Getting Started
I got the unexpected, but delightful news that I am being sent to Australia for 3-4 months time to work on the Pharmacy product that was recently acquired by iSOFT and probably assist when the transition happens to Chennai. The name of Australia was enough to keep me excited and the city of Melbourne where I will be going to, only added to the excitement.
Since no one had been to Melbourne before (4 of iCM team members went to Perth for two weeks time), I had no idea about the geography and other details of Melbourne. That’s when Satya (my boss) gave me a copy of the core city map of Melbourne and some information on transportation, culture and lifestyle. Since Satya had lived in Melbourne as part of his PG studies, he was able to provide a very good account of the city.
Landing at Melb
It was a normal morning on 28th Sep, 2002 for everyone at Chennai whereas I was rushing towards the airport to catch the 9.45 AM flight to Australia via Singapore. It was Air India and the first mild shock we got was that we haven’t been told about our choice of food. Usually, it is more difficult for veggie like me as they used to carry limited stock. They said they would try their best to get some veggie food. Luckily we got (after everyone in the flight was given the food) and just moments later, there was air-turbulence which lasted for few minutes. I felt something wrong with what had just gone into my stomach; a kind of nauseating feeling crept in. The fact that I hadn’t slept properly for the last few days added to it. I just took the airsickness bag and kept it ready (pro-active you see). The expected happened. Blurb; I vomited everything that had gone in and best part was I felt a lot relieved when the flight made the touchdown at Singapore Changi airport.
We were coming out of the flight, we met another Tamilian, Venkat, who was also traveling to Australia to work for HCL (later in Australia, through Venkat, we came to know another 3 people from HCL, namely Ram, Srinivasan and Bharani who had also come to work for HCL in another project). We spent the 3 hours at Singapore airport wandering around.
The flight to Melbourne was a superb British Airways Boeing 747-400. It was seven hours travel. The interesting part is that it takes an hour or more to enter the Australian continent, but have to wait for another five and half-hours to reach Melbourne since it lies at South. We were provided breakfast (being a veggie, the standard is bun (soft bread), cheese, some mixed rice, curd and pickle) at 4 AM local time in the morning!! And that too they courteously wake you up to have that breakfast. All I could funnily think was the lyrics from the song ‘Hotel California’ by Eagles - they wake you up in the middle of the night just to provide breakfast …
We landed at the Melbourne Airport at 6 AM local time on Sunday 28th Sep morning (in terms of GMT Australia is behind India and so it was still 28th morning even though we started on 28th morning from India - work out your basic maths, you will find out). I was not sure about the climate and was happily traveling without even a sweater. Before landing, we have to fill the formalities of declaring any items we are carrying since Australia (and Newzealand) is very strict about carrying food, wood and fruit items(during the Indian team's tour of NZ in the early 2003, Sehwag and Dravid were fined for carrying shoes which were dirty and was quarantined). I was carrying our south Indian curry powders and so safely declared them. If not and if you get caught, we may end up paying a hefty fine. The customs asked me to open and explain each and every item I was carrying. Luckily I had packaged them very well and labeled appropriately as ‘Sweets made of sugar and milk’, ‘Dry processed powders’ and ‘Deep fried in oil’. He allowed me to pass through. The moment I came out, I realized that I did a grave mistake of not carrying any protective clothing. It was breezy chill and my palms started freezing and my teeth started typing out pages. I didn’t feel the effect of wearing the jeans at all. Venkat went off to a place called Richmond after landing at Melbourne.
Our company colleague (an Australian named Jemahl Lutton) had come to airport to pick us up and we were taken to Travel-Inn hotel for stay on Sunday alone. We were told that we would be moved to the apartment by Monday evening. We took good rest and woke up around 2 PM. We had some information before leaving India about the places around and so we went to have our lunch at Lygon Street, which was next to ours. The street is full of restaurants of tastes from all over the world, but dominated by Italians. We had Pizza and seemed to be ok as I was eating it after a long gap.
