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Friday, November 15, 2013

London Chronicles - The very beginning


I got my laptop today and I thought the first use of this implement is, after checking mails and letting my office know that I’m open for business, to pen down my new series of blogs on London life. I always had this dream that my blogs which are hardly read by anyone today, would one day be considered the pinnacle of literature and be published. Maybe pinnacle of literature is a bit too much (but given that Chetan Bhagat’s writings are considered awesome, I don’t see why mine might not be viewed as such) but published – oh yes…. Definitely they would be published and I would make tons of money in royalty and book rights and movie rights………. You get the drift, right. So if you wanted some sane reading, this is where you stop and find yourself maybe a Chetan Bhagat novel. But if you are one with a brave heart, then march on my friend…

I made the decision to look for employment abroad sometime in the mid of 2013. Considering that I actually didn’t get any calls from employment agencies or companies outside (not that I didn’t try), I decided to ask my employer if they would give me a chance. It did come as a surprise when they didn’t laugh their heads off at my request. After a couple of weeks of swinging between 2 continents, they decided that I shall keep the Queen company. Then started a whole bureaucratic process of getting approvals of everyone in the company – it almost seemed as if they would also need to speak to the Queen as to whether she would actually fancy my presence in her country. So after jumping through as many hoops as a circus lion would have to on a good day, my bosses (bless their souls for not giving up on this noble mission) let me know that I am good to go. This whole process took almost 3 months. The visa process was surprisingly quick - just four weeks end to end and before you knew it, I had my passport with a work visa stamped on it. Now there was no excuse to linger on. So a couple of days after I got my passport I was packed and ready to board a plane to relocate to London. I have always felt some bit of emotion when I left the country longish periods, especially after my daughter came along. This time though was different. It would be by far the longest period I would have stayed away from my daughter, it was a difficult state in which I left my parents – they had their own struggles and I added to their burden by having them take care of my kid, but for some reason, I didn’t cry this time around. Maybe a couple of tears when I kissed my daughter good bye in her sleep, but that was it. No thinking of it in the airport or on flight. I was genuinely looking forward to my new life… It was a new chapter and I was determined to enjoy it to the fullest.

So then, after I landed, I needed to get to Ilford, for that is where my company provided serviced apartments were. It cost me 110 quid to get here… so within a couple of hours of landing in UK, I had spent ~13% of the total money that I had on me. It was a drive that lasted nearly 2 hours in which time I had great company in form of Mr. Ahmed Munir, a very knowledgeable gentleman who gave me great tips on life in UK. He also told me that the drive wouldn’t have cost me more than £60 if I would have booked directly – great start to life in the UK. The apartment building for some reason didn’t have parking in front of it and so we were forced to park some distance away and there I was lugging away my suitcases and crossing 3 signals in whistling wind to get to the building. The apartment was well – for the lack of a better vocabulary spectacular – the views from the 22nd floor were breathtaking.. it was like one of those full length posters with the bright lights of  New York or London skylines that people have on their walls except that in my case it was real. Sitting on the sofa looking out the floor to ceiling windows, I wished I drank alcohol; it seemed like the perfect moment to open the bubbly.

First visit to Sainsbury to get the essentials and I was disappointed – wonderful looking bananas, the only fruit that I actually enjoy, bought at £1.69, were rotten before I got them home. First day to office and I was disappointed, I was told I wouldn’t get a laptop for a week. So I went house hunting the next day – saw 7 houses in a day… didn’t remember one from another by the end but it was a good experience. I really didn’t see the point of seeing more houses, getting confused with more choices, so I put an offer on 3 houses. Now that offers were out, I needed to figure out a way to get some money to pay for set-up. The company recommended HSBC, they said they didn’t have an appointment till around 10 days later – an appointment to open a new bank account – and they wonder why their economy is not growing fast enough. I walk over to Natwest and they spend half an hour taking down my details only to tell me at the end of it that I would have to wait for a week before I got my account number. It was as if I had communicated the urgency of my situation to them in Malayalam and it got lost in translation. So I crossed the road and walked over to Lloyds. Now there is something to be said if a pure Brit bank actually steps on the gas and gets you an account in half an hour flat. So I walked back to office, a proud account holder of Lloyds Bank and was told by my HR team that I would actually get paid my salary in November. That was unexpected – good news. My offer was accepted after a bit of bargaining and to be honest, I was not sure if I was happy or not about it. The truth of the matter was I didn’t remember anything of the property, except it was supposed to have a small private garden out back. Now that I had a house, I decided to buy some basic furniture. So a visit to Ikea was warranted. It scared the living daylights out of me. Why would anyone want to go there and buy anything is beyond me – it looked like so much hard work. I missed India for the first time. So online shopping it was – before I discovered that my Indian credit card wouldn’t work on the website for some reason. So here I was stuck in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, with my ever depleting stash of hard cash which I converted when I entered the country and no access to my own hard earned money. No credit card, no debit card and delays in getting money from India.. for the first time in more  than a decade I was at a stage that I may have to borrow money from someone… the mere thought of that was sickening. Borrowing from parents was ok, but total strangers that you met a couple of days back…. I just wished that it wouldn’t come to that. So I came up with a solution – a sleeping bag – that is what I would move into the new house with – it was fully carpeted and had heating… a sleeping bag should do just fine for starters. I had over 100kg of luggage coming from home in India, that would take care of the daily necessities. The house already had a fully fitted kitchen and wardrobes. So basically I was looking at a sofa set, a couple of beds, mattresses, dining chairs and a TV as additions. Given the pathetic quality of entertainment on display on TV in UK, getting the box  was actually not too high on my list – un understandable books by Mark Haddon seemed quite exciting in comparison. In due course I will get a debit card and I will start building up my home collection – converting a “rental property” to a home – slowly and steadily – the Brit way.

I have waxed eloquently about events and completely left out the other big thing in life - people. Considering that most of my interaction has been with folks from work, most of whom are Indian, it is a good feeling that you can speak Hindi in office while in UK. I also have spent my days thus far in Ilford which is heavily populated by Asians.. so all in all, I have seem more Asians in UK (in Ilford, in the serviced apartment, in trains, tubes, streets -  surprisingly low number of Chinese looking people) than I have seen whites or more specifically White Brits. Most whites I have seen are Polish, Russians, Spanish – all variety… it is quite a good feeling that the city is so inclusive. But you do sense an underlying frustration in London. This feeling is more pronounced in packed trains and tubes than anywhere I have been till now. It is quite simple really. You can’t unveil any of your discomfort without actually blaming it on someone else. In closed quarters like the tube most of these “someone else” are always from a different race, country, religion or of a different colour and being a inclusive city or being expected to be a more inclusive city like the new mayor of London  expressed a couple of days back, if everytime a Brit felt uneasy and went around complaining, you would have fist fights almost all the time. We have it in India too, Maharashtrians blame the Madrasis for taking all their jobs who blame the Gujjus for being so loud mouthed who blame the Bengalis for being so lazy who blame the Punjabis for being so boisterous and of course everyone blames the Muslims and the bhaiiyyas…. But at the end of it – it is our country – by birth, by right, by ancestry and we – despite our differences are all Indian. Its different when an Indian shouts at another – it’s all within the “family”.. London is trying very hard to be a family, but it comes across as a foster home – a very good, kind and generous one, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not home. 

Obviously I have been in the country for all of 8 days, so what do I know.....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I loved it!!!!!!

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Mumbai product - went around the world - got hitched and escaped from the Silicon city of India to the land of glamour and royalty - London. I write every time my heart stirs......