England Diaries [Manchester: Friday , 5th August 2011]

It has been long since I visited my blog, and the reason for that is - I have been in the UK (primarily London) for the past few months.

My stay has been very pleasurable to say the least. However, I did miss writing.  Or Did I?

Well, here’s a compilation of the emails written to my family where I have tried to capture some of my most cherished experiences during my first ever visit to  a foreign country.

1 of 4 - Manchester: Friday , 5^th August 2011

Hi there,

 I finally got some time to write. So have you all been?? Well, as for me the past few days have been quite eventful! I am sure Vikram would have kept you all updated on most of the things. And in some cases, he must have added his own updates. Like the “accent” part is definitely not true!! :P

My visit to London has been good so far. The apartment that I am staying in is at a very nice location with a lovely view. I will send some pictures as soon as possible. My office is at a prime business location too. We are surrounded by Citibank, Barclays, HSBC and NatWest.  Truly the financial centre point!

There are so many things that I have to tell you all that I don’t know where to start from :P

My first interaction after I landed in London was with my taxi driver who turned out to be a Pakistani.  In that 40 minute long drive to the apartment he told me about his six children, what each of them were studying, about terrorism in India and Pakistan, he also gave me an update on the kingpin behind the recent Mumbai blast, showed me the Buckingham palace from outside (with some insider information about what the queen was up to that evening), the London Eye , the Big Ben, the church that witnessed Princess Diana’s wedding and recently held Prince William’s wedding  and the London Bridge.

Well, I would have been happier if he would have just chatted to himself and had let me do the honours of listening.  But tough luck there; for, he turned out to be quite inquisitive about India. He wanted to know if love marriages are more popular in India, whether girls wear western formals like skirts and trousers, if I have any children and so on. On being asked if he liked staying  in London – his response was “ it used to be very nice years back when all  the Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians were in majority and lived happily together – magar abhi yeh Europeans ne aake sab bigaad diya hai”. I couldn’t help smiling :) And I gave away the award for the most bizarre answer to this one!

And oh by the way – I also found my long lost brother in him.  For when he sought confirmation that I was indeed from India, I asked him if he was from India too. His immediate response was “well I am from Pakistan, magar aap chinta maat karo – mujhe bilkul apne bhai ki tarah samjho”. So there you go!

When he was offloading my luggage I realized that I had forgotten to collect one of my bags at the airport.  So my Pakistani brother came to my rescue one last time when he connected me to the Kingfisher Airlines baggage desk at his own expense (quite literally).

It hadn’t even been three full days in London and I had barely unpacked that I had to pack my bags all over again and come to Manchester. The travel to Manchester exposed me to the underground railway (or the Tube, as it is popularly called here).  I had to change two trains to come to Euston and take a train (not the Tube) to Manchester. That is about 2 hours of journey. My train from Euston was at 11.00 in the morning and I managed to miss it. So I bought a new ticket (worth £ 69) which was also my first experience of a racing heart while swiping my card (with my mind engaged in working out the value in INR ).

That day, I had woken up pretty early in the morning to catch the train to Manchester, but it seemed like someone up there really wanted me to miss the train. Cause when I stepped out with my hand bag on my shoulder, my laptop bag on my back and my trolley bag in my hand – I realized it was raining!! And that was my first experience again - of walking in the rain in London. I didn’t quite mind it though . It was just a drizzle really.

So now I am stationed at Manchester until next Friday. It is different from London in the manner that you will see only shopping malls/centres and offices around and not much of greenery. But the buildings are beautiful. A lot of them are heritage buildings. And yes, just like the London Eye there is a big wheel here which is referred to as the Manchester Big wheel. My office (client office) is right opposite to that.

There is a general perception among the Indians in my office that people tend to get friendlier as you get away from London.  So I was fed in to believe that people in Manchester would be extremely nice and friendly – which I realize they are. However, I haven’t really had a bad experience (arising out of rude behaviour) in London either. 

Last night, I went to an English pub in Manchester with some of my colleagues. We were there only for a short while because we had to head back to our apartment which was quite far – but the experience was one of its kind.  In my mind I was transported back to one of those Hollywood movies J

Today being a Friday, we might just go out! My colleagues are planning to go to the Manchester United Football Club over the weekend (will post pictures for sure, if I decide to go with them) and there are a lot of places to shop from. 

