A response to “Why White Women Marry Indian Men” ... from the perspective of a White Woman married to an Indian Man

Dear Denise Baptiste,

I read your recent article, captivatingly entitled “Why White Women Marry Indian Men” with some interest. I am, after all, a white woman living in India, married to an Indian man, and I expected to find something in the article which resonated with me. Even if it had been written by an Indian woman, and therefore more likely to be supposition than fact.

I started reading it, and immediately assumed that it was a lighthearted piece written with tongue firmly in cheek. A brilliantly ironic, and witty piece about the current “craze” of “our men” to marry those “lovely ladies from abroad”. Unfortunately, it turns out that there’s no hint of satire in this piece, which actually reeks of racism and stereotyping.

Let me offer a counter view to all of your reasons why we white chicks love your “tall dark and handsome” Indian guys. And please do bear in mind that my opinions are more likely to be correct given that I am actually one of those white women you write so freely about.

1. “White women love the concept of running around trees, romancing in the park and playing on beaches”.
Running around trees is not a concept which generally makes us white women horny. We find it a little odd, but hey, who are we to judge. Our half white kids do love playing on beaches but I don’t think their colour has anything to do with it.

2. “Indian men are highly educated and they earn a lot more than a foreigner. The thought of being financially secure is always present in her mind!”
Many Indian men (and women) are highly educated, because India is a country where people literally collect degrees. Your assumption that all of India’s 620 million men earn more than their foreign counterparts is bizarre. Did you know that the average annual income in India is 1 lakh rupees ($1600)? Compared to 29 lakh rupees in the UK ($44,000) and 35 lakh rupees ($54,000) in the US? Don’t be misled by the Mittals and the Ambanis of the world. There are only a very few of us greedy white women lucky enough to meet those types.

3. “There is no fear of commitment when it comes to Indian men. They are easy to fall in love with and if you treat them well, they will stick to you like a leech”
No fear of commitment? Do you realise what kinds of hurdles we white girls have to overcome when it comes to getting our man (and more pertinently his family) to commit to us. We’re most likely the wrong religion, we’re way too independent, and we’re probably not virgins.

4. “Women, who want to be loved by only one man for the rest of their lives, believe they can have that with an Indian man”.
I’m not sure whether or not you are married, Denise, and I am sure that you’d like to think that your man would never stray, but the fact is that the divorce rate in India has shot through the roof in recent years. Sadly, I know an awful lot of “happily married” Indian men who have had or are having affairs. And even more tragically, I’ve been propositioned by a few.

5. “Indians are obsessed with white skin. Therefore, the need to marry a white woman is at times a 'must' for Indian men”
Now this is where you start getting really offensive, Denise. I agree that India has an unhealthy obsession with fair skin, not helped by the propagation of skin lightening products and a colonial hangover. Not only have you managed to legitimise this, but you’ve managed to insult every Indian woman with your sweeping generalisation.

6. “White women marry Indian men because India is an affordable place to make a living compared to abroad”
Now this theme is beginning to get repetitive. Have you ever actually tried to buy a property, run a household, educate and feed your kids on an Indian salary? If I were to go back to the UK, I’d be able to actually afford a mortgage given the lower interest rates, my kids would be educated for free, I’d never see a hospital bill and I’d even get child benefit (ie free money) for each of my kids.

7. “India is the land of kamasutra. It is believed that white women marry Indian men for the pleasure of lovemaking”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Which Indian man told you that?

8. “The rich Indian values and traditions are some of the things that make a white woman fall head over heels with an Indian man”
I talked to some of my other friends married to Indian men. Those rich Indian values and traditions are actually often what makes life particularly difficult for us. We struggle with the demands of trying to do the “right thing” and invariably end up offending someone by getting it wrong.

9. “Sometimes, it is just the urge to have an Indian wedding! A lot of white women are crazy about the many rituals and traditions that go with an Indian wedding”
Again with the rituals and traditions. Trust me, no woman will commit to a partner for life just for a week of wedding events, however much of a bridezilla she is. Especially when the actual wedding is mindlessly boring for the bride and groom – who really wants to spend hours standing on a stage greeting 5000 strangers? What we white women really want to do is get rip roaringly drunk and dance the night away.

10. “Do you think Indian men are easy to please? White women like being around Indian men as they love to spend time with their lady and give their full attention to them”
Is this kind of a weird reversal of the racist belief that white women are “easy”? This lady’s (Indian) husband has high standards. That’s why he married her.

11. “White women are fond of Indian men as they are great cooks”
Another ROFL. My husband can’t boil an egg without burning it. In the 7 years we’ve been married, he has cooked once. Not every Indian man is a Sanjeev Kapoor, Denise.

Denise, I hope I have corrected some of your erroneous and racist views, and given you an alternative view of our reality. We white women marry “your” men because we fall in love with them, regardless of the challenges that intercultural marriages can bring with them. We don’t notice the colour of their skin (nope, we’re not as obsessed as you clearly are), we don’t fantasise about having brown babies and we certainly don’t think that Indian men are better than any other men in the world.

My Social Media detox

Every New Year, I balance the excesses of the festive season by giving up drinking for the month of January. Actually, I usually get 3 weeks into the month and then fall spectacularly off the wagon, but at least I take solace in the fact that I’ve given my liver a break for a while.

This year, I decided to add a one month Social Media detox into the mix.

Over time, I had come to realise that that cheeky Facebook app on my phone was devouring way too much of my time. From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, to the time I closed them at night, I’d be scrolling through my newsfeed. In the car, waiting for my coffee at Starbucks, in the middle of meetings, while on the landline, in the ad breaks while watching TV - I was mesmerised by that damn app. Addicted to the minutae of my friends’ lives, and hooked on the minute by minute activity of people who I barely knew (how did all those people end up being my “friends”??!).

