London - The Ultimate Global city

I had the privilege of visiting London for the second time after almost 15 years.. And this time I spent a few days with my family to see places and attend my daughter's post graduate convocation at UCL.

London is rated as one of the just two global Alpha++ cities (apart from New York) in the world. In my view, its one of the ultimate cities with almost a 2000 year history from Roman times to now the city which is a Global Hub for trade and finance, education, media, arts, music movies, sports and innovation. Let me elaborate a bit on this.

Being a sports buff like me, its the mecca for Sports. Lords for cricket, Wimbledon for tennis and Wembly for Football. London marathon. It hosted the Olympic Games three times (1908, 1948, and 2012)

London offers world-class museums, West End theatres, art galleries, and live music. From Shakespeare to Harry Potter, Charlie Chaplin to James Bond, Beatles to Cold play, London Philharmonic, Buckingham palace, Big Ben, Westminster, Tower of London & Bridge it abounds with culture.

Home to top-tier universities like UCL, LSE, Kings college and Imperial College London, it ranks as a leading destination for international students. For over two centuries when British Empire ruled from Canada to Australia, West Indies to South East asia to Hong Kong, South Africa to undivided India much of modern sciences, engineering, medicine to finance, taxation and law practice originated from here.

Our family has a multi generational connect with London. My grand father Prof Dr T S Raghavan a leading cytogenetist and botanist did his PHD in Kings College London between 1932 to 1936. He traveled by ship for many weeks via suez canal from Madras (now Chennai). That was the era of ships, steam engines, hand drawings, type writers and radio. He came back to India and served the country as a botany teacher in leading universities. And as a cytogenetist he introduced new varieties of rice, coconut and sugarcane. This year almost 90 years later his great grand daughter and my daughter Deepthi is graduating with a Distinction from UCL with an MSC in Climate Change. UCL produced over 35 Nobel Laureates apart from famous people like Gandhi, Tagore, Graham Bell, Francis Crick (DNA), Chris Nolan etc.

Nearly 47% of the city is made up of green space, featuring over 3,000 parks including Hyde Park and Regent's Park. Over 9 million residents speak more than 300 languages, creating a vibrant melting pot of global communities and cuisines.

I did my best to absorb what the city has to offer with the limited time I had. Hope I put my photography skills and my trusted Sony Alpha camera to good use, taking beautiful shots wherever possible

Enjoy the pics.