I was visitng London after almost 6 years, and since this was purely a social visit without any work or regimented sight seeing, I was a bit excited. My excitement was not due to the prospects of watching a football game, as buying 4 tickets at 80 pounds each was not my definition of fan madness; or visitng the Lords and Oval, Wimbledon or Wembley, not the Museums, not the Eating and Watering holes, but just to be at home with family.

The day flight was comfortable, and the service unobtrusive but efficient. No pampering, no rudeness, but efficient and sufficient passenger care and handling. One could catch up with all the missed action on Hollywood and Bollywood. This was the best flight I have had of late in Economy Class. A very satisfying experience, the only dark element being that on my cheapy ticket I got only 20% of the mileage for a full fare economy ticket. (I wonder if anyone gets the full economy milage, for why will anyone travel that, when discounted Business is much cheaper!) Strange are the ways of air travel and its pricing :)

Heathow Terminal 3 had deteriorated further, and as I alighted  felt proud that our ramshackle Airport in Mumbai was not any inferior. The crowds at Heathrow immigration were much longer than I ever encountered earlier (Reminding one of Mumbai till some 3 years ago- Mumbai today being a landing passenger's dream with the standard half hour from landing to reaching the still dismal pavement:) and the Crowd Control staff, now mostly of Indian origin, was ever busy talking to their boyfriends on cellphones (They shud ban these for the Airport staff also, as they do for us, incoming hapless passengers eager to link up with our friends/ family on the other side of the Green channel)

We got our baggae in time, no horror tales of the newly opened T- 5 here :) I had packed such that I wud have welcomed if one of my bags were misplaced, for that wud give me previlages like instant compensation, insurance claim-- but then, i have never been lucky at collecting freebies and bonuses:)

As I waited at the Visitor's Point to be received, I asked an Indian look alike next to me about how the coin/ card phones were to be used. He listened to me patiently, to my admiration at his patience and forbearence, and when I looked up at him for a reply, very nonchalently he tells me, 'jee mujhe angrezi nahin aati, kisi aur se pooch lo'

We decide to take the Heathrow Connect to Ealing Broadway, from where we could get a direct Central Line tube to our destination. The journey was uneventful, except for the Southall Station, where the station signs (All One Hundred of them) had the name of the station both in English and Punjabi scripts ! No wonder our Sikh brethren think of England as more of their Home than the far flung villages in Punjab.

The Train, even from this starting station, was not amodel of cleanthiness. Newspapers were strewn all over, on the floor, seats, window sills. As the train starting filling up, it got converted to a reading room,and each scrap of the waste was picked up and avidly read by the lucky winners of the right pages. It was a sight- with quite a few packing these papers which God knows how many had gone through, and taking them off with them for a detailed and patient review back home.

We finally reached our destination Station. We took the underpass to cross the street, and it felt like back home. It was dirty, filthy, and chaotic :)

The walk home was 2 minutes. A neat, well laid row of single storey houses, no traffic, but cars piled on every inch of the roads. Almost like a resort area, one that I thought would be so suitable to blogging.

I knewt I had arived in London, finally !