A peculiarly English obsession ...

England can be an utterly gorgeous place to be. The happiest, most positive space on earth, a country filled with possibility and opportunity, with smiles and great big surges of warmth. People connect, they reach out to one another and they spend hours together, whiling away the time and listening to each other’s stories.

Paradoxically, it can also be the worst spot on earth. A grey, depressing, bleak country, where people turn in upon themselves and barricade themselves into their homes. England can be a cold, soul destroying environment where even the simplest things seem impossible, and life appears to stretch endlessly into a vast chasm of future misery.

The truth is that my home country perpetually swings between these two extremes depending on one simple factor – the weather. Few other countries in the world are gripped so mercilessly by the weather gods than England – the fickle unpredictability of the climate means that nothing can be planned, that events can be ruined or made gloriously memorable depending on whether the sun decides to show its face or not and that as a result, we’re a nation obsessed by the weather barometer.

Most non Brits fail to understand our fixation with the weather. Those who live in more constant climates simply don’t get why we have to talk about it so obsessively and why it affects our lives the way it does. Essentially, it all comes down to a lack of control. Living in Mumbai, you know for sure that June to September will be wet and warm, October, March April and May will be fearsomely, blisteringly hot and humid, and November to February will be cooler and fresher, perfect months for planning outdoor parties, events and weddings. Though there are occasional surprises, when for example the temperature drops below 10 degrees celsius or when the Monsoon comes early or there’s a spatter of rain in February, but generally speaking the seasons are constant and wonderfully predictable. Mumbaikars plan their lives around the climate changes – some escape the monsoon rains for sunny European cities, others make the most of the few weeks of lush tropical landscapes which the annual downpour creates. Americans and even Parisians escape the searing summer months, and most of Southern Europe downs tools during the hot season.

England on the other hand is perpetually on the brink of indecision and arbitrary swings when it comes to the seasons. The newspapers are constantly full of headlines about snow in April, blistering heatwaves in September, and rain, always the rain, constant and about the only thing you can rely on to show its face when you least need it. England’s rain is not the warm, heavy raindrops of tropical climes. Nor is it a welcome spattering of coolness during an otherwise oppressive and sultry day. No, this kind of rain is random – it can appear suddenly even when you think the day will be bright and clear, and it can quickly turn nasty, with sheets of drizzle soaking everyone through to the bone, accompanied by a persistent wind chill which makes everything miserable. And with the rain comes the leaching of colour from the landscape, as bright hues make way for a palette of greys and muddy browns, and the country starts to scowl and eventually lose its collective temper.





Its not all bad of course. On the brief occasions where the weather is good and even great, the entire country joins in celebration, and a weird kind of camaraderie emerges, unheard of in England’s typically closed culture, where people normally shut themselves inside their houses and shy away from engaging with each other. Suddenly people are sharing spaces, crammed up against each other in parks, removing items of clothing and making casual, spontaneous conversation with strangers. And then, just when England seems on the brink of becoming a happier, more positive, friendlier country, the weather patterns shift, the sun disappears, and with it the atypical affability. Back comes the English reserve, and out come the umbrellas.

Mind you, on the rare occasions when the sun does decide to stick around, the childish delight in the warmth is soon replaced by a collective whining about the heat – we Brits generally weren’t made for warm weather, and somehow the average cool, grey climate suits our Eeyorish personalities. We need something to talk about, we crave something to bond our nation together, and that something is the weather. It’s a collective enemy which unites, and we generally prefer that its not too good to us, otherwise we lose the vital social glue of talking about the weather that we’ve come to rely on. Listen to any strangers conversing, or even on any groups of English people meeting or talking on the phone – it is virtually guaranteed that any conversation will either start with an opener about the weather, or meander on to the topic. We are a nation obsessed and in thrall to an unpredictability which those in the tropics or in perpetually cold countries don’t get. Its one of the things which makes us so sweetly eccentric I suppose, and its certainly one of the main reasons for my fleeing the country twelve years ago.

Canada's hidden depths

After a week in England’s pastoral Westcountry, which has slowly but surely soothed our frazzled nerves, our trip takes us to Canada. I’ve been here before, but as always, I’m amazed by the sprawling simplicity of this country. Somehow, it seems quietly uncomplicated, its wide, clean streets and huge boxy department stores a vast contrast from England’s higgledy piggledy streets where houses and shops squeeze together like a mouthful of crowded teeth. It is also possibly the absolute opposite of India – its calm, steady ambience diametrically opposed to a country which never seems to pause for breath.

We landed into Toronto Pearson Airport. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the entire place looked freshly scrubbed. The airport has free wifi which is instantly accessible without the need for passwords, laborious sign-in procedures or the exchange of cash, and to me this simple fact seems completely amazing. Mumbai has its own complicated wifi access which requires registration and passwords so that users can be monitored, and London wants your hard cash before allowing you to surf. The only slight blip on an otherwise peaceful entry was a grumpy immigration officer who asked us lots of surly questions, as if unable to believe our simple explanation that we were in Canada to visit friends and that we’d be leaving in a week. He scribbled on our immigration form in neon pink marker, and we were sent to a second stage of interrogation, during which we had to produce proof of our exiting flights and details of the professions of our hosts in Toronto. I wondered whether it had anything to do with the colour of my husband’s skin, but although the line contained a slightly higher percentage of Indians, overall there was enough white skin to suggest that this wasn’t simply about racial profiling.

