London! Somehow it’s so fascinating. It’s a mix of
everything you need. It has the modern look want, it has its history, and yes,
it has its own mysteries. Somehow, all things set in the London background
bring a sort of magical touch to it. It always has awe attached to it. Be it
their famous red buses (which are kept so shiny red all the time), its metros,
its counties, the cricket and the football with it, the white dress code in
Wimbledon, the recently concluded Olympics, the Harry Potters and the Diagon
alleys, the Sherlock Holmes and the Watsons to the Thames, the Queen and her rule
over the world, The London eye, the big ben. Everything kind of has its own
association with London. And there is this darkness and shadow about all the
things which make is all the more fascinating. Is it there, is it not there? If
its there, is it true? If not, is it really not there? How can you always have
a lead about everything back in London? Why did the Koh-I-Noor diamond end up
there? Why did all colonies, no matter how much the detested these guys, end up
having some kind of association with the Londoners? Why do they still hold a
special place for them in their hearts, even after years of tyranny and torture?
It may always be in black or in white as far as Germany and Switzerland go
respectively, but with London (or synechdochically, Great Britain/United Kingdom/England) it has
and will always be gray. Which brings the beauty in itself! Cause it creates confusion, it spurs
conversations, it keeps it hyped, it keeps it mystical. And yes, they have
mellowed down over the ages, but as far as the roots go, they are deep down
there, everywhere, waiting for just some water and nutrients to grow full-fledged
again!
London! To see or not to see, that’s the question! Well, one
doesn’t really need to see it to know it, you have it in your mind somewhere by
birth I guess! We can immediately picturize the rainy, small, cobbled streets
with people walking in long coats and umbrellas. It is what we associate it to
directly! We can’t create a pen picture of any other place we haven’t been to
so accurately, other than London. Maybe its cause of all the media and the
theatre that we have that image within us, but somehow its so accurate and so
perfect with London! We immediately come to associate them with the old
grannies, and their reminiscence of the old London. Maybe because so much has
changed out there, like everywhere else. But to me, I can still see London in the
old days even now. Somehow I want to see it that way, cause that suits it so
much better than maybe a London which is modernized past repair, wherein the
old part is hardly seen at all.
I would like to visit London someday again, to view all that
in its true color and life, before it is lost in time. As someone has said very
aptly, “When a man is tired of London,
he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.” People
can argue all that with respect to Mumbai as well, but then Mumbaikars will
themselves say that it was London itself which brought the color to Mumbai,
Bombay. Before the British, Mumbai wasn’t the same what they left it as, i.e.
Bombay. And even today, Bombay brings a lot more awe than what Mumbai does :)
“When its three o clock in New York, it is still 1938 in
London”. Maybe it means so much more in the context the author said it in, but
as far as I know, all that it means is that the people have moved on, the culture
has changed. But London remains! It stays adamant and it stays the same!
