Wails from Wales.

Boys and Girls – I am back. Missing the motherland (I meant America, my dear fellow desis), its wide streets, junk food and large potato chips packets. Believe it or not, it is impossible to get the super size potato chips here, all you have is baby packs and a medium size one. Often the medium one has smaller packets in it, and this has been the cause of considerable angst for me lately. For I, being pseudo American, have been converted to a “large food” addict. Small cups of coffee have no mundane or metaphysical importance to me, as I am from the land where smallest is called ‘Tall’ and ‘Grande’ in starbucks means humongous. (Obviously, they didn’t want people to embarrass themselves when they said “One humongous caramel macchiato to go, please.”)

So, here in the UK, things are small. Streets, food, books (fine print). For my women readers, I do not know about other things, so don’t you dare ask me about that.

The left side drive thing is also fairly straightforward, since I did not drive much in India I was initially perturbed by the roundabouts but the rules are fairly easy, you just yield to the traffic in the roundabout. Fortunately, no frantic hand waving is required as in India – I remember my father used to ask me to stick my hand out and wave it slightly when negotiating the perilous Gol Dak-khana roundabout, this was an important step and missing out on this might cause considerable confusion on the road.

But I am digressing, as my initial intent was to denigrate Britain as compared to America, which I will proceed to do so. Continuing on the driving etc., you do not find streets crossing at right angles here – often times you can loop on one street to go in an acute angle away from the original direction, and worst case is of-course the roundabout that I mentioned earlier. Motorways are two or three lane at the most and you cannot be sure what direction you are going on it. Then you can pass only on the right lane, but hell I pass on every lane so who cares.

The UK itself is not one country really. It comprises of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England – who all the others passionately dislike. Other things apart, I think the hatred stems from the fact that English women might be better looking than their eastern counterparts. You know how petty people can be, sometimes. All these people speak different accents of the language. People are friendly, and by the way, marks and spencers gives out free hangers for clothes. (I can see some eyes lighting up, you cheapos!)

One thing is for sure – The UK has its own native culture that is rich and worthwhile. Southern Cal (I cant speak for other regions of America) is just a mish mash of international cultures and whatever was native there (was it the chumash or wumash indians) hundreds of years ago has been exterminated by Taco Bell and Footlocker. The UK still has its castles, there is a stone henge kind of monolith formation in a park close to my house which seems a million years old, undead people walking all around it past midnight(kidding).

Can we please start building a country that has everything people like me want? Let’s team up, I think we can target one of those islands in the pacific. Warm weather, south indian music, american freeways and english women. Wokay?