Strathfield, NSW 2216

My first Korean drama post I think was more interesting for its description of Strathfield - or so I was told:) So I thought I might write a bit about the Australian suburbs I have lived in.

When I first moved to Sydney in 2002, I did some preliminary research on suburbs and my heart was set on Wollstonecraft or Bronte, purely for literary reasons:) And there was Glebe, where on a November day in 1999 I thought to myself one day I will live in this city. But when I saw the houses I hesitated. The rentals were high and of course that made a difference. But the charming cottages that were advertised turned out to be pocket sized and inconvenient. These were after all workers cottages in the 19th and 20th century that had gained serious cred simply by aging.  Eventually I decided to be a proper Asian immigrant and take a flat in Strathfield.

Even this was perhaps a little left-field because most Indians are wedded to the mortgage and a  proper house (preferably somewhere out west like Fairfield and beyond) within months of arrival.  In my firm, which was predominantly white, European attorneys would move to the eastern fringes with its beaches or the north shore. In fact Sydney has a enormous deal of suburb snobbery and it can be quite amusing to see the silent judgements being made when you mention where you live.  It didn't bother me, all postcodes being born equal as far as I was concerned:)

The reason for moving to Strathfield was fairly simple. It was well connected by train and it took me about 20 minutes to get to work in the city. Apart from this, it was one of few suburbs at that point that had high rise buildings and flats. There were in fact just a couple, squeezed into land along the tracks as is common in Sydney.  The buildings were mediocre - I still hold that Australians cannot design high rises, plumping for impractical open arrangements with a great deal of glass (making them furnaces in summer) intended to look like advertisements for modern city living or buildings that resembled hotels with long dark corridors.  Mine was the latter. But it was still better than the large expanse of suburbia that is most of Sydney.  The fringes of Sydney are beautiful but its interior is the death of the soul, suddenly all the anti-suburbia literature of the West makes sense.  There is a nothingness to this, as if you would be slowly numbed by these suburbs of similarly lined houses, a strip of the same shops in each centre with liquor, gambling and a supermarket predominant and a station that always led to a Railway Street. Strathfield on the other hand was an old suburb with pretty houses but the influx of immigrants and buildings with shops beneath meant that it remained lively even at a late hour. This was a big deal to me, because at this point almost all of Sydney would fade away by 6 pm.  In fact everything started early and ended early, not the best situation for a night owl like me. The other factor was my father's intended visits, I did not want the usual fate of parents in these cities, the endless wait for someone with a car to take you around to show the sights. This way he could see the city on his own time.

My building in Strathfield had a formidable Russian lady as the manager who was completely intolerant regarding the rules of the building. To put it politely she was a f**king pain in the arse. There was, as can be common in Sydney, a Russian club around the corner and a few other Eastern European structures from memory. The flat itself was comfortable, I had taken a 2 bedder as my brother was to join me later. One peculiarity of the building (and later I found of every other building in Strathfield) was that the fire alarm went off every day. The building was full of Koreans and everyone blamed their cooking practices. But given the regularity I suspect there was something a little more to it, perhaps a cosy arrangement between building management and the fireies.

As I mentioned earlier, the parts of the suburb near the station were full of Koreans.  There used to be minor gripes from visitors about not understanding signage etc. but it never affected me. It stood to reason that if you were an immigrant with little or no knowledge of English, you would aggregate in an area and that any services provided would need to cater to the local community.  Often the lack of English meant that communication was difficult, not that many people tried. This was in fact a characteristic of Sydney, even someone you see for years may not acknowledge you-initially it feels racial till you realise that everyone has had the Sydney cold shoulder and even new arrivals slip into this mode of behaviour.  A lot of folk who ran small services were however pleasant. The flower seller was a a sweet lady. There was a store that did small time repairs on clothes, handbags etc - it's a little hard to explain here that there was a joy in this because it's so hard to find in Sydney. For the most part, we didn't really eat out at the Korean places - though I always wanted to try the piquantly named Mr Dduckbocki Miss Kkochi. Instead for Asian, almost all of Strathfield, went to the Saigon Bowl - though it wasn't the best in town it set me off on love for Vietnamese cuisine. And of course there was the little clothes shop which didn't break the bank but had stylish office wear that lasted forever.  For I found that all my shopping for Sydney had been for nought, nothing was proper for Sydney mores or the weather. One thing that came out of my stay in Strathfield was that to date I know when Korean is being spoken.  I heard a lot of it and it became easy to distinguish (the alphabets too but that is relatively simple to differentiate) from other Asian languages.

