Dec 09, 2000 12:42 AM
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Think of International Business, Banking or Commodities or a City which has a melting pot of cultures and can boast of being a symbol where people with so many diverse backgrounds, cultures and religions can work, play and interact with each other on a daily basis without prejudice, then you will always think of London.
London's West End is a heady mixture of crass consumerism and high culture. Several outstanding museums and galleries rub shoulders with tacky tourist traps, while world-famous places and monuments share the streets with some of the capital's best shopping and entertainment. The world famous shopping street, Oxford Street is here surrounded by Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Marble Arch, Hyde Park and Soho, the ''China Town''.
Although the East End districts of Spitalfields and Whitechapel may lie within walking distance of the City, the change of pace and style is quite extraordinary. Traditionally, this was working-class London, an area settled by wave upon wave of immigrants, giving it a curiously mixed Irish, Huguenot, Bangladeshi and Jewish culture. This is an area where Jack the Ripper roamed for many years murdering prostitutes, actor Michael Caine was born and the notorius criminals Kray Brothers ruled with dagger and guns. Most recently the TV show Eastenders is filmed, depicting the lives of East Enders. From the adjoining Docklands East India Company set out to trade with India and eventually conquered and ruled India for almost 200 years.
You can see the land marks like Big Ben, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum & Planetorium as well as the house of Sherlock Homes. Tower of London, which houses the Crown Jewells, including Kohinoor, is a place where King Henry VIII behaded one wife and married another. From Here you can take a boat ride to Greenwich to see the imaginary line from where the world time Greewich Mean Time originated.
If you are from India and are missing the motherland atmosphere, then Southall is a must to visit, which looks like you are in a Punjab city, with Indian cuisine dhabas, sweet & chaat shops are abundant. It is commonly said that when visiting London if you have not visited Southall, The Little India, as it is called, your trip in incomplete. If you wish to see a touch of Gujrat then a visit to Wembley Ealing Road is a must. Incidentally this a place where every year Diwali is celebrated on a grand scale with processions, pageants and music shows, and nearly a million people attend the celebrations.
I have lived in London for over 20 years now and love every minute of it. Whatever you desire in this city, from Disco and Pubs to temples and mediation centres, from history to modernity, it is all visible and available.
The great 18th-century author Samuel Johnson said that a man who is tired of London is tired of life. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ''No person can be said to know London. One can know only a part of it''
