A tough question to answer is: 'what is the best thing about Melbourne?' Some would say, 'food', some others may say 'people'. I am however tempted to say, 'It is probably the feeling of being in Melbourne that makes the city so special!'
This place no doubt offers one of the most colorful spectra of food varieties in the world. Food that just about anyone from anywhere would find familiarity with. What makes this possible probably is the wonderful conglomeration of people from around the world who traveled to Victoria, fell in love and never went back to where they hailed from! You could get a sense of this global mix from the incredibly wide range of surnames people have.
Set aside all the over-the-top 'racist' Aussie stories that the Indian media picks up routinely often, the 'locals' here are too nice to even be a pale shadow of racism. Simply put, people here cannot afford to be racists. After all, interestingly enough, who would be racist to whom? This country is on one hand nobody's and on the other everybody's. The real 'Australians' anyway are quite close to be declared extinct. If you look at it from their prism, everyone but them is an 'outsider'!
No wonder then that people feel too passionate about Melbourne and Victoria to dig potshots at others. I've never noticed the conventional 'us and them' syndrome here, which plagues most of the places and countries all around the globe.
Sure, there are traces of Europe scattered all over Melbourne. When I landed at the airport last year and stepped out, the very familiar European wind whispered into my ears, 'Welcome!'. I felt at 'home' when the taxi driver spoke to me in English, a strikingly different experience from the 'non-English' pockets of Europe.
But... very soon, the city was no more an extension of Europe; I could feel the pulse of originality wherever I went.
Initially it also seemed like a chunk that had fallen off the Great Wall of China, considering the huge number of people who appeared to have come from China, Hongkong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and other nearby regions. I felt the power of diversity every time I walked on the city streets; there were people who looked like me and there were ones who did not. It immediately occurred to me that Melbourne probably was home to at least one person from nearly every region in the world. Now I know I was not wrong!
I must admit I was in for a shock when I learned they play footy at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. An ardent cricket lover that I am, I could not accept the cricketing mecca to be 'invaded' by a game not known to most Indians in India! That is when I realised that cricket - unlike how it is looked at in India - was a seasonal sport down under.
It was sooner than later that I discovered a mini India within Melbourne and its suburbs. I saw 'my own people' everywhere I went; people that dressed like me and ate like me! It's been nothing short of a delightful journey so far, traveling through the 'stomach' of so many Indian restaurants just about all over, thereby keeping my taste-buds satisfied.
Sure, there are traces of Europe scattered all over Melbourne. When I landed at the airport last year and stepped out, the very familiar European wind whispered into my ears, 'Welcome!'. I felt at 'home' when the taxi driver spoke to me in English, a strikingly different experience from the 'non-English' pockets of Europe.
But... very soon, the city was no more an extension of Europe; I could feel the pulse of originality wherever I went.
Initially it also seemed like a chunk that had fallen off the Great Wall of China, considering the huge number of people who appeared to have come from China, Hongkong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and other nearby regions. I felt the power of diversity every time I walked on the city streets; there were people who looked like me and there were ones who did not. It immediately occurred to me that Melbourne probably was home to at least one person from nearly every region in the world. Now I know I was not wrong!
I must admit I was in for a shock when I learned they play footy at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. An ardent cricket lover that I am, I could not accept the cricketing mecca to be 'invaded' by a game not known to most Indians in India! That is when I realised that cricket - unlike how it is looked at in India - was a seasonal sport down under.
It was sooner than later that I discovered a mini India within Melbourne and its suburbs. I saw 'my own people' everywhere I went; people that dressed like me and ate like me! It's been nothing short of a delightful journey so far, traveling through the 'stomach' of so many Indian restaurants just about all over, thereby keeping my taste-buds satisfied.
