Chapter 4. Live every moment like it's your last

"I landed in Brisbane on a weekend; the University had sent a cab to pick me up from the airport and had arranged my accommodation in one of the motels in the Brisbane city centre. The cab driver was a Sardarji named Harvinder Singh. He was very nice and could understand quickly that I came to Australia for the first time. He gave me a couple of tips and also his contact number and asked me to contact him if I needed any help in the future. I was so happy to find an Indian and was feeling good. My happiness did not last for long. When he dropped me at the motel in the city centre, it was evening, streets were full of people enjoying the start of weekend on Friday evening and that was normal for them, which I could understand later. There was nothing wrong but it was a very different way of enjoyment as compared to my village. This kind of sheer madness, I had not seen even in Delhi. Maybe it was there in Delhi too, but I did not focus on these things as I was running behind my father's dream. 

If I look back today, I was culturally shocked on the first evening, I went inside the dormitory, where two guys were getting intimated with their girl friends. I tried to stay there calm but could not stay there for long as everything I saw for the first time in this manner and I was getting uncomfortable. I went to the roof top of the motel, there also scene was no different. Finally I decided to go a nearby street in search of vegetarian dinner. I found a McDonalds, I entered and enquired about a vegetarian burger and to my dismay, they did not have vegetarian burger in their menu available at that time. However, McDonald's in India served vegetable burgers at all times. I was shockingly disappointed and angry on everything at that point of time. I was cursing people, the motel, McDonalds and the cumulative effect of all these negative thoughts made me feel that I was out of place and that this place was not meant for me. I quickly decided that I would go back to India and I immediately wanted to convey my decision to my father. I went to the motel reception and asked him whether I could use his phone to make a call to India, he advised me to buy a phone card as that would be cheaper."

"To tell you the truth Ken, I had to struggle that day, first to enquire about a vegetarian burger and then to get a phone card— almost ten minutes at each stop, just to understand their accent and convey my requirements. I used to consider myself a fluent English communicator but maybe a different style of accent caused that delay. My misery that day did not end there. I still remember, I went to a nearby seven eleven store and found an Indian guy working there. I felt so happy at that moment thinking I will not have to go through the same struggle to communicate my requirement. On his advice I got India calling, a phone card with lowest call rate. Now, I needed one dollar coin to dial the local number which would connect me to India number. I had few one dollar coins. Again because of my lack of understanding of Australian English accent and lack of clarity of voice of pre recorded operator voice, I lost all the coins without talking to my father. I neither had courage nor energy to go and get some more coins. I decided to pen down my thoughts in the form of a letter, this was the first letter of my life and you will not believe Ken, that evening, within minutes I could write twenty pages and I felt like writing more. Maybe the writer within me, which went to hibernation in the childhood after my father's punishment rejuvenated on those moments of emotional outburst. If I look back within hours of landing into Australia, how could I get so much to share with my father? Maybe I was overreacting at that moment."

Ken said, "don't worry life is all about experiences; at times we do overreact but this is all part and parcel of life. I am sure at that point of time that outburst was required for you to vent out your feelings in the form of a letter. So don't worry and continue my friend."

Nodding at him appreciatively, I continued, "As soon as my emotional outburst was over in the form of that long letter, my physical requirement like hunger and sleep started knocking my brain's door. I was going through a great combination of feelings where I was feeling sleepy and at the same time hungry but because of imagining the possible situation of my dormitory as well as nearby street, I was not in the mood of going inside my dormitory for sleep or in the nearby street for dinner. I decided to manage my hunger by buying some nuts and banana's along with vanilla flavored milk from the nearby seven eleven store. After having this unusual combination of food for my dinner, I felt like sleeping and you won't believe Ken, I had to force myself into the dormitory and behave as if I was normal. Only I know, how I managed my sleep that night in that ambience. I woke up late next morning at around 10 AM. I wanted to take shower but even that was challenge as people were moving around in common bathrooms almost without any clothes. I had to wait for my turn but I must admit that overall the morning, streets and everything was very different from the last night there. There was hardly any noise in the street or in the motel. People seemed very sensible and sober. Now I realize that weekend nights are meant to be the way I saw a night before and now I can relate whenever I go to India, that it is no different in India. Maybe it took little longer for Indian metro cities to follow that night life culture which I saw in Brisbane. Just to give you another perspective on this Ken, maybe I was outdated at that point of time as I came from a small village where basic amenities were not available and had completed most of my education from villages and small towns. Although, I did spend fair amount of my time in Delhi but I had never exposed myself to night life as my focus was entirely different."

