Where have all the Brits gone?

I make no bones about my Anglophilia. Like most Indians of my vintage – caught between old rotary dial phones and the first tentative mobile phones – I grew up on Wodehouse & James Herriot, walked among old Gothic structures in areas called Fort, Churchgate, and Marine Drive, and wondered what fish and chips tasted like. I was (am actually, of course) the scion of a father who had not only studied Law in one of those Gothic Structures, but was adept at solving crossword puzzles of The Times, wrote “Esq.” after his name and frowned upon meaningless abbreviations. And was able to tie a Windsor knot effortlessly.

My friends in college were of similar persuasion and many a pleasant hour was spent on the cricket field boundary wall facing our college discussing Wodehouse and the doings of Wooster. In fact, if I removed my spectacles and gazed at the cricket field, I could be forgiven for thinking I was watching a match in rural Shropshire.

I visited London for the first time in 1992. My emotions on first arriving in The City (via Paris but that’s another blog) were understandably incoherent. I was all a-twitter (yes, the word existed even in the 90s and meant a completely different thing) and could barely wait to reach Oxford Street and imbibe…Englande! I tumbled out of the Underground and onto the Street, took a deep breath, and heard a peremptory voice asking for directions to Wembley… in Gujarati! I looked wildly around but all I could see and hear was non non-English folks and tongues (with Indian folks and tongues predominating).

Over the years I came to terms with this divergent binary to all that I held dear about the Dear Country. I put it down to that quaint British habit of taking rather than giving. I met natives (of my country) who were more English than the Archbishop of Canterbury. I met natives who had long strings of alphabets after their names or had a “Lord” prefixed to a decidedly Kathiawari or Gangetic-plain origin name. In all this I was reassured that the things that I held to be Truly British – the Queen, the BBC, the Prime Minister, fish and chips, tea, and cricket – were Truly British. These would never be anything but.

But of late, that reassurance has been shaken. Profoundly. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the First Minister of Scotland and the Taoiseach of Ireland are of South Asian origin. The newly appointed Director-General of the BBC was born in a dusty town to the north-east of Mumbai, India. The current and previous two Home Secretaries of the Sceptered Isle trace their origins to the colonies. Chicken Tikka Masala, and not Fish and Chips, is the preferred cholesterol inducer.

Do not get me wrong. All these individuals have succeeded to the highest levels in their chosen profession by dint of hard work and talent. They deserve to be, or not to be, where they are. CTM, though a hideous amalgamation of chicken and cream which should never have been permitted to exist, speaks to the soul of every Ordinary Englishman in his cups.

Still, Where Are The Brits?

Summer's a bummer

I have never felt kinship with ovens. They signify heat, burning, and a Vulcan-ish degradation that does no good to anyone. But I live in Dubai. Where nature itself becomes an oven in summer, and man, like steak, transforms into a sizzling mass of melting fat and brown skin.

To most people, summer is beaches, ice creams, chilled beers, even colder Chablis, and bikinis. To others, it is peeling noses, blistered skin, and red rashes. Happy days, essentially. Especially for those who live in European climes, where rain, fog, mist, and grey are the most frequently used words.

Summer creates a two-way traffic lane. The folks who call this country home go back to their actual homes, or congregate in said grey climes, glad to be away from the near-blinding sunshine, roads crowded with the pale migrants, and heat that can fry eggs on the pavement (been there, done that...). The city is suddenly overrun with paunchy, pale migrants from grey, dystopian lands, hoping to soak in the heat, get sand in their sandals and proudly carry back the "Dubai Tan". In this part of the world, sun, sand, blue sky, and air conditioning are part of the landscape. Like Chicken Tikka Masala in Brixton.

Where I live, summer is not so much a weather pattern as a retail extravaganza. Summer implies massive "sales", "fantastic offers", and stock clearance promotions of last year's parkas and woolens. Because we trade in everything which can earn a margin!

If you are here at this time of the retail calendar, summer is something to be enjoyed from the icy-cool confines of your home, office, car, or nearest temple to retail excess. Though near-nudity is frowned upon, most people in the open push the margin (aka the hemline) as much as possible without being bunged into the dark confines of a holding cell (also air conditioned, by the way).

Summer is all very fine and dandy. But when you live in a country where the sun shines for most of the year, ditto blue skies, the temperature in summer is that of a rare steak (pardon the meaty references), and rain is a four-letter word you read about in rare manuscripts, you do yearn for a touch of the Boreas, a whiff of cold, and a nod to Jack Frost.

I can take summer or leave it. In my home country, summer was a precursor to the monsoon and the start of the new school term, both in June. These are not happy memories. My name means "winter", and though not a cold person, I am happiest in this weather.

