1. Do not whip out your wallet to use your EZ-link card everytime you step onto a bus.

2. Any confidence you might have gained by managing things perfectly well in Singapore disappears as soon as you witness your cousin bargain her way into buying a 400 Rupee book for 150. Especially when you know you’d have parted with 350 rupees for the very same thing.

3. Singapore without an umbrella is not equivalent to Mumbai without an umbrella. If you find a surgeon versed in the art of affixing umbrellas to one’s body parts permanently, do it.

4. Staring at Indian faces is accepted (by said Indian faces) in Singapore. It might do you well to realise that you’re in India, and that finding an Indian face in your immediate surroundings is not an unusual occurrence. The Indian faces in this part of the world might be a trifle disturbed by the sudden interest evinced from your side.

5. What you eat in Bombay is no longer your own business. Neither are the details of your digestive functions.

6. After a while, you get used to the idea of sounding like an NRI-snob who puts up blog posts called “Retrospective pointers for a Singapore-Mumbai transition”.

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