NOTICE

Hey this blog is going to be continued only for my university assignments. So please redirect to my footballing blog sites given below:-

BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE BLOG

CATENACCIO BLOG

Grievances of a London Traveller

Last weekend I decided to travel to Nottingham to visit a friend. I was however unable to book my tickets online as my debit card hadn’t come in. Having come from India I was quite used to going and buying travel tickets at the time of departure, furthermore I also presumed that being a Friday it wouldn’t be too difficult to get to my destination. Little did I know the devious plans of the transport system which conspired to make me wait a full six hours before I could find my way up north.

I had planned to catch the 1330 bus to Nottingham from Victoria Coach Station for this particular journey. And in accordance with my estimation I got to the coach station by 1315. After hurriedly rushing through the queue I looked at the lady at the counter with a beaming smile and asked her for a ticket. She smiled back at me equally gloriously and informed me that the bus was full and so were all subsequent ones till 1830. I could hardly believe my luck. I was of the opinion that London of all places would be a well-connected place and to hear that I couldn’t get into Notts till 2030 at night left me perplexed. But still that didn’t deter my motivation I thought well I should probably take the train in that case. So I went back to Victoria station and after waiting for 15-20 minutes in a line I was told that the trains depart from King’s Cross. And so I set out for Kings Cross.

Before we go any further with my misadventures, let me remind you that I don’t have an Oyster card yet. So I was buying tickets for the Underground at every juncture. Now you may say that I should have just gone for the day pass but I wasn’t aware beforehand that I would be ping-ponged around. After getting to King’s Cross I was hit with further bad news as the National Rail Service attendants said that the ticket to Nottingham for the earliest train was …… £65. YES, THATS RIGHT….. £65! If you have ever had a moment of utter shock and disbelief I think you would be able to empathize with me. What shocked the living daily lights out of me was the fact that just the night before tickets for the train were costing just £21 and now in a matter of hardly 15 hours the price had tripled. It was quite simply incomprehensible. So like a meek rabbit who has just seen a car flash its lights at him I made my way back to the Tube. This time I prepared mysef for the worst and bought a Zone1-4 daypass as I was quite certain that the way things stood it was very likely that I would be returning to Northwick Park and the comforts of my tiny room in the Halls.

I returned to Victoria this time battered by the day’s proceedings. The queue for the tickets extended for miles and miles or so my distorted perception would have me believe. I was hoping to get the 1830 bus this time but I was firmly convinced that it would be booked as well and my apprehensions proved true as I was informed that the bus was indeed full and only the 2030 bus had any space left for stragglers like me. I called my friend up and told her the atrocities the city had committed on me she laughed about it at first but then realised the gravity of the situation. I knew that if I ended up returning home that day I would probably cry. I think she sensed this and she asked me to just get on the train and that she would cover for half my ticket, the prospect sounded highly tempting but…. Could I ever have a woman pay for me? No, I am not chauvnist not in the least bit but I most certainly have a male ego to have someone sponsor my trip would have been outrageous. So I contemplated….

There was a Travel Agency right opposite the Coach Terminal which had been closed when I had first got to Victoria I approached it as my last resort.  There was an old couple in front of me who were being attended to for almost 15-20 minutes.  A part of me urged me to walk away the other part urged me to stay. And stay I did. I looked at the attendant not with a beaming smile but with the look of a man who had lost faith in everyone and everything around him. I said I needed to get to Nottingham and he started looking up trains for me. AND VOILA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t know whether he was an angel or was it justice being served but he found a train which was leaving King’s Cross St. Pancras at 10 to 7 and would arrive in Nottingham by half past 8. The return ticket to Nottingham was going to cost me just £48. I couldn’t quite believe my luck from staring at the prospect of paying £65 for a one-way trip to sneaking in a £48 return was just incredible. I felt orgasmic. It was just 1600 then and I still had some three hours before the train departed so I decided to explore the area. With a visible spring in my step and an impromptu dance in the middle of the street I set about going to Buckingham Palace.

After my tour of the Queen’s residence and the surrounding area I headed to St. Pancras. I reached the station at 1820 and asked the inquiry where I could get my train they in turn told me that there was an earlier 1830 train to Newcastle which would also halt at Grantham, the place from where I was to switch trains. I knew then there was a God after all! I scrambled into the National Express and made my way to Grantham. But my day was to completely turn around as just moments after I got down at Grantham the train to Nottingham arrived. I was knocking at my friend’s door at 2030 much to our delight.

