Australia is all about nature

The land area of Australia is 7 times of India and population is 2.5 crores roughly India produces Australian population every year. This country is in the Southern Hemisphere so weathers are just reverse, So we make it a point to visit our son in Australia during extreme summer months of India when it is deep winter there, thus for the last 12 years we are enjoying 2 winters every year.

The entry restriction in this country are many, we can not carry wood,plants,seeds, milk products etc...even soil stuck to the sole of an old shoe is barred.

Once you are in you are safe because people are disciplined and law abiding. Very rarely one comes across cheat or thieves. All malls having CCTVs and all movements are on record. We have seen them nabbing shop lifters through camera. All products are RIFD tagged so gets registered while taken unauthorized.

We go to our son who is in Gold Coast and for that we take flight to Brisbane. Gold Coast is among the top beaches of the world. 

Being so near to sea we make it a point to visit the sea beach by the side of South Pacific Ocean as frequently as possible.

The Australians are very much outdoorish and they love to bike,surf , head for family picnic etc. One has to be physically fit if one wants to keep pace with them. I have not seen any Indian adopting this life style though they have got citizenship. I love biking so i was merrily cycling around the suburb where my son stays, my 8 years old grandson was the motivator, he is a great biker.

During our stay we made couple of trip to Brisban which is the nearest biggest city and Gaba stadium of Brisbane is the venue for international cricket matches. The river front of Brisbane was spruced up during 1988 World Expo to make it look like the river front of Thames in London. Yes it has it's own Brisbane eye...a giant Ferris Wheel. One can take river cruise in Catamarans on river Brisbane.

We sampled international cuisine here as the authentic brand restaurant of those countries have opened shop.

Now i will let the pictures speak for itself.

South Pacific Ocean...Surfer's Paradise 

  

South Pacific Ocean ...Point Danger

Brisbane River front and Catamaran cruise..

The forest and mountain range of Mount Tamborine..

Sports and biking..

International cuisine...Italian,Mexican,Chinese,Thai etc...scientific toy  shops, vintage cars

We spent more than 100 days in Australia and i set a routine of every day biking and going to the community centre library where books,internet,DVDs,Wifi,newspapers everything is free..

We used to walk down 1 km to that library....also i had the fortune of watching full blown rainbow 3 times..

I have many sweet memories but will keep that for some other day..

Chandannagar

Chandannagar
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On 17th of May,2015 i visited this place to attend a marriage then snatched some time in between to have a look around. 
It is like any other small city of Bengal. It is about 40kms from Calcutta. There are a lot of local trains on Bandal route for this place. We came by road,it took us about one and half hours.
The road along the Ganges is the happening place in the evening for the young lovers.It has been a French colony. A brief history of the place is given below.
Chandannagar was established as a French colony in 1673, when the French obtained permission from Ibrahim Khan, the Nawab of Bengal, to establish a trading post on the right bank of the Hughli River. Bengal was then a province of the Mughal Empire. It became a permanent French settlement in 1688, and in 1730 Joseph François Dupleix was appointedgovernor of the city, during whose administration more than two thousand brick houses were erected in the town and a considerable maritime trade was carried on. For a time, Chandannagar was the main center for European commerce in Bengal.
India became independent of Britain in 1947, and in June 1948 the French Government held a plebiscite which found that 97% of Chandannagar's residents wished to become part of India. In May 1950, the French allowed the Indian government to assume de facto control over Chandannagar, officially ceding the city to India on 2 February 1951. De jure transfer took place on 9 June 1952. On 2 October 1954 Chandannagar was integrated into the state of West Bengal.
Here are some of the pictures which i took..... Sacred Heart Church, The Strand, Session Court all built during French rule...and of course the river front.

Calcutta Maidan and the Holy Ganges

The flowers can represent anything...here the flowers and the fresh leaves represent the future generation...let us protect Maidan and Ganges for them...











These two are related because these are our protectors.The Calcutta Maidan is known as the lungs of the city and Ganges can be termed as our blood stream. But we are hell bent in ravaging these.

Durga Pujo, 2007

Durga Pujo, 07
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Like every year this year also Pujo came and went. For some it is worship of goddess Durga, for some it is the time to go out for pleasure trip from the daily hum drum of city life, for some it is pure adda with family and friends, some will go pandal hopping and sampling the roadside food.
I really like the ambience of Pujo, for me it does not necessarily mean that I should be going gaga over pujo. I like the distant sound of dhak in the morning when I wake up during pujo. The early morning gives a feeling that winter is round the corner, the sound of children running around in their new Pujo dresses makes me feel happy as the innocence of childhood is still there. I try to soak in the sight, sound and the smell of Pujo. As far as food is concerned during Pujo, I really like the khichuri bhog with labda, oom heavenly. Somehow during this Pujo though I had the khichuri bhog two times but unfortunately it did not meet the standard set by me.
Someone jokingly told me that practically every Pujo pandal worth its salt in Calcutta got prize as all most all the channels, news papers, product companies were eager to give out prizes to promote them. Left to me I would have given prize to the best khichuri and labda….will some one pass this massage to the future prize givers.
The thing which I don’t like about this Pujo is the pollution of Ganges after the immersion of the idols. Some innovative solution has to be found to check this grand pollution. I could take a snap of a washed out idol on the bank of Ganges, the Sadhu in the picture was also quite disturbed by the pollution.

I have deliberately started the picture series from the end, when ultimately all the idols become like the washed out one snapped by me.
I have posted a few of the pics taken by me when the crowd was thin. By the way the traditional Pujo used to start from Sasthi with Pranprathista of the Devi but now it has been integrated backward and shifted to chaturthi as it can’t be forward integrated after Dashami. I apprehend that gradually Pujo will start from Mahalaya, a ten days long carnival in Bengal.

The little man with a long name

The little man with a long name
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Yes he is Ashvyn Samar-Owen Roy, my grandson. To my knowledge he is the first person who had 2 baptisms in a span of one month. He was first baptized to Hinduism and then to Christianity. All these happened in Gold Coast, Australia. The bottom line is not what religion one follows but is whether one is good person who cares about others. Like the song in Hindi..” Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega, Insan ka aulad hai tu insan banega….roughly translated it means “neither you will become Hindu nor Muslim but you are off spring of human being so you will become human”….We were sad to leave him and his parents in Australia on 2nd October, 07, but we were happy that he took the trouble of coming to the Brisbane Airport to see us off. He kept us busy with his antics before we proceeded for the security check.