The Canadian Experience

It's been almost seven weeks since my arrival on this part of the world. 11,993 km away from home, it does feel a totally different world altogether. Some of my observations...

(1) 13°C is summer. It is hot!

The day I landed in Quebec, I realized that summer means something very different here. Summer is the time to enjoy, to go out on the streets, have vacations and enjoy the world! The first day I was out on the streets of Quebec,happily covered in woolens, I was surprised to see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts! All I can say about the girls is that Shiv Sena would be really upset if girls in India wore such clothes ;)

(2) As I walked on the main arterial roads, I was aware that something is really different here. But to my utter dismay, I could not pinpoint what it was. No, I am not talking about the driving on the right (wrong?) side.There were fewer people on the roads, people followed traffic rules, the cars were all different... but it was something else, which was irking me.

I tried to visualize myself standing at the crossroads at Dharmatala, trying to figure out what it was. And then it hit me! The silence! No one was honking their head off trying to win the street race. The buses made no noise, almost as if they were electric buses. The trucks glided on the roads like well oiled machinery. Well, I am not exaggerating the silence, it is something which I found the strangest, in the land of the whites!

(3) The cars and the bikes!

The Americans and the Canadians like big cars! The SUVs and the pick-ups are huge, our Scorpios and Safaris would be dwarfed by the Ford F150s and the Dodge RAMs. Most people don't care much about fuel prices. Petrol, strangely, costs almost the same (135 cents to a liter), while the overall cost of living is many times higher. Let me give you an idea... I buy a bread loaf for 2.89$. At the same price, I can get more than 2 liters of petrol. So, it would be equivalent to getting 2l of petrol in 20Rs!

Most of the cars here are automatic cars. Driving them is like driving a go-kart. Though its easy to drive in stop-and-go traffic in the city, I would prefer a manual car anyday. The automatics drink a lot of 'gas'. It's still a mystery why the very liquidy petrol is called gas here!

(4) People here think less about food than we do. Lunch is a most often a quick sandwich, not the elaborate three course lunch we have. Dinner? People start planning their meal when they feel hungry, and dinner is ready in less than 15 minutes. Back home, I guess it takes a couple of hours to prepare lunch or dinner on an average.

(5) The people, at-least in Quebec, are overtly polite. People would smile at you for no reason, use thank-you, excuse-me and sorry with such abandon that you start to think whether something is wrong here. Which shopkeeper in India would say thank you because you entered his shop, wasted fifteen minutes of his time and didn't even buy anything?

(6) People have a very warped image about India. Most of them have seen Slumdog Millionaire, and believe that's what India is. I am often at pains to explain that Slumdog portrays only a tiny fraction of what India is really like, but it's tough competing with an oscar winning movie. Some conversations:

Me: Damn the bugs! (getting annoyed at the mosquitoes and the bugs up north)

Friend: Hey man! These mosquitoes are harmless! You got big fucking tigers everywhere in India!!

Hey.. do you still play Polo on elephants in India?

*my favourite*

Is it true that there are 1 billion people in India?

Well, its more like 1.2 billion.

Oh-my-Fu**ing-god !!! Where do all the people live?

me: Hi.. My name is Rajarshi

Friend: err sorry, I didn't get your name!

me: Raj-ar-shi. You can call me Raj.

Friend: Oh Raj! Like Raj Koothrapalli from Big Bang Theory?

*rolling eyes*

Some facts which I found interesting:

The population of West Bengal is 2.64 times the population of Canada and the population density of Kolkata is 7112 times that of Canada! (wiki)

The Web

This was written by me and Priyanka, my junior during a lit-club event at IISER Kolkata. It was a team writing event, where each one of us had to write a sentence, and then the other had to write the next sentence. And yes, we could not communicate with each other. The event was called Compatibility-meter. The first sentence was given to us.

