“I here swear fealty and do homage to the Supreme Governor of the Church of England; to ever be a good knight and true, reverent and generous, shield of the weak, obedient to my liege-lord, foremost in battle, champion of the right and the good.
Thus swear I, Echelon.”
….and I woke up.
Well Knighthood has always been one of my quixotic dreams. How good would it feel to have a “Sir” appended to one's name?Maybe I also get to save a damsel in distress!
In this post I talk about my visit to the land of erstwhile rulers of India and my grand-motherland…Great Britain. Rest assured I am not your average Indian traveller to phoren lands, for instance I don't go to places like Madame Tussauds and get my picture clicked with a waxwork figure of some kiss-my-golden-ass actor. Moreover I am a private person and I don’t seek much attention but while I was trying “man skirts” (I find the term Kilt mildly offending) in Scotland...the prince decided to honour my visit by marrying on 29th of April...my birthday. I told him I don't want him to make a fuss out of my visit to UK but boy would he listen!
Well to be honest I was mighty disappointed when I saw that men here wore jeans and stuff and there I was, expecting to see people with hats, trench coats and walking sticks! Where is Sherlock Holmes!!! It’s been almost 9 months here and I am still trying to figure out the correct to response to the ever vexing “You all right?”(pronounced “U orrite?”). Aren’t English supposed to greet with a…
“How do you do?” ???
Thanks to Hollywood I thought that every guy in the western countries has a six-pack abs and every woman was a blonde bombshell…I was grossly mistaken. The Ratio of Fit people:Fat people and Hot Women: Ugly Women is almost as same as India. One another myth was that you can’t make a mess in the public places or you get fined by the authorities. Hello!? I peed in half the streets across London (thanks to the encouragement of a drunk friend of mine) and I have seen both men & women doing the same! People here keep their cities clean out of choice and not compulsion.
I have also noticed that while bitching about their own country,Indians who have visited “Phonren” lands never forget to mention the fact about how polite everyone is and even complete strangers smile & greet you. Well that’s true but the next time you go to the friendly neighbourhood paan-waala in India for a smoke, try greeting everyone you see. We are a country with a 1 billion population some social norms don’t apply to us. Thanks to the great return policy here I also understand why online shopping would not work in India for a century or two.
One of the things that did impress me was their planning of their cities, towns, roads and most of all the traffic control system. At one point in history the British controlled most of the world. Do you get the link now? Well if you send half your population to go and conquer the world then you have all the time and space you require to plan as much as you like! If you get stuck in a motorway traffic jam, there are electronic road signs to tell you how long will it take you to get out of the mess! I never thought a thing like that was possible! When I found a wobble remover and hair detangler I concluded that whatever you can think of, in all probability it exists…and now I understand the meaning of Developed Country. The only thing I hated about this country is the train-ticketing system. They issue you valid confirmed tickets to anywhere in Europe, but that does not guarantee a seat if the ticket is not reserved! Wtf?!
Train travel is expensive and shelling out a 150 pounds doesnot guarantee a seat!I ended up travelling standing to Scotland!
P.S: Other than a Knight, I also want to be a Spartan but the damn fat burning pills don’t work!
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