In Australia

Winter sky.

Evening at the beach.

Walking the dog.

Aunt's favourite flowers.

The nieces gift for their grandfather.

Qs books, lovely second hand bookshop.

The inside of a second hand book.

Brand new grandfather.

The great-grandmother as a young woman.

The dog.

Chic cousin, daggy me and footrest.

The nieces birthday card.

Newcastle

I had to return to Australia for awhile, principally to meet family in Newcastle.

I hadn't spent much time in Newcastle while I lived in Australia.  It turned out to be a pretty town with spectacular beaches and a relaxed lifestyle.  And it was good to have some downtime with family. Though my life at the moment is a LOT of downtime!

What was most surprising was the mild culture shock in returning to Australia given that I lived there for a decade and it is not long since I moved.  Partly this was because Newcastle is a very white town unlike Sydney which probably has the most diverse population of all Australian cities. Partly because it has been easy to slip back into Asian life, not that I anticipated that it would be difficult given how frequent my trips to India were in the decade I was in Australia.  At any event I felt like I was navigating a familiar and yet strange landscape . Again I had that old feeling best captured by DH Lawrence. A landscape of mystery and beauty yet somehow colourless lives. Having lived in Australia I know this to be not true, rather life is good and bad in equal measures much like elsewhere.  Yet this is the overwhelming impression left by over large houses, quiet streets devoid of people and the general lack of colour and movement in public spaces.

Additionally I had forgotten how large houses are in Australia. Previously I hadn't given it much thought but suddenly it seemed pointless, every house has a good deal of unused space, each room requires furniture and so on.  This in turn creates the feeling of emptiness, already present in a vast country. Compounding this is the poor public transport away from Sydney.

Still autumn is probably one of the best times to visit Australia. The weather is crisp and cool, the Australian light at its best and everywhere along the coast there is dense grey green vegetation broken by blue seas.

My nieces have grown. The elder one is a lot quieter though her zany self breaks through now and then. She is in school and her studies, her peers and their interests occupy most of her time. The younger one, still at home, is a scamp and not surprisingly a lot of attention is focussed on her.

The nieces are about 1000% into Frozen.  I have to confess that I dislike Disney products and Frozen is no exception.  I tend to prefer Anglo-French whimsy and gentleness (like Charlie and Lola) or original fairy tales that are dark and complex, unlike their sanitised Disney versions. Frozen is touted as a female empowerment story but in reality it is a trite tale that is so common to modern Western feminism (I can do without a man, sisters forever!) laced with Disney pop ballads that are simply not my kind of music.  Still it was lovely to listen to my nieces singing, one in her high, clear voice the other with her childish lisp.

Given Newcastle, my niece is probably the only child of Indian heritage in her school.  She is a third gen Australian and yet you can see that there are still issues she has to negotiate.  On the one hand she is (rightfully) immersed in the culture of the country. But this cocktail of Disney stories (and Australian Disney products are overwhelmingly white, its rare to spot a Mulan, Pocahontas or Tiana), fairies, gothic Mattel and the like have little correlation with how she looks. It is one thing to consume it as foreign product as one may in India, another to negotiate it as part of the culture. At the same time, her grandparents tales from Indian mythology are alien to her in some ways. The niece is a well adjusted child but also an intelligent one and you can see that her schooling experience i.e. her position in the larger society and culture at home raises some questions.

We also went shopping for the kids. Everything, and I mean everything, is gender segregated, from clothes to toys to kiddie TV shows. The entire girl section is pink, the entire boy section blue and camouflage print.  In some ways we have to feel grateful that there is no kid consumer base being tapped into in India - for the large part children watch and read and play with the same things. Having said that, the nieces do have the beach, the playground, even their own little garden all of which they enjoy and it is fun for the adults too.

Going back meant looking at everything with a fresh pair of eyes.  I don't know what the future holds but it looks like it will be awhile before I contemplate a return to Sydney. And at the moment being here, dividing time between Singapore and India, feels right.

Things We Find When Moving

While packing up my place in Sydney, I found an old storage box with partitions that I sometimes use for storing jewellery.  It is made of hard plastic and probably dates back to the 80s. My father would sometimes be gifted Diwali sweets and the tin or box it came in was reused. Particularly because these were often decorative, at least by the standards of the time.

In fact pretty much any packaging that we received was rarely thrown away.  Even cardboard boxes which my brother and I would gussy up with leftover wrapping paper.  Painting over things was a Sunday afternoon past time for us, be it a cheap earthenware vase or just little paintings for our wall. Sometimes my grandmother would give us a print from a Japanese calendar, my uncle had been to Japan and a calendar would often be sent to him. We would get a single print which we would mount on left over plywood.   All of this was far cheaper than buying a curio or a print - even a Taschen calendar poster was unaffordable.

