Namaste London !!

It was about 7:30pm local time when my flight landed at the Heathrow Airport. The walk from the aircraft to the immigration desk was about a mile long. It looked normal for the locals and the regular travelers but for me it was a surprise test of my self boasted love of walking. I thought high of my natural speed of walking, only until then. I struggled to catch up with some of the fellow travellers, this includes women. They also seemed to be in a rush to beat the expected long queues for Immigration. 

The immigration officer asked me for the invite letter, the only doc that my company had not issued to me. While preparing for the trip, I did follow up with my travel team for that only missing item from the long list of official docs to carry. My travel team had cited that the invite letter had never been asked before from any of my colleagues. This request by the immigration officer was a first for them, unfortunately via me. Anxious, I presented a print out of one of my work emails that mentioned the need for my travel. I had taken a print of the email as I was not very convinced with the travel team's reassurances about the missing invite letter. The email mentioned the name of another Indian colleague who was supposed to travel for the same purpose as mine. The officer asked why we didn't travel together. I told her that my colleague preferred a different flight and that he would arrive on the following day. She probed further, turned the pages of my passport, and asked why one of my previous Schengan Visa had been cancelled. A grinning Mishra Ji (Fear of the First Time) knocked in my head. Anxiety was now at its peak. I fumbled while requesting her to turn to the next page and see the reissued Visa, with corrected typos. I started wondering about an immediate 10 hour flight back to India. She looked at me with small eyes, for a few seconds, before finally allowing me to enter her "Great" Britain.

I was received at the airport by a Pakistani cab driver. In the hour long drive to the Hotel, he exhibited the popular Pakistani traits of personal insecurities, religious fanaticism, cultural ignorance, envy with progressive Indians and victimisation at the hands of the Global West. In my personal opinion and experience, they do this specially when they can't openly abuse Indians or stand up to their foreign counterparts, coz of professional boundaries. These poor fellows can't bear silence, coz then they have to bear themselves. When with other nationals, they often crib about either their miserly domestic situation or the destructive ideological undercurrents that shall destroy the people of "progressive" countries. He talked about US-Iran war as if he was at the round table where war games were being discussed. He talked about the impact of the war on his country and their people, and the tyranny of the Muslims around the world at the hands of dictators like Trump. Then he started boasting about his long association with my company's senior leadership. He started telling me the story of his 18 years old business of running cab services in UK, how he'd sleep in his comfy big car when waiting for pickups that were just a few hours apart and so on. Trying to find some respite, I tried to change the topic. I told him that this was my first travel to London and moreso first travel to a foreign land. I told that I was liking watching the new world through the big windows of his big car. Suddenly he assumed the role of a big bro, and then he gave me a long gyan about the few dos and many donts in London, for the brown skin people like "us".

By the time I reached hotel, I was tired from both the travel and the talking riot. At first I was excited having survived the flight and the immigration, now I was hungry, anxious again, and scared. Thanks to my big brown "bhaijan". On the way, I had noticed a few restaurants close to my hotel. I thought of doing a quick check-in and then grab some dinner at one of those restaurants. My plans were quashed when I found that my corporate card did not work for the cab payment. I had tested it at the Bengaluru airport and it had worked. However, it refused to work in the "Great" Britain. My patient survival of the talking riot paid off. When the payment failed, "bhaijan" grinned and told me that he'd seen this corporate card ordeal a lot many times. Caringly, he agreed to attempt the payment again the next morning as he was scheduled to drop one of my "very" senior leaders to the same hotel :).

Entering into the hotel, it took me some time to realize how a big rotating glass door moved to allow me in. People from different nationalities filled the reception hall. The staff greeted me and each other with perfect smiles and then went about doing their duties in perfect manouvres and gestures, like some efficiently programmed machines. There were three check-in counters, two managed by Indians and one by a white lady who looked like a barbie to me, coz of her color, make up, and attire. I was not used to seeing such ladies in person. My eyes searched for a warm fellow countryman look from the Indians, but my sight didn't matter as much to them as theirs was to me. So I followed the command of my  hormones and turned towards the barbie. 

