Kismat

Returning to London from India is much less difficult than returning from India to Sydney used to be. It's not only the reassuring smell of urine, there are plenty of other reminders here.

The day after I arrived back, we headed with House Negro to Brick Lane. I dislike the Brick Lane restaurants but we managed to find a low key place that had a Sunday biryani special. And then did a shopping trip to Bangla City.

On Friday I misread my Eurostar ticket and missed the train to Amsterdam. Shekerim was over (between Hungary and Armenia trips) and we decided that it must be kismat that I'd missed the train (which is a Turkish and a Hindi word and I suppose Arabic as well).

A replacement single ticket for a later train was more expensive than my return had cost. I was too angry with myself to spend much more money so I booked an 11pm night coach. That left the rest of the afternoon and evening to pack and tidy for the flatswap.

I was watching the evening news when they went live to a Bollywood celebration in Trafalgar Square, part of the India in London season. Trafalgar Square was conveniently placed between home and the coach station so I headed straight down there with my luggage.

I sat watching artists finish a huge mural. The music was loud and some entertaining spontaneous dancing was going on. I texted Shekerim to say that missing the train certainly was kismat. Ironically, a Tarkan song then started - the one Holly Vallance covered.


And then the show began. Abseilers dancing to the music of Niraj Chug. I loved it.


Amsterdam wasn't bad either.