"I am sure Anirudh, you are proud of whatever you did and are not repenting on fact that you were too much focused on your father's dream."

"No absolutely not," replied Anirudh. "I am not repenting anything. You know Ken, I have always believed in one of the hindi song line which goes like this "Kabhi Kisi Ko Mukmal jahan nahin milta Kahin Zameen to Kahin assman nahin milta."

"This sounds like something philiosophical Anirudh, can you please tell me the meaning of this?"

"Sure Ken, it means that in life one has to miss something to get something, you cannot have best of everything. You were correct Ken, meaning of these lines is more like a philosophical discourse having spiritual roots than a song," added Anirudh.

"I agree with you Anirudh," replied Ken. "Today I have realized that even songs in India communicate spiritual discourses."

"Not really Ken, some of the lyricists have that spiritual content."

"In our Monastery we also used to compose songs to communicate complex spiritual matters as songs can be the best medium to communicate with common masses and that is why religious leaders across religions also use songs to communicate their devotion in the form of devotional songs. Let's go back to your journey Anirudh, shall we?" Asked Ken.

"Yes, so the Saturday started in a more peaceful and less frustrated note but I started feeling very hungry at around 11 AM. I went to the reception and asked if there was any Indian Restaurant nearby. The reception guy pointed towards the left of the motel and said keep walking and around 1 Km down in the valley there is an Indian restaurant. I got excited like a child after hearing that there was an Indian restaurant around where I could indulge in good Indian food. But if look back I feel stupid in telling you this, that I was really behaving strangely during that time as only one or two days back, I was having Indian food of my choice. I don't know why I got so excited at that moment."

"It is normal, when the conditions are not favorable even minutes appear as years, don't feel bad and keep unfolding your journey to me," said Ken. "Finally did you have great Indian food at that restaurant down the valley? Asked Ken.

" No Ken," replied Anirudh.

"Why?" Asked Ken.

"As the restaurant was closed that day due to some refurbishing work."

"Oh Lord! What did you do then?" Anirudh asked Ken.

"Continued to eat off from last night's fruit and milk combo for lunch and dinner. However, I was getting used to this new style of dinner combination as I did not feel bad at all having milk and fruits combination and Ken you must be knowing, Indian Saints always have milk and fruits as their first priority food irrespective of timing."

"Yes Anirudh. So you behaved more like Saints during those two days, I am also a great fan of milk and fruit combination. What happened next?" Asked Ken.

"I felt less uncomfortable on Saturday night in comparison to Friday night, maybe I was adapting to the new way of life and somewhere deep in my heart I knew that I have to adapt to this new lifestyle to fulfill my father's dream. I had a much better sleep on Saturday night than the night before. Sunday morning, I was more composed, relaxed and better adapted for the new life ahead in Brisbane, on Sunday when I met with the same Indian guy in seven eleven store, could not resist myself but to get introduced and finally initiated the dialogue by asking his name. 'My name is Gurpreet,' he replied. He proved to be another nice guy. He briefed me about lot of do's and do not's in Brisbane in general and also offered me a lunch invitation to his place. I promptly agreed and asked him to come to my motel when he finishes his shift at 2 PM. At 2:15 I got a call from the reception that a visitor is waiting for me. I knew it had to be Gurpreet. I was correct, we both left for Gurpreet's apartment. Gurpreet used to share his apartment with three Indian students from same University and all of them were pretty new except Gurpreet. So, it was very easy for me to relate with all of them as I was also going through the same feelings. Gurpreet was more like an older brother to them who was helping them in settling in the new place. I felt like home in their company we had a very tasty food where all of us contributed in cooking in some or other way. I was there until late evening and all of them gave various tips to me to lead a better life in Brisbane and in the University in general and also gave me the bus route details to reach to my Griffith University Nathan Campus. All of them were enrolled in University of Queensland, whereas I had enrolled in Griffith University. However, Gurpreet knew some students in Griffith too and that is why he gave few references to me. He came to drop me to the nearby train station. I wanted to stay that night with those guys but somehow could not say to them. Anyways, I went back to my motel, did some preparation for next day to attend my first day at the University. Next day I woke around 7 AM, took a long shower and got ready for my first University day in Australia. I could board a bus from just outside of the motel to my campus."

