the metamorphosis
It has been a roller coaster emotional ride in the last 2 years. It was elation when I got married. It was also a bit of ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me’. Soon after, it was separation anxiety when I was away from my husband while I waited to join him. It was disappointment that I couldn’t continue working in Bangalore. It was extremely sad on the last day at work. It was elation again when I got my visa, shopped and packed my stuff. Then it was separation anxiety/sorrow at its worst when I left to Sydney…far away from my parents, my brother, my home, everyone and everything else dear. It was marital bliss later.
It is a huge transition from being single to married. I cannot emphasise on it more. Married life thus far has taught me a great deal. I have learnt to live and share with Ravi. It is a sea-change from living with your parents. It starts with understanding each other, or trying to, as this is a lifelong process. It involves doing things together. Weekends have to be planned keeping each other in mind. There is a LOT of cooking to do. It is a lot of fun going places together, hosting parties as a couple, making common friends. There is a lot of give and take. We have now reached a point where things are done for each other almost unconsciously! We now know who is qualified in which task. This awareness lets us use our skills to the optimum! To illustrate, making coffee the first thing in the morning is Ravi’s cup of tea. All the chores have been well defined. I have been named ‘Lakshamma’! So you can guess my role in the house. I have been domesticated. I can now exceptionally manage the jobs that were hitherto alien to me. I can now cook, clean, feed any number of guests and make the bed too! My mom will be so proud of me.
The greatest plus of being married is that you have the power of two. I am not alone. To know that there is a special someone in your life who is eager to meet you at the end of each working day is so beautiful. It is such a blessing that your partner will be with you for life, through your joys and sorrows. It takes two to realise your dreams, to build your future.
As if being newly married wasn’t enough, I moved to a new country. I had to start living in the western world. Reflecting back, it amuses me to realise how I got thrown into two deep ends without knowing how to swim! Both these life changes have sort of completed me. I feel ‘metamorphosis’ed. It is a complete makeover. It is a new ‘me’. It was at first the excitement of exploring a new country, a new way of life. Alice was in wonderland! Sydney opened a whole new window to look at the world. The horizon got expanded. My beliefs, perceptions of people and understanding of way things worked were put to the ultimate practical test. My view points have since changed a bit. I have become more accommodative. I’ve come to like the freedom. I have realised things about me that I didn’t know earlier. This probably has been a very significant phase of self discovery.
Having travelled only to different parts of India and never outside it, my response to ‘Where are you from?’ was always ‘I am from Bangalore’. Now it is replaced with ‘I am from India’. There is a bigger sense of where I come from. Also, I now feel like a global citizen, as a part of the world and not just a particular country. I am more aware of what is happening around the globe.
Sydney has people from all over the world. For the first time in my life I came across Greeks, Africans, Lebanese, Srilankans, Fiji Indians and who have you. Australia is considered a safe haven. Migrants particularly from trouble countries find refuge in Australia. There are people arriving by boats in scores to the Aussie shores. Those without valid visas are put in detention centres and the hardships faced are multi-fold before they can build a base here. It won’t be surprising if migrants outnumber the true blue Aussies. But going by the history I wonder who true blue Aussies are. Australia was meant to be a prison land for convicts and criminals of the UK. There are shocking stories of how the early English settlers snatched this land away from the original tribal dwellers – the Aborigines. So the Aborigines can probably be rightfully called true blue Aussies.
The weather gave me a tough time initially. The first winter was hard. But thank heavens we are not in the icy UK or the snowy parts of US. Though the weather is quite a tricky thing here, it is quite manageable. It could be scorching hot one day, raining the next and very windy and cold on the third.
Self dependency is the name of the game. Do your own thing is the rule. There are many million things that were taken for granted while I lived in India. The housework would get done by the maid. You just had to ring the grocer and the supplies would be delivered home. Milkman would drop by every afternoon. Veggie carts would come to every street. You need not worry if you couldn’t cook some day. Hundreds of darshinis were always around to help you.
