Victoria's Secret

It could not be a mere coincidence that a gentleman who can still be legally described as ‘Victorian’ a good century after the demise of the crusty Queen-Empress and the conservative era named after her, has exhorted Indians to look poor when we venture forth abroad. As the police chief of an Antipodean province that proudly bears the name of Queen Victoria, Simon Overland’s advice to a forum of Indian students in Australia to keep a low profile and “try to look as poor as you can” to avoid attacks, is understandable. He is just being mindful of the area’s tumultuous history. For, around 200 years ago when that part of the Australian continent was being settled — and named after the then young British queen — the first recorded inhabitants who disembarked from the HMS Kolkata were, 308 convicts and 82 others. The pattern was set way back then: it was best for honest immigrants to keep a low profile in tough times. Two centuries, many generations and several large-scale migrations later, Australia clearly hasn’t yet come out of that mindset.

Expensive gadgetry, watches and jewellery are not meant to be displayed in the dangerous streets of Melbourne by those who are not deemed worthy of such accoutrements. Like students and other johnniescome-lately. Victorian Melbourne’s not that far from the seedy Third World alleyways of Delhi and Mumbai, after all, where unwary foreigners are easy targets for all manner of racially-impartial criminal elements. Mr Overland’s seniors have, of course defended him by calling his warning “a light hearted summation”. In the same spirit, perhaps, that observation should be included in travel advisories to Indians who are exhorted by the Victorian tourism promotion board to “lose yourself in Melbourne”. Remember what happened to those who wandered unmindfully down the streets of ’Victorian’ London ...