At Rawalpindi bus terminal, the light is violet from the rising moon, and gray from the perpetual smog. I am held in the mystery and danger of twilight in a new city. Fresh off the long haul bus, I weave my way through loading an unloading vehicles towards the indigo glow of gas burners and promising smells of an outdoor café.
There is no menu, just tall pots of rich burgundy curry and people sitting at tables solemnly picking apart joints of meat atop flat plates of rice. Tired bus drivers, rickshaw wallas, families consisting entirely of men.
I am vegetarian, I am tired and I am hungry. I am also a stranger, a foreign woman alone in a creased salwar kames and slippery head scarf that constantly fails to sit quite right. I bite my lip and contemplate the Urdu required to order a meal of something less meaty than what I can see the other diners eating.
Twilight is becoming night and the headlights of buses at the nearby terminal and the oil-specked lantern from the restaurant's kitchen do their best against the growing dark. Camouflage helicopters begin their nightly hover above the city.
A fellow diner in white cotton salwar and gray woollen vest approaches my lopsided table.
'Excuse me Madam?'
I look up wearily, expecting a curious 'Which Country do you come from?' or a leading 'Do you have boyfriend?'
But no. He dips his head respectfully. 'We would like to pay for your meal.' He indicates another lopsided table on which his Uncle and teenaged son are eating. 'You are a guest in our country. It is our hospitality to you.'
He does not invite me to join their masculine trio. To do so would harm my honour and leave me vulnerable to unwelcome advances from other diners. Instead he calls over the senior waiter and quietly orders a vegetarian meal with soft bread and 'anything else she wants'. Then he leaves me to eat.
Later a pot of sweet mint tea arrives at my table. Later still, his son is deployed and a taxi sourced and paid for.
Before bidding farewell, the man gives me a tattered business card with several phone numbers of friends and family, should I run into any trouble during my travels through his country. He assures me that his second uncle is a lawyer and that, should I visit their house, his wife and sister will be there to keep me company.
I warmly thank them for their hospitality.
Now at Flinders Street Station.
The light is clear. A smog-free day for an intersection that is usually crowded by cars and trams. The traffic has come to a standstill. Over 2000 Subcontinental students with hand-etched signs and worn-out winter clothes are staging a sit in. I am sitting with them.
Three kilometers away in the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Sravan Kumar Theerthala remains unconscious after being stabbed in the head with a screwdriver last weekend. In Australia in the past year there have been an estimated 60 violent attacks against Subcontinental students.
They are protesting a lack of action by the Australian Government. I am protesting because I am ashamed that a white Christian woman is safer in the military capital of Rawalpindi than these students are on a train in Melbourne.
The students have issued a list of demands. They touch not only on the immediate issue of safety from violence, especially on public transport, but on housing, economic vulnerability and access to health care and ambulance cover while living as guests in our country.
With my hand-painted sandwich board, my white skin and tear-streaked face, I look ridiculous. The sandwich board reads 'Hospitality not Hurt' and on the back 'Australia Welcomes Indian Students'. An Australian and a Christian, I feel deeply the absence of the Australian Christian communities.
One of the students thanks me for my support and asks why I am there. I clumsily mumble something about racism and hospitality and solidarity.
This is what I want to say:
Because on the train in Kolkatta I was included a dozen times at the makeshift dinner tables of travelling families and afforded the same protection as their womenfolk.
Because in his one room house in Hayrana, Rajpal cooked for me parathas full of potato and coriander that he paid for out of his driver's wage.
Because of the transgendered woman working the streets in Old Delhi who shouted me an ice cream in summer, and the college student in Lahore who gave up her seat for me on the bus.
Because of the kindness of the toilet cleaner in the airport bathroom in Mumbai, who corrected my clumsy attempts at wearing a sari and gave me all her safety pins.
Because on a nightmarish day in dreamy Kashmir I was sheltered from crossfire by a stranger who shepherded me out of the bus, into a coffee shop, and distracted me from the soldiers by feeding me jam on toast.
Because I have lived as a stranger in your country. I have been vulnerable and alone in your lands. When I was hungry, you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
We give each other the thumbs-up.
I look around at the gaunt faces and angry fists. I wonder how many of these students have experienced an Australian home-cooked meal or have been shouted a latté in a laneway café. How many have had their bus fare paid for, or offered a seat on a busy train? In how many Aussie homes have they enjoyed warmth?
How are we going to respond to the protests of Indian students and welcome the stranger in our midst today?
Cara Munro is a registered nurse. Her essay Noor placed Third in the 2008 Margaret Dooley Awards.