The two girls at the service counter of a fast food outlet on Scott Road, Surrey B.C. were curious when I mistakenly used a couple of Rupee coins to settle my bill thinking they were ‘quarters.’ I apologized for the inadvertent error. Somehow, the coins were still in my wallet after my recent India visit.

“ Is that really a Rupee…can we have a look?” they asked and I showed it to them. One hundred and fifty years ago when their great, great, great grandfathers left the shores of India to work as bonded labor in Fiji a single Rupee coin was made of silver with the head of Victoria Empress of that day and time imprinted. The value at that time could be anybody’s guess but I recently happened see a craiglist type of website with someone from Vadodara, India putting up his 1870 One Rupee coin for sale for Rs.7 lac ( Roughly $15,000).  It claims to have the image of Queen Elizabeth embossed on one side. Obviously, it is a bogus coin for the monarch in 1870 whose image appears on a One Rupee coin is that of Victoria Empress.

Only does an antique One Rupee coin have any value- so it would seem. Today’s Rupee coin can buy a matchbox.

But there was a time when a Rupee coin had solid value. In 1964 I used to have breakfast lunch and dinner at a College mess near Aurangabad in central India for roughly One Rupee and fifty paise.  In 1956 one could spend an evening at the movies in Bombay city with one Rupee: A dress circle ticket to a Clark Gable film at Metro Cinema was ten annas; two annas was for transportation by the BEST bus and two annas for a packet of wafers and a soft drink during the ‘Interval.’ That left one with two annas to spend as one pleased.

Almost four decades later, in 1992 a friend of mine booked the Post and Department Guest House in Kodaikanal-a hill station in the South of India- for Rs.2 per day – roughly half a cent in Canadian money. There were two bedrooms in the guest- house and though a big muggy and quite unkempt, it was still an eyeball- popping deal. That was the concession for employees at the Post and Telegraphs in Madras. When we left we gave him a tip of Rs.20 for serving us well. The gratitude was evident on his face. He did not quite expect my friend-the Government employee to give him such a huge tip. 

On Dec.3, 2010 at 3 am in the early morning, a little distance away from the arrival lounge at Mumbai International airport a beggar looked at my offering of five Rupees in disgust. A five Rupee note can buy one a cup of tea at a low- end roadside tea stall but obviously he was hoping for more.

Here too, in Canada, without considering the adjusted figure for inflation, it somehow seems a popular, weather- like topic to herald how much value one could get for a dollar in the past. Never mind the fifties and sixties, in the early-eighties, one would most likely need the assistance of a cart to do five dollars worth of grocery shopping. Today, you might think the salesgirl is being sarcastic if she offers you a ‘handout’ for five dollars of grocery shopping. Ever so often, a baby boomer will tell you of the time his father asked him to go round the corner and buy a copy the newspaper from the store for a dime. That analogy sometimes get confusing because even in 2011, we see huge volumes of the daily newspaper are distributed free of charge just presumably with the intention of having potential readers browse on ads.

 But think of what a dollar was worth when Surrey came into existence in 1879. It might have fetched you small flower patch in Surrey. And what did the dollar bill have looked like? A 1898 Dominion of Canada one Dollar Bill features portraits of the Countess and Earl of Aberdeen, and lumberjacks at center. I am guessing it would have bought you a tank full of gas at Harry Whalley’s corner near 108 Avenue in 1907. At ten cents a gallon of gasoline, one could tank up one of the earliest model Ford cars and then drive off on a bumpy dirt road leaving behind a dust cloud along what we now refer to as King George Boulevard.      

The telephone operator- cum receptionist at the company where I worked in India in the eighties and ninetees recently mentioned to me that our old company is doing well. She disclosed to me that her Diwali Bonus paid in Oct.2010 was Rs.70000. That is almost Can.$1650 - a decent amount even by Canadian standards. In 1994, when I left the company she would have been beaming ear to ear if she got Rs.7000 as a Diwali Bonus.

Salaries in India have skyrocketed and consequently government pensions too: A junior level government officer with 30 years service could get a pension of Rs.20000 per month. An entry level call center employee can reach a salary of Rs.20000per month in just one year, and a 22 year old Trainee Financial Analyst could draw a decent Rs.35000 per month. The middle class in India have now burgeoned to 300 million head of population and not surprising the eyes of prospective exporters in U.K, Europe and Asia are trained on them as prospective buyers for their goods and services.