And so, a couple of hours past midnight on 1 January, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone and went social media cold turkey. I had actually intended to delete my account but figured that would create way too much potential drama with people wondering why I had gone overnight from posting hourly comments and status updates to a Facebook non entity, so I chose to go dark rather than disappear.

A month later, I’ve reinstalled the app, but I’m still rather reluctant to jump back in again. I’ve been Facebook free for a month, apart from posting links to a couple of pieces I wrote for websites and wanted to share, and it has been gloriously refreshing. So what I have I learned from my self imposed Facebook Intermission?

1. I will always fill my time with useless crap
The plan was to spend the cumulative seconds and minutes of “free time” gained from the Social Media hiatus to invest in my other New Year’s resolution – to learn Hindi (properly). I downloaded various Hindi tutorials and plugged myself diligently into the podcasts. The first couple of FB free days were great – I learned a few Hindi phrases and I finally learned to count to 50. However, a few days in and I started finding excuses to do other stuff. I started reading the Daily Mail online edition rather more often than I should have done (the column of trash on the right of the page, mainly). Now instead of checking my Facebook updates I read about who is doing who in Hollywood or who attended some random party showing nipples or booty or whatever. Its official, I am addicted to gossip, and I’ve decided that I’d rather know the gossip of my nearest and dearest, than some random Z list celebrity.

2. I have way too many Facebook “friends
If you’re reading this as a piece I uploaded on Facebook, then you made the cut. Before re-embracing the demon, I deleted around 300 random souls who I am sure are very nice people indeed, but who I have either never met or have no intention of meeting. There are a lot of people on my Facebook friend list who I haven’t actually seen for more than 20 years. Despite that, I still enjoy reading about their lives, because there was something about them that once upon a time I resonated with, even if it was decades ago. And I still relate to them, many years later. And then there are a whole bunch of newcomers whose names I barely recognise. I fell prey to the modern habit of friending everyone, and accepting requests from relatively random people (complete strangers and potential sleazeballs excepted). So I’ve cleared my newsfeed – and now you know I really have a thing for you, dear Facebook friend.

3. I am actually really really interested in the boring detritus of people’s lives.
Yep, I’m one of those people who really does want to know what everyone is thinking, feeling and doing, and I enjoy my smug/sympathetic/ affronted reactions. I love the fact that other people’s misfortune occasionally makes me feel better about the fact that I’m having a bad day, and I do shed the odd tear when I read that someone has had a baby / posted about how much they love their kids / shared some story about a child who is battling some terrible disease (although those tears are more often than not tears of laughter, depending on the time of the month).

4. Twitter is shit
I keep talking about Facebook, but actually I gave up Social Media in all its forms. I really hardly noticed the rest – I find Twitter unbearable and incredibly irritating (if you’re going to post something at least make it coherent) and Pinterest and Instagram are completely insignificant to me.

5. Facebook is really useful for a lot of stuff
Forget the fact that FB satisfies my endlessly twitching thumb, it is also super helpful in organising one’s life. I forgot a load of birthdays in January (including those of some close relatives) because I haven’t had my handy Facebook reminder. I’ve missed a couple of cool things happening, and I’ve stressed over organising my own event (something planned for mid Feb), as it is so easy to create something on Facebook and invite people. Somehow, I also believe that scrolling the timeline also fires weird synapses in my brain – I remember random stuff at odd hours of the day and I wake up every morning thinking of things I need to do, and people I need to reach out to thanks to comments I’ve read. I also find the curated news items and shares really insightful, and though I tried hard to replace these with some diligent reading of various “intelligent” news sites, I landed up more not less ignorant as a result.

In summary, I know its kind of uncool these days to be a Facebook Fan, but I plan to enjoy my return to it. I’m glad that I had this little break, and decluttered my friend list. Here’s to an awesome 2015!

Do you tweet or FB? (and what does that say about you???)

A few years ago, actually probably no more than 5, the title of this blog would have been thoroughly confusing to everyone on the planet except perhaps the very early adopters. Now it seems as though nothing in life is meaningful or important unless it is tweeted, liked or shared on Facebook.

Now that Facebook and Twitter have entered our lives so very insidiously, the connected world has divided into two types of people – those for whom Facebook is a lifeline, who vicariously live out their lives through status updates and posted pictures and those who tweet about each and everything that happens to them. Though there are those who are active on the two, most people, in my experience, have a preference for one or the other. There are, of course, the few who shun both ... and while there is a certain coolness perhaps in claiming that "I don't do social media" its damn irritating when you want to connect with them. E mail just seems so old school.

Facebook of course is great for connecting, sharing and generally keeping in touch. It is easy to use, most people’s parents and even grandparents jostle for space on their timeline along with their BFFs, love interests, potential love interests and childhood friends. It makes for an occasionally uneasy mishmash and the need to self-regulate, but it is an extremely useful way of staying in touch, connecting with old friends, and peeping into people’s lives. After all, who hasn’t scrolled through the pictures of people they haven’t seen for years to see whether they have aged well, been lucky or unlucky in love, and/or have photogenic children. There is a vicarious pleasure to be gained in viewing the most intimate of private moments from a relatively anonymous distance. The downside of Facebook of course is that it is all too easy to comment, share stuff and post pictures, and thus a fair amount of patience is required when trawling through other people’s invariably dull status updates (although one’s own are always obviously witty, incisive and interesting).

