Meeting Gary in Melbourne

On April 18, Saturday, we spent a day with our friend Gary, whom we met while living at ISB. He was on exchange from Melbourne Business School, so we met him near campus and he showed us around the cozy business school campus.

We arranged to meet up with him the next day at his home in the suburbs. He and his roommates and friends very graciously cooked us a lunch of Indian fare: dal, roti (which we got to help make), rice, curd and a fruit and custard dessert. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and talking with Gary’s past and present roommates, who all came from surrounding areas to visit him.

It says something about Gary’s incredible friendliness that many of these old roommates lived over one hour away and still came to visit when he rang them up at short-notice. He’s just the kind of person you would do that for!

One particular conversation that was a highlight of the evening was with Gary’s friend’s daughters, who are in their mid-teens. After attending school in Australia, they had been sent to Delhi to live with their grandparents and attend school for the last two years. It was simultaneously amusing and fascinating to hear their stories and comparisons about living in India vs. living in Australia. Most of their sentences usually began with: “The school said they were going to do one thing, and then did another!!” Most of the funniness was because it was so unexpected that their experiences and frustrations were parallel to ours, given that their ethnic backgrounds are Indian and they have a greater familiarity and grasp of the language and customs than we do.

It was a really nice afternoon, fun to see/make friends and to experience life in the Australian suburbs. Thanks very much Gary.