At the rate the Indian economy is growing it is quite possible that by 2030 many North Americans might bring in the term “ reverse migration.” India and China are hurtling forward on the economic front and they will be to India what America was to Europe in the late nineteen hundred.

But for a Canadian of Indian descent that came here in the end nineties the ‘lag’ he or she experienced is hurts. They came to Canada a few years after “dotcom” and missed the period when India’s outsourcing revenue catapulted to 50 billion. And now, when they go back to India for a vacation and are still treated like distant cousins of average means. I am referring mainly to the Indian immigrants who came from metropolitan cities in India with a University degree. Some of them ply taxis in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver.

India has made impressive strides on the economic front: Four of the richest billionaires in the world among the top thirty are Indians. They do not set stellar examples like giving away wealth to philanthropic works but Azim Premji-the third richest Indian billionaire in the above list is reported to have set aside 11 billion to charity. This is his response to a request made by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to give back a sizable portion of their respective wealth to underprivileged people of the world.

On the other side of the coin we have Mukesh Ambani, the fourth richest billionaire in the world who has built an impregnable castle of mediocre architectural design right in the middle of a residential district of opulence in Mumbai perhaps to insulate his family from evil eyes. That is his prerogative and one cannot fault him for doing so. However, India is still a country of 400 million people who subsist on $1.25 per day and somehow that construction does not seem appropriate. It is an eye sore.

  Wealthy Indians have to get out of their self-centered skins and give back to something to the poor and underprivileged. But that is not easy for an Indian dynasty that often resorted to questionable means to procure that wealth.

There is no need to compare your situation in Canada to people in India who are doing well and flashing currency notes. Your needs are virtually taken care of in Canada. Irrespective of you socio-economic status you can shop in the same store as a millionaire and one is not judged by the clothes you wear or the amount of gold you flash on your being. You need never fear a sudden hospitalization and your children can afford University education with soft loans. The air is fresh and the lines and queues that pockmark any little basic amenity is non-existent here.

You come to Canada to live a clean, healthy life. You can make a lot of money with enterprise, but even if you don’t you are unlikely to whimper and whine.

Canada is the closest thing to a fair system, if not Socialistic. And if ever you become filthy rich, your conscience might not allow you to indulge in vulgar opulence but instead give back to society what Canada so freely gave to you.

I am told that it was an accepted form of greeting on the Prairie for a pre-teen to address an adult as “ Aunty” or “ Uncle” till the middle of the last century. It reflected a small town upbringing and good manners that came concurrent.

 In my childhood if I did not greet an elder thus I would have the back of my head tapped by my mother like the Big Ben on the half hour. But that rarely happened. Addressing elders “Aunty” and “Uncle” came to my generation naturally.

There was something nice about wishing someone “ Hello Aunty!” or “ Hello Uncle.” It spoke of a discipline in an age when listening to ones elders was the norm. Either that, or you were going to get it!

I have seen my peers even as much as being caned by their parents in India of the early fifties and very rarely did one hear those abused children grow up in life to overly criticize their parents for having done so. They simply did likewise to their children and the cycle went on. 

Then one day the law stepped in and the word “ abuse” became more pronounced. It was a good thing, for it sought to preclude the possibility of excessive disciplining. By and large, this benign approach works.

But in subsequent decades, we were confronted with what laxity could do at the other end of the spectrum: We now have parents most of who were in turn disciplined by their parents when they were young but now sometimes endure reverse abuse in a literal sense.

In my considered opinion, the impetus to revolt has been facilitated by one single agent of destruction and as much as I might sound like a wet blanket, I think T.V. has done more harm than disseminate knowledge and information. What has happened is to be expected: Kids don’t have time to learn the niceties of interacting with others because they are caught up watching T.V. They have little time for anything else.

T.V. is truly a scheming “idiot box.” It gets a youngster hooked on to it and then like a drug dealer hisses: ‘ Psst, psst… wanna watch some reality T.V.?”

Sometimes, T.V. makes us delusional: We think God is related to Donald Trump and not even vice versa. And then when we approach the climax of a popular program we are given to understand that Simon Cowell is actually a nice person.

In the fifties we made our own entertainment. I rarely handled a coin when I was young. I simply had no pocket money so to speak. Every day I played with abandon for free until one day when I was tipped two annas for buying Mr.Irwin two kites and some “ manjaa”( sharp thread). With that princely sum in my pocket I felt like the son of an oil sheik at the school Fete. Those were the days when we played marbles and ran around the building till we were motionless but panting with our hands on our knees.  

