PREFACE: Dreamtime
Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever – Unknown
Desire is a strange and powerful thing. So too is imagination. Sometimes in life, when they conspire, it can lead to unimaginable and extraordinary outcomes and we can realise our wildest dreams. Seeds are sown in the far corners of the mind – purely random aspirations on purely random days. Time passes by and some of these seeds are discarded. Some fail to germinate due to unfavourable conditions. Some struggle to grow and eventually die a slow death. But every so often, the universe aligns itself to create perfect conditions and one such seed of an idea is able to germinate – to see the light of day, to flourish and to bear fruit.
This story is about one such dream which, until a few years ago, seemed outlandish and fanciful – even to me – a dream of migrating to Australia, and of living a life of unlimited adventure.
I vividly remember the day I first imagined a life ‘Down Under’. The year was 1994, and I was a young marine cadet aboard an ocean-going ship called the Darya Chand, a 35,000-tonne general cargo vessel. Being employed in a ‘tramping trade’, the Darya Chand sailed around the world carrying grain, steel products, coal and fertiliser, among other goods. In my first six months aboard, I visited many exotic and far-flung ports – Japan, the USA, Thailand and Singapore, to name just a few.
I had turned seventeen a few months before setting sail; being underage, my mother had to accompany me to the Shipping Master’s office to sign the shipping indenture on my behalf. I was considered a juvenile – a soft lump of clay ready to be moulded by the hands of destiny and equally eager to soak up all experiences along the way. A sea career meant a lifetime of travel and freedom – freedom from university studies, from mundanity, from everyday worries. From an early age I had a penchant for adventure and had always harboured a desire for exploring faraway places and unconventional paths. Life at sea would give me an opportunity to do all this and more.
The Darya Chand had just docked in Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, and I was due some shore leave. I got dressed in my Sunday best, scrubbed and groomed like a choir boy for high mass, eager to explore the sights of a new country. The sky was a faultless blue, and the eucalypts that lined the old port road leading to the seafarer’s club infused the air with crispness. I planned to grab a bite to eat at the McDonald’s in town, after which I’d go shopping for some souvenirs. As I approached the town centre, I remember seeing this young guy, clearly a local, with dishevelled blond hair and tattooed arms, dressed casually in a pair of boardshorts and a loose-fitting singlet. He was barefoot and seemingly without a care in the world – and no one seemed to find it the slightest bit unusual.
For some inexplicable reason, my teenage brain decided to tag this inconsequential piece of data, equate it with ‘freedom, travel and uncommon living’ and preserve it for a later date.
Time went by. My career progressed and I rose up the ranks, ultimately sailing as a captain on giant ocean liners. I circumnavigated the globe, crossed the international dateline and traversed the equator umpteen times. I visited countless ports, each with a unique appeal. However, every now and again, the thought of that random Australian man walking barefoot in Brisbane kept popping up. Without any conscious effort, this thought gradually became a desire, and I slowly began imagining how it would be to migrate to Australia and settle down.
Then again, the vagabond in me held similar thoughts of migrating to most of the other countries I’d visited – USA, Mexico, France, Germany, Japan and even China, although not with the same level of seriousness. Of course, these were just random thoughts. I was enjoying a comfortable life in India. Over the years, I had turned into a hardened sailor and an intrepid backpacker. While not at sea, I preferred travelling to remote destinations over city living; the unfamiliarity of the open road over the constant company of society. My life was sorted.
And then one day Cupid struck like a bolt of lightning.
My mother, concerned I was going to die a lonely death in some far-flung corner of the world, would wring her hands in despair. Every time I came home for holidays, with the stereotypical melodrama of an Indian mother, she’d cajole and convince me into meeting a ‘suitable bride’. This kind of ‘arranged marriage’ system – although an age-old Indian tradition, irrespective of religion or culture – is actually quite similar to modern online dating and matchmaking sites. In more recent times, the role of a parent has been limited to checking the family background – ensuring there’s no cultural or social mismatch – and making the initial introductions.
My modus operandi in these situations was simple. I would go on the first date (which more often than not turned out to be the last) only to talk myself and my prospective bride out of the proposal. I would explain that I had a rare but acute case of ‘itchy feet’ and a worsening case of ‘explorer syndrome’. These conditions, I would argue, prevented me from lying still in the comforts of home for an extended period of time. Understandably, most of the girls wasted no time finishing their coffees and making a dash for the nearest exit. To be fair, they thought they were meeting someone intending to settle down, not gallivant around the world.
Ambika, on the other hand, turned out to be a very different kettle of fish.
