FASCINATING
LONDON- a page from my travel diary!
Having just
returned from one of world's busiest and biggest metropolis, London, I am still
in a touristy jet lag. My heart and mind still wake up to the sights and sounds
of this city, my mind walks down the long escalators that take me down almost
ten floors to the crisscrossing underground railway, tube as it is lovingly
called by old hats and newbie's, insiders and visitors. I sleep to the dreams
of lush meadows and sprawling gardens and I long for the merchandise
tantalizingly waiting for my precious pounds in beautifully decorated stores
after stores. I can still smell the frothing fresh British ale spewing out of
taps and the plate of freshly fried fish and chips carried proudly as a badge
of honor by the proud Londoner.
I have
travelled quite a lot, in India and abroad. But I have always slipped under the
blanket of routine as soon as my feet touched ground zero. It has never
happened that I have dwelled on the memories of the place left behind or lingered
on the place that i had just visited. In fact I have a tendency to lose the
names that remain captured in cameras only. Occasionally, one visits these
memories and debates about the name, place, thing and person. Often the debates
get serious as memory fades rapidly and one resorts to search engines on the
internet or the friendly sibling to help out with the date and the place.
Probably, the reason why i have never ventured into the genre of travelogues!
Why is it
then that this place called London still haunts me, beckons me, makes me
nostalgic and puts a warm smile in my heart? I am not gifted with the art of recognizing
art, I am not trained to assess the beauty of a building or a road or a city. I
have no knowledge of how towns and cities are planned. I am just an ordinary
traveler with a heart that can recognize the heart of what my eyes are seeing.
Yes Sir! got it now. I know now why London has stayed with me. I realized that
this was one rare place, apart from my home town that had a beautiful body and
a beautiful heart.
London was
not always called by this name. In the past it has been called Londonium,
Ludenwic and Ludenburg. About 2000 years ago, the Romans invaded and Princess
Bodicea became the ruler of Londinium which was then as big as Hyde Park area.
They got with them the Roman baths, aqueducts and other culture. The final invasion of London was in 1066 when
the French took over and English became the official language. Eventually the
Tudor dynasty took over and became the famous Monarchy ‘on whom the sun never
set’.
During its
lifetime, this city has seen devastating destruction, the plague of 1665 that
killed 1/5th of the population and the terrible fire that raised 60%
of the city to ground. In spite of the major set-backs, it rose, literally from
the ashes to become one of the top five cities in the world that have the power
to change the course of human history. The British resilience has become
legendary, as is the stiff upper lip!
As you exit
from the famous Heathrow express on one of the many tube-stations, what strikes
the most is the hustle-bustle, the tens of hundreds of city-goers rushing for
various activities to various destinations and the clatter-blatter of
conversations. The activity brings the whole place alive and you are soon
absorbed in its fiber. You walk along, stop at a bus-stop or hail the legendary
black taxi, just like the locals and reach your destination amidst throngs of
city dwellers, never once feeling alien.It is said that cab drivers in London have to memorize
every street and important building in London within six miles from Charing Cross
and they need to take a test called ‘The Knowledge’ before they can drive a
cab!
From the
word go, the city assimilates you. It may not welcome you with the warmth of
Mumbai, but it definitely allows you to be a part of it and do whatever it is
that you have come for. As a tourist, you get overawed at the modernization and
urbanization of this beautiful place but what takes away your breath is the
history that runs through every nook and corner, every street, every tube
station, every building that stands tall, not in as many floors as much as in
pride.
Look around
and you see a building that has housed an author/ poet of repute and standing,
or a famous personality that has changed the course of medicine, history,
science or even art. For me personally, the moment of ecstasy was to see the
buildings that housed the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of
Physicians where my father studied to become its fellow and the place where
Thomas Guy of Guy’s Hospital was born.
