The loveliest things in England are melancholy...

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in dreams than in this reality called life when I landed there.

Yes, I like to call it autumn. Not the 'fall'. Yes, I've been an Anglophile all my life.

I've grown up with the sole belief that books were my best friends. They could understand me and excite me, fascinate me and make me wonder, like nothing or nobody else on the entire planet. My first rhyme was 'London Bridge', my first novel was 'Secret Seven' by Enid Blyton. Famous five, and Rudyard Kipling's children's stories and what not. And I, like many others have picked up J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and loved it more than most material things. London, to me, meant the origin of this art we call literature. When English is close to your heart, how could London not be so?

All those stories describing Hyde Park at dusk, those double decker red buses that Sherlock took rides in, 221B Baker Street, and the Buckingham Palace. It was all a dream until the year of 2013. I'd call it luck, but it was the British Embassy really, whom I could give its due credit (and dad's funding haha).

It's probably odd for most people my age, but I'd always said that I'd absolutely love sitting on a park bench at dusk, with a cup of hot tea / coffee, with my favourite book in my hand. And the rustling of leaves, the peace of the hour and the beauty of solitude would suffice. And somehow, I have always been able to relate to this quote: 

"So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy" 

I literally lived the dream on that holiday. When in England, the English won't disappoint. It's the dreamland for grammar Nazis. Their 'quarter-past' and 'half-past' is like music to my ears.

The English have, and will always exhibit snobbery. The high spirited, cultured Englishmen never fail to remain classy. An Englishman is really defined by his blood and his class. Oh yes. His class. The pocket-watch era has not ended. Horse carriage rides are not uncommon even today. Squares and palaces make the country majestic, beyond the efforts of renowned authors in writing their bestsellers. Even Shakespeare, in his description of England in King Richard II.

I've been there, I've done all of that. Yes, I have, and I feel overwhelmed at the very memories of it. 

But somehow, the London eye makes it so much more beautiful. After all, a bad day in England to me, would still be a better day than one spent anywhere else.

As for what made it 'life-changing', it just made me believe that history in one part of the world may still be heritage in another. And that there exists a place on this vast planet, where people can connect with their love for anything, in a busy city (other than Bombay). Museums, parks, palaces, shopping arcades, pubs, and monuments. If I had one last wish, I would revisit and only hope to make fonder memories there. 

I'd revisit this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, not once, not twice, but every instance I had an opportunity to.

- Pooja Shirali