Priya arrived from Bengaluru in 2018 on a 485 graduate visa, slept on a friend-of-a-friend’s couch in Clayton for nine days, and then spent four months learning Melbourne the slow way — the way nobody should have to. She works in HR for a logistics company and writes for MELBZ on the weekends because she remembers exactly which steps were confusing and which were easy and which the official websites get completely wrong.
Her pieces are aimed at the first ninety days: opening a CommBank account before your TFN arrives, why Coles delivery is sometimes cheaper than Woolies, the difference between a real-estate inspection and an open-for-inspection (yes, both exist), the Indian and Sri Lankan grocery row on Centre Road, and how to tell if a share-house ad is a scam (the rent is too cheap; they ask for bond in cash).
She writes from experience, not from the Department of Home Affairs FAQ.
Articles by Priya Raghavan are based on her own settlement experience and ongoing conversations with newly arrived friends and colleagues. MELBZ does not accept payment from migration agents or property platforms.