It was well past midnight when Kanan Kharbanda decided to accompany his friend to the Sunshine station in a western suburb of Melbourne. His pal was expecting his wife on the last local. "Around 15-20 Australians approached us outside the taxi stand asking for a dollar. When I showed them my empty pockets, they started beating up my friend and me," says the 27-year-old third semester accounting student of Melbourne Institute of Technology as he relived on phone the horrific incident.
A couple of them wore knuckle punchers. And while his friend escaped with a minor muscle pull, Kanan suffered a fractured nose and a broken orbital bone. He has lost vision in his right eye. "I'm disabled for life now. My confidence has hit an all-time low," says Kanan of the March 2008 incident.
Kanan, who hails from Amritsar, is just one of the many Indians assaulted in Australia over the past few years. Now that the vicious attacks on Indian students have hit world headlines, several are speaking out and the horror stories are piling up. Students also complain of facing verbal abuse; many of them overtly racist such as "you bloody overseas," "you ***king curry" and "you ***king Indian."
Kanan says that the police did not offer any help like arranging ambulance or offering first aid. "They kept asking questions like what did they do to you and who are they. When we asked for medical help, they simply said, 'take a taxi. We know what our job is, you bloody overseas'," he recalls.
Joy Shah, 23, came from Ahmedabad to study hotel management in Holmes College, Melbourne. He says that the police demand proof of assault or abuse in order to take action. "How can we give proof of abuse?" says Shah.
He says panic-stricken parents are calling back their children. His roommate Vandan Shah has decided to return. "Parents are saying forget about studies, we want you to come back," says Joy, who also plans to come back as soon as his course is complete. A 24-year-old student of La Trobe University, Siddharta says that no Indian reacts to abuse for two reasons: because they want to avoid confrontation and because the authorities are not helpful. "Since their parents have invested heavily in their studies, Indian students don't want the money to go waste by being deported, which is what they face in such situations," says Siddhartha, who belongs to Mumbai and claims to having been called names by kids as young as 10-12 years.
Kanan recalls that after getting beaten up at the station, he reached Western Hospital Footscray. He says that no doctor attended to him for more than 8 and half hours as he waited bleeding and in pain. Discharged within 24 hours despite offering to pay whatever the cost, he says, "They simply said, come for a follow-up later."
Kanan, who wrote a letter to the Indian Consulate about the incident, has also met several Australian parliamentarians but no one responded but for Ted Baillieu, a Liberal politician in Victoria.
The experience has left him bitter and disappointed. His advice to fellow students who plan on going to Australia is simple: Think hard before you make the move because the system does not help you. Survey alternative options and even then if you want to make it to Australia, keep safe and always be with friends.
The student from Amritsar says there is a tendency to blame the victim. "They say you were at the wrong place at the wrong time as though the attack was our fault."
He senses resentment towards Indians in minor incidents at work especially during an India-Australia cricket match. "During matches, especially when the latter is winning, they intentionally want to provoke you by asking what's the score in a very funny way," says Kanan, who's learnt to avoid any confrontation with a standard reply, "It's a sport, one loses, one wins."
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