt;eO fUuYfU fUtulu bu hF r=gt ytih leau W;hytRo > bî Ce awvfUu mu Wm fUu veAu veAuleau yt dgt>

btbe yvlu fUbhu bü a˜e dRo, Wmlu mthu dñlu W;th fUh y˜bthe bü hFr=gu ytih mtu dRo >

bî Ce ytfUh yvle athvtRo vh uxdgt ytih mtulu fUe fUturNN fUhlu ˜dt>buhe mbS bü fUwA lné yt hnt :t> btbeNtg= vtd˜ ntu dRo ni gt rVUh rfUmeŒfUth fUt fUtuRo st=q xqlt fUh hne :e> blbü Cg mt ytlu ˜dt > fUt\VUe =uh ct=leâ= ytRo ytih mwcn =uh mu WXt> =uFtbtbe rfUal bü ltN;t cltlu bü ˜de ýRoni> bî Wmu atuh l\shtü mu =uF;t hnt,urfUl Wm fUu aunhu ytih Wm fUu ÔgJnth

mu rc˜fUw fUwA v;t lné a˜;t :t rfUJn ht; fUtu ysectu\dhec nhfU;ü fUh hne:e>

IIbwàlt! ¢gt ˜tudu ltN;u bü?OO Wmlu c\zu Ëgth mu bwSu vqAt

IIfUwA CeOOIIfUwA Ce ¢gtuk? yvle vmà= fUe

fUtuRo ae\s c;tytu> ltlfUu (lànt˜)ytgu ntu > lné ;tu ;wönthu btbt ltht\s ntustgüdu bwS mu rfU bî lu Ctksu fUe

\Ftr;h=the bü fUbe fUh =eOOIIyåAt, ykzt c{uz qkdt OOIIgn ýRo l ct;OO, ytih Wm lu buhu

r˜gu ltN;t ;igth rfUgt>bî lu Rm Dxlt fUt rfUme mu r\sfUh

lné rfUgt ytih fUwA r=ltü bü Cq dgt>

btlfU fUe gn ct;ü bwSu yc gt=ytRok, sc bwnÖ u bu gn \Fch ytd fUe;hn VUi dRo rfU btlfU fUe btbe rfUmefUu mt: Ctd dRo> buh bl lné btl hnt:t>

vh ˜tud Ctkr; Ctkr; fUe ct;ü fUhlu˜du>

IIyhu! bi lt fUn;e :e rfU Wm fUu˜åAK yåAu lné :u> fUimu \dih b=tüo fUtuDqh Dqh fUh ytâF bxxTfUt fUh;e :eOO,eb;e sil ctu é >

IIbî lu Wmu fURo cth ht; fUtu ctrnhst;u =uFt ni>OO fUb˜t lu yvle htg =e

IIntâ, bi lu Wmu AT; fUe chmt;e büyfUu u st;u ýY =uFt ni, \sÁh Wm fUtgth Jntâ rAv fUh ciX;t ntudtOO, vËvqfUe btâ, C˜t fUntâ veAu hnlu Jt˜e :e>

urfUl rbmu\s bun;t ne fUwA y˜dmu ctu é,IIytv ˜tud fUwA Ce bwân büytgt ctu u st hne nî> Wm cuathe fUtuht; fUtu lé= bü a˜lu fUe cebthe :e, lstlu Rm nt˜; bü Jn fUntâ ntude?OO

IIlé= bü a˜lu fUe cebthe ;tufUuJ˜ YfU cntlt :tOO bksq mund˜ luCe yvle htg =u zt˜e> IIyåAt gn

c;tytu, ;wb stu htu\s htu\s fUbh ==o fUerNfUtg; fUh;e hñ;e ntu, nb Rmu Cecntlt ne mbSüOO rbmu\s bun;t fUwA;eFu yà=t\s bü ctu é >

IIyhu cnl se, ytv ;tu bwS vh neNfU fUhlu ˜deOO

IINfU fUe ct; lné ni, rfUme fUturmh =To= ntu, gt fUbh bü ve\zt ;tu lr=Flu vh Ce nb btl u;u nî ytih ;hn;hn fUe =JtRogtâ x[tRo fUh;u nî, vhk;w R;lec\ze cebthe fUtu nb cebthe l btl fUhRmu cntlt gt b\st\fU mbS;u nî>OO rbmu\sbun;t rVUh ctu é >

IIlné CRo, ma bü gn YfU cebtheni>OO fUtk;t cñl, stu yc ;fU awv atvF\ze :e, Ce d{wv_rzôfUNpl bü rnômtulu fUu r˜gu fUq= v\zé> IIbuhu btgfUu bü

YfU ytbeo fUu rhxtgoz bush hn;u :u stuht; fUtu yvle vqhe J=eo vnl, bwnÖ u büa¢fUh ˜dtgt fUh;u :u>OO

yc mwMbt CtCe C˜t ¢gtü veAuhñ;é, Wànü Ce fUwA gt= yt dgt, IIntâ,ntâ nbthu dtâJ bü Ce YfU vwh¥M :t stuht; fUtu rmh vh athvtRo hF fUh d˜e buDqb;t ytih rVUh Jtvm st fUh mtu st;t:t> fUn;u nî, lé= bü a˜;u ýY fUtuhtufUlt gt xtufUlt lné atrngu, ¢gtürfUWànu fUwA v;t lné ntu;t rfU Jn YumtfUh hnu nî, cuathe btlfU fUe btbeOO

IIgn YfU btlrmfU cebthe ni ytihnbü Yumu ˜tudtü mu mntlwCqr; ntule atrn-gu>OO

IIvhk;w ytv gn fUimu fUn m¢;e nîrfU btlfU fUe btbe fUtu Jtô;J bü gnlé= bü a˜lu fUe cebthe :e?OO

rs;lu bwân, W;le ct;ü > rfUk;w mc fUe \sctlü cà= ntu dRok sc

=tu r=l ct= btlfU fUe btbe Jtvm ytdRo ytih Jn Ce YfU cåae fUu mt:>˜tud nihtl :u rfU gn mc ¢gt :t>urfUl sc vqhe ct; fUt v;t a˜t ;tu

mc fUe l\shtü bü btlfU fUe btbe fUeR\ß\s; cý; c\Z dRo> Jwne ytih;ü stu WmfUe cwhtRogtk fUh;u lné :fU;e :é, ycWm fUe ;theVU fUh hne :é >

Wm lu fUtb ne fUwA Yumt rfUgt :t>Wm fUu bifUu bü YfU nt=mu bü YfU vrhJthfUu mc m=ôg bthu dgu :u, fUuJ˜ YfUcåae cae :e stu vtur˜gtu fUe bhe\s:e ytih Wmu fUtuRo Ce hFlu fUtu ;igthlné :t> sc btlfU fUe btbe fUtu v;ta˜t ;tu Jn ht;tü ht;, rclt rfUme fUtuc;tgu Jntâ dRo ytih Wmu dtu= u r˜gt>

... btlfU fUe btbe bwnÖ u bü ycCe Wme Ntl mu rlfU˜;e ni, vh ˜tudtüfUe rldtntü bü Roígto ytih s˜l fUecstgu, möbtl ytih yt=h fUe CtJltntu;e ni>

btlfU ffUe bbtbe ... mk; htb csts

Page 50: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

Jul Mat 1. Hindu Punjabi busi-

ness parents invite alliance from abeautiful educated girl for their high-ly qualified son 30/6'3", a very wellplaced financial consultant with aleading multinational company inUK. Will be in Australia in July,Caste no bar. Send BHP to [email protected]

Jul Mat 2. Well settled family inAustralia inviting alliance for 27year old, 5"11, Sood Punjabi boy,B.Software Engineer(honors) and is

working as a seniorIT Consultant for theAustralian govern-ment on highincome. SeekingIndian girl, caste nobar. Please call0 4 1 4 - 5 1 8 - 3 1 2 .Email [email protected]

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background, broad minded/ matureoutlook, independent, divorcee, age47 years onward, For caring, honest,friendly, Indian Christian divorceeAustralian citizen, 48 yrs 5'3" tall,much younger looking than age,attractive, graceful looking graduatenurse, employed. Caste no bar. Emaildetails to [email protected]

Jul Mat 4. Suitable match for26.5 year old, Hindu boy, 6 Feet,handsome, Australian qualifiedDentist, Income High Six figure,seek Indian good-looking, profes-sional girl with strong family val-ues.Caste no bar, girl merits mainconsideration.

Please contact with profile andrecent photograph at 0412-788569 orEmail: [email protected]

Jul Mat 5. Young Indian Hindugirl 27 years old from respectablefamily, living in Sydney seeksyoung Australian Indian man withstrong cultured and family back-ground for friendship with view ofmarriage. Please call on 0421 689546.

