Here is that London …

 

Here is that London …

During my one-month life in UK in May 2025, Akhil, my son and Niya, my daughter had properly planned a comprehensive itinerary to enjoy a quick visit of the most important places in that country. London was proposed as the climax of all the visits, for which one full day had been marked in their planner, with details: where to go, when to go and how to go.

 

Though all the seven days of the week were found convenient, from some other vagaries, Monday was found most suitable, mainly because that day there would be the Guards’ Changing Parade in the front yard of the real Buckingham Palace. Reading the Google, Niya announced the final decision on Sunday, the previous day of our journey “… Start from here at 8 o’clock, we will be there at London by 11, before noon.

As our car was flying faster than a swiftly moving bird through the motor way, Niya firmly told “We will reach Wembly within two hours. From Wembly we shall take the London tube to reach Buckingham Palace.” As the journey in that morning freshness was found comfortable and cheerful, Akhil and Niya invited me and wife to go into a spacious wayside shop to take coffee and snacks. At least 500 cars of the sight-seers were parking in front of that coffee-house where I remembered a parody of a saying “… all roads are leading to London.” That’s why cars are plying to London and the tourists were cheerful in the cars.

On reaching Wembly, we walked to the first station of the London Tube to begin our trip to London to catch a metro train. Why is it known ‘a tube?’ The answer was there itself, which could be realized easily. London Tube is an electric railway operating below the surface of the ground on which roads and houses were built in the city. The tube like compartments runs through tube like tunnels. This may be the reasons behind naming the railway to Tube.

Though functioning on high-end technology, tear-and-wear to the parts of the engine and compartments had caused unfriendly jerks and rattling sounds inside the compartments. When the train moved forward, within two minutes we could see the world famous Wembly Stadium on the left side of the rail. “Is it not the stadium where India vs. England cricket match happens often?” To my doubt Niya answered properly “Not only cricket, but the site of English National Stadium of soccer and the capital of other games.”   Niya’s interests were versatile to react to any situation of the journey. “This is a 40 minute journey to Buckingham Palace, somewhere in the middle of London.”

Sitting in the train my thoughts got wings to fly back into the history, ‘When did I first know about London? It was 55 years before, when we were learning the abridged version of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist in class IV, I first learned about London from a book.

The story goes like that, Oliver, an orphan in his early teen, escapes from the miseries in the orphanage run by Mr. Fabin and his wife. There Oliver walks through the streets of the sub-urban portion of London city. His intention was to reach the heart of the city before dawn, so that he may hide himself from others who may identify him and take him back to the orphanage from where he escaped. ‘Is this part of the city, where Oliver the teen aged character strolled through the streets? Is this the East End of London where the writer, Charles Dickens and his characters lived in?  East End of London was known for poverty of the people and lack of cleanliness, which came out as the by-product of fast industrialization in England of in 17-19 centuries?’  These were the questions that flashed through my mind. ‘If so, where is the West End of London, where there were the civilized, educated, sensible, rich and fashioned people lived in?’

Though the train was moving further, when it reached ‘Buckingham Palace’ 70% of the seats in the compartment were emptied, almost all are steadfastly moving to only one direction. Ninety percent of the people on the short-cuts and thoroughfares were natives, for them the sight of Buckingham Palace and the paraphernalia around the palace were also of nostalgia of two centuries when Britain was the most powerful nation and colonial power up to the end of World War II. Buckingham Palace and the Guards’ Changing Parade bring in the memories of legacy, pomp and pride of modern democratic government where queen’s freedom was constitutionally restricted.

Guards’ Changing Parade happens three days in a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday,  the days can be known from Google, looking which the tourists can plan their visits. When we reached the spot the limited space on the galleries were filled in by the spectators. When there heard the sound of beagle, a platoon of guards on horse-back moved into the compound through the small gate of the palace. When these guards report for duty the guards who were on duty inside the compound were relieved of their duty. There is a combined parade in which a platoon transfers their authority and the other platoon accepts that authority. Those who relieved from the authority moves out of the main-middle gate, as the two small gates would be closed. When this Guards’ Changing Parade is happening inside and outside the palace, thousands of spectators who were thronged on the galleries and the especially reserved places would say ‘Hi’ to the platoon who moves briskly on their horses. Though the spectators were cheering up the guards, on the house back they were seemed serious and highly attentive to their duty. This platoon who came out of the main gate presents a short and simple ‘show’ before they disappear leisurely into their camps, close to the palace. By them the policewomen on bicycle or horse control the thousands of spectators to disperse themselves. But an interesting thing noticed here was that, no spectators were leaving away from the palace ground even after two hours of the end of the Guards’ Changing Parade. For some hours almost all tourists were setting locations for selfie-shooting using their mobile phones and creating invaluable memories about their visit to headquarters of the democratic the Republic of Great Britain, inside which Kamilla Parker, the Queen and her husband George were living happily and peacefully with their constitutional responsibilities. We also did the same as other tourists in the compound did: searching comfortable lawn to lie open to the sky, chewing biscuit, drinking water and posing differently for photos to get the background of red roses in the garden. On lying back on the green and thick turf the visitors could notice flights from different destinations of the world were approaching incessantly any of the airports, sometimes at the rate of one flight in a minute. “Taking the density of air traffic, London, once the capital of the world has now four active and busy airports. “ Akhil knows more about the geopolitics of UK than anyone in my family.

It took one hour to get out of the campus of the palace through the sub gate to the Drowning Street. London, though a city with a heavy traffic on the streets normally appears calm and noiseless, that noon there appeared a crowd of people from Kenya, an African country. Thronging on the opposite side of the 10 Downing Street, these Africans were shouting slogans “Go back our Prime Minister, without visiting British Prime Minister!” Without much enquiry, their objective was clear to the police and the tourists. London accommodates protests and posters for expression of opinion and freedom even to foreigners at the gate of the 10^th house, the official residence of British Prime Minister., for the last 20 decades. Britain never go back in assuring the right of peaceful expression, the slogans continued some more time, “Our Prime Minister in Kenya, you are a killer of innocent people. Go back from London!” In the voice their opposition has been culminated.

The main square of the

Rome was not built in a day! This saying is most suitable to London than Rome or Vatican.

Amidst the social, political and environmental challenges, how London does stronghold its antiquity and legacy even at the brim of the first quarter of the 21^st century? Consistency

 

By 7 o’ clock evening we came back to Wembly, the town from where we embarked our trip in the morning to London through the Tube. Taking Akhil’s Jaguar from the parking slot, we were to take dinner from an Indian restaurant, which seemed as a Tamil franchisee hotel to which Keralites, Tamilians, Africans, Asians and a few British were briskly moving in and finding vacant seats and tables before ordering South Indian menu according to own choice. The attendants and the waiters, mainly women were multi-lingual in communication to all as they want.

Seating on the chair, waiting for the chappathi and curry observed around so as the commuters to the hotel un-notice my eyes. ‘This is a hotel where people from different Asian countries meet and share their culture and language.’ My thoughts were flying over and above the warmth and hotly cooked chappathi and slightly spicy curuma. There how exactly the scene depicted by Imthisar Hussain came to my mind in her poem, that she wrote somewhat five decades during her life in Wembly.