In this week’s episode of It’s My Desi Life, the focus is on Richa Vijayraj, who hails from Sironj near Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.
Richa talks about her experience of being in the two cultures – India and Australia, she specifically brings to the fore the aspect of being a woman in the two different cultures and how it has impacted her as a person.
A poet, writer, researcher, spiritualist and a successful HR and marketing professional, Richa remembers her childhood as being raised in a traditional but progressive large family with seventeen cousins.
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Her mother is a home maker and father runs a textile shop. She is the youngest among the three sisters and she always felt compelled to prove that she is better than the boys.
The constant reminder by the society that ‘a boy should have been born, instead of a girl’, worked as a motivation for her to do better in life, especially professionally.
She calls herself ‘lucky’ that even though coming from a small-town and a modest family background she ended up achieving all that what she desired and worked towards.
Before moving to Australia in February 2013 she was working in a multi-national software company in Bangalore as HR manager. Despite being accomplished and well settled in her career she always felt that she should explore the world further.
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She describes her journey of moving to Australia as a ‘big step’, leaving a settled job and career was a major decision and she got very little support from family and friends.
Richa pursued post graduate in Human Resources and industrial relation from Sydney University Business School and later moved to Melbourne.
She remembers her initial days in Australia, full of struggle and culture shock, which now when she looks back, finds it to be the best experience of her life… as it taught her many things about living in a different culture and country and the journey called life.
Being a student again, taking public transport, living with very limited financial resources and sharing the house with new people was something that took time for her to adjust.
The most challenging situation for her was to live in a shared house where her house-mates would cook on a regular basis in the shared kitchen.
For Richa, a strict vegetarian, it was difficult to cope with the various meat preparations in the house, yet she feels she survived and now doesn’t mind it at all, though she still is a pure vegetarian.
There were times where she felt like giving up and going back to a comfortable life in India but she learnt to live with the challenges of a new country.
She recalls one of the most amusing moment from her initial days in Australia when she got to know how Mardi Gras parade (an annual lesbian and gay parade in Sydney) is also about celebration of diversity; coming from a conservative society, for her it took a long time to understand… but it did broaden her understanding.
She claims that diversity and multiculturalism is something she enjoys the most in Australia. She never imagined that she will have friends from all over the world and will get to learn about the different cultural values and norms in her everyday life.
‘Feeling of being safe’ is something of utmost importance for a woman which she thoroughly cherishes in Australia.
Being a spiritual person, Richa practices yoga and meditation on a daily basis. She loves it when people in trams and pubs start talking about Yoga and spirituality when they hear about India. The fact that people consider India as a spiritually advance nation is something she always takes pride in.
She absolutely enjoys interacting with friendly, easy-going and pleasant Australians.
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In her spare time these days, she loves to learn about the Australian slang, where football is footie and breakfast is Brekkie.
Richa is currently pursuing PhD and has a job that she loves, she feels that ‘while the soul will always remain Indian, Australia feels like home now’.
More than four years in Australia and she loves every moment of her life here. She believes that moving out of comfort zone and willing to experience the ‘new’ is a must if you want to learn and grow in life.
Richa sums up her cross-cultural experience with a quote by the popular spiritual guru Osho:
Experience life in all possible ways – good, bad, bitter-sweet, dark, light, summer, winter. Experience all the dualities. Don’t be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become.
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