I had a relative of mine in Melbourne till 2 years back and he had sent me some contacts. I spoke to couple of them and one of them came on that evening to meet us. His name was Venthan, a Srilankan tamil. He also took us around to some places including a Siva – Vishnu temple at a place called Carom Downs, and later to an Indian restaurant where we bought some curries for dinner and to K-Mart store. I pounced upon a full arm sweater. It was priced at 10 AUD and hence wasn’t too expensive. I felt lot more comfortable after wearing that.
We reported for duty on the next day, Monday and were given a very nice welcome by the staff members. The funniest part was that all three of us went so formally dressed with ties, etc and we found that we three were looking odd men out in the office with rest of them being in very casual clothing that suited them. We had our workplace set up with machines, name cards, mail ids and after rounds of introduction, started getting into the job for which we were entrusted to.
Melbourne
From the next day onwards, we started traveling by tram. It took 20 minutes to reach our place with 5 minutes walk before getting into and after getting down from the tram. The city is well planned and well maintained. The basics of people are met beautifully. Transport is one of the best in this city and Melbourne has been always praised for its transport and liveability. The traffic is streamlined and more importantly people follow the rules. From our apartment, we have to cross the Yarra River to enter the CBD and the place around the river used to always lovely with lots of visitors and shopping activity.
The city of Melbourne is well planned. All the core business offices are located in the heart of the city called CBD (Central Business District). This area is laid out as grids (rows and columns). The residential area starts outside the CBD. There are three zones – 1, 2 and 3 into which all places (including CBD) will fall into. The tickets for traveling can be purchased in terms of 2-hour journey, short trips, daily, weekly and monthly per zone basis. The monthly card of course will be cheaper compared to all others. The weekly and monthly cards can be used to travel up to zone 3 on weekends alone.
Melbourne is known for the quick change in the weather. One can see the four seasons in a single day. General saying I could hear from one of my colleague was that Melbourne’s weather is like a woman’s mind.
Day to day life
We were told that an apartment has been booked for three of us and we would be moved in the evening. We bought few vegetables and groceries once we heard that the apartment is equipped with cooking facility. The apartment was actually huge – a big hall, for rooms for each one of us, a decent kitchen, balcony on the front. But the catch was there was just one bathroom and the rest room was inside and to top it all, the bathroom door had no lock!! Everyday we would wake up in a well defined sequence, so as to use the bathroom in the same order and get started for office. I wake up early, followed by Vivek and then Shankar and this continued for all the four months. The next important task was to prepare food for the night. We boiled the rice we had brought and mixed it up with the curry powders and had a satisfactory meal. On that day, we were desperate to follow the ICC finals between India and Srilanka. We got the information that the match will be shown in a gambling place called Crown Casino, located adjacent to our apartment. We finished our dinner and went there and I should say it was awesome to see that casino. It’s been planned and constructed beautifully. We kept walking through the numerous gambling machines and reached a place where they were showing some football matches on giant screens. We waited but the second half of the match wasn’t coming up. Then we realized that it is somewhere else and kept walking and finally reached a hall where they had three TV’s. And my goodness, there were around 200 people inside the hall, a mix of Indian and Srilankan supporting and cheering their teams. We watched till rain interrupted the match and walked back home around midnight.
Pic: The view of our apartment
The best part of Australian life was the acquaintance with Venthan and introduction to his other friends primarily Mukunthan and Niranjan. Since Venthan's family was away at India, he was also able to spare most of the weekends for us. We usually spend the Saturday’s at office browsing, listening to songs, and just spend remaining time roaming the grid and doing window shopping. Almost every Sunday, Venthan used to pick us up from our apartment and take us to key places in Melbourne. I can very definitely say that if not for him, we would not have seen most of Melbourne. I owe a lot and lot of thanks for taking care of us till we were there.
