First published September 2009
It often happens these days that around 12.20am I find myself sitting inside a concrete stairwell. The electric light is harsh and the paint is peeling off the walls. It is not a pretty place but it is break time at work and this is where the casual workers take respite. We have been scurrying incessantly around the function room; now we sit exhausted on the steps, eating whatever leftover food the kitchen can supply.
Here, food takes on a blessed quality. Once appetites are satisfied the reigning silence lifts; the shabby stairwell is transformed into a meeting place. On the bottom step, two young men talk quickly in Nepalese. One step up, Bangla is the favoured language. Step higher and there are conversations in English, Indonesian, Hindi and French. Among the young people sprawled on each step, the energy at that time of night is extraordinary.
Although a tad shabby, the stairwell is one of Melbourne's best academies of learning, a place where real insights can be gained. Conversation topics range from the daily life of an Indian village to the politics of uranium exports. In this stairwell I have heard quoted Byron, Shakespeare, and the New Testament and I've been lectured on the differences between Catholicism and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.
Here someone has told about their village in Rajasthan, where the bore water upon which farming livelihoods depend is steadily running out. The storyteller is the first of his family to leave India. Another has marvelled at the way Australians throw a party: 'In India, we all get up and dance and nobody has drunk any alcohol at all!'
The conversations we have in that stairwell unveil our varied identities. These contrast with the one dimensional identity presented to guests out on the function room floor: the anonymous smiling waiter with the black apron and the little golden name tag. In such a diverse group, the only shared story is our experience of working as waiters — we all clean dirty dishes and smile as if to say that serving guests beer brings us deep satisfaction.
Instead, behind the facade donned for the function room floor, lies all the drama and stress of the lives of many foreign students in Australia. In the stairwell the myriad stories are accompanied by a narrative that I am not part of: that is, the insecurity of