I discarded a lot of these when I moved to Sydney a decade back except this box.  And for a cheap plastic throwaway it has lasted a long time. What's more it is in perfect condition despite being in careless hands. 

Leaving Sydney

It's been more than 5 months since I left Sydney though I went back for a few weeks to wind up and clear out my flat.  The years since I came back from a brief stint in Brisbane and resumed my old life seem to have coalesced into one. In between there was an incapacitating illness, deaths in the family, a very blue year, travel back and forth.  The mid point of this marked a transition, a new phase in life where everything is quietly hopeful, quietly hopeless. Yet I could not say I was unhappy.  Rather if I felt afresh the shock of grief, I felt happiness. And too keenly at times.  At the point when I was ill and had days to myself and the year was blue, blue, blue I would often walk around slowly in the afternoon. The day as often in Sydney would be mildly sunny, small pink eucalypt flowers would litter the ground, my niece would come rushing to the door of her house if I was in the neighbourhood and dropped by and life would feel absolutely simple for a moment.  I never feel this way elsewhere.

When I was a child, my brother and I lingered at a house with a TV, a rarity those days.  A documentary on the Nullarbor plain was screening and something in it held us rapt. My aunt had moved early on to Australia, to us inured to American tales it felt suitably distant and different. My Brilliant Career spoke to me as a teen. Years later in my first serious relationship which happened to be long distance, my then boyfriend was briefly working in Perth. It was the only time I considered dropping everything to move.  In a way the country held a place in my imagination.  It lay in wait for me as I for it.  I am not Australian, rather there are parts to the country that suit me. And there is no other place outside of India that feels this way. For the moment it is goodbye and there has been much to feel happy about by way of family and being home. Which is the reason for moving. But for all its distance Sydney remains a second home and I think about my years there often.

Sydney Blues

I will probably do a review later but in the meantime a filler post on actors who should be hearthrobs but aren't:-)

And more filler to kick off 2012 by way of pictures taken on a hot Sydney summer day which was pretty much cloudless.

Cronulla Saturday

Though the Shire can be a thing of loveliness, fringed as it is by the Royal National Park, I rarely go there. And it is even rarer that I go to Cronulla, I had been there just once one summer when the place was an endless expanse of (mostly white) young limbs on the beach. From the beach, Kurnell was visible lending a certain chill to the landscape. The beach mall was no different from that of any Australian seaside town, if a little charmless. It all spoke of the stifling boredom of the worlds described in coming of age novels like Puberty Blues or a movie like La Spagnola. I have rarely felt as out of place as on that day. I was in no particular hurry to return.

After the moderate weather of the week, today was blustery and overcast. Though I prefer the dramatic atmospherics of cold, windswept beaches, overcast suits me fine. I have never taken to the intense Australian sun though elsewhere I cannot get enough of the sun. This morning on a whim I therefore decided to go there, Cronulla is distant but still reachable and I felt like being near water. It turned out to be a pleasant day. There are vestiges of the past in the suburb; the station still has a milk bar, the fish and chips shops haven’t entirely moved out. But something of the inner city has diffused to the suburb; there is Berkelouw, organic coffee shops, buskers and a bookshop that I remembered from my last visit. Of course this exists alongside the suburban nature of Cronulla, at the beach there was bad music and even a few dismal beachside sermons. And plenty of kids decked out in Billabong and Roxy, the ubiquitous surf labels in these parts. As always, in spite of the weather, there were people in the water. The scraggly vegetation of the beach was in bloom, even if the weather has been inconsistent Sydney’s flora speak of spring. The sea was tinged grey but becalmed. Perhaps it was the day, but the characteristic lugubrious silence of Australian towns lay over the suburb even though there were plenty of people around on a Saturday morning. But the silence was friendly, not lonely as it sometimes can be.

On the way back I bought a few jonquils (or perhaps daffodils). Then on the train a lot of old people headed elsewhere, all friendly smiles. Back home, the jonquils go quite nicely with a vintage vase I bought. Now the melancholic darkening late afternoon, the jonquils, the slowly approaching end of another day are as tranquil and simple as the morning stroll.

Sydney Noir

Recently taken pictures around the Opera House. The day itself was the coldly brilliant day common in a Sydney winter. These were taken at end of day and of course worked upon to heighten the darkness. 

Rain

After a warm Christmas Day, rain and colder weather today. A grey-green day with a slightly melancholic and reflective mood is just my cup of tea.

Red Dust!

A few days of mild sunshine and balmy skies and then last night the rain pelted down. This morning a dust storm and strangely for Sydney red skies. The Sydney Morning Herald has pictures of it, the above picture pretty much captures the view from my window. I cannot see the bridge today and given visibility, it is not surprising ferries have been cancelled.

The bauhinia I posted on still has its blooms, if a little sepia tinted from the dust.