We first met towards the end of 2012. On our first coffee ‘date’ I rattled off my well-practised speech about why I preferred to be single. ‘Nothing personal,’ I said, ‘it’s just that I don’t see myself ever starting a family or staying in one place for the rest of my life. You seem like a lovely girl, and I’m sure you’ll meet the right person who’ll bring you a lot of happiness, but that person just ain’t me.’
So firm was my conviction that I never really expected someone to ever challenge it. Ambika was the first and only person who did. She gazed at me in silence for a minute, slowly sipping her coffee and regarding me with her mesmerising amber eyes. Then she asked, ‘Did it ever occur to you that you could have a life partner and still travel to your heart’s content? Why would anyone ask you to give up something that you’re so passionate about, especially if that person was hoping to be your life partner?’
It was my turn to be rattled and, for the first time ever, I began contemplating a travel partner. That first date led to a series of catch-ups and with every meeting, my defences slowly crumbled. It wasn’t long before I got down on one knee and proposed. From that moment, I knew that my life had irrevocably changed. She said yes, by the way.
*
It turned out Ambika loved exploring as much as I did, having done a fair bit of it in India as a child with her family. Later, she had also travelled overseas on multiple occasions in her role as a sales manager. I was soon to discover that she had an equally adventurous streak.
We were in the starry-eyed phase of our courtship where everything around us seemed picture-perfect – the skies were bluer than they had ever been, the birds chirped in the most melodious tones, the flowers were in full bloom. The world was ours for the taking. All we had to do was paint the most colourful picture on the blank canvas of our life together. In between working out the wedding arrangements and gazing into the crystal ball, we began fantasising about all the exciting voyages we would embark upon once we were married. Ambika eventually proved to be the catalyst for realising my life-long dream of migrating to Australia.
Sailors are never short of imagination – where do you think all the ‘mermaid’ and ‘treasure island’ stories come from? – but again, Ambika, who turned out to be a feisty sparring partner, was not to be outdone. One evening while walking along the foreshore of the Arabian Sea in Bandra, a glitzy suburb of Mumbai, oblivious to the crowds that swarmed around us on the promenade, I casually broached the topic of moving overseas permanently, hoping not to alarm her with my outlandish proposition. At that time, we were settled, at the peak of our careers, had our families close by and were living a comfortable life. We had no real reason to migrate.
‘Let’s set sail to a land far, far away,’ I said.
‘Sure,’ Ambika replied, wondering where this conversation was leading.
‘How about moving to a country where the sun shines all through the year?’
‘Hmm … sounds great. Where do you think that is?’
‘How about Australia?’ I asked in a flat monotone that belied my nervousness. ‘It’s a beautiful country, the people seem lovely, and it could be a wonderful place to start a family.’
Ambika gazed silently out towards the distant horizon for a few minutes which seemed like an eternity to me. Then she turned and said in a steadfast voice, ‘Yes, I think we should give it a go.’
And just like that, that tiny seed of desire from two decades earlier finally emerged, triumphant and glorious.
*
The next few months flew by in a flurry of activity as we prepared for the marriage celebrations – and visa applications. It was sometime during this phase that I made the most daring proposition to Ambika yet.
‘Will you shed all reservations, not worry about the future and backpack with me across Australia instead of settling down as soon as we get there? Why don’t we leave all our worries – of getting a job, buying a house, having babies – until later?’ I knew that this was a wild stab in the dark. I was already uprooting Ambika from her family, her friends, her job and her country. I was now asking her to postpone setting up a home for the sake of an extended vacation in a foreign land. Surely, the answer would be a resounding ‘no’.
She looked deep into my eyes and in a tone that belied her excitement, said, ‘Hell yes! I reckon it’ll be quite an adventure!’
*
This then is our story. Of how two newlywed, first-time migrants threw caution to the wind and embraced a new country. It’s a story of our journey in a strange and foreign land – jobless, with no prospective employment and without a permanent roof over our heads. We had no real action plan except to follow the road of discovery for as long as we could sustain ourselves. To make matters more challenging, we were earning in Indian rupees and spending in Australian dollars. But being smart was not part of our strategy. We had the rest of our lives for that. Apart from satiating our appetite for adventure, backpacking across Australia would help us learn more about the country and its people first-hand. What a frightfully exciting prospect.
(Our travel story is intertwined with snippets of Australian history as seen through the eyes of newly arrived migrants, and includes interlude chapters - about the peculiarities that define this land, the pioneers and adventurers that forged its identity, and the watershed events that shaped the nation.)
This book represents the fruition of all my impossible fantasies and the realisation of my deepest desires – of meeting the girl of my dreams, of migrating to Australia, of living a life of unlimited adventure, of writing and publishing a book and of starting a beautiful family in a land far far away. Hold onto your dreams, I tell you. You never know which one of them may come true!
END
