My Melbourne: How four immigrant tales teach powerful money lessons

The city of Melbourne glues the stories together. A story about a father and son, a woman trying to make a place for herself in a strange land, a dancer who needs to discover freedom by freeing her own limitations, a young man trying to make himself heard in the deep gulf of silence between him and his father and a young girl who wants to break away from the traditional view that immigrants need to be unseen and unheard to survive.

I take my heart – now converted to mush – and bring you money lessons without giving away spoilers. You must watch this anthology even though it releases on a day when the nation celebrates the different colours of Holi.

When will you accept me as I am?

This is not just an anguished cry of a young man expected to ‘behave like a man’ but also the dancer who struggles to overcome her passion and her inability to rise up and express herself.

There are so many words that come at you as you watch father and son seethe with deep rooted grievances and non acceptance and so much more. When you watch Emma trying to express her inner turmoil in dance you sigh audibly into your dark coffee, identifying her struggles with your own.

Good cinema immerses you in its colours (Rima Das loves those greens and blues, eh?!) both real and metaphorical and you begin to identify the struggles of the characters as your own is a rarity these days. And these stories overwhelmed me in ways inexplicable.

Just when you emerge from the grief of the loss of a parent, you have to deal with the mundane that is made profane if the people left behind have contentious claims to the estate of the person. Your money manager will ensure that you have made air-tight provisions for your lands, properties, jewellery and investments for after. 

Also encourage your parents to write that will, explaining how death should not have heirs running helter skelter to courts and lawyers for lengthy processes that transfer property to their names… It’s a conversation we need to have and accept the inevitability of life.

Study hard, forget about cricket!

Immigrants to a new land are often advised to live an invisible life – focus on work and prove to be ‘good’ citizens in the new land – so that you don’t create a disruption and attract undue attention. Kabir Khan’s Setara is perhaps the most Bollywoodian story of them all. A girl from war torn Afghanistan will not go gently into the night, but will attract all kinds of attention by choosing to play cricket. Her hijab attracts attention, her talent attracts attention and at home she has to learn to suppress that inner light, her talent that was buried when they left home.

For those of us making a decision to emigrate with our families to another country, we need to understand immigration laws and eligibility rules for Permanent Residence. Australia has a clear point system, Dubai has the Golden Visa and other criteria. Once you qualify you must ensure that your bank accounts are also converted to an NRI account and that you have given power of attorney to someone trusted to handle your property and investments here. 

If moving with the family, know how you would qualify for a home loan in the new country, how opening a bank account and having a great credit score will go a long way in helping you shine in your new home. Setara has her talent on the field. Perhaps your talent lies in being the best in your field of work or passion.

I want to be heard!

The story of an Indian immigrant who learns chutzpah from a homeless woman hit me straight in the gut. So many women tend to take the back seat once they move abroad. From being professionals in India, they take up jobs quite unrelated to their qualifications. You have seen so many women take up check out jobs at supermarkets or even a rung much lower simply because their husbands, children and other concerns occupy them. 

In this story Sakshi hesitates at every step because she is so used to living within boundaries that have been created for her. Her excuses like ‘I’m vegetarian’ seem unreal and stop her from being the best version of herself. Patriarchy does not disappear because you moved away from India.

Thankfully young women today are making independent financial decisions, by having a separate bank account, not falling for false advertising (discounts for women’s day, special loans for women and so on), and discovering that their money manager can help them walk the tightrope and balance work and home life wonderfully. Discovering financial independence is one way of being heard.

It’s not often that stories use silences to drill into your heads lessons about life (and yes, money). This anthology may not come across as gob smacking as say Picnic At Hanging Rock, but these stories capture the essence of the multicultural cauldron that is Melbourne. And if you are heading out to Melbourne on work or play, bring back some Anzac biscuits for me and don’t forget to try Dim-Sim!

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.