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Page 51: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 51

Columns

By Karam C. Ramrakha

Karam C. Ramrakha, veteran ex FijiMP, casts a practised eye on Fiji and in thisarticle examines the responsibility of thelarge Indian diaspora's responsibilitytowards the mother country.

On the midnight of 14th August 1947,Pandit Nehru delivered his immortalTrust with Destiny speech of which

this part should be written in the hearts ofevery Indian, or indeed any freedom lovingperson.

“India will awake to life and freedom. Amoment comes, which comes but rarely inhistory, when we step out from the old tothe new, when an age ends, and when thesoul of a nation, long suppressed, findsutterance.”

As a child in Fiji I heard Panditji's voiceon our radio in Suva. We crowded aroundour set to catch his words. Even today thememory lives with me.

What Panditji said was especially true ofIndia which has suffered invasions and pil-lage like no other country in the world. InFiji, particularly, we felt keenly the Britishsubjugation of our mother India and we ral-lied against the British for independence ofIndia. So, today, we have to find her souland give it utterance. The problem is thatIndia is too large for us NRIs abroad.

However, parallels can be drawnbetween India and the plight of those Indianswho were taken to colonies abroad aslabourers. Those who were taken to Africa,particularly in Kenya, Uganda and Rhodesia,for back breaking tasks such as building rail-ways, are now largely forgotten. Africanintolerance has driven them out, but in

places like South Africa, Mauritius,Malaysia, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana andSurinam, a sizable Indian population isstruggling to find its soul.

In Mauritius, Trinidad and Surinam, theIndians are well settled and enjoy politicalclout. But we struggle in other places. I con-centrate on my own native Fiji.

Here is one of the persons who went toLondon to negotiate independence of Fijifrom Britain. I wrote large tracks in consti-tution to protect the position of indigenes,who insisted that they have land rights andownership of 93% of land in Fiji. Theywanted the customs and way of life controlby great counsel of chiefs' maintained.

With Iron clad protection and powers ofVeto what we Indians did not and could notconcede was electoral weightage in the con-stitution which would ultimately deliver amajority of indigence in House ofParliament. Despite the lopsided constitutionin favour of Fijians the Indian based partiesachieved victories in 1977, 1987 and 1999.

In 1977, the Governor General contro-versially installed the minority Fijian leaderas Prime Minister but in 1987 and 1999 theFijian hierarchy overthrew the Indian basedgovernment in a series of coups. What theFijian hierarchy had failed to understand wasthat ultimately any system trenched on birthrate and chiefly power would be questionedand, if necessary, rejected and overthrown.

Such is the position of Fiji today whereFrank Bainimarama overthrew a Fijian basedand seemingly democratic elected govern-ment in 2006. Only the European Unionwould stand by and watch but Frank com-pounded the situation by saying that onlyafter he cleansed Fiji of forces which divid-ed it racially, he would hold elections in2014. The question remains: can Frankcarry out his agenda? Can Frank remodelFiji into a country of absolute tolerance, oneman one vote one value and no racial dis-crimination?

Can Frank's military hold firm and giveit their unstinting support? To all these ques-tions the answer must be yes. However, onestray sheep, Ratu Ului, no less than a son ofFounding Father of Fiji's Independence, hasbroken ranks. Charged with sedition andgranted bail, he was suddenly transportedout of Fiji by Tonga's Navy. Today, he iswarmly greeted and feted by not only thegovernment but by dissidents in Australiaand New Zealand. Frank remains unfazed.

The large Indian population in Fiji wel-comes Frank but he is fearful as to whatmight happen should he fail. The situation ofIndians in Fiji is perilous as we own very lit-tle land and are dependent on fixed termlease without rights of renewals. We providethe large middle class and labouring popula-tion.

Despite the seeming prosperity of somelarge Indian firms each is beholden financial-ly to Australian banks. Our contribution hasbeen enormous as we have remained theback bone of the highly labour intensivesugar industry which has become depletedbecause of large scale removal of Indian ten-ants from native leases.

A lot has been written about Fiji, espe-cially after the 1987 coup. Professor Brij Lalof ANU University is to be congratulated forhis prolific output covering the history ofFiji. His latest book "Eye of the Storm" canbe found on ANU Express on the internetand provides a useful sweep of current histo-ry. Equally, Dr Sanjay Ramesh's book"Ethnicity, Culture and Coups in Fiji", pro-vides a searching and succinct neo-Gramscian study of Fiji.

Sadly, however, despite our commonlanguage, culture and religion, a seeminggulf exist between the Indians abroad andIndians within India despite January 9 beingdedicated by the Government of India toNRIS as Pravasi Divas and marking that daywith celebrations and distribution of hon-ours. Fiji represents a microcosm whichdemands a greater attention from Indiansabroad and the immediate Governments ofAustralia and New Zealand. I can only endwith a warning that if Frank Bainimaramafails and Fiji descends into chaos, the boatpeople would not be coming from the otherside of the world but from our Pacific back-yard.

Karam C Ramrakha, Barrister andSolicitor, Notary Public, Putney Chambers,36 Pellisier Road, Putney, NSW 2112,Phone: 02 9808 2760, Fax: 02 9802 5014,Mob: 0434 986 123 Email: [email protected]

All Indians should join hands

Joining forces to fight baldness

If you’re completely bald or have areceding hairline or an ever-growing baldspot like me, I have some good news foryou: scientists are getting closer to a cureand it doesn’t involve a spray can. It mayeven happen in our lifetimes, whichmeans we could have all our hair backwithin a few decades, just in time tocharm all those ladies at the retirementhome.

Actually, there’s only one lady I wantto charm and she doesn’t seem to carethat I have a bald spot. If anything, she’spleased that at least one part of me isthinning.

I’m perfectly okay with having a baldspot, really I am. And if you don’tbelieve me, just ask anyone in my Bald isBeautiful support group. We get togetheronce a month to share our stories of hair

loss. There’s Al and Bruce and Pedro andSalman and a few other guys. We havevarying degrees of baldness. For exam-ple, I have a bachelor’s degree andSalman has a PhD (prominent hair defi-ciency).

Our last meeting began, as it usuallydoes, with a little sharing. We sat in acircle and shared a bottle of wine. Italways helps the guys open up. Al took asip and said, “Yesterday, while I was atthe laundromat, I met this pretty womanwho told me she’s a cancer survivor. So Isaid, ‘Really? Well, I’m a baldness sur-vivor. Maybe we can go out sometime.’And she slapped me.”

Pedro shook his head. “People justdon’t understand what baldness does to aman. When I started losing my hair, myso-called best friend kept saying, ‘You’regoing bald, Pedro,’ as if I didn’t alreadyknow. As if I didn’t look in the mirrorevery morning and take attendance.Ricardo, here. Enrique, here. José, here.Alfredo … oh no, I lost another one.”

Bruce laughed. “You named your hairtoo?”

“Of course. When you have so few,you grow close to them. They’re likefamily.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Bruce said.“We need to educate people about this.We need to make them more aware, so

that our sons and grandsons don’t have toendure as much baldism as we have.Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Sure would,” Salman said. “That’swhy I’m starting a petition online to getPresident Obama and other leaders todeclare the third Saturday of March asBaldness Awareness Day (BAD). Wecould organize a lot of BAD activities thatday, maybe even get Obama to give aBAD speech for a change.”

“Good idea,” Bruce said. “We couldhonor all the great bald men in history,such as Dwight Eisenhower, the first baldman to be elected president of America,Tom Stafford, the first bald man in outerspace, and Seal, the first bald man tomarry a supermodel.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to call it BaldMan’s Day?” Pedro said. “That way, we

could get our family and friends to giveus cards and gifts.”

“I like that,” Al said. “Forget thepetition, Salman – let’s write to Hallmarkinstead.”

“Speaking of cards,” Pedro said, “weshould send a ‘thank you’ card to Dr.George Cotsarelis of the University ofPennsylvania for all his great research onbaldness. I was so thrilled when I heardthat we bald guys have just as many stemcells on our heads as the guys with hair.All we need to do is figure out a way toget them to be active again!”

“Does beer help?” Al asked.“No,” Pedro said. “I’ve tried that.

Rum doesn’t help either. It just makes myhead sticky.”

“I’ve never heard of Dr. Cotsarelis,”Bruce said. “Is he one of us?”

“No,” Pedro said. “He’s got hair. Buthe’s a strong advocate for the bald.”

“We need to help him,” Bruce said.“I’m sure he needs money for hisresearch.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Salman said.“Let’s organize a fundraiser. We can callit the Walk-a-thon to Cure Baldness. Wecan get our family and friends to walkfive miles and raise thousands of dollars.”