Twitter is a strange animal. Whereas the appeal of Facebook is obvious to anyone who has an iota of a social life, the Twittersphere is occupied by a bunch of people (well, millions actually) who think that recording their every action, thought and observation is a useful and relevant thing to do. They are obsessed by “trending” and being “retweeted” as if a random retweet from a celebrity really means that said celeb actually gives a damn what anyone else thinks. Brace yourselves Tweeple – no one on Twitter gives a shit about anyone else. They’re too busy trying to improve their own position in the invisible and highly complex Twitter caste system. You’re only as good as the number of people who “follow” you after all.

However, Facebook, it seems is “old school”. On a recent trip to the UK, I was told on a number of occasions by my obviously socially advanced British friends that Facebook is “so yesterday”. Apparently, Brits (and possibly Americans, though they are much more mob mentality than the snobbier Brits) are deserting Facebook in their droves. Twitter is apparently much “cooler” though personally, I can’t see the appeal. I naturally gravitated to, and still love, Facebook, and though I opened a Twitter account to see what all the fuss was about, I hate it. In my humble opinion, Twitter is for people with low attention spans, those who are obsessive social climbers and worse still, those who will happily ditch all semblance of grammar and accurate spelling to fit into that 140 character strait jacket. “You can watch the pulse of the world, as it happens,” cry the Twits. What rubbish. I can barely even understand what people are talking about thanks to their tendency to drop vowels everywhere (it is NEVER OK to write d instead of the, incidentally).

There, I’ve revealed my bias. I don’t care if Barack Obama has 33 million followers. Or if Amitabh Bacchan tweets to 5 million people. Although I can see how easy that would make life (anyone have a spare car/nanny/fiver I can borrow?) I don’t particularly want random people “following” my every comment and even “retweeting” it to their followers. Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick to comfortably poking around my friends' Facebook updates and seeing how well they’re all aging. However, I will still tweet this blogpost. Ha!

Big Fat Indian extravagance

Last night I attended a four year old’s birthday party. I rocked up with kids, husband, nannies and the requisite gifts expecting to find a cute, fun event on one of the small terraces of the private members club where the party was being held. As we neared the entrance, the thumping Bollywood music suggested that we’d come to the wrong place. But no. As I squinted at the elaborate arch across the entrance of the venue, it became apparent that this was actually the four year old’s birthday party and not, as I had suspected, a wedding.

We entered through a blue neon lit tunnel, complete with twinkling stars and cartoon figurines and emerged into an extravaganza of balloons, a huge stage, bowling alley, bouncy castle, and areas with tattoos, nail painting, a photo booth and more. All offset by thumping Bollywood beats. As we sat down at one of the many tables and chairs festooned by gold bows and munched on the snacks being served by smart waiters, I wondered whether I was in a parallel universe.

I’ve been in Mumbai long enough now to know that “simple and understated” doesn’t fly, and that over the top ostentation characterizes most social events here but the sheer grandeur of this, especially given that it was for a four year old, blew me away.

As I walked around with my toddler, trying to get him interested in anything except the Angry Birds catapault game which had captured his tiny mind, I spotted the bar. I quickly downed the mohito mixed by an enthusiastic barman, and suddenly the noise and outlandish flamboyance became a little more palatable. I did wonder though whether the screeching tones of the MC as he conducted a series of games for the kids was actually at a decibel level safe enough for tiny ears. The tables were piled high with gifts, and there was no doubt that the birthday boy would have fun opening them but I couldn’t help but wonder whether he would really ever be able to appreciate the value of possessions. Kids are naturally avaricious, they want more and more and more .. and sometimes they just need to be made to see how fortunate they are, in comparison to many others. Most Indian parents are particularly ambitious for their children, both in terms of their futures and the “things” they have, and there is a relentless focus on acquisition – of knowledge and possessions.

The evening was fun for the kids, especially for my energetic almost three year old, but I left in a slightly reflective mood. The contrast between the haves and the have nots is always particularly acute when you witness what seems like unnecessary overindulgence, particularly when its motivation is more to impress “society” than to make a child, or a bride and groom, or a couple celebrating their anniversary happy. The British shun ostentation and sneer at “showing off”. In India, flaunting your wealth is both expected and necessary, a prerequisite for displaying your position in a country where everyone is busy trampling on everyone else to escape searing poverty.

Buy the book!

becomingdesi: Published!

Published!

I wrote a book! I finally did it … and it’s been a very surreal experience.I thought I’d pause and reflect back on the journey, now that the book is in print, in bookshops, and the chance to fiddle around with it and endlessly re-edit is long gone.

It all started one afternoon about three years ago as I was sitting staring at the wall in a post-lunch near doze. I couldn’t quite bring myself to fire up my laptop and start trawling through the dozens of mails which I knew would be there waiting for me … and so I carried on daydreaming. My mind was wandering and for some reason I started to feel nostalgic. I’d been in Asia for ten years, 8 of those years in Mumbai, and I felt fairly seasoned. I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and started scribbling down the progress of my journey from fresh off the boat newbie to seasoned Mumbaikar.

As I did so, and with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that I’d actually come on quite a journey, emotionally. I’d been in India for so long, that it felt like I’d almost been here forever. What had seemed ridiculous, sublime and incredible now seemed routine and everyday. I no longer exclaimed at the cows ambling along the road and the tears which had spilled whenever I had caught sight of a limbless beggar had dried up. That wasn’t to say that I was completely compassionless, but somehow the impact of the poverty and the apparent suffered had just lessened over time, as the shock factor reduced.

