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.