A visit I cannot forget

My siblings argue that I am the luckiest among them for various reasons, the first and foremost , they say, is my visit to London .It is true that  I visited   London in the company of my parents in August , 2007. It so happened that my father's boss once and only once   allowed him to take his family with him when he sent him abroad. My siblings were not living in Doha at that time. that is all




Me and my beloved Mom before Buckingham Palace

  



Skating in Hydepark

Though my dad took us to  tourist attractions like Buckingham Palace, London Isle, Trafalgar Squire etc, now only I am learning their historical importance as I was then only 9 years old. The first day when we went out for a morning walk in Hyde Park, I saw people jogging, cycling and children skating there . I told  my parents to buy me  a Roller Skate but they as usual began to put forth lame excuses such as  I would fall down and sustain injuries, it is too costly for us to by in London, I could have it in Doha and so on so forth .Then I resorted to the most popular and efficacious weapon widely used by children like me around the world viz. crying. Then my father  surrendered unconditionally. When I started skating he realized that every thing was under control.

The Serpentine Lake in the Hyde Park hosts a number of birds that nest in a man made small island in the middle of it  with congenial surroundings for them  to nest and nourish. I could recognize only ducks and swans among them besides the pigeons visiting them to share their joy while eating food grains and dry bread pieces given to them by tourists. While we were walking along the Serpentine Lake, some of these birds were swimming in the lake and  others were mingling with the visitors feeding them on the bank of the lake . It was for the first time that I was seeing some of those birds so closely. When my mom tried to feed them these brids  ran to her to snatch the bread pieces from her  , tens of pigeons and sparrows rushed to her to grab food grains from her hand and some of them even sat on her shoulders for a while competing with other birds to take what she gave them. It was indeed a splendid scene.

The only bird I have seen so closely in India was parrots carried in cages by the so called fortune tellers and soothsayers . They roam in the rural areas to exploit the illiterate and some times even  educated villagers. Some cards are laid before these people and the door of the cage is open to let parrot go out and take one of the cards from which they claim that they can tell the future of the person concerned . The parrot will not fly away since it does not know that there is  a world out side other than its cage to which it returns soon after its mission  is over.

Serpentine Lake

My dad tells me that he does not like to see birds in cages , that he still remembers the opening verses a Malayalam poem he had learned in upper primary classes “ Vittayakkuka Koottilninnenne nhanottuvaanil parannu nadakkatte( please free me from the cage, let me fly freely in the air) by Naalaappattu Baalamaniyamma, the mother of the celebrated writer Kamala Surayya ( Madhavikkutty) and  that he loves to watch flocks of birds flying high up in the sky ..

It seemed to me that London was indeed a land of flowers, parks and gardens. Wherever we turn there were beautiful flowers to welcome us . There were shallow ponds in these gardens where we saw yellow, red and black fishes swimming comfortably as there was nobody to catch or harm them, every one  was instead  feeding them . Since the water in some of these ponds were crystal clear, we could see even their bottom .

In the Hyde park there are large trees with lush green leaves.The trees and plants in London are well protected  in London. One can see rabbits andsquirrels running near the bushes  in the park . When I tried to feed a squirrel, it ran to me and took the bread piece from my hand. Though I tried to pat it , it soon ran away but I am glad I was able at least to feed it

 The neatness of the streets of London, the electronic card we had used to open the hotel room, the punctuality of hotel room service, the electronic road map in the car we travelled showing us where we were  and  the cartoon channel they had specially  turned for me  were the other things that had impressed me.

By the Youngest Son