“Sounds good,” Al said. “But do Ihave to walk too? Can’t I just drive andmeet everyone at the finish line?”

THE HUMOR OF MELVIN DURAI

Ratu Ului, son of a Founding Father ofFiji's Independence, charged with sedi-tion and granted bail, he was suddenly

transported out of Fiji by Tonga's Navy.Today, he is warmly greeted and feted bynot only the government but by dissidents

in Australia and New Zealand.

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52 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Down Memory Lane

By Bimal Bose

Our digs in London were walkingdistance from South Kensingtontube station .The ride from there to

Piccadilly Circus cost a tenner. The walkto Hyde Park corner from there took halfan hour.

We were students at the time and tosave money stooped to all manner of tac-tics. The oddest of these was to keep theloo swing door open and let your mate inbefore closing and thereby save a penny.The popular English idiom of penny havingdropped derives from this.

Walking the distance was an hon-ourable option as chances of cheating thetransport system was nil. Our digs housedsix boarders from as many countries. Itwas an amalgam of four to five languagesand since our ability to speak the nativetongue was at par with each other, therewere no hassles in the communicationdepartment except on occasions some onewanted to prove a point in the cockneydialect.

This was forbidden as our land lady,Mrs Kelley, very English with a Scottishhusband, would have nothing of it. Shetook it upon herself to groom the foreign-ers in the best of English traditions and lan-guage being her primary concern!

Frankly, initially, Mrs Kelley’s clippedaccent sounded a bit odd in our ears beingdrowned in a sea of Cockney, Londonbeing the birth place of the lingo.

There was no definitive bondingamongst the boarders but we were allyoung, inquisitive and new in England.Luckily, I had struck a friendship withAsgar Ali from Nairobi whose mother wasthe daughter of a tribal chief and father animmigrant Punjabi farmer from Pakistan.

At that point of time in history, JomoKeneyatta, a powerful Kikuyu tribal chief,had unleashed a rebellion against the richBritish farmers. Consequently, the localpress were after Jomo’s blood and conve-niently branded him as a terrorist!

Asgar was aware of this and so was Ibut it did not come as a damper in our rela-tionship. Instead, it was our wont to metic-ulously plan our weekend jaunts thatcemented our friendship further as in India,too, we had gone through comparable situ-ations.

On a bright Sunday afternoon, after thestandard fare doled out by Mrs Kelley -roast beef with Yorkshire pudding andsmelly Brussels sprout three course lunch-es, the boarders normally trooped out. Thatafternoon, mine and Asgar’s destinationwas the famous Hyde Park corner nearMarble Arch to listen to the “soap box”orators, thus named because the speakersstood on used pine wood box used fortransporting fruits and soap bars, barelyable to support the weight of a person.This, free for all speech corner, was typi-cal, and still is, a popular London attrac-tion in league with such spots as Tower ofLondon, Buckingham Palace, Trooping thecolour, Houses of Parliament and HorseGuard parade.

But Hyde Park had both rugged dignitycombined with amusement value of itsown. It occupied a unique place in the

hearts of freedom loving people on thisplanet. Nowhere was seen an individualwith the freedom to speak his mind soopenly and, at times with subtle vengeance,so freely.

The British Parliament is the acknowl-edged mother of Parliamentary democracy,one of its robust pillars being freedom ofspeech. In this context, symbolically, theHyde Park gathering where the speakerswere free to air their views (in gay aban-don) amply demonstrated a vital aspect ofdemocracy in action. For a moment, ignorethe brutal force coupled with crookeddiplomacy the British crown employed todominate three- fourth of the globe!

Little wonder then that quite a fewfuture parliamentarians of all hues from theemerging democracies honed their debatingskills in this vibrant corner bubbling withlife.

As was expected, the black, brown andin between coloured faces in the gatheringoutnumbered white faces by two to one.The latter group were mostly IRA, SaveJesus and Salvation Army groups withsome fellow travellers from the lunaticfringe thrown in.

The Kikuyu uprising was a hot topicand there were quite a few speakers with asprinkling of white speakers patronisinglytaking the cudgel for the downtrodden

blacks of Africa. One of them turned out tobe a communist of the Russian variety. Hehad recently paid a visit to Karl Marxgrave and was uncontrollably charged!

There was a flurry of clapping andcolourful invectives in plenty that one asso-ciates with heterogeneous public gatheringof this kind and not forgetting the ever pop-ular boos in ample measure.

The guardian of the English law wasrepresented by a solitary unarmed bobbyattired in his usual black uniform and typi-cal elongated helmet displaying a nickelcoated badge proclaiming his rank and ablack leather strap latched to his chin. Themere presence of this uniformed person,popularly called the Bobby, technicallyrepresenting the Crown, was enough toensure peace.

No room for any uncivil behaviour asthe law in this regard was forthright. Oncethe Rubicon was crossed, the law took itscourse and the offender booked, taken pris-oner and produced before a magistrate thefollowing day.

Londoners congregated to this cornerof their city for innocuous fun and the peo-ple were generally in a holiday mood. Soonthe crowd had started melting away in oneand two, and Asgar and I joined the slowbut steady stream.

It was nearly ten in the evening, beingsummer, there was ample daylight still left.We casually drifted away to the nearest oaktrees to ease ourselves in Indian style. Acouple of yards separated us but on my leftI could distinctly hear Asgar agitatedlyspeaking to a tall Bobby. I sensed that allwas not well. In a flash, I zipped up andran towards Asgar’sside and guessedexactly what wasgoing on.

The ‘law’, in themeantime, havingparked his push bikeagainst nearby treetrunk, was busy tak-ing out his bluecoloured notebook.He had made hisintentions very clear– to slap a fine offive pounds, a for-tune for us in thosedays, the offencebeing the commit-ment of nuisance inpublic coupled withthe defacing HerMajesty’s property.

Asgar was notvery articulate andthe Bobby had foundthat out. He did notobject to someone inhis place more con-versant, explainingthings, acting as aGood Samaritan. Ipleaded with thepoliceman saying,look here officer, myfriend is fromKenya, is new toEngland like me andtotally unaware of

the codes of conduct here (we jolly wellwere briefed about this at the HighCommission!). Being his first time offence,a typical desi style of pleading, could be letoff with a verbal warning. My friend willprovide his digs’ address besides bringinghis passport as well as university identitycard for you to examine.

Surprisingly, the officer liked what Isaid and began putting his dreadful note-book back into his pocket. The next fewmoments he surprised me by asking if Iwas from India and if so from which part.This welcome change in the Bobby’s moodencouraged me to reply in the affirmative,adding that I was from Calcutta. No soon-er did I finish saying so he gleefully toldme that until about a year ago he hadmigrated from Calcutta where he hadworked as a traffic sergeant. The Railwaysand the Police Force in those days were thelargest employers of Anglo Indians.

The Bobby’s next move took me bytotal surprise. Asking Asgar to wait, hetook me aside and in all seriousnessadvised me in colloquial Bengali to keepaway from Asgar as he may well be aKikuyu. That was a dirty word those days.Soon after, the Bobby mounted his bikeand headed towards the general direction ofMarble Arch.

I had been instrumental in bailing outAsgar on another occasion previouslywhen to my horror he was merrily usingthe bath tub as a bucket - subcontinentalstyle and pouring tableful of water over hishead much to the chagrin of Mrs Kelley.But that’s another story, to be narratedsome other time.

A brush with the London BobbyBimal Bose, a senior citizen holidaying with his son Dr P Basu in Sydney, shares some

lighter moments of his life recounting anecdotes from his time in London where he moved soon after India’s freedom.

A tall Bobby, having parked his pushbike against nearby tree trunk, was busytaking out his blue coloured notebook.

He had made his intentions very clear –to slap a fine of five pounds, a fortunefor us in those days, the offence being

the commitment of nuisance in public coupled with defacing

Her Majesty’s property.

The British Parliament is the acknowledged mother ofParliamentary democracy, one of its robust pillars being freedomof speech. In this context, symbolically, the Hyde Park gatheringwhere the speakers were free to air their views (in gay abandon)

amply demonstrated a vital aspect of democracy in action.

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Sports

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 53

Swami Army prepares for an Indian SummerBy Dilip Mahanty

Cricket is in every Indian’sblood. Whilst the passionscan sometimes overflow,

there is no other activity or inter-est that has the ability to unite adiverse country such as India soeffectively. Whether it is downsouth in Chennai, or up north inAmritsar, cricket is truly thenational sport of India.

This passion for cricket hasspread as Indians have migratedacross the globe, with the gameplaying a key role in maintainingties with the motherland. If youwere to search for cricket teams innations such as the USA, Canada,Singapore, and Germany, all non-cricketing countries, you wouldfind teams dominated by Indianexpats. The Indian community inAustralia is blessed to be living ina country in which cricket is partof the national fabric, allowing thelove for the game without any hur-dles.

