This week we start with a new web-series, It’s My Desi Life - An interview based web series of all the mundane and exciting things that the Desi Australians love to do!
The aim of the programme is to celebrate the multi-culturalism of Australia... and how one connects their Indian roots with their new home - Australia.
The series focuses on Australians of Indian heritage and how they proudly represent a fine blend of the two distinct culture.
The first episode is on a young and dashing Australian-Indian Poras Beniwal, who started as a student in Melbourne and is now a successful banker and an aspiring filmmaker.
Poras relates himself with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote “Life is a Journey not a destination.”
Source: SBS
His journey began in Rajasthan (India) on 14th May 1984, born into a Manmohan Desai film style happy joint family.
His Dad is in Indian police and mom a home maker. Poras, who is very fond of and connected with Hindi/Bollywood cinema and loves linking his life with Bollywood anecdotes, dialogues and situations, fondly remembers his Masoom (innocent) childhood days playing (marbles) with his younger brother and cousins and gurukul style school days.
It was during his SKIT Engineering College days, he met with Deepti (his wife now). It was on Deepti’s insistence and encouragement that Poras decided to come to Australia for further studies and thus for him the adventure unfolded.
He landed in Pardes (foreign shores) Melbourne on 6th Feb 2006. His initial days were struggle to say the least, a typical day would consist of attending university classes, work, studying, cleaning, cooking and next day was exactly the same only more challenging because of lack of sleep and the constant agony being so far away from loved ones all alone in a foreign land.
But he is glad for those days of struggle because they have taught him so much, he states, “those days turned me from Koyla (coal) to Kundan (gold).
Poras got married in 2008 and his wife Deepti joined him in Melbourne soon after that… Poras finds Deepti as the Eternal sunshine to his spotless mind.
Poras finds that he has come a long way since then, from sharing houses to owning them. Now his days revolve around his pet Labrador Fan, his careers, staying in touch with family and friends both here and in India.
For Poras, cinema has always been a passion, he recollects, “my mom tells me that when they asked me for my parents’ name during my kinder garden admission process I replied back Hindustan and Pakistan. So get the idea now ;)”
On choosing between India or Australia, Poras responds: “India versus Australia for me would be like Godfather v/s VB, why choose one when you can have both. Austraila is my Karma Bhoomi (work place) and I am as proud of my Karma Bhoomi as my Janma Bhoomi (birth place) , I consider myself as Global citizen.”
His mantra for life is “jeena hai to hans ke jiyo...”, (live live with a smile).
