Basingstoke/ London - Day 7

Day 7 (Friday 27th Aug 04’):
Spent the first half of the day packing as the remaining few days seemed hectically planned. Being a Friday night, the plan was to party in London. D & A along with Salim were to hook up with V & me, to party in some place which was very “London” that evening.
The afternoon was to be spent colouring my hair at Sandra’s place. Sandra and Jack came over in the afternoon to pick up Icchita, Yash and me to go to their place. This was my first typical English home visit (D & A’s was actually my first, but their’s had a desi feel to it, unlike Sandra’s which was as English as it gets). To elaborate on that phrase, it had the conventional wall-paper look, quaint little staircase, blue and yellow on the walls, green and pink on others. The kitchen had its own little backyard and garden with a white picket fence and tiny little kettles and other show objects all over the kitchen display units. The tea kettle was on the stove, ready to boil and uniform little transparent air-tight boxes held biscuits, that we were soon to consume at tea-time. The scale of the place was small, intimate and thus, cosy, just like the d-d buses or the cobbled pathways that wind in and out of some parts of Central London. My pleasure at being given the grand tour of the place by little Jack, was limitless, partly due to my inquisition-of-spaces-where-people-live (a trait, my profession has given me) and partly as I realized my growing love for anything English:) I was also beginning to adore Jack, as he excitedly pulled my hand and took me up and down his house, desperately trying to show me the whole place. (BTW, I had been unanimously christened as “Swee” by Yash and Jack; on account of my name “Sweetoo” being too long to pronounce). So after a whole lot of “Swee, come this way”, “Swee, this is my granna and granpa in the picture”, “Swee, Would you like to play Uno?”, I was taken away by Icchita and Sandra for my hair colouring stint and Jack and Yash were packed off in the playroom.
About 2 hrs later, Sandra, Ichhita and I sat in the yellow kitchen, with tea and biscuits waiting for the colour to set into my hair. A hair-wash and dry later, Sandra and Ichhita gathered around me to admire the way the red had set in. When I went into the playroom to show-off my hair to the kids, I was quite disappointed to see them say politely “It’s nice” alone. Little kids on their way to becoming disinterested men, I said to myself. However; Jack had all sorts of questions for me a little while later, when I was about to leave, ranging from who I was going out with that night and was I going to dance? etc.. The hair colour looked beautiful and I was all set to rock that night, in London. Sandra and Jack drove us back home and then drove off with Yash as he insisted on visiting Jack’s granna. I got dressed and waited for SD to get back home so he could take me to the B’toke station, where I was to catch a train to London Waterloo.
V had ended up going home earlier from work, since it was a long weekend (It was my mistake to let him to do that, as he ended up crashing and not waking up until some 20 hours later). V hence; was not a part of my Friday night partying in London. At B’toke station, I had a rather friendly conversation with an English ticketing officer; another one of those random conversations between a local and a tourist. The T.O expressed his desire to come to the US and see Yosemite and Yellow Stone Park instead of NYC, saying he was not a very city kind of a person. I told him how much I loved London and then politely took his leave. Found myself on the 19:24 train to London Waterloo, a few mins later, while trying V’s number several times hoping his cell phone rings will wake him up but to no avail.
From London Waterloo took the 243 to Clarkenwell Green to D & A’s office. Was thrilled to see how D & A argued over where they could take me tonight “ It has to be a very London-place” one said to the other, followed by almost 5 names of bars in Shoreditch. After a series of arguments, Salim, D, A & I found ourselves sitting in MotherBar, a minimally designed concrete ambience with red wine, champagne, beer and good music. Realised how used to I was, with a non-smoking ambience, coming from NYC and that I had to now re-tune myself with the exact opposite for the rest of my vacation (in London and in Bombay). Some good times, a lot of drinks and pictures later we emerged from the bar well past midnight, when I realized I had to head back to London Waterloo to catch my last train back to SD's. Somehow I convinced my friends that I must leave now and dissuaded Atrey from calling SD to let him know that I was staying the night. We stood at the 243 bus stop, waiting for the bus, amidst our usual post-drinking chaos and laughter. Finally; I was aboard a bus, on my way to catching the last train at Waterloo. As I was getting out of Central London, got the feeling that I will miss it even more as I saw revelers doing what they do best on a Friday night: Hang out (literally outside on the pavements) of the bars and pubs.
The bus ended up taking a different route and luckily I was’nt drunk enough to realize that late, so got off it in the nick of time, at this side of the Thames. Realised that I had to cross the entire bridge and get to Waterloo myself and I had barely 5 mins to do that. So my sprint across the Thames’ on the Waterloo Bridge started, that too in heeled boots. What a let down to the amazing high I had just a few mins ago…however It was one of the most memorable sprints of my life, and I guess the best one ever, with a fabulous view. I did make it in time for my last train, made a call to SD letting him know when I would reach B’toke, a call to Dipal letting her know I was safe and in time for my train.
Caught the train, thankfully it was’nt as empty as D & A had tried to scare me earlier in futile attempts of having me stay back. (There is no equal to the pampering your friends/ family extend to you, when you see them after so long) SD picked me up at B’toke station and after a short briefing on tomorrow’s plans, it was bed time.
Tomorrow was going to be Oxford day.