As my own attitudes had shifted and changed over time, the only way I could measure the progress of my adjustment was by observing the reactions of people who saw my surroundings for the first time. The friends who came to visit me provided a useful benchmark. Their wide eyed reactions to the chaos of Mumbai, the surprise at the sheer number of people on the streets, the colours, sights, sounds and smells made me smile, and also took me back to my arrival, years earlier. Their responses to an environment which by now seemed very ordinary to me, made me realise that seeing goats wandering around the city, or men pushing handcarts the wrong way down a busy road was actually not normal. That the sight of grown men wandering hand in hand along the streets was not a reflection of a permissive society but rather an expression of their friendship. In the same way, my own responses to my home country changed over time. I find it more and more remarkable that people in England can actually drink tap water. I find it revolutionary that they separate their waste and put it into different containers. And of course, shopping brings out the greedy consumer in me. In India, I claim not to need new things. Because the array of shoes, clothes and handbags here isn’t particularly appealing. When I hit the UK high streets, the story is quite different, and I end up hauling an entirely new wardrobe back with me.

And so I came to realise how much I had changed, and I found the whole concept of adjustment a fascinating one. I came across the book “Watching the English” by Kate Fox, and read it 3 times, mesmerised by her astute observation of a nation, a nation which I was by now looking at in a much more analytical manner, from a distance.

The book started out as a fairly serious, dry observation of this change, and the expat reaction to what is after all a pretty crazy life here. It morphed and changed, and ended up as a fictional tale, inspired by my own experiences, but rooted in the “chick lit” genre. It is hopefully therefore much more entertaining and far less didactic. Once I started writing, all of those distant memories of my arrival came back, and the book evolved and took shape very quickly. Getting published was actually remarkably easy, and happened in that brilliant, "only in India" way ... a friend knew the MD at Random House, introduced me on mail, I sent some samples and my idea for the book, and a couple of weeks later I had a contract.

The task of actually writing an entire book seemed very daunting at the beginning. The first line took me an hour to write. As I wrote, I had no idea what would happen next, and though I knew that Julia would, of course, find her Mr Right, I actually had no idea how she would find him. I didn’t know about plot or storytelling, I didn’t know how I was supposed to shape the story, and I guess I just did it pretty instinctively, with the added benefit of my editor’s perspective. I wrote everywhere - at home, at the parlour, and the Club, sitting by the pool. On planes, trains (in England), and in the car going to work. Every day I inched a little closer to the magic number of 100,000 words and every day it seemed just a little bit more certain that I could actually do it.

Buy it, and let me know what you think.

http://www.flipkart.com/becoming-mrs-kumar/p/itmdgyzwkaaqtsfy?pid=9788184000412&ref=a9e4048b-e7b9-462a-88e2-2a02fc03f9e9&srno=s_1&otracker=from-search&query=becoming%20mrs%20kumar

Nagaland - India's undiscovered land

I had no idea what to expect when I decided to head off to Nagaland for two weeks with my sister and her boyfriend visiting from England, my two year old son and five week old baby in tow. I’d heard amazing things about this remote area of North East India, a place further from my home in Mumbai than any place I’d been to before within India. I was further intrigued by the lack of online information available on Nagaland - with the exception of a couple of government owned tourism websites, and a handful of Trip Advisor reviews on accommodation in the region, it was as though Nagaland existed only in the imagination of the very few. Certainly no-one outside India had heard of it, and even Indians were hard pressed to identify the region.

Landing in Dimapur was a pleasant shock to the system. The airport is sweetly archaic, tiny but sufficient to handle the two flights a day which arrive from and depart to Kolkata. The city is dusty, crowded, but somehow exudes an immediate “gentler” vibe than the other Indian cities I’ve visited. We headed for the hills shortly after arriving, in a bid to cool ourselves down in more temperate altitudes. Nagaland has no rail system, and so the state relies on ancient creaking buses and taxis for transport – the latter usually Tata Sumos into which at least ten people can cram themselves and their baggage, making this a profitable business for the owners of the rickety vehicles. We were driven to Kohima by a schoolfriend of my husband, in a gesture typical of the generous and hospitable Nagas, he not only drove us from door to door, but arranged a wonderful lunch for us en route at a beautiful resort in the hills, and then left his car for us to use during our stay in Kohima.

As we left the smoggy confines of Dimapur, the air quickly became clean and fresh, the lack of pollution a welcome relief from Mumbai’s acrid atmosphere. Kohima is a sprawling city built around a large peak, its higgledy piggledy houses clinging for dear life to the steep sides, lining roads which wind round and round the hill. Walking is easier than driving around the city, though it’s exhausting on foot thanks to the steep inclines. We spent five days in and around Kohima, exploring the tiny markets with their exotic wares including several varieties of caterpillar which apparently make delicious snacks, and driving around the area thankfully in a four wheel drive vehicle, which gave us some respite from the poor roads which were ridden with potholes and often deep in mud. We drove deeper into the state, spending another few days in Mokokchung, another sweet town, similar to Kohima but smaller. Our friends in Mokokchung were perfect hosts, taking us to visit the small villages dotted around the area, many of which were chocolate box perfect, immaculately clean slices of rural bliss.

People all over Nagaland were warm, generous and friendly, their desire to help us driven entirely it seemed by genuine altruism rather than greed – this was evidenced by the fact that on several occasions, people tried to return tips to us, confused by the fact that we had paid them too much. When we explained again and again that the extra money was for the excellent service received, they invariably blushed and giggled, repeatedly trying to return the money. The Naga spirit of generosity is utterly genuine, and I wondered how far it would be corrupted once tourism hits the state. Nagaland is too far away from mainland India, too difficult to reach, and too challenging to traverse for most foreigners, and so it feels untouched, unspoilt by infrastructure which inevitably pops up to cater for the tourist scene.

