It was about 9 am in the morning. Small and beautiful houses with brick red colored roof (this color may be different in reality…but if I imagine it in retrospective it seems as if it was brick red ) were the outcome of my first look of Melbourne outside the window of airplane. It registered a unique feeling in my heart as a image of this beautiful city and I started visualizing myself roaming around the city and exploring it inside the plane itself.
I was a part of worried mob who were waiting for a glance of their luggage which was carried down using a electro-mechanical conveyor. A hidden smile came on my face as soon as I saw a moving object which was very similar to my bag and it was the same, I collected it with a quick move and held it in my hands as if it was an old lost friend of mine. Now I was eligible to be a part of another community queue, who were not supposed to carry any offensive material with them including biological ones. Finally I cleared this stage with reasonably less time than many other of my colleagues ( may be because I had no pressure cooker, unpacked rice or similar stuff in my luggage). Vajir and I came out of the exit door and looked for Liam ( He is a nice faculty at RMIT and helped us all a lot in this whole process of exchange program) but couldn’t find him so we stayed at one place to wait for other two of us Sameer and Shweta who were still inside. After some time Liam appeared from an unknown direction. We talked about our journey, then he said Soumitri is also there with him. We met him, Sameer and Shweta came after about half an hour. Soumitri took Vajir and me with him to drop us at our temporary accommodation. It was very cold outside in comparison to current Indian weather. My denim jacket used it full efficiency to save my body from cold. On the way he talked about last years exchange students and gave us an idea about his expectations from all of us. We discussed some other issues briefly like Indian taxi drivers and their schemes of migrating to Australia, at that time I was floating in various thoughts, it was a kind of brainstorming which was happening inside me related to the 500cc Future car project( Which turned into designing a car for car-sharing later on ), sustainability, Melbourne, its culture and other many mixed thoughts. Also he asked about our future plans. I shared the same plan with him which most of us NIDians have common, like doing salaried job for few years and then setting up our own work as soon as possible. It had nothing special in it, I think special is not what is obvious but something which has surprise in it, so my plans generally follow evolutionary way, this is similar to knowing the DIRECTION not the DESTINATION. If one knows the direction clearly then destination comes automatically. We can see our life in either as aggregated way or as segregated. What I mean here is either we can connect each and everything of our life as if it is meant for a common objective of our existence or being on this earth or we can think our life for no reason. In evolutionary way of looking at things is nothing but making connection and looking into future using the backup of these connections for a vision which never dies and which is for Good. ( Honestly speaking, I am not pure enough to express like this, yet I have a hope for improvement and purification of thoughts )I didn’t discuss this all with Soumitri but It is somewhere there inside me and it is a good opportunity for me to share these thoughts with u all. One should keep asking these kind of questions to themselves as it helps one to understand one’s vision more clearly and gives strength to build them with more strength. The conversation was continued and discontinued time to time till we reached our first accommodation in Melbourne.
The Nunnery Accommodation at Nicholson Street-We were almost running to match the pace of Soumitri, he walks as fast as we run. After couple of formalities we got electronic keys to open the door, Soumitri left us there with his phone number on a piece of paper as he had to go for some important work. I liked the place a lot, as it was very warm not only because of the temperature inside J but also because of its interior layout and the way things were composed there. Smeer and Shweta also reached there after some time Initially, we were four who shifted into this 12 beds dorm. Actually I didn’t expect it to be a dorm, in fact I had an image of small room in my mind. But it doesn’t matter, as one bed in any form or height is good enough for me to sleep and recover from the tiring journey of many hours including in land and in air. Somehow we managed to retain our remaining energy to have a walk of university with Liam. We were equipped with all necessary documents like maps of University and Melbourne city. The way to university was very beautiful, it filled us with energy, roads were nice, clean and empty we couldn’t find any dust particle which we can see in heaps in India. Every information was clearly displayed, a good signage system. We crossed parks, buildings and roads to reach building-87 of RMIT University (actual address is 410, Elizabeth street ) which was shown as a workplace for us. It was our first day in Melbourne
…………………………….……to be continued
