Balaji Rao
| Town/City | TOCUMWAL |
|---|---|
| First name | Balaji |
| Last name | Rao |
| Country of Origin | India |
| Date of Birth | 17/08/37 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 5/17/1969 |
| Submitted by | Balaji Rao, (Ghorpade) |
Story
I wanted to serve my country of birth as a doctor. Having tasted bitter poverty, I had to make a hard, but practical decision, wether to die as a pauper in India or migrate to a developed country. I felt that I was selfish in making that decision, but I had to think of my family and others who were depending on me for a better life in an another country.
I left India on 16/5/1969, leaving my wife, Lalitha and two children, Kalpana and Poornima, behind. The journey took me from Bangalore to Madras, Singapore, Perth, Melbourne and Wynyard in Tasmania. I travelled on the national carrier, Air India, from Madras to Melbourne. The immigration official at Madras had not heard of Tasmania. I had 15 Australian dollars in my purse. That was all the exchange one could get those days. It was my first journey, in a plane! Quite a few seats were empty. Sitting at the window seat and flying at 33,000ft above sea level, I was admiring the beauty of the full moon and the clear sky. I was anxious, not knowing how I was going to cope in a far away land, with no friends and relatives. And I had a bit of a bother using a western toilet in the aircraft!
It was about 8PM when the hospital superintendant of North-Western General Hospital picked me up. He drove me from Wynyard airport to the Emu Motel, in Burnie. I could not see people on the highway or on the streets. I felt lonely. Thoughts that went through my mind was (where are the people? Is this place the end of the earth? If I had the money for a return ticket I would have gone back to India the very next day. It was a cultural shock. I was missing people. The population of Aiustralia, then was 13 or 14 million.