With big sigh of relief and hope of earning money and eventually repaying my debts and saving some fees, I returned home.
There was this accommodation issue which kept popping up every now and then. I was getting conflicting responses from different flat mates, one was telling me to stay and other was telling me to go and so on.
There were occasional complaints to one another about not doing enough in household chores, preparing dinner at dinner time and keeping overall cleanliness.
Behind all this, there was something else which I was totally unaware of was the politics and dis-agreements that other flat mates had against the guy who picked me up at airport and another guy who used to never contribute in household activities. As it turns out as soon as I returned home, one of the flat mates tell me to stay for however long I want to stay with them. He also assures me that there are no issues with me staying with them as long as I contribute my fair share of work with them. I have lived similar life during my bachelors and I am very well used to this and managing people’s expectations and thoughts.
The next morning as it turns out, the guy who picked me up at airport and another flat mate are kicked out and told to make other arrangements to stay. Flat mates still want them to leave on good terms with each other and politely tell them they can’t stay with them with the way they lead their lifestyle and it’s better to part ways rather than ruin relations. They agreed mutually and decide to move on the same day.
Here I am in the middle of all this having no clue to these issues and was repeatedly asked by my friend to leave and now he is being kicked out. Being my friend was kicked out, I was thinking whether I should leave with him to support him or shall I stay with other guys as agreed. Either way, I would hurt one or the other person. Luckily to make my situation easier, one of the flat mates announced that they need someone else to share the expenses as they are leaving and they decided to let me stay here. Finally I have a place to stay after 3 months and a paid job. This situation is no different to life I have lived during my studies of bachelors. I guess this just happens when you have few different people from different back grounds living together, some will get along well and some are never meant to be together.
As it happens, we are now 4 people staying in a 2 bedroom accommodation, 1 of us needs a private bedroom, other 2 are sharing a bedroom and I am settled in living room. With me being in living room, I don’t have leisure of keeping things as you keep in bedroom, I don’t have a bed or a wardrobe and certainly can’t afford one for next few months. I sleep on couch or carpet every day. Sometimes it’s too cold sometimes too noisy with people walking on wooden floor boards. I am just getting used to this life style. All other flat mates are older than me in age and have lot of experience of life and work in Australia. They are also permanent residents and citizens of Australia and have better paid jobs. I have lot more to learn from them and develop myself into a successful person. I have made good friends in my first few months and certainly they were the first people to help me when I ran out of money. I was lucky to have these people around me in my times of struggle.
Things have settled little bit, we all carry on our routines of work, come back home, cook dinner turn by turn during the week and clean entire place once on weekends. We also play cricket in back yard parking space. Our neighbours are also guys like us from Korea and are good friends of ours. We drink beer together and have fun every now then. One of the flat mates has a car and takes us on sightseeing on weekends if he is available. There is 1 computer owned by this flat mate, he lets us use every now and then. I use his computer to send emails to my parents and call them once a fortnight or a month.
Calling overseas was a new thing to me too. We used calling cards in those days and still use these days but it was lot different. I used to buy a calling card worth $10, which gives $10 credit; there are local telephone numbers behind it to call and a pin number to be entered which is on the card and set prices for different countries. Depending on duration of call, charges will be deducted from the credit once the call is finished. It was a new thing to me as I never used such a thing in India. Back in those days of 2004 a $10 card would cost $10 and these days $10 card will cost $6.50. Times have changed a lot. I didn’t speak to parents that often and preferred to send emails otherwise they would know what I am going through here and be more worried. I used to keep telling them that everything is fine here and I am managing things.
In first few months of my stay I have learnt lots of lessons of life in Australia. I also felt that people also behave differently as compared to India. Everyone just cares about himself and manages own affairs of things. I guess everyone comes here to make money and don’t want to bother in other social affairs and expenses like people do in India. Everything little thing costs you money, nothing is for free and nothing is cheap. Hence people like me come from India and other countries to make the best of this culture.
My work at this petrol station is also lot different as compared to India. I never imagined before, that petrol station or petrol pumps (as we say in India) can be like this…
khatti meethi yaadein 