4 posts from February 2008

I have recently been taken into a swirl by online shopping, even though I am a tech-worker and therefore possibly savvy enough to be doing online shopping since 2001 but well, to be fair I didn't have much money then.

I am sure all this is all old school for thou art internet-savvy people but here are my latest hits anyway:

1. Quidco - It's a cash co-operative and you get cashback for almost everything including Waterstone's (with free delivery!), John Lewis, lastminute.com, eurostar..the list is endless. And if you switch your electricity provider you ever get £25 for using moneysupermarket. The only downside is when you make a purchase and then later realize that it's on quidco - you feel that you have been cheated, surely the cashback works on giving the advertising money to the consumers?

2. Anyway, the next one I have really started liking though haven't bought anything from is kaboodle

Where else would you find things such as
Hand Soaps

My grandfather, 103, passed away today. We had been expecting this since January - he had not been eating properly for about a couple of months now. Winters in India have been colder this year and therefore tougher for him.

Last time I visted India, he had started crying on seeing me. That memory is strong in my head.

I know he had a good innings but I feel terribly sad. He was my last grandparent and to me, he is where I know our family to start.
It's sadder still to understand how my Dad must feel.

I want to visit India, but he has already been cremated. I am also scared of facing the ceremonies which are going to be sorrowful. It's easier to stay here and immerse yourself in the quotidian day.

For I know that whenever I visit home now, I won't be seeing my grand Dad first thing when I get there and wait for him to recognise me. Feel my face and wait for a smile to appear on his face a few moments later.

And while his life was celebratory, this is sad.

is banana, in case you wanted to know.
There are several reasons for this:
1. I hate how mushy they are - you don't really enjoy biting into a banana unless they are green and then when they are green, they taste too bitter.
2. I also feel utterly dismayed at how they have a few seeds and that reminds me of how they are farmed asexually.
3. Let alone the fact that there is no rush of juices when you bite into a banana, they also leave your mouth really dry.
4. Finally, for all of their disadvantages listed in points 1 - 3 above, I am surprised at how hard they are to keep - they get injured easily, you have to eat them at just the right time, keep them in a banana guard etc etc.

It's insane. Banana is officially my least favourite fruit.

Defiant as I may sound since I am an immigrant and living in somebody else's country means living by their rules, but moves such as these from the Government are downright pitiful attempts at preserving the country's culture.

London is cosmopolitan, there are different people from all over the world which is what makes it so culturally and socially live. And I suppose, at some point in our lives, we all get cross at some new immigrant who tries to get on the train before people have got off or somebody who won't understand the language.

But being an immigrant, I know those are hard times and one learns them as they go along. I don't know enough to comment on London's culture now to say about 20 years ago but I have a feeling that the rude behaviour associated with Londoners is not down to increase in culturally different people as it is with a bigger population (which might be down to immigration).

But despite everything, in a manner similar to teaching values, settling into British Culture cannot be forced upon with the introduction of Migrant's Advice Packs.

In some ways, the ID cards, the Migrants' Advice Pack are humiliating.

Whilst the freedom of speech the single most important thing that makes Britain with its terribly grey weather more attractive than the Sunny skies of India with rigorous measures as these, I feel that perhaps living in this country would mean being subject to constant mortification of my thoughts, actions and being.

That everytime somebody talked about immigration and its effects, I would feel guilty for ruining their standard of life in a selfish move to improve my own standard of living.

That if I made a mistake while walking down a street of London now, somebody could just turn back at me and say: "Didn't you read your Migrants' Advice Pack?" I even foresee a point based system like driving licences for immigrants where if they accumulate too many points they will be deported on the grounds of being unable to integrate in the British Society.

And this is really what would prompt me to pack my bags and go back to my country - and perhaps, that's their whole point...