Kishore Singh: 'Columbus' finally discovers

Christopher Columbus is back after exploring America, and I am happy to report that she is female. Columbus came home reluctantly, having taken a shine to the natives, vast numbers of whom entertained her. She gave them gifts of beads, graced the homes of the local citizenry, visited their museums, clicked selfies, and pronounced herself satisfied with their well-being and demeanour. On Facebook, where she marked her progress, she reported that their bathroom showers worked, electricity was plentiful, the trains ran on time, and even though they confused kilometres with miles and litres with gallons, they were friendly with shopping discounts and free with credits and points.
 

America, it seems, is nothing like India, and even less like Noida, which is where Columbus shed her mask and morphed into my wife. Her flight was late coming back - "typical," she said - even though she had chosen an American carrier to spare her such eventuality. When her bag was last off the carousel, she said that she expected no better from the great unwashed. Back home, the staff had retired for the night, causing her to wonder whether they thought they were employed in America instead of India.

She pronounced the scorching heat unbearable, unlike that of Miami, where she had enjoyed a sense of bonhomie amid homes that belonged to Oprah Winfrey and Boris Becker. She complained about the noise, as a result of which - and not because of jet lag - she was unable to sleep at night, even if it was in the comfort of her own bed. The water, she said, smelled, the streets were too crowded, the electricity not bright enough. She proclaimed the family dog ill-behaved, asked why the children had funny accents that were difficult to follow, and suggested we cease with the sing-song speak. The cook was ordered to lay off spices, even though he'd only served her fried eggs for breakfast.

She wondered if the fruit in the fridge was safe to eat, insisted on frequent use of hand-sanitiser, and said the air was so polluted she didn't feel refreshed even after a session of yoga - which she had also practised in the galley on the flight home, to the amusement of the cabin staff, and whose gift of a goodie bag of preserves she accepted as her due. There was no peanut butter in the bag, nor jelly, not that it would have made the bread at home any more palatable, given, she pointed out, that it was more suited to pav-bhaji than preserves. Conscious of her favourite meal, the cook had made her fish for lunch, but she found the piscean curry too earthy and "tasting of India". (I told the cook she meant is as a compliment.)

"Actually," said my wife, "America is like India - only better." Though there were no mangoes, the selection of Darjeeling teas, Indian cotton shirts, packaged namkeens and frozen dal was superior to anything back home. The Indian restaurants in Boston and NYC outdid themselves - and though that sentiment might have been triggered by her nostalgia for remembered tastes, I dared not suggest it. For Columbus, who had been kindly disposed on her voyage to the land of the free, had discovered her temper on her return, the wrath of which none of us wants to face. For which reason we have decided to turn American for as long as it takes Columbus to realise that it was India, not America, that needed discovering in the first place.