Steve Lovett chasing down a boxing dream

Life under boxing's bright lights can be exciting. It can be lonely too.

Stressful, thrilling, draining, addictive. Highs and lows come with the territory of a life inside the squared circle. Fighters both love and loathe the physical and emotional toll they put themselves through for just one night.

But Steve Lovett is an unabashed dream chaser. He wouldn't change a thing.

Lovett (17-2) will return to the ring against Reagan Dessaix (15-1) for the World Boxing Association Oceania light heavyweight title at Tweed Heads' Seagulls Rugby League Club on Saturday night.

For Lovett, this one has been a long time coming. His last opponent pulled out just days before they were supposed to dance in May. When the chance to fight on home soil popped up, he jumped at it.

He has been training under boxing icon Ronnie Shields in Houston since 2014, but for this camp he whisked himself away to train under a man that has been exactly where Lovett wants to go.

Lovett has been training on home soil with the man that unified a glamour division of his time in Australian boxing legend Danny Geale.

Amidst the humour of mashing potatoes with a hammer during tongue-in-cheek cooking videos that label him "America's worst cook" and dancing to AC/DC in the gym under the guise of a "fair dinkum feet wizard", Lovett's end goal has never wavered.

For the record, Lovett can cook - he was once a contestant on The Great Australian Bake Off. He can dance as well. Neither of those abilities can hold a candle to his skill in the ring.

A trip to Las Vegas to watch fellow Australian Jeff Horn attempt to defend a world championship on boxing's biggest stage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena earlier this year - coincidentally at the same venue Lovett first competed at on United States soil - just fuelled the fire for the 33-year-old larrikin.

In the wake of a dream

This is a statement of rebellion, if not blasphemy, when one imagines the speaker to be a Brahmin priest from 7th-century CE Tamil India. But then, all of Sharanya Manivannan's art is about rebellion and seeking. In her latest novel, The Queen of Jasmine Country, this pithy, profound sentence comes as reassuring advice from a father to a daughter — when protagonist Kodhai and her adoptive father Vishnuchittan confer on making a choice between the material and the spiritual. A slim volume — just 146 pages — this work of biographical fiction is expansive in its beauty and ardour.

Anyone familiar with Manivannan's work will agree that her writing is both sublime and powerful, in ways that echo the innermost instincts of womanhood. Her craft has deservedly been lauded, with her earlier work The High Priestess Never Marries winning the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity. She has written two collections of poems — Witchcraft and The Altar of the Only World — as well asa children's book titled The Amuchi Pucchi.

Manivannan picks the legendary figure of Andal, an Alvar or Vaishnavite poet-saint, for her fifth book and first novel, and intertwines three subjects that come organically to her — femininity, love and magic. Andal is less history and more legend, because very little is known about the personal life of this devotional poet. She is known only through anthologies such as Nachiyar Tirumoli and Tiruppavai, all of which speak of her ecstatic, erotic lovefor the Hindu god Vishnu.

For those unfamiliar with Tamil tradition, poet Meera is a good parallel to draw from. Though a few centuries apart, both women were poet-saints from the Bhakti tradition, belonged to well-off families, and worshipped Vishnu-Krishna in the madhura bhava — where the devotee sees god as a lover or husband.

Much has been written about Meera, but Andal remains a mystery. While she has been exalted to the position of a goddess, and the ritual singing of her poems during the month of Margali (mid-December to mid-January) is an important part of Tamil culture, her life remains an enigma. Manivannan assumes the voice of Andal and imagines her story. The author has said that the subject was less of her choice and more of a divine summons — in 2014, Andal appeared in her dream and urged her to write.

Compliment me on my beautiful baby boy, go on, do, I love it

How old is he?' asked the woman to my right as we took our seats on the plane. I don't find flying too stressful but today was proving an exception. The worst I usually get is a little bit of Altitude-Adjusted Lachrymosity, a speculative condition in which some combination of cabin pressure or recycled air results in my becoming overly sentimental if I spend the flight watching movies about brave dogs.

As it was my son's first flight, I was simply delighted we weren't being offered a sock to gag him. I clarified his age and jiggled him on my lap, as if to suggest he was the kind of baby who never cried. ‘They're so beautiful at that age,' the woman said, clasping a hand to her chest, as if it held a letter from the dreamy American soldier who stole her heart.

