On the 12th Sept 2009 I landed on Gatwick airport. The one thing that immediately caught my eye was that it was filled with 80% brown people which made me more relieved.
I went to the immigration counter and was ready to answer hell lot of their questions, but I was surprised to be wrong. The officer over the counter seeing my Indian passport started talking to me in Hindi! I answered him in Hindi while looking at his name on his uniform. He looked English so there was no scope of him being a desi! I was correct in my analysis as his name turned out to be Jeff. He was ok with all my documents, allowed me entry and to my surprise came out of his cabin to have a chat with me. He handed over his job to some lady.
Jeff had spent his quarter life in Calcutta, India. He was brought up in MP and loved India like most of the Indians do. He escorted me to the baggage claim and then to arrivals. For the next 30 mins he was reciting his life in India. This is was first impression of UK and I rated it per my analysis. Wow! I was never given such a warm welcome anywhere neither in my country and of course nor in the US.
We came out of the airport to ride a bus home. The bus was due in 3 mins and it arrived in 3 minutes. I was awestruck. The next day I was gathering information on the local public transport and realized that these guys have a really really strong public transport network.
The house that we were staying was a duplex with kitchen and living room on ground level and bedrooms on the first. Most of the houses provide piped gas, which is actually good for Indian cooking. The trend is to rent a furnished apartment which is a boon to the tenants as they have to buy hardly any stuff. A lot many people have more than one apartment and are generally into estate agency. Recently we moved into our new apartment thru a similar guy. He owns 5 apartments and rents all of them. He’s making big money out of it.
Where ever I go, it’s critical for me (being a veggie) to check out the food stuff. UK surprised me with that too. A branch of WAL-MART called ASDA is widely spread all over UK. You get besan, lentils, papad and what not in this store. Even the Pizza hut serves a wide range of veggie pizzas. I am lovin it!
You ought to see lot of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in this country. A lot of Europeans too. With what I have seen until now, I am not yet ready to conclude anything about this country, but would definitely pass a comment. This country will make you comfortable to live in from day 1. Let’s hope the comment becomes a conclusion as days progress.
