The 'yorkshire' imprint
This article was published in my company newsletter.
The day was a bright, sunny ,April morning in London . A long , stiff and a cramped light of 10 hours from Mumbai airport to Heathrow added more twists to the folding of a tale yet to unfold. Needless to say, that complicated named volcano in Iceland suddenly chose one week in Mid April (2010) as its very auspicious time to mete out its pent up anger against the inhabitants of the earth. One fine day in last week of April, it is suddenly feeling “fine” and all the air spaces open up hurriedly leading to packed up flights and my being on one such cramped flight to UK.
Jet lagged, tired, contemplating the time difference and the weather change, I some how managed to reach the guest house and began unpacking. It was just a week in London and then it was going to be “North Yorkshire” for my internship. For my peers and family friends back home, UK meant only one place, London. North Yorkshire was perhaps just another place somewhere. How was I to know, this place had added exclamations to it!!
From getting familiar with the British weather to the hectic sight seeings in London, the date to move to this place called “North Yorkshire” was approaching soon.When asked by newly made acquaintances , where I would be going for my internship, my replies of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, would evoke reactions like “Oh!! North Yorkshire!”… and that’s it..( Imagine my look!).
Questions like, so where are you going to work? “North Yorkshire”.. “Ohhhhh…. North Yorkshire, beautiful place”.. And I would be left wondering what to expect because there came no more inputs from anyone I interacted with in London!! Ah yes, the handy tool - google maps. It just shows York as one the biggest cities closest to Knaresborough which needless to say, has excellent connectivity to London’s St. Pancras Station. Still clueless even after random map searches…!
Hence, the day arrives, where I hop in on to the bus to enter the unknown surroundings of Harrogate. The unfamiliar surroundings soon turned to the sight of an unfamiliar man flashing on the Harrogate Stray…the very first sight I witnessed in Harrogate… Ahhh… may be now the exclamations were making sense!!!
Yet, the very next minute , the untouched greenery and beauty of the surroundings of Harrogate took me in. The serene River Nidd associated with this small town of Knaresborough also held its own charm and it was not so long before even this place had cast an impression on me.
Born and brought up and paced with the city life and cultures in India, it was a little shock to me, when I made to trip to London one weekend and cribbed all along how peaceful, serene and calm the country side is and waited restlessly to get back!! The revelation of this transformation to my own self was rather strange!!
The Yorkshire pudding, Yorkshire dales, Yorkshire moors, oops, did I forget “The great Yorkshire show” ?? May be now the exclamations were making more sense to me!.
I did indeed, embed a small Yorkshire in my heart somewhere!