The Web

Alice had strong views on social networking and she felt that one cannot make a billion friends without a few enemies. Not a day passed without her spending a couple of hours on the popular networking site, Facebook. That day too she was clicking-on-the-go when her eyes got stuck. The guy on the screen was strangely attractive, while at the same time unearthly. His sharp face was framed by jet-black hair falling onto his forehead and his eyes were deep and piercing. She took an impulsive decision to add him to her online friend’s list, never knowing that it would change her life forever. As she waited for the request to be accepted, a strange feeling of anticipation and excitement coursed through her. The request was accepted in a matter of seconds. And they began chatting in a flurry!

Months passed, and the friendship between Alice and Dibya turned into obsession. It was as if words unspoken had been understood for ages and they had known each other since eternity. Alice could never understand the mystery behind the pale enigmatic face of her online friend. He was always asking her questions she found impossible to avoid while she knew very little about him. She lost interest in everything, except Dibya. His words seemed ethereally hanging about her, even in her sleep.

Months turned into years, and Alice was deep in love with her online friend, without ever meeting him. It was their third anniversary Alice felt that she was into Dibya more than ever before. That day was a Friday, when certain thoughts started troubling her. She had got a friend request on Facebook from a girl and the only mutual friend they had was Dibya. She was troubled by the fact that Dibya was reluctant to talk about Ananya, and that he had never once mentioned her name in the last three years. Alice resolved to know more of Dibya from Ananya and she spent hours chatting with her which turned into a sort of passion with Ananya even appearing in her dreams.

One night, Ananya asked Alice to meet her urgently. She asked Alice just to move out, and she would inform of their meeting place by message. She wondered what could be so important that Alice couldn’t wait till the next day. As she hailed a taxi, Alice’s cell phone beeped and there came a message “Hare Lane, near the 10^th house”. Alice had never heard of this place, even the Taxi driver seemed reluctant to go there – claiming that the place was very desolate. As the Taxi sped by the lights of the city, Alice had thought of Dibya running in her mind and that of what Ananya would reveal about the love of her life. As she tiptoed into the alleyway, the anticipation turned into nervous panic. She saw the silhouette of a figure standing below a dim street light and felt the air about her turn chilly. Suddenly the street lights turned off and darkness engulfed her. Even her indomitable curiosity about Dibya could not keep her from meeting Ananya and she turned back and started to run.

Life was never the same again for Alice. She was reduced to a nervous wreck after that night, to a shadow of her former self, even as the people around her wondered about what had become of the sprightly, socializing girl. As she cut herself off from the rest of the world, she could not keep herself far from the enigmatic Dibya. The intensity of their relationship reached a zenith and Alice decided to spring a surprise on him who made up her life, and resolved to meet him. She used all her resources to find his address, but failed. Alice could bear no more, and sent one last message to Ananya with whom she had stopped all correspondence since that night. She miraculously got the elusive address from Ananya. Finally she was ready for the meeting of the life, and she set out right then.

As she approached the driveway of Dibya’s house, a strange sense of foreboding ensconced her. A knock on the door later, she heard shuffling footsteps dragging towards the door and Alice stood with her heart in her mouth. An old lady opened the door. She asked to an amazed Alice “Who are you?” “Hi! I am Alice; I am a friend of Dibya”. On hearing this, the countenance of the old lady underwent a drastic change. The lady broke down on hearing Dibya’s name. And then Alice heard the longest story of her life till her shock and tears outdid each other. The newspaper cutting she was holding in her hands was wet with her tears.

SERIAL KILLER HANGED TILL DEATH

17^th March 2007 – Dibya Chakravorty, the serial killer was hanged till death yesterday in the Central Jail. He was charged and convicted as guilty of murdering 17 girls aged between 18 and 26. Dibya had tortured and gouged out the eyes of his victims before slitting their throats, which categorized his case under the rarest-of-rare crimes. The parents of Ananya Sen, his last victim said “We are euphoric that finally justice has been done”. Dibya was known to befriend his victims on Facebook, the popular social networking website. The judge announced his sentence by saying that one cannot make a billion enemies without making a few friends.

Controlling her tears, her eyes roved back to the date- 17^th March 2007 – the day she had sent Dibya the friend request. Feeling confused and drained of her very soul, she returned home and started Facebook, the elixir of what had once been her life. A window popped up announcing a new message from Dibya – “I love you!” Alice clicked on the reply box and picked up the knife…

** THE END **