"I was very nervous all the while I was in bus but as the bus approached the campus, I could see lot of foreign students especially Asians and few Indians boarding the bus, which brought some sort of calmness and made me feel that I was not alone, there were others who were in a similar situation as mine. To be precise, I felt little relaxed after observing few more new tensed faced around me in the bus. There, I met a guy from Bangalore named Shyam, it was his first day too to the University and he had enrolled for the same program as mine. I felt more confident after knowing that he is going to be in the same class. We chatted a lot, had shared our background and together completed all the enrolment formalities like getting the identity cards etc. The major part of the first day passed in completing admission formalities. I must admit that my enrolment experience was great, the international student section of the University provided all the help to make first day of ours as comfortable as possible. During the later part of the day, I also met Preetam and Sonica and some other students from India. They had also enrolled for the same course as mine. So, I already knew few of the Indian students from the same course. This boosted my confidence and I felt like I was among my own people."

Anirudh paused for a second and asked Ken, "hope I am not boring you by giving you so many minute details."

"That is okay brother," replied Ken. "It is interesting and I can see a radiance on your face while you are describing your past journey. Keep going my friend, but I am interested in knowing why have you not mentioned about me until now? As, I had also met you during your early days in Brisbane? Asked Ken with child like smile.

"Yes Ken, but you are still couple of days away from meeting me," Anirudh replied in funny manner. Both of them started laughing. Somebody knocked the door, "who is that?" Asked anirudh?

"Its me Anirudh."

"Oh! Rachna? What happened?"

"I have brought some hot milk for both you."

"Come in, the door is open," replied Anirudh.

"You guys have been talking since the last 2 hours. Did you finish talking yet?"

"Thanks so much for offering hot milk, I always prefer to have milk before I go to sleep," said Ken.

"I know, Anirudh already mentioned this to me yesterday, about what you like. Your entire routine, in fact, including your food habits etc and had also asked me to be very punctual on everything."

"Really, why did you do that Anirudh? You should not have made my visit look so formal to Rachna. This is not done friend," replied Ken.

"Its not like that Ken I did that out of concern and excitement as I have known you and I know are very particular and disciplined in your rotine including food."

"Its fine brother, we were meeting after a hiatus, so could have compromised few things, anyway it is good that Rachna did not mind this. Did you?" asked Ken.

"Definitely not Ken, my husband practically considers you his spiritual guide and I can positively say that I'm very happy at the fact that you decided to visit. And I'm sure you forgot your night medicine Anirudh?"

"Oh yes can you please bring it now, I"ll have with the milk."

"Medicine? What kind of medicine?" Asked Ken.

"Oh! I forgot to tell you Ken that I am diabetic and these medications are for that."

"Really? How come in such a young age?"

"About 10 years beck I was diagnosed with this and somehow could not mange it properly at the early days of diagnosis."

"Why?"

"I was either too busy in my research and writing papers that I could never follow a disciplined lifestyle which made it worse over the years. I am on kind of the last line of medications, after that I'll have to switch to insulin to control my diabetes.";

"But my friend this is not good. You are very young, you need to take care of you health very carefully, your family needs you in a hail and healthy condition."

"Yes I know, hopefully I'll control now," replied Anirudh.

" I remember one of the monk Huang who was a naturpathy doctor in monestary had told me casually when one of the monk got diabetic and he started treating him naturally that Diabetes is like a Big Don, who once enters into an area/locality, automatically calls other small dons to serve him and fulfill his objective," said Ken.

"I do not Understand."

"I am not a scientist and don't know the technicality behind these sentences but it means, once you have diabetes other smaller but life threatening indications automatically come inside your body like higher sugar can cause various organ damage etc. Is that correct? asked Ken.

"Yes you did, Huang ind addition to be a doctor appears to me a great philosopher? What a nice way of describing such a serious phenomena in a common language," replied Anirudh in awe.

"I totally agree with this Ken. I saw one of my colleague from Harvard University, who was on the verge of losing some of his organ's functionality because of high sugar and was repenting one day in front of me that he should have taken better care of his health and managed diabetes well. You should avoid that day in your life my friend and start taking care of this now onwards," said Ken. Hunag has also informed me that diabetes especially type 2 is not a ailment related to so called genes etc. It is primiarly a dietery disorders, when one does not take care of their diet for long & keep feeding it with sugar in various forms, one becomes diabetic. In fact he told me that type 1 & type dibetes are different.. is that so asked Ken? and if yes how they are different?

