The ‘Let Her Be’ Aussie Culture

The Australian Staff Course had two fortnight-long official tours called Ex ‘Full Circles I and II’ during which the entire course of eighty student officers went around the country in two groups – one going East while the other went West. During the second Full Circle, our group went West on the Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth-Broom-Alice Springs-Katherine-Darwin-Melbourne route.

We flew to Katherine from Alice Springs and stayed overnight at a hotel. Next morning, we were to take a bus to Darwin about 300 km up North from there. In the evening after our dinner, self and Iqbal took turns at the only public phone booth in the hotel lobby to call our better halves for the ‘all ok’ reports from the families left on their own in an alien land. When I was waiting for my turn to make the call with Iqbal inside the booth, a fellow Australian student passed by and remarked, “Mahindra, you two are very regular with your calls to the families. Is everything ok back there?”

I replied, “Yeah, all well mite. It’s just a routine call to check if they are ok and if they need anything. Why, you guys don’t call up your wives?”

His response was quite interesting, “Why should I give a call to her? She has the car, the telephone, credit and ATM cards and a copy of our itinerary. She can always call me if she needs to. Besides Mahindra, it might be embarrassing to call her at late in the day.”

So I asked, “What do you mean, embarrassing?”

He said, “Hold on, just watch the fun.” He then told me to follow him to the bar where a few fellow students were enjoying their routine post-dinner beers. He walked to one called Harry and said, “Hi Harry, haaw’zt gaoin?” (Meaning ‘how is it going’). Harry lifted his beer mug, smiled and said, “Graite, mite. Cheers!”

At this my escort told him, “Oh by the way harry, I totally forgot. Paula (Harry’s wife) called while I was at the booth. She wanted you to give her a call. I promised her that I would let you know.” This got Harry confused. He looked at his watch which was showing 2115 and muttered to no one in particular, “Paula? Wants me to call her? At this time of the night? I think I would have another beer and then think about it.”

So we waited for him to finish another beer and then saw him walking reluctantly towards the phone booth. Once he entered the booth, this officer who had orchestrated the ‘fun’, opened the booth’s glass door clandestinely and put a stool between it and its frame so that Harry’s voice could be heard by those who wanted. By this time it was almost 2200 and what could be heard from inside the booth was as follows – (all in Harry’s voice).

“No Paula, I was told you wanted me to give you a call ……….. Why am I calling at this time of the night? I was told to call you and that it was urgent. ……………….. It’s only ten at night honey. …………………..... Come on Paula, how can I not trust you? Its just that these guys told me that you wanted me to give a call. I love you, honey……………… Good night, honey!”

Harry was furious once he emerged form the booth and looked for the ‘orchestrator’ who, in anticipation of Harry’s wrath, had vanished from the scene. When Harry went away, huffing and puffing to his room, I too decided to retire for the night.

Once we returned from the ‘Full Circle’ after a few days, it took a lot of effort on part of a few fellow students to convince Paula at her home that it was a prank played by us on Harry. And to me, it was a ‘demo’ of the cultural gap between us ‘Third World’ wallas and them ‘First World’ wallas.