They say a bad day in London is still better than a good day else where. “Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity.”

London felt home the moment I landed.

Photo: Nico Trinkhaus – London Eye on a Sunny Day in Winter, England

But wait, before I begin this story, I have to take you through a short flashback of how London happened.

I happen to be an ardent lover of A.R.Rahman music. It was a dream to experience his live concert but that just didn’t happen for me somehow. On a fine day in Feb 2017, a desperate want to tick this item off my list made me start looking out for his next big concert and the nearest was on 24th March,2017, only that it was at Wembley stadium, London. As crazy as it sounds, my husband decided that we go to London for this show and tick this off in style. And thus, in less than a month, London happened!

That was his third time to London but my first ever! What do I say about London, I fell in love the moment I landed. Few cities give that to you, don’t you think? Some kind of positivity, some kind of high. This isn’t the head over heels high that love and other drugs give. This isn’t the tipsy, trippy high that mountains and their herbs give. This is more like the high of success, energies of triumph! Plain, real and earthly!

We landed at around 7 pm, we were lucky we had our friends host us during this visit. London is expensive and if you can manage your stay, you ll save a lot on your budget. At around 11 pm we started towards Central London.I always prefer visiting and strolling the cities during the night when it is relatively calmer yet vibrant.

We did the same for the rest of the days, walking through every street and corner of London. The best way to embrace it! There is good food every where, be it the famous fish and chips or the extra large pizza slice or just some fresh strawberry nutella waffle across the street, all delicious :). And then there are some famous restaurants that serve the finest food. I also visited few casinos around the Piccadilly Street, lost a lot of British pounds and then won a lot more 🙂 kinda balanced I can say and was super fun as usual.

Then there is china town, underground tube experience, shopping at Harrods, the blitz of Bond Street, the famous Baker street, stroll through Hyde Park and many other parks.

You know what, I would be writing a lot more about what I had and what I did, the details of the London trip in a different post. There is so much that I just can’t squeeze everything in here. This is just my story of how London happened and its sillage on me.

I usually have a mixed feeling of exhilaration as well as a heavy heart when I leave a place. As I look down through the flight I recap all the days, accumulating all the memories with a big sigh. But it was different this time. This time when I looked down to those magnanimous city lights, I didn’t have any sigh. It felt as if I am just travelling for a while and shall get back soon. I knew some where that this isn’t the end, that London is something I shall keep visiting.

Btw did I mention that ARR cancelled his concert a day before my flight to London? Yeah that was disappointing but nevertheless London was London!

But then just a few months later, ARR surprisingly performed in India after a very very long time. “AR Rahman Encore”, a multi city tour, celebrating his 25 years of musical journey and guess what, the first concert of this tour was in my very own city (Hyderabad). And I got to celebrate it with the best of my buddies 🙂

 

Kinda true isn’t it, if you really wish for it, you do get it 🙂

Tata!