Living a Movie, Piccadilly Circus

It was about 2 weeks of me being in London and I had been to nowhere. It doesn’t mean that I was keeping myself stranded in the room. The Pakistani community here was quite cool and really supportive, I attended some parties too, also went to meet some old fellows but that was not satisfying my nomad soul. I had to see London; I had to visit the places as they say in Urdu,

“Awargi main had sa guzar jana chahea”

We called one of our seniors who was living in this place from a long time now and literally begged her that we want to go somewhere; we need to have some sightseeing. She was so nice to set a plan for the coming Saturday to take us to Piccadilly Circus.

Piccadilly Circus is a place which would be in the mind of every person who is somewhat in to the Urdu literature as many authors quote it in their writings. We gathered at Mile End Station of the London underground tube system at 5 pm. One thing I observed here in London generally everywhere and specially at the tube stations that everybody is in some hurry, everybody is running. They are not getting late but they are running nevertheless. Back at home everybody seems to be excessively calm or I would say slow in almost everything they have to do.

Well there was quite rush in the tube and it was reminding me of Lahore Metro Bus in peak hours :P (Nostalgia everywhere). I took us about 30 minutes to reach the desired station and when I came out of the underground station, I found myself surrounded in some really old but big buildings, big screens, tourists, flashing cameras, at that moment I had the feeling for the first time in these days that yeah I am in London, I am visiting a new city, in a new country in a new continent.

A guy was showing some magic tricks there like a whole show, just like those GOT talent shows, and maybe he was not as good at magic but he was really a great show man. Then there was this guy who had nothing but white chalks and he was drawing on the road, there were musicians signing, people dancing, there was a guy playing tunes thorough a road cone and there was this live golden statue too. I was just mesmerized, It would feel quite exaggerated to many of you but really I was because I had seen these places, these things in shows, in movies, on youtube so many times and today I was here, living, breathing in this place.

Then our host took us to the china town and treated us with “Peanut Butter Cake” from a Chinese bakery and we had to stay in the queue for about 15 minutes to get that cake but it deserved that wait. After filling our stomach we went to a book store, and it was really an enormous one, I could spend my whole day here but we already had spent the whole year and again in Urdu,

“Lekin kabhi kabhar to ghar jana chahea”

We had to go back home, so mesmerized, happy, and relaxed we get into the tube and “Lot ka budhu ghar ko ae” we came back home. This was my first trip to explore London and many more were and are on the way. :)