Every four years, the IndianAustralian community is given theopportunity to really exhibit theirpassion for both the game of crick-et and their country of origin whenTeam India embarks on a tour tothese shores. The Indian cricketteam has always been well sup-ported whenever they have touredAustralia, enjoying the supportfrom an ever-increasing Indianpopulation.

Whilst early tours by Indianteams were not successful in termsof results, in recent times, the

tourists have more than held theirown against the mighty Australianteams.

The Indian tour of 2003-04marked the start of India’s climbto the top of the world rankings,with the team arriving full of con-fidence after reaching the WorldCup Final earlier in the year andhaving success in the West Indiesand England. The Test Series wasalso significant as it was the lastTest Series before Australian leg-end Steve Waugh retired.

The tour was a huge success,with Team India drawing the Testmatches 1-1, including a famousvictory in Adelaide. In fact, theIndian team were unlucky not totriumph, outplaying the Australianteam in the deciding match inSydney and coming close to a winin the final session of the game.

It was in 2003-04 that theSwami Army was formed, startingout amongst 10 passionate Indiancricket supporters. The Swami

Army name was coined as a bit offun, and a play on words of theBarmy Army from England,whilst it followed the Indian teamaround Australia that summer.Swami Army’s presence at gameswas well-received by fellowIndian fans, who enjoyed theatmosphere generated by theSwami Army, with chants andsongs enlivening the viewingexperience.

On the next Indian tour in2007-08, the Swami Army wasagain in force at all games, cheer-ing on the team. Whilst the coregroup of Swami Army memberswas approximately 50 followers,many other Indian fans joined atthe cricket grounds, sitting withthe Swami Army and chantingSwami Army songs. They regular-ly occupied entire Bays atgrounds, with everybody thatjoined stating that they had a greattime at the cricket. Many fansstarted to identify themselves as

the Swami Army as the summerrolled on.

In fact, the Swami Army’spresence at games attracted signif-icant media attention, with mem-bers being interviewed by Channel9’s Cricket Show, NDTV, news-papers and radio station Nova969.

As India prepares to embarkon a tour at the end of 2011 toAustralia, the Swami Army isgathering momentum for thisyear’s tour. For the first time,Cricket Australia has recognisedthe Swami Army as the leadingIndian cricket supporter group.There is designated seating areasfor Swami Army members at allgames, which will allow all Indianfans to sit with like-minded sup-porters and enjoy the carnival-likeatmosphere created by the SwamiArmy.

The Swami Army has beenregistered as a Not-For-Profitorganisation, with all profits being

distributed to our nominated char-ity, The LBW Trust, which pro-vides educational opportunities todisadvantaged children throughoutthe cricket-playing world.

The upcoming tour is a muchanticipated one. Winning onAustralian shores remains the“Final Frontier” for the Indianteam, having achieved most otheraccolades in cricket over the pastfive years. In fact, Tendulkar hassaid that winning a Test series inAustralia will rank up high withall other achievements, includingthe World Cup victory this year.The tour will most likely be thelast one undertaken by our modernday legends, including Tendulkar,Dravid and Laxman.

So join the Swami Army toensure you have the best seat inthe house this summer to supportTeam India

. For more information, visit the

website, www.swamiarmy .com

Formed in 2003-04, the Swami Army name was coined as a play on words of the Barmy Army from England.Now, Cricket Australia has recognised the Swami Army as the leading Indian cricket supporter group. Their

members will have designated seating areas at all games when Team India comes top play here this year-end.

Sri Padmanabha Shrine StoryContinued from page 21

Vault A itself has valuables worth overRs 50,000 crore and many more items areyet to be evaluated. This includes sacks ofgold coins weighing 530 kg whose antiquevalue will be astronomical. There was an18-foot-long heavy gold chain in one jar.The gold coins in one container weighing17 kg are of East India Company marking,14 kg of coins are of local Travancoremarking and 100 Rasi coins. There werevarious European gold coins which are notyet sorted and counted.

The underground vault A, unopenedfor ages, leads to a descending flight ofnarrow stairs where there was no light oroxygen. People doing the inventory carriedout their work with artificial lighting andpumped in Oxygen inside the granitechamber. Working long hours, they alsowore Oxygen masks as a precautionarymeasure.

There are six vaults in all - A to F -known to the authorities. As per records,vaults A and B were last opened in 1872.It was not possible to open a section of Bvault. Even after three days’ of toil, vaultB could not be opened because of heavymetallic grill and thick concrete and stonewall that could not be moved. To cut themopen with heavy duty cutting machine, per-

mission from the court has to be obtained.According to old grandma stories, ‘Ekashilamandapam’ has been placed by VayuBhagawan who is sitting atop the treasurevault full of priceless gemstones. Likewise,under Padma teertham a massive treasurechamber is hidden and the access isthrough a tunnel that opens up somewherefrom the palace. True or not, we have towait and see.

An incomplete inventory of the treasure is:

Over 1 lakh gold coins, rare pricelessgems in huge numbers, precious diamondslike Indraneelam, Padmaragam, Belgiumdiamonds, emeralds, rubies, saphires,1200 Sarappoli chains, number of goldcrowns like the priceless Kulasekharaperumal crown/coronation crown (set ofthree), Kashumalas, 400 necklaces studdedwith Marakatham, coconut shells crafted ingold, antique gold items studded with pre-cious stones, 16 gold Ankis (gold clothesfor God used for ceremonial purposes,some big enough to cover the 18-footSwamy Vigraha), 2000 gold ornaments,Swarna Thalikas (plates), Solid goldchains weighing 3 to 10.5 kilos, big goldidol of Vishnu, Swarna Dhanus (bow),gold staffs, Thankakudas (parasols), goldpots - one gold varpu uruli (utensil), goldKazhuttu kudam, massive gold throne,

many ‘Saratpli’ malas (1,000) studded withrare gems called ‘Aval’, Padakkams ofkinds, khadika thadi, kumbheeyam, silvermoolapattika, gold and silver nilavilakku,gold kindi in large numbers, goldDharakidaram, kudumudi, narayam, goldsiva vigraham, serpent idols, gold rings ,sets of gold thali, a massive pot of gold(like a big bath tub) only used to bathe theking before coronation.

E chamber whose keys are with Tantris(the doors cannot be opened without twokeys together, each key in custody of themain Tantri and his deputy) stores all poojaitems that are used regularly and thatinclude:

Two gold lamps (one each of Bhu Deviand Sri Devi), swarna plate (kilikkinnam)used to offer naivedya bhojanam to the lorddaily, serving utensils, Kamala Paatrams,Peetambarams, Swarna poonool, many sil-ver pooja patrams and decoration items ofthe Lord. Here, too, many kilos of goldwere stored in unused portions of thechamber.

Moreover, I have learnt from a reliablesource that some vault doors have antitheftdevices in place. The heavy door handle ofone vault is in the shape of a serpent hoodon the left portion and letter ‘S’ whichresemble a coiled snake's tail.

It has to be turned to open the door. Ifthe ‘S’ portion is turned, the door opens,

but if the hood portion is turned, a woodenplank from above falls on the personattempting to open the door. Another innerdoor handle, if turned in cyclic direction,the main door gets locked and the persongets trapped inside, never to see the light ofthe day again. The chambers wererumoured to have been filled with poison-ous fumes. Hence, oxygen was pumpedand those who entered wore masks toescape disaster.

Most of the treasure’s face value is nowquoted to be a staggering sum of Rs1,00,000 crore. The listed gifts may havebeen received by the kings (Vijayanagaramand European coins) or maritime spicetrade proceeds. The massive treasure is theresult of honesty and simplicity of therulers who have zealously guarded thetreasure until now.

There was a ritual strictly adhered to byall Padmanabhadasa Maharajas who visitedthe temple as the first worshipper of theday.

As they reached the exit gate to leavethe temple precincts, they wiped the bot-tom part of both feet with palms of theirhands as a gesture of not taking away evena pebble of sand that belonged to the Lord.I hope this sentiment will be observed bythe Supreme Court, Government and othercustodians of power to leave the Lord’sassets with the Lord Himself.

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54THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Dilip Mahanty Column

By Dilip Mahanty

At the time of writing this India hasmoved on from the West Indiesto England to play a tougher and

engaging series with already a Testdown. England, with recent successes,has its tails up and is keen to beat Indiaon its home turf. It boasts of a strong bat-ting line up with the nucleus in Strauss,Cook, Petersen, Trott, Bell and Priorand an impressive bowling attack whichhad laid Australia and Sri Lanka low.The swing of Anderson, the bounce ofTremlett and the spin of Swann had con-tributed to most of its success. Added tothis was the all round ability of Broad.

