on a walk in footscray

this is my may column for AUzone magazine - enjoy!
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Ah, Footscray. I’ve been close to her for years now. We have a familiarity, an understanding, and I know I can depend on her when I’m in a bind. In my mind, she’s like Nigella – a beautiful, caring lady with a cheeky smile and a recipe to fix whatever ails you. One time when I stumbled out of the station long after last drinks were called at after-work-drinks, she offered me hot, oily goat curry to soak it all up, and neon-orange jalebi to sweeten my dreams. The next day, she’ll tempt me out of my cocoon of self-loathing with a pork roll and a tapioca cake. I know when I feel like detoxing, she’ll offer me bowlfuls of fragrant pho and sweet jasmine iced tea. She takes care of me. But you know, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops between me and the grand old lady – she’ll turn away if I dawdle for too long and can’t make up my mind, or sometimes even yell at me when there’s been a misunderstanding. And honestly, I can’t say I blame her.

I mean, I speak of being close to her, but if I was to be honest about it, I’m a bit of a fair-weather friend. No wonder I step on her toes sometimes – she’s probably sick of giving, nurturing, taking care of other people’s needs all of the time. Meanwhile, here I am thinking that physical closeness was enough to claim a relationship. Sure, we shared some secrets in the here and now, but what did I know about her past? Her history? You can’t really say you know someone unless you know something about where they came from.

Unless there’s some sort of performance happening, Footscray Mall is not a place you’d usually find me lingering in on a Saturday afternoon. Not to say I haven’t walked briskly through it on my way to somewhere else, or to check out what’s on the shelves at Cheaper By Miles. But there I was, under a sky threatening a drenching, waiting for a walking tour to start. Having a reason to be still in Nicholson Mall gave me an excuse to do something I almost never do in Footscray: look around. The mall was full of people. There was a group of older European men sitting on benches, dressed in suits, their greying hair slicked back in precise lines on their heads. There were dark-skinned children dressed in neon-bright frilly dresses trailing their regal-looking mothers. Emboldened by purpose, so began my first step into strengthening my relationship lady Footscray.

Did you know that Footscray Mall was the first public mall in Australia? I didn’t. Back in its heyday, it was a grand promenade, featuring grand rows of emporium-style shops on either side, with detailed second-storey facades and intricate iron verandahs. And the next time you duck into the Sun Theatre in Yarravile, have a think about this – four of their six boutique art deco cinemas are named after theatres that existed in Footscray - housed The Grand, La Scala, the Trocadero and The Barkly. The old lady obviously loved her shopping and her entertainment. I feel closer to her already.

If you, like me, want to strengthen your relationship with your local area, I highly recommend going on a walking tour. They are organised by the City of Maribyrnong, and are free. For information on future walks, visit http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au for further information, or email walking@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au

shalini's first column

hello there - thought I'd share my first column from the inaugural April 2010 edition of AUzone magazine. happy reading!

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It seems I was destined to live on this side of the city. My first big-city job (the one that still holds the record for ‘The Job That Shalini Held Down The Longest’) was in an office block that sits directly in front of what is now ‘my’ bus stop. Back then I used to wonder at the need for buses in the city. What could buses do but add to the city traffic choke? Wouldn’t it be more efficient if they dropped you off at a train or a tram, those ancient, fixed, dependable (in theory, or course) forms of public transport that have been coming into heart of the city since the dawn of time? Valid questions all in retrospect, but now I know buses have their advantages. Apart from sharing a ride with the occasional eccentric with no concept of personal space, you actually get a seat more often than not. And sometimes, said eccentric will also furnish you with the answers to the problems of the universe for free.

I don’t usually get too attached to the places I live in. When you’re a renter, you can’t afford to lose your heart to a postcode. I should have known something was awry when we made the move to the Wild West and the change of scenery started seeping into my writing. The first piece I had published in a local paper was about a place we rented in Kensington. Some pretty magical stuff happened in that house – imagined and otherwise.

It was a grand old shopfront, sandwiched with some other houses between a pub and an RSL. There were fairy lights in the front room. They were way up high near the ceiling, and they spread candy-coloured smudges on the rough white walls when I turned them on. My friends used to laugh when I pointed them out and say ‘Oh! That is so you!’, as if I put them up there. As if it was My Idea. But they were already there when I moved in, just waiting for me to come home and turn them on.

I’d always wanted to go to an Anzac Day service; when I lived in that house, I got to see one without leaving my bedroom. Wrenched from sleep in the darkness by the beating of a lone drum, I stood transfixed at the window, peeking out from behind the curtains at the procession from the RSL next door. My skin prickled from this sudden, accidental intimacy. Apart from the men, women and children marching solemnly down my street, all was still. Back under the covers afterward, drowsy and snug, I strained till I could no longer hear the bagpipes and the regular thumping of the drum. I finally arose four hours later and spent the day in a private, enchanted trance, wondering if I’d dreamed it all.

Our bathtub was powder green and claw footed, and filling it emptied the hot water tank. Sometimes as I soaked, I lazily imagined the combined weight of cast iron, warm water and untoned flesh splintering the floorboards, plummeting me to the ground a floor below. In less morbid make-believing, I wondered how they got the bathtub up the stairs in the first place.

The new perspective didn’t just seep into my writing; it seeped onto it. At a cover-art meeting for my first novel, The Bollywood Beauty, my over-stimulated brain barely caught my publisher say something about a city skyline in the background. When I get proofs, I see that the skyline they’ve used is from a western perspective, as if the photo was shot from the top floor of Footscray Markets car park – or, if you’re really tall and have a really good zoom lens, from my spare room window.

Cut to a few years later, and my husband and I are renters no more. We’re all set up in our unit west of West Footscray, with tomato plants taking over the courtyard and a hand-painted mural on the inside of our front door. We’ve been west-siders for a bit but we know we’ve barely scratched the surface – there’s so much more yet to discover – and I’m looking forward to taking you along on that journey with us.

ta-dah!

if you live in, work in, drink coffee/tea/beer in, browse in, or just wander through the western suburbs of melbourne, keep your eye out for a new free mag called 'au zone'. i have a regular column in it called 'west of centre'. this is what issue one looks like - if you get your hands on a copy, give us a shout-out and tell us what you think!