In the last two posts I talked mostly about the positives of London – in this one I talk about the negatives. However, I would like to put in a disclaimer that none of these negatives imply that London is not a good city. London is indeed a great city to live in – these are just some of the things that can be improved. First and foremost – London is dirty as compared to (some) other European cities. In some parts it is as dirty as Bombay and given the population load (which though is large, is lesser than Bombay) this isn't an expected trait! In fact, before coming to London one of my expectations from the ‘London experience’ was to live in a clean city – to my disappointment my expectation hasn’t been met. [I grew up in Bhopal which was much cleaner than Bombay if not spot clean!] The next is the reliability of transport network; while London might have one of the best public transport networks – the reliability of this network is pretty poor - frequent disruptions, unplanned dela...

In my last post I briefly touched upon the cosmopolitan nature of London and its infrastructure – I will elaborate further on them here; to keep my writing from swaying to unknown territory I will maintain an annotational style in this post. Cosmopolitan/ Multicultural City London is one of the world’s most multicultural, multiethnic and cosmopolitan cities. The existence of plethora of nationalities and ethnicities makes its experience even richer – more so there is high tolerance for different cultures and even accents, people make an effort to appreciate the differences between them (though there is a mild undercurrent of racism as well among few people) - all this makes an interaction in the city enjoyable. The variety in ethnicities makes interesting linguistic situations here. Imagine a Russian girl behind the McDonalds counter telling an Indian – “ be havbe only Vegitarian Mel(t) ” and the Indian responding – “ Yes! I want the Veggie Meal ”. Population vs. City As a city London ...

My 6 month sojourn of London is finally coming to an end – about this time next week I will be at the Sahar Airport, Mumbai. Time to recap thoughts that have crossed and perceptions that have been crystallized in my mind about London as a city, UK as a country both compared to my motherland and some of the other places I saw (Swiss). The moment you step out of the Heathrow what strikes you most is the views that loom around you - manicured lawns, roads marked with lanes, numerous flyovers and tunnels and organized boundaries. However slowly as you settle down in the city – you start noticing the cons and more subtle pros. As an 'Indian' the easiest thing to expect is that 'foreign' is a completely superlative experience to India – in that respect the biggest learning from this visit is that not everything in the west is superlative and that India has certain qualities that stand out! Anyway – this post (probably a multi part one) is about London/UK; let me come back Lon...