Curry for breakfast?

The development of the palate is a well documented phenomenon for foreigners who spend any length of time in India. On initially landing in India, there’s usually a fierce desire to eat only local food - the more ‘street’ (and thus apparently more genuine) the better. New arrivals trade diarrhea and vomiting tales, and pride themselves on their enhanced tolerance levels for dubious hygiene. There are some on the other hand (the ‘bubble wrapped’ expats) who actively avoid local cuisine, either for reasons of palate preference, or because they are paranoid about germs and hygiene, cooking everything in bottled water and eating from only 5 star hotels (ironically all my instances of food poisoning and upset stomach in India have originated from eating in hotel restaurants, where the food is cooked in huge batches and often left to collect germs). Curry cravings are rampant, the food choices awesome and low priced and the ‘curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner’ habit kicks in. There’s a feeling of bonding with the locals as cornflakes and cold milk are replaced by steaming hot idlis and spicy sambal sauce, toast and marmalade by spicy potatoes and fluffy puris. Indian food is truly delicious and though it bears little resemblance to its british counterpart, which is mainly served up by Bangladeshi migrants and features a whole host of different flavours, spices and sauces, eating local food is a big part of the settling in experience.

When I first arrived in Mumbai, I craved Indian food day and night, my tastebuds perpetually tantalised by the waves of spicy aromas flooding from every corner of this foodie city. After a few weeks on a constant diet of chapatis, rice, daal, aloo gobi and various meaty curries, with poha for breakfast (flakes of yellow flattened rice served with the ubiquitous coconut chutney) and samosas or masala dosa at snack time, I realised that my waistline as well as my health was suffering, along with my over spiced tastebuds and digestive system. After about 8 months of this constant bombardment of Indian food, my body started craving bland, western food and in particular English style pies, sandwiches and mashed potato, pizza, spaghetti and even McDonald’s – a fast food which I wouldn’t have touched in the UK given my snobbish revulsion for the junk food of the masses. Suddenly the filet of fish in its plasticky bun with fake cheese on top seemed tantalising, and the crisp, salty fries were to die for. Though the only burgers available at an Indian McDonalds are chicken, fish or veggie given the country’s sensitivity to beef and pork, the and the majority of menu items have been customised for India with local flavourings and twists (eg the McAloo Tikki), the sensation of cramming a great soft white bun with mayonnaise into my mouth, with no lingering spicy aftertaste was sometimes too much to resist and I found myself standing relatively often in the McDonalds queue actually salivating over the menu items and wishing that I could order a Big Beef Mac instead of a McChicken meal. Similarly, I began to hunt out places where I could purchase the foodstuffs of my dreams – cheddar cheese, ham, decent brown bread and proper mayonnaise.

If you know where to go in Mumbai, it’s perfectly possible to find this kind of deli food, but it comes at a price. There are tiny delis like Sante in Mumbai’s expat rich suburb of Bandra which sell a relatively huge range of cheeses and hams, but at extortionate prices. Their shelves are also lined with great British and American sauces and condiments, desserts, tins of custard, and a fridge packed full of yoghurt and butter imported from France, mozzarella cheese and marscapone and various other tantalising delights for the palate jaded by masala overkill. Every time I ‘pop in’ to this culinary treasure trove, especially if I’m hungry, I come out with a couple of small bags and a dent in my wallet to the tune of at least three thousand rupees – equivalent to a couple weeks salary for the boys in my office, for example. I’m always shocked and feel faintly guilty at this kind of excess, but I do return time and time again for my fix of bland, and judging by the number of expats I meet in this tiny corner of deli paradise, this is a highly lucrative business and a taste of home for many. I also ask all my visitors from the UK or US to bring “sausages, ham, cheese and bacon”, and though some are too squeamish to navigate the “no foodstuffs” customs declaration, others breeze confidently through to give me a fortnight of absolute joy in the form of bacon sandwiches for breakfast, with lashings of HP sauce.

Recently, and following the acquisition of a built in "proper" oven, I've started baking again. I lived without an oven in Asia for 7 years, was given a tiny but functional oven by friends in 2009 and now finally have upgraded to oven English style, i.e. big enough to cook a roast dinner and apple pie at the same time. I've been cooking for expats and Indians alike, and they are all raving about my beef and ale pies and quiches, mince pies and cakes. I'm creating a daily calorie fest from my kitchen and probably a whole new following for simple English cuisine.

Dealing with India .... #1

A wise friend gave me the following piece of advice when I first told him I was moving to India ; “don’t try and change India. Let it change you, but above all don’t try and change it. You’ll only go mad’. Truer words were never spoken. Surviving and learning to love India is all about the ability to embrace rather than criticise, to learn to love the craziness rather than be sucked under by it, to maintain a sense of calm detachment and rationale when all about you seem to be losing their heads.

Take the FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Office). I’ve been visiting the same office for 7 years. Since I started going there on my annual pilgrimage to get my employment visa renewed (before the wondrous PIO card was granted to me), I’ve seen the same faces working there, and have built up a relationship with them to the point where they raise an eyebrow when I sit in front of them to submit my (ever more complex) paperwork. I’ve even managed to crack a smile out of one of them. But, when I stopped and thought about WHY these government officers were SO very inflexible and so very difficult to deal with, I started to become aware of the frustrations which they themselves must be facing, day in and day out. Take the simple issue of money and the principle of fairness of distribution of wealth. Now each of these FRRO officers probably earns in the region of 4000-9000 rupees per month, if they’re lucky (USD$100-200). That money has to support an extended (joint family) of kids, uncles, aunties and aged parents. And they are made to scrutinise the tax returns and employment letters of foreigners who are earning say 200 times that per month ( a monthly salary of an expat in Mumbai will probably hit the one million rupees a month, or USD20,000. Even the ‘poorest’ expats will easily clear three or four times the monthly salary of these officials. So don’t you think they deserve to be cut just a little bit of slack? What can be worse than dealing with a bunch of whining foreigners day in and day out, who are trying to extend visas with incorrect paperwork, shouting and ranting incoherently and shoving their goddamned huge fat salaries in front of your nose, when you’re struggling to make ends meet, have a respectable if lowly paid job, you’re up at 4am to prepare breakfast for your extended family of in-laws and children and demanding husband, AND you’re also tired of saying the same thing to someone who you can hardly understand as they’re talking AT you and very fast. I kind of understand where these guys are coming from, at least when I’m in a more forgiving mood. Some of them clearly see their jobs as their own private vengeance against the days of the Raj, and yes that can be stressful, exhausting and frustrating but others are simply following their orders, and in India that means everything.


