Archive for November, 2009

Diwali in Brisbane

November 25, 2009 · Filed under Emotions, Living · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This Diwali I missed my home – India , very much.

Being in Brisbane there was no question of all those crackers (Anaars, spirals,Torches, Rockets and not to mention – the noisy ones – I don’t like them).  Thank God it was a saturday !!!! We planned for a get together, everybody cooked traditional dishes – Pooran poli, besan ladoo and Rajma – rice from marathi friend; rawa ladoo,sambhar, lemon rice and vada from andhra friend and Matar-paneer, Nariyal ladoo, vegetable pulao and boondi raita were my creation. I cleaned my house in the morning (just I do daily) with vacuum cleaner (no water washing needed due to carpets), lighten some diyas in my balcony (as the smoke alarm is very active and spills the beans to everyone), did pooja of Lakshmi-Ganeshji and went to my friend’s house. 

My friend who invited us for the get together, decorated her house with hand-made (wheat flour) diyas keeping them over banana leaves. We got some small,star-shaped sparkling torches (phooljhadi) for kids. We all were talking about how we celebrate Diwali in India and how this Diwali is being celebrated. We enjoyed dinner and came back home.

Om Shanti Om @ SBS1, Oz

I switched on my t.v. for late night news and to my utter surprize, SBS1 (Australian t.v. channel) was telecasting Om Shanti Om – yes you read right – featuring SRK and Deepika Padukone. The movie was in Hindi with english subtitles. I was filled with nostalgia.. I watched the whole movie and it was without any commercial. I thanked SBS for this      great job.

multicultural fest@ romastreet parklands

 

Next day (Sunday) we went to Roma street parklands for the multicultural festival – organised by Queensland government. There were shops from several countries – Food stalls, mehandi and tattoo stalls, face painting, clothes and the most important – several performances from various countries. And guess what ?? The Bollywood dhamaka presented by Aarti Saha and her team got maximum number of audiences. They did a Jai ho and asked everybody to join and do their bit. It was an awesome experience to see non-indians dancing to the tunes of Bollywood !!

Once again I will say that Australia truly represents a multicultural society and has gained respect in my eyes. Thanks to my dear friends in Brisbane who made my Diwali memorable.  

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Gali Gali Sim Sim – Indian Sesame Street

November 5, 2009 · Filed under Kids · Tagged , , , ,

Happy 40th Anniversary Sesame Street !! 

Chamki

Chamki

Gali gali sim sim was a serendipity to me. Once I was crawling through the tv channels at 2:00 pm in order to get a company for lunch at home (food without a company is a curse for me), I saw this programme on POGO channel. I never liked cartoons and animations. But this programme was something different and it was this difference which made me to stick to it. It is aimed at the kids, ready for formal pre school education. But the presentation is so beautiful that I sometimes watch it for the whole 30 minutes. The main characters were CHAMKI – a 5 year old girl, a lion, googly, and few more; now i cannot recall the names. There was an Akshar Kumar who taught one alphabet a day. There were intresting ways of learning shapes, colours, name of fruits and vegetables. And one child from any part of the world was introduced telling about his place of living, where his father/any other member of family works and how they work. It was so fun to watch those intresting explainations from young children.

The song of gali gali sim sim was :  

Kuch to mast baat hai is jagah ki,

gali gali me baat hai is jagah ki,

yaha hai khalbali har cheez manchali,

ticket ho ya na ho, ye gari chal pari….. gali gali sim sim, gali gali sim sim….

Googly wanted to go to space, Chamki being the darling of the show and the Lion ate vegetables. I, then told many people who were having kids, about Gali Gali Sim Sim. And to my surprize none of them had seen the programme before. Now , they are loving it !!

 I had no idea that gali gali sim sim was the indianized version of Sesame street untill i went to sea world ,Goldcoast, Australia; and saw a satge performance of the sesame street characters. The logo on their stage was same as that of the gali gali sim sim. Then I realized the similarity.

These days I’m not watching it but surely will do that with my kid when I’ll go back home. Thanks to the person, the team, behind the idea of spreading the Sesame workshop all over the world. Thanks to  Sesame Workshop international producer Nadine Zylstra. With one out of six children in the world living in India, the potential for positive change is breathtaking. Sesame Workshop hopes many children will benefit from the message Chamki gives, “Stay in school, study, work hard; there isn’t anything you can’t do.”

Once again MANY MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY SESAME STREET !!

 

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SeaWorld – Gold Coast – Pics

November 2, 2009 · Filed under Environment, Photography · Tagged , , , , , , ,

star fish

Star Fishes @ seaworld

imagine..
Imagine….Dolphin show
dancing dolphins

Dancing Dolphins @sea world

Elmo's Sea Subs

fishes
awesome…..
Polar Bear

The Polar Bear @ sea worldKidz Zone

sea world
Beautiful Sea World @GoldCoast, Australia
sea lion

A Sea-Lion

how we interfere

How we interfere

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Sea World – Gold Coast

November 2, 2009 · Filed under Living, Photography, Travelog · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sea world is a theme park based on marine life and is situated at Sea World Drive, 3 km north of Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

How to get there?? Well, we took the Gold Coast train at 8:00 am from the roma street station and reached to Helensvale station in an hour. From there we got the bus for sea world and it took 25 minutes to reach there. 

the monorail

Monorail @Sea world

At the entrance we met Sesame street ( Gali Gali Sim Sim /pogo channel) characters, posing with kids. Kids were too happy to meet their favourite characters (Elmo looked the brightest of all). Near the entrance were the monorail station and the ropeway halt. For having a picturesque view of sea world, one must try the monorail and the ropeway. the best part is – these are free of cost. For a  wider and  bird eye view of the area, helicopter rides are there with a fee of 55 AUD /person /10 min approx.

After getting an idea of the place, we headed to the dolphin cove, where Beautiful dolphins were dancing to the tunes of human being. I knew that dolphins have got stong smelling- power and are capable of understanding human actions but knowing something and watching it are different aspects. A show was running demonstrating how we can live in harmony with other creatures of this planet. A trained staff was having a ride over a dolphin and it was too fast. Then those dolphins responded to palm movements, head movement of humans and to the rhythms. It’s magical for me to see the closeness of man and other animals. At least I can never try that.

There were several rides – jet rescue, cork screw – all horrifying for me. Screams of people who were riding scared me. One BERMUDA TRIANGLE RIDE was there which was not so speedy so I did not miss the chance. It showed the possible happenings which occurred to the lost planes and ships and was a good try.

 The Sesame Street Beach was a heaven for kids. It had train and helicopter rides, merry-go-round, bird bouncer, and a splash zone. A show featuring all sesame street characters was there and not only kids but everyone danced to their tunes.

Wait wait….in the animal section there were Polar Bears, sharks,sting rays, sea urchins, star fishes; and you could hand feed some of them. I wanted to spend some more time watching the beauty of sea world inhabitants but …..there’s always a time limit for everything (???????)

There were plenty of food stalls, food from outside is not allowed unless you have special dietary requirement.

It was a beautiful day in a beautiful place. I’m planning to go once more…..Amen !

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