There are things that are endemic to each country that other people find inexplicable. Here are a few ads and announcements that have me flummoxed.
- Trains will not be stopping at Victoria station today due to excessive dust on the station.
Really?By that logic, the Virar local can only stop at the coach shed. maybe not even there- God Forbid, there might be Excessive Dust!
- And Ad on the Telly: 'Oasis- The chuggable fruitiness for people who don't like water'
Hasn't their mother ever told them of the millions of people dropping dead in third world countries because they don't have clean water to drink??? What kind of people are these? are you sure they are the same species as us???
Children who opt for eduation above the age of sixteen get paid by some boroughs to stay in school!
The cost of a litre of ice-cream and a bottle of mineral water is about the same.
Pureed tomato (in a tube) is cheaper than whole, raw tomatoes.
An ad on the telly asks you to contribute 3 pounds a month to keep some dogs in kennels, but another wants just 2 pounds to stop prevention of cruelty to children. (and guess which ads are played more frequently)
and Oh- Flash Floods! They make headline news... just to be clear what the idea of a flash flood here is: ten minutes of heavy rains (the kind we get for two continuous day in july in Mumbai)
Shall keep everyone posted as more googlies are thrown my way.
14 comments:
Wandered here after a while... and I'm completely delighted to see this post. I'd written a similar letter (handwritten, really) to a friend when I just arrived in America as a legal alien. A cauliflower costs as much as a phone (ok, a cheap phone, but still). Cats routinely sleep on the big bed with the inmates of the house, but children - NEVER! And flash floods here mean pretty much the same as they do in the UK, and amazed me as much as they did you :-)
Heh!
I can identify with most of that.
Do they call ground floor as first floor there?
you sound completely like my father . i think he dreads being to london
hey... totally relate it
completely identify + apoo's floor theory (i was aghast when i was told that my room was in third floor and the building had only two... i thought they were already playing the colour game by making me stay on the terrace)
but again... you didnt write what matters to US (you and me... not the country) the most... 1 KG CURD is costlier than 1KG meat (and its not sour also)
cloudy: Lol... Can you believe it? i never thought I'd see the day when i looked longingly at fresh ladiesfingers, and rationed it out so it'd last longer!
Apoo: mercifully, no. But you do get strange looks when you call the boot of the car the
'dickie' ;D
ruch: i hope to God you mean i sound wise.
Priya: :D with so many 'legal aliens' of Indian origin in the world they should be more sensitive to our needs, nei?
Iyer:nyah nyah... found the miracle of wal-mart (ASDA to be precise)here, and I am wallowing in affordable (albeit non-sour) curd.
My first time here.
It is interesting how one can see things in a different culture that are so normal to the people of the same culture.
What's interesting in my case is, once I got used to the new culture, I started noticing things about Indian culture that I didn't notice before :)
"pounds to stop prevention of cruelty to children"
Accidental double negative? :)
Twisted: really? what are our quirks? apart from the ghastly peter-sellers-in-the-party stereotype?
nice stuff to read... :D
Achchha hai!
I am an alien from Canada-- I call a shopping cart a 'buggy' here and ten police officers arrive to arrest me for speaking a foreign language. I say 'oot' instead of owwwwt (out) and people gather round and touch my face, my arms, my whatever, to see if I'm really human. Sometimes I forget to breathe out after I breathe in which causes me to turn various shades of blue but I don't think that has anything to do with my alien status--or maybe it does. Anyway I have just entered the blogosphere and feel I belong here. Check me out. I'm a freakin' trip.
TWM
theworstmother.blogspot.com
ooohhh yaaa... its the same here (the US) as well. Grows on you after a while :)
achoo! achooooooo! ayyo blossomes ewe pliss excusing me. achooooo! achoooooo!
wildflower: thanks! don't be a stranger now!
Biswanath Ghosh: Dhanyavaad!
TWM: oot? they say that here. the first time they said it I though they were trying to make me feel at home by speaking in hindi! (oonth means a camel in hindi)
Loca: gosh I hope not! HOw else will i derive my source of entertainment?
BLoom: ewe is havings teh cold? teh flooo? the virus?
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