Systems of bureaucracy and order in India are key to balancing the chaos which threatens to engulf everything. The roads, the legal system, the politics, the workplace, the transport. All seem to be teetering on the brink of an anarchic abyss, bound together in the absence of reason or logic, yet everything seems, somehow, to work. Everyone goes to bed, and gets up in the morning and the day repeats itself and life (for most) goes on. Most visitors cannot understand how this can happen, but fail to understand that it’s the small and seemingly irrational rules and regulations which glue together the madness, creating order from disorder. No-one really knows why many of these rules exist, and to challenge or question them will only result in a blank response. “Why?” or “what’s the logic for that?” will only confuse – for the logic is buried so deep below the rule, as to be completely unconnected.

Often the rules are there only to manage the hordes of people who are gainfully employed in seemingly meaningless tasks, but in a country with 100 million people living in the 8 major metros alone, and a further billion spread across smaller towns and villages, there are a lot of people available for employment. So when in a store it takes 5 people to deliver your goods to you, including one to take your items, one to tap in the prices, another to wrap, another to stamp the receipt and yet another to hand you your goods, all being scrutinised by a further 5 hangers on …. there’s no point asking why the receipt has to be given and stamped. It just does. That’s also another reason why the concept of the supermarket has never taken off in India, despite the attempts of the Tescos and Walmarts of the world to come in with their high end supermarket and hypermarket concepts. Though supermarkets do exist (there are apparently 1023 supermarkets in India according to the website yellowpages.com, vs almost 5000 Tesco stores in the UK alone), they are few and far between, and usually only within mall type centres which are springing up all over the suburban metros.

There are a few reasons for the abject failure of the supermarket chains to enter India – the most often cited being the cost of real estate. Contrary to popular belief, ie those who think that everything in India must be as cheap as the beers on the Goan beaches and the cost of a ‘real’ curry on the streets of Mumbai, the cost of housing and land in the major metros, especially Mumbai and Delhi, is prohibitively high. In the case of Mumbai, whose 18 million inhabitants (50% of whom occupy illegal slum areas and pavements) are crammed onto approximately 26 square miles of land, much of it reclaimed and thus vulnerable to flooding during the annual monsoons, space is at an absolute premium. Add to that the rapidly increasing wealth which is flooding into India’s uppermost social echelons, there is enormous pressure on the limited amount of residential properties, resulting in huge inflation (despite the recession) and prohibitively high rental and purchase costs for any residential or commercial property in Mumbai “proper”. Renting and purchasing commercial and residential square footage costs less in the suburban areas by far, hence the proliferation of malls and so called supermarkets in the northern suburbs of Mumbai. So supermarkets don’t line the streets of Mumbai for the reasons of cost efficiency but more fundamentally their absence is linked to the role of the Mom and Pop stores as social lubricants and even more critically, employment for many of the masses. Large supermarkets and hypermarkets are all about providing efficiencies of scale – and thus reducing costs. Fewer workers, more automation and centralised stock keeping means that the consumer is generally happier once the transition is made from old the new school, and the supermarket owner is of course able to reap the rewards of selling in bulk. This also defines an entirely new consumer behaviour – consisting of a ‘weekly shop’, refrigeration and planning meals in advance. For the Indian housewife, on the other hand, the daily trip to the market for fresh produce, and the purchase of individual items from mom and pop stores, a behaviour reminiscent of England in the 1950’s and 60’s, is unlikely to yield to the convenience orientated approach of the Western world. Though fast changing, the middle class indian housewife is defined by a myriad of complex values, customs and traditions which make her very different from her western counterpart. She is likely to be at home, raising children and living in a ‘joint family’ – a peculiarly Indian concept which revolves around in-laws, children, grandchildren and other assorted relatives living and staying together in a highly communal and supportive network, which may not lend much to the concept of privacy but which provides a valuable social security system in the absence of formal state support. The typical housewife therefore looks forward to her daily visits to the market as an opportunity not only to escape from the hordes of family members who are likely to be occupying a relatively small space but also to catch up with the gossip and tales from friends and acquaintances. This is her alternative support network, and allows her important ‘me’ time in a culture which does not often respect privacy or solitude. She gets to choose the ingredients for the meals for the household, and whilst these are largely cooked with help from a maid (even middle class Indian families keep domestic help – another vital form of employment for a large population), she makes the choice of how to feed her family. A supermarket shop would render this important role somewhat less significant, a pleasurable, personal experience reduced to a more mechanical interaction.

The final and most persuasive reason for the proliferation of tiny shops stocked full to bursting with dusty sacks of rice and daal, and which sell only vegetarian food (meat and eggs must be purchased elsewhere) is the need to provide labour for the masses. Every shopping experience in India has, for the expat, a completely old fashioned flavour, reminiscent of the days of local British grocery stores vs the out of town hypermarkets which now dominate. There’s a lot of friendly banter (especially for the expat who has a few words of hindi) and a lot of fun to be had in searching the dusty shelves for treasures imported from Dubai or Singapore - random sauces, sweets and biscuits which have not been seen on British supermarket shelves for years but which have ended up somewhat incongruously in the tiny Gujarati shop in Mumbai. The entire shopping experience is enchanting if you’re not in a hurry and infuriating if you are – it takes an age to get the bill written up, make a separate payment to an entirely different counter, receive the goods and the bill, and all the while politely negotiating the shopkeeper’s attempts to force various arbitrary imported items into the basket which he thinks will please the foreign palate. All that, under close scrutiny from the hordes of boys who are there to fetch items down from dusty top shelves and cupboards, pack your bags and even carry your shopping home. Not surprising that after a few weeks in Mumbai, the average foreigner craves the sterile anonymous comfort of the faceless western supermarket. There’s a pretty decent ‘hypermarket’ in the suburbs of Mumbai, which houses a small section of Waitrose products at heart stopping prices. I have paid the equivalent of five pounds there for a jar of pickled onions. But boy they were worth it.

