Can't Get You Outta My Head

Over a chai a few days back, I mentioned that it’s been a year now that I returned from Melbourne. Someone there asked me if I missed Melbourne, and I casually shook my head in a ‘Naah’

Later in the evening, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, I thought to myself,”Do I?”. 

Well, I guess when you’ve spent a couple of years at a place and then you leave it, a part of that city still doesn’t leave you. This city did get me hooked on to itself. Here, I’ll try and put up a few things, I think, I do miss, or at least, distinctly remember and cherish.

• Trams – It’s gotta top the list of anyone’s version. Really. Everything about the trams was unique. For me, it was quite an experience, having a set of rails lining the city streets, having a locomotive growling inches from your car-window. 

•  The City Circle – Why’s this one not included in the above category, Trams? It’s after all a tram, right? Wrong. The city-circle isn’t a tram, not just a tram. It’s an exhibition, an expedition, living and talking history, a tour guide. Plus it’s free J 

•  Melbourne's unique ‘hook-turns’, with the distinctive 'Right turn from left only' traffic-sign. Somehow even after having spent all this time at this place, I couldn't help stopping to stare and smile, pleasantly surprised how this thing that looks so weird, works so smoothly. 

• In quite evenings, standing around in the corners, the sound of speeding car tires crossing over tram tracks at intersections. Again, has to do with the trams, but as I said, Trams top the list. 

• The assorted sweet and bitter smell of coffee and muffins when walking the city streets. Probably, not uniquely unique to Melbourne, but then I put myself to test at almost all the Starbucks, the Gloria Jeans’s, the Hudsons, the Breadtops and all the not-so-famous ones in between, that I’m bound to include this as an integral part.

• The distinct sound of the pedestrian signal at intersections, alternating between ticking and rushing 

• Walking the city streets on weekends, watching the street performers near Bourke mall. Well, actually the entire area around Swanston St-Bourke St intersection used to be so lively throughout the year, always a delight. 

• Sporting events throughout the year and how they used to be talked about everywhere, be it the Ashes in December or the Australian Open in Jan-Feb or the Formula1 in March or all of winters taken over by Footy mania, concluding with the Melbourne cup race in November. 

• Sunday afternoons at Victoria market. Be it those hawkers shouting, “Dollar a kilo” (which actually made me feel at home) or be it sipping coffee in the sun while bands played European, Asian, middle-eastern music. 

• Finally the summers. This coming from a desi, who’s lived all his life in 45⁰ C summers, this might sound odd, but down under, summers were actually coolJ. Longer days meant more time out on the roads, trips –short and long, and of course more beers J

  

Well, Do I miss Melbourne? Hell Yes!! 

P. S - "Can't Get You Outta My Head" is a song by Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue's, 2001 studio album Fever.