Although I usually shun perfection and carefully sanitized environments preferring grittier cities with messy personalities, there’s something about Canada which I find very appealing. On the outside, it looks as bland as most of the US, but if you allow yourself to tune into the vibes which lie just below the surface, you’ll discover that a slightly more meaningful heart beats below its mild exterior. The US is all about being brash, opinionated and, dare I say it, arrogant. Most Americans actually revel in the fact that they don’t travel, considering their native country to contain everything they require for happy lives. As a result (and I am generalizing massively here to make a point, of course) the entire country, with the exception of New York and perhaps a few other random cities, has failed to temper its opinions with those of others, or allow the possibility of alternative thinking – and by alternative, I don’t mean the deliberately self-conscious embracing of Eastern philosophies, re-labelled by trendy West coast types. Perhaps because of this, Canada is quietly apologetic for its overbearing neighbour, its tourists and travellers proudly displaying its maple leaf flag to differentiate themselves from the nation that the world loves to hate. Canadians are known for their gentle demeanour, and they are just, generally, really nice people. They are helpful without being overbearing, interesting without being self-obsessed, perhaps because the policies and politics of the country are more about support and understanding than about ego and postulation. Maternity/parental leave is a jaw dropping year long (with 55% of salary paid), health care is publically funded and free, delivered according to need not ability to pay.

This is my third trip to Canada, and I’m struck once again by its sweetness and by its depth of character. If England is depressive and disapproving, and India is dramatic and expressive, then Canada is quietly cerebral and thoroughly unpretentious. If it wasn’t half a world away from Mumbai, then I could see myself here more often, if only to fuel my new found addiction to Tim Horton's French Vanilla cappuccino.

From Mumbai to Cornwall ....

I’m in Cornwall, the extreme southwest bit of England which looks like the big toe of the country, poking gingerly out into the chilly English Channel. This is one of England’s most rural areas, with 23% of people over retirement age, and a predominantly white population – 99% of Cornwall’s inhabitants are “White British” according to Wikipedia. My brown husband sticks out like a lovely sore thumb, his long black hair and beard giving him a distinctive, exotic look in this vanilla world. Tiny, pretty towns are dotted between enormous swathes of pristine countryside, which though brutally susceptible to wintry wind chills, light up in the summer months under sunlight which warms the land for up to eighteen hours a day. People here are ridiculously friendly – it’s a place where time runs incredibly slowly, and no-one is in a rush. There’s no road rage, no fury with meandering tourists (Cornwall’s second biggest source of income is tourism, after agriculture) and no snapping at strangers. I asked the ticket lady at the train station what time the train would arrive. She went online, slowly and methodically, to tell me exactly where the train was currently, did a few sums in her head and then gave me an expected arrival time with the added bonus of informing me that I should move my car to the car park on the opposite side of the tiny station, so my husband, who I was meeting, wouldn’t have to carry his suitcase over the bridge. Contrast that with the hordes of people pushing and shoving at a Mumbai rail ticket window, or the surly, grumpy response of a typical London railworker and you know you’re not in Kansas any more.

There's something very strange about my surroundings. For a start, its almost silent, the only ambient sounds are the discreet tweeting of birds and the gentle trickle of fresh water. I'm used to noise, all around me, all of the time, created either by the throngs of people who constantly shove and push their way into each other's space, or by the general din and cacophony of a crowded city which believes that the only way to get ahead is to be loud. I’d also forgotten how clean the air can actually be in the English countryside. There’s no stench of diesel fumes billowing from vehicles which are hanging together by the proverbial thread. There are no smells of cooking, now that the morning’s bacon and eggs have receded into a happy memory and a pleasantly full stomach. There’s no smog, no fog and no dust. Only clear, clean air and a temperature which is just the right side of fresh. I take deep breaths and I can almost feel the unadulterated air cleaning out the debris of accumulated toxins from my lungs.

As we tucked into our loaded breakfast plates this morning, enjoying the full English Breakfast experience, my husband and I contemplated the view – ponies in the neighbouring field, chickens clucking around their heavy feet, bright green grass and a cerulean blue sky. “I can see us living somewhere like this” he said. “We’d go mad after a week” I told him. “We need the constant rush of the big city, and there’s nothing to do here once you’ve finished admiring the view over a few pints of local scrumpy cider”.

I know what I’m talking about. I spent my childhood and teenage years in the neighbouring county of Devon – an area with similarly rural qualities, yet an important step closer to London and thus slightly more connected. You can take a train to the Capital from my home-town of Exeter in two hours, if you’re lucky. Cornwall doubles the journey time, which makes London practically a foreign country for the Cornish, unless they happen to fall into the minority of Cornish millionaires who can afford to pop up to the metropolis in their helicopters for a spot of shopping. I was a bored, fractious teenager, desperate to escape the confines of a sleepy part of the world, and missing out (I thought) on the glamour and excitement of the big city. Perhaps that’s what drove me around the world in search of adventure, my eventual relocation to Mumbai a direct result of a misspent youth in a tranquil environment. What I do know is that Devon and Cornwall, though extremely pretty and wonderful to visit, are not places to settle in if you get a thrill out of a buzzy, restless big city chock full of ambition.

I wish someone had invented cars which could fly half way round the world in minutes. That way my husband and I could have our ideal solution – weekdays in the cut and thrust of Mumbai’s intoxicating dynamism, and weekends in our serene picture postcard perfect cottage in rural England. Until then, we’ll make the most of this holiday, the perfect break from the madness of a Mumbai which though addictive, saps energy levels after a while and leaves you fractious, short tempered and with frayed nerves.