The best place to shop for your household essentials if you’re in Mumbai and looking for a bargain, is Crawford Market. Located in a 140 year old building, by now rather ramshackle yet filled with charm, the market provides a wonderful source of all manner of foodstuffs, from fruit and vegetables to dried fruits and nuts to weird and wonderful imported delights and copycat products. You’ll definitely get charged a ‘white tax’ and can expect to be charged double for many items so bargaining is a pre-requisite, as is dodging the hordes of bony malnourished kittens who prowl around the dark interiors of the market searching for scraps. The best part is that the market is chock full of porters who carry your goods behind you in wide wicker baskets placed on their heads, without a hint of a wobble. So much easier than pushing a shopping trolley around Sainsbury’s. The market is a fascinating study in contradictions – ancient tiny men sit perched high behind piles of carrots, bananas or onions, whilst next door shelves are stacked with gleaming rows of rather random products – from Betty Crocker cake mixes to Ribena, Nutella and shiny tins of Quality Street, all loving polished every few minutes by the shopkeeper.

Back to Bombay Bliss

After 7 weeks in the UK, I finally returned home to Bombay. I've actually been here for 2 whole weeks now, without managing a blogpost, but somehow have been too busy not working. I had been under the (false) impression that giving up work, i.e. the office job, would result in my having acres of free time to meet friends, sleep, party, chill, write, read and watch all of those fabulous reality shows I never get time to watch. In fact, the opposite is true. By the time I've done my daily exercise session (either power plate or yoga), scheduled my hindi class, dropped my son to playgroup for his half an hour session (they start them off slowly) and run a few errands, the day is over. Conversely, when I get up for the office, drive there, spend the day there, work feverishly through lunch, juggle meetings, send a million e mails, and finally leave early evening, the day stretches forever and I seem to get a multitude of things done. Hence my conclusion that work makes one more productive, generally. Perhaps its just down to that feeling of the batteries continually being charged, without the opportunity to slip into that soporific mid afternoon dozy feeling. Or perhaps the chores I now seem to be catching up on, are actually incredibly time consuming. Either way, though I'm loving the break, I'm missing having time, ironically, though having said that, my hindi is finally improving and I'm toning up, so that can't be a bad by product of quitting the corporate rat race.

Its wonderful to be back in the sunshine. After a month in a chilly climate (the first 3 weeks were gloriously warm by British standards thanks to a late summer heatwave), my bones were aching, my knees literally creaking, my skin was scaly and lizard like and I just felt generally miserable. The cold gets deep inside me, and no amount of clinging to a hot radiator can replace the feeling of being warmed naturally by the sun. I just adore the sunshine, though I generally don't lie out in it (too much of a good thing, and all that), the sensation of moving around in cut off jeans and a t shirt, flip flops and sunglasses is heartwarming as well as body warming. I'm fully charged again to handle Bombay's madness, though the nonsensical, non existent "customer service" of the banks and phone companies still leaves me frustrated and spitting venom. I applied for a new bank card 10 days ago, as my existing one had just stopped working. Paperwork completed, they told me it would take 3 working days. I made the usual mistake of believing their claims. After 7 working days, I dropped into the bank. No sign of the card ... and lo and behold, an administrative issue meant that my original application was null and void, the guy who had so helpfully taken my details and promised me a new card in the blink of an eye had been on holiday and now was in the hospital (not sure if those incidents were connected or even true) and no one had bothered to think to inform me, I guess they were hoping that me and my card application would melt away into thin air if they ignored me for long enough. Another trip to the bank, more forms filled and then a call from the bank, informing me that my current PAN card name doesn't match my account name. As I had explained to them when I made the application a fortnight ago, to which they said - no problem no problem madam. Or rather, the elusive holidaying / dying bank guy had said. Now it appears that this has suddenly become an issue, and in typical Indian style they now need to see my original marriage certificates. When I told them that marriage didn't necessarily mean that I had changed my name and in fact I had legally changed my name after that, again came the silence. "Madam this is India and in India we need your marriage certificate". "What if I didn't change my name when I got married but changed it afterwards". "Madam we need your marriage certificate. This is India". Me - Sigh. Huff, Sigh. "OK. Whatever". Infuriating. Irrational. India.

Impressions of Prague

I just made my first visit to Prague in almost 20 years, a convenient weekend hop from London to visit a friend living and working there. I last saw the city as an over excited twenty year old, on a trip which began in Prague and took me on meandering train journeys through the newly formed Czech and Slovak republics. Back then, the country (and indeed most of the Eastern bloc) had only recently been liberated from the grip of Communism, and had emerged blinking and somewhat dazed into a brand new shiny Capitalist world. Though picturesque, it was drab and grey, as of course were most of the countries which had been behind the Iron Curtain having the life sucked out of them for so long. Back then the people walked with heads down, speaking quietly to one another, avoiding eye contact. There were few advertising hoardings, no international brands to speak of, and not many tourists, though the famous Charles Bridge was full enough, the majority of pedestrians could have been local.

This trip was of course quite different. I had expected a significant change - after all 20 years is a long time for a country to reinvent itself, or at least to shed its inhibitions and present a more confident face to the world. The signs were all there – brands everywhere (even the American upmarket beauty store Sephora which is absent from the UK), and all the rest of the high street imports – Starbucks, Marks and Spencers etc. Tourism is clearly booming – there were hordes of people on the Charles Bridge, stalls and shops selling tourist tat everywhere and “authentic” (and overpriced) Czech eateries lining the streets. But, like Mumbai, all this was accompanied by the subtle signs of a past which hasn’t quite been shaken off (though of course these signs are far less subtle in Mumbai’s case). The airport was a little bit dingy, and during the journey from the airport you’re not quite sure whether you’re in an up and coming, modern city or whether you’re in a “second tier” town which looks fairly soulless. It definitely felt like an “emerging market” – a country which hasn’t quite “got there” as compared to its Western European counterparts and still dealing with a few of its historical demons. Yet at the same time, you can order (amazing) sushi online, service in restaurants (at least the better ones) is outstanding, local taxis are fast and efficient and cars stop at pedestrian crossings (these are all things which amaze me as a long term resident of India).