The first week in office went of fine with each one of us taking our share of work. On Oct 5, Saturday, I visited another family friend of my relative, Raju and family who stay at a 40-minute train journey. He came and picked me at the station and took me to his home where we had couple of more guests – one who is a doctor and other a professor at Monash University. Both have been living in Australia for close to 30 years. I had a very good dinner that day – Bisibelabath (sambar and rice cooked together), pappads, Avial (mix veg curry), Rasam and curd rice; a full fledged south Indian cuisine if I can say. I started back around 10 PM and reached my apartment at 11 PM. It was my first train journey in Australia and it was good. The train system is simple and wonderful. We need to buy the ticket and validate it (otherwise we won’t be able to go near the platforms or if you had outsmarted that, there will be regular checks inside the trains). The doors open and close automatically and the train runs on high voltage electricity. And needless to add – the trains are maintained very well by the authorities and the public.
At office
I am not going to bore you down with the work I did over there. Mind you, don’t interpret that I didn’t do any significant work. I should admit that it was a not a stressful official work, more for a reason that we 3 of us were helping the development activity and not typically in any implementation fire-fighting. I think I was there during the right time when there were parties after parties, starting with iSoft's birthday party, Christmas party, and the last one being the Kris kringle (picking up a staff name from the lot and present a surprise gift without revealing the source). And of course the many go-live, new contract parties and Morning Tea parties. I enjoyed every moment of work, chats, kitchen rooster (just for one week) and the last, but not the least, pool game. I haven't played that before in India nor seen it except on TV, but I think I was able to pick it up fairly well probably because we have a similar game called Carom in India (nicknamed finger billiards) and I can claim myself to be very good on that. The Melbourne iSOFT office was located on the first floor and was big considering the number of staffs. Approximately 1/3 of the office was just open space (with no cubicles) and they had a pool table and TT.
There were only one or two occasions when I have felt isolated - The first was during the Christmas and New Year vacation when we were partly doing the job of security because every other staff member except 2/3 had gone on vacation. The second is an interesting one due to kind of a communication gap. My colleague Murray Verbeek told me that I will be taken to a site visit at a place called Grampians (3 hours drive). When Murray didn’t see me when he started, he left a note that I catch a taxi and reach a place called Ring road. I got hold of a taxi and told him the location and he also courteously dropped me. Not a single soul was seen except cars passing by. I was standing in white shirt (yes, the same iSoft shirt) and formal pants and waiting for my colleague Murray to pick me up on the way to Grampians Site. Almost everyone who passed by gave a kind of puzzled look and I started feeling uncomfortable after some time as I felt that Murray would have definitely gone past. And the next issue was getting a taxi back here and I had to run to the nearest signal where I caught hold of the person who was in the front and waiting for the signal and told him to call the taxi and send one down to that place. After 45 mts, I didn't see a sign of taxi that way which was indented for me and then luckily one came by the leftmost lane and he answered my frantically waving hand.
The hunt for Indian food
The people in the office used to wonder when we started asking about Indian hotels as they were surprised that why can’t we have our food at any other restaurant. I could easily escape citing that I was a vegetarian and also explained them about our style of food, spices and mixtures that we use, to make them understand that style of preparation matters a lot. Much to our happiness, we were told that there is indeed an Indian restaurant on the Lygon Street named ‘Balti Indian Café’ and were taken there. Click the link in the links section to know more about Balti. The food was nice and seemed to be authentic and I decided to try it everyday as the price was also economical. The next day, I introduced myself and got to know the owner's name as Rajesh Wahi and he has been here for almost a decade. Since I know Hindi, he also felt at ease to strike conversation with me. Little I knew that we will be developing very good friendship in the days to come and would cherish the times I spent at his restaurant talking about all the topics with the frequency of our thoughts matching so nicely.
Pic: With Rajesh Wahi, the proprietor of Balti Cafe
There was one more restaurant named “Cross Ways” run by the ISKCON group just three tram stops away from the office. The lunch used to be a bowl of mixed rice and juice and we used to be content with the quantity. Since Balti Café was open for lunch only on Wednesday through Friday, myself and Vivek will have lunch at ISKCON on Monday and Tuesday and go to Balti on the remaining days.
