Little above a year back, a young man of 20 something, having finished a year at his new job, received the good news of his secondment to London. In preparation for his six weeks in London, the young man set out to a few shops in the city to buy the necessary attire for the new job profile that he would be in.

On 3 May 2010, this young man took his first long haul flight from Bangalore to London. As he walked out of the airplane and took the cab to his apartment, he fell in love with the city and hoped that those six weeks would be a lot more. Little did he know that his wish would come true. However, his work was recognised and he was given an offer he could not refuse. And, he didn’t.

The six weeks turned to six months and the six months turned to nine, as he waited for his visa. After a brief visit in Bangalore, he packed up his belongings and returned home to Mumbai. In Mumbai, as he struggled to adjust to the time zone difference, he tried to put his affairs in order and met a few friends. He was back to London in early March to begin his new job in a role where his friends would refer to him as “Banker”.

I don’t need to tell you that the young man is me and am happy to say that I have completed my first year in London, in a job I grew to love!

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This isn’t the case with Ajay (yes, sad joke!), who is perfectly at home at his work place. But, I do go out and have my share of fun and this included a wardrobe improvement with the help of his new found friend Sveccha (introduced by the great Idea-smithy.

We went to Westfield mall, which is one of the largest malls in Europe (view on Google Maps). I picked up a few shirts at the T.M.Lewin store and at Marks & Spencer, a pair of shoes and something that makes me smell real good!

Some Vietnamese food, pastries and Starbucks completed the rest of the day. This was the first day of the long two weekends, the Easter weekend and the Royal Wedding weekend, most of which were spent in the confines of my super sexy apartment!

What use is a good, well furnished kitchen (courtesy Tesco Direct), when you don’t put it to use. Met up with Sveccha on Saturday and we decided to cook at home. She did the cooking and we did the eating. The prawns turned out to be super awesome and the rice and the dal were yum! Need, I say, I need to take up cooking as a hobby!

And, work continues as usual…

Come new years eve, most people stop and take a look at the year that was past. I am no different. The end of 2010 also brings together the end of the first decade of the new millennium. And, what a decade it has been! And, what a year 2010 has been!

For me 2010 has been one of best years professionally and one of my worst personally (or so I think currently). I began 2010 with a clear future in mind. I had my usual 5 year plan ready, complete with a Plan B in place!

But, as they say, man proposes, God disposes, little did I know how my plans would all go for a toss.

In March, I was informed that my secondment to London has been finalised. It took nearly a month for the entire paperwork to be completed and I finally made by way to London on May 3. The first four months of 2010 had already been tough with extremely long hours and at work and little did I realise that those would pale in comparison to what I would have in store.

I jumped right into the fight and my body did not have time to understand the meaning of jet lag, so if anybody were to ask me, I am totally clueless as to what jet lag is!

The next two weeks would see my role change from the junior-most junior to the senior-most junior. With this came a lot of responsibility and I must say I am happy that I was able to deliver. My secondment was initially meant to be for six weeks but this got extended till end October. My plans of coming down in July were also thrown out of the window when I realised that it takes six weeks to get a visa extension!

In August, I spent my birthday in office till 2am, definitely not one of my greatest moments. Starting a week later and for the month following that would be the worst days of my personal life, maybe even the worst days of this decade. Most of you who know me will know the reason for this and I thank everyone who was there during those trying times. This is a shock I am still reeling from, but not for long.

The last week of September was excellent for my career when two of the deals I was working on got announced in the same week. This would be followed by two more deals in December, with me closing the year with four deals on my resume

October was another excellent month, when I signed my contract to move permanently to London. I have applied for my visa (which is taking forever to come) and this is the final stage of the process of turning me into a frontend investment banker.

I hope to be home by end January to pack up my stuff in Bangalore, before stopping over in Mumbai for a while, before I head back to London.

Thanks for reading. Have a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2011! Keep reading and commenting.

I love Christmas. As far as I can remember, Christmas has been good for me. I have some of the fondest memories of my life associated Christmas. It is little wonder that I look forward to Christmas every year.

This year, Christmas was different. Different because, for the first time in my life I was not at home for Christmas.

I began Christmas this year by going to Westminster Cathedral for the 6pm mass on 24th. The church was decorated with a huge Christmas tree, but it was also rather cold, since Christmas Eve was cold this side of the world. Met up with a college pal for a quiet dinner. Was home before the clock struck 12.

Pavlos had invited me over for Christmas lunch with his family. Christmas lunch was in the traditional Greek style with caviar, soup, sweets, desert and a full roasted and stuff turkey. I don’t think I need to say that I ate to my fullest

My plans for boxing day went for a toss with the tube strike. However, I plan to finally go out and see London tomorrow, before I report to work on Tuesday.

With that I’ll leave you with this beautiful song.

If you’re sitting in London right now, as I am, you’ll identify with Hitler in this video.

I made my last personal blog post four months back. Since that very date, my life has changed, a change I never expected to come to pass, a change that till today makes me wonder if it is for the better or worse.

Since then I have been involved in many things, including a few parties and the Arsenal vs. Fulham game.

