A Wandering Soul

Any idea what 'Cymru' means? Or do you know if a road sign says 'arafwch nawr', what you are supposed to do? Well, we faced a similar conundrum as we drove towards 'Wales', a country in United Kingdom that is bordered by England to its east and the Irish sea to its north and west.  Although Wales closely shares its political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, and the vast majority of the population speaks English, the country has retained a distinct cultural identity and is officially bilingual. Over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. In the recent Common-Wealth games, I realized that 'Wales' has its own National team and they did pretty well in events like swimming where they won several medals. In Olympics, though, both Wales and Scotland compete as a part of Great Britain team. In cricket, England play against Scotland. I am y...

After coming to the UK, one thing that changed one of my fundamental beliefs which I have inherited from my Indian roots is 'life after 60'. In India when our parents are nearing 60, there is always a constant thought that lingers in their mind, 'What now?' So most of our fathers look forward to starting a second innings in their careers and our mothers continue spending their time in kitchen. This phase continues for some time and then once they are truly retired, they have officially reached an 'old age' or  they become 'senior citizen' in every way. Every sentence almost starts with, 'But what is the use of doing this now?' or 'I don't think this is possible anymore' or 'now is the time for you all to enjoy' and many more such stereotyped sentences. In the UK, I have found people who enjoy their life the most are the ones who have crossed their 60's. During summer time I found them playing outdoor games, biking ac...

Part 1 -  Chester After a wonderful life in Mumbai for 5 and a half years, our life decided to take a turn. My husband had to shift to UK in a place called Chester towards the North-West of this island country. So after thinking of all the pros and cons ( the only con that I could think of was leaving my stable consulting job) I decided to shift with him. There were lot of things that required attention as we had considered Mumbai to be our second home away from Kolkata and after of lot of wait and speculations had purchased a 2 bedroom flat in the Mumbai suburbs close to my work-place. Things were moving fine with cook and maid, our jobs and our parents visiting Mumbai for few months in a year and then came the sudden change. My husband moved to UK in Jan and bravely faced the first UK winter whereas I stayed back to wrap up things in Mumbai and finally joined him in June. That was a blessing in disguise because the first thing that I realised after landing in Manchester...