Value of Electricity

Posted on November 17, 2011 | 4 comments

It is getting really hot in Sydney these days. It was 34-37 C the day before. After a very hot day I went home thinking it will be a cool evening with the AC on and I can relax but to my annoyance the electricity went off. 

I couldn’t believe how much our lives depend on having electricity here. The lift in the building stopped working so we could hear fire exit doors opening and closing all the time. The building in front of us had people stuck in the lift so there were two fire trucks and police car to rescue them. 

People couldn’t go inside the car park as the roller doors are electric so there were long queues of cars waiting in the street. 

Inside our apartment, AS and I didn’t know what to do. Our internet didn’t work, no TV, the laptop battery was on 35%, no light so nothing to do. Luckily we have a gas stove which was the only thing working. But still we didn’t cook anything as it was too dark so we ordered takeaway. I remember my cousin K, mentioning power outage in June for hours when I was in Nepal, and as they have electric stove, they had to go out and eat. 

I have been in Nepal when they had 18 hours of load shedding. Luckily my house has an inverter so we had some light during those times. But I can’t imagine how everyone in Nepal live everyday more than 9 months a year without electricity. It is good that my parents are not dependent on the fridge as they cook fresh meal everyday. Also they buy their milk every morning and meat on the day, they are cooking. They always buy fresh fruits and veggies every other day so they can have fresh supply of most essential things. I can’t imagine people here living without a fridge and a microwave. We wouldn’t know what to do.

 Most of the houses in Nepal don’t have air conditioning and lift so you are not stuck when load shedding happens.

Sometimes I forget how much better facilities we have than people in Nepal. I was complaining that power was out for a few hours but then I remembered for people living in Nepal that is a part and parcel of their life. I see Facebook and Twitter updates from my friends and family in Nepal like

 “ No power cut for last 24 hours 🙂 🙂 🙂 “

 “ Load shedding is reduced to 10 hours a day :)”.

 “ Felt so lucky to wait only 15 minutes in line for petrol’.

“ No water for last two days 😦”

“ Nepal bandh again today, walking to work” (Nepal closed/no vehicles on road due to strikes)

 I promise from now on I will appreciate how good I have it here and stop complaining about small things that I don’t have.

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Posted in Nepal

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Widows in Nepal

Posted on November 16, 2011 | 13 comments

I want to start this post by saying; whatever I am going to write in this post is solely my opinion and understanding and hold no disrespect for any culture or tradition. 

In Nepal, if a Hindu woman loses her husband, she has to wear a white sari for a whole year. She also has to give up all signs of marriage like pote, glass chura and sindoor. 

After one year, she is allowed to wear clothes with colours other than red or shades of red or other bright colours and she still can’t wear pote, glass chura and sindoor. They are also forbidden from remarrying. It is believed if a widow marries another man; her deceased husband’s soul goes to hell. I know it sounds ridiculous but that is what the widows are led to believe. 

In ancient times, there used to be ‘Sati’ practice in which if a married man died, the widow is coerced to join her husband in his funeral pyre. My grandma used to tell me the stories about how she knew people who she lost due to this practice. This was outlawed only around 70 years ago. 

I don’t know why the husband is never made to undergo such cruel customs on the death of his wife. And men can remarry if they want. 

My paternal grandmother was widowed when she was quite young. Her youngest child was only 2 years old at that time. I know she suffered a lot as a widow in a conservative Nepali society. She was not invited for many religious ceremonies and considered an outcast for lots of Pujas. My grandma is a survivor and she managed to ignore all the brutal treatment from the society and brought up all 7 kids all by herself. She made sure that all the kids went to school and were well-educated despite the fact that she was uneducated and alone. All the kids grew up to be successful in their lives and all the credit goes to my grandma. 

I never saw my grandma wearing any bright colour saris even after 50 years of the death of my grandfather nor did she wear any glass chura. She used to have a few golden bangles and that was it. She told me lot of stories where she felt like an outcast from the society after her husband passed away. 

