21 July 2007

I have been in London now for three days; three typical English summer days of beastly cold and intermittent showers.

I have no plans as such but with some thousand pounds of borrowed money and four weeks of leave of absence from work, a Schengen visa alongwith my United Kingdom one, life has a lot of possibilities. However first, I would like to emphasise the word 'borrowed'. This means that having to return that not insubstantial amount will come and bite me sometime in the future. Second, I would like to point out that much of that absence from work is on loss of pay. So, people it is not nearly as good as it looks and you have just got to STOP cursing me.

But coming back to the possibilities, I left Chennai with a lonely planet guide to Paris, a French phrasebook and a Spanish phrasebook, practising to say 'est-ce que vous avez' (do you have in French) and 'entiendo' (I understand in Spanish) with some authenticity. Further, I see a lonely planet guide to 'Europe on a shoestring' on my sister's bookshelf-'40 countries, finite budget, infinite adventure' -and start reading it. It is hard not to be carried away by 'shake your tail-feather with the hip and happening in Hungary' or ' warm your bones in the Blue Lagoon, Iceland'.

I sober up however, on thinking about how I get myself into a lot of trouble while travelling. This is because of the following reasons.

1. My chronic inability to plan life in advance. My current capacity for advance planning stands at approximately twenty minutes. This does not compare well with the European average of around two years.

2. My sheer hatred for booking and queueing and similar activities. Early into any such activities, I just keep wishing I was someone famous, some celebrity, so that I can bypass all the fuss and just get what I want. This is not at all helpful, but I cannot help it.

3. My absolute refusal to be a part of anything packaged and guided and so on and my stout determination to do things my own way and at my own slow and languid pace even when I am in completely unknown places.

4. My desire to be disconnected- so no mobile phone and very little Internet.

5. A tight budget.

6. A penchant for travelling alone, which is mostly a good thing. But, there are times when I realise what they mean by 'two heads are better than one'.

So, when people ask me about my plans, I really have no answer. I know that I am going to have dinner in the next twenty minutes, but that is about it. Yet, I somehow get by and manage to do things. So watch this space.

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Jetlag is the only thing that gets me to sleep even a little bit and as of now I am absolutely indulging in it till it lasts. The only time I have ventured out is at half an hour to midnight last night with my sister to collect her pre booked copy of 'Harry Potter and the deathly hallows' at the Waterstone's around the corner. Some three hundred people had already queued up in anticipation of the 12:01 release. It is a relatively sedate crowd with only mild loopiness and some bad costumes, some singing and chanting and mostly elderly people trying to justify their presence because they were young when the series started and now they are hooked. Some guy in a passing cab yells 'Harry dies' in what I thought was a delightfully wi-icked prank except that it caused some young kids to burst in tears. I could sense the excitement amongst the fans but I just stand in the queue and wish I was J. K. Rowling instead. Then, I would get what I want. Without planning and booking and queues.