A note on Balti Indian Cafe
Rajesh Wahi was employed with Centaur hotels at Delhi and then he was working in Bahrain as chef for a business man. Later he moved to Newzealand and set up his restaurant named Balti Café at Auckland. During one of the Indian team tours that he met up with Harbhajan Singh, who was the 12th man in the team. Bhajji talked about cricket and his uncertainty in the team on whether he will be selected or not and since he liked the food, he visited frequently and also brought Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad. Later, Rajesh moved his restaurant to Melbourne at Lygon Street. When the Indian team toured Australia under the captaincy of Sachin, Bhajji got in touch with Rajesh through his earlier contact. Through Bhajji, Rajesh met up with Kapil Dev, who was the then Indian coach. Since he also liked the food very much, he asked Rajesh to supply lunch for the Indian team for all the five days during the Melbourne Boxing day test match.
We visited few nearby places which were walk able distance or reachable by tram from the place of our stay.
Crown Casino:The first place we visited in Melbourne was the Casino! And it was on the first day of our apartment life. No, not for gambling, but when we heard from one of the locals that they show cricket matches on the TV, we started for the Casino to watch the India-Srilanka cricket match that was happening at Columbo (Singer cup). We were able to see the towering casino, and after couple of unsuccessful attempts, discovered the way to main entrance. It was so beautiful, huge one with lots and lots of gambling machines and people cranking out machines. Suddenly felt that the city was so busy at night that it won’t make a difference on whether it was day or night until you come out and see the sky. We managed ourselves to find the exact location inside the Casino where they screened the match, just before the second innings started (local time 10.50 PM). We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the hall filled with 200 odd people (Indians and Srilankans) cheering at their teams. But sadly, rain interrupted the match and so we were forced to return home by 12.
Rialto Towers (or) Observation Deck:Located within the central business district, this was a place from which one could get a complete view of a major landmass of Melbourne. After a 20 second lift drive to the 52nd storey, the view of Melbourne was a treat to the eyes. 
Pic: A view of the city from the tower. In the Front, the tall building with the Crown symbol is the Crown Casino, located along the Yarra river bank. The buildings to its right are all part of the casino. The second building to its right with green meadow is actually tennis court. The King's cross is seen as passing through one of the casino's buildings.
The best part was that one could use the same ticket bought on the day at night to get the view of Melbourne under lights. I visited the tower and sight seeing twice during my stay.
The “Great Ocean Road” drive: From the first day, I used to hear people say that one must experience the. I used to wonder what the fuss is all about till Venthan took us one Sunday. It’s a drive towards the southern part of Melbourne to the Pacific Ocean. The drive was studded with breath taking nature on one side with glimpses of Ocean making it certainly one of the most romantic places. The place in the Ocean was called ’12 Apostles’; basically rocks carved out in the sea due to winds and ocean waves. They were named since they reminded of 12 disciples of Jesus.
Pic: A partial view of 12 apostles.
This is the same place that comes in the song ‘Columbus Columbus…’ from the movie ‘Jeans’. There was also couple of places nearby, known for the roughness of sea and notorious for breaking apart ships. The area itself is described as known for ship wrecks in the early part of century when settlers were entering Australia. It was good experience and nice sight seeing.
Pic: Taken at a place called Erskine falls on the way to 'Great ocean drive' with Mr.Venthan, our saviour and companion
Healesville Animal Sanctuary:Another dream come true for me, as I took the life long ambition of seeing a Kangaroo in close quarters and also take a snap by sitting close by and patting its back. It was a nice feeling though I was afraid of the kick it might give.
We saw wallabies, platypus, wombats, bird show where they had trained preying birds like Eagle and last not the least, Koala Bear, the rare animal that doesn't take water and feed only on Eucalyptus leaves
Melbourne Zoo: We often used to hear a great deal about witnessing Penguin walk at a place called Philip Islands, but somehow couldn't plan the trip as it required overnight stay. One has to reach Philip Island by evening and the tourists will gather well past 8 / 9 PM in the seashore. The penguines walk to the inland from the sea every night and the place has to be absolutely calm and devoid of any lighting arrangement so as to not to frighten the penguins. Since we don't get to see penguins in India, we were kind of hoping for a visit. One day we made a visit to the Zoo in Melbourne and after seeing Kangaroos, Dingo, Platypus, Ostrich, we were delighted when we saw a enclosure for penguins. They were not like typical Antartic penguins, but probably a local version. At last, we were happy that we did see some penguins and save money had we traveled to Philip islands. This way also, we can go back to our country and recount stories about Penguins as I did here.