I know an aunt who lost a husband in a freak accident after just 3 years of marriage. At that time she had a year old baby boy and she was only 26 years old. I really thought it was cruel that she couldn’t enjoy her life just because her husband had passed away. Her MIL blamed her for her son’s death and made her life into hell. I am sure she missed her husband terribly and on top of that she had to deal with the cold behaviour from relatives and the society. I strongly believed that she should have been allowed to remarry and live the rest of her life happily but I was just a kid and my opinion would have brought an outburst among my relatives. 

Recently, I read news that the Nepali government are giving RS 50,000 (AUD 600) to the couple if a man married a widow. I find this wrong in so many levels. A widow is a woman and not some broken furniture which you pay the removalist to discard. No one should be given monetary incentive to marry; it should be purely out of love. I also read lots of news later that people were marrying only for the money and it was not helping the problem of widows in Nepal. 

I know there are so many human rights organisations that are fighting for this cause and I salute them but this problem is not going anywhere until we are able to educate people and make them understand that death is a natural process so no woman should suffer her whole life just because her husband died. 

I know things are changing slowly but still the majority of Nepalese people do not accept widows as a normal woman. I want them to think what they will do if the window is their own daughter or sister. I am sure they want them to be treated as equal to any normal woman and allowed to remarry if they wish to and live their life happily.

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I see babies everywhere

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 8 comments

I love babies; they are the most special and cutest things in the world. 

Recently, I am seeing babies everywhere. I went out for lunch yesterday and while we were waiting for it, we saw so many parents walking around with their prams.

Then there came 6 new mothers with their new borns in prams and sat next to us. They were happily chatting about their babies and how they are handling sleep deprivation. 

My Nephew

I have a nephew who is cute and naughty at the same time. I see him often but it is amazing to see how much more he had learned every time I visit. He loves Mr. Makers and Thomas- the train. Now he has started speaking full sentences and always surprises us with new words. It is funny he uses the words in wrong places sometimes. The other day, his mum was feeding him and he said “No I am hungry’ and indicated he was full. We all laughed because he thinks if he use ‘NO’ in front of any word it becomes the opposite. He is still learning and to see that is great fun. He is on holiday in US now and I miss him so much. 

My friend S 's daughter

A good friend of mine, S, has a baby girl who is so cute. She is growing up so fast and called me ‘fufu’(aunty) recently. I love the outfits I see her in. Mostly pink, cute dresses and with cute hats or jumpsuits which are just so fabulous. 

Two of my good friends are pregnant right now. Both of them are due in December. One of them is having a baby boy and another is having a baby gal. We are having their baby shower soon 🙂 . 

At one time my facebook was full of wedding photos of my friends and family and right now my facebook is full of photos of recently born. 

I was just wondering is there a season to have a baby or I am just noticing them now. 

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Posted in Emotions, Personal

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How do you all do it?

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 8 comments

I am writing this blog in the hope that I am not alone in this situation. 

I do follow a few blogs and I have never read anything regarding this problem so I am not to sure if I am alone in this situation or if there are more people out there like me.  

I am talking about cooking everyday and cooking without complaining. Before I came to Australia, I hardly cooked as it was my mum or our maid doing all the cooking. So I never thought twice about how my food got on the table. Then before AS came to Australia, I had a life style where I hardly ate at home so cooking was never an issue. 

But after marriage, we are living by ourselves so we have to cook everyday. It is not feasible to eat out everyday.

Mostly on week days, after work I cook dinner and have either keep some for lunch the next day or make sandwich. There are weeks when I am very happy to cook so I will download recipes, go shopping and cook. But then there are days or a week sometimes when I don’t feel like cooking at all. I don’t want to even think about it and we end up ordering take away for dinner and have lunch outside. 

So I always have this rollercoaster of cooking cycles where sometime I am cooking for weeks continuously and then there are times when we won’t use the kitchen for days. 

I am lucky that my husband helps me in the kitchen with cutting and cleaning but I end up cooking dinners most of the time and he looks after breakfast. 

I don’t understand why we have to spend so much time to feed ourselves. I have seen people who cooked a variety of meal everyday and feed their family. I am sure they love cooking but can you really do it every day without complaining? 