We were treated like royalty everywhere we went, which was a tad disconcerting but heartwarming nonetheless. We were guests of honour at a society wedding, despite being inappropriately dressed, as we hadn’t exactly packed our finery. Nonetheless, we were picked up from our hotel by the Commissioner of Nagaland and his armed guards, and welcomed personally by him during his address to the congregation. We all blushed bright red as the wedding guests swivelled their heads to gawp at the “special guests from the Church of England”. We were also invited to address students from a local university who presumably didn’t get the chance to interact with real live Brits. Again, despite feeling like total fraudsters, we were made to feel like we were special, our young audience hanging on to our every word. It was a surreal but humbling experience.

Nothing in Nagaland feels like India. The people look different, their facial features closer to their Burmese neighbours, their language, food, culture and customs are as different from those of their Indian counterparts than from us Europeans. Our Naga friends talked of “mainland India” and “Indians”, and clearly do not feel part of the mother country. Their gentleness, genuine delight to give, with no intention of receiving, was a marked contrast with the more superficial hospitality in the more developed parts of India. Their tribal society has created not conflict, as one would expect, but rather harmony, with the 16 tribes co-existing in a mutually supportive manner.

Nagaland’s gentle exterior belies its troubled history – the region is notorious for insurgents and battles for independence since its creation in 1963 – before that, the area had been part of the state of Assam. It is not difficult to sympathise with a people who feel totally disconnected to their country, when they seem to have so little in common with the rest of its population. Right now peace prevails - hopefully this will remain and the Nagas will be granted their independence one day.

A visit to the FRRO (or - losing the will to live)

Once the initial surprise, shock and awe of Mumbai has worn off, all new arrivals into the city settle into the process of easing into daily life. The first major shock to the system comes in the form of the innocuously named FRRO - the Foreigners Regional Registration Office. Ask any expat who has been here for more than a few months about their experience with this spectacularly bureaucratic government body, and their response will range from the overtly angry - spitting with rage and fury, to a teary reminiscence, to a weary sigh filled shoulder shrug borne of final resignation.

The FRRO office is the place where every foreigner who comes to India on an employment or business visa must register, and the body which deals with all visa enquiries for long term foreign residents, or even those on tourist visas who may have inadvertently overstayed their visa. The process of dealing with the FRRO is somewhat similar to that of dealing with a death or news of a terminal disease – as the 5 stages of emotional reaction play themselves out – first denial, then anger, bargaining and depression and finally, acceptance. When I first arrived in India to work, I made the mistake of landing up at the FRRO two weeks after the stipulated 15 day timeframe for registration, so I went through all those 5 emotions in one sitting. For the average foreigner landing up at this innocuous looking office, the process generally goes as follows, over a number of visits or even in the space of a single morning : 1. Denial. On encountering the bureaucracy of the ladies in ugly sarees, the foreigner feels that they must all just be having a ‘bad day’, for surely no human being could ordinarily be this rude / curt / unhelpful / difficult and especially not en masse. This is India after all, people are known to be friendly and smiley here, and all Indians are by definition nice people. Plastering a big smile onto the face, and striving to keep the tone light and friendly, the foreigner bravely continues to try to explain the reason for the visit. As the documents which have been painstakingly collected together and copied as per the long list of requirements are scrutinized, and rejected one by one for irrational ‘irregularities’, the foreigner’s intention to smother the official with kindness and loving vibes slowly starts to transition to the surpressed rage which has been lurking not far below the surface.

Then comes the second stage as anger bursts out in staccato interventions “but all my documents are correct!” .. “but I checked the list twice!” “but I don’t have my bank statements from 5 years ago” .. no that IS the same signature” … and so on. This expression of anger is not only uncharacteristic behaviour for the typically buttoned up foreigner, but also has zero effect on the official who is busy throwing out painstaking collected documents. Realising that anger in this instance is futile, then comes the Foreigner’s attempt to bargain. Now bargaining and bribery, though alien to the foreigner, are part and parcel of the Indian experience, and expressed in a wonderful “one size fits all” descriptor – ‘jugaad’. This wonderfully evocative word means, according to Wikipedia, “a colloquial Hindi word that can mean an innovative fix, sometimes pejoratively used for solutions that bend rules, or a resource that can be used as such or a person who can solve a vexatious issue. It is used as much for enterprising street mechanics as for political fixers. In essence, it is a tribute to native genius, and lateral thinking”. “Jugaad” or “jugaad giri” (how to jugaad) is a simple word which summarises a way of life for an entire sub continent. Ever wondered why Indians all over the world are no 1 in any league table or industry you care to look at (with the exception perhaps of some notable sporting events)? Jugaad giri. Ever stopped to think about why in India, despite the chaos and the seemingly unmanageable bureaucracy, things just seem to happen? Jugaad giri. So Indians are very well versed at stretching and bending and manipulating the rules in the name of jugaad, but its an art you have to be born with. The hapless foreigner, when faced with a brick wall in the form of the FRRO officer, may resort to bargaining but it’s usually a sadly pathetic attempt to reason, cajole and / or beg. “If I get the signature redone by my office and bring it back will it be OK?” is met by stony silence. “but that’s a new rule and they didn’t tell me about it when I phoned” will be met by a blank look. And finally, “can I, er, um, er, pay something” is far too awkward an attempt to bribe, which will fall on deaf ears. Bargaining at the FRRO office will always result in disappointment, unless conducted by a true jugaad or one very very experienced in the art of when is a bribe not a bribe (and no, the FRRO does NOT accept bribes. Allegedly).

