Noelnadesan's Blog

Noel Nadesan

I was lucky not directly get abused for my colour, race or religion so far in my in my life in the countries, I have lived in Sri Lanka , India and Australia and many countries I visited . Considering the nature of the world and my age , I was one luckiest of few. My luck ran out a few days ago in Melbourne where I call home.
I faced racial abuse and was threatened with violence; yelled to get out of the country by a young person possibly half of my age, after 29 years living in Australia .It was not easy to digest the incident.

I was with my wife to drop a friend of mine’s wife at Craigieburn, a suburb 30 km from Melbourne city. It was a winter`s night approx seven in the evening, darkness enveloped everywhere without streetlights as being a newly developed residential area of the Melbourne northern fringe. My intended address was at the end of a small road with few houses and the road separating houses did not have space to U turn back. While maneuvering my SUV, I was spending my time there punching my return address into the GPS .
All of sudden a 4 wheel drive with 4 lights on blazing came out of the house opposite the house where I dropped my friend’s wife . A young white male parked his vehicle parallel to my SUV and put his glass shutter down, looked at me menacingly and yelled at me

‘’ Get out of this area quickly’’

I replied ‘’ My eyes were blinded with your car light and I am new to this area “

He repeated again ‘’I do not want to see you here’’ then He drove passed away from me

I turned the car and parked properly along the side, he then he drove back to me

I stepped out of the car and tried to explained my predicament to him

He said again showing his fist ‘’ I do not care how you dress up, I want you to get out this place

I was wearing a suit for a function.

I was quit realising his problem but did not move from where I was standing

Again he yelled at me ‘’ I will punch you unless you get out of here’’ and kept saying ‘’ I was born in this country and you have no business ‘’

I realised there was nothing much that can be said to this man

I said sorry and got back into the SUV

My wife was listening to the entire conversation but she remained cool.

As soon as I got into the car and drove she said ‘’ I feel sorry for the people living next to this man. She then said suddenly, “ you deserve this abuse as you are always saying good about everybody and now you will realise that nasty people also live amongst us’’ .

I did not want to reply but I believe in humanity and that he has a problem, not only for others but also himself.

She kept on saying this is why neighborhood is very important and we do not appreciate our neighbours until we face these kinds of creatures’’

We were thinking about making a complaint to the police then decided against it, but again I wanted to get this off my chest and have no more bothering from the incident.