My problem starts most of the time when I don’t know what to cook for dinner. As I don’t know what to cook, I won’t know what to buy and then that is the end. For a few months, we tried to decide on Saturday itself what we were going to have for lunch and dinner for the coming week.  According to that we did our shopping and I was a bit organised but still I had days when I was too tired to cook. All I wanted to do was go home and crash on the sofa in front of the TV. 

I am writing this post in the hope that people out there either will tell me I am normal and it does happen to them as well or tell me how they do it without going insane. How can it be ok to work the whole day and come back home and cook too. If anyone has a good solution for my problem, your suggestion will be highly appreciated. 

Sometimes I feel sorry for my husband that I whinge about small tasks like cooking and that he has the worst wife in the world . : ( 

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Posted in Relationship

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Wrong place,Wrong time

Posted on November 12, 2011 | 3 comments

Every time I watch a movie or news where they show the footage of a hold up in progress, I can’t help but remember my own experience a few years ago. I know it has been 2 years now but I still can’t get the incident out of my mind.

It was Monday evening on October 2009, I was working a late shift so my friend, SM, came to pick me up from work. As it was late we decided it would be easier to grab a bite from MacDonald’s on the way home than going to a restaurant. So we parked the car in the car park of MacDonald’s in St Peter’s inSydney

The place was quiet with only a handful of people having dinner. We ordered a burger meal and a wrap. While at the counter to pay the bill, I realised that I had forgotten my wallet at home (luckily I should say after what happened later) so SM paid for me. It was lucky that I was not alone otherwise imagine the embarrassment when I couldn’t pay after my meal was already prepared. We took a table near the door and I put my hand bag on the table as I normally do so that I don’t forget it and leave it behind.

Anyway, we had our meal and were just about to leave the place when two bandits stormed into the store and started shouting. One of them was a skinny guy who was carrying a long machete and the other one was a big guy who was carrying a baseball bat. Both of them had balaclava so we could only see their eyes.

Everyone was a bit confused in the beginning because no expects to be in a hold up when you go to a MacDonald’s for a meal. I and SM looked at each other and stayed seated on our table. They yelled out “keep quiet and sit down”.

There was a lady who was holding a tray of food and was a bit slow going back to the table. The big guy hit the tray with the baseball bat and the food was everywhere. I was so scared at this point thinking he may hit us too. He was less than a foot away from me and shouting. In the mean time, the skinny guy held the machete towards the manager and asked him to take him to the safe where all the money was. Both of them disappeared at the back while the big guy was trying to control rest of the patrons.

There were two entrances to this MacDonald’s. At one entrance there was a getaway car waiting but from the second entrance an Asian looking older man entered. We just looked at him as he didn’t realise that he had walked into a hold up. Poor man, I think he didn’t speak and understand English so when the fat guy asked him to sit down, he just looked at him in confusion. At this point, the guy got angry and took a swing with his baseball bat at this poor man’s head. I thought the old man died but thank god he had a thick skull. He didn’t bleed at all but instantly he had this big lump on his head, the size of an apple. He just dropped to the ground unconscious and a lady rushed to him saying she is a nurse.

The environment got more tense. The fat guy started shouting “Hurry up man!” to the skinny guy at the back and I could see he was getting impatient. Then he saw my bag on the table. He just took it and started emptying it on the floor. Luckily I had my mobile in my pocket and had forgotten the wallet so it had really nothing except a make up bag. As he didn’t find anything, he just threw it on the ground. If you read the news article of the robbery, the lady with the purse is me 😦

The skinny guy came running out with a few bags full of money and both of them ran towards the waiting getaway car.

All this happened in a space of 5-10 minutes but it has scarred me forever. For weeks after this happened, I couldn’t sleep properly.

I think within 5 minutes of the robbers leaving the place, the police and ambulance was there. Police started questioning the witnesses and the poor old man was taken to a hospital.

The next day I saw the news on TV and in the newspapers. We didn’t tell anyone about it then as we didn’t want our parents and family to get worried. I only told one of my close friends and AS when I met him in Nepal later.

Here is the link from the national newspapers running that story.

I always felt Sydney was a safe place and nothing had happened to me (touch wood) until then. But after that incident I am more careful and look around when I am out and about. I am glad I got out of the situation without any harm but I definitely was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Posted in Personal

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