They received the ‘green light’, took a flight after selling off nearly everything they owned, arrived in Australia and were instantly both overwhelmed and intimidated. Intimidated, that is, by what lay before them. Hailing from the same state as Mahatma Gandhi, they unfortunately didn’t bring with them Gandhi’s fluency in another tongue. He knew straight off that he was never ever going to be a headmaster again, and his wife would never be a teacher in the same school where they’d met all those years ago and got married.

Someone at the welfare centre — where they went to for guidance — recommended they enrol as students. In a programme for adult migrant students, that is. Neither of them foresaw a return to college, as such. “We have come from one background of surviving to another where the survival theme continues,” said Mukesh, now in his late 40s, “but along with finding work to support ourselves we’d like to learn how to be Australians now.” He was speaking to his adult migrant enrolment officer. They had not the slightest problem getting accepted and, “This was one of the first things that amazed us,” said Pinky, Mukesh’s wife, “No long queues, no donation money, no application forms with needless questions like your grandfather’s name and his place of birth etc etc. Just some brief paper work and we were told to come in the following day to start classes.”

They got to meet their teacher Anthony, years younger than them — he could have been one of their pupils back home. They got to meet their classmates — from China, Korea, Romania, Fiji, Afghanistan, Iran ... and so began their fresh experience of broadening their own horizons, in this microcosm of globalisation. They discovered that the educational aspect there was far more focused on the situational side of things.

For example, how would you answer a telephone call, what would you say by way of opening greeting. Or, how would you deal with a door-to-door salesman from whom you didn’t want to buy anything. Their accents when set beside the others suddenly did not seem anything to be embarrassed about. Especially during group exercises where, often, nobody understood the other and Anthony — seemingly a young champion of many tongues — was always on hand to unravel and explain.

Inhibition like moulting skin peeled and fell off unnoticed. Young Anthony, for all his youthful looks, was a canny juggler, mixing the right amounts of humour and laughter with his grammatical rules — such as not ending a sentence on a preposition, and when to use the definite article and when not — not to say “I want to go bathroom”, for example and equally not to say, “I eat the breakfast before coming to college”.

Outside college, Pinky made friends with the neighbour across the way — an elderly Australian of Greek heritage whose rows and rows of roses — far as the eye could see in the front yard, were suddenly stricken with an illness not unlike black spot. The lady had tried every remedy. Pinky, from her own background of growing roses in Gujarat, was able to suggest a home remedy. It worked.

When the next blooms arrived, healthy and beautiful, she was permitted to take as many as she liked. The two of them, Mukesh and Pinky, plucked just enough for each member of their class and a special red one for Mr Anthony, who just happened to be having a bad day. His lesson with another class hadn’t gone to plan. It had dragged. The class seemed unenthusiastic.

“From my years of experience,” said Mukesh in halting English, “it’s nothing to worry about. There is no perfect lesson and nobody can be a perfect teacher all the time. But Pinky has something for you. These flowers had a bad season and now look, they are having a good season.” Sometimes, uplifting advice may not be exactly ‘on point’ as it were, but still, it lifts and delivers its message.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.