India, on the other hand, has had toovercome many problems which haveprevented it from being reassured aboutits prospects of winning in England.Injuries to mainstays Sehwag, Zaheerand Gambhir have hampered preparation.While Zaheer and Gambhir have recov-ered sufficiently to play the First Test,doubts linger as to whether they wouldhave sufficient match practice to get intothe “groove” straightaway.

Sehwag’s absence for the first twoTests, due to his post shoulder operationrehabilitation program, is a major worryas he is one batsman who can upset anyopposition plans to dominate the Indianteam. Sreesanth’s late recovery frominjury has not helped either as he could

have been very effective if his mind andradar were in place. He has pace andswing to worry the best but his fragilemind interferes with his plans.

Another “walking wounded” YuvrajSingh, with lung infection, has notregained the form which made him sosuccessful during the World Cup tri-umph. Fortunately, Raina has doneenough to make sure that Yuvraj’s recentabsence from the team did not hurt India.

To cap it all Sachin Tendulkar choseto take a sabbatical just after the IPL 4and declined a tour of West Indies claim-ing fatigue. This absence has preventedhis match preparedness.

All these problems brought about by asurfeit of ODIs in recent months havedented India’s confidence in the forth-coming series against England. BCCI’spoor planning, which forced ill preparedjourneys first to West Indies and then toEngland, has to be blamed for all this.There have hardly been any preparatorymatches in both these tours to get accli-matized. The players have been expectedto get off from long flights and playcricket instantly without any regard topitches, weather conditions and types ofopposition in both West Indies andEngland.

India’s tour to West Indies fieldedalmost a second eleven with many of theregulars not touring due to fatigue andinjury. While the ODI team was fairlystrong and had many experienced play-ers, the Test team had a new look. Newfaces like Mukund, Kohli and PraveenKumar were inducted. Some like MurliVijay and Mithun, who had played forIndia earlier, were drafted in as well.

The tour started with ODIs. The two20-20s which set off the tour were bothwon comfortably by India . The five 50over ODIs which followed, saw Indiatake a series winning 3-0 only to falter in

the last two matches. Perhaps it was com-placency which saw India fritter away achance to do a complete whitewash of theseries.

The Test series that followed saw aconsiderably weakened Indian Test teamwin the decisive first Test and the 3-Testseries 1-0. Rain in the 2nd Test and adefensive mindset in the 3rd preventedthe margin from being 2-0. While WIwas not expected to win, even against aweaker Indian side, it showed sufficientsigns that its bad fortunes had bottomedand that it had a few promising youngplayers who could elevate it to a positionof power in the years to come.

Apart from Chanderpaul, who hasbeen a thorn on Indian sides for years,Barath, KA Edwards, DM Bravo andSamuels shone at different times duringthe series. Chanderpaul and the debutantEdwards scored centuries in the Final andsaved West Indies from losing 2-0. HadChris Gayle been allowed to play by theWI Board, the competition would havebeen much tighter.

The bowling in the hands of FidelEdwards, Ravi Rampaul and Bishoo sup-ported by captain Sammy never let theIndians relax. Only one century (Dravid)was scored by India. VVS, Dravid andRaina were consistent performers andprevented India from being embarrassedon a number of occasions. Mukund, inhis first Test series, displayed a wisehead on a young shoulder. He was tech-nically and temperamentally sound. Hehas promise to go to bigger and betterthings.

The most pleasant surprise wasRaina. A year ago he was written off TestCricket as he was found wanting againstfast rising balls. Being dropped from theTest team had a salutary effect on him.He worked hard on his technique andshowed against the WI that he has

become a more complete player capableof handling hostile pace and bounce.Edwards and Rampaul bowling at over90mph on hard bouncy wickets could notcontain Raina, who was the most consis-tent Indian batsman in the series.

Virat Kohli and Murli Vijay, fromwhom much was expected, disappointed.Their technique against pace and bouncewas not adequate and it is back to thedrawing board for them.

Among the bowlers there were twooutstanding successes. Ishant Sharmatook up the mantle of leading the pack inZaheer’s absence and showed what hewas capable of. Bowling with pace, hos-tility and accuracy he seldom let the WIbatsmen off the hook. He not only took21 wickets in the series but was namedthe “player of the series” as well.

The other surprising success wasPraveen Kumar. As a last minute replace-ment for Sreesanth he was an unknownquantity as far as Test matches were con-cerned. He had a laudable record in theODIs for India but had never playedTests. With his gentle pace he was notexpected to succeed. But succeed he did.He bowled with considerable intelligenceand swung the ball both ways. His accu-racy, swing and change of angle caughtWI unawares. He finished the series witha haul of 12 wickets.

Both Ishant and Praveen are expectedto give the Indian attack some teeth inEngland. If the conditions allow swingthen Praveen would prove to be a hand-ful even with his gentle pace.

We look forward to an exciting seriesin England.

Easy in WI but UK tourwill test the Indians

While West Indies was not expected towin, even against a weaker Indian side,it showed sufficient signs that its badfortunes had bottomed and that it had afew promising young players who couldelevate it to a position of power in theyears to come.

A year ago Suresh Raina (seen right with Dhoni) was written off Test cricket as he wasfound wanting against fast rising balls. But he worked hard on his technique and

proved to be the most consistent Indian batsman in this series against West Indies.

Ishant Sharma not only took 21 wickets inthe series but was named the “player of

the series” as well.

Chanderpaul Shivnarine Chanderpaul cel-ebrates getting to a hundred, West Indiesv India, 3rd and final Test, Dominica, 5thday, July 10, 2011. His and the debutant

Edwards’s dogged centuries in the Testsaved West Indies from losing 2-0.

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India thrashed in the second Test

By Kersi Meher-Homji

No.1 ranked India were ahuge disappointment inthe second Test at Trent

Bridge against England. Theywere walloped by 319 runs andare trailing 0-2 with two Testsstill to be played.

The first two days of the Testfluctuated with India ahead. MSDhoni won the toss, decided tofield and the Indian medium-pac-ers Praveen Kumar, IshantSharma and S. Sreesanth hadEngland batsmen in trouble. At 8-124 India appeared on top.

But the English tail waggedand they totalled 221, No. 9 bats-

man Stuart Broad top-scoringwith 64.

India appeared in a winningposition when Rahul Dravid(117), VVS Laxman (54) andYuvraj Singh (62) took them to 4-267. Thus India led by 46 runswith six wickets (includingDravid’s and Yuvraj’s) in hand.A lead of 150 was on the cards.

But the fall of Yuvraj precipi-tated a collapse. Broad took 6-46including a hat-trick dismissingDhoni, Harbhajan Singh andKumar in three fatal deliveries.Soon India toppled from 4-267 to9-273, losing five wickets in fiveruns and were dismissed for 288.

Trailing by 67 runs England

lost 2-57. India still had the matchin hand.

Then things started goingwrong for India, very wrong, ter-ribly wrong.

Ian Bell scored a brilliant 159and received admirable supportfrom Eoin Morgan and Matt PriorBut when on 137 Bell wasdeclared run out at the stroke oftea on day-3. But after many con-sultations, Dhoni showed sports-manship of the highest order torecall Bell. This incident isreported in full elsewhere on thispage.

Disheartened, India bowledpoorly and tail-enders TimBresnan (90) and Broad (44)

added quick runs.England amassed 544 setting

India an astronomical 478 runs towin in almost ten hours. At leastIndia can go for a draw withDravid and VVS in form andSachin due for a big score, patri-otic Indians prayed.

These hopes were dashedwhen India lost Dravid and VVSwith only 13 on the board andwere soon 3-31.

For once on this tourTendulkar (56) batted like a mas-ter with all the strokes at his com-mand. But the others folded andIndia was 6-55. Just thenHarbhajan (46) added valuableruns with Sachin. But it was too

little too late, India folded up for158 miserable runs and lost by ahuge margin of 319 runs.

Tall Tim Bresnan captured 5-48, Jimmy Anderson 3-51 andBroad 2-30.

For his 8 wickets in the Test(including a match-turning hat-trick) and scores of 64 and 44Broad was the worthy Man of theMatch.

Will India spring back in thethird Test starting on 10thAugust? They will have to winthis Test if they want to retain herNo.1 ranking.

Will the presence of VirenderSehwag and Zaheer Khan reversethe swing India’s way?

In the past India imitated Australiain cricket. Now the shoe is on theother foot - Australia mimicking

India! After the sensational success ofIPL Twenty20 in India, Australiacopied the idea with KFC T20 BigBash League (BBL).