That brings me on to depression. Its not uncommon to exit the FRRO office feeling like you’ve lost the will to live. What started out as a seemingly straightforward, even innocuous task to get a visa stamp, has turned into a war of wills, a battle to end all battles, and an exhausting and seemingly never ending slide into a deep pit of bureaucracy, with all the cards seemingly stacked irreconcilably against you. Many foreigners stumble out of the office, glassy eyed and shell shocked. Along with the failure to have renewed the visa or been granted the magical ‘blue book” (the passport type book which allows you to reside in India), there comes the realisation that more paperwork is required (in triplicate) and yet more evidence needs to be submitted about one’s intentions for life in India. Some foreigners even give up in the face of this, and decide that India is simply not for them, booking the first plane back to civilisation and sanity. The majority however move on the next and final phase - Acceptance. This stage has more to do with a dulling of the senses, a feeling of helpless submission and final defeat at the hands of the senseless bureaucracy that characterises the FRRO experience than it does with finding inner peace or calm, but its Acceptance nonetheless.

A friend of mine recounts a particularly horrific experience at the hands of the FRRO – on showing up at the office for the compulsory registration process, the official in front of her took more than the usual painstakingly slow time to scrutinise her passport, looking for her entry stamp. When it became apparent that in fact there was no entry stamp in the passport and that the official at the immigration counter had overlooked this rather vital procedure she was told to ‘go back to the airport and get a stamp’. Now given the complexity of getting inside the airport with a valid ticket to travel, let alone trying to gain entry to get an entry stamp a week after entering the country is no task for the fainthearted. My friend managed to get inside and was not only asked which queue she had stood in (there are 20 odd lines at the immigration hall) but asked to identify the man who had failed to stamp her passport. Miraculously given that she had arrived a week earlier and at 2am, she managed to respond on both counts and there then began a pantomime farce which involved ALL the other immigration officials running after the ‘guilty’ party, pinning him down and tickling him (yes, really!), slapping him and throwing her passport at each other. Once the aforementioned stamp was in place, and a fat bribe taken, the passport was literally thrown in her direction, sailing right above her head to land on the extremely grubby floor. When she returned to the FRRO the following day, brandishing her entry stamp, the officials there could hardly believe their eyes. Apparently this ‘impossible’ task had been assigned to her to have her run in a wild goose chase before returning cap in hand to beg for the FRRO’s help. Unfortunately, my friend was far too smart and tenacious for the party poopers at the FRRO.

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. I’ve been visiting the same office for 9 years. Since I started going there on my annual pilgrimage to get my employment visa renewed, and then for my PIO card for me and then my newborn, 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.

Baking Queen!

In the past couple of years, I’ve rediscovered a latent love of baking which I didn’t even know I had in me. It has lain dormant for over twenty years, a subtle obsession planted deep in my soul since childhood which has only now re-emerged, thanks to a rush of hormones marking a particular lifestage.

Twelve years ago, I exchanged my fickle, twenty something life in London for a brief backpacker existence quickly followed by a smooth slide into the Expat world. During my twenties, I was too busy working eighteen hour days and attempting to climb the greasy pole of London’s competitive advertising circuit to worry about putting food on the table. I lived in a shared house, cooked my share of pasta dishes a couple of times a week, and relied heavily on Tesco’s variety of chilled “just like home made” pasta sauces which were brilliantly simplistic in their choice of red or white, spicy or mild, the overpriced versions from the chilled cabinet (for the couple of weeks after the salary arrived in the bank) or the cheaper options in packets, on the shelves (for the rest of the time). When the carbohydrate overload became too much, I simply switched to eating calorie controlled frozen dinners which cooked for sixty seconds in the microwave and which along with a few glasses of wine, just about curbed my hunger. I topped up my limited diet with a healthy expense account – after all this was the nineties and I had to keep my clients happy and well fed, and as expected, I dutifully maxed out my corporate credit card on five star dinners and lunches.

Moving to Asia meant a life of delicious, exotic food on tap. I discovered a world where domestic help came as a pre-requisite, a maid was standard issue for every expat, and they were all extremely capable of rustling up delicious, healthy, home cooked dishes which I’d discover in my fridge when I returned home from a day’s work. Failing that, if the maid was having a day off, for example, I’d stop off at one of the myriad street stalls to order Pad Thai or Chicken Satay, piping hot and laden with eye watering chillies which I theorised would kill off any bacteria. In ten years, I don’t think I managed to use my limited kitchen to cook much more than a slice of toast, and even that was an occasional deviation from the norm, given the poor quality of Asia’s bread (think plastic, sweet and sweaty). The fridge was for chilling beer and wine, the stove top was for the maid to produce her incredible curries and the kettle was for tea or for boiling water for a pot noodle.

When I met and married my husband, we made the most of Mumbai’s renowned service orientation, and I directed my new-found domestic goddess to organise a handy laminated file of takeaway menus. Our biggest decision of an evening was always – pizza, Chinese, Thai, or Indian. Or when we couldn’t be bothered, yesterday’s leftovers. It sounds sloppy, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me to bother cooking, and I used my poorly equipped kitchen, India’s lack of oven culture and its propensity to fry everything as excuses for my culinary lethargy. And then some English friends who were leaving Mumbai gave me their old oven, a tiny thing which could just about hold a (small) roast chicken but which aroused the first deeply buried twinges of domesticity within me.

