Analyse af novellen 'The Bliss of Britain'

The short story ”The bliss of Britain” is about Anuj and Lata who come from India and live in Wales – Cardiff. They are going to married, but they are totally different. Lara (the lady) are more like an Indian and Anuj more English. This conflict between the two cultures develops a conflict and desperation between Lata and Anuj.

Lata comes from India and miss her country very much. In the beginning of the text when they don’t know what to do, she would like to go to an Indian restaurant – “Mermaid Quay” with “brightened eyes”. She thinks well about her time in India and tries to find her own India en Britain. When they (Anuj and her) are in the centre, she goes through coffee and spices area and it smells like it was in India. She gets a flashback and “inhaled deeply and smiled”. She has a lot of trouble to adjust the society in Wales/Britain. Her future husband Anuj says India is her former home and Cardiff is her home now. She has no opportunity, she needs to adjust the society, but that isn’t easy. When Anuj and Lata are working in the street, she feels like she is an “old woman” and “very embarrassed” with a blue silk sari and black overcoat when she watch the natives’ clothes. They have “make-up” and high heels and she wears her Indian clothes that don’t fit in the Britain society. She also reacts like a person for India, when she says “why do people here ask, ‘you alright? Nothing is visibly wrong with me”. In India I am not sure, that people come and ask you “are you alright” or something like that. Her brother Bhushan has pictures of Jennifer Lopez on his wall in the bedroom, and Lata can’t understand the fascination of half naked girls on the wall and she thinks that he doesn’t respect woman, when he can have these pictures on the wall. The relationship between Lata and Anuj isn’t perfect in some ways. She smells to him, before they go to the cinema and it smells like “shower gel” and “clean”. It is the total different than the spice smell she loved in the center. In the center she loved the natural smell she knows from India and now she tries to adapt the new culture with the “shower gel” smell. Before she says yes to go watch a movie, she think, that she needs to learn to love him and the new culture for her.