Once in a rare while, my mother took me for a movie to Fort area of Bombay and that gave me a chance to wear a pair of loose, chocolate brown, cotton shorts that nearly touched my knees. The knee length was one way of ensuring that the shorts would last me for at least three years and the color precluded the possibility of dirt showing off.

T.V. came to Bombay when I was 25 years of age. A decade and a half before that, at seven o’clock each day after school I would hear my mother summon me home. Her voice would resonate in the building to inform me it was time for me to have a bath and thereafter study for an hour. Then followed a second call, and then, a final one. If I missed that too, I was in for a demonstration of how overgrown, delinquent rabbits are briefly handled.

Today, there is little time for play. When you are a student in school in metropolitan India you had better study six hours per day from the fifth grade onwards. Either that, or you will languish among “muffs.” You study like your life depended on it and after your Doctorate in Information Technology or Applied Physics you can attend to a short course in “ Finishing School” to teach you manners and etiquette while attending to outsourced work.

Compare their situation with the children of immigrants in Surrey are exposed to an overdose of the cartoon channel. They watch T.V. so intently that they are very often oblivious of the presence of a visiting elder.  Rarely is there a “ Hello Uncleji!” or “ Hello Auntji!” Actually, most of them grow up not knowing how to wish people. But talk about text messaging their peers when they grow older and they will teach you a thing or two.

But coming to think of it, they are communicating with each other after all. 

 If I could help it I would stay alive indefinitely: It is costly to die in Canada.

I am referring to the cost of a shoestring budget I am working on for my own funeral. My desire to be cremated has more to do with economic considerations: I can’t afford to be buried. It costs upwards of $18000 at the very least and that too with the wife buried above me in the same plot in due course of time after I pop it. Being buried in too separate plots is inordinately costly.

So if it were to be burial it would have to be one plot. That is a disconcerting thought! And frankly speaking quite stuffy too!

I want to plan for my own burial and so I decided to call on a Funeral Parlor here in Surrey. While I waited for a Funeral Director to join me with an estimate of expenses, I could feel the celestial ambience. There was instrumental Chinese music to soothe my nerves, and just as well for in a short while I was startled with what it would cost me to have a bottom of the line funeral in Surrey.

The Funeral Director told me the various options: A mere very basic ashes to ashes cremation in a cardboard box which may have been recycled is like $1300 or thereabouts.  I wonder what Elenaor Rigby would have thought of that. On the face of it the figure seems plausible considering the Funeral parlor people are tied up with a U.S. syndicate that virtually has you indebted in death.

Now I am not a fussy sort of guy so I opted out of embalming. After all, the climate in Surrey is quite balmy if not cold. That way, I save $450. And I don’t need a “ viewing” the night before. That way I save another $400. Whosoever wishes to look at my ashen face can do so before the church service.

Ah, ah, not so fast… there is the catch: If the priest says “ No” to the viewing it could mean my near and dear ones do not get to see me for one last time.

I thought about that. If I cash in my chips in the next couple of years while the current Pastor of the church I frequent is still in charge it is very unlikely he is not going to authorize a viewing.

For that matter, he himself might want to say “ Ciao Alan!” He is a good friend of mine.

But seriously, something ought to be done to make sure people are not fried after someone passes on. It is irrationally costly to get a very basic funeral service in Canada.

After a church service and the hearse and very basic stuff I was presented with an estimate of $4350 plus tax.

That includes the cost of a rented or brand new coffin-a very basic one. So why does a rented one cost just as much as a new one?

 Don’t ask me. I just listen.

But if I kick the bucket before July1, I will giggle as the electric crematorium gives me a preview of the fires of Hell for that would mean I beat the HST!

Planning budget air travel during a period of recession is not that difficult if one knows how to collect Air Miles the relatively easy way. I have a few pointers on the subject- based on my own experience. None of what I suggest in the foregoing is illegal; it is just that I think one can chalk up a decent number of Air Miles in a year to cover at least one flight within North America without breaking a sweat.

