October 2020. It has now been over a year since I left Australia. Combining my two previous ventures in India – alongside a few months in Nepal – I have spent a total of one year and eleven months in the subcontinent. The past year has given me a lot of time to think about my life, my past and future, while simultaneously appreciating the moment as it comes. No doubt my experiences here of a world so vivid and unfiltered have affected me to my core. I was here at cusp of my adulthood, and now I am here at the cusp of my professional endeavour.
“What will be, will be…”
~ Louis Kahn1
Crossing the Homeland
I look back at my two and a half years in Melbourne and know with clarity that they were deeply fulfilling. A series of moments that are beyond what I can describe with mere words. More real than real. I knew this then, as I do now. I owe this to a sense of contentment which I have cultivated and harnessed over the recent years. This sense I speak of – whether dreamed up of or rationalised – came to being during these times.
A distinct situation that tested my resolve would be the hardship I bore in the first six months after arriving in Melbourne. The move interstate proved to be far more daring and difficult than any plane I had boarded for overseas. Backpacking and gallivanting abroad with all its challenges and quirks is not the same as transferring your life to an entirely new place. Driving into Melbourne I did not have much savings, not many friends, no family. A challenge of individual independence. A dramatic shift in life, propelling me into the unknown. An undertaking that I would say is quite familiar to a myriad of young Australians as they come of age.
If I was to be pragmatic at the time, I should have deferred my course by at least a semester and worked enough to secure a reasonable amount of savings. This would ensure that if I did fail, I would not fail spectacularly. Despite this logic, I was compelled otherwise. Perhaps intuition spoke and I listened. I saw an opportunity to launch myself immediately into a new chapter of my life and I took it without hesitation. What I was equipped with was an acceptance letter into the University of Melbourne, the moral support of my father and friends in Queensland, and the incredible companionship of the few I did know in Melbourne (as well as the few more I would soon befriend).
Nadhia was one of these few friends, who had moved from Queensland a year or two earlier before me. A childhood and high school friend, sharing a common cultural background with me (Australian and Indonesian). She gave me a huge helping hand during my first weeks in the city by accommodating me in the living room of her share-house. I am thankful that she and her housemates tolerated me for as long as they did.2
My first semester of master’s was bizarre compared to the rest to follow. I spent as much time looking for accommodation (and afterwards a mattress) as I did study for certain subjects. That kind of became an inside joke in my studio class, the primary subject of an architecture course. As amusing as it was (especially when looking back), there were many times where it was not easy to laugh it off. Interestingly, I ended up making more good friends in that small studio class than any other forthcoming subject I was to take, even though at times prevalent it felt like my life was crashing, burning, and imploding. If all the effort I had put in to get myself here turned out to be a mistake, it would be a mistake I would bear and own alone. A mistake I could be proud of, for I was first brave enough to take the steps to get here.
After the first couple of weeks, I moved out to a place much closer to my university campus, which was by no means cheap. What I did to get by was work as a delivery driver for a restaurant in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Within a ten-kilometre radius of Brunswick I roamed the late of night, familiarising myself with roads from Airport West to Reservoir. Underpaid and unrelenting, I could easily foresee my health declining in the long run if I remained in this situation.
The winter of this year was particularly dreary. Although Melbourne is known for its temperamental weather of four seasons in one day, I do not really recall the warmth of the sun or its brilliance breaking through the dominant overcast sky, of light rain and heavy winds. The type of rain that offers no spectacle; the type of wind that makes scarves airborne. In retrospect, perhaps it was an ordinary winter characteristic of Melbourne, and I was facing the psychological effects of each day feeling like an uphill battle. Or maybe both mind and body had not yet acclimatised after an upbringing in Queensland, the ‘sunshine state’.
Ultimately… it would be people, both close and afar, that would bring me back into the peaceful fold.
Living food to mouth and with resolve alone — would not last beyond this first semester. I was soon to have the honour and integral benefit of receiving a scholarship that would allow me to sail smoothly through the next two years, enabling me to focus my energy on my degree. Unexpectedly, the benefactor of this scholarship was a family in Singapore, who wanted to honour their father, Anthony Kang, by supporting local students of architecture. He was among the first Singaporeans to graduate the Master of Architecture from the University of Melbourne. When I received the phone call informing me of this boon of life, it felt like divine intervention as described by the character Jules in Pulp Fiction (played by Samuel L. Jackson), where a single event makes life suddenly surreal, and restructures everything.