Here you first drive to a mall. Then walk through aisles and aisles of products. Choosing from hundreds of varieties, comparing prices and quality is in itself a very time consuming affair. Then you queue up at the pay counter. You lift everything in your trolley and stack them on the biller’s desk. The more and heavier are your things, worse it is for you. Once billed you stack them back in your trolley. Wait, it doesn’t end there. Push the trolley to the parking lot and shift everything to the boot of your car. Drive home. Carry all the bags to your unit. If you live on the third floor (blocks with 3 storeys have no elevators) you’ve had it! And finally stack them in your fridge. Phew.
The first striking thing about Sydney is how traveller friendly it is. There are signboards all over the place. All main roads have visible direction boards. All the street name boards are in place. There are city map books referring to which you can go from anywhere to anywhere in Sydney. There is no need to ask for directions. Basically there will be no one around on roads to direct you. Also travelling at high speeds makes it impossible to stop and ponder. If you don’t drive, there are websites to give you detailed maps, tell you how to get to where including what mode of transport to take replete with timings, maps and fares. There are call centres you could ring to find out the same info. There are visitor centres set up in every part of Sydney. Here is where you can grab as many brochures and pamphlets on all tourist attractions. And they are free! You can also speak to the friendly staff behind the counter say if you are lost or seeking last minute accommodation.
The local train stations have free timetable books you can ask for at the counter. All the station names are displayed all through the platforms. So while on the train, say a fast train and you don’t want to miss your stop, all you have to do is peep out to know where you are. There are of course announcements made on the train and in stations on delays/approaching trains/next station etc. These little things have been well thought through and probably made possible by the wealth available to a developed country.
When you talk about Australia, you cannot not talk about its beauty. It is an awesome country. You must see the blue of the beaches to believe it. Melbourne/Brisbane/Sydney, each city has its own distinctive flavour and is equally enchanting. I love the noise free quiet here. I love the clean air too.
The civic discipline and the sense of social responsibility everybody carries here amazes me. Personal space and privacy is very highly regarded. You can do your own thing. Unless you are not harming or troubling anyone, no questions are asked. Nobody wilfully dirties roads or public places. Everybody takes care of their trash bins, ensuring that it is placed on the pavement for collection on a weekly basis. Almost everyone follows driving rules. The law is obeyed. Pedestrians are given their due. There are well cemented pavements and pedestrian crossing traffic signals everywhere. No matter how crowded the trains are in peak hours the norm is to wait for all those alighting to get off the train before you can get on. Everyone patiently waits and boards. You don’t get squashed. You need not exert to ensure you get in or out.
I am also really impressed with the near absence of eve teasing. In these 20 months I haven’t come across a road romeo who lustfully looks at you, whistles as you walk past or even dares to pinch your butt. Walking in Majestic or Brigade road always was tough. I would walk with my left arm held at the back ready to defend. I would clutch a bag or a folder to shield my front. Those ‘accidental’ brush ups against your shoulder would always be deliberate. And god, the experience was yuck. Here I can walk peacefully and confidently irrespective of what I’m wearing or the time of the day and place. You won’t be pushed or shoved. You won’t hear lewd comments being passed. Of course there is a negligible fraction of junkies you have to watch out for.
I am happy with a lot of things here. All said and done it can never be home. I feel a loss of sense of belonging. It leads me to question my sense of identity. I am different in a crowd. I am not one among the crowd as I would be in Bangalore. Sometimes I feel lost. But sometimes I stand proud. My eating habits, my sense of dressing, my routine are all so different as compared to the people here. I tend to make friends with only other Indians here. I still feel like a traveller here. It will probably take a while to accept Sydney as home. I am still home sick.
I wanna go home.
Listen to this Michael Buble song on his official site here (wait for the graphics to download and then the embedded music will play, you might have to choose the song 'Home' on the top right corner). It is better heard than read, as most songs I suppose! Michael Buble is just brilliant.
Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home Mmmmmmmm
Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know
And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two “I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that
Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home
Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home
And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believed in me
Another winter day has come
And gone away
In Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home
And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know
Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home
It is a huge transition from being single to married. I cannot emphasise on it more. Married life thus far has taught me a great deal. I have learnt to live and share with Ravi. It is a sea-change from living with your parents. It starts with understanding each other, or trying to, as this is a lifelong process. It involves doing things together. Weekends have to be planned keeping each other in mind. There is a LOT of cooking to do. It is a lot of fun going places together, hosting parties as a couple, making common friends. There is a lot of give and take. We have now reached a point where things are done for each other almost unconsciously! We now know who is qualified in which task. This awareness lets us use our skills to the optimum! To illustrate, making coffee the first thing in the morning is Ravi’s cup of tea. All the chores have been well defined. I have been named ‘Lakshamma’! So you can guess my role in the house. I have been domesticated. I can now exceptionally manage the jobs that were hitherto alien to me. I can now cook, clean, feed any number of guests and make the bed too! My mom will be so proud of me.
The greatest plus of being married is that you have the power of two. I am not alone. To know that there is a special someone in your life who is eager to meet you at the end of each working day is so beautiful. It is such a blessing that your partner will be with you for life, through your joys and sorrows. It takes two to realise your dreams, to build your future.
As if being newly married wasn’t enough, I moved to a new country. I had to start living in the western world. Reflecting back, it amuses me to realise how I got thrown into two deep ends without knowing how to swim! Both these life changes have sort of completed me. I feel ‘metamorphosis’ed. It is a complete makeover. It is a new ‘me’. It was at first the excitement of exploring a new country, a new way of life. Alice was in wonderland! Sydney opened a whole new window to look at the world. The horizon got expanded. My beliefs, perceptions of people and understanding of way things worked were put to the ultimate practical test. My view points have since changed a bit. I have become more accommodative. I’ve come to like the freedom. I have realised things about me that I didn’t know earlier. This probably has been a very significant phase of self discovery.
Having travelled only to different parts of India and never outside it, my response to ‘Where are you from?’ was always ‘I am from Bangalore’. Now it is replaced with ‘I am from India’. There is a bigger sense of where I come from. Also, I now feel like a global citizen, as a part of the world and not just a particular country. I am more aware of what is happening around the globe.
Sydney has people from all over the world. For the first time in my life I came across Greeks, Africans, Lebanese, Srilankans, Fiji Indians and who have you. Australia is considered a safe haven. Migrants particularly from trouble countries find refuge in Australia. There are people arriving by boats in scores to the Aussie shores. Those without valid visas are put in detention centres and the hardships faced are multi-fold before they can build a base here. It won’t be surprising if migrants outnumber the true blue Aussies. But going by the history I wonder who true blue Aussies are. Australia was meant to be a prison land for convicts and criminals of the UK. There are shocking stories of how the early English settlers snatched this land away from the original tribal dwellers – the Aborigines. So the Aborigines can probably be rightfully called true blue Aussies.
The weather gave me a tough time initially. The first winter was hard. But thank heavens we are not in the icy UK or the snowy parts of US. Though the weather is quite a tricky thing here, it is quite manageable. It could be scorching hot one day, raining the next and very windy and cold on the third.
Self dependency is the name of the game. Do your own thing is the rule. There are many million things that were taken for granted while I lived in India. The housework would get done by the maid. You just had to ring the grocer and the supplies would be delivered home. Milkman would drop by every afternoon. Veggie carts would come to every street. You need not worry if you couldn’t cook some day. Hundreds of darshinis were always around to help you.
Here you first drive to a mall. Then walk through aisles and aisles of products. Choosing from hundreds of varieties, comparing prices and quality is in itself a very time consuming affair. Then you queue up at the pay counter. You lift everything in your trolley and stack them on the biller’s desk. The more and heavier are your things, worse it is for you. Once billed you stack them back in your trolley. Wait, it doesn’t end there. Push the trolley to the parking lot and shift everything to the boot of your car. Drive home. Carry all the bags to your unit. If you live on the third floor (blocks with 3 storeys have no elevators) you’ve had it! And finally stack them in your fridge. Phew.
