INDIRA LAISRAM

I have a friend who insists on sending her postcards wherever I am travelling. Shit I never seem to find time for that as I am busy eating, shopping, clicking pictures of myself and screening which to put up on Facebook. I was in Hobart, harbour capital of Tasmania, last weekend. Such a picturesque place but neither my camera nor my cameraman did any justice to the place. So I was looking at postcards to frame as memoirs. Salamanca market I usually find Australia such a uniform country, uniform in its sight, sound, smell and colour. You find a Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Valleygirl, Sportsgirl, etc., everywhere and you find similar houses and similar layouts of suburbs. Most Indians would describe that about the west especially coming from diverse, chaotic, smelly, colourful and peopled backgrounds. After reading travel bible Lonely Planet had listed Hobart as one of the top ten cities of the world to visit, my excitement was palpable. As Jetstar, the airline we were flying in, t

Taking a break from my weepy posts, here’s some gossip. The University of Melbourne’s Australia India Institute seems slush with funds at a time when there is global shrinkage on spending. I have no reasons to complain. Attending a two-day seminar, I got free lunch, a notebook, a pen drive, water bottle, bag, mint in a nice case with the AII emblem on it, and endless rounds to tea and good coffee. I also met a familiar face -  Siddarth Vadarajan, who was at the Times of India way back in 2001. Today, as editor of the Hindu, he has been feted and put up at the Langham along with all the other invitee speakers for the three-day Argumentative Indian seminar. Meeting him was good, brought back memories of ITO. I keep attending seminars after seminars and come back home with information overload as people come with tomes of paper to be read by the audience at least. I am a no different person after the seminar, the knowledge does not inspire me to change the world but what overst