The locals apparently are obsessed with brands and bling, a phenomenon which has also gripped India post liberalization. Its not exactly hard to work it out – any country which has been deprived of “luxuries”, whether by Communist rule or post colonial introspection is bound to want to embrace them. And both India and the Czech Republic no doubt both contain their fair share of poverty – in the absence of state welfare systems or affordable insurance systems, people need to show others that they’ve arrived, and to differentiate themselves from the needy with the badges of wealth, symbols which most bragging averse Brits would deride. Alongside its cutesy gothic castles and sweet higgledy piggledy multicoloured buildings, Prague is indeed a city of bling, and of labels, of flashy nightclubs and restaurants and expensive cars and furs. Its also a city of drinkers, and maybe this is an inheritance from its Soviet past – there seemed to be people drunk everywhere in public, even in the mornings, which was shocking to me, accustomed as I am to India where people rarely exhibit public displays of drunkenness, except on certain festivals and holidays when even then its curbed.

The local drinkers were accompanied or perhaps encouraged by groups of young British men on stag parties. There were two groups of stags on the Easyjet flight from London Gatwick to Prague, already clearly the worse for wear, and we saw another group in the gorgeous Stare Mesto (central square), all wearing shocking pink miniskirts and leopardskin crop tops. Apparently Prague is now the desintation of choice for the young groom-to-be and his best mates, and its not hard to figure out why – the beer is cheap, the pound is still fairly strong vs the Czech crown, and there’s a lively prostitute and red light industry. The city is only a 90 minute hop from London, so you can pop over for a quick weekend of thowing your inhibitions to the wind and embarrassing your nation by rolling around semi clad in the town square, and be back in the office suited and booted on Monday morning.

Overall, I loved Prague as much as I did twenty years ago. Back then I did a couple of fairly adventurous trips through Eastern Europe, hitchhiking and taking trains through the Czech and Slovak republics, Hungary, Slovenia and Serbia. I loved the fact that these countries weren’t polished or perfect, that though filled with attractive sights they also had a grittier undertone. That undercurrent still exists in Prague, and I find that appealing, given my aversion for bland countries (Singapore, Dubai and most of the US spring to mind). I do wish the British stag parties would give the Czechs a break though.

England the Brave (or the Terrified)

I’m coming to the end of a 2 month “holiday” in England – the longest I’ve spent in the Motherland since fleeing for warmer climes and a bit of adventure back in 2000. I’ve been back countless times since leaving of course - for weddings, 40th birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases and more recently to bring my one year old son to visit his grandparents who are unable to travel long distance thanks to recent illness. My current sojourn in England explains my recent lapse in blogging, along with the stack of books which remain unread by my bedside – here I have to be a full time mother without the army of household help which is part of my life back home in Mumbai and there has been little time for self indulgences. Small pleasures like reading endless trashy novels have of course been replaced by the far more meaningful acts of taking care of a tiny one, though that’s a subject for another blog.

I usually follow a pretty regular pattern for my trips back to the UK - I land at Heathrow, feed my addiction to salt and vinegar crisps and trashy magazines on the journey from the airport, marvel at how clean and quiet everything is, eat my own weight in pub food, drink copious pints of cider and bottles of wine, meet as many friends as I can, do my Tesco shop to stock up on band aids (plasters), safety pins, gravy granules, cheese and bacon to take back home to India (some of the above are available in Mumbai but quality is always questionable), reflect on how crazy India is in general, feel glad that I live there, and head back to the airport – all in the space of a few whirlwind days. This time I’m here for a more leisurely stay, making the most of an elective “sabbatical” and enjoying reuniting with old friends, many of whom I haven’t seen for years. This seven-week stay has enabled me to reconnect not only with old pals but also with the British mindset, and I’ve noticed a huge difference in the English psyche now that I have the time to dig beneath the surface.

England and of course most of Europe have been badly knocked by the global recession, and the papers this week are full of tales of emergency summit meetings on the fate of the Euro and on the countries which are defaulting on debts and threatening to drag others under with them. Though Britain remains smugly on the Euro sideline, its politicians are being pulled deep into the controversy, though it seems they are refraining from joining the Italians in actually throwing any physical punches at the Euro summit. It is clear though that this recession which is now in its third year, has had a massive effect on Britain – I’ve spent enough time here to this time around to hear the stories, feel the depth of the suffering and witness the evidence of a nation in flux, and the change is dramatic.

Britain as a nation is known for its self-confidence. Historically prone to long periods of controlling despotism, Britain and the British are typically self assured and assertive, believing themselves to be natural leaders on the world stage, and superior even to their European neighbours. Growing up in England, I was affected by that confidence. I felt secure and positive about my future, as did the majority of my friends and colleagues. Granted, my formative years took place during the Eighties boom, but I still witnessed a couple of minor downturns, in particular the dotcom bust, but these didn’t really affect me or the general sentiment of the nation. Britain was Great, after all, and we were all destined for great things, at least those of us fortunate enough to have secured university places (I was the last to receive a free university education before student loans were introduced). Now I see a very different country. People are driven not by confidence, but by fear. Everyone, it seems, is afraid of something. Many are anxious about declining house prices which are wiping thousands off the value of their properties and thrusting them into a state of negative equity – they cannot afford to sell their properties and even if they could, there would be few buyers currently. Others are fearful for their jobs, clinging on to them for dear life, despite being overstretched thanks to redundancies and cost cutting, and reductions in overtime and bonuses. Even those who have nothing to worry about … are anxious. It feels as though the nation has entered a collective state of paranoia and fear, and that’s really not making for a very happy place, despite the traditional British stiff upper lip and determination to keep going through all obstacles.

