UK summed up - Part 1

The idea of going to UK for higher studies, was neither the first one, nor my very own. I was all set to work in a reputed company for a year or two and plan my MBA in India through a series of tedious and tough entrances. But DESTINY had other plans for me. Before I knew it, I had resigned from the same reputable firm and was packed off with bag, baggage and food (which is probably more important than even clothes for some Gujaratis!) to London.
London, the city of the Queen Mother, boasted of ancient architectural delights like palaces, bridges, dungeons, Big Ben, St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgur's Square, etc. It also had a modern touch to it, what with shopping paradises like Oxford Street & Harrow, pubs and lounges, food joints serving cuisines from all over and an excellently networked transport system - RAIL in particular! London, however was not my destination and I was just to stay there for a week, at my aunt's before heading to the place which was to be my home for the next one year - CARDIFF!
If London was Mumbai, Cardiff was Lonavla.As I passed through the quaint little university city, I was amazed to see the symmetry of its structure and the tininess of its size. Little red brick houses, no more than a couple of floors taller bordered two ends of the sidewalk, with little green trees, well trimmed bushes. So serene, so quiet and so empty! For a person like me, who has right since birth lived in a city that is surrounded with hustle, bustle, activity, people zooming by, rush and madness - this was a stark contrast and a shock! I missed Mumbai for all those things, which I had once found unsettling. Two-third's of the city population was university population and hence there were mainly young faces to be seen everywhere. It was equally interesting to find out that a huge percentage of these unknown faces belonged to Asians - Chinese & Indian alike.
I was put up at Talybont South residence - House 17, Room 3-1-6. The strange apartment consisted of 8 such rooms and one huge kitchen. It was occupied by 8 unknown girls from different parts of the world. This thought gave me a chill while I carefully unpacked all the goodies got from home. The room was another SHOCK. When I first saw it, I wondered if it could be called a room?One bed occupied almost 3 quarters of the room, on the other end a neatly furnished study table and cupboard and at one tiny end, a bathroom. In exactly 5 steps, my room ended, with little place to navigate in between. How I managed to unpack EVERYTHING is a mystery to me too!
Around this time, I got my first so-called CULTURE SHOCK! I gradually got introduced to all my flatmates over the next few days - 4 Chinese 'girls' (I was later to know that one of these girls was actually a mother of a 10 year old whom she had left behind in Shanghai with her husband for a year of MBA), 1 Jamaican (who sorry to say, cooked the most PUNGENT food possible) and 2 other Indian girls (who were later to become my close friends there). My first concern was to secure a spot on the 2 shared refrigerators that was to be shared amongst us. Along with another Indian veggie friend (dear ol' Shuchi), I had a hard time convincing the others that it will not be ok if pork would be kept on my cabbage or that duck eggs would not sit in between my apples! They were shocked to know that I survive only on veggies (poor thing they said) and I did not mind their shock much, coz I had encountered a lot of those questions back home from friends! For a girl, who barely had shared a table with a chicken eater in India, it soon became a regular sight, to see pork or chicken being cooked, kept on the platform, cut, garnished and arranged! It stopped affecting me, for which I was mighty thankful.
Before I knew it, I had started sincerely attending lectures of great, well read professors with tonnes of international experience behind them. Our classroom could seat at a time 300 students. It was amazing to interact with people from different cultures, in our syndicate group studies where we were a part of a mixed cultural group. During the course of this study, I learnt to respect so many religions, cultures and their ethnicities and got over so many prejudices and culture shocks that I am surprised how I had suddenly become so adaptable and flexible. I delightfully learnt how Nigerians respected women, how British were still accustomed to kissing on the cheek for a goodbye, how the Greeks thought that taking showers once a week was a luxury and combing their hair a fortnightly affair, how Chinese were so hardworking, polite and helpful, and how there was hardly any difference in the lifestyles of the so-called rivals - Indians and Pakistanis! So much so that the buildings 16 and 17 of Talybont South, largely inhabitated by these were named Chandini Chowk
Soon life settled in a gradual routine, with assignments, lectures, pre-readings, post-readings and tests like any other hectic MBA life - probably a little more taxing, it being just a year's course. We did have occassional breaks and detours - when we saw the famous places - a beaming Cardiff Bay, Bute Park, City Centre, Church, Castle, Lake and River Taff. River Taff deserves a special mention. It was running exactly by the side of my hostel and on quiet evenings, I liked to go and sit by the river and watch the serene beauty of gushing waters, autumn leaves, ducks floating by, with a mild breeze adding a magical touch to the whole scene. It was one of my favourite places, after the quiet little chapel and I loved going there on my own. A friend of mine, Santosh was quite convinced that I would jump into River Taff one day for some odd reason! Sometimes when I sit back to remember my days there - River Taff flashes back in my mind so stark, and so clear that the urge to return there gets heightened!
Other than studying, wandering and attending lectures - I developed another strange hobby - cooking. First more out of compulsion, but later out of experiment and pure joy! It was equally endearing to see a few of my friends from Southern India - guys - who were such excellent cooks that we girls almost faded in comparision - while eating their spicy sambhar, rasam and delicious recipes! I also realised that Chinese as we had in India was nowhere close to the actual food. Spinach leaves cooked in olive oil with salt, pepper and pork formed most of their meals. Making them eat gulab jamuns, kheer and pav-bhaji was quite an adventure. Although I never got myself to master the art of eating with chopsticks, which I sorely regret...
Before I knew it - autumn had advanced to give way to winter...
Guess I have rambled on quite a lot here...so shall save more for the next post - a lot to recollect, a lot to write and a lot of nostalgia - coming up in PART 2....