I did not have any big dreams or expectations and I had my mind made up to face the new life I was coming to. After all, I have been self-sufficient and independent for quite a few years now and a ‘small-time’ failed marriage would not affect professional accomplishments, I thought; after getting over my short stint in matrimony and staying away from any sort of connection, recovering and accepting what I was going through, avoiding the social dramas in India but never in my wildest or weirdest thoughts did I think that in Melbourne, I would lose whatever little I was left with. 
I spent 13 months in Melbourne on a sought after student visa and could never find the change I had come for. Change there was – a peculiar change. It shook me to the core gradually, as and how days went by. Trying to adjust in a foreign land where I am the foreigner, probably a cynical one 
, keeping up with my certificate course, trying to find a job almost on an everyday basis, I kept fluctuating between the two ends. Negative and Positive. Happy and Sad.
*Breathes*
Oh! by the way this word ‘Foreigner’ feels very funny now because in India a foreigner has high regards or at least is looked up to in an awe and okay sometimes even duped 
Accepting the fact that I am a foreigner here was a little odd as I kept referring locals as foreigners to my Indian friends for long, thanks to the mind-set!
In the beginning months, I had my friends supporting me so I used to keep up but soon, the only friends and family I had, decided to leave Melbourne for good; never to return back. I was still new, had no job and I lost something with-in me the day they actually took the flight. I choked and the real struggle now began. Then on, I had to push myself very hard.. juggling assignments at the college and trying to find a place to stay, looking for a job with this limited visa and an Indian tag (nothing to do with the nationality though); it is very hard to put in words all the incidents that came and went among this chaos in my life where I was eventually loosing all the confidence, personal and professional. I had to change houses often, accommodations I mean, due to some or the other nonsense reason and it is not easy shifting every few months to a new place and newer housemates! I walked down the streets alone, had no one to share the little joys I felt, once in a while or to confide in and share the past I hold. Who ever I did come across as ‘so-called friends’ were very sad or busy in their own lives and with time — my optimism, my energy, my strength started to go down the drain. I certainly did not anticipate the personality I was becoming, I became.
*uff!*
Towards the end of the year, I knew I was in an isolation. I barely had the energy to even look at myself into the mirror and if ever I did, I was scared by the reflection that looked back at me. I had lost it. I was unmotivated, turned horrible gorging on ‘oh so delicious donuts and chocolates and noodles and rice and any sort of instant food’ battling with my negative thoughts, all by myself. I wanted help but did not know where to find it from.
I was unemployed for long, got into self employment by taking tuition that hardly made up my bills and I could not concentrate on my course at college. Paying huge fee every few months, with no income source and relying only on the bank loan I have from India to repay in another few years, I could not bring myself up to talk with my folks and any of my friends in India as I stopped living. I had nothing happening around me for which I could be proud of sharing with family and friends. The loneliness of a foreign land where I was always alone, no matter the crowd I was surrounded with, took me over. None to blame.
*Breathes*
I came in to a college where the majority is of Indians who come on student visa with only 1 reason of securing the Permanent Residency. I did not know that and I chose this college because the fee was comparatively so low to Universities and I thought getting a basic Australian Qualification will make me fetch a job slightly easy Actually, I thought ‘very easy’ I would surely have never experienced the scenario if I were studying else where, well, may be — I am not sure. I really did not know my college would be like what it was like. Sparing the details Here, I was in Australia but living in a mini India, an India beyond my imagination. I really don’t know what this trend is like but with all the stories I discovered around Indian students, Indian migrants I met, I was just breathing the overwhelming surroundings everyday, fearing the next morning of every night.
There have been happy moments too and some very happy days as well but I lost the focus and those were too short to keep me going because at the end of the day, I was alone with this odd head of mine. At the end of the day, I did have assignments to keep up but no mental stimulation to do it. I did not know what to do and had nothing to talk about as I turned myself into an idiot and all that I did try to do for me getting into a social circle, failed. A peculiarity. I couldn’t get myself cheerful, had no positivity among the people around me and by the end of 2009 I was literally dead.
Yes, in Melbourne, I lost the person I was before.
Miracle happened I am now in South Australia and loving every day here, trying to love every moment though, I still have a long way to go
