Been there, done that!

Ok, I also went there. LONDON. Yes, this is what I thought I would say when people ask me. :)
This is my first visit abroad. I work for a software company. One fine day my delivery manager calls me and says, ‘there is an assignment for which you need to go to the UK. What's the status of your visa etc?’ I said I don’t have one. So visa was done but assignment was cancelled. I was down, “Saala hath me line hi nahi hai”.

One month more and the line appeared, got another chance. This was a different assignment but who cares. Tickets done, I heaved a sigh of relief. Ahh… this time, it seems I was going.

Sunday Morning 3.40 AM. Flight from Mumbai. The day was frantic, got up at 8 am. It was a Saturday, cool, final pieces of packing, Nitya was packed also, saw her off. She was happy to be going to her parents.

Then Darpan came, had another round of lunch, pizza. Full. Now what? Movie. Nitya also reached, she called. Still a lot of time left, went for dinner. That’s done, now airport.

Prior to that, all called saying we are so proud of you and take care of your PASSPORT. Some also said take care of yourself. Anyways I was off, got inside airport.

First thing, check in. Long queue, I realized all types of people go abroad. I mean not just the obviously rich and beautiful girls to women. The obviously poor also do and of course, people like me. Cool. From sexy looking bags to laptops to kapde to jhola (bag made of cloth), everything one can find on the airport.

For such long queues, do not dump too much of stuff in the hand baggage otherwise, it becomes heavy. What I did was put it down and ‘toe’ it!!! 

‘Which seat should I give you, Sir?” the person at the counter asked politely. “Window” I replied. And then I saw on the counter, AI-111, Mumbai, LHR-JFK. Oh god, the plane is going to NY from London. So this must be a 747. That means on an economy class seat, in this 12 hour journey, I will have to cross two other passengers even to go to toilet. Then, “Have a nice flight” he said with a smile which felt to me like a smirk saying, “Now, how will you go the toilet?” God really, how? I did not know the answer.

The weight was more, not mine, weight of my check-in luggage. I asked how much is allowed. 20 Kgs came the answer, it was some 21-22kgs, thought will transfer some to cabin luggage if needed, but it was not needed. Passport was in my jeans pocket. “Don’t hand it over to people” advised some. “Means,” I asked, “but they will like to see at the airport”. “Ha... not at airport, I mean generally.”

“Generally? But why? People ask for it kya?”

“Just don’t hand it over.” I let it go. Was there any other option?

Anyways, check-in of luggage done, now to immigration. Ok, yeah, I remember someone telling me about immigration. So, I proceeded towards Immigration. Oh god, is this a queue to Shirdi Sai Baba temple? Huge queue, by all means. All sorts of people with all sorts of other people and their luggage. The speed was non existent, the line was practically not moving. I again admired things around me. After an hour, I was able to see the ‘shrines’. I counted, there were 10 officers. All sleepy. Naturally, it was 1 am in the morning. I was analyzing, this is a habit. Can’t they have counters according to flights? That will boost people psychologically, at least anyway that’s the way it happens here.


Heathrow

Finally after a very hectic journey, “Khajurao” landed at Heathrow. I had seen four airports earlier. Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bhopal. Oh yes, one more, Indore. And this is bigger than five of them put together, the plane landed and stopped and taxied again and stopped again. Finally it docked.

I said bye to the plane, my co-traveller for the last 12 hours. Finally I got into the airport. Tastefully done. All carpeted.

If something is all carpeted, it looks good but there is also a problem. If someone is carrying heavy cabin luggage, like me, with mithai and maggies and biscuits and shoes in it, add that huge luggage is without wheels, then? In Mumbai airport I kept it down and ‘toed’ it to the immigration counter. but here I had to carry it all the way.

After coming out, Suhas and Ranjay were there to pick me up. One and a half hour train journey, no, ‘Tube’ journey and then to their place. Will move to the accommodation provided by the company tomorrow.


London

Great city, old city. Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster… the old architecture shares space with London Eye and the Millennium Dome. The city has 80 % old buildings and 20% new ones (according to me, don’t dare quoting this anywhere).

Day and Night: Its all day, everyone has long day this time in UK. The sun rises at 4.30 am and sets after 10.30 pm. Just six hours of night. People however do not utilize the time to work. They enjoy. They reach around 10 am and leave by 4 30 p.m. 5 pm and only I and the caretaker are there. But receptionist is also there. Unlike in India, where after 6 pm, the place of receptionist is taken by security.

Oxford Street

Hmm… the world famous Oxford Street is where I had to reach on the first day of my office in London. It’s just a two lane road, more apt to be called a ‘gully’ in Hindi. Big stores and companies on either side. Mainly bus traffic, all double deckers. One lane for each, going and coming.