Australian gallery of Sports:
A must visit place for any ardent sports fan. This houses the MCG (Melbourne Cricket ground). We made a visit one day and took a tour of the same with a guide who gave an account of MCG, the records that were created / broken in all discipline of sports, the place in the stands where the biggest sixer fell, the museum with history of MCG (it contained the photo that Sachin had taken with Sir Don Bradman on his 94th birthday), press box that has housed some of the famous commentators, and VIP boxes. We were also taken to the cricket ground; it was a very pleasant and unforgettable experience to walk around the cricket outfield. The grass was so soft like a mattress. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get near the pitch as some renovation work was going on and had to be content taking few snaps in the outfield. The renovation work is part of the 150th year and a part of stadium itself was being reconstructed.
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We were taken by surprise when we heard that MCG is also used as football stadium during the winter season. I quizzed the guide on what they would do with the pitch and was taken aback when he mentioned that the pitches (there are 3 pitches for cricket) would be air lifted and the cavity will be filled with materials apt for playing football. This is during winter. At the arrival of summer, the cavity will be created and the pitches will be brought back and placed. I was amazed at the brilliant idea of having a ready-made pitch that could be air-lifted and fitted back. I took a pledge that day that I would surely make a point to be there one day for watching a cricket match. Having achieved the unexpected chance of visiting the sports gallery and learning so much information and walking on MCG, I returned home with sweet memories.
A day at MCG:
A dream come true for any cricket fan - is to watch an international cricket match at the MCG and I have been lucky to be one among the list and full-filled the pledge I had taken earlier. Though I couldn't see an India-Australia match, it was a treat for me to watch the world's best ODI side Australia against a struggling English side on Sunday, the 15th of Dec.
It was a D/N match, started at 2.15 PM. Three of us went around 1.00 PM. Since we had already bought the tickets, we didn't waste much time in the queue. All the bags were checked and tickets were scanned for validity before we were allowed to proceed. Our seat was 10 rows away from the ad boards so provided a good enough close view of the action. We had taken Mixture (Deepavali sweet given to us by a friend of mine), bread rolls, strawberry fruit box and biscuits. The weather was warm and we were out in the sun and had to bear the 35 deg Celsius for up to 7.30 PM or so. Luckily small packets of cool breeze kept waving in and so it was kind of ok. The total people who turned up for the match were 35K out of the available 70K seats.
The match started at the precise time; the giant electronic score card was back to us and so had to turnover and see the replays and other things. MCG has been branded by ICC for worst crowd behavior. Much different to crowd in India where they throw bottles at the players’ even if India is winning. There were a section of crowd who kept all of us happy through out by creating the Mexican wave and shouting and cheering the teams. Often, there will be a big commotion when the police swung into action to pick up the troublesome guy in that lot, but the play was going on. There had been four arrests and 25 were sent out due to unruly behavior (much less this year actually).
Ronnie Irani was fielding on the third man area and the crowd behind him made a good entertainment. When Irani was doing the stretching exercises, they would do the same (started by Merv Hughes) till he gets ready to field the next ball. It was nice and fun to watch. He once did a somersault also. In fact the rest of the people including us were watching that section when the bowler walks back to his bowling mark.
It was a great & wonderful to see Gillie and Ponting play with some breath taking strokes. They duo were simply unconquerable till Aus reached 240 making the partnership to be the highest second wicket partnership for Aus in ODI's. Then there was a middle order collapse, but the total of 300 was always there. We knew that it was difficult with this kind of English side. Nick Knight played really well though he was instrumental in Irani's run out. Hussien also played well, but couldn't stay long. Then Stewart ran himself out. When the score was 100, they had lost 5 wickets. Blackwell and White made sure England reached a respectable total. So when Lee broke the stumps of Kirkley, it was 10 PM local time. Probably England would have sniffed a chance of coming close if the total would have been 270 or so or if the top order batsman had stayed for long time at their crease. But sadly it wasn't the case and turned out to be another one side match.
