Welcome to Canada - Kiddaan?

As Mahatma Gandhi famously said during the height of India’s independence movement, “If you have seen snow and freezing rain in April, you have seen everything in life.” Hmmmm…. When I re-read the preceding statement, it actually does not make much sense in Gandhi’s context. It is possible that Gandhi did not say this and I said those words to my lovely sis-in-law-cum-the-birthday-girl, Kanya Bahwa, who celebrated her 20-something birthday last Saturday when we, in Toronto, woke up to snow flurries.

Kanya is claiming that I said those words to her when I was doing Facetime with her on her birthday and I definitely do not remember saying anything remotely close to that… so the good news here is that at least one of us was drunk on her birthday. And based on my experience with Delhi chicks (other than my wife Anshu) I can bet that it was her, not me. She is also claiming that she discussed at length with me some unique attributes of her, now famous, yellow birthday dress and I know I normally have as much interest in discussing chicks’ dresses as Mahatma Gandhi had in wearing designer dhotis. Therefore, that settles the question about who was drunk on Kanya’s birthday.

Now let us come back to our main topic today: Welcome to Canada – where spring comes to die. It appears as if in this day and age of corporate cost cutting, God also decided to cancel Spring in Canada. In April, we have averaged day time temperature at around 4-5 deg C and night time close to the freezing point. I guess it is still better than some other parts in Canada. For example, I was visiting Calgary and Edmonton last week and they still have snow on the ground. Shown below is the picture I took from the plane and you can clearly see snow covering the landscape. Talking about planes, I travel a lot for work and there is something about flying that makes you feel your own mortality in a special way. Perhaps because everything looks so tiny from up there, perhaps the turbulence reminds you of the fragility of your life…though, I think, most likely it is because of a couple of glasses of red wine that make me so emotional while flying. And what else can explain what Anshu found in my bag when I reached home – an air sickness bag from the plane. I told her that I was thinking of using it to pack my lunch – it definitely will act as an appetite-suppressant… a good way for me to lose weight.

When we moved from the US last year, we assumed that Toronto would not be that much different than Chicago. However, even though the cultural shocks of moving to Canada were not as severe as those I had when I migrated from India to the US in the 90s, there have still been some mini-shocks. The first and foremost – the primary language in some parts of Canada appears to be Punjabi. For those of you wondering what ‘Kiddaan” means in the title of this post, it is the Punjabi version of “How are you?” We Punjabis are the laziest people on earth. I have been to all parts of the world and I have not come across any language where “how are you” can be asked in just one word but we Punjabis can do that.

And since we are surrounded by so many Indians in Canada, we have been encouraging our kids to talk more in Hindi at home. My 7-year-old son, Kush, does not like it because it is “extra work” for him. The other day this is how a conversation transpired between Anshu and Kush:

Anshu (in Hindi): So how was your school today, Kush? And remember, you can talk only in Hindi

Kush (in English): Awwwn, that is not fair. I do not want to speak in Hindi. It is hard.

Anshu (in Hindi): No, I told you before. You have to talk to us in Hindi.

Kush: Ok, how about just one sentence in English and then all Hindi?

Anshu: Ok, but remember, just one sentence.

Kush: Ok. First, we learned fractions, then we read a story, then we reviewed capitals of provinces, then we had our first recess where I played the walking dead game with my friends, then we had our music class where I "accidently" broke a guitar by using it as a baseball bat, then we had our second recess when I ate lunch, then we had our drama class where I winked at a girl so you may receive a phone call from her parents, and then we learned the Canadian history which appears to be quite different from the American history I used to learn in Chicago, and then it was time to come home.

Anshu: What??? That was one sentence??? Those were so many sentences.

Kush: No, that was one long sentence. There were no periods, those were all commas, Mamma.

