As much I love India and yes- I do love this place. I love the fact that I wake up and my home help is around, usually dusting. I love the fact that I just have to get ready and make my lassie (buttermilk) and go to work. Or get ready after making my lemon- honey water concoction to go to my yoga class. I love the yoga classes and am lucky to have found a competent Yoga Guru/ Teacher. I enjoy my organic coconut water and the boys from whom I buy a coconut after my yoga class. It’s become such a ritual that if I miss yoga for a while, they notice and ask where I have been. I love the convenience of ordering anything home through an app or otherwise, from groceries to vegetables, even salon services.
As for Beauty Salons, well they are a boon. If you have to go out, take a walk to your local salon or book an in- house service with the regular lady a day or two before and you’re done!
I love my maid who brooms and mops my house; she says a, “Hi” when she comes in and a, “OK, bye” as she leaves. There are house chores, which I do myself, like for example; I am very particular about my bathroom, so I clean it myself. I do the laundry but have the luxury of getting all my clothes ironed (unless it’s a last minute thing and I have to do it myself).
HOWEVER, I would still LOVE to go back to England any day. I want the pure air, the countryside to die for (which I used to take for granted) the back garden, the spacious kitchen, the food, the crunchy, fresh salads, and the array of cheese, the juicy strawberries and greasy fish and chips. I crave for PRIVACY of no help lurking around your home! The good quality and wide choice of clothes, the fine lingerie, delicate cosmetics and Christmastime……………
What I really miss the most about England is the civic sense, the courteous ways of dealing with everyday life. It’s an everyday issue……….a relentless problem, which I find the Indians fine very hard to imbibe within them. I don’t know why or where the problem lies but they just don’t get it. It’s as if they want o be first in everything; getting into a lift, in a queue (pretending that they didn’t know the queue existed!) and driving (they do not know how to GIVE WAY or wait)!
I don’t think I’ll ever “get- over” leaving England- my home. I can only resolve or console myself by thinking that I have found another home in India… And yes, I think I would miss it if I were ever to leave this too. So to be a healthy me, in mind and body, it is better to live in the present. It is very hard especially if you had been raised in such a distinguished country in sophisticated ways but perhaps this was meant to be…
I acquire these western waves of emotion from time to time, it’s natural; what’s close to the heart cannot be shunted. It’ll always remain inside, deep inside, forever. Writing all this was my catharsis… so happy Reading! Let me know what you think.
smritisinhanet 