The first striking thing about Sydney is how traveller friendly it is. There are signboards all over the place. All main roads have visible direction boards. All the street name boards are in place. There are city map books referring to which you can go from anywhere to anywhere in Sydney. There is no need to ask for directions. Basically there will be no one around on roads to direct you. Also travelling at high speeds makes it impossible to stop and ponder. If you don’t drive, there are websites to give you detailed maps, tell you how to get to where including what mode of transport to take replete with timings, maps and fares. There are call centres you could ring to find out the same info. There are visitor centres set up in every part of Sydney. Here is where you can grab as many brochures and pamphlets on all tourist attractions. And they are free! You can also speak to the friendly staff behind the counter say if you are lost or seeking last minute accommodation.
The local train stations have free timetable books you can ask for at the counter. All the station names are displayed all through the platforms. So while on the train, say a fast train and you don’t want to miss your stop, all you have to do is peep out to know where you are. There are of course announcements made on the train and in stations on delays/approaching trains/next station etc. These little things have been well thought through and probably made possible by the wealth available to a developed country.
When you talk about Australia, you cannot not talk about its beauty. It is an awesome country. You must see the blue of the beaches to believe it. Melbourne/Brisbane/Sydney, each city has its own distinctive flavour and is equally enchanting. I love the noise free quiet here. I love the clean air too.
The civic discipline and the sense of social responsibility everybody carries here amazes me. Personal space and privacy is very highly regarded. You can do your own thing. Unless you are not harming or troubling anyone, no questions are asked. Nobody wilfully dirties roads or public places. Everybody takes care of their trash bins, ensuring that it is placed on the pavement for collection on a weekly basis. Almost everyone follows driving rules. The law is obeyed. Pedestrians are given their due. There are well cemented pavements and pedestrian crossing traffic signals everywhere. No matter how crowded the trains are in peak hours the norm is to wait for all those alighting to get off the train before you can get on. Everyone patiently waits and boards. You don’t get squashed. You need not exert to ensure you get in or out.
I am also really impressed with the near absence of eve teasing. In these 20 months I haven’t come across a road romeo who lustfully looks at you, whistles as you walk past or even dares to pinch your butt. Walking in Majestic or Brigade road always was tough. I would walk with my left arm held at the back ready to defend. I would clutch a bag or a folder to shield my front. Those ‘accidental’ brush ups against your shoulder would always be deliberate. And god, the experience was yuck. Here I can walk peacefully and confidently irrespective of what I’m wearing or the time of the day and place. You won’t be pushed or shoved. You won’t hear lewd comments being passed. Of course there is a negligible fraction of junkies you have to watch out for.
I am happy with a lot of things here. All said and done it can never be home. I feel a loss of sense of belonging. It leads me to question my sense of identity. I am different in a crowd. I am not one among the crowd as I would be in Bangalore. Sometimes I feel lost. But sometimes I stand proud. My eating habits, my sense of dressing, my routine are all so different as compared to the people here. I tend to make friends with only other Indians here. I still feel like a traveller here. It will probably take a while to accept Sydney as home. I am still home sick.
I wanna go home.
Listen to this Michael Buble song on his official site here (wait for the graphics to download and then the embedded music will play, you might have to choose the song 'Home' on the top right corner). It is better heard than read, as most songs I suppose! Michael Buble is just brilliant.
Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home Mmmmmmmm
Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know
And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two “I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that
Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home
Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home
And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believed in me
Another winter day has come
And gone away
In Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home
And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know
Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home
posted by Shubha @ 10:57 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Wonderfully written shubha! Very straight from the heart...
Could identify with many things u said...I miss the sense of belonging too...No matter how long I've lived here and how much I love the place and everything about it, I still long for home...
Do I infer that ure planning a trip to India? If so, that's great...Perhaps we can meet up there, uh!
You know what? I can straightaway copy and paste your post as mine, with only changes being instead of Australia - US and instead of Sydney - Lexington. Everything you have seen, I've seen.
Its almost the same feelings as I too got married and then Sri came here to US. We were apart for 2 months, before I got my visa, left everything and everyone I knew in Bangalore to come here...
And yes US is similar in shopping, self-service and eve-teasing departments. The freedom I feel here is indescribable, but I still wanna go home. And yes, home is still Bangalore to me..
soum & deeps>> glad u can identify with it. atleast here we have heaps of kannada speaking friends. have heard thats not the case in US? yes soum, hope u read my mail...lets catch up in blore.
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