An Easter Update.

Its been a cold and lengthy winter, but finally signs of spring are beginning to show.The days have become longer and milder, the sun seems a little less shy, trees have initiated the first buds of new leaves and the daffodils, a sure sign of spring, have begun to bloom all around the place. Back in India, we generally enjoy sunshine all the year round and take it for granted, but here the seasons have so much say on the moods of people, that there is even a disorder called the “seasonal affective disorder” associated with winters, during which people get distressed and depressed. About 1 in 8 people are known to be affected by this disorder in Britain, and recent research has even linked a gene to it.
Anyhow, a reassuring sign that spring is finally here is the arrival of Easter (Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox). While the religious people here celebrate Easter in the traditional way by going to church, two common associations of Easter, with the general public are the Easter egg and Easter bunny. The Easter egg is usually made from chocolate and is said to represent the tomb from which Jesus Christ broke forth. The Easter bunny however, has a non Christian origin, dating back to the Pagan times.
There is a long weekend consisting of four days holiday here, and my celebration was once more with my Spanish friends – Ovi and Martha. Its been great having them around, and I’m saddened by the fact that they will be heading back to Spain next month. In any event, I decided to treat them to a little Indian cooking! As you may be aware my cooking skills are still experimental and it is still a risk submitting people to it!
However Martha and Ovi played sport and welcomed me over for the “experiment”.
Our first obstacle came when we realized that it was Easter Sunday and most shops were shut. However we did manage to find an open one and decided to do the best we could with what we could find there. So it was that we ended up with a medium sized uncut chicken, a tub of plain yoghurt , two large onions a pod of garlic, a bottle of French wine and a large tub of Ice cream!.....boy, how does one make a meal out of that?
With the French wine to calm our nerves, we put aside the meal problems and started a nonstop gossip session, with me sharing Indian stories and they sharing Spanish ones. Ovi is a member of a Spanish heavy metal band called Bifrost. If you are interested in progressive metal music do visit this link where you can download some of his music.
It was the gnawing of hunger that brought us back to the problems to tackle and we worked out that while I would play chef, Ovi would try his hand at being the butcher, while Martha would supervise! This we managed to pull of great.
Between the items we had bought and what was already there in the house I decided to go for a chicken curry with rice. Trusting my long experimented formula, I sautéed the onions, garlic and tomatoes and scooped in a few spoonfuls of curry powder and salt. When that was all done, in went Ovi`s methodically dissected chicken pieces…a little cooking followed and then a few scoops of yoghurt...more salt …a little water…and a little boiling…bingo, the curry was ready to go! The rice posed little problems, and with all that wine in our stomachs adding to the rumblings…we were ready to eat anything!
Without sounding too self complimentary, it turned out to be a great meal. And we hardly had any space to gobble up the ice cream that followed. After an hour or two of chatting over the T.V, and allowing the body to process its digestion. We were finally able to rise from the table. It turned out well past midnight by the time I made my way home…stomach still full of chicken curry and head full of French wine, but what was most satisfying was a heart full of precious moments of friendship shared.

British Eccentricities

It’s now been a year and a half since my arrival here in the U.K., that’s long enough to have gotten used to the novelty of British life and short enough to still maintain the curiosity. Over this time I’ve come to marvel and wonder and sometimes shake my head at the British way of life. Before I get so used to it, that it becomes my way of life too, let me attempt to document a few things that makes the British tick.
Beer:

How can I not start with this one! It is rare to find a Briton who will not retire at the end of the day with a pint of beer. Getting together for a beer in one of the numerous local pubs is as much a way of life here in the U.K, as the keralite would do in the local tea shop. Here, everything happens in the pubs - meeting friends, local quiz programs, and even getting a date. You could go to any remote corner of Britain, and while you may struggle to find a post office, you would surely find a pub. There are more than 60,000 pubs in the U.K., and the average Briton consumes 99.4 litres of beer every year. Gosh, I’m not sure if I drink half that amount of water! And , they have enough varieties and brands of beer to satisfy everyone’s taste….the light lager and dark bitter being the most popular, for those who prefer a thicker creamier texture, there is the Guinness, which is Irish, and if you don’t like the bitter taste, then go for the cider, which is made from apples and is sweet….with all this beer doing its rounds especially on the weekends, and the ensuing hangovers, you can bet why Mondays are the most hated days for the British.