Strathfield in fact also had an Indian presence though this grew stronger as you moved towards Homebush. There were more than a few Indian stores and towards Homebush you could also get cheap dosais and the like.  In this sense, it was perfect for a newbie to the city.

I lived in two of the apartment complexes in Strathfield till I moved out in 2006. The second one had a Macedonian manager who was polite and never failed to remind me that Alexander the Great was Macedonian. He had learnt a bit of Korean which meant he was popular with the residents and was in fact planning a visit to Korea when I left.  The building itself was like a plush hotel complete with indoor swimming pool.  Despite all this staying in the complexes wasn't a bad decision given the fact the burglary was fairly common in Strathfield's small apartment blocks with little or no security.

In a way Strathfield was an ideal way to ease into Sydney. It had familiar Indian elements and wildly different ones. Travelling was simple. It was easy for my dad to get around. My family in Sydney was close and yet not too close. Old relos who came around actually liked the sound of trains and shops below, unlike the natives. Signs of life as it were. My decision to go neither East nor West of the city in the initial years served me well.

I had arrived in Sydney in the somewhat contradictory states of excitement and clinical depression. These ebbed and flowed, in the beginning I was anxious to return home once I got my degree. Events back home had left a peculiar kind of hurt, the reasons were insufficient to feel so much and yet all these messy emotions were there. A lot happened in those 4 years. By the time I left I was in a calmer frame of mind, I had settled into my job, I had a degree and I had decided to stay on a bit more.

At my Grandmother's

Lazy post for today.  The last of my pictures from Mumbai were taken in and around the Mahalakshmi Mahal (new name for the grandmother's house!).  In retrospect the visit had all the hallmarks of a plot for a chick flick - single woman with a career visits her grandmother's place and rediscovers life and family, finds love with an old fling and decides to stay on.  Though elements of each of these were present on my visit, in retrospect its a good thing that real life is not equal to Hollywood!

First up, the blossoms of the citron/narthangai.  My Tamil genes speak when I say that curd rice+narthangai on a summer afternoon=perfection!

I only know the basic kolams but I do like making them and the black slate laid down for it at the entrance made it an infinitely pleasurable activity.

Often I had little to do except wander around the house.  Despite some of my internal feelings which were at times unhappy, there was a certain kind of tranquillity brought about by observing tiny details - though I never achieved the state of grace of the protagonist of The Scent of Green Papaya :-)

When I did venture out the photographs I took were partly a record of sights I grew up with and that somehow seemed to have survived time, even as the people have changed.  The vegetable carts in Rajawadi are an example.

All the time I was in Mumbai the house was full of painters and they would be terribly self-conscious each time I photographed them.

Most of my pictures are a recordal of things that interest me though they make for pleasant images. When my cousin was visiting, she played around with my camera a good deal making for very different images. This image of our grandmother is by her and I like the way it foregrounds an object that my grandmother uses every day.