Around the same time, I also landed a casual job measuring and sketching plans of houses for real estate, which paid well for the time involved. The man I was subcontracting for was a real top bloke, sincere and generous. Through this job I wandered the breadth of Melbourne and this time during the day. I explored dozens of suburbs north-south-east-and-west, including interiors of homes from detached suburban dwellings to penthouses overlooking the Yarra River and surrounding cityscape.
Although technically I could afford to not work because of my scholarship, I did so to apply and maintain a sensible work ethic and to not become overly dependent on the scholarship. It was not a time to kick-back and relax. There were many things I needed to prove to myself. Becoming worthy of the good fortune that had been bestowed upon me was one of them.
My life did a back-flip after this first six-month period in Melbourne. Landing in what I have experienced to be one of the greatest cities in the world. With the luxury of time, I could dedicate myself to thinking and working towards far more meaningful goals, for myself and those close to me. By overcoming this mountain of uncertainty, I was given a great reason to be grateful and content with the path that I tread.
Crossing the Ocean
‘No Man is an Island’
~ John Donne
Rain. Monsoon rain. This is what greeted me upon my arrival in India in September of last year.3 So unrelenting was the downpour, it turned a typical two-hour journey from Chennai to Pondicherry to a near five-hour car ride. It had been an age and a half since I had last experienced such weather. It could have rained as much in that single night as it does during half-a-year in Melbourne. This monsoon rain that welcomed me also heralded the end of Chennai’s situation of dire water scarcity (at least for the time being). Soon in the months to follow I would get accustomed to driving a motorbike in such conditions, which amounts to something like driving through mud, dirt and clay while receiving a high-pressure shower. Further adding to such a challenge was driving a bike with a plethora of alarmingly concerning malfunctions (brakes were of most concern).4
Stepping on Indian soil once more, I had thrusted myself again into the unknown. Untethering myself from a place and people that I grew to love. This time however, the difficulties were different than the interstate move before. With a gust of spontaneity and a leap of faith, the decision and transition happened within only a two-month span, right after graduating my masters. Far less financial stress was to be had, as I worked almost every day during this short period. What made it a true challenge was that it was more… emotionally turbulent. For what ensued inevitably involved the act of letting go.
As it has been said ‘no man is an island’. The human being is not a closed system. I can think of no instance where this is further true when we a forced to say goodbye, sometimes with the knowledge that it will be forever. Our fates as human beings are intrinsically linked with each-other. With six degrees of separation it is as if we are all part of one great spinning ball of knots, each of us weaved and tangled with the other. So, when life would have it that a knot is untied or a thread is cut, it seems at first inconceivable, irredeemable… but in essence is truly irreversible, truly eternal. Such events, so tragic yet fruitless to resist, are the hallmarks of our lives. Marking a chapter’s ending; a chapter’s beginning. Rope is added, tied, and knotted again.
With such thoughts I spent my first months in this land so far removed from my own geographically, climatically, and foremost culturally. Though not completely foreign to my foreigner eyes from past experiences. One thing I was very curious about dispelling was whether I had romanticised too much of my memories of being in this ancient land: the grandmother of traditions. Surely, there would always be a hint of romanticisation, for that is core to the nature of adventure. I was interested to find out whether living here would dramatically change my outlook on the country, which for all it is faults and riddles, is primarily positive and enriching to me. Now, after having much more time to deliberate on the matter, I would say my views remain the same. India is incredible.
Perhaps I am still too ignorant of such matters, for I am living in Auroville, enclave of foreigners and locals alike. I probably would need to stay a year in a major city like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, or even nearby Pondicherry, to make the most accurate assessment. Still, Auroville is India, and as some here would say, could only be conceived and endure in India. On a similar note, I have also spent the entirety of this year living with a local Tamil family, with all its pujas, Rajinikanth, rasam, dosas and idlis. I believe intuitively I would have enjoyed living in certain Indian cities, such as the ones aforementioned. In another life such a circumstance might have transpired.
