Racism is on the wane and the Brits seem to be largely reconciled to foreign presence. The goras on the streets were a lot friendlier than on my past encounters with them. Inter-racial sex and marriages are on the rise. Rashmi Thakkar, a friend who is marketing director at the Gryms Dyke hotel and an event coordinator, says she alone arranged for 21 mixed marriages last year. In most cases the girls were Indian, the men English. India is happening in a big way, be it clothes, women or food. What better evidence of our growing clout on that bleak island-state than the presence of Cherie Blair in a sari at a dazzling all-Indian gala event recently. What next? The Queen herself in a nine-yard Kanjeevaram silk, an ornate Maharashtrian nose-ring dangling below the ornate signature hat? Not such an unbelievable prospect, really.