This kind of reaction is common and, frankly, I enjoy it. I find it rewarding to channel the world's good feeling about babies into my own store of self-worth. Like the father of a child star, pocketing his offspring's acting fees under the guise of a college fund that doesn't exist, I accept my son's compliments, but secretly enjoy them for myself.

My wife is the opposite, which is unfortunate, since she constantly attracts the chatty attentions of older English people who mistake an Irish accent for a strong desire to hear about their nephew's kids. She now leaves all such chats to me, especially since she gets uncomfortable when strangers coo and fuss over the boy. I feel uncomfortable when they don't. If half a dozen people get on the train and only five collapse into gooey awe at the sight of him, I mark the sixth for death before he sits down. ‘Maybe he hasn't seen him,' I say to myself through gritted teeth, slowly tipping the pram on its back wheels, so as to angle the child's face in his direction.

‘My youngest has just gone off to college,' my neighbour explained, with just the slightest catch in her throat. ‘No one tells you how empty your house will seem after that.'

It's true. No one had told me that. Our friends and family had prepared us for long nights, cranky strops and inflated nappies. We are offered sympathetic shoulder pats and appreciative sighs, not wide-eyed, wistful envy. When I'd told a friend we were taking our eight-week-old on a plane, he gave me the pitying stare usually reserved for news of imminent eye surgery.

‘Treasure it,' my neighbour said as we took off, with a strength of feeling that strongly implied my son could leave for college at any moment. Picking up her book, she abandoned me to the inexorable reach of time's skeletal hand. I hastily resumed play on Netflix.

‘You OK, hun?' my wife asked as we disembarked the plane. ‘Yes', I said, wiping my eye. ‘I guess Air Bud: The Soccer Dog was more emotional than I remembered'.

Living the Australian dream

The Batchelors are living what many would call the Australian dream, leaving their nine-to-five employment to become full-time owners of a country pub.

But the new owners of the historic Criterion Hotel in Quorn are no strangers to country life.

Robyn Hay and Paul Batchelor left the hustle and bustle of the city five years ago and have been living in Wongyarra in the state's mid-north.

The blended family are a real life Brady Bunch. Meeting 14 years ago Robyn and Paul both brought with them two children each, before eventually having a daughter of their own.

While the couple may have become accustomed to country life, owning a pub is a whole new ball game – Robyn worked in hospitality before she was a lab technician, but Paul has never set foot behind a bar.

Lack of experience didn't scare them and when the opportunity to buy the Criterion Hotel came up, Paul took it with both hands.

"You only get one chance at life, so do what you want to do. That's my motto," Paul said.

"We have always liked the idea of owning a pub. We have done a fair bit of travelling outback and country pubs always appealed.

"It's a little bit more laid back I guess, people tend to be friendlier because they are out travelling instead of out under the pump everyday."

The Batchelors had their first week as hoteliers starting last Monday and it was a baptism of fire come the weekend.

"We have been putting out fires all week," Paul laughed.

"We hit the ground running with Quorn Cup and we ended up with a heap of shearers staying on the first night for the whole week."

Nineteen-year-old Daughter Charlotte is a friendly face behind the bar and with plenty of hospitality experience, she plans to be a hands on employee.

"I have only been in town for the last couple of days, but it's really nice and it has just got a gorgeous feel to it," she said.

Son Darien, 18, is taking on a maintenance role and happy-go-lucky daughter Isabelle, 10, enhances the family feel.

The Batchelors have big plans to rejuvenate the run-down hotel, starting with bringing its character back by reinstating the original 1880 facade.

In the meantime, a short term focus for Paul is reopening the pub to seven days a week and supporting the community that has been so welcoming to his family.

"We would like to return it back to how it should be," he said. "We want to source locally as much as possible to keep the money in the community as much as we can.

"If more people in businesses did that then more communities would thrive even more so."

Croatia's dream World Cup run ignites diaspora in Australia

Nothing has united the Croatian diaspora more than qualifying for the country's first World Cup final, with celebrations among ex-pat communities rivaling the excitement felt in Zagreb.

"You've got to understand how huge this is," said Veljko Bosnic, president of the Dalmacija Sydney Croatian Club in Australia, home to one of the largest ex-pat Croatian communities in the world outside of Europe.

"We've been raised on soccer for many, many generations. It's in our DNA."

Bosnic has to use the word "soccer" because Australians don't understand the round-ball game is "real football", and often confuse it with Australian Rules or Rugby League, played with a pill-shaped ball.

But the Pacific nation has caught World Cup fever with more than half a million people sitting up until the early hours of Thursday morning to watch Croatia's "fiery ones" defeat England to make it to their first ever World Cup final against France on Sunday.