My favorite spot to collect Air Miles is the nation-wide store that advertises it with flourish. My target is to collect at least 50 Air Miles each week and thereby log up 2500 to 2800 Air Miles in a calendar year. My wife’s people live in Austin, Texas and all I need is 2800 Air Miles for the two of us to make the trip in the low season. Taxes and other incidentals payable for the tickets are a mere $280 for two tickets. Considering that return ticket to Austin costs anywhere between $550 and $650, the net saving in a trip for the two of us is therefore $900 to $1000. For me, that is a decent saving. 

One might argue that you have to spend money to earn Air Miles.

But of course, you have to! The idea is to spend as little as possible and get the maximum number of reward Air Miles. My formula is simple. I usually try to find a deal whereby I spend around $10 or maximum $12 and get 50 Air Miles worth $15. As a result it would appear that my purchases are virtually for free if one is to consider that each Air Mile is worth 30 cents.

You need to have a keen eye: Let us say there is a “ Coke event.”   Buy any six items and you get 50 Air Miles. You might choose 3 bottles of Coke or Crush orange that costs $5 or 3 bottles of “Powerade” for $4. For $9 you get 50 Air Miles worth $15.

Now let us say one goes shopping merely for that sort of deal once every week for a year. There itself you have collected 2400 Air Miles. Total estimated expenditure: $420. You do the Math; besides, the purchases are virtually for free if you don’t mind the calories.  Better still, you might buy the sports drink instead and that is even cheaper: buy 6 for $8 only and get 50 Reward Air Miles!

But that deal is short lived and next week there is a chocolate flavored bran bar event. Buy five for $12.50 and get 50 Air Miles. For those not concerned about putting unwanted weight that might be a better proposition. Sometimes, though rarely, one comes across “too good to be true” Air Miles deals- like: “ Buy five loaves of bread” costing $7.50 (that were surprisingly fresh) and get 50 Reward Miles. 

You can earn reward Air Miles on prescription drugs too. At some stores they entice you to patronize them by offering anywhere from seven to ten times the Air Miles earned on purchases of prescription drugs. Let us say you have a prescription for the purchase of strips to record your diabetes. The costly looking instrument is free though the strips cost a mere $14.95 if your insurance kicks in. The bill is actually for $129 but you pay a small fraction because of your insurance cover. Now in this case, the Air Miles are calculated on the higher amount of $129 and not on $14.95. On this purchase at the rate of 1 reward Air Mile for every $20 spent you have earned 6 Air Miles. Further you get 7 times the 6 Air Miles because of a current promotion. You spent $14.95 and have earned 42 Air Miles. Since each Air Mile is worth 30 cents you have now earned $12.60 worth of Air Miles there itself.

If you want to chalk up even more Air Miles I suggest you call or email Air Miles requesting for duplicate cards with your Air Miles Number. You are entitled to three such cards. Then palm them off to friends who claim they are not affected with the recession and who shop at Air Miles stores. Get them to swipe your Air Miles card with every purchase they make at stores that award Air Miles. 

Then sit back and make modest plans for your next, near complimentary air travel, Courtesy: Air Miles and a new way to chalk them up.

I glanced at the clock as I waited patiently to board my ferry at Swartz Bay terminal in Victoria. I was coming home to Surrey with fall in the air and the days getting shorter.  A few feet away from me sat a man in his early thirties whose disheveled, grey pony-tail fell over a worn-out denim jacket. He groaned and mumbled; apparently his liquor supply had taken its effect.
 
“Gimme my country back… I want my country back!” he demanded.
 
 He was frothing at the mouth and his head bobbed around loosely. His right arm slung around his buddy’s shoulder for support. He drew little attention from the foot passengers. They seemed unconcerned about his plea. It is likely that that if he was applying for a Casino license somewhere outside the Swartz Bay area he might have gotten more attention. But returning Canada to his people, however justifiable- wasn’t an issue.
 
He may as well have been asking for the moon. But he had his point: His ancestors lost their land and this was his way of showing the world that it was a travesty of justice.
 
Historically, his people traded furs for precious stones and often times, the white man’s “fire water.” The white man soon liked the land and simply annexed all he could set his eyes on. And “Kanata”- the Native Indian word meaning ‘village’- became ‘Canada.’
 
A new country was born.
 
On the drive back home I listened to the thumps of the joints over the Alex Fraser Bridge. I just couldn’t forget the image of the man. I could still hear his echoes and became queasy about my own presence in the land of his ancestors.
 
If Canada belongs to the First Nations, then I too might be an occupier!
 