So overall it has been good, I have had my share of adventure. I just hope this nice feeling  lasts till I am here. I do miss home terribly at times and that’s why I am looking for a SIM that would allow me to call India at reasonable rates. Will mail across my details as soon as  I get my hands on them.

For now, London seems to be a likable place :)

Well all that I have written above was common information for everyone, but I do have some specific things  for each one of you

@ Meeta: Hey I wanted to tell you that to my great relief bananas are not that expensive here. You  will get a bunch of 6 for one pound at Tesco! By the way how’s your packing coming along? Also is there anything specific I can get for you from London/Manchester? If you don’t tell me then  I am going to pick something of my choice and you will have no choice but to take it J

@Neetu:  Guess what?? I found a SPAR hypermarket here!! But the sad thing is that it is more expensive than TESCO/SAINSBURY :P  I saw some very nice shops that have an awesome range of cosmetics – so please let me know your brand J

@ Kavita: What can I get for you from here?? I  have seen  some very nice collection of office wear woollens. Do let me know if there is anything specific that you need – absolutely anything – I have six months to shopJ . Any update on the house warming ceremony?? My sister moved back to Bangalore. She is joining on Monday. I will ask her to give you a call. 

@ Moon:  Message me the list of things that you need. Offer valid only until Monday (8 August, 2011) And I am not letting you borrow any of my clothes :P

@ Guru: The location of my office is at Canada Square – which is in Canary Wharf.  It is very close to the old dockyard :) So like you had said – it is more of a Business Centre but there is an underground mall. And my place of stay is at Lanterns court – which is a residential area and is about 10 mins walk from Canary Wharf.  I should have taken your advice and should have carried an umbrella along.  Looks like I have to buy one here – wonder how much it is going to cost here.

@ Deepak: I inquired about the Beer Festival and have found a few enthusiasts within my office who are planning to go (subject to favourable project engagements) . I shall keep you updated on my plans. For now, I quite happy with Apple Cider J . Also I may need some tips on what Arhaan would like from Manchester. I know he is a big soccer fan and like I said I might go to the Manchester United Football Club but am really not into soccer. So I could use some tips from you on what to get.

@ Vinod: I can’t help giggling every time they ask me at the counter if its ‘to eat here’ or ‘to go’ . And I am tempted to tear open the packet and eat there, after having it billed as ‘To go’ !! ha ha  

@ Vikram: I will call you later :)

  

Take care everyone and do write in whenever you get time, Love you all and hope to see you all  very soon!!

Durba.

England Diaries [Southampton: Friday, 26th August 2011]

It has been long since I visited my blog, and the reason for that is - I have been in the UK (primarily London) for the past few months.

My stay has been very pleasurable to say the least. However, I did miss writing.  Or Did I?

Well, here’s a compilation of the emails written to my family where I have tried to capture some of my most cherished experiences during my first ever visit to  a foreign country.

2 of 4 - Southampton: Friday , 26^th August 2011

Hey there,

Hope you are all doing well. It’s been quite some time since I wrote. Although I have been writing/video chatting with Kavita, Meeta, Neetu & Purba individually – but again it is always nice to have everyone in the same email. It feels like a get together!!

It’s going to be a month soon since the time I landed here and I am glad that the time spent here, even though it hasn’t been favourable all the while, has  gotten me pretty much comfortable; Especially with travelling by myself.

The underground railway is very convenient and is just a sophisticated version (in look and feel) of Mumbai railways. I guess my three month stay in Mumbai was a good training ground for me to pick up the ‘tricks of train travel’.

Also another development is that I have started to cook now – In other words, I was getting tired eating out every day and it also implies that I have gradually gotten used to operating the dishwasher and the cooking range :P 

So in continuation to the story after I returned from Manchester, I went to Birmingham for a three day training workshop. And you won’t believe my luck - I missed the train again!!  But this time around it was not because I reached late – rather I did not have the tickets with me. Actually I had gotten my tickets booked online using a colleague’s card because I didn’t have a UK bank account, and was supposed to collect the tickets at the station. So I went to the station , well before time on this occasion, with a print out of my ticket confirmation number (just like my visit to Manchester) hoping that I would be asked to swipe just about any card and enter the authorization code to collect my tickets.