I thought they will allow us to walk on the outfield after the presentation ceremony was over. But it seems they are not permitting any one to step on the arena at any time. So I had to go back with wonderful and proud memories of watching a ODI match at MCG.
A short trip to Sydney:
We planned for a two day short trip to Sydney provided we get a good flight deal and other things also work out. I approached our front desk colleague at iSOFT Brisbane office who takes care of flight booking and accommodation for inter-state travel for many of our employees. She got a good flight (through Virgin Airlines 89$ one way) and accommodation deal in the center of city (60$ per head per night) and travel plans was to start on Jan 10th (Friday) evening, reach Sydney at night, check into the hotel, stay on Saturday and Sunday and come back by first flight on Jan 12th (Monday) morning .
We reached the hotel by 8.30 or so. We then got a bit of shock as the reception guy told that the amount has not been paid at all, but only booking has been made for our stay. He refused to accept that it has been already paid through the company agent. So we paid some cash and got the room and then I called up the person who booked this for us (luckily I had taken some contact no). She then spoke to the hotel and gave them some more details like booking no., date, card no, etc and made them to understand. It was nervous half an hour or so. Apart from that, we hadn’t had absolutely any other problems.
On Saturday, We got day pass tickets for Monorail. Monorail has a fixed circuit with some specific set of stations and runs on a specially laid rail track on a particular height from the ground level. We went around in it quite a few times as the ticket we bought was valid throughout the day. Then we went to see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The Opera House is a breathtaking construction. I wouldn't consider that as an Engineering marvel, but very skillfully and artfully constructed. The Harbor Bridge is definitely an Engineering marvel. There is a climb also available which will take us to the center of the arch and one can really have the 'best' climb and view of one's life. But it was too expensive for us (145 $ whereas our flight ticket was just 89$). But there is a pedestrian pathway available and we had a good view from there. The Harbor Bridge was so wide that it had four lane traffic systems for cars, buses, trucks and apart from these; there was a two way railway track!!
Pic: Darling Harbour 
Pic:Victoria mall in Sydney
Pic: Near one of the tracks of mono rail
Then we went to a place called Manly Island by a ferry and had some slight nervous moments due to some rough sea. It was a big ferry capable of carrying close to 150 people. But it was a good thrilling experience. We were standing in the front portion of the ferry and so could really feel the butterflies in the stomach when the waves lift the ferry and the next moment the ferry comes down and splash on the water. The Manly Island is predominantly beaches and bush-walks. After coming back, we spent time at the Sydney Aquarium. This is one of the world's top 3 Aquariums and has got collections of over 11,000 species. We had close encounters (of the third kind?) with Shark and other sea living creatures (of course through a glass tunnel). It was a good experience to see the ferocious shark in close quarters. We would spent close to two hours and then came back home.
On Sunday, we walked around the city for some time and then went to a place called China town. It is a huge Chinese market and we all made some purchases to take back home till we realized that our purses will soon get emptied if we don't get out. Then we proceeded towards the famous Bondi beach by bus (45 m journey) and spent time taking snaps and climbing some of the uneven rocks near the shore and walking around the place.
Pic: At the famous Bondi beach with friends (L-R) - Shankar, Vivek and Srini
On the way back by bus, we got down at a place where we had spotted some Indian restaurants (on the way to beach and 10 minutes walk from where we stay). It was a North Indian rest and run by Punjabi Sikhs. He thought I was from North India as I started conversation in Hindi with him. I then told him that we are from Madras. We had a good dinner there (what else we would have done!!). He gave a soft drink as part of our dinner in the end. I asked if I could have a lassi (sweetened / salted butter milk) instead which he readily complied. It was a good filling lassi. All the other three were tired reaching the hotel and so I myself then went to the Opera house in the night by walk, to take some snaps of the Bridge and Opera House.