Oh!! Ken you know so much about diabetes also, yes Type 1 dibetes is related to a condition where our pancreas is unable to produce insulin (a horome required for blood sugar regulation). Whereas Type 2 Diabetes is relates to having too much insulin in the body which leads to insulin resistance. Oh!! Ok, I understand now the difference. Ken did your naturpathy monk tell you any natural treatment to control diabetes. Yes he did Anirudh, first thing he mentioned that we should stop feeding body with sugar in various forms in fact he has informed that all the processed grains including wheat and wheat flour are high in sugar which never made sense to me and reduce their consumption. Huang was correct grains have sugar in the form of carbohydrate. contine Ken. He told the first thing we need to do is to reduce weight, if we are overweight we will become diabetic someday and also he mentioed something that with diet Type 2 diabetes can be reversed and if i remeber correctly he also mentioned that if we stop eating sugar in any form then we do not need any medication as most of the medications in diabetes including Insulin is more damaging in Type 2 Diabetes.

Your naturopathy monk's suggestion is making sense to me technically. I am surprised why I never though this way. Although i have read about few diets like low-carb diet/keto diet bit I personally never believed in diets as I am a foodie you know Ken.. and anything regarding diet plan will not excite me. But If you can control your dibetes and this will save you from losing your organs in the long run and can reverse your dibetes then why don't you start by reducing sugars from you diet and doing some Yoga, walk and excercise so that you can lose some weight and if you believe in the naturopathy monk's advice you may be able to reverse your diabetes and leave a worry free life without medication and focus on something else which is much larger... what is that something larger Ken? you will know and realise yourself soon without me telling you anything...

"Yes I will Ken as I trust your words".

Rachna came back with medicines, she looked at Ken while handing over the medicines to Anirudh with some hope that Ken will guide his friend to be more serious about his lifestyle once again. Ken could see that and quickly said, "we were just talking Rachna, that how important it is for Anirudh to control his diabetes and manage his health well.

Rachna quickly responded, "I have been asking him from day one, he was diagnosed with this but he never listned to me but quickly realized before going further into the criticizing mode."

Ken responded, "I am happy Rachna that you take so much care of my friend but he should be more careful."

"I don't know, but you must create some magic so that he has time for his health and for us," replied Rachna.

"Definitely, he'll have all the time for his health and for the family soon," replied Ken. Although Rachna was expecting this reply from Ken, but this time she was feeling that what he said was true and somehow she felt good. "Thanks Ken."

"I am sure my friend will listen to you and make these necessary changes, moreover he has achieved his most important scientific milestone. Yes, he has, but I feel he'll achieve many more important milestones in his life," said Ken.

Both rachna and Anirudh looked at Ken with surprise. "What can be more important for a scientist than Nobel Prize?" Both of them asked simultaneously.

"You both are correct, as a scientist this could be the most important achievement, but Anirudh is first, a human being and then a scientist and I can assure you Rachna, as a human being he has yet to achieve what he is destined to achieve. I strongly believe your husband has come to this earth for a much bigger purpose".

"And what is that?" Asked Rachna and Anirudh together once again.

"Time will bring that answer to you. And since this is not the correct time, you will not know. Let's enjoy this moment, sipping this hot milk and not get bothered about future. The most important thing anyone had, has or can have in the future is 'now' and 'this moment' so let's enjoy this and celebrate out togetherness," said Ken.

Everything made sense to both Rachna and Anirudh and they could not ask anything more on this topic and both of them went into silence.

"Milk is great, thanks Rachna," Ken broke the silence.

"My pleasure Ken," replied Rachna. "I am sure you guys are planning to continue your discussions. I need to wake up early, I am signing off for today guys. Good night," said Rachna.

"Good night! May God fulfill all your dreams," said Ken. "Ok my friend lets continue our journey into your past life."

