The weather

In our mind, we all have a picture of any new place which we visit especially if it is geographically different from where you are. So, if it’s Kerala – you would visualize the backwaters in a way or if it is zero point in Bhutan – you will visualize the ice in a fashion. This is based on your talks with your friends who have been there, or pictures you hurriedly saw on the net when you were doing your packing, or it could be a ficton / story (so whenever I visit Tokyo or Kiyoto in Japan Murakami and all his books will come to my mind)…….But all of us do carry a picture in our mind.

The picture of London what one has is the typical “picture post card” - nice and sunny parks with people jogging etc. When I reached Paddington and started walking on the streets (3 hours after I have touched down at Heathrow at 6pm– all the while I was walking only on concrete or tube), I could still see the see the yellow leaves trampled on the road side and with the kind of forecast which has been predicted, I thought the picture of London which I had in mind will remain just that a picture, but thankfully the sun showed up on Sunday and we had a lovely picturesque view of London.

But still it was very unpredictable – although we had sunshine in the mornings the night would be chilly and cold. One thing surprised me was even in this cold weather everybody had chilled water and of course all the tavern which sold fresh beer were overflowing….In India, Rum (and in recent years vodka) is a must have during the Delhi winter.

English Architecture

St Pauls Cathedral, Big Ben, London Tower, Trafalgar Sqaure etc has an aristrocatic, old world touch. But these were only few names – there were many other buildings which were built in similar lines and they gelled well with the entire background – roads, trees, even the small restaurants which had chairs outside where you could just sit and absorb the atmosphere. There are very similar buildings in parts of Mumbai & Delhi – I am sure there is a term for that but the difference were the things around the building.

In Mumbai & Delhi so much crowding has happened around the building that the building is just another building you see near VT, but here there lot of space around, trees , weather – all together it created nice scenic beauty.