I would call Sydney's Central business center as a concrete jungle! The business buildings are so tall and each of them has not less than 25 floors. The buildings are also closely constructed to each other. There is also a place in Sydney place which has the old style needs a ferry / bus / train to travel, but we really didn't had that much time. Except for the Monorail, Ferry ride and the bus journey, we covered Sydney by walk. It made us tired some times, but nevertheless was very good. The climate was kind of warm around 25 - 30 and so it didn't had any such impact. Of course, by walking, you'll naturally find and explore more places.
On Monday morning, we all got up by 4 AM to catch the 6.15 AM flight and reached Melbourne by 7.30 or so.
A day at Australian Open:
After been to MCG, I didn’t want to miss out on the life time opportunity of watching a tennis match at the Center court of Rod Laver arena. When I checked out, the price that came closest to my affordability was for a 3rd round match. The prices keep going up towards the finals. The price of ticket for the finals was 120$. So myself and Srinivasan (the friend from HCL) booked the tickets for an evening at Centre court (Costed 41$) and hoped to see a good 3rd round match and I was anticipating Llyton Hewitt or Andre Agassi. Actually, when one buys a ticket for a match at centre court, they can see the matches that happen in other courts. On that day, we went in somewhat early and much to our delight, we saw Leander Paes and Martina playing doubles in one of the adjacent courts. They played quite well and won the game and then we got into center court. Luckily for us, Mark Philippoussis was scheduled to play against the Armenian Sargsian that day. We let out a sigh of relief that at least there was one top seed player. The match turned out to be interesting, as the Russian struggled initially against the strong serve of Scud (nickname of Philippoussis), but recovered soon and gave Scud a run for money. Though the Armenian lost the first set, but recovered well and won the next three sets 5-7, 7-5, 6-0, 6-4 creating one of the major upsets of 2003 Aussie open. The match got over around 8:30 PM and we walked back home.
Pic: Centre court / Rod Laver arena of the Australian open. I was able to get this picture decently with the crowd bustling around. Due to lights, the court (in the background) appears very bright.
Encounter with toothache:
In the last week of October, I started feeling a occasional sharp shooting pain in my last tooth on the right side. I ignored it initially by consuming pain killer Panadol tablets (luckily one of the few tablets that can be bought OTC. It is not easy in countries such as Australia to just walk to a medical shop and buy tablets of your choice except OTC drugs. For others, you need a prescription without which they will not give you the drugs unlike India, where one had every right to demand or even ask the guy at the shop to suggest a suitable tablet for his complaint and walk away with that). Coming back - the pain persisted and the frequency increased and wasn’t able to sleep a whole night. On the next working day, I was wondering what to do by keeping my hand on my cheek (like the ‘Thinker’ status sculpted by Rodin). The CEO, Richard Craven, who was at Melbourne office saw this unusual posture and asked me what’s wrong and when I told him he ordered me immediately to check with a dentist. I managed to get an appointment with a dentist who had his home / clinic at 10 mts walk from office. Till that I was consuming two panadol tablets every two hours to control the pain. He took an x-ray and confirmed that there is root canal decay and it has to be operated upon immediately. He ruled out the chances of temporary relief before I can go back to India. He asked me questions on when I had last checked my teeth with dentist at India to which I replied very proudly that we don’t have the concept of periodic checking and only go when we feel pain. He gave a perplexed look and wondered how you can have such a system to which I gleefully replied that “we are like this only”. He told me that I can come for the first surgery next day itself and one week later for a follow-up and injected some pain killers to sustain the ache for a day.
The real shock came when he told me the cost of the surgery - 1200 Australian dollars. I couldn’t stop tears coming out of my eyes because I was pretty sure that it would have been less than half of it if I had done a check-up in India. I then soberly reported the cost to my CEO the next day. My journey insurance didn’t cover things like tooth ache and had much more simple things such as accident and death. I didn’t expect that he would immediately call up the HR at Brisbane office and ask her to bear the expenses. I would be ever thankful to him for the timely intervention and arrangement to bear the expenses of my surgery.
So friends, if you are going on a business trip, make sure you remember these little things, as in India, we seldom go for a master check-up every year unless we are pressed to go for it.
-- To be added depending on my mood --
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