Stepping out into the streets of London was like putting on an old unworn suit. It’s all vividly familiar but yet, not quite. I have spent a lot of hours listening to its sounds, drawing from the words of its musical poets like Strummer and Morrissey, watching through its celluloid eyes and I have been captivated even before I laid eyes proper on her.
I was compelled to take a picture of the first London Underground sign I saw like a wide-eyed uncouth boy, a brand so synonymous with the pop culture I have spent a large part of my existence reveling in. But I did not care. I merely watched and listened before, but here I am. And I can’t help smiling.
And London smiled back, with rays of sunshine, literally. Our concerns that we may have to brave the remaining gusts of winter proved to be unfounded as we walked into the first day of London’s summer. So zesty was the day that the waiter at the restaurant we had our first lunch in, briefly suggested I reconsider my order of a hot lemon tea.
Blue is the warmest color
It was Gandhi who said, ‘Actions expresses priorities‘, and if that is so, then it was obvious that one of my priorities was on Fulham Road, given that despite having just endured a 14-hour flight on the balance of a decent red curry rice and some sleeping pills not an hour ago, my focus after stomaching a lovely lunch at Mandarin Kitchen at Queensway was to head immediately to the place my eyes has feasted on every other weekend since I became a fan about a decade ago.
I was home. That is if we are subscribing to the old adage that ‘it’s where your heart is’. I however prefer a more contemporary notion that one’s heart need not be completely circumscribed. While it rests more often than not at the feet of my wife, she knows it occasionally strays. Not to the nearest pair of fetching legs, that she would not stomach, but to what happens at Fulham Road every other weekend.
It felt almost surreal to walk down that road. To imagine how the huddled fans decked in blue would walk down that road, how the residents who reside in the flats just next to the stadium would have to contend with droves of Chelsea fans invading their space. It’s a walk I wish I could make every week, and perhaps one day with a son in tow. But alas I would have to be contented with this weekend pass for now.
While the other tourists trigger-happily click in hundreds of pictures of the Matthew Harding stand, I find my eyes drawn to finer, quirkier details. A rusted balcony bar, worn from decades of sweaty palms gripping it for support and comfort, draws me in. It gives me an indication of the world-wearier side of this structure’s soul, existing long before the millions poured in.
Then there is the painfully lopsided press table, not unlike the war-torn ones you may find at your grandparents’ place – a chasm forming at the center of its top from years of hoarded magazines, newspapers and empty biscuit tins being piled mercilessly on it. Well in the case of the one sitting in the Stamford Bridge press room, from years of managers resting their weary, contemplative arms on them. I marvel not at the history that so intangibly hovers over it, but at the sentimentality that still exists in a club so often accused of being soulless. That such a grotesque state furniture is allowed to exist at the forefront of its media thrust suggests that perhaps not all heart was lost in the fires of the Russian revival.
‘They’ll never take Piccadilly’
There’s palpable excitement in the air around Piccadilly Circus. Buskers line the streets, entertaining revelers who are only too happy to bask in some sunlight after a long hard winter. The famous West End bursts with color, vitality and commerce. I feel my attention being dragged to and from like a drunk lord being harassed forcefully by a pair of barmaids. There’s just too much to do, too much to see. Oh what I would have given for some egg yolk, grease and ginger to gather my attention’s dignity, girth up its pants and to calm the hell down.
All those more than moderately-budgeted productions being housed in these little street-side theaters charmed me to no end, like a fairy tale princess being whisked up a brutish stallion amidst the gaze of millions of tulips. And if you are now imagining a stocky Asian man being given the Cinderella package, well done to me.
The plan, well the somewhat plan, was to watch The Book of Mormon, that is before my wife balked at the ticket prices and the plan got floated out to oblivion like a kid releasing a paper boat into a storm drain. It wasn’t cheap, but cheaper thanks to a tip from a friend – never buy the tickets ahead but go at the last gasp to see if there are stray tickets available. The lure to pack out a show would be worth more to the theater than the 20-30 quid discount you end up getting. So we did it.
I have never seen spending money on experiences as being a waste. After all, experiences are what glues generations together. I can still remember my dad regaling me about those sweaty 60s nights where he would play Shadows covers with his band to dance-floor merchants. It was what eventually inspired me to be in a band as well. You could well take that cash and spend it on a designer handbag if that’s your poison but the nostalgist in me is thinking it’s not like I can sit my kid down in the future and regal him/her about the time I had ‘a beast of a clamshell Gucci with a herringbone pattern’. Watching a musical at the West End featuring a reoccurring chorus about having ‘maggots in my scrotum’? Now that’s what you spend your dosh on.
adrianyapck 