How It All Goes Down
- The experience of leaving India for England is described in a long analogy. Hassan says the family's uprooting is like fishing an octopus. When a fisherman catches an octopus, he spears it in the water while it clings to a rock, and when he pulls out his spear, he rips the animal's body inside out. This death kills the octopus quickly but leaves all of its guts out in the open.
- Translation: Hassan and his family have no time to get used to change, but instead are ripped from their home, left feeling exposed and cold in this new world.
- Uncle Sami picks them up from the airport with their cousin Aziza. Aziza is immediately a point of not-so-cousinly interest for Hassan, who is now a full-fledged teenager; she isn't anything like the girls from Mumbai, and instead wears black leather, chews bubblegum, and listens to headphones.
- Auntie reads Hassan's mind and warns him to stay away from his westernized cousin, whom she says is dirty like a toilet seat (3.7). We're hoping our aunties have never described us this way to anyone in our families…
- Southall is the melting pot of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi populations, and there are the same strong and spicy smells from home, but under the gray English sky. Papa calls the second generation Indians "Anglo Peacocks" (3.11).
- Papa being himself, he immediately starts looking for business opportunities. He gets the idea to dabble in hot sauces, but trying to battle the Southall market scene and its lack of Indian ingredients and integrity, he gives up and sinks into a depression.