One interesting result of this downturn is an obvious attempt to bolster the nation’s confidence via a strange and insidious revival of “Britishness”. There are examples of this everywhere. Jamie Oliver has returned from the US, tail somewhat between his legs, with a new-found obsession for his homeland – though a cynic might suspect that his PR advisors have told him to jump on the “lets make people feel better about being British” bandwagon. He is embarking on a self confessed ““new crusade to discover Britishness” which coincides neatly with the publication of his new book on Great British food and its accompanying TV show. Meanwhile, British Airways have dug deep into their past to reclaim their aeons old slogan “To Fly, To Serve”. Something very neatly and nauseatingly patriotic about that, along with their beautifully shot if a little patronizing ads which are encouraging people to revisit their own nationalism and fly with the airline that has served them through thick and thin (unlike their cheapy competitive upstarts). Even Kate Moss has launched a new “iconic and truly British” makeup collection for Rimmel, complete with Union Jacks emblazoning lipsticks and eyeshadows in a variety of garish hues. Everywhere you look there are tea towels and mugs and oven gloves and birthday cards with faux World War 2 slogans emblazoned on them, encouraging people to keep calm and sip a cup of tea in order to cope with the current “issues” facing the nation. Olympics 2012 is of course around the corner, and this is helping reinstate the flagging British spirit but somehow it all feels a bit “so what”, like a tasteless cake that’s been beautifully iced and decorated.

Unfortunately, as we used to say when I was in advertising, the strategy behind all this is showing. These attempts to bolster British confidence are misplaced and downright irritating. The British are simply not feeling good about being British any more, and even the snobbishness which has historically characterized the nation is receding. It is now not only acceptable but necessary to take advantage of freebies and special offers and shop at the cheap (and often nasty) outlets – and unlike the early days of the “noughties” when shopping at the likes of Primark and Aldi was a positive and funky, trendsetting choice, now it’s a necessity and people resent it, along with the call centres in India which many believe are taking their jobs and their livelihoods.

In short then, Britain is a strange place to be at the moment. It feels uncertain, unconfident and vastly different to the country I left eleven years ago. The British no longer feel that they occupy a central position on the world stage – how can they when the nations they have formerly subdued are now bouncing along, enjoying unprecedented growth rates and booming job markets thanks largely to the BPO (call centre) phenomenon. Some might say that the tides have finally turned, and that Karma or whatever you choose to call it is having the final last laugh. I’m just sad to see the change in my own country, and I hope that Britain can get its mojo back before too long - from the heart rather than from the superficial ad campaigns which are pretending its all OK really.

Brave New World

My son just got his first laptop. Nothing very significant about that in this technologically progressive era … except that he’s just turned one, and it’s a Fisher Price model with fat buttons and flashing lights. He’s been obsessed with my laptop, iPad and iPhone since he was able to focus his tiny eyes, and I can’t help but wonder how different his childhood will be from my own.

Growing up in 1970’s England was all about mud pies, skateboarding, hot sticky tarmac and playing in the river near my house. I used to disappear for the whole day, playing complicated make believe games with my friends, my Mum confident in the knowledge that I would return at the end of the day when I was hungry. She couldn’t phone me, SMS me, or track me on Facebook but somehow she wasn’t overly worried. My subsequent teen years, during the great decade of the 80’s, were spent huddled with girlfriends in small groups at bus stops (gossiping about the boys who would be showing off on their chopper bikes and shouting insults at us), obsessively writing my diary (I have diaries somewhere written from age 11 to 18) and feeding two pence pieces into the phone in the now iconic red phone box outside my house calling up my love interests. We communicated via the spoken word, the occasional love letter or by sending messages through friends. Now I wonder how teenagers cope with the vast number of messaging options open to them – they can poke, update, comment, tweet, SMS or blog their intentions. Do they actually ever really talk to each other or is everything contained within their strange teen-write?

I have friends with young and teenage children and it seems that the hottest debates centre around common themes – when to give in to the child’s demands and buy them a mobile phone. When to allow them to have a Facebook account. Whether to give them a laptop or not. The arguments for are persuasive – there is a need to keep an eye on the child, to monitor their movements, to ensure they are ‘controlled’. The arguments against are equally convincing – there’s a desire to retain the child’s ‘innocence’ for as long as possible, to keep them away from undesirable influences and to avoid “spoiling” them with the newest and brightest shiny objects.

What I find most fascinating, moral debate aside, is the anthropological angle. Right now there are still people in the workplace (including me – just) who remember life before the Internet. During my first ever office job in the days before e-mail had arrived on the scene, communication consisted either of phone calls (mainly to landlines as mobiles were only for the elite and very expensive), or in the form of old fashioned memos which would take a day to reach their internal destination, but which ensured that my early formative years were spent having to actually think through what I wanted to say. And if I did write something in haste, I could always go to the post room and pull it out of the outbox tray once I’d thought it through properly. Now I’ll react to something and send back a mail in the blink of an eye, and often regret the content. E-mail is instant and therefore doesn’t encourage a meticulous, thoughtful approach. Everyone is busy, the ‘to do’ lists get longer and longer, and its therefore an easy option to bat ill thought through mails back and forth which can cause a lot of unintentional damage through miscommunication or haste. As the “old generation” is replaced by those who have grown up with the Internet, I wonder how our workplaces will be affected. Sure there have been a lot of positive changes since I started work - the photocopier is largely redundant for one, and there’s no need to spend hours making old fashioned slides for presentations. Making reels for client presentations used to involve a day editing piles of tapes together. Now it can be done with the click of a few buttons – mpegs and links are instantly inserted into PowerPoint presentations. The downside of this is of course that our work is never finished. Whereas once we had to send out the tapes for editing or the slides for converting, today we have no deadline except the meeting itself, which means that invariably we end up rewriting content up until the moment we step into the meeting and sometimes even during the meeting itself. Frankly, it’s exhausting.

