Indian students in Australia
When I arrived in Australia as an International student at eighteen, it was like firing a slingshot. After spending two years in quarantine during the pandemic, I was suddenly dropped in Sydney not knowing how to find a job or file my taxes. But, I had a clear directive echoing in my head: don’t get stuck in the ‘Indian bubble’.
“You’ll never experience Australia if you only hang out with Indians,” they said. “Branch out, make multicultural friends. That’s the point of going overseas.”
So, I did exactly that. I deliberately didn’t join the Indian society at my university. The thought of forcibly interacting with a bunch of strangers didn’t appeal to my anxiety anyway. I’d make friends the “organic” way, I told myself; and through classes, group work, casual encounters, I did make friends — good ones from various backgrounds.
I was convinced I was getting the “authentic” international student experience.
Then two Indian students — one from Canberra, and one from Muscat — moved into my student accommodation and we hit it off.
We became close the way most genuine friendships do, through proximity, shared meals, and casual conversations in the kitchen. But what caught me off guard was the homesickness that I had been carrying began to loosen like a breath I’d been holding for months. The feeling of not having to explain my habits, my culture, my festivals, was new to me.
Suddenly, we were decorating our house with diyas and dressing in our traditional outfits for Diwali. On my first Navratri in Sydney, I spent my days wistfully going through Instagram looking at the stories of people back home. A year later, I was busy going to garba events with my friends, sharing a little about my culture, and learning a little about theirs. An impromptu visit to a Tamil temple during Pongal led me to understand how the same stories are told through different perspectives, our cultures reflecting and refracting each other.
We watched Indian movies in languages we all didn’t understand, laughed at funny memes emerging from Indian content creators, and went hunting for our comfort foods late at night on Sydney’s streets. We bonded over how all Indian parents regardless of their background and their geography are the same. The “what did you eat?” texts at odd hours, the random career advice, group video calls where everyone talks over one another, and sending you contacts of people they know in Sydney you’ve never even heard of.
It wasn’t that my other friendships were lacking or not wholesome. Like out of a sitcom, I had found my family — the kind that helps you move your couch at midnight and knows how spicy you like your food. International students and friendships
Here’s what I’ve realised: the “Indian bubble VS multicultural friends” binary that we talk about so much is the problem. It’s not about gravitating towards or away from Indian communities, it’s treating it like a moral choice, like there is a right and a wrong way to make friendships in a new country and be happy. International students and friendships
Perhaps because the previous generation built close Indian communities out of necessity, we inherit the anxiety of doing diaspora life “correctly” and recreate that sense of belonging. But building your village requires a little more than just checking a box. It means finding people who understand you, whether that’s your cultural background, your interests, your sense of humour, or even your ambitions. They might match your background, and they might not. International students and friendships
I’ve met Indian students who joined Indian societies and attended every event and still felt lonely, because they were chasing a community in spaces that didn’t match their interests. I’ve met students who actively avoided other Indians and built beautiful, supportive multicultural friend groups. I’ve met people — like me — who stumbled into Indian friendships accidentally and discovered something they didn’t know they needed.
If I could go back and talk to myself on that first day, anxious, determined to avoid the “bubble,” convinced I had it all figured out, I’d say this: Stop worrying about the kind of friends you’re supposed to make. The best friendships always happen in the most random ways.
And the organic friendships I was determined to cultivate? They did happen. I found my village in both the Indian and non-Indian friends I made along the way. The advice everyone gives to avoid the Indian bubble, branch out, experience the ‘real’ Australia isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete. Because nobody tells you that running away from your culture can be just as isolating as never stepping beyond it, and maybe that’s where the sweet spot lies — somewhere in between. International students and friendships
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