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| Radiant hues: The writer finds English summer 'great fun' |
There's been no sun all day, I called my lawyer, he said we can't sue and there's no hope of me getting my money back.
That aside, England in the summer is great fun. That's if you can call it the 'summer'. The minimum temperature at night can drop to 1 degree celcius, it rains non-stop, the dirty-piddly kind of non-stop rain, not the full blooded shower that can be a little more entertaining, and when the sun does show up for more than 10 minutes at a go, the winds are so nippy that your nipples turn into pointers.
Which can be quite handy when someone asks for directions, but now with almost every car having a satellite navigational system, even that bit of utility is out of the window.
Coming from Mumbai, this kind of weather can urge you to bring out the jackets and the jumpers, much to the amusement of the true blue Brits, but then almost anything amuses them, which might explain why they're joking all the time (or quipping as they'd be prone to calling it) They kid about everything.
The weather (which I don't find funny at all), their politicians (who are far less funnier than our wacko jackos back home) and most importantly about the people they respect, the 'real' respect, not the fake 'touch some strangers feet' kind of respect we indulge in. They're irreverent, but never disrespectful. Everyone knows that a laugh is for, well, just a laugh.
I guess when it's so gloomy outside your window, you have no choice but to quip, joke and laugh, which brings me to my point. Maybe, we in India could use some of that dull, gloomy weather (with no disrespect to Surya, the sun god). Maybe then we'd lighten up a bit. And realise that a joke is just a joke!
I think our politicians could learn a little from Lord Lalu when it comes to laughing at himself. His name may suggest otherwise, but he really is the smartest joker in the pack.