Ivan Spehar, owner of Ivan's Smallgoods in the Sydney suburb of Chester Hill, had to employ extra staff to keep up with World Cup demand for cevapi, the traditional skinless sausage eaten in the Balkan states.

"Yes, there's big demand for tomorrow - big, big orders, much bigger than usual, and next week if they do win first place there's possibly even more then as they'll be celebrating more."

Croatian-Australians have always had a strong presence in the Australian national team, including big names like striker Mark Viduka and Mark Bosnich, the former goalkeeper for Manchester United and Chelsea Football Club, helping to popularize the sport.

With a population of 4.2 million people as of 2016, Croatia is the smallest nation to make it to the final since Uruguay in 1950.

In Australia's capital, Canberra, the First Secretary at the Croatian embassy Sandra Tvrtkovic visited French ambassador Christophe Penot on Friday ahead of the big match, which happens early Monday morning local time.

"To win would be a dream come true for our small country, plus for Croatians around the world. We are really just living the dream now. Hoping and cheering for the victory," Tvrtkovic was quoted as saying by the Canberra Times.

Australia's population of 24 million people includes more than six million citizens born overseas, according to 2016 census figures, while nearly half of all Australians were either born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas.

Many Croatians migrated to Australia in the 1960s and '70s, and the country was once within Yugoslavia, so while census figures show 43,681 Croatian-born citizens live in the country, the real number of Australians with Croatian heritage is much higher.

"The census is way off, there's a helluva lot more," said Bosnic, who has lived in Australia for 55 years and has seen three generations grow up in Sydney.

A childhood dream come true

KOCHI: To chase a distant dream and for it to come true is a real blessing. This rings as a reality for Sandhya P from Gottiyarkandi- a Kurumba tribal settlement in Attapadi. From a life filled with everyday struggles and hardships due to the scarcity of food, water, transport and electricity, Sandhya has come a long way to become the first woman to be selected as a civil police officer from her settlement.

Sandhya wanted to be a police officer from her childhood. But she had to sideline the dream, caught in the fear generated by the people around her. She was told it is a risky job for girls, and her family life will face uncertainty. These opinions made her choose over her dreams. Eventually, she made up her mind to become a teacher.Despite the odds, things went differently for Sandhya. She did her schooling away from home in Palakkad district and later completed her graduation in Economics from Vimala College, Thrissur. Her parents stood with her through thick and thin and gave wings to her dreams.

It was at the beginning of this year that she came across the call for 'women civil police officer' in a newspaper advertisement. 'Women Civil Police officer (SR) for Scheduled Tribes of the Attapadi block' is a post entitled to the tribal communities in the state.With the support rendered by her parents especially her father, Sandhya along with her sister Sharanya, who also graduated recently from Vimala College, applied for the post.

Then to the obvious questions of if she was sure about this, her reply comes up with a confident smile, "I was never afraid of applying. I was an NCC candidate in my college and also a sports person, all these achievements gave me the confidence. Then my father was beside me through the whole process. He really wanted both of us to do it, even though my sister didn't make it," said Sandhya.

The selection process consisted of a physical and medical test and a personal interview in which Sandhya cleared with a good margin among candidates from other tribal settlements in the Attapadi block. Being a shot put player and also good in long jump and sprint Sandhya was confident about the physical test but when it came to the interview she was slightly apprehensive about the medium. To her luck, the medium was Malayalam and she cleared it with confidence.

Sandhya has decided to put a pause on her alternate dream of becoming a teacher and go forward with her childhood dream. Some of the friends and others cautioned that the training will be tough, but she thinks she will do good. "Being an NCC cadet I liked parades and all those activities which were never easy. It has given me the self-assurance to do this," Sandhya said.Sandhya's family is also excited for her. Her sister Sharanya says with bright eyes "I am very happy that my sister is going to become the first woman police officer from our community. Our family is also very happy."

There were also many who were apprehensive about her achievement. Even after the selection, some asked her why she wants to take this risk and why shouldn't she take up another job since she has a degree. Sandhya has turned her back to all those discouraging voices and is determined to carry on with her dream.
Being the first woman civil police officer, Sandhya wants to give back to her community that has helped her grow. With a voice filled with hope, she said, "There is a communication gap that exists between us and the outsiders which I want to bridge. I want to help them in a lot of ways, from supporting children in their education to helping the community to understand the laws of the land."