"Yes, Ken. So the first day in University was much better and relaxed than what I was anticipating at my first or second day in the motel. Things started becoming good. By evening I also met couple of more Indian students who had come to study some other courses and was feeling more like home. In the evening Preetam came to me and asked that he has seen one advertisement for house rent where some Indian lady is the owner and they have few rooms available. 'I have already called her and planning to go and see this house. Would you be interested?' He asked me. Without another second of delay, I agreed to partner with him for this house hunt. Moreover, both of us were excited because of the fact that the owner of the house was an Indian lady and would also provide us Indian food. It took us about 10 minutes by bus to reach her house from the campus. It looked to us a big duplex house from outside and could see some Indian faces on the first floor but no one outside the house. We got further excited seeing Indian faces. As soon as we had pressed the bell, a fat Indian lady with heavy makeup came out and asked politely, 'who are you kids here for?' 'Madam, I am Preetam and this is my friend Anirudh, are you Jaya madam?' 'Yes,' replied the lady. 'I had called you a few hours back to see one of the rooms available for rent in your house.' 'Yes, I remember I spoke to you Preetam. Come on in, I'll show you the rooms.' As soon as we entered into the house we realized that it was more like a private hostel/paying guest house we have in India, where more than one student shares the room. Six more Indian students were sitting around a dining table on ground hall dining area. Both me and Preetam felt so happy after meeting those guys and immediately asked for the rent we need to pay and politely asked Jaya madam. She mentioned, kids this hostel is not just hostel, this is the "home away from home" I have created for you Indian students coming to Australia for studies. I am taking rent just to serve you guys and not to make any profit. I have leased this house from other real estate agent and planning to lease another one. I want to just give you guys homely food and environment so that you all can study hard here and fulfill your family's dreams. When I came first to study here in Australia, I had faced so many difficulties in getting the right food, house, friends and other things that I had decided to go back to India within few days of landing here from India. She continued, 'I had struggled and finally established myself that I can help kids like you. We both could quickly identify with her story as we were going through the same emotions what she just mentioned and we got so impressed with her at that moment that without asking any other details as what is included in the rent?' 'How long is the notice period before leaving the house?' We agreed to pay the advance. The rent was 120 AUD/week including food. At that point of time we were not sure of what should be the rent. To be honest with you Ken, we felt it was not expensive. May be we needed emotional support at that time which we could identify in Jaya madam and that house with other Indian students.

"I agree my friend," replied Ken.

'Jaya madam, should we be back with our luggage tomorrow?' Asked Preetam. 'No, when I am here why would you pay for taxi to bring luggage. You may end up spending 60 AUD just to bring your language up to here. I'll take both of you with me in my car and bring your luggage.' We were completely blown with her helpful gestures and were very happy with our decision to rent a room in her house. She took both of us to our respective motels to collect our luggage and while coming back she also took us to an Indian grocery store where we again got so much excited to see all the stuff from India. 'Guys buy all the stuff you want to buy,' 'madam this is great this store has all the Indian stuff replied preetam.' 'Yes, that is why I have brought you here so that you feel more like home even while buying your groceries. I'll also take you to the Indian chat store this weekend,' replied Jaya madam. 'Thanks madam you are really great,' replied Preetam. Jaya madam was continuously observing my silenece, what happened Anirudh you are not speaking anything. Are you not excited, No No madma I am very excited, infact after meeting you I am no more feeling home sick. Thanks for everything. If your shopping is done can we go home, yes madam we both replied.

By the time we reached home it was already late evening and we were feeling very hungry. We were surprised to see that food was already prepared. The other six guys staying there have prepared the vegetarian Pulav. 'Come on guys have dinner.' Jaya madam took both of us to our room at the first floor. After placing our luggage inside the room. We went straight away downstairs to have the food. All eight of us along with Jaya madam had food together. Pulav along with yougurt and Indian pickle was delicious. Food was good said Preetam, yes Adil makes very nice Pulav replied Jaya madam. 'Oh! I forgot to introduce to them officially. Raj, Adil, Sanjay, Manish, Saroj, Shyam meet Anirudh and Preetam, Jaya madam concluded our introduction. 'Preetam and Aniriudh, don't call me madma these all guys call me Aunty you both can also call me with this title if you both have no reserverations. Sure madam— sorry aunty we both replied. Okay guys now let's play cards. We both also felt tempted to play cards but we couldn't as we felt dam tired and wanted to sleep. 'Aunty we are very tired and we have to go to the University early morning, can we go to sleep. Sure you should replied Jaya Aunty. After saying Good night to all the guys we went to our sleep and you will not believe Ken that in my life for the first time I could sleep within seconds of lying on to the bed. Maybe it was comfort we had received in that house."

"Yes, Anirudh in life whenever we find little emotional support in times of emotional turbulence, we feel relaxed and that is the human nature."

