The Hindu Business Line : Sunny in London

June is a glorious time to be in London. The temperature at 20 degrees Celsius is half of what it is in most Indian cities and made pleasanter with that bit of a nip. I was returning to London after ten years and realised that there’s something about the city that tugs at my heartstrings. Whether it’s the fact that we’ve grown up on Enid Blyton and many things English there’s the air of the familiar when one hits the Ol’ Blighty (incidentally, that word has its origin in the Hindi vilayati!). Whether it’s Oxford Street or Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square, the place is swarming with tourists, many, of course, from India. The red London buses and the open top hop-on hop-off city tour buses are brimming. Slowdown may be a relative phrase but the pubs and restaurants on the high street are well patronised on the weekend; some even have patrons waiting to get in. Or, maybe it’s a sign of the times; Primark on Oxford Street, which offers the cheapest deals (you can get a shirt for £3!), is overrun with shoppers on a Monday morning with snaking queues at the tills.

Naked display

Waiting on the pavement outside our hotel in Grosvenor Place, one is witness to a strange and daring — for want of a better word to describe it — sight: Scores of men and women in the buff on cycles careening down Park Lane. There are hundreds of them with nothing much more than shoes; many of the men and women, young and old, have painted bodies while some have shyly wrapped a scarf around their necks. I am witness to the world naked bike ride, London chapter! And, it isn’t just here: across hundreds of cities around the world bikers are riding around naked at approximately the same time to “demonstrate the vulnerability of cyclists on the road and protest against the car culture and over dependence on oil.” Some have a cycle-rickshaw kind of contraption with a huge system mounted on it belting out music. Waving to gaping pedestrians on the sidewalks, the cyclists urge them to plunge into the rally, but all, of course, resisted the temptation! I ask the doorman to our hotel whether these kinds of cycle rides usually happen to which he shrugs a reply, “About once a year!” Needless to say, it was all perfectly legal as the cops were bringing up the rear.

In Hyde Park

A stimulating walk in the picturesque Hyde Park beckons. The park’s expansive lawns are dotted with people evidently enjoying the sun after a long winter. One can espy many roller-skating, Frisbee-ing, walking the dog or just lolling around in the scores of garden chairs placed around. Some are boating in the Serptentine lake in the middle of the park — all in all it’s an immensely peaceful summer scene. It’s almost 7 p.m. but as bright as ever — the perks of summer are extended sunshine hours!

Dethroned lords of T 20

We’re at Lord’s, the ‘home of cricket’ emblazoned everywhere in case you forget. We’re here to watch the ICC T 20 match between India and England. While there are crowds of Indian fans outside the stadium, some waving the Tricolour, it’s rather aseptic minus the sound and thunder of a major match at an Indian venue. You enter the revered portals at the east gate only to confront a bustling beer bar! Imagine what it would be in India if there were one at a stadium. Seeing the hallowed turf of Lord’s, the famed pavilion on our left, from a Pepsi corporate box is an experience. Images flash before my eyes: of Kapil Dev in that balcony holding the World Cup and of Souvav Ganguly waving his T-shirt furiously after winning the NatWest trophy. The sun is blazing down on us, surprisingly sharp even if the temperature is nothing like back home. Plied with beer and all the food one can eat, the Indian contingent in the Pepsi box, comprising Pepsi bottlers, media and sundry folk, is a happy lot. The next box belongs to Vodafone where Englishmen are attacking their food with gusto, quaffing wine and using lotions to block the sun. They occasionally get up to cheer the English team, out-hollering us. By end of match day we are a subdued lot as Dhoni’s team goes down by three runs. I am confronted by a large Brit in the loo. “Bring back Sachin Tendulkar,” he bellows.

Talk shop

Our tourist spots should take a lesson or two from the way memorabilia is packaged in the West. The Lord’s shop is stuffed with all kinds of trinkets: pens, key chains, coffee and beer mugs, tie-pins, caps, cuffs, jerseys; there’s even a ‘bowler bear’. And, a neatly packaged piece of hallowed Lord’s turf — with the cautionary note that it won’t be allowed into Australia.

English breakfast

Those of you who thought a slap-up English breakfast was great, well, it’s true. The hotel where we stayed had laid it out in full splendour. Lots of meat: bacon and sausages, cold cuts, breads, muffins, croissants, loads of dairy products, exotic fruits and more. Needless to say, I waded in and finished up with that other most English of traditions: strawberries and cream. It’s the season.

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