The Indian Down Under was invit-ed to the media launch of the 2011-12BBL launch this week. I was lucky tomeet Test cricketers past and present,Matthew Hayden, Brett Lee, DougBollinger, Brad Haddin, UsmanKhawaja, Nathan Hauritz, CameronWhite, Marcus North, AndrewMcDonald, James Hopes, Tim Paine,Steven Smith, our own Lisa Sthalekaramong others.

Usman Khawaja was delighted tobe selected for the tour of Sri Lankain August-September. He chatted withme about his Test debut against

England in Sydney this January, withhis mother praying in the LadiesPavilion!

The captains of the eight sides --Haddin, Warner, Hopes, North,Paine, McDonald, White and MichaelKlinger -- paraded in their colourfuloutfits. They will captain SydneySixers, Sydney Thunder, BrisbaneHeat, Perth Scorchers, HobartHurricanes, Melbourne Renegades,Melbourne Stars and AdelaideStrikers; in that order.

The BBL T20 festival is due tostart on 16 December at 7pm on theSydney Cricket Ground.

Rahul Dravid’s century in the first innings went in vain.

For his 8 wickets in the Test (including a match-turning hat-trick)and scores of 64 and 44 Stuart Broad was the worthy

Man of the Match.

Matthew Hayden all set to fire forBrisbane Heat at the BBL media launch

(courtesy CricInfo).

The author represented The IndianDown Under at the launch of 2011-12BBL, Australia having copied the ideaafter the sensational success of IPLTwenty20 in India.

Sydney Sixers, Brisbane Heat or HobartHurricanes -- have your pick

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The Kersi Meher-Homji column

India was thrashed by England in theTrent Bridge Test by a massive mar-gin but skipper MS Dhoni was laud-

ed for his sportsmanship in recallingEnglish batsman Ian Bell after he wasdeclared out by the umpires.

Bell’s carelessness could have result-ed in one of the biggest controversies inthe game’s history but Dhoni (advisedby senior team mates Sachin Tendulkarand Rahul Dravid) gave Bell a secondlife.

By laws of cricket India was correctin appealing for a run-out when Bell wasout of his crease. The umpire Asad Raufhad not called “over” for tea break.

As TV commentators agreed, theball was not dead but alive and kicking.

Obviously Bell and probably his bat-ting partner Eoin Morgan thought that itwas tea time and were returning to thepavilion when the former was declaredrun out on a technicality.

Full praises to Dhoni for recallingBell to resume his splendid innings. Thespirit of the game was restored and ahuge controversy was avoided.

This Ian Bell incident rings a bell.A similar incident occurred 37 years

ago in the Port-of-Spain Test ofFebruary 1974. And the “villain” of thepiece was England’s all-rounder TonyGreig.

It was the first Test of the seriesbetween the West Indies and England.England was dismissed for 131 and thehome team replied with 392. Inbetween there was an incident similar toBell’s in the recent Trent Bridge Test.

Off the last ball of the second day ofthe Port-of-Spain Test, there occurredan extraordinary incident which led toangry crowd reactions followed by along meeting between the officials ofboth teams.

This is how it happened.

When West Indian batsman BernardJulien played the last ball of day-2 downthe pitch, Greig picked it up.

Then observing that Alvin

Kallicharran was out of the crease, hethrew down the stumps and appealed.Kallicharran was declared run out byumpire Sang Hue and the crowd was

furious.After long dialogue and consulta-

tions between captains Mike Dennesse(England) and Rohan Kanhai (WI),umpires Sang Hue and R. Gosein andadministrators, the appeal was with-drawn.

Greig and England’s manager Carrapologised and peace was restored.Kallicharran resumed his batting, likeBell did in the recent Test.

Kallicharran took his score to 158.Coincidentally, Bell also went on toscore 159 at Trent Bridge.

India lost this Test but they hadshown sportsmanship not shown inrecent times. Would Ricky Ponting orSteve Waugh or Greg Chappell havedone what Dhoni did? I very muchdoubt it.

Well done India. The spirit of crick-et is alive and well. The spectators whobooed the Indian team for appealing forthe Bell run-out deserve to be booed.

There was another instance ofsportsmanship in cricket, also by anIndian captain.

In the Bombay (now Mumbai) Testof February 1980, England’s IanBotham and Bob Taylor added 171 runsfor the 4th wicket. However, their standcould have ended at 85 when umpire HRao upheld an appeal against Taylor forcaught behind off Kapil Dev.

Taylor protested but the umpire wasunmoved. However, skipper GRViswanath who was fielding in the slips,had noticed that there was no contactbetween bat and ball.

He persuaded the umpire to rescindhis decision. He did, and Englandrecovered from 5-85 to 296 in the firstinnings and went on to win by 10 wick-ets.

Bravo Vishy in 1980 and bravoDhoni in 2011.

The suggestion of the ICC CEOHaroon Lorgat that the Final ofthe inaugural World Test

Championship to be held in Englandin 2013 could be a timeless Test hasset me thinking.

He said that a prestigious event likethe first ever Test Championshipdeserved a clear winner. His solution?Make it a match that only ends whenone team wins outright.

But is there a guarantee that a time-less Test will produce a result? Thisidea was tried out usually in the finalTest of an undecided series from 1926to 1939. But after the Durban Testfarce of 1939 between South Africaand England it was shelved, never tobe repeated again.

This Test started on 3 March 1939

and went on till 14 March. And whatwas the result? No result!

It was the fifth and final Test of theseries with England leading 1-0. SouthAfrica totalled 530 and dismissedEngland for 316 to lead by 214 runs.South Africa further ground theEnglish attack in the dust by amassing481, setting the visitors 696 to win.

With Bill Edrich, the British bull-dog, making a painstaking 219 andcenturies from Paul Gibb and WallyHammond, England reached 5-654which still remains the highest fourthinnings total.

England needed 42 to win with fivewickets intact. Then what? The matchwas abandoned as a draw. The touristshad to begin their two-day rail journeyto their ship docked in Cape Town.

The 1939 Durban 10-day marathonwas not the first timeless draw. Itwent on from 3 to 12 April 1930between the West Indies and Englandat Jamaica.

England totalled 849 (AndySandham 325, Les Ames 149). WestIndies were dismissed for 286 to trailby a massive 563 runs. England battedagain and declared at 9-272, challeng-ing the home team an astronomical836 to win. Why the English skipperHon. FSG Calthorpe did not enforcethe follow-on or declare earlierremains a mystery.

The Windies were 5-408 (GeorgeHeadley 223), when rains for the lasttwo days abandoned the match as adraw because the visitors had to catchthe ship back home.

Thus a timeless Test does not guar-antee a result although in these days ofair travel catching the boat is not anoption.

The ICC should remember thewords of renowned cricket author andcommentator John Arlott after the1939 Durban Test: “The longestmatch and the highest fourth inningstotal in Test history and only a draw toshow for it, made a joke of timelessTests.”

Quotable Quote"Australian selectors have fallen

asleep on the wheel," formerAustralian Test cricketer PaulSheahan said at the Annual Dinnerof the Australian Cricket Society(NSW) in Sydney in July.

Dhoni’s sportsmanship lauded for recalling careless Bell

Tale of two timeless Tests

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ian Bell

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Oh Lord’s, England too good for India in the 2000th Test

Ojha, Kohli to replace injuredHarbhajan, Yuvraj in England

Dhoni blames it oncramped schedule,

lack of rest

The much-hyped Lord’s Test,the 100th between Englandand India and 2000th in all,

ended in a disappointing anticlimaxfor India. They lost by a massive196 run margin.

We can make excuses -- andsome were genuine -- but face it,England was simply too good forIndia and was the worthy winner.

A headline screamed:“Uncooked India gets chewed”.Cruel but correct to a large extent.

First, the excuses or explana-tions:

� Zaheer Khan, the reverseswing king, started well takingvaluable wickets on the openingday. But he pulled a hamstring andwas off the field for four days outof five.

� Gautam Gambhir got apainful blow on the elbow whenfielding at short leg position andcould not open India’s second in-nings.

� Opening daredevil batsmanVirender Sehwag was injured dur-ing an IPL match and was unavail-able for this Test.

� Sachin Tendulkar developedviral infection and was off the fieldfor almost four hours on day-4 andwas allowed to bat only at no.5 po-sition in the second innings.

� Too much pressure was puton Tendulkar with the milestone of100th international century, and hisfirst Test hundred at Lord’s hang-ing over his head.

� India was underprepared

having played only one countymatch on English soil prior to thehistoric first Test at Lord’s.

Now let’s analyse the bulletitems logically.

Zaheer Khan’s and Gambhir’sinjuries during the Test andSehwag’s prior to it were unfortu-

nate. But why select Zaheer in thefirst place at Lord’s when heappeared unfit on eve of the Test?It was a gamble which did not payoff.

