Back from London after 18 delicious days of covering cricket. The Indian team loses before the semi-finals hastening my own return back, but it isn't just cricket that I'm taken with there. Everything is a new experience. From the dust-free roads to the squeaky clean sidewalks, the impressive buildings to the cuisine. The city of London shows you what the likes of Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay could be like if they got the careful attention that is needed to get them to bloom.
No. I don't go to Madame Tussauds, nor to do I venture near Buckingham Palace or take a walk through Hyde Park. After all that time in London stepping into the trains, jumping into buses and whistling for taxis, I begin to feel I belong - and pray tell me which Londoner feels the need to ogle at the palace? On more careful reflection, it also seems that I deliberately left the 'sight-seeing' incomplete so I can go back someday to complete it. I meet a lot of whites, blacks, browns and yellows. And twice I feel the undercurrent of racism. The second time being when I ask a British-Indian waiter to get me a table at a restaurant. (Not too surprising, is it? After all we Indians are as racist as anyone else, only our atttitudes only harm ourselves in the end).
Come to think of it, London has changed my life and the way I look at some things. Boy, how I needed this trip.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Your London trip undoubtedly seemed gud as you looked very happy most of the time on TV...But all that apart, where are the chocolates? I heard you distributed them away...Neha.
Cool da. I wish the US was as interesting. The only joint I halfway began to appreciate was NY - spent far too little time there, however. Always wanted to see Europe. Someday..
Post a Comment