Though dissimilar, the last time I remember darkened skies was during the bush fires of 2002. Wonder if we are in for a bushfire season this summer.

Avalon Beach + Dangar Island

Young surfers before jumping off the rock pool at Avalon Beach (one of Sydney's Northern Beaches).

View of Hawkesbury River from Dangar Island.

These pictures I took indicate the varied natural aspects of Sydney. Avalon has a surfing beach, and the suburb itself has a cultivated laid back, village charm. Here there is the air of something open and simple as people lounge on the beach or launch into the Pacific swell (strictly not the Pacific but the Tasman Sea), though the suburb itself is affluent. Behind the suburb lies bushland (not pictured) - as you venture in the topography and mood again changes. The Hawkesbury River on the other hand is a series of meandering inlets and small islands with the air of something secretive, people seem shaped by living on rivers. I haven't read The Secret River, but the name seems apt. Similarly the novel The River Baptists was inspired by a move to river living. Along the river are oyster farms (the film Oyster Farmer is set in the Hawkesbury and evokes the moody yet placid nature of the river).

Toxic Gap Syndrome

Its been several months since I strolled through the CBD.

Last month, while walking around the city, I found that the major arteries (George & Pitt Street) are having a makeover. Pitt Street Mall in fact is having an overhaul while parts of George Street have already got new stores. These stores tend to be repetitive, much in the manner of finding Gap stores every few metres in the US a decade or so ago. Oxfam, which used to be on Pitt Street Mall has relocated as have a number of smaller stores. The renovation will likely increase rents so one can expect that few of them will return. Small business seems to be slowly vanishing from the city. Unlike Melbourne which has built is reputation on small eclectic stores in its laneways, Sydney's city centre has become a vast emporium for major retailers.

Pitt Street Mall on sale

Sydney has a reputation as a soulless city of shiny surfaces. Much as one would like to resist stereotype, sometimes it seems the reputation is deserved.

Towards Autumn

This week was the first sign that summer will soon be left behind. Though I hated winter when I arrived in Sydney, autumn and winter now count as my favourite seasons. Even for someone rich in melanin like me, the summers here are intense and at times unpleasant. Yet Australian tourism will have you believe that this is the best time of the year and what's more it lasts year round. Luckily it doesn't.

The Big Wet, Skyline, Strathfield: Shiv Moulee

Autumn and winter in Sydney are mild in comparison to their northern counterparts. In spite of this, you see the familiar patterns of chilly days and nights, rain, the slow shedding of leaves, darker wardrobes, the steam from the soups of eating holes and the slow closing of the city into itself. In any event, the muting of the million watt light of the Australian summer brings a romance to the city, its dingy streets seem much improved by both wind and rain. Similarly the beaches are no longer rows of glistening bodies, the sun a vertical ray boring through your clothes. In lovely contrast is the beach at Bronte on a cold and rainy day, the sea in turmoil with a few brave souls plunged in its icy waters.

It will be the end of March before we have anything close to autumnal days yet I feel my mood much improved at its approaching.

St. George of Lebanon drives a taxi

My taxidriver today was a Lebanese-Kuwaiti who has been in Sydney for 30 odd years. He was an imposing burly man of the world with a booming voice, I was invited to guess his nationality, even the number of children he had. Russia, Iran, Iraq were all rejected even though all of these seemed admixed in his features. It turned out that he owns cabs (and one can only assume their drivers too) - this was just one of those days he had decided to take the cab for a spin. He turned out to be quite the dada of St. George and amongst other nuggets, informed me that he disliked Lebanon and indeed on his last visit had barely lasted a week, was exceedingly strict and honest unlike other Lebanese, his children were wonderful and such achievers and there was no country like Australia. This assessment of the country had echoes of the quote on Kashmir - if there be a paradise on earth, this is it. Paradise today was slightly grey and we passed the usual stretches of buildings, terraces and the desultory traffic on George Street till he deposited me at my destination.

His presence was so huge it filled the entire taxi and he didn't seem to be a man who took kindly to any opposition to his will. I haven't met a driver so formidable and imposing in all my travels.

A Painting + Sydney winter

When I lived in Killara, the steep roads and landscape would often remind me of Grace Cossington Smith's paintings of Turramurra (which is not in any case very far from Killara). I quite like GCS's city paintings, especially "The Lacquer Room", below. And her rare Bowral landscapes, all dusty grey and pinks from memory in contrast to her later brilliant yellows.



The winter I spent in Killara was fairly severe, in part because the suburb is quite green. This winter hasn't been as cold and the city itself seems more rushed than when I first arrived here. Nevertheless I love Sydney in the winter, with its blue evenings, cool winds whipping through arcades, soup takeaways, the bobbing of black clad figures on any given day in the city, fallen gingko leaves at the botanical gardens, the odd wet day and the crazy bastards who are always found swimming around Bondi & Bronte.