Into the Suburbs: A Migrant's Story

By Christopher Raja

'In Calcutta we were crammed in among crowds, traffic and pollution. We had visions of breathing fresh, clean air and living in a classless society where everyone was your mate.' Christopher Raja was eleven years old when his father, David, decided to move the family to Australia in pursuit of the idyllic lifestyle. They brought their hopes and aspirations to a bungalow in Melbourne's outer suburbs. On the surface, the Rajas appeared to be living a 'normal' Australian life. Throughout his teenage years, Christopher embraces the freedoms of his adopted country, while his father becomes more and more disenchanted. Just as Christopher is settling into university, the family is rocked by a tragic and unexpected loss. Exploring topical issues of race, class and migration, Into the Suburbs is an affecting portrait of one family's search for home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780702264450

Book preview

Christopher Raja is an Indian-born Australian author of short stories, essays, a play and a novel. He co-authored the play The First Garden with Natasha Raja, which was performed in botanical gardens throughout Australia and published by Currency Press in 2012. His debut novel, The Burning Elephant, was published in 2015 (Giramondo). It was written with the assistance of an Australia Council New Work grant. Christopher has been twice shortlisted for the Northern Territory Writers Centre’s Chief Minister’s Book of the Year award. He migrated from Calcutta to Melbourne in 1986, and spends his time between Melbourne and Alice Springs.

To David and Edith

Contents

I: Names

II: Magical Shoes

III: The Immigrants

IV: Cosmopolitan

V: Ojos del Salado

VI: Transformers

VII: Foreign Novelties

VIII: Becoming an Aussie

IX: Grand Days

X: Extinctions

XI: A Classless Society

XII: Keysborough

XIII: Gisele

XIV: Crime and Punishment

XV: Interest Rates

XVI: Four Quartets

XVII: Sunday

XVIII: Peregrinations

XIX: Necropolis

XX: Pyramus and Thisbe

XXI: Existence

XXII: Spirit in Exile

Acknowledgements

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Hebrews 11:10

I

Names

When I was seven, my father’s sister told me a secret. ‘You have no idea about your real name, do you?’ she said. ‘Your father hasn’t told you the story? How strange. Come, poor child, let me tell you.’

Aunty Thelma and I were sitting on a bed in the spare room of our old house in the principal’s quarters at St Paul’s Mission School in Serpentine Lane, Calcutta. Mum and Dad were at work. My parents had come from humble beginnings, but they had done well. Arches of bright sunlight from the French windows dominated the room. A few potted marigold and jade plants sat beneath the windows. I could hear car horns, children playing, birdsong, street vendors trying to attract customers. These were familiar, everyday sounds.

After school I was often home before my parents, and would tag along with Nanna Gemma and Aunty Daphne, who lived with us. On this day, however, I was excited: Aunty Thelma; her husband, Harry; and their two daughters, Linda and Joy, were visiting from Santa Cruz, Bombay, and I was eager to get to know them. My cousins and uncle were sitting in the lounge room talking to Nanna Gemma when I followed Aunty Thelma to the back of the house: she had a present for me in her suitcase.

My aunt was an imposing figure with a sharp nose and lips that narrowed when pursed. She was seventeen years older than my father, and had raised him like her own son. To me she was like a second grandmother, and whenever she visited us or we stayed with her in Bombay, she would tell me stories about my father’s family and childhood, stories I would soak up as Dad and Mum rarely spoke about the past. I could hear the rest of my family talking and laughing in the lounge room, but I was eager to hear this story about my name.

‘Your grandfather was such a healthy man: he never smoked, never drank alcohol. He could twist his body into a knot. He loved practising yoga, and always wanted us children to learn to combine brain and brawn. He was balancing on his head when the call came.

‘The request came in the form of a chit that bore the bishop’s stamp, and was delivered by a female attendant. Your grandfather was a Hindu and had become a Christian in order to get a promotion, and since then the family had held onto the faith. He immediately got to his feet. He knew the bishop rarely made requests but rather gave orders, and this caused him to pace up and down the verandah, becoming agitated. Had he offended someone? Had he done something he should not have? Had he quarrelled with anyone?

