Sunday, January 17, 2010

A weird journey from Heathrow to Heathrow - 01

“Hey Nikhil, its Sachin...where r u..???...I’ve landed here...”. “Yes, Sachin I am halfway... probably in 20min I will be there at the Airport. You just stay at some coffee shop where I can easily recognise you.” And in 20-25min I reached to Heathrow airport to pick up a guy whom I had not only ever met but seen either.


The only purpose to go to airport to pick up this guy was because he was colleague of my Bhabhi (sister-in-law) from her office and it was his first time in London. So, it was necessary for him to get home without any troubles. I had arranged a cab for Sachin. Sachin was very happy to see me at the airport. As expected Cabbie was bit late due to traffic in the evening time. Meanwhile we discussed about his journey from Mumbai to London via Dubai. As a regular first timer in London, he had certain queries about London and phone cards etc. Which I tried my best to sort them up.


After sometime cabbie called me and said he was @ airport. Me and sachin put all his luggage in the Cab (Like India, We don't have Coolies in London). I said Sayonara to Sachin from the Heathrow airport only as his house was on the other direction of the airport and I would have had to go via Airport for my house. So it was pointless of me to go along with Sachin as he had proper address of his residence which was easiest way to find.


On my way back I sat on the front seat at the upper deck of the Public bus. And I just glanced outside the bus to the airport. It was the same airport I cam here three-four months ago. Then my mind started thinking about the whole thing just happened. I was thinking that what has just changed overnight with me??? I mean before coming to London I was very popular as Mr. Irresponsible. People use to prefer delaying their work rather than counting on me. None of my maternal aunts ever asked me to look after their kids at their absence as I was so careless about everything around me.


I should have landed in London with keeping that carelessness and laziness in India but these things can not be considered as Excess luggage which I could drop on Mumbai International Airport. I still remember my first day in London very clearly. It was the second week of September last year when I came first time in London. It took 2hours for me to get through the whole immigration and security procedure which was little more than what normally takes. I was bit afraid that my friend Sagar who was waiting for me at the Airport for two hours might have returned after so much delay. So the first thing I wanted to do after coming out from Arrival was to call Sagar. But that was just the beginning of the nightmares. One thing which I should have done before flying to London was to ask my friends from London about Public phones and how to use them. I had no idea how many pens it cost to make a phone call nor did I had any idea about dialling numbers from public phone booths (You have to add ‘0’ before the mobile number to make a call here). I could have asked these things from India only but I didn’t because none of these things ever popped up in my mind. Eventually, I had to take help from the people who were in line behind me. Somehow I managed to call Sagar who was kind enough to came and rescue me from the whole chaos.


The announcer in Bus announced that we are reaching to Harrow Bus station. Harrow bus station was my last stop with Bus no.140 . I reached to Harrow bus station from where I had to take Bus no.114 towards my house in Queensbury. I miss 114 bus by 2-3 minutes and it was going to take around 5-10minutes for the next bus. The next bus came after 5-10minutes and I get into that bus. Gradually, I resumed thinking which was stalled due to the whole bus changing process.

3 comments:

Prajakta said...

changla lihilay,pan ha marathitun blog hawa hota,tuzhyat zalela badal janavatoy tula,i think ajun varshabharat honare badal pan tula tasech janavtil,te pan wachayla mala vachayla avdtil....
good work keep it up

Unknown said...

dude da phone thing is soo weird...there r instructions given on every phone booth u cld hav atleast read the instructions....hahahaha

Unknown said...

its a gud attempt nik..but i wud rather title it as a nostalgic instead of a wierd journey...as it took u to ur very first land in london...