I suddenly sensed the presence of ancient spirits. I could hear the sounds of drums and shakers. Spots of sunlight bathe tepees in the early morning mist and the Chief sits huddled on his haunches. There is the morning sun filtering through the leaves of Douglas fir and hemlock of the Pacific Coast. Some of those rays break through the branches into shimmering lights.
 
I see a tribal elder covered in fur whose cheeks are furrowed and his brows are lined.  He appears to be in his own world through the ritual chants. More of his people appear in furs and headbands with shuffling in circles on their sacred ground.
 
These are First Nations people; Canada is arguably theirs.

We in Canada are fortunate to live in a relatively less prejudiced society.

There is less prejudice directed towards visible minorities in Canada than that which manifests itself in the treatment of lower castes in India.

Nevertheless, when there is a case of overt prejudice that shows up in Canada people react to it with shock and awe. They can’t believe what they have borne witness to. It is almost as if prejudice is alien to this society.

What is so shocking about prejudice in Canada? We remind ourselves that “the lower than humankind’ treatment meted out to Chinese immigrants who came to build the railroad in the later part of the nineteenth century and for the next four decades is still a lasting tattoo- like blemish in the history of Canada.

The other day you tube shocked us with an unbelievable display of cowardice in prejudice: three white teenagers attacking a colored youth in Courtney, British Columbia that was caught graphically on amateur video. It came to us as a shock. But to my fourth generation Japanese-Canadian friend it came as no surprise.

“ There are a lot of red necks up there on the Island!” he noted.

And so what if there is some prejudice in isolated cases. What is it we minorities expect? Do we expect some utopian world where black, white, yellow and pink all hold hands and stick daffodils in the guns of armored tanks? That can happen like it once did on the wide screen, but why go through all the bother when it possibly never will in our lifetimes.

Just as well- Canada is referred to as a multi-cultural society.  If on the other hand it were touted as a “melting pot” some of us minorities might have quipped sardonically: “ Get real!”

Prejudice is a tragedy for human kind, but then, time will surely be the healer.  With the passing of generations this carcinogen will become antiquated, it will vanish. Prejudice is a luxury- as was the war in Iraq. The world paid the price indirectly for an offshoot of prejudice and ultimately we now inhabit a planet with many more hungry people than before.

Maybe we ought to stop worrying about others and just do our bit to bring prejudice to an abrupt end. I think we can do this  by looking inward. 

At sometime in our lifetimes most of us have been perpetrators of prejudice in some form or the other. If we realize that aspect of our hypocritical selves, we might come nearer to living in harmony.

My Nigeria-born pastor surprised me with his Sunday morning homily when he referred to Michael Jackson as a genius with a higher level of consciousness. My pastor is well read and I tend to believe what he opines. Though the biased may not agree with that assertion, I think we ought to give it to Michael for his musical and choreographic  genius. 

Like most others who now tend to glorify Michael Jackson in death, my regard for Michael shot upwards after his heart called it a day. Thinking about all this in hindsight, I should have not been carried away with all the bad publicity he received when he was alive. And what a dramatic turnaround matters have taken after his death!

In a sense, he was vindicated. Michael Jackson may not been half as bad as they made him out to be. It was his immense wealth and naïve disposition that made him a soft target for bounty hunters.

In the end, he left behind an empire that is now getting ready to strike back. Michael Jackson’s next of kin are sitting on an even bigger goldmine now that he is no more.

But there is a facet of Michael Jackson that even the visible minorities like us can be thankful for.  He broke down a significant number of racial barriers by making music colorless. It can questionably be argued that his music brought white and black closer than any other single thing in the 20th century.

Most people living in South Asia do not understand what first world discrimination and prejudice is all about. And even if they do, they prefer not to liken it to the treatment meted out to lower castes in Indian society. We South Asians have collective double standards. But the Western brand of prejudice is like a baby bee inside your car when you are driving; sometimes it perches innocuously on the dashboard and at other times it is noticeable by the constant low- key buzz. Then at some point on a long journey you simply live with it. You know you can’t beat it in this lifetime anyway.

But our children in North America appear to be taking a milder view of it. They seem to have merged into society seemingly well. They do not live their life with the slight apprehension that bothered some of  us like the teeny-weenie bee buzzing in the back of our minds.

That little bee has become visibly smaller and subdued of late. No longer can its head pop out with temerity. But once in a while it hangs out like a tape worm that struggles to assert its presence.

