In October 2003 I went to Melbourne for a part of my studies and stayed at the University of Melbourne. Excerpts from my notebooks:
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Saturday night. Rain in Melbourne. From my rooms in Ormond College, I can see rain falling on wet tennis courts.
The next day on my way to Victoria Market, a tree on Berkeley Street. The street is otherwise all car sheds and auto shops. The tree is in bloom and a brilliantly coloured bird is feeding. Then on Pelham Street, a eucalypt with large purple tinged gumnuts – the kind I haven’t seen in Sydney. Elsewhere on the streets, the trees are green canopies, perhaps European in origin like most of the city. The most common is a light, lovely green; its winged seeds float around the city and accumulate in large drifts on street corners.
Tiramisu at every cafe. In India for a long time it was a food out of reach, the kind of thing that might appear in a page 3 column or at an expensive wedding. Foods are commonplace or an affectation depending on where you live.
Reading Banana Yoshimoto. I feel much older, unable to write about simple things - meeting friends, coffee sessions, late night rides, the first flush of a romance. For this first year here has been a solitary experience. Some part of life has passed. When younger, I was drawn to slightly melancholic, serious looking boys. At the beginning of a love affair, you cease to judge the world. Its affectations, its ordinariness, its vulgarity – all of it is acceptable. Then it changes, quotidian life resumes. Now all around me there are couples, families, friends interrupted by a lone person wrapped in coffee and a paper. I think I feel wistful, nostalgic for the past but the sun casts a weak light on Lygon Street, a bookstore at the corner catches my attention and I am swept up by the moment.
The afternoon is dark and rainy and I go to see Japanese Story. The Pilbara is red and blue, the heat jumps out of the screen. Toni Collette learns some life lessons. Her Japanese counterpart finds himself before his sudden demise.
One of the students in my class is an Australian of Hungarian origin. He tells me law is a profession for the moneyed upper classes here. In reality the class is overwhelmingly middle class and everyone talks about the same things, almost as if there is a common pool to draw upon. We discuss the persistence of ancient hatreds – he asks me about the religious tensions in India, tells me of the fractious Turkish-Hungarian relationship. These feelings survive a move to the Antipodes.
Lots of Marxist-Trotskyist-Leninist posters on campus. They exhort ill-paid workers to join them. Universities are probably the last bastions of the left.
I am invited to a late evening student do. It is sweet in its simplicity and casualness.
On the tram, everyone in black, grey, brown. Everyone sallow, especially Asians of a darker complexion. We look faded in the cold weather – almost as if we need a tropical jungle to set off the brown. Many Calcuttans migrated here and are tram drivers. I ask the driver if he is Bengali, he looks tired. It turns out he has been asked this question several times. He is Sri Lankan and waives my ticket.
In a week I head back to India. The life I knew there is receding and I wonder what the visit will be like.
_________________________________________________________
Saturday night. Rain in Melbourne. From my rooms in Ormond College, I can see rain falling on wet tennis courts.
The next day on my way to Victoria Market, a tree on Berkeley Street. The street is otherwise all car sheds and auto shops. The tree is in bloom and a brilliantly coloured bird is feeding. Then on Pelham Street, a eucalypt with large purple tinged gumnuts – the kind I haven’t seen in Sydney. Elsewhere on the streets, the trees are green canopies, perhaps European in origin like most of the city. The most common is a light, lovely green; its winged seeds float around the city and accumulate in large drifts on street corners.
Tiramisu at every cafe. In India for a long time it was a food out of reach, the kind of thing that might appear in a page 3 column or at an expensive wedding. Foods are commonplace or an affectation depending on where you live.
Reading Banana Yoshimoto. I feel much older, unable to write about simple things - meeting friends, coffee sessions, late night rides, the first flush of a romance. For this first year here has been a solitary experience. Some part of life has passed. When younger, I was drawn to slightly melancholic, serious looking boys. At the beginning of a love affair, you cease to judge the world. Its affectations, its ordinariness, its vulgarity – all of it is acceptable. Then it changes, quotidian life resumes. Now all around me there are couples, families, friends interrupted by a lone person wrapped in coffee and a paper. I think I feel wistful, nostalgic for the past but the sun casts a weak light on Lygon Street, a bookstore at the corner catches my attention and I am swept up by the moment.
The afternoon is dark and rainy and I go to see Japanese Story. The Pilbara is red and blue, the heat jumps out of the screen. Toni Collette learns some life lessons. Her Japanese counterpart finds himself before his sudden demise.
One of the students in my class is an Australian of Hungarian origin. He tells me law is a profession for the moneyed upper classes here. In reality the class is overwhelmingly middle class and everyone talks about the same things, almost as if there is a common pool to draw upon. We discuss the persistence of ancient hatreds – he asks me about the religious tensions in India, tells me of the fractious Turkish-Hungarian relationship. These feelings survive a move to the Antipodes.
Lots of Marxist-Trotskyist-Leninist posters on campus. They exhort ill-paid workers to join them. Universities are probably the last bastions of the left.
I am invited to a late evening student do. It is sweet in its simplicity and casualness.
On the tram, everyone in black, grey, brown. Everyone sallow, especially Asians of a darker complexion. We look faded in the cold weather – almost as if we need a tropical jungle to set off the brown. Many Calcuttans migrated here and are tram drivers. I ask the driver if he is Bengali, he looks tired. It turns out he has been asked this question several times. He is Sri Lankan and waives my ticket.
In a week I head back to India. The life I knew there is receding and I wonder what the visit will be like.
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