The trip was relaxing and I found Nottingham a wonderful city not the second worst city in the UK to live in by any means. I came back to London on Sunday night at 2045 and then yet again the city decided to play a cruel joke on me. The Metropolitan line was closed and I couldn’t get to Northwick Park so I chose to go to Baker Street and take the Rail Replacement Services instead. But after waiting for almost half an hour for it to show up I recognized that my luck had run out. I took the long winding 18 to Wembley Park and from there took 182 to Northwick Park Hospital. I was not carrying a jacket with me and I had to walk the length of the university in the strong cool breeze. The result two days later I caught a cold. I reached home that night only at 2315. So basically it took me the same time to reach from King’s Cross to Harrow as it took me to reach from Nottingham to London….. YEA THTS RITE! DIS ISA STRANGE PLACE!

Alright a few heads up now for those who may be reading this about the travel system:-

1. ALWAYS BOOK YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE
2. GET AN OYSTER CARD
3. GET A RAIL CARD
4. DO NOT STAY ON THE METROPOLITAN LINE
5. IF YOU DO, DO NOT DEPEND ON THE RAIL REPLACEMENT SERVICES
6. MOST IMPORTANTLY ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CARRY A JACKET….

London – Uncannily Like Mumbai!

TWO WEEKS.. Thats how long it has been since I have arrived in London. Over the weekend I mapped out for myself the traditional tour of the city along with my uncle and I was mildly surprised by the capital of Britain. Having spent a lot of my life in Mumbai and visiting to the city very often I was amazed to see the similarities between the two cities. Mumbai is just a populous and more disorganized version of London!

As soon as you reach Central London you begin to have this nostalgic feeling about Mumbai. The layout of the city, the architecture, the dug-up roads, the murddy water of the Thames are so reminiscent of India’s financial capital that for a moment you will actually find yourself asking , “Am I really in London?”  I must stress here that the parallels are quite obvious as both the cities have been vastly developed by the British. The East India Company really managed to leave an indelible mark and a whole lot more behind.

The similarity extends to the myriad of people walking the streets and on the trains, the cultural diaspora and the unique ability of the cities to maintain their serenity even amidst all the noise and the hullabaloo. Travelling on the Picadilly Line to Heathrow at 630 pm is almost the same as travelling on the Borivli local… People will ruthlessly push by you in the race to win the Great London Marathon on Oxford Street in much the same way as one would get tossed around if he were to be caught admiring the beautiful colours in the evening sky at Colaba. Whats more you would find statues and tributes of British generals for their excellent service in India spread all over London and Mumbai on the other hand is full of statues of freedom fighters who gave up their lives in the struggle for independence against the British.

There is however one very big difference between the two cities and that is maintenance. While all of London’s main attractions have always been well maintained and fitted with the latest technology to preserve them, no such love has been forthcoming from the Mumbai dweller or the government to conserve their heritage sites. As a result of this, London has continued to be a major tourist attraction for foreigners the world over whereas Mumbai is slowly but surely slipping down that list.

Mumbai, once made up of seven islands, is in my opinion one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the sea running by its side gives it a soothing feel like no other. But if the city falls prey to the two dangerous Ps of population and pollution it would be a tragedy. In recent years the cleanliness drives in the city have paid rich dividends and now with Asia’s longest suspension bridge added to the list of attractions (where this past Sunday a Red Bull Racing F1 Car was driven at 260 kmph ironically by Britain’s David Coulthard) we have all the more reason to ensure that Mumbai maintains its beauty and splendor.

London & Twenty-One

Well where can I start…  The past five days life have been some of the busiest, the most hectic but some of the best days of my life. I have crossed a great many thresholds in the process not the least of which being hitting the magical 21. The knowledge that I can now be tried in court as an adult and be prosecuted for all of my actions or the lack of them is indeed a great pleasure. I have travelled across the globe and left the country where I grew up to come to one to pursue my dreams.

I realised that in our lives we come across numerous instances in which we will be forced to do something which we share no interest in or have a distaste for but when we do these things we allow ourselves an opportunity to fail. We can always claim that we simply didn’t like it or that it wasn’t our cup of tea. But when you have convinced the whole world including yourself that YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING and if you are lucky enough to be presented with an opportunity to do that in that case you allow yourself absolutely NO ROOM for failure. It is a bit like an election in its own right – you make your representations you convince the people that you know the right way ahead and make them believe in you. As Frank Luntz writes in the latest issue of GQ in his piece about Americans and the Obama administration ‘elections are about credibility and accountability’. We prove our credibility when we display conviction in our beliefs and when we showcase that we are ready to take up a challenge and then at the end of that challenge comes the accountability. But one must keep in mind that we are now not accountable only to ourselves but also to all the people who have invested their money in us and to all who have vested their faith in us as well. Family, friends, teachers… just about everyone. You made them believe in you and you need to repay that trust eventually. This has indeed been a crucial lesson which I have learnt on my 21st, it is the best gift I could have ever had. I must say that if one dares to dream, daring to achieve it and pursuing it is the real start….

Baker Street

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!