Our Lady of Miracles - and Housekeeping

The bro's chauffeur never fails to offer his trademark take on life etc.  Apart from serpent deities, he is also partial to the more commonplace goddesses. One such is Tulja Bhavani, we passed by the derivative temple at Andheri and after many prostrations and genuflections (I have been reading far too much of The Hindu!), he offered an explanation.  His foot had gone bad when I was last here and he had made the rounds of the clinic only for the pain to return. Pig fat had also not helped. Naturally he sought divine intervention.  And it lay with this small temple, the priestess of which I remembered as a lady with a large red dot on her forehead and hair of a thousand knots.  She had immediately proclaimed the presence of numerous bad spirits and gave him a number of lemons (no If Life Gives you Lemons Make Lemonade joke here!).  He consumed these - I can't recollect in what manner. His foot was instantly better and remained so.  A few lemons remained and much later he discarded them in the sea.  Instantly he was gripped by pain. This time the lemon remedy did not come free, he spent 6000/- on the priestess who had meanwhile relocated to a small town. Still, he said, cheaper than the doctor.  The explanation for these bad lemons (way too many awful jokes here but I will desist) lay in them not being properly discarded at the chauraha.  I instantly remembered DD Kosambi's book which deals with the importance of mother goddess cults and the crossroads in Indian culture.  Kosambi's chapter on this begins with an episode in the Mrichchakatikam. Given the persistence of things in India this is a cliched view - yet it felt slightly odd that such an old ritual persisted on modern crossroads.

Our Lady of Housekeeping

Meanwhile my father has a new employee.  The lady who does the housework has a sweet disposition that is laced with an amusing tartness. Her world is different from the chauffeur's in so much that she is a Christian of a non-Catholic denomination that is much given to austerity, simplicity and the near absence of Catholic ritual.  Midway through her work we often sit down to tea and biscuits (Indian chai and biscuits I discover is a very madeleine moment) and I get to hear a fragmented recounting of her life.  One day it is her childhood, her father was a cook who travelled everywhere. Then the daughters only used foreign goods and learnt that white people smell too. Till the father died and they were all pulled out of school because their church "only takes money unlike the  Catholic Church which educates and supports those who fall on hard times".  Another day it is her youngest daughter who in spite of the church upbringing has succumbed to the lure of bad TV and expensive cosmetic makeovers. The other daughters are mentioned, she is off soon to welcome a new grandchild on which she wryly observes that even a grandmother is not welcome without gifts (she in fact will bear the expenses of the first few months of the child and this jolts me a bit, the precise economic allocations inherent in many Indian communities). Or  she may offer an amusing take on the skinflint and eccentric ways of employers - the luxury of talking to an employer is reserved for a few because most housewives she says cannot bear to see the maid idle for even a moment.

The times I see her I realise there is something inherently soothing about her presence. Her work is silent and neat.  And there are affecting and understated touches like the tiny garlands she threads for my mother's portrait.  And though this Mary is no goddess - well perhaps she is a domestic goddess of sorts - there is something a little charming about her quiet navigation of life. And a sense of that old feeling of there being a little divinity in people.

At my Grandmother's-I

I have been staying home for long spells on this visit and the quietness of the suburbs on week days has been surprising. The places I live in are admittedly tucked away, yet even on a short drive you turn into a lane and it will be silent. There is something slightly schizophrenic about leaving behind the chaos of the main roads to enter these streets.

At the moment I am at my grandmother's place and while she is in better cheer than I expected, at times she's like the lines of a poem I wrote for her - small, sorrowed, a crumpled heap. Life is a small room, her walking-aid, a chair to watch the lane below -but she also listens to my chatter-her "bedtime story" for today was my reading of Country Style. 

I have been loitering around the back of the house today - once a getaway and a splendid spot for childhood games - now more sedately I shot a few pictures (the camera has been with me everywhere on this visit documenting little else than domestic minutiae). The painters were around for awhile but not of late - their tools have been left behind till they return. The cobwebs are on our neighbour's grill, there is a certain gloomy satisfaction in seeing this - its the companionship afforded by the impossible housekeeping required of the large houses here.  

But the strongest memory of my childhood lay in this wall. I found it appalling as a child that people would keep out intruders by way of embedding glass and it still makes me uneasy.  And it is still around, albeit dressed up by a lick of paint. 

Equally, "servants" are bemusing.  There is complaining, bullying, wheedling, parsimony and the companionship of idle chatter in the relationship.  And though much has changed, the occupation is by no means a professional one and the underlying master-supplicant relationship remains with all its attendant stereotypes.  A harshness and discontent often exists on both sides.  My grandmother has had the same help for twelve odd years and is on good terms with her.  But a one day notice will suffice on both sides.  