That aside, our “instant” information age, with its constant stream of news ‘as it happens’ means that we are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of things happening. In the ‘old days’ we waited patiently for the 9 o’clock evening news to catch up with world events. I remember being on tenterhooks every Tuesday afternoon waiting for the Top 40 countdown, when I’d get to know finally whether my favourite artist had made it to the number one spot. Today I don’t even think the Top 40 exists, at least not in its previous incarnation. Now songs are downloaded and sales are largely irrelevant and artists prosper via their tweets which are picked up by the online newpapers. Twenty years ago, there was enough news to fill two daily hour long bulletins. Today the news streams 24/7. I doubt that there is any more “stuff” happening in the world today, and suspect we have become more interested in all the trivia as well as the big news items. Similarly, today we have hundreds or even thousands of “friends” with whom we keep in constant, but superficial touch. I know what my school friends are up to on a daily basis, regardless of the fact that I haven’t seen them for 20 years or more and that they’re scattered all over the globe. I may know the minutiae of their everyday lives but actually I don’t know anything about what kind of person they have become. I am aware that my friends in Mumbai are in various bars, clubs, parlours, workplaces and even “home” at any given point in time, but I rarely make time to meet them there or have any kind of meaningful discussion with them.

There is no doubting that change is good. But part of me worries that my child will miss out on the simple pleasures which I enjoyed growing up. That he’ll become obsessed with his phone, with his laptop, and have little time for communication beyond that and that he’ll turn into a hyperactive workaholic as deadlines become ever more ridiculous in the workplace. I suppose it’s no different from my secrecy with which I shrouded my own teenage life and the pace at which I’ve always worked, internet or no internet, but I’m already wondering when he’ll ask for his first “proper” laptop with internet connection and what my answer will be.

Farewell then, Corporate World .....

The average person spends 91,250 hours, or 11,406 days of their life working. That’s a lot of time spent doing something which is usually controlled by the whims of others and which is not always entirely pleasurable. I started my own working life at the tender age of 13, it was of course a part time job, washing dishes in a local hotel to earn a bit of spending money. It was tough work - along with the plates I had to scrub pots which were invariably covered with sticky burnt on goo which would take me hours to scrub clean. But it earned me some pocket money and gave me a taste of financial freedom, even if my “salary” was blown as soon as I got it on records and nail varnish. Since those days of menial but often fun jobs, I’ve worked pretty much non-stop, with the exception of a year off spent backpacking around Asia when I was thirty. That’s ten years of casual work in kitchens, restaurants, bars and clubs, and a further eighteen years of “proper” career type work. Phew.

In recent months, I’ve started to tire of the corporate life. Though I’ve moaned for years about having to get up in the morning and go into the office, this time I knew that something was different. I’ve always been a workaholic, totally obsessed by my work and invariably glued to my Blackberry or laptop, but suddenly I found myself genuinely bored of my corporate environment and all that goes with it. The intense, opinionated meetings were no longer stimulating but instead had become exhausting. The office itself had changed from a place which simultaneously motivated and energized me to a space which I found uninspiring and unimaginative. In short, I’d lost my corporate mojo and it was time to take the toughest decision of all – to give it all up and follow my heart.

And so I handed in my notice and began the process of disengaging myself from the workplace. As I cleared out the detritus of four years worth of corporate life from my cabin, I found myself torn between regret and joy and got to thinking about the whole concept of working for a living, at least in the 9-5 sense.

Every workplace is essentially a microcosm of the world - filled with stereotypes, all co-existing in a super intensified, essentially artificial environment. There are the popular types, the ones who organize the office parties, trips to the pub, push the HR department to organize offsites and other jollies, and who think themselves the life and soul of the party. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that they have fairly miserable lives outside the workplace and that they compensate for their sad social lives by reinventing themselves within the office. Then there are the slackers, those who arrive late every morning, spend hours concocting elaborate excuses for their tardiness in between updating their Facebook status, and delight in the indoors smoking ban, which means they can go and take long smoke breaks. There are the brown nosers, who spend their careers climbing the greasy pole, obsessed with promotion, and the perks of the job, and who invariably trample on anyone else who gets in their way. Alongside these there are the sad secretaries who have been resentfully stuck in the same job for 25 years and who find ever inventive ways to heighten their own sense of self importance, the bright young kids fresh out of college who think they already know it all, and the sloggers who hold the place together, quietly and with little fuss, typically putting in eighteen hour days to earn a pitiful share of the rewards. And of course there are the bosses – the popular ones, the nasty ones, those who resent the success of others and those who encourage it.

Given that we spend half of our waking day (or more) at work, it’s hardly surprising that we develop a strange and often obsessive relationship with it. The office becomes a surrogate family for many, the place where ambitions can be realized and dreams fulfilled, where all are equal (depending on how robust and fair the appraisal system is) and most importantly where there is a non stop flow of coffee, tea, light, air conditioning and clean loos. No small benefits for many who live in extended, crowded families or who are struggling to make ends meet. There is an important psychological relationship with the workplace – it gives a sense of self worth and achievement, measured out in the completion of the ‘to do’ list and the praise and thanks of others. Many people define themselves by their work - in India in particular, work and “designation” are a measure of status. A regular office job gives you credibility in the eyes of friends and family and may even affect your marriage prospects (most candidates for arranged marriages send their resumes in advance!). Leaving the workplace, whether by choice or by design, can have a significant impact – the feelings of self worth and affirmation may be replaced by insecurity and fear for the future once the reassuringly regular salary stops and the visiting card can no longer be flashed.

Those who do make the choice to forge a life outside the security of a corporate workplace often look down upon those who choose a “regular” job. They accuse them of “selling out”, of failing to listen to their heart and living a subjugated existence at the whim and mercy of someone who happens to have a bigger car and a larger office. The reality, in my view is that both worlds are viable and respectable and the key is to know when to run from the corporate world, and when to hang on to it for dear life. The global recession has made many people cling on to jobs they hate, and though sad, that is an inevitable part of any economic downfall. On the other hand there are people, particularly in India with its reverse trend buoyant economy, who are leaving the rat race to start up their own businesses, or even to simply take a break. Both are worthy paths, depending on one’s state of mind, self confidence and of course financial stability. Personally, I can’t wait to embark on my own brand new challenge, although I have a funny feeling I am going to miss the office gossip and bitchy anecdotes.

