Home Run

Having reached my room without further incident8212;indeed, without having met a third person8212;I had a quick wash and marched back out. The first evening was not to be wasted; I just had to see what Melburnians looked like.

I was alone in the elevator till the eighth floor, when two Indians walked in. I was mildly amused. On the sixth floor, another Indian stepped in. I was astounded. On the fourth floor, a quarrelsome couple, clearly8212;you guessed it8212;Indian barged in, continuing their argument with home-like nonchalance. By now I was alarmed.

Conspiracy theories raced through my head. Was this a Matrix-type plot? Why had I not seen a single non-Indian face yet8212;other than the receptionist who was Vietnamese? Was this actually Melbourne?

The six Indians reached the ground floor, at least one of them in a cold sweat. To my horror, I stepped into a lobby packed with a 30- or 35-strong tourist group from Gujarat, at their noisiest best.

I ran out of the main door, turned right and almost bumped into two young men who also looked Indian8212;alright, they could have been Pakistani, Bangladeshi, whatever. I did an about-turn, headed left from the hotel, immediately spotting the Internet cafe the receptionist had told me about. The cafe, it turned out, was part of a grocery store run by an Indian family, where everything from dal to Haldiram products was available.

I asked for smelling salts.

An hour8217;s stroll around the block calmed me. This was no alternative reality trip. My hosts had booked me into a hotel in an area that was, roughly, Melbourne8217;s midtown Manhattan. This was Melbourne as menagerie of nationalities.

The hotel was three houses away from a students8217; hostel, one in which many Indians lived. From American sandwich chains to more Oz-grown fish and chip eateries to innumerable restaurants on Little Bourke Street8217;s Chinatown8212; which also doubles as Vietnam town, Japan town, Indonesia town, Malay town8212;this was leisure and tourist country.

Along with its book shops, the big Myer and David Jones department stores and many clothes and memorabilia stores, it was also a haven for part-time job seekers. Among these were Indian students, adding to the ethnic mix of Australia that is just so different from the impression you get when you see the all-white cricket team.

Melbourne is difficult to categorise: It appears American, feels European and insists it8217;s all-Australian. Spread out across the north and south banks of the Yarra river, it is an eminently walkable city that sees itself as Australia8217;s flagship cultural and educational centre.

It doesn8217;t have the deal-making buzz of Sydney8212;the seaport that is Australia8217;s Mumbai, a busy and bustling town where fortunes are chased and every migrant wears that same grasping look. Rather, Melbourne is an industrial city that has reinvented itself as a post-industrial business polis8212;premier infotech and biotech destination. Not surprisingly, it8217;s home to Infosys, Satyam and TCS.

If you don8217;t dig business numbers8212;and, really, they8217;re best left for non-weekends8212;there are two very Indian walkabouts you could undertake in Melbourne.

One, amble down Flinders Street, past the Swanton Street crossing, parallel to the city8217;s charming trams, and turn right just after the architectural monstrosity called Federation Square. An arts and culture venue built in 2001 to commemorate Australia8217;s centenary as a nation, it8217;s a ghastly incongruity in an otherwise elegant and Victorian setting.

A 10-minute walk from Federation Square will take you to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, accidental Australian shrine of a very Indian pastime called cricket. The Rod Laver Tennis Centre, abode of the Australian Open, is across the road.

The MCG is in the Jolimont district of east Melbourne. The quietude of the tree-lined avenues here, the stoic and majestic silence of the apartment blocks and residences, carry that aura of old money. It8217;s a pilgrimage to an Australia that you probably wouldn8217;t see on television, wolfing down beer as Bret Lee takes his next wicket.

The second short walk actually began just outside my hotel. Across the road was the Flinders Street Station, a colonial building8212;said to be unfinished because nobody noticed8212;whose domes and pigeon-hole windows seemed just so familiar. Robin, the lady who drove our taxi8212;she8217;s also a wine specialist but so8217;s every other Australian8212;told me why.

Melbourne was the first planned city in Australia, built in 1835. It was Britain8217;s showpiece and late in the 19th century, plans for its new railway station were sent to London for approval.

At that point, so the story goes, the plans for a station in India8212;8216;8216;I think it8217;s the one in Bombay,8217;8217; Robin told me; 8216;8216;Or Calcutta,8217;8217; I guessed8212;were also being discussed in London. It is one of Melbourne8217;s urban legends that the blueprints got mixed up in the mail. London despatched the plans meant for Melbourne to India and 8216;8216;Melbourne got its first building with Indian-style domes, which later became the architectural fashion in the city8217;8217;.

More authoritative sources insist the story is at best apocryphal, probably untrue. Nevertheless, it8217;s the sort of stuff you8217;d want to believe.

To a contemporary tourist, Flinders Street Station is Ali Baba8217;s cave, the gateway to a treasured evening. Walk through it, use the pedestrian bridge to cross the Yarra river and reach Southgate. Once a row of harbour-front warehouses, this neighbourhood has, in the past 10 years, renewed itself into a string of malls, restaurants, outdoor cafes, and even a casino that never sleeps. It8217;s where the beautiful people wish each other good night.

My exploration brought me to Southgate at close to midnight. It may as well have been close to midday. From sushi bars to pizza by the slice, the Yarra8217;s southern side had laid out a spread for me.

Just what did I sample? That8217;s my other Melbourne story8212;for another day.