It takes a holiday to end for one to realise what it all meant.For me it was a time of no responsibility,a time to see place that I had only read about.It was in someway like watching a movie after reading the book.Lovely but missing in some ways.Perhaps I ought to have refreshed my memories a bit,or even read up my literature or history before I left.Felt strangely inadequate.Its different when one is totally ignorant so the saying a little knowledge is a dangerous this couldn’t be more true.I had in effect forgotten almost all that I had read over the years.It came back to me when at oxford the guide recited “cats” and I realised that I knew the words.Or for that matter when the south African woman and I recited the “bells of London town” together and we both realised we had forgotten most of the words.
Then there was the traffic and the crowds.We took the car(a very unwise thing to do in London even on Sunday) and made our way from Ealing to Covent gardens.We reached Hammersmith and were stuck in traffic for an hour,we waited near a traffic light in from of Harrods for thirty minutes(thanks to some sri Lankan tamils protesting about something).In Indian by now tempers would have been on the boil,everyone would have cut lanes leading to bigger delays(who cares we just have to think about ourselves)and we would have been honking like there is no tomorrow.In Britain there is a deafening silence.Not a soul cut lanes.We waited patiently till our turn came to move(we are not british,very Indian),not once did we press the horn(there was no need to,everyone followed the rules).There were no pedestrians cutting across the road(I must confess we did it a couple of times in less traffic places)and no one swore at eachother.This is discipline,this is the quintessential English politeness that really gets me.The entire city is wired by camera,there is simply no question of breaking rules as the chances of getting caught with evidence is a hundred percent.Its part of their lives,they don’t question it.Could we do the same in India?.I think not.I tried it in a short trip of about a kilometre from my home and found that I could have killed a pedestrian, got hit by a bus and run over by a car (a bigger one than mine) and my hand had to be constantly on the horn.
Finally we arrive at Covent gardens.There are milling crowds but the only sound is that of the street performers.People talk in low voices and we automatically lower ours (the husband finds this a bit of a task but does so nevertheless).Not for them the shouting and yelling like some of us do.But then again there are more tourists than local people but we all fall in line.Its pretty amazing.
The English politeness is something else that gets me.Walk into any shop and be prepared to be greeted with “hello”.Its just one of those things,please and thank yous are also common place.Its nice to be so well mannered.The shop assistants are helfull,they don’t crowd you like they do in our country,one can shop at ones one pace and no one asks questions.If I did want clarifications they were all very well informed.I came to India and went shopping.No hello and when I did say thank you,I got stared at funny.So much for good manners.
The things I loved about
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