"We woke up early morning after getting ready in 20 minutes we went to kitchen and had bread toast with peanut butter along with the orange Juice. We had seen last afternoon the time table for buses to the University from the outside bus stop. We planned to catch 8:05 AM bus and to our surprise bus halted exactly at 8:06 AM. We were amazed to see the punctuality of the bus arrival. As in India most of the time we hardly get buses on time because of serious traffic jam which cause lot of unwanted delays. Second day in school went quite nicely with few lectures started with basics of biotechnology. Slowly I became comfortable with my subjects and they way they were taught in the University. It was unlike India where the focus was more on theory and final examination than labs, weekly assignments and tests. I started feeling more confident and felt more like home in my class where we had eight students from India, two from Pakistan and one each from Srilanka and Bangladesh out of total class of forty students. I was enjoying stay in my new home with other Indian students. We used to have late night movie sessions, cards playing and carom borad sessions. For the first few weeks I enjoyed everything but soon I realized that I was somehow not focusing in my studies which made me feel guilty."

"Suddenly, I realized that if I don't perform well, what would happen to my fathers dream. This thought came at the right time Ken and I promised to myself that day that my first objective is my studies and I will only focus on that full time. From next day onwards I started focusing more on my lectures, stopped playing late night with other folks in the house. Couple of days I could follow my new study focus rotine but soon other guys in the house started noticing this and would disturb me not intentionally but just to give company during my study time. Moreover, one day, I revealed to the house that I know cooking, especially aloo parantha (a indian fried pan cake, a delicacy in India)."

"I know man, you used to cook so well even I had the privilege of eating this cuisine many times with you. Is that the same thing?" Asked Ken.

"Yes brother," replied Anirudh. Intitally I enjoyed cooking parantha and other stuff but soon it become a burden and started disturbing my routine. Maybe I was overreacting at that point of time but somehow I took a harsh decision that I should tell these guys that I will not be cooking so frequently and they'll also have to contribute to cooking. Next few days thing went very well and I started performing well in my weekly assignment, in fact I used to be the topper in my class in the first few weeks of starting. Once my studies were on track, I wanted to do some part time job like other students of class and house were doing. One evening me and Preetam were coming back to house in the bus, one Tiwanese girl, Linda from class asked 'are you guys doing any part time job?' We both replied 'No, but we are interested in, do you know any place where we could work for few hours on weekend?' Asked Preetam. 'Yes, one of my distant uncles has a farm in the outskirts of city, you'll get nine dollars/hours and you can work for 8 hours both on Sunday and Saturday.' We both immediately agreed to her offer and asked for the address. As the place was on the outskirts, no bus used to go there and they only way to reach there early morning was by cab. We had to pay 25 dollars for one way fare. We were a little disappointed by paying such a high fare but were also excited for our first job. Her uncle Chin came out and explained the job to us an you will not belive Ken when we first heard that our Job is is just to pluck Chinese leafy vegetables and making them into small bundles, we felt it was so easy but within few minutes of bending and plucking the leaves, we felt that it was the most difficult job on the earth."

"Somehow we managed to do our job only for 6 hours and and decided to give up. We both received our wages of 54 dollars and came back to house. In nutshell we both together earned 108 dollars out of which we had paid 50 dollars to the cab. We did not realize in the night when we went to sleep that next morning we would not be able to bend or move because of the cramps. Next morning we were unable to go to our second day job, in fact it took couple of days for us to walk normally. For me that was my first futile attempt for the part time job."

"Oh my god, I wish I could've seen you then," Ken laughed. "You never told me this story my friend. I never new that you had sunch a fantastic first job experience."

"Yes Ken, I am opening my heart and trying to divulge whatever I have inside."

"Continue my friend. I was just joking, I am completely immersed in your journey and waiting to meet you in this Journey. I am sure my first meeting with you is approaching fast."

"Yes Ken," replied Anirudh.

"What did you do with your first salary of 54 dollars?" Asked Ken.

"After paying my share for the cab fare, I kept that entire amount for my father."

"Very good, that's what I thought you would have done."