But the kiosk refused my ticket when I swiped one of my cards saying that it is not the same card with which the tickets were booked. I rushed to the manned ticket counter but they said they couldn’t help me unless they had the card with which the tickets were booked. I immediately called up my colleague to cancel the tickets booked online if he could. But he was not able to cancel the onward journey tickets however for the return journey – he was informed that he would be entitled to a certain sum after some deductions.

I bought a fresh ticket with a racing heart again and paid £74.50 one way!!  To give you an indication for my shocked reaction - I had paid £70 for a round trip to Birmingham online :P 

So I said bye to all my colleagues and took the next train to Birmingham. And all of this action was experienced at 6.30 in the morning- cause we were supposed to be in Birmingham by 9.30 to attend the three day workshop. Going back to the ticket drama, I figured later that in the UK they have this concept of Off peak tickets, Open tickets and Advance tickets.

Off peak tickets are supposed to cost less compared to normal ticket prices cause they are in off peak hours; the only flip side to it is the time of travel. Open Tickets are like passes to a specific route which is valid for any train up to a given time slot (say, any train up to 3.00 in the afternoon) the same day or valid for a given number of days for any train travelling that route. And finally they have another category called Advance ticket; these are for a fixed train at a given time (like reserved tickets). So if you miss an advance ticket train you gotta buy a new ticket.

Advance tickets tend to cost lesser than open tickets because of the validity. And once you have decided on the type of ticket, i.e. only if your head has not fallen off your shoulders after that spin,  and class (Standard/First) you need to make sure whether the tickets are going to be a third party collection or  otherwise. If it is a third party collection then the kiosk does not ask for the same card which was used to book the tickets. The collector can use any card that has a magnetic strip in order to get to the screen which asks for the authorization code. Once that is entered the tickets are issued without any charge to the card that was swiped. But to enable this option you need to put a tick somewhere while booking your tickets online. 

So the moral of the story is that I missed my train to Manchester because it was an advance ticket and missed the one to Birmingham because I hadn’t put a tick against third party collection while booking online :P

Thankfully I have a bank account now, but tragedy of all tragedies I am yet to receive my debit card and chequebook with my name correctly spelt on them. The first ones that I received had my name spelt as ‘Burba Roy’ :P I really couldn’t help laughing out loud when I read Natwest’s apologetic email even before I could receive the details.

Not to mention the innumerable versions of the way my name is pronounced when I am referred to. They seem to get only the ‘Roy’ part correct and look/sound rather confused when they find a girl, instead of a boy, turning up for a meeting /answering the phone :P  Anyways,  I have changed my signature to just ‘Roy’ in order to provide some respite to my shocked ears, I can deal with the confused looks/voices for now.

Anyway, I have found my Bengali connection in my room mates’ mum. Yes, she is in London too. In fact her entire family is in London (two sisters, father and mother) cause my roommate’s elder sister is based out of London. Her mum is a Tamilian but was raised in Kolkata so she speaks Bengali very well and has a fetish for Bengali saris and sweets. I already had my share of rossogollas that she had got!

Also, there seems to be a huge sea food market (run and managed by Bangladeshis – that wasn’t so hard to guess, was it?) near Canary Wharf. So I might just get some fish to cook at home this weekend.  This is supposed to be long weekend for me, Monday being a bank holiday. So I am planning to visit all the places that need to be visited in London before summer ends. It has already started to rain here but the days are still long. So I better hurry and catch up on the city.

I was supposed to visit Prashant and Gayathri as well, but am gonna give it a pass this weekend. They are all geared up for the arrival of the baby; will see them in September sometime.

Alrighty then, that’s all from me- wish you all a very happy weekend!! Take care and see ya all soonJ

Lots of love and regards

Burba..er..I mean Durba J

England Diaries [Southampton & London: Friday, 30th September 2011]

It has been long since I visited my blog, and the reason for that is -  I have been in the UK (primarily London) for the past few months.

My stay has been very pleasurable to say the least. However, I did miss writing.  Or Did I?

Well, here’s a compilation of the emails written to my family where I have tried to capture some of my most cherished experiences during my first ever visit to  a foreign country.

