I was young and innocent. Even naive. And the only ‘foreigners’ I had seen were the guys in the English Movies. That was the time I thought the world was made up of three types of people. Englishmen, Chinese and Indians.

And the English Women had bigger breasts than the others.

And most of the English Men I saw were Detectives or Spies.

Their life…no, let me illustrate this…

The English Man is sleeping. The phone rings. He picks it up, alert from the word Go. The next thing you know he is driving down a city street or a highway in a fancy car at breakneck speeds to save the world and perhaps a damsel in distress. (The Movie was true to script every time).

No shave, no shower, no…well, no peeing even.

So I grew up thinking that Englishmen do not Pee.

I used to envy the white man. I who used to wake up at least once every night and venture out to the loo…I who used to run to the loo the moment I woke up…I who had to face the embarrassment of wetting my pyjamas ever so often…

What was their secret I used to wonder.

Then I heard about the camel and its ability to store water. Aah…I thought…so camels store water and English Men store Piss.

By the time I lost my innocence and learnt some amount of self control…or as they say in ‘pet’ language…by the time I was house trained I guess I was also old enough to realise that my English Perceptions were unreal.

The English were not the only white skins in the world. And so what if they did not ‘Pee’…they ‘tinkled’.

And then I saw a series of Indian Movies where the film begins with a scruffy man waking up with a snort, and then peeing into a dirty pot and even giving the world a farting shot.

I think I was better off when I used to think that English Men Do Not Pee.