And where I live, winter is not so much a weather pattern as a retail extravaganza. And the temperature is akin to a well-iced Riesling.

On a head lies a crown

You would have to be in your 80s or 90s to have watched both an earlier coronation and the one today, of a monarch of the "United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms". Since I am not in the age band mentioned, the chance to watch the coronation ceremony today was a once in a lifetime occasion (hopefully).

I couldn't watch today's ceremony in its entirety - a common man's labour is a burden not to be mocked at - but I did follow a bit. And no doubt, yards of media real estate will be devoted to the event in the days to come. So I am assured of enough fodder to feed my curiosity, nosiness, and general interest in trivia.

And I suppose (and hope) that this post will also go down as part of the coronation archives.

There are many monarchs scattered around the globe - some serving, some retired, some forced out. But none of them can come close to generating the grandeur, history, and plain spectacle-worthiness of a British monarch.

The British monarch carries more history on their (damn pronouns) shoulders than most other monarchs. A central part of social and political life in the island for the better part of a thousand years, and a global phenomenon for nearly 300 years, the British monarchy get its share of barbs today, well into the 21st century.

But modernity is nothing but the continuity of tradition in new clothes, so the enthronement of a new monarch today was merely a part of the continuum that is the British monarchy. And never mind if the commoners (read republicans) moan about the lack of relevance of this institution.

The late Queen Elizabeth II was considered a "mother figure" by most Britishers, and her passing was almost unthinkable. Especially because it happened so suddenly. But the immediate declaration of the current King as the new monarch (aka Head of State) assured the public of continuity, if not synchronicity with the mood at large.

Unlike other monarchies, the British monarchy is a very familiar feature to most people on the planet. Most of our ancestors were "subjects of the crown" at one time (I remember trying to claim "British ancestry by virtue of my grandfather and father being British subjects", when asked why I should be given a British visa). 

Due to this massive footprint of Empire, I sometimes feel that there are more "Brits" outside the British Isles than in the Isles! Most former colonies still cling to most things British, while the colonies seem to have colonised the UK entirely. Remember, the Prime Minister is of Indian origin and the First Minister of Scotland is of Pakistani origin. On my first visit to Oxford Street as a wide-eyed, dyed-in-the-wool Wodehouse fan, I could only hear Gujarati! And when I asked a pale-skinned lad where the Brits were he replied "Can't say, I'm Irish." In my 12 visits to the country since then, I have met a Baronet, a Lord, and the richest person in England. All are Indian. Many of the key players in today's coronation are of non-British ancestry, and this flexibility of accommodation is a key feature of today's monarchy in the United Kingdom.

There is much chatter about the monarchy being a closed user group due to its inherent "heriditary" nature. That the monarch is an accident of birth. That it's not a given that a monarch may have the ability to lead. But there is much to be said about absorbing "leadership" and "ruler" traits from a thousand years of collective family experience. Yes there are the bad eggs - which farm doesn't have them? But the British monarch has a very visible, active, and involved role in the Armed Forces of the country, and the entire sequence of responsibility to, and of, the armed forces (a much loved and respected institution in any country), is something that underscores the centrality of the monarchy to life in the UK. And being part of the Armed Forces does imbue one with leadership traits. If nothing else, you learn to bite the bullet. Or dodge it. Depends on your outlook and position in life.

Today the British monarch is more an advertising campaign for their country rather than a "ruler of all that they survey" (I really need a solution to these pronouns!) The pomp and pageantry of today's coronation is no doubt as much a media success as an organisational one! As long as the TRPs and talking heads see merit and value (even transitory) in the monarchy, I see no immediate threat to this institution. 

Be that as it may, as someone who lives in an absolute monarchy in the Middle East, I know that the bonds tying the monarch to their subjects can be as strong or as tenuous as the monarch wants. I can see the huge respect and affection given to the rulers of the country where I live, and how they respond in kind.

And on that note, let me return to my tea and cucumber sandwiches with chutney.

God Save The King!

Junetenth

I hated June. Primarily because it heralded the start of yet another laborious, benighted, sodden academic year. In India the academic year for all levels of education (such as it is) starts around the 10^th of June. This dystopian situation is compounded in Bombay by the onset of the monsoon season, with its grey skies, flooded rail tracks and damp, garbage strewn roads. I wasn’t particularly enthused by education at that time, and I am sure the feeling was mutual.

