Culture shock....Naaah

Wanted to write this from a long time now...No Time!!!; is a common excuse normally given but then, that is not the case here. Just did not have the intent to sit and write something is the real reason.

Started from Hyderabad to Montreal on the 18th of may and landed here on the 19th evening. People have this big hallucination about going abroad. To be frank, I shamefully accept the fact here that I was a bit afraid on the prospect of travelling abroad. Not your similar looking people, not similar food. The thought of speaking to a foreigner had brought shivers in my spine, although I have spoken to quite a few already over phone from India. Yeah yeah you can laugh at that!!. But I will have to accept the fact that I was afraid for sure.

The intermediate stop during the flight was London Heathrow.
"Its one small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind". I remembered this famous lines from Neil Armstrong as I took my first steps on a foreign soil, not knowing of course who this mankind I was refereing to. I guess all those mortals who have this foreign land fear like me. I landed at London at about 7:30 AM and had almost half day to wait there for my next flight to Montreal, which would be at 5:30 PM. This is called adding salt to the wounds. The next 2 hours were spent understanding the conversion rates of Rupees versus canadian dollors which I was carrying and Pounds. After that whole lot of conversion and calculations I deceided to go and buy a bottle of water. Price said 3 pounds. The internal calculator started to function again. 3 pounds would be 3*80= Rs 240. Ha ha...looked like you were buying a fortune and not water, though many would argue that water is nothing short of fortune. Did I not tell you that I was carrying my Sony Erricson w810i phone with me. No, infact I was and took the opportunity to capture all the portions of London heathrow with a video of the way a plane takes off from the airport, as if it takes off in some other way at Hyderabad's International airport at Begumpet.

The next 2 hours I wandered the length and breadth of Terminal 4 at London Hethrow, making sure that I don't miss any of the elevators there, you never know the you may never come back here. Just as I sat on one of the waiting areas, I heard a voice from behind me saying, "Arey Bhai!!"...Nah, how can that be, I am not in India. Turned back just in case it was someone, aah,
it was indeed an Indian. His name was Nimish. He was a construction worker and had got a visa to work somewhere in Germany and had spotted me as the only guy who looked approachable in among all the so called Indians in the airport. Huge compliment as far as I was concerned. Just to add to this I must accept that Indians abroad are very very non-Indians. Wow what a tragic statement, or to say they are not very proud Indians. Just my experience at Heathrow, where not even a single Indian who I saw actually managed to spend more than 1 second for an eye contact with me. I said to myself, maybe Nimish is true then. I spent the next 2 hours with Nimish, he talked about his family back in Gujarat and how he got the visa. I must tell you that in the 2 hours, he was talking for close to 1 hr and 40 minutes :-).

His fligt was scheduled at 2PM. Gave him all the best wishes and hoped he would do well in his job. He also wished me good luck for my job here and we parted ways. It was time for food. Went around stalls to find cakes, pastries and what not. Just thought for a moment if I can get an Andhra meals somewhere here ha ha. Looked at the menu card and found most of the items
were priced at about 4 to 5 pounds or higher, my calculator started to work again. Then the heart took over the brain, it said, you idiot you are hungry, keep that calculator aside for some time. It worked and I did buy some thing to eat (actually forgot what I ate). No wonder they say that in the war between the Heart and the Mind, its the Heart that wins the battle most of the time. Don't ask me who these they are.

Managed to spend the rest of the time doing the favourite pastime of guys in India, watching girls. I must tell you that most of the girls I saw at the airport were really good looking, don't know if they all are like that or it was a special day and I happened to be travelling on that day. I must also tell you that Lonon has a very detailed security checking system and you need to spend a considerable amount of time on that to finally reach places.

Finally it was 5:30 PM, I had to go to ally no 11 for my flight to Montreal. I reached there to find that the flight has been delayed by 1 hour. I sat beside a couple who were in their early 50's maybe. From the moment I sat there, the two were giving strange looks to me. I was behaving as if I was not noticing them. It was just getting on my nerves but I had to maintain my dignity, so I turned to them, smiled and asked them, "Are you travelling to Montreal?"..What an amazing question, the flight at ally 11 is supposedly going to montreal, where else would they be going?..I realized my mistake and quickly re-phrased my question "Where do you live in Montreal?". As if I know the nook and corners of montreal.
"What?" The man repled.
I had known that Montreal is a french dominated area and even if people speak english, they speak it very rarely so I had to be much more specific with the words I used to communicate and had to be absolutely clear, clear would mean pick and say words.

"Where is your house in Monteral?" I made sure that it was loud and clear this time.
"We live outside montreal, outside the city" The lady replied.
"Which country are you from?" She asked
"India" I replied proudly.
"What kind of country is that, what do u have there". The lady asked again curiously.

Hmm..that sounds like you have a lot of general knowledge. I wanted to say this but then resisted the same.
"India is a big country. It is a mix of various cultures and languages. It is an agricultural economy but now it is getting global recognition in the wake of the growing software exports, that is why you see people like me travelling to this country"..I said..wow..did I say that well.

Don't know how much they understood the whole thing, they looked at each other and smiled.
I felt as if I am the cultural ambassador of India at that moment. I must tell that the conversation became quiet cordial and warm and they told me about their place thier kids and all. They also invited me to their house some day. I thanked them for the invitation and it was now close to arrival of our delayed plane.

It was a British Airways flight and I managed to find a window seat for myself. Just wished if the seat beside me would be occupied by one of the cute girls I had seen at ally 11 before boarding. It was like a wish come true, the girl comes to me and asks, "is this A32?"
"Yes!!" I replied with a very radiant smile.

The girl looked to be around 24 or around. We talked a lot during the flight. She told about her family, I told her about India, being the new cultural ambassador. Had a very pleasant time talking to her. Just before the plane finally touched Montreal Trudeau airport, some of the passengers were asked to fill in some form for immigration realated stuff. The girl also had to fill. It was a shock of my life when she wrote her date of birth on the sheet. I just remember the date so well now, it said 12/11/1993!!!!!!!...she is just 14 yrs old and the whole time she talked as if she was about 24. That was the first culture shock that I got even before landing at Montreal. Do people grow up very fast here. My heart started to pound with the prospect of seeing things like that here.
Rest to be continued......