Coffee breaks:

When the British are not drinking beer, they are sipping coffee. Initially I thought the British were famous for drinking tea, but from what I’ve seen so far, its coffee they crave. I`m not a coffee fan, but if you are, then like beer, you are spoilt for choice, with numerous subtlevariations like Espresso, Cappuccino, Café latte e.t.c. But hey what I do like is sweet stuff, and so it is most difficult for me to accept the fact that the British prefer their coffee without sugar!!!
Imagine my shock when I bought my first cup of British coffee!...anyway, what I wanted to talk about is not so much about coffee but coffee breaks. They just love it, every job comes with a coffee break, and infact I think coffee breaks are what motivate people to work . .
They just love to sip on their coffee and chat the 10 minute break into 15 or 20 minutes if possible…and when they finally do get back to work, they are fuelled by the dose of caffeine to last it out till the next break. I sometimes wonder if this nation is driven by coffee

Holidays:
Now this is another crazy thing, the British will die for, “Holidays”. Here the word is used to describe a travel or a tour to some distant land, and not the idle day that crops up once in a blue moon in the annual Indian calendar. If the average Briton wins a lottery or a game show on T.V., and is asked what he`ll do with the money, you can be sure his answer will be “I`m going on a holiday”…and by that he means “ I`m going to spain, or france or India or wherever. The holiday is built into every Britons calendar.. Few are the people who have not gone somewhere abroad. Even the students after completing a year at university, take a year or so off just to travel and see the world. I`ve met so many peole who`ve travelled to India, and many more who are planning to do so. These people are the true travellers. No wonder they conquered half the world

Dogs:
Britain is a nation of animal lovers. Over 50% of the homes in the U.K have pets. That’s amazing…how many city homes in India will have a cat or dog? Very few. Here you can find it in every second home! Among the pets are some 7.7 million cats, 6.6 million dogs, one million budgerigars and 18 million goldfish not to mention the creepy crawly ones. However the most visible pet is most definitely the Dog. You just cannot venture into the streets without seeing a dog and its owner…and they come in all shapes and sizes. These people are crazy about dogs, I sometimes feel it would have been great to be born as a dog in the U.K. They are treated almost like humans. Every supermarket here has an entire aisle just for cat and dog food, and believe you me they don’t come cheap…and of course they have the silly stuff such as clothes, beds heaters and toys ,all just for dogs . Oh yeah doggie programs frequent the BBC too..But the weirdest thing here is that dog owners have to clean up if their dogs shit in a public place such as a roadside or a park. So its common to see people picking up shit here!!! But inspite of that, picking up dog shit is not something humans like to do and as a result, the commodity is as common as cow shit on the roads of India

Celebrities:

Poking you nose into other peoples lives is not something British are famous for, then why I wonder, the obsession of the Brits for celebrity gossip. Britain today is in the grip of a celebrity era. Everybody who is somebody is considered a celeb here. T.V. shows cover their lives(the height of which is one called “Big Brother “show) and magazines pick up their every move. The common people latch onto every detail and ask for more, while secretly nursing hopes of a celebrity status for themselves someday! The whole British entertainment industry seems obsessed with creating celebrities, and much of the public chatter is dominated by celebrity talk, its not general knowledge that matters here, but celeb knowledge. If you want to be in with the crowd, you’d better follow you television closely and make sure u know who your daily soap opera actors are!

Football
Coming to the ultimate English love- football. So what if the English didn’t invent it, they’ve patented it! If there is one thing that unites the country as much as it divides it, then its football. It is ironic that such a football crazy country has no single national football team, instead England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate teams. These teams used to play each other regularly before the championship was discontinued due to crowd trouble. Oh yeah football and crowd trouble go hand in hand here, but that’s another story. However apart from the individual nations, every region has their league team and everybody supports a team, that’s women and children included. There are hundreds of interlinked leagues with thousands of divisions in the English league system. Every game in the league is followed with passion, most games are telecast live in pubs, if not watched in stadiums, sports pages are dominated by football talk and other matters are put away. Others like our much loved cricket, barely gets a mention at the best of times.! This is a nation that lives on football.

Hobbies
Football may be the universal love, but each person here seems to have a specific hobby that he pursues with a serious obsession. Its amazing what people are into. Some of the wildest things that we’d never think of as a serious hobby back in India. Sailing, surfing , rock-climbing, fishing, cycling, scuba diving, roving, gliding,e.t.c are just the most popular ones. How about paintballing,(shooting each other with balls of paint!), octopush (underwater ice hockey!) , Lawn bowling, Bottle kicking or hurling…..beats you doesn’t it? Stuff you’ve never heard of, but these people do it every week with a passion. They make sure one day of the week at least , is set aside for it, and they really enjoy what they do.
Those are just some of the things that had me gripped. There’s plenty more I`m only coming to grips with. Like their obsession with having babies, or taking a shot at the Americans while blindly imitating them, their mindless wastage of resources, and their disregard for religion while still being respectful. Sometimes I’m lost when I think of these people, I wonder what makes them tick, why do they do the things they do with such passion. People from all over the world come over here and without fail, end up criticising the English life and the people here….but I wonder if behind all that criticism lies a bit of envy. Admit it, in spite of their eccentricities, the English are something special…They may not have everything perfect, but they have shown the rest of the world the way. Their way of life is what set the standards and their language is what half the world speaks. In spite of the damp weather and tasteless food, there is still something special about the U.K and its people. Is that not why people still flock over here?