Bombay in my growing up years wasn’t a pleasing place at any time of the year, but the monsoon made it particularly noisome, fit for neither man nor beast (the average Bombayite falls into neither category, so he is totally fit for purpose.) As a student I was in an intermediary stage of evolution and my pleas to avoid school during this season, for fear of potential damage to my nascent psychological well-being, were fobbed off with earnest exhortations of how education was important to Get Ahead in Life!

I particularly disliked this period of the year due to the necessity of walking to school with a bag full of books – I abhor all forms of physical exertion except turning the pages of a book or raising a glass or fork to my mouth. My school was about 3 miles from home and the parent body felt the exercise would build a growing body and mind. Umbrellas of course were not an option to keep both boy and books safe and dry. The raincoats then in popular use barely reached one’s ankles and made the wearer look like a sherpa with a secret sorrow.  With the dampness seeping in through rubber shoes and making the socks wet, said boy was miserable, to put it mildly.

College years didn’t change my point of view of Junetenth, at least in Bombay. However, opportunities for travel began to show themselves and I discovered the joys of traipsing through boroughs and vales, hills and plains away from Bombay. The new-found liberty of parking oneself in a restaurant overlooking a verdant vista on a side road to somewhere and titillating the taste buds with tea and fried foods (apparently a Thing in the monsoon) helped reduce the mordant dislike that I used to feel for Junetenth.

Coming to man’s estate I found myself in Paris one grey September day, set to

rise further in the realms of academe. It was fall, it was raining that day, and it was raining heavily. But to my utter surprise, I found myself standing in the rain on the street outside the métro station and absorbing the genteel, delicate drops falling on my upturned face. The air felt fresh and clean, the roads were glistening like the lips of a beautiful woman drinking wine and the sheer profusion of colourful rainwear lifted my spirits no end. Of course, my spectacles misted up and I caught the death of a cold after that and was laid up for almost a week with fever and the shivers. But the realisation dawned on me that Junetenth was no more a problem!

The academic season in this developed and beautiful country starts in September, when the weather is fit for spoils and strategems of love, good wine and long walks (as Shakespeare would have said if he had lived in Paris as a student.)

I now look upon rain as a partner in fun and an affirmation that life is not just a four-letter word!

Ego, Igitur Scribo

I stuttered badly as a child. Really badly. I couldn’t even speak an entire sentence fluently, leave alone hold my own in a debate or other verbal activity. Growing up in the 70s and going through the rigors of education by numbers, I developed an extreme form of shyness and preferred my own company.

This shyness and preference to be in a shell made me gravitate towards the written word. I found books (not textbooks of course) to be a convenient and easy escape from the taunts and “sticks and stones” as Shakespeare put it so nicely. Books also allowed me to think – which I could without stuttering.

I also discovered a flair for languages and found French to be a wonderfully expressive language in which to put down ardent words of love and desire (though these were never delivered to actual living persons). And most importantly, I didn’t stammer at all when I spoke in French!

From reading to writing was a natural progression (though the third R wasn’t, and isn’t, my forte at all). Writing allowed me to express myself fluently, without halting, hesitating or pausing. In school, I delighted in writing essays, short stories and other pieces of prose. Esoteric topics like “The Autobiography Of An Umbrella” or “A Trip Through The Rain In India” were easy as pie for me. I could write, and keep writing, without fear of breaks or mockery. Long form essays and literary critiques in college were finger-snappingly easy!

I discovered a few channels on which to write - no digital platforms then but essentially the “middles” of prominent newspapers and some newsletters recommended by friends. The newspapers of course rejected my submissions without grace or gentleness. But I still treasure (and framed) the first ever rejection note I got – at least they bothered to reply! I also got opportunities to do English-French-English translations and earned enough to pay for my ticket to France for higher studies.

I started working in advertising and found myself doing more copy work than client relations. The opportunities to meet writers in different languages who could weave magic with words was exhilarating beyond…words! I also got opportunities to work in PR where I could use my writing skills to generate a lot of content such as press releases, white papers, ghost articles for clients and so on. This also helped me learn how to shape my thoughts and writing flow into coherent content and not just confused rambles on a page!

I moved to Dubai in the early naughties and continued to work in advertising. One of my core functions was to manage copy and content for all my clients. I thus got a chance to practice my writing skills on a wider canvas and explored industries as diverse as foods, airlines, telecom, medical services and financial services. The growth of the internet, social media and digital channels, and the development of the “smart phone”, gave me innumerable opportunities for pithy, silly or plain thought-provoking content which could be published at the click of a button.

I also started a blog to document the quirks, delights and tragedies of everyday life. You are reading this on my blog!

