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)