Hopefully, we should see the end of prejudice in our lifetimes. Just as well,for that would enable us to concentrate on more compelling issues.

Like feeding the world’s hungry people, for instance.

Whenever I hear good news concerning a new South- Asian immigrant I know, I feel relieved and pleased. But there are people who feel jealous and insecure to hear of someone’s good fortune. I don’t blame people who are overcome by the pangs of jealousy when they hear that someone got a higher paying job, for example. I used to be that way for a while soon after I arrived in Canada, but not any more.

 When I first arrived in Canada I could not help comparing my situation to someone of my own ethnic or socio-cultural background who was better off than I was. It was a queasy feeling, and as much as I tried to go above it, I found it difficult to shoo away. Only now do I realize it was but natural.

Ask any ethnic Punjabi about it. Though he might not speak much English, chances are he knows the meaning of the word ” jealous.”  He will tell you that his people “ Bahut ‘Gelsy’ (jealousy) karate hain!”

There could be valid reasons for his dubious claim, but chances are, he has blown it out of proportion.

Let us consider the following scenario: ‘Gordy’ Brar has purchased a new “Hybrid” Honda Civic and he decides to park it in the driveway although his two older cars are housed in the garage.  His neighbor, Amrik Singh Sanghera wakes up one morning to peep out of the bedroom window and is greeted by the sight of a new silver gray Honda Civic “Hybrid.” Instead of appreciating his neighbors concern for the environment he calls out to his wife and both view it caustically while standing on a hotplate. The net result is that his neighbor’s good fortune has now prompted Amrik Sanghera to work another weekend job and his wife to work in a more upscale greenhouse.

Then one day, out of sheer revenge and an excess of savings in their checking account they buy a ‘Hummer’ and make Gordy Brar feel foolish for having fallen prey as a sucker to all that Salesman talk about how a “hybrid” help keep the environment green. He vows that the next time he has the hard cash he will be buy a vehicle as big as a Punjab State Transport Corporation bus and silence his ‘arrogant’ neighbor once and for all.

That is quite likely to happen. The circle of “Gelsy” goes on an on and before you know it, ethnic Indians are a very powerful socio-economic group and a political force to reckon with in places like Brampton, Ontario and Surrey in British Columbia.

I am not saying “ Gelsy” is a good emotion. All I am saying is that if you feel that way during your first few years in Canada, consider it natural. You are ten thousand miles from home and always hankering for material security.

Just as hockey is the unofficial religion of Canada so is cricket the all-encompassing boundary that confines an Indian’s brain.  An Indian cannot think beyond cricket unless his thoughts go for a six.  And that too, he will religiously pick up the ball from the stands and throw is back into play.

Indians take cricket intravenously and then use the same needle over and over again.

If you were one of the many geeks hooked on cricket in India, there are now cable networks in Canada who might entice you with “ Pssst, pssst…want a quick fix of the final game in the IPL? That will be sixty nine dollars and ninety nine cents for the final!”

And only then will the otherwise frugal South Asian cave in. This is the same man or woman who will buy greens from ‘Fruticana’ in Surrey to save on vegetables. But for cricket he opens up like a man with a stuffed wallet and no self-control.

My family has a $15.50 cent monthly rental of “the paid cricket channel” on cable. We are in the middle of the IPL series being played in South Africa in April-May 2009 and we did not opt for “ live coverage” because we felt the rate of $99 was steep. But let us say, we decide to watch just the final. It would then cost a whopping $69.99. For that kind of money, the entire society of eighty cottages of our first house in Memnagar, Ahmedabad could watch cable for a month. And that cable service would cover the IPL for peanuts.

So what is the solution? Do we cave in to our addiction? Or do we engender new games like baseball and ice hockey?

Fat chance!

Baseball looks a bit like cricket, but is a shade incomprehensible. And ice hockey looks like a game for “goondas” armed with rough arm tactics and “lathis” – who sporadically slip on banana peels.

But the next generation of immigrants will espouse baseball and cricket with zest. They will wave you down and hold placards prompting you to honk for their favorite ice hockey teams. They will look at a game of cricket and wonder what all the calculated boredom is about.

And finally the will pronounce their forefathers as “ jerks” who had nothing better to do than to count from one to four and straight to six for five drab days in a row. Little might they know that this legacy from the British was the basis for a style of life and an all-absorbing obsession in a distant world.