Buses:- There are different types of buses in London Double deckers. One of the types we can see in old Amol Palekar movies, just “BEST” is missing. The second are new ones, Volvo. They are silent. There is a third kind, ‘Red Arrow’. Its single deck double bus, two buses connected one behind the other. Its long, goes on and on…. It’s a More. The speed for all varies from 10 – 30 km ph. There is no place for more speed.

The buses apart from the old double decker, which looks like 'BEST’, do not have open windows. They seem to be air conditioned but when you get into them, you tend to suffocate.


People walk a lot, just like in Mumbai; even throw half burnt cigarettes in road or footpaths. The only difference is here, you don’t sweat. In Mumbai, streets are wide, at least all famous roads. Cleanliness is at par. Ok, ok, this is cleaner, but not much. Now to office.



Bus Routes

My bus No. 15, “Metroline” bus. Double decker. Red. There is one other bus in red double-decker. That’s called the “First Flight”. Anyways, I had to use a signal to cross the road after coming out of my building. On these signals, there are boxes with buttons, and the pedestrians can press the button that said ‘Wait”. Soon after, the signal for vehicles turned to red. It was a good idea and I thought one that was changing the world. I had lived in Delhi and considering the traffic there, if you tell the people that there is something like this on London streets they will laugh at you.

Anyways the bus journey on any bus cost £1 one way, anywhere to anywhere. The bus route was excellent. From Aldgate, where I boarded the bus, it travelled through all the important places in London before reaching my destination, Oxford Street. So from Andheri East to Aldgate East!  From there to Aldgate Station, Tower Bridge, the Monument, Cannon Street, past Fidelity Investments which is at 25 Cannon Street, St Paul’s Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circle and then Oxford Street where I got down. It was like a ‘London Darshan’. The actual ‘London Darshan’ buses take 15£s.

There is nothing to see in the Monument, it’s a tower about 1/3 the height of the Qutub Minar. It was built when London was reconstructed after the Great Fire which burnt more than half the city to ashes. You can get down and see Buckingham Palace and walk to Trafalgar Square, look around, walk on to Oxford Street, shop and take a bus back home. All for 2£s. what do you say? 

Trafalgar Square has a huge statue of Admiral Nelson. The square is named after the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Admiral Nelson and his fleet of 26 ships defeated the combined strength of the Spanish and French fleet, numbering some 38 ships. Admiral Nelson died in the battle. The place has a high tower in the middle with statue of Admiral Nelson, looking at the queen. I mean the queen’s palace.

Buckingham Palace is a beautiful place, considered to be the second best palace in the world. First one being the Mysore Palace of Raja Krishna Dev Rai. It had huge lawns. On one of the lawns, the orchestra was performing, probably because it was a weekend and there were arm-chairs all around the place. We sat and listened. It was good. Just in front of the palace, there were Red Tulips. They looked beautiful.

Ok, reached office and was waiting for another person who will introduce me. I saw a Merc coming, a lady driving it. She turned, “Nice car” I said. Then she stopped. She came, she saw and she stopped. I thought these guys park on road. Then I realized she is waiting for someone maybe because the road was empty. And then it struck me. There was a small signal, (traffic). I said oh, but the road is empty. But she did not move. Some time later, she finally went ahead.

Now I understand how this city with such narrow roads can manage to handle such traffic. Terrific. Traffic. Whatever. But one thing is annoying, when light turns from green to orange as an indication of turning red, people stop. 

Bikes
Bikes are great. Black and blue mostly. Some red and some other colours too. All sorts. Standard to stylized Yamahas. There are no 100cc ones. Big motorbikes, 500cc, 1000cc. heavy and muscular by any standard. And people who drive them. God, on streets of London, these are the only things which run at speeds above 60kmph I think. Wheels and all. Race track suits, hand gloves and helmets give a wow effect. Drivers are proud of their bikes and so flaunt them. In India people flaunt themselves on bikes, I mean after wearing so much, hand gloves, driving suits and helmets who can flaunt. And what can they flaunt? So the bikes. 

Ben, a colleague, has a Kawasaki Ninja, 600 CC and 110 BHP. Ben is a guy in office. He commutes everyday 60 miles one side, that’s some 96kms one side. One side because he goes home daily. So it’s a total of 192kms per day on a bike.