"Whenever I used to cook for myself, I had to cook for other 7-8 guys of the house and this used to create lot of disturbance in my study routine. Although, nobody had asked me to cook for them, but I used to feel obliged to do so. I started spending lot of time in cooking and this led to some frustration in me and I decided to explore new options of accommodation. One day we were talking about rents we pay for our accommodation in the class during a break, after listening to others accommodation spent, I realized that we were paying almost double amount than what others were paying. One Indian guy Srinivasan told us that they had rented 4 bedroom house and five of them shared the rent and paid only 220 dollars per week and spent another 200 dollars in phone, electricity and grocery bills. I liked this idea and immediately asked Preetam what he thought about this, Preetam also liked this. Now we needed another two more guys to join us in our new house hunt. We went back to home and approached Raj and Adesh. Both of them agreed promptly as both of them had the same concerns we had with the current house. Next day after our lectures, we started our house hunt again. We went and met couple of real estate agents and were able to finalize one house after few days of our hunt. Now the challenge we had was, how to inform Jaya Aunty and get back our security refund. I knew this would upset her and she may not first allow us to move out without serving few weeks of notice, or may not return back our deposit."

"Now the question was when and who would inform her. Being an inborn leader, I took the initiative of informing her. To our expectations she refused to let us go and threatened to take legal action against us but observing determination she finally agreed to let use move out without keeping our deposit. We thanked her and finally moved to our new place. Managing and running a house affairs on our own was a challenger but somehow all four of us behaved with maturity and agreed for the division of labour in house affairs and it worked very well."

"That is great, I guess you all four became friends and used to like each other a lot, if remember correctly?" Asked Ken.

"Yes even you have met all of them Ken," replied Anirudh.

"Yes I remember them," said Ken.

"Our life was flowing smoothly however after few week I started feeling home sick again but Raj, Adesh and Preetam had played a large role in giving me moral support. Until I met Vijay in University and I am sure you know him Ken."

"Yes, how can I forgot him. Tall and handsome guy like bollywood hero, who used to live his life in a kingsize manner," said Ken.

"You are absolutely correct Ken,"

said Anirudh. "As you know he became my best buddy and his family had accepted me like their own son. I became emotionally attached to them and that is the time I felt emotionally secure. I used to go to their house in Kenmore on weekends and enjoy weekends with them in fact sometime I used to stay in their house over the weekend and one of those days I first met you on Kenmore bus stop while you were removing the broken tree from the walkway."

"Finally I have entered into your story and I know most of the things after that until we both separated, am I correct? Or I have missed out something," asked ken.

"No you know everything except the last few weeks after you moved to Sydney for your animation job and we had lost touch," said Anirudh.

"Please go ahead and update me about those weeks incident if they are important in your life Journey. I am sure each moment of our life plays an important role for our future endeavors and that is why I always believe that we should live every moment like it's your last," said Ken.

"I agree with you Ken," said Anirudh. And I must tell you that in those few weeks I had made few choices like going back to India leaving behind my PhD scholarship because of emotional reasons, which later had played such a major role if I look back. After completing my Masters, I was offered the scholarship for the PhD from the same supervisor. However, I wanted to visit my home back in India before starting the PhD for which my supervisor did not agree. Finally, I took a strange decision of going back to India without informing my supervisor, thinking I would convince him after coming back from India. I did not realize that it would upset him to an extent that he would redraw his PhD scholarship offer. After two weeks of my stay with family, I decided to go back to Australia to continue my PhD but noticed that my visa was only valid for one month and I needed PhD offer letter to renew my visa, which my supervisor refused to send. Ken, that was one of the worst moment of my life and I felt like I had lost everything. My father's dream seemed to be shattered, I did not know what to do. I was completely frozen at that moment. I had sent couple of emails to my supervisor but he did not respond. Maybe he was hurt badly or had felt that I cannot be trusted etc and maybe he was correct in his own way. But for me those were some of the most difficult moments of my life, where I had to inform my father about the problem, which I had created with my stupid behavior and was expecting a very harsh reaction from him. However, my father behaved in exactly opposite way. Maybe, he could observe my condition and expression and had asked me only one thing, 'Did you do something wrong?' I said mostly not but I took an emotional decision which has caused me great loss in terms of PhD scholarship. Ken you will not be able to imagine what he said at that moment—"

"I can imagine, he must have said that you went to Australia with only a scholarship for master's degree, what you received for PhD was bonus. So, don't worry about the bonus. You have accomplished what you wanted from Australia. More doors will open in the future; Is that what he said?" Asked Ken.

"Oh my God Ken, I thought you could read my mind because of our spiritual connection. How could you imagine my father's answer whom you have never met?"

"Anirudh, I had told you multiple times, once one is connected with at a soul level, it is easy to connect to other soul who are connected with you through your soul. I have named this as a "law of soul communication" and it works across the universe without exception," replied Ken.

Anirudh had no words to describe that moment because what Ken had just said was precisely what his father had once told him.