3 of 4 - Southampton & London: Friday , 30^th September 2011

Hi there,

How’s everyone been? Well, I am not too sure about the others but one person that has definitely been in the news is Aarav! Be it a dinner get together or Gouri- Ganesh Puja – he seems to have been the star!! (Thanks Meeta and Vikram for the updates).  I sound like a News Correspondent now, don’t I? Even if I do, I am not the one to be blamed, for these days whenever I call home I get colourful updates like:

•         Nivi goes the Osho way!

•         Mansoor Ali Khan Patuadi Passes Away – the entire nation, along with the Pataudi family and the Kapoor family, mourns. [Expert Comments by my sister: Kareena and Saif were dressed in white and were looking stunning; especially Kareena!]

•         Arhaan down with Chicken Pox, he is up and about in two weeks but craves non vegetarian food!

•         ‘Mausam’ is an avoidable suffering

•         Guru and Kavita’s Diwali 2011 Celebration in Pune !

•         Burglary attempt at Sopan Baug! Little boy gets away with small items like mobile phone , jewellery etc. Police investigation in progress.  It could be second Slumdog Millionnarie in the making.

•         Today’s special at Viman Nagar : Pan Poudo for breakfast and Sukhal Sungat curry for dinner ! (yum yum ; slurp!)

With such colourful updates, how can I not miss home!

And for those of you who are wondering how do I, Dee Roy, know so much about the Kini/Kamath/Mallaya family – well this is Durba, nowadays a.k.a Dee Roy. Yes, this is my latest name here in London. And I hope it stays that way. A lot of people were confusing my UK email ID with the one for India (because of the same display name)  so I had to request the IT team to change my display name. I was told that I cannot have just the letter ‘D’ for a first name so I added two Es at the end to emphasize and the result is Dee Roy!

It’s crazy what an incorrect name can do to your world. We use an SAP system for raising expenses, charging project time, booking leave etc. Someone has incorrectly entered my first as well as my last name as Roy into the system.  So every time I log into SAP – I get a welcome message which reads ‘Welcome Roy Roy, you cannot access the system now cause it is locked for editing by Dee Roy!’

My name abuse is quite popular among the Indian employees here so when they saw my name change to Dee on the system, I got some very wild reactions !! Some of them were instigating me to sue the IT Team but when I told them that it was intentional – everyone had a good laugh at ‘Dee’ situation!

It is close to two months, and I have started to miss home now; especially because Durga Puja is round the corner. Also I am going to miss the Diwali bash in Pune. Hmph! I shall have to make do with going to Camden for Durga Puja celebratons here in London.

As for my sojourns after Birmingham, I have been in Southampton for the past few weeks on a project. Southampton (also spelt as So’ton) is the Southwest part of United Kingdom – very close to the popular Isle of Wight. The city is located on the waterfront with several piers for fishing and general sightseeing. I was lucky to be here at the time when they host the boat show. It is absolutely stunning. They have yatches, luxurious boats/streamers/ships on display for sale. The price starts from £13,00,000  :):). Well, erm.....I didn’t quite like anything for buying right now, but it was good fun taking videos/pictures and going through the guided tours! (You will see some of them on FB shortly).

One of the evenings I also went to a place called Cowes (pronounced ‘Cows’) which is in the Isle of Wight and is about one hour ferry ride from So’ton.  By the time we reached the island it was dark so we (my colleague and I, in case you were wondering) went to one of the many outlets of a pub chain called ‘The Prince of Wales’. The speciality of these pubs is that they always have a dart board for the visitors to indulge in. We were quite amused with the game between two groups of really old ladies playing the game. One of groups among them got quite pally with us! 

However, the highlight was of my trip to So’ton was the theatre musical that I watched. It was absolutely breathtaking- I have seen theatre in India but nothing on this scale. The play was called ‘Top Hat’. It was a movie shot in 1935 – a romantic comedy turned into a musical. This experience definitely goes down my list of ‘one of the things that you must do in the UK’.

My latest additions to the UK friend circle are a bunch of Brits and a Chinese girl.  My Chinese friend is called Sisi. She is very sweet to say the least. I sort of relate to her cause she seems to be as curious about India as I am about the UK and the culture. She was ecstatic to know that I have a sibling and Vikram has two – the reason for her delight was China’s one child policy which is observed very strictly I was given to know. She was also enquiring about India’s plans to cope with rising population among other things – I didn’t really have an answer to that one. So I just grinned saying that India is trying to catch up with China. She told me that she is engaged to be married to a British guy who is also with the same firm as I.  It was nice getting to know her as we spent a few evenings together in Southampton.