Small streets, new fast cars to old style taxis. Apart from taxis, new double decker buses (mostly red). Other means of transport – tubes (underground train system) like metros of Kolkatta and now of Delhi also of course and of course the famous local train system. Like in Mumbai. And if you assume air conditioned comfort, think again. Nothing is by default air-conditioned. They just have heaters for winter, no coolers. Everything is built with the idea of preserving people from the cold outside. For example, buses are all panelled with small windows on top, like ventilators. This can be pretty suffocating when temperatures cross 18 – 20• C but is a very cosy arrangement for temperatures lower than 11•C. temperatures are this low in summer also as I found out, only the first two days of my visit did I find that temperatures touched 20• C.

One great thing was there are hardly any horns to hear. In my 13 odd days there, I heard horns blaring just twice.
And no speed breakers. The footpaths and roads are twisted in a slight zigzag pattern to serve as speed breakers. But this was achieved because the roads are just two lanes mostly and drivers are very disciplined.

I always say that Mumbai as a city has matured. People there display patience in getting on and off the buses. Not trains, for otherwise no one can board the trains. . Here, also I see similar thing but probably more developed. There is enormous respect displayed for pedestrians and also for other drivers. They wait and wait till the car or bus in front moves but they don’t use the horn.

Cleanliness is another BIG thing. The roads are vacuumed daily. The houses can be inspected any time for cleanliness and if not found clean, the resident has to get it cleaned at a cost of £1000 which is enormous by any standards.

Even the bathrooms are always spotlessly clean. The shower room with its glass door has just enough place to stand and shower. Don’t let your soap fall, because you don’t have the room to bend and pick it up! You need to stop the shower, open the door, get out, then bend to pick the soap and move back in to continue. Apart from the shower, a typical bathroom has a wash basin and a WC. No water outlet. I repeat, no water outlet! There is toilet paper, you can use it for all purposes so the bathrooms are dry. I used to get tensed when I needed the bathroom for things other than bathing.  Fortunately, my friend’s house where I stayed had a ‘magga” and the wash basin was quite near so one could fill it with water sitting. Office bathrooms were a problem, that’s why get fresh before leaving home was a rule of thumb for me.

Roamed around London on the weekend, the only weekend I had there.

Food chains: There are two sandwich chains which are most common. Prêt a manger and Starbucks Coffee.

One thing I noticed, there were cameras everywhere. On roads, in tubes, stations, buses etc … Every door of a building had cameras. The buses had TV and CCTV in constant operation. CCTV is close circuit television. Other than the cameras, there was constant monitoring also. If you roam around on the tube station without any purpose for some 10-15 mins, the officials come and investigate your purpose. The cars breaking the speed limits and not stopping at the crossing get the tickets on their home addresses. They scan the number plates and detect the home address based on that.

The most remarkable thing I came to know from Sokhiya, a friend, was that in a murder case in London, the CCTV has produced evidence that the person was last seen in a particular area. This picture was one year old. I was just thinking, where they would store such extensive data from all the cameras in London. Imagine, ten cameras per tube station, so for some 70 stations, its 700 cameras. 500 buses, 3 cameras per bus, its 1500 more cameras. 10 cameras per tube, that is for some 100 tube trains, it is 1000 cameras. That’s 700+1500+1000=3200 cameras.

Per hundred metres, there are cameras on both sides of the road, and the density increases if the road is important, like Oxford Street or Canon Street. Let’s assume some 4-6 cameras per hundred metres, that’s on an average 5 cameras per 100 metres. How many stretches of 100 m are there in London? Well, let’s try and compare Mumbai to London. Now, Mumbai is 40 kms in length, and say 10 kms in breadth, that’s 400 sq kms. London is square, so, say 50 kms by 30 kms. That’s 1500 sq kms and 1500*1000*1000 sq m. In a 100/100 m, according to our evaluation, number of cameras in London is equal to 5 (say). Then for 2000 sq m, there will be one camera and, using simple “chuki” or unitary method, the total cameras on London streets become 1500*1000*1000/2000 = 750 000. This is by the most conservative estimate. So, now the total cameras are 750 000 + 3200 = 753 200.

Each of these cameras work 24 hours a day relaying things to some disks. Now, if we consider a DVD also, it has a film file of 2 movies equivalent, that’s some 6 hours say. So, for one camera, there will be 24/6 = 4 DVDs needed. And again if you can calculate for 753 200 cameras, imagine how many DVDs will be needed. And this is just for one day. Add this up for a year and even more. Where are they storing such vast data? On the Thames riverbed??? Well, then there will be no Thames in London in a few years.

Football
Football has a big fan following, more than cricket. You can see people leaving office by 4p.m when there was an England match at the Euro 2004.

Well, England was my favourite also but I am not an ardent follower. England was my favourite cos of Beckham and the last World Cup and so that’s continuing. Too bad they lost in the Quarterfinals. Beckham, King Beckham as they call him played badly. I was not impressed. England and France can be compared to India/Pakistan. The sentiments are the same. It’s a have-to situation for both countries.