With 177 Tests before theLord’s Test under his belt and over14,700 runs, Tendulkar must be

used to pressures and expectations.He batted poorly, especially in thesecond innings. Perhaps the viralinfection inhibited his style or per-haps the accuracy of the Englishattack or both.

The three major causes ofIndia’s decapitation were:

� England out-batted andout-bowled India. England hadmany heroes, Man of the MatchKevin Pietersen hitting an unbeaten202 and Jonathan Trott and wicket-keeper Matt Prior scoring valuable70s in the first innings.

In the second innings, Englandwas tottering at 5-62 and then were6-107, but were rescued by Prior(103 not out) and Stuart Broad (74not out) adding 162 winning runsfor the unbroken seventh wicket.Their pace attack of JamesAnderson, Broad and ChrisTremlett upset Indian batsmen,apart from Rahul Dravid unbeaten103 in the first innings and gallantfifties by VVS Laxman and SureshRaina in the second. PraveenKumar bowled well in the firstinnings and Ishant Sharma wasunplayable before lunch on thefourth day.

� Mahendra Singh Dhoni’scaptaincy was sub-standard. I ama big admirer of Dhoni and have re-peatedly ranked him as India’s bestcaptain ever. Under him (with GaryKirsten as coach), India won the2011 World Cup and is ranked No.1 in Tests and No.2 in one-day in-ternationals.

But he has become over-defen-sive of late. In the final Test inWest Indies last month, he was sat-isfied with a draw when he couldhave gone for a win which was

possible. In the Lord’s Test he won the

toss and sent England in to bat.England said “Thank you” anddeclared at 8-474. He bowled him-self when Raina and Tendulkarwere available. His worst folly wasremoving Ishant Sharma from theattack after lunch when Englandwas on her knees at 5-72.

� India’s preparation waspoor. We all enjoy watching IPLT20 matches. Highly entertaining.But it resulted in injuries to Se-hwag, Gambhir, Zaheer and Yu-vraj Singh.

India’s morale was on a highafter lifting the 2011 World Cupon 2 April. Then started the cash-filled but meaningless IPL a weeklater.

Soon after this circus was over,India left for the West Indies. Andwithout rest and with only onepractice match they took on thewell-prepared England.

To get used to English condi-tions is always difficult for a tour-ing team.

And to play a Test in bleakEngland after days in hotCaribbean was like studying forAlgebra and appearing for Physicsexam at the HSC.

Meanwhile England had doneher home work on her own pitchesagainst Sri Lanka.

They were like a well-oiledmachine and India was bicyclingwith a motor car wheel. HopeBCCI learns from this.

But it was not all doom andgloom. Dravid’s first century atLord’s and Ishant Sharma’s pene-trating bowling spells were liketorch lights in a starless, moonlessdark night.

Nottingham: Left-arm spinnerPragyan Ojha and middle-orderbatsman Virat Kohli were on Aug3 called up to join the injury-hitIndian team as replacements forHarbhajan Singh and YuvrajSingh, both of whom have beenruled out for the rest of the Testseries against England.

While Harbhajan has suffereda grade I abdominal muscle strain,Yuvraj has fractured his left indexfinger during the second Testagainst England which the visitorslost by a massive 319 runs.

"The all-India senior selectioncommittee has picked Virat Kohliand Pragyan Ojha as their replace-ments. Both players will join theIndian team at the earliest," BCCIsecretary N Srinivasan said in astatement.

Yuvraj, who struck a half-cen-tury in the second Test, injured hisfinger when he got hit by a TimBresnan snorter during an improb-able 478-run chase at TrentBridge.

Harbhajan, who has struggledto find form in the series so far,also picked up the injury duringthe second Test.

The off-spinner bowled just13.4 overs in the second Test andhas been woefully out of form inthe series. The tweaker grabbed 1for 69 in the second Test after his1 for 218 in the first at Lord's.

Yuvraj's injury may takearound four weeks to recover,while Harbhajan is likely to getback to full fitness in three weeks'time, which leaves a questionmark over their participation in the

first few matches of the five-matchODI series starting September 3.

The Indians have beenbesieged by injury concerns evenbefore the start of the series.

Virender Sehwag, who joinedthe team on Wednesday and isexpected to play in the third Test atEdgbaston, had to pull out of thefirst two matches owing to a shoul-der injury.

The Indians were struck anoth-er body blow when pace spearheadZaheer Khan suffered a hamstringstrain on the first morning of thefirst Test.

Gautam Gambhir picked up anelbow injury after being hit by afull-blooded sweep shot by MattPrior at Lord's. He missed the lastTest but is set to play atEdgbaston.

Nottingham: Faced with theprospect of losing the numberone tag after conceding a 0-2 leadto England in the ongoing Testseries, India captain MahendraSingh Dhoni blamed a crampedschedule for his team's poor per-formance so far.

He, however, hoped that withconsiderable rest before the nextTest of the four-match series,India will stage a turnaround.

"Somebody said time is ofessence here. We came straightfrom the Caribbean and didn'thave time to play more than one(practice) game. So we are play-ing seven and not four matches

back-to-back," said Dhoni afterIndia suffered a crushing 319-rundefeat at the hands of England inthe second Test at Trent Bridgeon Aug 1.

"It (this series) is a continua-tion of the West Indies tour andwe haven't really had a gap. Youneed to prepare differently (forEngland tour). In this respect thenext 10 days are very important,"he added.

With Virender Sehwag set tojoin the squad, and GautamGambhir and Zaheer Khan likelyto be fit for the third Test atEdgbaston on August 10, Dhoniexpressed hope of a comeback.

England had many heroes in the first Test against India, main onebeing Man of the Match Kevin Pietersen who hit an unbeaten 202

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Community

August - September 2011 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER 59

Sydney Vedanta Centre in Ermington has embarked on an ambitious project of constructing aTemple, Library and Lecture Hall at 2 Stewart Street, Ermington, NSW.

On July 30th the priests and Sydney community conducted a ‘Bhoomi Puja’ in the presence ofGeneral Secretary of the International Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Swami Prabhananda.Swamiji launched a spritual website: www.spiritualbookstore.org.au on the occasion and gave a ninspiring talk on ‘Charm of the gospel of Sr Ramakrishna’. He visited Melbourne, Brtisbane andPerth Centres as well.

Devotees, followers of the Sydney Centre congregated to witness this important event whichpromises to culminate into an important abode for the Indian community who follow Vedanticlifestyle, activities and lectures that include Swami Sridharananda’s Gita lectures on Sundays andare quite pouplar.

Bhoomi Puja ceremony was conducted with over 300 people in an atmosphere of mantras andbhajans by young children, bhoomi puja and prasad provided by the mothers.

Here are some pictures of the devotees, monks Swami Sridharananda, SwamiDamodarananda, Swami Atmeshananda, Swami Chandr Shekharananda with SwamiPrabhananda and below an architectural drawing of the the Centre to be completed by 2013.

Vedanta Centre conducts bhoomi puja

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AmitabhBachchan

Madhavan

MadhurBhandarkar

Abhishek Bachchan

FromSeptember 23rd - 30th

0431 189 508

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THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - Septmber 2011 65

What is Australi-a-sia FilmFestival?

AIFF attempts to bring independent and art house Indian cinema to a wider Australian audience. It aims toexpose Indian subcultures to the Australian public to foster greater understanding between India andAustralia. Using feature films, documentaries and short films as a medium, AIFF's movie premiers, screen-ings and events aim to provide an insight into the colorful Indian culture from unique perspectives.

AIFF aims to support events including actor and director workshops and networking sessions that will con-nect working film professionals internationally. These workshops will be made available to engage membersof the public who are entranced by films. This festival aims to promote Australia as a viable market for filmmaking and sales. AIFF provides a plat-form for recognition of cinematic excellence to filmmakers across the globe. Australia is an up and coming market with government incentives in line to bring international filmsonshore. AIFF is the perfect platform for people from both continents to explore such opportunities.

The festival is currently being attended by many leading superstars, legends of the Indian Film Industry ral-lying around for the AIFF cause and aims to target 300,000 strong vibrant Indian community of Sydneywho are devoted Bollywood buffs down under.

Mr Amitabh Bachchan - Most arguably India's greatest ever superstar, Amitabh Bachchan is the BrandAmbassador of Indian Film industry. We are honoured to have him grace the Opening Gala event of the firstchapter of Australi-a-sia Festival.

Mr Abhishek Bachchan - The next generation star of Indian film industry. Son of legendary actors MrAmitabh Bachchan and Mrs Jaya Bachchan, Abhishek is married to beautiful actress and former MissWorld Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

Mr R. Madhavan - He has been described as one of the few actors in India who is able to achieve pan-Indian appeal, appearing in films from eight different Indian languages. He is the award winning TamilSuper Star commonly known as Maddy famous for his role of portraying a student Farhan Qureshiwith actors Aamir Khan and Sharman Joshi as one of the Idiots in Three Idiots . More recently as Manu in Tanu Weds Manu Madhavan shot to fame in Mani Ratnam's successful romantic filmAlaipayuthey (2003 ).