And, if you missed the match, here’s a video of Samir Nasri scoring the first goal

I also had my first experience with snow about two weeks back when I woke up to falling snow. Set out with great excitement, took two steps and landed flat on my back. The next time I set our I slid the way to work. Still need to go out and buy good shoes, scarf and some head gear.

Currently am sitting at home on a two week break, twiddling my thumbs and wondering about the possibilities.

Met up with Clayton, my good old friend from my days of choir singing. He decided to take me to Chennai Dosa, which is a popular Indian cuisine restaurant in Wembley and other places in London.

Travelling to Wembley on a weekend from Canary Wharf is always a pain because the Jubilee line has “planned engineering works”. So, instead of taking the Jubilee straight to Wembley, I took the Jubilee to Stratford (opposite direction), which will soon be the place of the London Olympics.

From Stratford, I took the Overground to Gospel Oak where Clayton came with his car. Going by road today turned out to be rather painful since we came across three accidents yesterday. The first one made us take an alternate route which was several kilometres all over the area. The second one didn’t restrict our travel.

Chennai Dosa turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The rates are much lower by London standards, but I couldn’t help running a quick 70x conversion to INR! The place was filled with Indians and is apparently run by Indians.

The mutton biryani wasn’t too good, but the other prawns and chicken lollipop was yummy

Clayton decided to drop me back to Canary Wharf, but for the third accident near London Bridge and I chose to get off at Waterloo and take the Jubilee back home.

Tomorrow is a new day and we’re still debating if we should go watch a movie or not.

Surprise! An update in less than  one month

Two weeks back I went off to the O2 to watch Inception. Since then I have caught three more movies, viz. A-Team, Knight and Day and Karate Kid.

I have taken the unlimited movies plan at Cineworld, and I have already made that up for this month by watching two movies in the last two days By my math, I’ll need to watch just 18 movies in the next three months. Call me thrifty

Work has been crazy as usual with me finishing my fourth all-nighter at work in the three months that I have been here. Not something to be proud about, but hey, it happens! This week promises to be light. Then again promises are meant to be broken.

Back to movies, there is a whole set of movies in the pipeline that I plan on watching:

• Toy Story 3
• Shrek Forever After
• The Last Airbender
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• The Expendables
• Salt
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Piranha 3D
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

So, which movies do you plan on watching?

Decided to look back into my blog to figure out when I had last posted and let’s just say that it was a long long time ago!

So, am going to make a quick post to tell people that I am still alive and kicking; ok, not kicking…

The past month has been extremely busy with longer days and even longer nights. But, that’s work.

On the personal front, I finally got the chance to catch Inception. This time the theatre we caught it at the Cineworld theatre in O2 Arena.

The break was well enjoyed, though we spent a good time actually getting to the place! We got onto the DLR to head toward Greenwich, only to realise that we had to get to North Greenwich, which is on the Jubilee line. As expected, the Jubilee line was down, but we thought that we’d be able to get a bus to the O2, only to find out that one of the buses that goes to the O2 passes through Greenwich. So, we headed back to the DLR station and headed off to Greenwich. After a good deal of searching and an equal amount of walking, we found the bus stop and I enjoyed my first bus-ride in London.

The O2 arena has been built really well with a host of restaurants, the stadium, games areas, a roller-skating rink and of course, the movie theatre. We bought the tickets and settled in at Nando’s for food. This is one place I haven’t gotten fed up of the food.

The movie was spectacular. I don’t know when I will actually get down to writing a full fledged review of the movie, but the ending was excellent, though I did expect it. The best part of the entire movie was the concept. The special effects were good, especially the last 30 minutes or so.

The best part of the day was the return journey. Because the DLR was down, boat replacements were put in place from the O2 to East India, which we took full advantage of.

That’s one pic above from the London Calling album

Was at work today and this week promises to be as work filled as ever. So, am hoping to see if I can get a post across next week.

Finally got a day to myself and hence the point of this post. Ideally, by now, you should be able to see a million photographs on my photo album. However, a total lack of social life explains the un-updated album!

Since then, I have been slogging like crazy at work with minimal amount of fun. In the last 6 weeks I have:

1. Worked almost every weekend and almost every day till at least 11pm
2. Watched Robin Hood
3. Went to Piccadilly Circus area and had amazing pizza at an Italian restaurant
4. Shifted residence, well, almost

And, that’s about it.

There is one bit of good news though, my original assignment which was to be for 6 weeks  has now been extended till the end of October. So, am hoping that across the next few months, I’ll be able to visit the many places in London.

As a result, I’ll be completing my shifting tomorrow morning to a new place. I love the view from there. Will put up some photographs soon!

Update: Just uploaded some more photos in the London album on Flickr.

My secondment at my company got me flying off to London and I fell in love with the city the minute I stepped out of the airport. And, I have grown to love the place even more in the past three weeks.

I must confess that I haven’t seen much of this place, because I have been working a lot more out here than back in Bangalore! But, the work is good and responsibility is even better. I am hoping that the week to come will be a bit lighter.

I landed here on the 3rd which was a bank holiday out here in UK and so grabbed complete opportunity of seeing some parts of London.

Hope to get some more tomorrow.

Photos on Facebook: http://su.pr/566o5r

I’ll upload some to my album soon. Still need to get the T-Mobile Content Control knocked off!