Festival Time

Almost all of Canberra is at the 'MultiCulti', the National Multicultural Festival, this afternoon and the Indian community is no exception. Not only was I reminded about the wide range of Indian food available, but there was a treat in store with one stage devoted to a range of Indian performances. Happily it was also in the shade, so on a 34C day it was a appreciated.

The fact that the Canberra India Council was prominently supporting the stage points to the increasing connections between India and Australia. This is something that has me thinking about the plot for my story. What are these connections? Who is involved? What sorts of relationships occur? Can there be complete understanding between cultures, and if not, what are the touchpoint and areas where they collide?

Max Weber suggested that  'all knowledge of cultural reality...is always knowledge from particular points of view,' so I am also thinking about the values, perceptions and points of view that are brought to those interactions as Indians and Australians come to know each other better.

In Place?

Thinking this morning about location - the broader sense of it as well as the specific place where my feet touch the ground. I adore the Australian landscape. Not just the way it looks, but the fresh, sharp smell of eucalyptus, the clack of branches in a storm, the unexpected croak of a black cockatoo as it cleaves the sky.

There is a great quote from Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, where he writes about the sense of belonging (or not) that a place engenders:

'When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn't belong anywhere,... It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed..., that's where I belonged, that was my country.'


This connection between imagination, self-identity and place is powerful. Often I write where I can see the trees (like this morning). They operate as a muse, leaving my mind free. Perhaps my story runs smooth or ragged depending on the intricacies of their bark or the shape of the branches. A bird, its remarkably fragile legs holding onto a branch, becomes a metaphor for how we all cling to the world. Or, like the cockatoo, launch ourselves into the sky, unafraid of the turbulence this might bring.

As I work my way through the alternate need to cling to the familiar or seek out a new location, India is only a place in the landscape of my imagination. I wonder what stories it holds?

India Reaches Out

It's a long way from Mullumbimby to Mumbai - most of a lifetime and more than 10 000 km, give or take a few detours.

As I contemplate the world's largest democracy I wonder how I've missed out on the Indian experience for so long. It's not just that my waking hours are full of travel preparations (although they are). It's more that my dreams are filled with India in busy, blaring, Bollywood technicolour.

I wake with an urgency that has me recording ideas in a notebook at 2am.

This blog is the story of how a story has begun.

Already India reaches out.

Join me as I grab hold of her fingers and explore the highs and hangnails of travel, inspiration and writing.