Vindaloo against violence
Your correspondent rarely needs much of an excuse to consume a curry. Nor to travel to Melbourne.
And, as that opening sentence attests, there's long been a weakness for alliteration which borders on infatuation. So you'll forgive me my fascination with Vindaloo against violence - or a poppadum for peace, a korma for karma or tolerance from the Tandoor, in the words of the admirably alliterative media release from Mia Northrop, the Melburnian who came up with the idea.
People all across Australia, and Aussie expats all over the world - yes, that means you - have been invited to sit down for a curry to make a stand against racial intolerance and to protest against the spate of attacks against Indian students in Melbourne.
The event has fast become something of a phenomenon, with the social networking site used to spread it around the world. Some 16,000 people registered to take part, and the curry house that I was in earlier this evening in the centre of Melbourne was almost full.
It's a very Melbourne way to protest. Ethnic food has long had powerful adhesive qualities in a city with such a polyglot population drawn from 140 nations. It tastes fabulous as well.
"It's a small gesture to go and eat at your local Indian restaurant but when its made by thousands of people at the same time it sends a pretty powerful message. Since Melbourne is such a foodie city I thought it might strike a chord, and it certainly has," Mia Northrop says.
Between 2007-8, the recorded over 1,440 robberies and assaults against Indians, and the figure for last year is thought to be even higher (though it has not been published).
The Victoria police have often been criticised for not taking the problem seriously enough, and for minimising the racial dimension of the attacks. They concede that racial intolerance has often played a part, but their main point is that Indian students have been particularly prone to attacks because many of them work such anti-social hours, driving taxis or serving behind the counter at fast food joints.
Alert to the public relations potential, the police has been keen to associate themselves with the protest. Earlier this evening, after a Bollywood troupe had performed at Federation Square in the throbbing heart of the city, police officers posed for a photo-opportunity with the dancers which they, no doubt, hope will end up in the Indian newspapers and on the cable news channels, which have followed this story closely and excitedly.
Last year, when Kevin Rudd launched a bit of curry diplomacy himself - he told an Indian TV channel that he loved Indian food and that it made a particularly pleasant change from a dreary diet of Anglo-Australian fare. He was accused of trivialising the problem. But this spontaneous display of community solidarity is likely to produce more favourable headlines.
Certainly, that was the view of Gautam Gupta, the high-profile head of the . He told me that these kind of symbolic events were important and should not be regarded as tokenistic. He hoped it would exert greater public pressure on the Labor state government in Victoria to take the problem more seriously. His only misgiving was that the victims of the muggings and attacks did not feature more prominently - although the criticism was not directed against the organisers.
No, in Melbourne tonight many are toasting Mia Northrop, the 35-year-old digital media professional, who came up with the idea. And they're doing so with Indian lager.
I'm 
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