I heart Mumbai

An old post which I've found and updated. I think I wrote the original version about 4 years ago and it still holds true.

Though living in India can be exasperating, infuriating, maddening and at times just plain impossible, it’s clear to me that I am totally in love with Mumbai. Though it drives me crazy, I can’t leave it ; though I fight with it on a daily basis, I just keep coming back for more of its rollercoaster highs and lows.

I remember the exact moment that Mumbai took my heart. I'd arrived into the city late the previous night ... driven slowly through streets choked with ragged people, rickshaws spewing out obnoxious fumes, and a general cacophony of sound, sight and smell overwhelming every sense. Usual India/Asia stuff, I'd thought, as I contemplated my future life here. I woke the next morning to a blinding bright blue sky, cloudless and luminous in its intensity. I was picked up from the flat I was staying in at Kemps corner, and driven to the office. As we entered the lanes of cars weaving haphazhardly across lanes, I lost myself in the contemplation of life in this new city. As we suddenly swung a left into Marine Drive, past Chowpatty Beach, I looked up and saw the curving expanse of Marine Drive ahead. In that very moment, inspired by the beauty of that arc stretching far into the distance, and the sun glinting off the immense stretch of ocean, I felt my heart beat faster. I fell in love with this view, with this energy, with this bright expanse of possibility and felt that future would be bright and exciting. Eight years later, I still feel the same way about this city, a place where I’ve grown professionally, met my husband, had my baby, bought an apartment and finally become a “Person of Indian Origin”.

I know that there are cynics who believe that I’m only emotional about Mumbai because I’m living a comfortable expat life here, able to afford the luxuries which insulate me from the dirt and the poverty, and that the nice apartment, the brunches, the manicures and the air-conditioned Innova protect me from the harsher realities of life for the average Mumbaikar. Well it’s true that I’m not exactly living on the streets. And yes I am lucky enough to live a relatively lavish life. But every city in the world is held together by the energy of the people who live there. And Bombay's inhabitants, though often poorer than we can even begin to imagine on the more affluent side of the fence, are the most positive, inspiring and intensely giving people I have ever had the privilege to meet and spend time with. And that lifeforce simply fills Bombay's atmosphere, infusing the city with an energy which overwhelms and invigorates. No other city I've ever spent time in, has had this kind of effect upon me. Forget Hong Kong, Singapore, London, LA, San Francisco, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Rome, Paris. All intense and interesting in their own way, but always somehow leaving me a little cold, compared to the passion I feel for Mumbai.

Though life here can be intensely frustrating, difficult and often despairing, small events and incidences drive my love deeper every day. Walking out of my building after a quick chat with the ever smiling doorman, and catching a glimpse of the boiling ocean crashing on to rocks on my drive to the office. The cool relief which the monsoon brings after a long, hot sticky May and the way the tree lined roads turn from dusty brown to green and lush. Swimming in an empty pool at sunset, and listening to the faint sounds of the traffic with water-filled ears. Sitting in the parlour having my toenails painted fuschia pink by a sweet tempered man lost in concentration on getting the brush strokes of polish perfectly even. A deep tissue massage during which all the aches and pains of the day are kneaded away by expert hands. Sitting in the office, listening to the heated debates emanating from every corner, one moment in English, the next in Hindi and then an indecipherable mix. Sitting in the back of a crowded movie theatre, as the cellphones ring, the conversations get louder, the cheers and moans annotate every moment of the hero and heroine's burgeoning love affair. The list is simply endless. And at every moment, every time these small events take place, they add to the love I feel for this city.

Will I ever leave? I am asked this question on an almost daily basis. I don’t believe that anything happens in life by accident. I came here for a reason, I’ve found my soulmate and become a mother here, and now I’m about to set off on a new personal journey. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to leave Mumbai, but I do I know that I’m not ready to leave it just yet.

Celebrating 10 years of working in Asia

Its (almost) my 10 year anniversary of working in Asia. Unbelievable to think that 10 years has flown since I first trod the corporate boards at JWT in Bangkok, followed by jobs at Lowe and UTV in Mumbai. I’ve been a Regional Head, Vice President, Senior Vice President, HR Director, Group HR Head and Channel Head. Not a bad collection of fancy titles for a girl from Devon, though frankly they are all pretty meaningless (as Channel Head I didn’t get to take the final calls on content, I was more the HR Legs than the Head, and I jostled for position with about thirty other Vice Presidents) but they of course count a lot in a country obsessed by ”designations” (job title = status = accolades from friends and family).

So let me take a quick glance back through the last 10 years and reflect on the highs and the lows.

JWT Bangkok was my baptism of fire in the Asian workplace, though relatively speaking, and in the context of what was to come later, it was pretty relaxed all round. I thought I “knew Asia” after a year of backpacking through India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia. Well, I suppose I’d just about scratched the surface and had a sniff of the complexities of this region, but I hadn’t really equipped myself with the necessary ammunition to take on a job in which I had to persuade 12 very cynical local marketing teams to adopt strategies which had been devised by white people in fancy London offices. I can hardly blame them for being skeptical – these were ideas written for Thai or Indian housewives by posh blokes whose idea of getting close to the consumer was to head to the local curry house or to order a Thai takeaway. And it was my job to persuade one or the other to give in. It was my choice – either I could side with the whities and persuade the locals that years of international and cross cultural research had resulted in this extremely motivating and insightful idea which they should eagerly grab, or I could throw my lot in with the locals and try to convince the Europeans that they should respect local culture and knowledge and allow the natives to develop their own ideas. Either way I was doomed, and I varied my stance depending on whether I had the energy to fight with a bunch of upper class Brits in the stately surrounds of Mayfair, or whether I fancied taking on the great cultural divide and trying (and usually failing) to understand the nuances and needs of the Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese or Indian consumer. It was exhausting but a lot of fun, I spent my days on planes and in meeting rooms surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Asia, and my nights in bars in five star hotels drinking my expense account dry.

