CBD culture clash.

A recent trip into the CBD to see Shah Rukh Khan's 'Ra.One' allowed Aradhna and I to glimpse a rarely displayed fissure in Melbournian society. The start of Victoria's annual spring racing carnival coincided with a march down Swanston Street (above) by protesters inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement in the US. Six days earlier police on horseback had used extreme measures to clear them from the small public square along Swanston Street where they'd peacefully camped for a week. This well-organised march of perhaps a thousand people marked their return to the CBD and media spotlight.

Intentionally or not, their demonstration coincided with a parade of antennaed women in stilletos and haughtily dressed men using public transport to carry them to Flemington Racecourse just northwest of the CBD. Aradhna and I were flagrantly under-dressed among the clothes horses at Balaclava train station, though our attire was surely more appropriate for the sterile environs of the train (above). A week of grey skies dissolved from memory beneath trees bursting with fresh foliage along Swanston Street. A phalanx of police on horseback near the Flinders Street intersection hinted at what was coming, but the only commotion in sight was tourists snapping photos.

Aradhna and I walked up Swanston and came upon the march at Town Hall (right). Nowhere near the 'feral' or 'unwashed' mob that Murdoch-owned tabloids had labeled them to the delight of their suburban readership, they banged drums and yelled in unison and carried signs and tore the veil of preciousness from self-absorbed racegoers like a tornado through a clothes line. Men and women wearing 'Official Observor' placards and carrying clipboards monitored the police, who to their credit gave the marchers space and halted traffic at intersections. The protesters stopped briefly beside the square where they'd camped for a week -- their proximity eliciting a chant of 'We'll be back!' -- and that's where I broke off and walked back to where my wife was waiting across from Town Hall. Two men behind me loudly discussed the merits of the march; "These people should do their protesting online!" the most memorable line.

The marchers eventually turned left at Flinders Street, spent a few hours in Treasury Gardens -- where police made it clear they were not free to camp -- and retreated to an alleyway near RMIT a few blocks away. The march made the evening news but proved no match for spring racing carnival hype, which continued unabated through the week. I was having coffee at Gattica in Balaclava when this trio of racegoers (above) passed by, theirs the parade of choice for Melburnians accustomed to still waters and faux prosperity and obeyance. But what do I know ... even after 4 years in Melbourne I fail to appreciate a weeklong 'celebration' of dress-up and gambling and inebriation. Bloody Philistine.