The
hundreds of years old palaces, churches, bridges, forts and the unique Big Ben
left us amazed as did modern creations like the Shard, the Bullet and the
famous London eye.In 1945, a flock of birds landed on the minute hand of Big Ben and
put the time back by 5 minutes and that Big Ben is not actually the name of the
clock, it is the name of the bell which is inside the clock. Recently it was
discovered that the chiming is not the regular chime we know from bells but a
series of vibrations rising in crescendo one after the other as a large hammer
hits the bell.
The cruise
over the Thames was as exhilarating as was the visit to the unparalleled gold-
filigreed Buckingham palace. Every chair, every carpet, every painting, every
piece of crockery lovingly and securely preserved and presented in all its
royalty. The palace itself spread over tens of hundreds of acres of land dotted
with manicured lawns, ageless tress, patches of shrubbery and pristine ponds
where cottony white swans floated gracefully.
We also got a glimpse of the famous tradition
of high tea in the Royal Grosvenor Hotel owned by the second richest family in
the UK, the Grosvenors. The three tiered ensemble with dainty ham n cheese and
cucumber sandwiches, bite sized delicious cup-cakes and warm scones with
clotted cream all drowned with fragrant light British tea served in delicate
bone china cups and saucers adorned with pink and purple flowers. According to tradition, high
tea always starts at 4 pm and ends at about 6. The tea is always poured first
,only leaf tea is used and the saucer is never held in the hand while gently
sipping the tea. The conversation is always in low tones and some gossip is
welcome. The tradition of high tea took the humble cup of chai to a whole new
level.
We walked out
of the Baker street tube station to encounter the greatest fictional detective
who never lived on this earth, but became a legend and a larger than life
figure for all detective story aficionados of the world. Sherlock Holmes stands
tall on the street where his life and times were created by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle. We lazed on the vast green lawns of central park teeming with people
hungry for that elusive sunny day, lazing on small armchairs that could be
hired for a small price. We walked through Hyde Park and stood in awe in front
of the small dais that saw the rise and fall of many a leaders. We saw the
iconic Hotel Ritz steeped in tradition and gazed at the Harrod’s from a great
distance. We shopped through the streets with million other people through
shops inviting with their window dressing, merchandise and a world-famous names.
There were
street performers of various kinds showcasing their art and roadside bistros on
the streets that metamorphosed from formal traffic routes plying hundreds of
cars, taxis and the unique ‘London red bus’ during the day to enchanting
islands of food and fun as the night-life sprung into life, changing the face
of the formal to the young and vivacious ,throbbing with energy and enthusiasm.
The pubs packed choc-o-block with young Londoners washing their day away with
dark ale and fish-n-chips, food stalls serving food from across the world and
taps and taps of freshly brewed ale, dark and deep, with a hint of chocolate
and mocha, soothening hundreds of parched throats, uplifting souls, relaxing
tired bodies and increasing the crescendo of conversation as the night slipped
away.
We soaked in
all this as we smoothly changed tubes from green line to the blue, arriving at
deep underground stations, brightly lit dungeons throbbing with light and sound
of fast moving tube rails as they cruised through the arteries carrying with
them tens and thousands of Londoners at any time of the day or night. The maps
for travelling were explicit, the directions were specific and the friendly
security guard at each tube station helped when the travel card refused to open
the automatic door for entering the station. For tourists like us venturing on
our own, there was not a moment of anxiety and we hopped from one tourist
destination to another with ease.
The
ease of travel, the availability of information on London and the tremendous
activity on the streets alive at any point of time helped us to explore and
enjoy the amazing destinations without the constraint of time.
For a city
that was completely destroyed not once but twice, London has shown the amazing
spirit to rise from the ashes and stand tall again. This is the heart of that
place that melted mine. Like my adopted city Pune, I found the strength of
character and a sense of liveliness, not to mention the deep rooted history of
this place that has stayed with me and endeared me to this place.
I do not
know if I will get an opportunity to go back again, but the memories of my
first impression of London will stay forever.