When England was knocked out of the tournament, the security guard at my friend’s building was as disappointed as can be. “Beckham just cant hit the ball.” He said. “The penalty, he hit it over the post.” I empathised.
My favourites kept changing as more teas got knocked out. Wayne Rooney, Luis Fego, Ronaldo and yeah Maniche (pronounced Manish). I wanted Portugal to win.

Wimbledon had also just begun. Natwest Series was on as well. So a lot of sporting event were happening while I was there.


Stay

For the entire 13 day period, I stayed with Suhas. He and Ranjay came to Heathrow to pick me up. The guest house provided by the company was not clean, it was rented long back and no one stayed there. So, the place was all dingy and dirty. I said No to stay there. This solved two purposes, first the dinner at least was Indian food, thanks to Ruhi, Suhas’s colleague with whom he shares the dinner. She made excellent dinner. Simple dal-chawal, but that’s what you need. I made Maggie which Nitya had given and also egg-bhurji one day. It came out well. The second thing was from money point-of-view, it was beneficial. I earned at the rate of £ 52.5 instead of £ 35. This was because I took care of my accommodation.

Apart from that, of course the most important thing was Suhas and the others were there. We used to freak out. We went to Tower Bridge at 1 AM in the morning. Well, that’s something I could not have done had I stayed alone. So, all in all, a really enjoyable stay.

Sighting seeing also. I saw Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Lester Square, Monument and Piccadilly Circus. Oxford Street was office, so cool. Oxford Street is considered to be the most happening place on Saturday night in London second only to Lester Square where they say girls take off their clothes and dance. Unlucky me, I did not go there on a Saturday night. Anyways, better luck next time. ;)

There is an approximately 20 feet tall statue of George V in front of Westminster. I noticed it had something on its head. No, not a crown, some birds had marked their presence… now I know only the birds had time for English royalty.



Bye, Bye

Time to say good bye. It was a high-tension drama. The CRM asked me to stay. I said, boss, please that’s enough for the first time. It was 15 days yaar and 15 days is sufficient. So, finally on the last morning, it was decided that this will be my last day for this tour.

Journey back was usual. I did not see the Tower Bridge at night and so, we were there till 3 AM. Came back, got up by 6:30AM. Had planned to leave by 6AM. . Left finally at 7:30AM for airport, got into wrong train. So, had to change the station, ran all the way and took another train from there and reached in time by 9AM. In London, the tubes (underground trains) are of 9 types like Central, Western and Harbour route local trains in Mumbai. The routes are: Piccadilly, Jubilee, District, Victoria, Central, Hammersmith and City, Circle, Metropolitan, Northern. There are others also, but they are on very limited routes.

Anyways, so, Aldgate East, where I stayed was on District and Hammersmith and City line. We planned to take a train on the District line while travelling to the Airport till Hammersmith. From there, we could have taken the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow. What went wrong was we saw Hammersmith and boarded the train and it was Hammersmith and City line train to Hammersmith. So, the station was same but from City line, you need to come out of the station and enter the Piccadilly Line. So, we had to run. But, we got the next train as soon as we entered and that saved time.

Again, at the airport, checked in and got into the airport. Said bye to Suhas. Immigration and then to Duty free shops. Bought chocolates. And went to Gate number 31 for Air India. Again, the same flight, London-Delhi-Mumbai. Finally, on plane. The air hostesses were good. They seemed motherly. . Recently, I have heard Air India has hired a lot of young women. Well, they must have been in training. I took the aisle seat this time. I don’t repeat mistakes. I thought now that there is nothing to look around, neither view now Air hostesses, lets watch movies.

While going to London, they played Munna Bhai – MBBS. This time the movie was also some faltu thing. Both the English and Hindi were equally boring. Food as usual was quite good. Reached Delhi late. And back to Mumbai at 4:30AM instead of 3AM.

There was no problem at the airport. A lot of people instructed me on how to walk and how to talk to the police walas. But all that teaching was not needed. No one paid any attention. The immigration clerk Ms Kulkarni was quite impressed. She started talking to me in Marathi and I was able to respond. . So, no issues.

Back home. Slept. Still sleeping…

London is a good nice place. Very costly, but good. Summers are cold and winters are very cold. It’s like Raipur where there are two seasons, hot and very hot.

People were disciplined. Road signals are followed. People are helping. You can make the traffic wait until you cross the road. Where the roads are small but traffic jams are not there. Where the old monuments and new jazzy buildings can be seen side by side. Water is of two types, Still and Sparkling. Sparkling is soda. The biggest city in Europe and probably the costliest. But I liked it and I will like to go back there.