‘Then he began thinking about how he could make the best of the situation. He washed, shaved, ate breakfast and put on his best suit, and when it was time, he went out into the street. The ground felt hard under his feet as he made his way to the bishop’s residence. He held the chit in his hand like an explosive. Any false move and he would be blown to bits.’

When he arrived, my aunt went on, Grandfather noticed how frayed the hem of Bishop McGregor’s trousers were. This poor priest has to put up with the terrible roads of India, he thought. Grandfather admired the British and what they had offered his family. ‘Hundreds of years of decent government,’ he would say. ‘They built our roads, railways and schools. They gave us Shakespeare and Dickens.’ The sound of the church bells that day reinforced his admiration.

‘Good morning, Your Excellency,’ Grandfather said politely.

‘Ah yes, here you are,’ the bishop said. ‘Good day to you. In fine fettle, I hope?’

‘Very well, thank you, Your Excellency.’

‘I have an awkward matter to discuss with you. How should I put it? Well … it’s in regard to your name. There is a problem.’

‘What is the matter?’ Grandfather asked.

‘It’s … it’s just the difficulty of it,’ the bishop said.

‘I’m sorry, Your Excellency, I don’t follow.’

‘Your name – it’s a real tongue twister.’ The bishop was embarrassed. ‘It’s a problem with all the recent converts – I can never pronounce any of their damn names. Excuse the expletive. Would you mind shortening it? It would save a lot of trouble. The gentlemen at the Central Registry find it awfully difficult too. And by the way, there could be another promotion for you, I’m told – you seem to have been singled out for your good work.’

My grandfather was a pragmatic man. ‘Yes, Your Excellency,’ he said.

‘Well, it has all worked out excellently.’ The bishop looked relieved.

And so Grandfather shortened his name, making it easier to pronounce. Somewhere, my aunt told me, there’s a church bulletin that contains a notice that the Rajaratnam family had amended their name to Raja. ‘We wish the family a prosperous transition,’ the notice read.

Even though I was only seven, I had long suspected my last name was made up. Late one night, I had heard my father whisper something about names to my mother. ‘We know so little about the name we have,’ my father said. ‘I could never understand that man’s reasons for doing what he did.’

My aunt had more to tell me. Grandfather saw his wife die while giving birth to their fourth son, my father, and he was never the same after that. He could never forgive the boy. Apparently, his wife had been of great use to him in his work, and had enabled him to get where he was. ‘She taught him to make use of his potential,’ my aunt said, ‘and the loss of her made him stern. He was almost brutal to the newborn. He cared little for the boy, and refused to give him a name. The other children named him David.’ My father was rarely held, except to be scolded. ‘Someone stop that child crying!’ his father would call out.

After his wife’s death, Grandfather neglected his family, and this caused the bishop great concern. So he made little positive impression on the authorities, despite agreeing to change the family name. He grew to dislike his job as a deputy registrar, and made mistakes at the counter and in the archives. He argued with his superiors. He grew surly and complained about the distribution of tasks among the employees.

When Grandfather was on a train returning from an engagement with the bishop in Puna, his heart missed a few beats and then stopped altogether. His whole body tingled and stiffened with pain. He let out a small, astonished cry and died. He left his children little but a recently acquired family name, a small house, four string beds and a sense of ambition.

Aunty Thelma’s story was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door. My father appeared and looked at his sister sternly. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked. ‘Some things are best left alone.’

II

Magical Shoes

‘Where are we going, Dad?’ I shouted as we boarded the flight. It was my first time on a jumbo jet, and I was excited.

‘To the top,’ my father replied.

‘Where’s the top?’

‘Down Under.’

A flight attendant ushered us to our seats, and the strangeness of the plane was almost surreal. Warm, wet face towels to wipe the dust from my face. A tray of food and a small can of Coke were fascinating novelties. I was willing to forget everything we had been through. My parents looked happy enough to me.