Canada feels a lot like India in more than one ways – there are many Indian areas where if you speak only English, you will feel as foreign as Rama felt when as a UP’ite from Ayodhya, he had to go to Lanka for the fighting scenes of the climax of Ramayana. Having born and brought up in UP and having traveled to Tamilnadu dealing with a different language and buckets of sambhar, I can feel Rama’s pain. Also, we do not miss the Indian-style politicians here either…the mayor of Toronto was recently convicted of corruption in the public office. In my hometown in UP, we used to deal with monkeys almost every day at our roof tops. Guess what – they recently discovered a monkey living in an Ikea store in the Toronto area. The only difference is that while I used to chase monkeys with a stick jumping from roof tops to roof tops (yeah, just like the young Vito Corleone in my favorite movie, “The Godfather”), there was a huge debate in Toronto on how to “rehabilitate” this lost monkey.

 Before moving to Canada, I used to wonder why Canada is always a step behind the US even though at the surface, both countries look quite similar. And now I know why. In the US, productivity and progress-obsessed Americans “go the extra mile” to make their country as the number one country in the world. Canadians also try the same but since they use the metric system, they ‘go the extra kilometer” and hence end up going only 0.625 miles instead of the full mile.

Canadians also complain that whenever a U.S. retailer acquires a Canadian company, the same merchandise category eventually gets subsumed by the U.S. brand. Case in point – After the infamous “bra-suit” where Victoria’s Secret sued Le Senza’s of Canada for allegedly copying a VS bra, the parent company of VS, The Limited, ended up buying Le Senza. Even though they said that they would invest in both brands, ultimately, VS did get the favorite daughter preferential treatment and many under-performing Le Senza stores were shut down. This is despite protests from the Canadian management team who argued that Le Senza had  848,801 Facebook fans, a very large base for a Canadian-born brand. The rebuttal from the US leadership – Victoria’s Secret has 21.6 million fans. Any questions? Two notes here – the only reason I read all this is because I follow the business news very closely. And this also tells you that Canada is just like Orissa in India – where nothing interesting happens so this kind of stuff becomes the front page news here.

I can also explain why obesity is a bigger endemic in the US than in Canada. It is because of the “environment” at many mainstream restaurant chains in Canada. For example, Moxie’s, Jack Astor’s, The Cactus Club, Walker’s Fish Market etc. hire only young, beautiful girls as waitresses who wear really small, tight black dresses. That is something I never saw in the US. So, in the US, when there is nothing interesting to ‘see’ around you, men just focus on eating everything on their plate. Here, men (not me though) are so distracted, they never finish their food and hence do not put on extra pounds.

I am perplexed by another observation in Canada – there is no $1 bill, it is a coin. I know in the US, when people go to the strip clubs, they carry a wad of $1 bills for obvious reasons. I wonder what people do here when there is no $1 bills. Obviously, they cannot use coins. It is possible that the government eliminated the $1 bill due to strong lobbying by strip clubs who now receive $5 bills instead of $1 bills, resulting in a five-fold increase in a typical Canadian club’s revenue as compared to an American club’s revenue. Pretty smart, eh?

My final thought this time is brought to you by my dear friend Meena:

Some reasons make relationships precious but only precious relationships are made with no reasons! Keep these relations alive for life time.

Spring Break Adventures

So this is what the hostess told me – “Her name is Katrina. She will be here in a few minutes. She is very cute but definitely has an attitude. Sometimes she acts just like a diva. Remember, you can touch her anywhere on her body except on her face. But when you kiss her, make sure that you hold her chin with both hands. And finally, when you ride her, you need to hold her tight because her body is very slippery.”

Wait…wait. It is nothing like what you are thinking. Before your mind starts racing at 100 miles/hour (160 km/hr in India and Canada) imagining all kinds of R-rated, X-rated, “A”-rated (In India) scenarios, let me clarify the setting here. This is what happened at this amazing spot called, “Discovery Cove” in Orlando, Florida where we were vacationing during spring break…. snorkeling, sun-tanning, and swimming with dolphins….and Katrina in this case was a 6-year old ultra-cute dolphin who carried us around in the lake as a part of the package (though my 7-year old son Kush did slip a few times because apparently he was not holding her tight).  It is debatable at this stage whether he really slipped or if she was also trying to get away from him (if you are a regular reader of this blog AND have been taking your medication regularly, you will no doubt recall how mischievous Kush is …so may be even Katrina was trying to run for her life).