Mr. Madhur Bhandarkar - He is an award winning talented Indian film director. His works includemovies of the likes of "Chandni Bar" , "Page 3" ,"Fashion" and "Dil to Bachha hai Ji". He will beconducting a Director's workshop for Australian Film students and will be the Chief Judge of AIFFIndependent short film competition.

AIFF Aims to:Contribute to the Queensland Flood Relief FundPromote a multicultural, peaceful and harmonious Australia for all

the communities living here including people from the Indian subconti-nent community

Improve ties between Australia and India and encourage and restoreIndian Film production to Australia and foster bilateral film tradebetween the two nations

Collect Funds for victims of 13/7 Mumbai attacks

AIFF Board and Patrons:

Mr Vijay Kumar, Chairperson

Naman Ramchandran - Journalistand Film Maker

Rasandeep GujralBoard Member

AIFF Staff andOrganisation:AIFF Festival CEO:Amrita Kumar

AIFF Festival Director andCurator, Sydney:Amol Raj Pandey

AIFF Festival Director andCurator, Mumbai:Vivek Anand

AIFF Festival Programme andMarketing Manager:Bhavna Monga

Sponsorship and PublicityManager:Rahul Malik

Media sponsors:The Indian Down Under NewspaperVoice of India - Monika GeetmalaHindi GauravCatering:Surjit’s Indian RestaurantAIFF Website:http://www.tigermoss.com/aiffContact:

0431 189 508

Australi-a-sia Independent Film Festival

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66 THE INDIAN DOWN UNDER August - September 2011

Amrita Kumar, FestivalOrganiser and CEO specializesin production and direction andhas trained at the MetropolitanFilm School, Ealing Londonworked as an Independent FilmProducer in London after hav-ing moved there from Sydneyfounded a company called TigerMoss Media Limited, working asa Production and CreativeDirector.

Amrita's short film "ButWhite Men Can't Dance? (2007)featuring a short story onarranged marriages and findinglove was selected as a part of theshort film screenings in London'sPremiere Asian Film Festival,Tongues on Fire. Her film "PinkCrusaders in the World of Saris(2009)" based on the true life

story of the fiery rural women'srights social crusader was select-ed for the short film screeningby the Bombay mix festival andhuman rights festival and broad-cast on Community Television,Channel Five.

Amrita worked on theCommittee for the London AsianFilm Festival (Tongues on FireAsian Film Festival 2008-2010),developing festival program andco-coordinating marketing andpublicity efforts and events withGurinder Chadha (Bend it LikeBeckham), Mira Nair (MonsoonWedding) and Asif Kapadia (TheWarrior) and Deepa Mehta(Fire, Earth and Water).

TIDU talks to Amrita Kumarabout AIFF, what it aims toachieve and why we need such a

festival for Sydney city, saysshe, "It has been my dream forAustralia to host an event suchas the AIFF, that aims to bringthe best of subcontinent toAustralian shores. We grow upwith films in India and they arean integral part of our society.In Australia we have tremen-dous exposure to InternationalMedia and films and with theinterest growing in Indian cine-ma world wide its the right timethat Australians be exposed tothe depth and breadth of whatour films have to offer. Onlyoccasionally do we see the kindof cinema that European andNorth American countries havestarted to witness high caliberfilms that are shown in worldclass festivals like Cannes,Berlin, Venice and Sundance.We as a nation get very littleopportunity to watch these filmsthat come from every part of oursocieital existence. Australianshave a great taste of mainstreamBollywood masala however alot work of good independentcinema is overlooked which iswhat we are trying to bring toSydney

She adds, "We'll be showingfilms at the Dendy Opera Quaysand mainstream cinemas like theReading and possibly Chauvel.These are mainstream hubs forinternational cinema and perfectto get the Australian massesengaged and entertained.”

Is Australia ready for such afestival of Indian cinema, saysAmrita, "It is a try. And I amworking hard to see how we canattract local Australians to appre-ciate our movies. We have agood line up of films with amixture of old school bollys tocrossovers meeting art house topure independent cinema. Onefilmmaker that comes to mind isNishta Jain. We also have theprivilege of mainstream rallyingsupport for us with celebritieslike Abhishek Bachchan, andR Madhavan and Directors like

Madhur Bhandarkar making thisfestival a great week of starpower, glamour, glitterati and toadd pizzaz to the festival. Notonly will there be an Openingand Closing Gala Event we willalso have a Actors' andDirectors' workshops conductedby our celebrity crew”.

AIFF has been in planningsince early this year and onlyfrom July things started to movefast, says Amrita, "It has notbeen easy for Indian studentshere and improving race rela-tions here in the light of this as Iwanted AIFF to help mend ourrelationships and perceptions asa racially harmonious country.Not a days goes past withouthearing of an episode of a racial-ly motivated attack, I think ourcelebrities can help endorse bet-ter relations between India andAustralia.. After all it was onlyAmitabh Bachchan himself whohad declined peacefully to visitAustralia after the racial attacksand it would be an honour tohave him come back and reen-gage with the Australian publicto amend our perceptions as apeace and harmonious nation."

"The government ofAustralia has realised the reper-cussions of knocking back stu-dents from India which hasaffected local education industrypretty badly. This is why we'rerequesting them to get involvedwith this event. We're alsorequesting student associationsto come and lend us a hand.”

"No one is better off as stu-dent numbers have dwindled andFederal and State governmentshere now are trying their utmostto patch up relations between thetwo countries. I felt Indian cine-ma would be the best bridge towalk together for both of us -India and Australia."

"Not only our cinema willhelp ease in the tension it willharness and nurture back thestrained environment for Indiansstudents to come to Australia and

that it is a beautiful country forall of us to live harmoniously."

"Bollywood is the best medi-um to make Sydney dance and Ihave with my background inmovies added some classy onesthat include 'Kabhi Kabhi' ofAmitabh Bachchan from yester-years. By the way we are tryingto rope in the senior Bachchanwho is also considering to comeand speak for the sake of all ofus and Indian students. If heendorses AIFF and helps us toachieves its aims and objective Iwill be the most happiest per-son." says Amrita as she giggles.

What are the highlightsagain?

"Well there is a selection ofmovies like 'Vihir' , ‘The Girl inthe Yellow Boots’, ‘Shor in theCity’ and ‘Mai’ and then wehave excitement packed Galaevents, short-film competitionfor budding film makers. Wemay have a Bollywood dancecompettion towards the closinggala event. Who knows the nextitem girl - the Sheila of Sydneymay be crowned on the night.After all there are many bolly-wood dancers here who wouldlove to dance and may want toparticipate.”

How would you likeSydneysiders to help you? "Iwant people to come forwardand help support as this is theFilm Festival which promises tobecome the annual mainstay ofSydney scene. AIFF is their fes-tival and they can show theirfriends what the spirit of Indiais all about That there is greatspirit and energy to mix, mingleand meet and enjoy watchingIndian films with all their excit-ment and be a part of a greatexperience right here in Sydney.I want young people to comeand see our cinema and discovertheir roots.”

Amol Raj Pandey Rahul MalikVivek Anand Bhavna Monga

AIFF Team:

Bachchans to endorse Australi-a-sia Film Fest

Amrita Kumar, CEO AIFF

Australi-a-sia Independent Film Festival

Page 67: Indian Down Under E-paper Aug - Sep. 2011

Event Highlights:Sydney does a Bolly!

Australi-a-sia Independent Film Festival (AIFF) is scheduled from September 23rd - 30th, 2011.Important Events to watch out for at AIFF:

23rd September 2011Never Before!

Opening Gala Event - Australian Government honours Mr Amitabh Bachchan. Upcoming Movie Promo of Mr Abhishek Bachchan.

26th September 2011Learn how they do it in Bollywood!

Actor & Director's Workshop and Short Film Competition - Renowned Indian Film Direcrtor Mr Madhur Bhandarakarwill conduct a workshop for Australian Film Students. Also he will judge the ongoing short film competition and

announce the winners of AIFF Short Film competition on September 30, 2011

From September 23rd - 30th 2011Biggest Bollywood Fare in Sydney!

There will be over 30 extravagant colourful Indian movies running in different theatre venues across Sydney for

September 30Closing Extravaganza!

Closing Gala Event - The grand event will be closed in the presence of popular Indian Film Star Mr. R. Madhavanwith all the glittering media as AIFF takes a break promising a bigger and a better film showcase next year.

Australi-a-sia Independent Film Festival

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