The reception counter was only an arm's length long. It took me a few seconds to recover from the dumbstruck state when I looked at that lady from that close. Blonde hair, a glossy pout, a broad smile, and a look from behind the black-frame spectacles that slid and rested slightly below the top of her nose. The black blazzer that pushed her fuller breasts to form a cleavage that I can bet could trigger every normal man's fantasies. Her hands were done with a perfect and sparkling nail-art, and she had a habit of pointing them towards her chest while interacting with the guests. It took me some time to adapt to her accent. I guess it was some sort of a Australian English, her surname was Healy which I could relate to one great Australian Test Cricketer.

It was around 9pm by when she completed checking my documents and confirmed my booking. It was also the time for another test of credibility for my corporate credit card. It failed my faint hopes. "Sweetheart!..." that's only what I could hear that lady say to me in that moment. I requested her pardon and made her repeat the rest of the sentence. She told she was aware of the ordeal of the guests who travelled with the same corporate card as mine. Like "bhaijan", she told that it had happened earlier with many of my colleagues. She adviced me to use the hotel wi-fi and contact my company or the card support teams. I casually walked to the nearby standing table and started finding contacts and some help on my phone. She screamed from distance - "Darling! I would have never done that...". I was wondering what wrong did I do, but the sound of "Darling" was another new experience, and one of the few happy ones on that night. Suddenly she stepped out of the counter and rushed towards me. Three steps in her stride, she got hold of my luggage, dragged it, and brought it next to me. Then she gave me a suggestive look and walked back to the reception counter. I wondered for a few seconds, then I remembered one of the donts told by my big Pakistani bro - "don't lose sight or hold of your bags and belongings, even for a second".

It was about 10pm and I was still struggling to get my credit card to work. The card support team had told me to check with my company's support team. My company's contacts who were in India were fast asleep at that time. I was completely exhausted and my hunger was also at its peak now. I walked up to the lady and told her to charge my personal card for that one night's stay. I thought I'd follow up with my company folks next morning. She agreed with a comforting smile.

Within minutes of checking in to the room, I rushed to an Indian restaurant "Chaiwala" that I had spotted on the way to the hotel. I was new to London's chilling winds at night. The super clean air was a pleasant new experience. This was my second energy boost for the day, first one being the receptionist. I entered the restaurant, saw a "normal" Indian guy at the order counter. He was so not English in his looks and manners that only Hindi came out of my mouth when I first talked to him for placing the order. A Chai and a Parantha for 8 pounds was my first buy in the foreign land. The restaurant had a very small space and a few tables all of which were occupied. I could not wait for tables to be vacated and I could not eat the food while standing in that crouched space. Also, I did not see anyone else devouring their food while standing there. So I got the food parcelled and started walking back to the hotel, at my now deemed not-so-fast natural speed of walking.

I again started enjoying the gusts of the cold wind against my face. My breaths were long and deep, the cold and the super clean air again gave me the boosts of energy that I needed to quickly reach my hotel room, to devour on my food. But London had more to my Welcome. On the way there was a small pub that was filled with people. I then realized that it was a Saturday Night of the West. A bunch of big looking and drunk English men were having a good time outside the club. They were screaming some sort of a war cry, taking selfies, and recording videos. I saw one of the guys looking at me and murmuring something to his friends. As I walked closer, one guy started walking towards me. He had a big frame and his walk and the apparent mood intimidated me. Bhaijan's another don't came to my head. I  shrugged my free hand in the pocket of my jacket, looked down, ignored what the English guy was trying to say to me, increased my speed and wooshed out of his way. 

I reached the hotel, running on the last few active bits of my cognitive mind. I quickly changed over to comfy clothes and sipped the tea in a rush, assuming that it would have turned cold in the chill. It gave a shock to my palet, it had retained its heat. Maybe I did walk fast :) or maybe I didn't know much about London's pick and carry paper cups. Parantha tasted aweful, it was made of maida (refined wheat flour) and was not cooked properly. I finished both within few mins and retired in the plushy bed of the hotel. I could count on only a few hours of sleep to recover, as my jet-lagged mind would soon consider it to be 5am IST, my usual wake up time :).

I woke up at 3am London time, waited for the dawn, stepped out in the chill, took the deep cold breath, and felt mesmerized by the amazingly beautiful dark blueish and grey sky. I stood there still for some time, absorbed the feeling and the silence that surrounded me, and spoke to myself - Namaste London!! 

My first sunrise in London started with a beautiful and refreshing walk on the picture perfect and empty internal streets of the city. Ending this post with some of the pics from the walk, rest of the encounters, experiences, and lessons maybe in another post..