‘To make living itself an art, that is the goal’
~ Henry Miller
A colleague of mine named Abishek, recently asked me ‘how much of what you do is based on intuition?’
A good question, one that I did not hesitate to respond, ‘95% of what I do is probably based on intuition. I am definitely sitting right here, right now, because of my intuition’.
To simply put it, when I speak of intuition I speak of a gut instinct, that urge in the mind that seeks to pursue what feels right and what is meaningful. Life’s compass. It is a bit of wisdom. A bit of foresight. A bit of trust in the self. It does not require a book to explain. That is really the point. It has the air of inexplicableness. The sound of rain needs no translation.
This is the essence of what convinced me to undertake these two vast life changing events and with gravitas. The choices were clear, the decision too obvious. As if I had no choice at all.
The same can be said for the early mornings I have experienced recently. The week that has passed has seen me waking up at dawn, observing the warm light and shadows that a creature of the night like I am not so accustomed to. A rather pleasant time to be working, for the sun is yet to become obtuse and start leathering the skin of those who work all day under it. Digging up rocks from the roadside was the purpose of these newly wakeful hours, alongside placing them with effort and care (landscaping is a word for it) in a small quaint area known as the Archaeological Park. A wheelbarrow, two hammers, and eight pairs of hands were what was used. The monsoon rains occurring in the previous week made prime time for this kind of work. Softening the red earth and revealing rocks formerly buried. With a tap of the hammer most stones yield, whether they be laterite, granite, or lime. Others need a bit more convincing.
The neighbourhood wakes up around us as we do this. Observing and waving as they ride by on motorcycle or bicycle. The work is by no means secret. These moments of delicate light, porous dirt and rough stone I regard as good for the soul. That is why it was so easy to rise early and dash on my bicycle to the meeting point. The request for assistance was already a given before it was asked. I just needed to know the time. I think there are few persons who can generate such responses from fellow men and women. Poppo Pingel is one of them. He who knows how to bring out the eternal of what is beauty, or the beauty out of what is eternal. The choice of material in this instance happened to be stone. Other times it may be brick and concrete, or ink and brush.
Although what I have written is quite considerable,5 in a way I find it somewhat reductive, for there is so much colour and texture in the events that transpired. Yet not all can be revealed. I suppose that is what art is for.
To end this discourse of times past, intuition and overcoming, I will include something I conceived of a few months back6, narrating a time when I was roaming the CBD of Melbourne, with ten dollars in my pocket meant for that evening’s dinner. Instead, I decided I would have sleep for dinner and do something else entirely.
What can a poor man as I better spend
Than on a fiery rose for my stoic friend.
Matching eyes that would make one tremble.
Courage had me pacing around the flower temple.
From where out I strode with crimson in hand.
Then a French hawker exclaimed with zest, ‘Hey man!’
‘Are those for me? Thank you!’
I gave him a candid smile for of course he knew,
Such a gift is worthy of the divine;
The French are well familiar with acts so fine.
To her apartment in Carleton I approached,
To perform the gesture that would broach
My thoughts and feelings that were unspoken
That our time together and apart had awoken.
Thus I placed the token before her nose
As the blue-black curtain of night arose.
1. How I love Kahn’s gnomic statements. As Doshi has proclaimed: Corbusier is the acrobat, Kahn is the guru.
2. I fondly remember the neighbourhood cat that would stroll into the backyard of the Nadhia’s share-house, named Pocket, which wore a constant wise and agile countenance that reminded me of Bruce Lee.
3. In September, the monsoon begins to dissipate across most of India. In South India, including Tamil Nadu, the major monsoon coming from the east and north east begins. Peaking in November. This was described to me by Abishek and Madhi.
4. This is the same motorcycle I described so well in a previous post, The Good, the Bad & the Jugaad: Escapade at Dune Beach. It is now a custom for me to ask whether there is anything seriously wrong with a bike or scooter before I drive it.
5. If you were expecting something written about architecture, I am not sorry I disappointed you.
6. The style of what I have written I believe to be closer to the train of human thought, for we do not simply think in chronological order. The train jumps back and forth, up and down, in three dimensions. This is likely what I learnt when reading books by Tom Robbins.