As if that wasn’t enough, I was seduced after 2 years by a similar job in Mumbai. Same client, same role, different Agency. I liked the sound of Mumbai, and had never really got to grips with Thailand, so I bid farewell to the tuk tuks and the bargirls, the whisky red bull buckets and the sleazy sex tourists (yuk!) and jumped on a plane to Mumbai. I’d never really spent any time in Mumbai before and imagined it to be a dirty, polluted fairly soulless city in which I’d probably spend a year or so before moving on to the next exotic location. I couldn’t have been more wrong, on all counts (except the polluted one). From the moment I landed in Mumbai, I loved it. Sure there were slums (clearly visible on landing), crazy traffic and ancient vehicles belting out thick clouds of black smoke. It felt as though I were risking life and limb on the taxi ride from the airport, I’m sure I paid about 4 times the regular taxi fare, and Mumbai smelled really bad, in parts, but still I loved it. It had an energy which was absolutely buzzing, you could literally feel the optimism and the opportunity in the air. The Mumbai job was similar to the Bangkok one in terms of the role, the salary and the clients, but there were also stark differences. For a start, I was the only foreigner in the office, and tasked with creating the first ever regional team, a team which would be required to travel extensively, at a time when travel for work was still considered a huge perk (that’s largely changed now). I was viewed with amusement by the locals, the strange white girl with a tattooed ankle who would disappear for days on end on foreign trips. I was given a company apartment, and was utterly horrified when I was shown around a filthy two bedroomed place with peeling paint on the walls bare electrical wires sprouting everywhere, and cooking stains on the tired looking gas burner. I was assured that it would be cleaned up, but it was a far cry from my luxurious condo in Bangkok. It was subsequently given a facelift and by the time I moved in it was fine, but it taught me a valuable lesson about India – looks can be very deceptive.

I set up my regional team, introduced them to the alien concept of expecting the client to treat you as an equal rather than a slave, and to various bars and restaurants around Asia, and we had a blast. I also gradually assimilated myself into the local agency and eventually became (and still am) good friends with a lot of the Indian employees. After 18 months of trying to make the Surf Excel “Dirt is Good” global strategy work for Asian markets (and superlative efforts to convince a similar bunch of white guys in London that in India, dirt is NOT always good), I was informed that my clients were all relocating to Bangkok and I’d have to go back there to continue the job. By this time I’d fallen completely in love with Bombay and the prospect of returning to Bangkok was impossible to contemplate. And so I was suddenly jobless, and more importantly, visa-less and facing the prospect of either having to find another job (and jobs for foreigners weren’t that plentiful) or leaving India.

After a couple of months spent drinking beer in Goa, I decided to pay a visit to the CEO of Lowe, the agency which I’d just left. Over a cup of tea, he completely took me by surprise by offering me the position of HR Director for the agency. I choked on my tea. I knew nothing about HR and had no training whatsoever in the discipline. He told me that he had a feeling that it would work out well. India is like that, it throws crazy experiences in your way, and you either duck (and miss out) or embrace them. And so overnight I became an HR Head, and despite an enormous salary slash (this was a “local” job without any of the expat perks) I discovered that I loved it. I spent the next 6 years as an HR Head, so I can’t have been altogether bad at it. I found that I had a natural affinity for people, enjoyed solving their problems and even being a shoulder to cry on, loved the fact that my team was brilliant and taught me heaps, and had a blast organizing parties and events.

In a similarly random fashion I also ended up as the channel head for one of India’s largest youth channels, whilst simultaneously holding down the HR Group role at UTV (I moved from Lowe to UTV in 2007). In retrospect perhaps not the wisest move, either one of those jobs was hugely challenging, and two was madness. But I loved the role, even though I knew nothing about TV apart from years of watching it, I was and still am passionate about content and had a background in marketing so it worked pretty well and I am proud of the work we did on the channel. However, I was literally glued to my blackberry 24/7, would eat, dream and sleep work and though intoxicating it was exhausting. Pregnancy eventually put an end to the two job thing, and I was asked to choose between them. I chose the (by now) more familiar territory of the HR role, and returned to a 10 hour day with free time at weekends which was relatively luxurious.

And now I’ve decided to give it all up for the time being. I’m tired to the point where I no longer have much enthusiasm for my work. I’m sick of getting up and going to the office every day, battling the traffic jams morning and evening and dodging office politics. I’m longing for a few months during which I can focus on simple pleasures – spending time with my one year old, cooking for my husband (yes really!), reconnecting with old friends and chilling with my family in the UK – with no Blackberry Breaks. And of course, writing. I am passionate about it, and intend to write write write. Watch this space.

Re-entering the blogosphere

Its official. After a break of almost three years, during which I've settled into married life, wined, dined, partied, become a PIO (Person of Indian Origin), had a baby, bought a house and finally quit my job, its time to return to the Blogosphere. I've actually been an on off blogger for 6 years - I've gone through all the stages : been obsessed by blogging, overdone it, revealed the murkier details of my life to the entire world, realised the error of that, gone cold turkey, pulled the blog down, started a new one (this one) and again fizzled out thanks to a combination of too much work and generally feeling uninspired. Now I'm back, fully charged and with a lot of time on my hands having just given up my very stressful job as head of a department for a big media company. I'm exhausted frankly, my brain is refusing to co-operate when challenged with the minutae of corporate life, and I choose instead to turn to a life (however fleeting) of playing with my year old baby, cooking for my husband (yes really!!), travelling and rekindling connections with old friends (leaving comments on their Facebook statuses is no longer good enough) and of course writing. I'm in the middle of a book which I'm really excited by, and if it doesn't get published, then you'll see it on this very blog :). I'm going to try very hard to relax, wind down, and make the most of this sabbatical, the first after a very long ten years of working in Asia.