 

Though I have been home for long spells, I haven't done much by way of reading or anything else. In Friedan's words, housework expands to fill time. And so it does, a few largely useless tasks occupy my entire day.  Perhaps this repetition is also soothing in some way, there is something vaguely Zen about the silence and the mundanity.  This is also because I am largely free of the tyranny imposed by a functional household, that peculiar insistence that tasks be done a particular way.  This morning while drying the clothes, I wryly remembered the oral instruction manual issued to young girls of my time entitled On the Proper Drying of Saris.  Girls obeyed, girls rebelled.  The situation was worsened by marriage. But after a proper and decent amount of time with the in-laws, young women could always go on to their own domestic tyrannies (I believe The Proper Stacking of Dishwashers is quite popular these days).

At my Grandmother's-II

I had hoped to take a few pictures around the colony but my walk proved disappointing. 

I started with the house. The garden that we share with our neighbours is scraggly and dusty beyond belief (though I must admit that my morning watering of the garden is one of few tasks I like). In spite of this, the first signs of the Mumbai spring (if one can call it that) are evident on this raggle-taggle, neglected bunch.

Part of the disappointment was because the old houses have overwhelmingly given way to the two-storeyed block which leaves little space for anything else.  The streets still boast a few odd trees but on the whole there is a dispiriting sameness, a tiredness to the landscape in these parts. The colony is far too tiny to make a difference to the world changing around it and in itself it is not sufficiently interesting, too many houses  are mediocre monuments to success. The timidity inherent in this robs the place of both elegance and an elegaic feel.

My uncle briefly contributed to wikipedia on the history of the colony, a decidedly more neutral take.

The numbering of the houses had always seemed vaguely confusing, I hadn't realised that a helpful map is provided at the entry (note spelling of city, the sign has been around for awhile).  Or that Tansa was a helpful marker.

In the tiny lanes, the dogs outnumbered people on a sleepy afternoon. And the desi badaam trees that dotted the colony have not completely vanished though the red pods we ate are still to appear.

Of the older houses that remain, many are in a state of disrepair. The only exception is the house of one of our acquaintances which is carefully and immaculately preserved.  After introductions I was invited in and their sun filled courtyard was sufficiently delightful for me to photograph a few flowers (I realise there is a monotony to flowers but cannot stop photographing them, besides these are so evocative of old Indian gardens).

Walking around, I thought a bit about my life.  I was born not too far from this colony and have been coming here through postings and moves.  I played on its streets as a child. My grandparents have always lived here, its the only fixed address I knew of for a long time. Properly, I should feel a deep affection for it.  But strangely it is already distant and a part of my past, I am already nostalgic for it even as I walk around. What it is now no longer belongs to me. 

Madh and Marve

A few pictorial updates.

Not having ventured out much due to family stuff and a cold, I briefly stepped out with the pater  for  a short  trip to Madh and Marve, which is fairly close to home. It was a bit of a nostalgia trip for the dad as he has been making visits to the area from 1962.   Though much has changed since I last visited, a glimmer of an older Mumbai exists in these parts. While fairly familiar with the place, I didn't know a ferry operated from Madh to Versova.  You can see the Versova's buildings from the ferry point.

There were a number of boats about and here and there and in tiny patches, the last of the mangroves.

These areas of course were once fishing villages and remain so, you can spot Bombay Duck drying along the road.

At Marve beach we stopped awhile. A dog was asleep in the mild winter sun, fisherfolk cleaned caught fish and tucked away in a corner, a young couple enjoyed some intimacy.

Our driver scrounged around for some free catch and came up with a single tiny crab, not sufficient for his cooking pot on this day. 

And last, before we left, a flag for a rough and ready shop that had slipped unnoticed. And a notice at a restaurant for a rice plate and ice - cream, a combination I have yet to try.

Trip in Pictures

A few pictures from my visit.  Taken in Mumbai and Chennai.

Leaf Kolam for Rainy Day, Ghatkopar

Rainy Day Garden, Ghatkopar

Pigeon and its eggs, Kandivali

Nagas, Temple at Chennai

Pink House, Chennai

                                           

mumbai twenty-six eleven

The ABC had a short doco today on the terror attack of last year. Still so incredibly sad, this post is simply in memory of those who died last year.