I suddenly realised that I was sick of eating food whose ingredients had flirted briefly on a stovetop rather than meeting and fusing in a hot oven. This tiny addition to my kitchen ignited some deep part of my Englishness, and I became overwhelmed by the need to cook, and determined to overcome India’s limitations in that area. I discovered a tiny, smelly stall hidden at the back of one of the more popular market areas, and found that I could get surprisingly decent beef (or perhaps buffalo) there, as long as I was prepared to walk past stinking rows of live chickens lined up for the kill, and mangy flea ridden kittens slinking around in the hope of a handout. I found that I could source the cooking basics from the local shops, even occasionally find dusty imported items to top up my limited stores, and if all failed, I would simply carry critical ingredients back from my visits to the UK. I’d always made a trip to Tesco to fill my suitcase before leaving England, and now I simply exchanged boxes of wine and new shiny shoes for Yorkshire pudding mix, Bisto Beef gravy granules, goosefat for crisping roast potatoes, Colmans mustard, bacon and sausages.

I was all set to dive back into the world of cooking, and during that first year with my oven, I ran through the English classical recipe repertoire, producing beef roast dinners with all the trimmings, shepherds pies, toad in the hole,bangers and mash, beef and ale pies and lasagne (not strictly English, but close enough from the heavy carb and fat content perspective). My husband, who grew up in an English boarding school was delighted, reconnecting with his own inner schoolboy, and I called my expat friends home for Sunday dinner, delighting them with meals which were literally impossible to find in Mumbai, and stretching my tiny oven to its limit.

And then came the real double whammy – pregnancy combined with a brand new fitted kitchen, along with a shiny new “proper” fan oven. My inner domestic goddess returned with a vengeance, delighted to be finally liberated from the shackles of the wok and the instant noodle. As the pregnancy hormones kicked in, my repertoire expanded, and I developed a whole new obsession for cooking proper, old fashioned puddings and cakes. Victoria sponges, cupcakes, Lemon meringue pies, cheesecakes, queen of puddings, Banoffee pies, all came tumbling out of my new gleaming oven to the delight of my husband and the office, who became guinea pigs for my culinary experimentation. I realised then that this new found desire to create heavy, starchy delicious dishes was actually a throwback to the pre teenage me, and that the maternal cocktail of hormones swelling inside me had actually revived old memories of a childhood spent poring over floury cookbooks with my Mum who painstakingly taught me how to make pastry and cakes.

Now that I am pregnant for the second time, my baking obsession has intensified, and I find myself scouring the internet for new twists on old favourites. My husband loves the steady flow of delicious dishes which are emerging from that glorious oven, but he and I both know that once the baby is born, the desire to create complex fusions of fat and carbohydrate will be replaced by a fitness kick which will leave my oven cold and bare. I’ve promised him that I will fill the freezer before I deliver the baby, but it won’t quite be the same – those enticing baking aromas will no longer waft around the house and it will be back to Indian recipes and takeaways, at least until the next hormonal rush grabs me.

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.

Singapore changes ....

I made a 5 day business trip to Singapore this week. Singapore used to feel like my second home, thanks to the fortnightly trips I used to make to visit my clients back in 2001-3. I would shuttle between Bangkok and Singapore as though I was travelling from North to South London, and I quickly got used to the extreme levels of hygiene, the odourless air and the neatness which contrasted radically with the grimy stench of most other Asian cities, and the manufactured appearance of its controlled environment. I enjoyed my trips here, ate vast amounts of delicious food but generally got bored of the perfection very quickly. However, on this trip, made after 5 years, I found that things had changed significantly.

Singapore is of course a city, a city-state and also a country, with a population of 5.1 million – roughly the same number of people who are crammed into the tiny tip of South Mumbai. Like India, it was colonized by the British, yet has taken a very different path in terms of its development. Whereas India was left struggling to reconcile the impact left by the British with the complexities of its own systems, people and culture, Singapore, under a succession of efficient and determined governments and of course a considerably smaller, more manageable population, grew exponentially in terms of its economic might and its infrastructure. There’s a lot of negative talk about that growth, which has ultimately been achieved by controlling the emerging economy’s citizens via a set of rigid rules, and by a firm education and a harsh capital punishment system.

There is a vast amount of evidence of that control – not only in the clean streets and the manicured foliage which lines them, but also in the behaviour and reactions of the locals. I wanted to change my hotel booking and leave a day earlier than planned. I informed the front desk of my schedule change on my arrival. Apparently I couldn’t just tell them that I wanted to check out early, I’d have to go online and make the change. The system wouldn’t allow me to amend my booking, so I called the booking centre, where I was robotically informed that it was hotel policy not to cancel bookings unless the cancellation was made 48 hours before arriving. But I hadn’t known then that I would need to cancel my last night’s stay, I argued. In fact, I said (melodramatically and somewhat dishonestly) I had been called back by my doctor for an emergency checkup because I’m 6 months pregnant. I piled on the emotional pressure, and then added a business motivation for good measure - I was on the lookout for a good mid priced hotel as we were setting up an office in Singapore (true) and though I wanted to use this particular hotel I wouldn’t be able to unless some flexibility were extended. All of this met with silence and the repetition of the fact that “Madam it is hotel policy”. I changed from pleading to anger. I told them that I’d blacklist the hotel, blog and tweet and Facebook and leave negative reviews on Trip Advisor. More silence. “Don’t tell me that its policy. Listen to what I am saying and respond according to my situation, please” I begged the robot. “Send mail to booking centre with your reasons” came the response. Eventually, and on the back of a long, flowery and passive aggressive e mail, my final night’s stay was cancelled. But boy was it hard work.

In India, I would probably have faced the same kind of stubborn refusal to deviate from policy, but I’d have spoken to the manager and probably the emotional pressure would have done it. Singaporeans are literally unable to think outside the box. Unlike Indians who are resourceful lateral thinkers who will use ingenious methods to achieve their results, Singaporeans have been taught not to question authority, not to deviate from process, not to question policy. It was an infuriating insight into a country’s psyche. And next time, I’ll be more careful before I book.