Dad had made the final decision about our move to Australia. ‘I have some reservations,’ my mother had said, but he’d reproved her with a cough and assured us that we were doing something extraordinary. ‘I have a feeling that troubles me,’ she persisted.

Her refusal to acquiesce to Dad’s bold vision baffled me. As far as I was concerned, she should always go along with what Dad decided was best for the three of us. Yet she wouldn’t play by those rules. My mother had taught, observed, considered, read literature, written letters and kept a diary; she cooked for us when food was needed but not with any pleasure. She was becoming a feminist. She spoke to me about the need for women to realise their own potential, and to take charge of their own lives.

Mum seemed weary on the flight out of Calcutta. She slept most of the way, and I did too. ‘The plane smells of humans being left behind,’ she said when she woke up, ‘and the anguish of leaving.’

I met Mum’s gaze and tried to smile, but it was not easy. I understood how important Mum was for us, but often I forgot. She gave us room to be ourselves. It would be easier if she didn’t push her opinions forward or set limits. India, where everything glowed in divine hues, it seemed, was in the past.

The ruby-red lights on the wings of the plane reminded me of Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of Oz. Could home be a place I had never been to before? In The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy got to the Emerald City, things were not as she and her companions expected, and their quest ended in disappointment. The magical shoes Dorothy wore could take her home to Kansas anytime she wanted. I needed magical shoes, I thought.

I was wearing a red long-sleeved polo-neck T-shirt, brown shorts, khaki socks and black school shoes. I could feel the air conditioning against the bare skin on my legs. When we stopped at Singapore airport five hours later, I pestered my parents to buy me some Reeboks.

‘I must have these shoes,’ I said to them. ‘You must get me these ones. No, not those – they aren’t Reeboks.’

‘Son, we haven’t the money,’ my father tried to explain. ‘We were only allowed to take a certain amount out of India.’

‘He doesn’t understand,’ Mum said.

‘I want those shoes,’ I insisted.

My parents got me the shoes and we caught our next flight – to Australia.

My hair was parted neatly to one side. My parents sat on either side of me. Dad wore his favourite navy-blue blazer with silver buttons, which his sister in England had sent him. He held onto my hand lovingly, and I remember feeling happy. Dad leaned across me and kissed my mother.

My father was not a big man, but he was a man of high morals. The decent bedrock of his character was clear. He didn’t think he was better than others, though. He was the kind of person who wanted to make the people around him happier and better off. Everything he did, he did seriously and conscientiously. People in Calcutta described him in those terms. Yet he had a charisma about him, too. Everyone noticed his eyes – large, sincere and honest. One was drawn to them immediately; when he smiled, the whole room lit up.

Dad ran a hand through his black hair and told me about how he’d been on a Concorde. ‘My brother John worked for Air India, and he gave me a free ticket to fly to England,’ he said. ‘There was an issue at Heathrow and I had to take the British Airways supersonic plane from London to Bahrain. Another time, I flew to Sydney to visit my hippie friends in Gosford – that was in a 747 much like this aircraft.’

I didn’t understand a lot of what Dad was saying; he always spoke to me like I was an adult. His stories crossed oceans and continents, filling me with wild images from territories I had never guessed at. As always, I was impressed. I believed my father could answer any question I wished to know, even if I didn’t always fully appreciate what he was telling me.

I monitored the plane’s flight path across the Indian and Pacific oceans, as we flew towards our new country, Australia. Behind us, an Australian couple were talking and laughing. It was night and I slept for a while, dreaming that we were all falling into the ocean. While I fell from the sky I could see my father already struggling in the water. His hair was floating about, and one arm was in the air. There was a boat nearby and there were oarsmen. He was calling out to them for help but they were looking the other way. I landed in the water and saw that they were picking up other passengers. When I screamed at them, no sound came out of my mouth.

When I awoke, the plane was dark and most passengers were asleep. On the television screen, the plane was getting closer to