My cousin, Ramya, was part of a Nat Geo doco on the attacks. She is a Mumbaikar and spent months on it so it must have been an emotional exercise. Given the lack of cable here, it may be awhile before I catch it.

A Village in Mumbai

I had forgotten the unexpectedly rural nature of the little pocket of Mumbai where my grandparents house is located. It is a "cooperative housing colony" i.e. cheap residences built on marshy land as post independence Mumbai expanded. The initial tiny and roughly built residences are now quite changed as those with money built the squat, concrete and storied bungalows beloved of modern Indians announcing their arrival into the ranks of the comfortably off. Somewhere in between, the residences were modest and aesthetic cottages. Few now remain, the picture on the right below is of two residences that were the norm in the 70s and the 80s. It is also a long time since I saw common house sparrows (picture below left) and they along with squirrels seem to have made a comeback of sorts. And while cows are common in all parts of Mumbai, the picture on the left below has a somewhat bucolic setting.

Rarely for Mumbai, the residences are set on their own land and boast tiny gardens. A fair few were in bloom. The three above are trumpet flowers, rangoon creeper and ixora.

Travelling around Mumbai, you are lost in the ceaseless, anonymous roar of the city. But the colonies, enclaves and societies of the city are tiny domestic worlds with ordinary rhythms and routines and sometimes as with my grandparents place are unexpectedly quiet. The banana seller above has been making the rounds of the colony for many years as do other vendors of small goods.

And I quite liked the signage above for the school bus as well as the one hung by an irate householder whose intent is clearer than his spelling.

Mumbai

is very hot. I had quite forgotten how muggy October is.

In the morning when I take a walk, the harsingar tree (quite lovely) has shed overnight. It's a tree that is rare in Australia, in spite of obsessive gardeners bringing species from all over the world.

My grandmother is old. She seems querulous, absent minded and happy in company by turns. Her sisters are old too. But the passing of one of their husbands seems to have put a bit of vigour in them in the way arranging funerals usually do. My cousin, eighteen tomorrow, and always by far the youngest at my grandmother's place still looks like a fresh flower placed in the midst of a mansion that has seen better days.

The traffic is abominable. It is almost as if cars have been stacked along the road from land's end to the northern reaches and they make their incremental moves until they reach their destination. I am not sure how my brother has managed to work for near on two years here.

Every single person I have met has asked me about the attacks on Indian students in Australia.

The first few days of domestic help who come in to wash and clean are always unnerving.

Sadly, the maid and chauffeur at home are both careless about educating their daughters. No matter how dull the son, money and care are poured in equal measure into his education. In spite of government incentives, the daughter’s education seems incidental.

Le(s) Fils

On the flight to Mumbai, I watched Le Fils de l'Epicier, a modest, charming French film that follows the return of the prodigal son. The son of the title (Nicolas Cazale) is a prickly, depressed lad who takes over his ailing father's grocery run through the villages of Provence. Initially acerbic, full of resentments and conscious of unpaid bills, he begins to like his eccentric old customers, softens, finds love (with the charming Clotilde Hesme) and has a rapprochement of sorts with his father.

I was put in mind of it when I had my customary glass of sugarcane juice at the Rajawadi Raswanti Griha. The taciturn middle aged bhaiyya was absent, replaced by a young lad who may or may not have been his son. Like the grocer's son, he was abrupt in taking my order and keen to settle payment as quickly as possible. One lives in the hope that age and experience will soften le fils de vendeur de jus de canne à sucre (the French mouthful for a sugarcane juice seller's son as provided by this translation site).

I went home for the funeral of my youngest uncle. It wasn't the best of times, the bookends of the siblings had fallen off leaving my grandparents remaining fils a shocked and disoriented middle. It is already more than three weeks since the event and some of the early shock has subsided. While my uncle's absence was sudden, its aftermath is likely to play out over time.

Theatre of the Street

Mumbai - February 2002

Dogs with sad faces
Idle conversations over tea
The Virgin Mary in a red sari,
a consecrated goddess