To conclude, my motto is “Ego, Igitur Scribo” – I Am, Therefore I Write. I can think of no more fulfilling activity than writing and I can’t wait to put down all the ideas jostling in my head on to paper till the ink dries out!

Shifting houses is a moving experience.

For someone who is loth to move more than a metre or two in any direction, and who believes a nomadic existence is against all civilised norms, I have moved homes 7 times in my decade and a half in this heathen outpost. From barely 3 months (hurried midnight departure after the building was sealed by the authorities) to a decade in a hotel apartment on one particular street, my tent-pegging in Dubai has covered all types of sand and many miles.

The latest – 8^th – move was on New Year’s Day 2022 (a rainy day with glooming clouds) to the City of Smiles – Sharjah. About 20 miles nor’nor east of Dubai as the falcon flies, and 20 minutes’ drive on a weekend or at the witching hour. The weekday drive can be at least an hour, thanks to a complicated route design that makes several roads spiral and circle the overlap area between the two cities, and then merge onto just two expressways. I believe people carry emergency rations on their daily run. But since I am working from home these earthly considerations do not spoil my appetite nor my sleep.

Moving home is traumatic, to say the least. And I don’t mean only on the emotional front of uprooting self and putting down new roots. I am not one for “new experiences” at the best of times and nostalgia is a huge part of my mental outlook (read my post on nostalgia).

The whole exercise of packing, discarding unwanted mementoes of one’s rather chequered existence (which were wanted just the previous week), transporting the lot to the new shed and unpacking and displaying the assets is a back-breaking, draining activity fraught with angst and desperate pleas to various Gods for redemption. Besides, this entire activity goes against all known laws of physics and nature’s rules on vacuums - how two cupboards are not enough for goods that slumbered peacefully for years inside a drawer is a Buddhist conundrum that cannot be answered with mere coffee.

There is also the very existential revelation that one's life can be packed in a few bags.

But we have benefits. One, a bigger house with a…separate front room and bedroom! This is important for someone who has lived for the majority of his life in a studio apartment. Two, my very own writing desk and chair. Three, sylvan surroundings (though one window looks out onto a building site that resembles a bombed out space in some of the more excitable Arab cities). Four, a less hyperbolic and glitzy environment, which resembles a typical Arab city. And finally discovering my collection of glassware makes the chest puff out. Pride of place of course goes to my Khukri and samurai swords.

And the unexpected joy of discovering restaurants with interesting names.

I am reminded of my parents’ exhortations to move up in life. Looking out from the balcony of this 8th floor apartment, I am happy that I have finally done that.

Wind beneath my wings

 

Parenting cannot be taught or learnt in advance, even though there are many hundreds of “How To” books on the topic. It’s learning on the job.

My father was at the tail end of the brood that his parents looked after, and one would expect that he benefitted from the cumulative learning thus acquired. And that this learning would be deployed for the wellbeing of his own trio (I have a feeling I was the accident of the family but that’s neither here nor there.)

As a child – and even after reaching man’s estate for that matter - I did not have any yardstick for comparing the way my father exercised his fatherhood over me and how others exercised theirs. I did have expectations honed by an intensive study of global cultures and practices (mainly Archie comics and Wodehouse books) but I soon realised that these were good only in theory.

I grew up as part of a large family of which a substantial number was elder to me. So, while respect was accorded to divers uncles and older brothers, who were treated like “father figures”, the relationship duality (that of give and take) functioned only with my father. He spoke, I listened. He commanded, I executed. He roared, I slipped under the covers.

I suppose that today my father would be considered a “hands off” parent, content with leaving the minutiae of daily upbringing to his wife and mate (the same person, I hasten to clarify.) He had a sense of responsibility towards not just his immediate family but to our extended family. He played the role of father figure to a whole raft of children in the family both onshore and offshore and bobbing somewhere in the merry throng was his direct heir (the genes ensured that I stood tall in the crowd.) Being a man of huge intellect and with a silent, brooding and somewhat forbidding demeanour, to approach him for anything was an act of courage akin to putting a hand on a sleeping tiger.

He was not one to lavish words or gestures of affection. He preferred to show that he cared through concrete action. Action for which he expected no recognition or thanks. He was the quintessential man in the shadows, content doing his duty as he knew best for his Quartet (mom and us siblings) and others. And when he felt he had done what he could by everyone around him, he slipped out quietly through the door. Three years ago, today.

So, while Mom provides the ailerons to give direction to my life, Dad continues to be the wind beneath my wings. And since a father expects no thanks, I will not thank him. I will only keep walking on the path he showed me. And hope that when I meet him again he will complete that story of the former secretary to the Jamsaheb of Nawanagar and the Morris Minor car.