The other person that I spent a lot of time with (in Southampton) is a Brit and her name is Hayley Tuck. She is very sophisticated and polite in her ways and mannerisms. It is nice to see her eat noodles with fork and knife. Every word is well articulated and every move is well rehearsed – interacting with her is like watching a classic English movie.  She seems to have similar taste buds as mine because we often end up at the same counter in the office canteen, which is to say that she likes spicy food.

Lastly, back in London, I have this colleague-friend and his name is Simon Douglas.  He is a Brit too and is married to another Brit and they both go ball room dancing every weekend! Is that fancy or what??

So that’s all the fun part that I have been having summed up in three paras. Let’s turn to the misery part. After all the missed trains for last few weeks, I have gotten a grip on myself so there are no more train stories in this email. We will take a taxi ride and talk about some rather expensive hotels instead. The cabs are very expensive in the UK. A five minute drive can cost you anything between £5- £8, while a 15 minute drive can cost you anything from £12 to £20 depending on traffic. So we usually don’t take cabs for a 10- 15 min or even a 20 min walk unless we have suitcases to carry.  But off late, since I have been travelling a lot – I have taking a lot of these taxi rides; which can range from £10 - £20, twice a day depending on where the hotel is.

As for hotels, the De Veer Grand Harbour at Southampton is a very well known one and it is quite grand (just as the name suggests). The room rate during peak seasons (boat show is a peak season in Southampton) starts at £255 a night. Well it is a lot of fun when you get to stay at a grand hotel like that and go for expensive taxi rides at the company’s expense. But my firm’s expense policy says ‘You spend it first and we will expense it later’. In other words we pay for all our expenses at the first instance and expense it later. We all are supposed to have a UK Amex card for all these business expenses, which I have applied for very diligently, but haven’t received it as yet. And that’s why I have been using my India Amex card (provided by the India team) but it does not work everywhere.  Many a times I was left hanging high and dry (Thanks to Amex!) but fortunately I had some colleague or the other to bail me out. But it is definitely very embarrassing to have your card declined! I have had the misfortune of going through that experience a few times here and now I have stopped using it altogether and use my personal credit card instead!

I also went to a few pubs here in Southampton, and I realized that one needs to very sure that you really need to drink and only drink cause most of them don’t serve any food. No food at all – not even fries. Also the PAN card is not a valid ID (if they ask you for one) for them.  They accept only passports for foreign nationals. So Sisi (my Chinese friend), Raksha (another colleague) and I had to walk out of two pubs without ordering anything and finally settle for mocktails in the third one! And  munch on cereal bars after we reached the hotel cause there was nothing to eat at the bar and the hotel kitchen , we were told, closed at 11.00 with the last order at 10.45 pm! So that’s all about So’ton – a nice city nonetheless and I have to go there again in three weeks!

I am back in London for three weeks and the weather is very pleasant, bright and sunny (in the daytime), which is quite surprising at this time of the year I am told. The only bother was the rain and the wind for sometime in London (before I keft for Southampton).  The wind was very strong. So strong that it kept my hands busy setting the backward turned umbrella right and it made me wonder if I would be blown away by it and perhaps you could see me stuck to the Tata Sky disc at Mystic Moods someday.

Anyways, so I am back to routine in London. Kavita has been asking me if I had anything interesting to eat – well there are some things that I have from the top of my list, one of them is the salmon for sure! It is a very tasty fish, in fact it reminds of one of the fresh water fish that I have had but can’t remember the name of. I also ate some nice burritos and fish and chips. I also had spicy chicken at Nando’s (Thanks to Meeta).

And like Guru had suspected, I couldn’t survive the black pudding more than a bite. And I don’t think I am ever going to have it again. It was distasteful and de appetising. The Burrow Market in London is very famous for street food- you will love the Mexican dishes there. Yellow orange rice (a biryani lookalike) with lots of sea food! It is not just yum but a delightful sight as well.

I am off to Scotland tonight with a colleague and there are still so many things to share but I realize that the mail is just getting longer. So I am going to stop now, and head for home.  I shall write more in my next email. Until then take care and have a lovely Dussera!! Miss you all!!

Lots of love!!

Durba J