Even my lovely sis-in-law-cum-a-constant-character-in-my-blog-stories, Kanya Bahwa, agreed with my hypothesis that Katrina must be trying to run away from Kush. There you go, Kanya. I still somehow fit you in this blog. Honestly, this time with the vacation story line, it was as difficult to fit Kanya here as it would be to create a character for Johney Lever in the Bollywood movie “Black”. However, I still had to do it because if you are a regular reader of this blog AND have been taking your medication regularly, you will no doubt recall how bad it was that one time when I did not mention Kanya in my blog. The atma of that dismembered Barbie doll is still hovering somewhere in Mansarover Garden, Delhi area oscillating between Kanya’s house and my bro-in-law Dinks’ house searching for the meaning of after-life.

Anyway, with Kanya being taken care of in this blog, let us return to our main theme. So everything about the Discovery Cove was great – except the wet suits we had to wear all day. After a couple of hours of snorkeling, when the first time I went to the bathroom, I somehow managed to unzip the zipper on my back and relieved myself. However, when I tried to pull up this super-tight wet suit, the zipper won’t move at all. Well, it was a pretty awkward situation but thank God I never have to see that stranger again in my life who helped me with my suit. And after this incident I have developed a new respect for girls going to parties wearing shapewear under their dresses. And I always used to wonder why girls in a party go to the bathroom together….now I know.

When we were at the Universal Studio next day, we stopped by a sandwich joint for lunch, which was also a bakery. At several places in that restaurant they had signs saying, “Food served here has been prepared in a facility where nuts may be present.”  Normally companies claim that employees are their best assets and it is all about people etc. etc. And here you have a company which is openly calling its employees nuts. Does not appear to be a great talent retention policy… and I wonder how many lawsuits they go through in a year.

Last time we went to Orlando was a few years ago when Kush was almost 4-years old.  At that time, my wife, Anshu, and I were considering various options (Vegas, Cancun, or Disney World) for our vacation. When we were talking about these options, Kush, who had been quietly listening to our conversation interrupted and said, “I want to go to Disney World for vacation”.  First I told him that we were also considering that option but then it struck me.  I said, “Wait a minute, buddy!  You want to go on a vacation?  You have not worked even a single day in your life.  What makes you think that you deserve a vacation?  The last I checked, your “work” consists of eating, playing, and sleeping.  And you say you need a vacation???  Now tell me what will be different in vacation other than eating, playing, and well, sleeping?”  I still doubt he ever comprehended my logic and structure of the argument.  It may work in a case interview, but not with a 4-year old.

In all respects, this vacation with universal Studios, Discovery Cove, SeaWorld etc, was much more fun compared to the time when my son Nyle forced us to visit Springfield, IL (he is a huge fan of Abraham Lincoln). That turned out to be one of the most boring vacations because there was not much to do other than visiting Lincoln’s house, Old Salem, and a couple of museums. While taking a tour of Lincon’s house from 1850s, I asked the tour guide, “I do not see any power outlets so where did Lincoln plug in his laptop?” Considering the stares I received, I do not think either tour guide or Nyle was amused by my question.

At the museum, reading about “All men are created equal” I was thinking that there definitely was no concept of political correctness at the time when this all was written. Otherwise, how could they forget about women?  Another explanation could be that women are inherently better than men and that’s why they were not included in this statement (All you chicks reading this article – pay attention here, I believe that I have scored some points with the preceding statement).  Also, if our forefathers writing the constitution were politically correct and were living in today’s society, they would write something like, “All men, whether White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native Indian, Indian American, American Indian, Physically Challenged, Intellectually Challenged, Electronically Challenged, Rajnikant, Heterosexual, Homosexual, Dinkar Kalra, Bisexual, Richard Branson, Asexual etc. etc. are created equal.”

And as always, my final thought:

When your life is all downhill, gravity is the one thing you can always count on – Madonna.