I hadn’t been to Singapore for at least 5 years, and I was struck by the changes. What is still squeaky clean, shiny and flawless has been enhanced by a different undertone than I’ve encountered previously. Put simply, the energy of the city has changed. Not only are there more shiny buildings, towering edifices which soar over the city in what look like architecturally impossible shapes, but there is an entirely new undercurrent – of hope, possibility, success and dare I say it, creativity. I went for drinks with a friend on the freshly emerging Robertson Quay, lined with new watering holes and fancy restaurants, and walked back to my river facing hotel over a fancy pedestrianized bridge which was packed with small groups of local kids, sitting around bottles of hard liquor, drinking and being as rowdy as any drunken teenagers I’d seen on the streets of England, where drinking is a national pastime. They were loud, drunk and having a great time. I couldn’t reconcile this picture of unruly teens with the controlled, restricted Singapore which I’d come to expect. The bridge was lined with large green rubbish bins – according to my friend, the police had tried to crack down on this subversive behaviour initially by trying to move the kids away, and had eventually given up and decided that if they couldn’t ban underage drinking in public, they could at least ensure the place remained tidy. A bizarrely Singaporean resolution to a situation.

So the kids are rebelling, and no doubt Singapore’s art and creative scene will develop and grow and provide a much needed antidote to the suppression and the conformity as a result. One downside of this though is the emergence of a generational gap which has never before been seen – whereas previously, kids were subservient to the state and to their parents, now they are defying authority, and turning to themselves to create self sufficient groups. The concept of the family is under threat, so much so that the Singaporean government is apparently looking for strategies to rebuild communities and ensure that older people are looked after in their dotage, as has traditionally been the case, otherwise their care will require massive state handouts which the government cannot afford. These abandoned parents are now also taking on menial jobs to survive, and this is evidenced by the sheer number of older men and women driving taxis and working as public toilet attendants and serving in restaurants. When a rainy morning meant that I couldn’t get a taxi and was late for my meeting, a local friend explained to me that the majority of taxis are now driven by older people who get scared to drive in the rain, and so they simply stay off the streets when there’s a downpour.

I love Singapore’s new energy, and its clearly attracting others – multinationals are now focusing their regional hubs in the city and expats are flocking in. Procter & Gamble is moving its global headquarters from Cincinnati to Singapore, an unprecedented move which feels like a huge endorsement of Asia’s superiority in the global mix. That change is also driving prices up – the cost of living has already risen several times as foreigners flood into the city and the competition for apartments increases. It will be interesting to see how Singapore metamorphoses in the future. I for one am glad that its finding some kind of soul, the lack of which has always been my personal bugbear when it came to spending time there. I only hope that it manages to keep a balance, and that core values remain intact alongside the progressive change.

Sort your basics, Gen Y

I’m sorry people. I’m probably going to piss you off and sound like your grandmother. And given that I’m in my fourth decade (just!) I suppose that you could arguably assume that I’m over the hill, disconnected, out of touch, practically a dinosaur, too geriatric to tweet, completely uncool etc. But I can’t keep quiet any longer about some basic stuff which is really just bugging me.

As a schoolgirl, when mobile phones were only seen frequenting the sets of Star Trek, and doing research meant a trek to a dusty library rather than the click of a mouse, I was taught “proper” grammar. I hated the endless repetition of tenses, the ancient teacher who it seemed hailed from a different era, the mind numbing dry subject matter which required discipline and endless patience to get right. Who cared about errant apostrophes or whether it should be whom instead of who? Why would I ever need this stuff? My spoken and written English was pretty good, life is short and I really couldn’t see the need for it.

As a result of my very proper, old school grammar training, I’ve become a bit of a grammar nazi, but you know what? I write well, and I sound intelligent when I put pen to paper. I can’t stand sloppy grammar and spelling, and whilst I appreciate that some people struggle with spelling, and others don’t learn English as a first language, the combination of a lack of attention to the rigours of correct grammar, as well as sheer laziness are contributing to a complete decline into slothful communication. Since when is it OK, ever, to write “wen” instead of “when”? “Plz” instead of “please”? “Da” instead of “the” and my particular personal irritant– “gud” or “cud” instead of “good” and “could”? I appreciate that this is the Twitter generation my friends, and that you have to work within 140 characters, very often .. but why not just write less, and at least make yourself appear less idiotic?

OK so fair enough, I’ll let you off the grammatically correct Tweets. Tweet away with your codespeak, (codspeak?). Go for it. But don’t send me resumes and covering letters for jobs filled with spelling and grammatical errors. And then wonder why I don’t call you for an interview. And please don’t post shit on my Facebook timeline that makes the grammar obsessive inside me cringe, and spoil my morning.

Whilst I’m at it I might as well air my second bone of contention. Why oh why can’t you people be on time? OK I appreciate that the inability to be anywhere at a specified time isn’t strictly a Gen Y affliction, but I really don’t accept that you can’t be on time for a meeting which starts at noon. And that potential job seekers think its OK to be late for an interview and that an under the breath mumbled “couldn’t find your office” will make it all OK. Googlemaps, people, Googlemaps. What could be easier? Especially as you can search on your lovely smartphones whilst you are literally standing on the street.

There ends my rant. I never thought I’d end up sounding like my mother. But you know what, I just think you Gen Y guys have it too easy. You expect everything, now, and you want to take the easiest route from point A to point B.

Now flame me, shame me, call me old. But at least my grammatical integrity is intact, and I’m never late for meetings.

Disclaimer : There are obvious exceptions to the above. But I’m making a point.

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.