Though I was just here in the fall, there is a joy to returning to a place that you love that is unencumbered by time. I came here first when I was 15, on our way to emigrate to Canada. I remember being enraptured by seeing the Rosetta stone for the first time, acting as capstone to our visit to Egypt two years prior, and being tickled by the red buses and telephone booths straight from the movies.

The next time I came to England was to do a banking internship that I won at Pearson UWC at 19 before starting university, interning with people with a few years of college under their belt and yet doing better than them. (I peaked early). Since then I’ve come back several times to see my aunt – eventually coming to take care of her at 22, as she had a sudden and violent onset of an autoimmune disease that left her on dialysis for the rest of her life. I was with her through my winter break as my mom didn’t have enough leave to be with her, and experienced what it was to be a care-giver for the first time as well as what happens if your partner doesn’t have those skills. I was then in her house for a final time for her funeral eight years later, the week I started my first post-MBA job.

Every time I have come through Heathrow Terminal 2 since (many many times with work), I remember the weariness of grief and the realization that my aunt is no more, and the heaviness catches in my throat. She was just 15 years older than me, not so old that she felt like a parent but old enough to be ahead of me in all these meaningful life stages. She left her family to study in the US and I remember seeing the changes that it brought when she came to visit – better hairstyle and clothes, better presents and more appreciation for all the times we were together. The marriage topic was swirling all around her through my mid-teen years, which looking back, probably coloured more than I’ve understood about not just marriage and weddings but also what makes a good match, the palpable stress of your family, that stress eroding your nerves, what a woman should give up to not suffer the “disgrace” of being single, the ever present need for ”compromise” from the woman, being ambitious but not too much, the personhood and agency of adulthood that is withheld from you if you are a single woman within Indian culture.

So yeah, I guess it had an impact.

But coming back to England. Like most people, this is the year for big travel for me and my friends. We’re a more itinerant bunch than the average friend group, so the pandemic and its restrictions were a particular bummer. At the same time, it brought us even closer together, with our bi-weekly symposia being a lifeline and the always active chat a way to stay connected on all things.

So when we were able to have an in-person symposium at long last in Oxford, where Sara lives. Given my bias for college towns, I find Oxford absolutely lovely – filled with history and architecture, vibrancy that only students can bring, and a general sense that time moves differently here. Along with lazing about and catching up, one thing we had on our list was to get out to the Cotswolds.

The Cotswolds (which evokes Kate Winslet and The Holiday) not only looks like what people picture when they think of England, all rolling green hills dotted with sheep and old houses made of stone. Part of the joy of visiting is definitely gawking at the latter, but I also love the walking around by a river, taking in a landscape that is so different from your own. Having your closest friends and the sun ain’t too bad either.

There are many British things to thump your nose at (BoJo, imperialism) but there are many to celebrate (Spice Girls, Jane Austen). Of these, the Sunday roast is up there.

The concept of a Sunday roast is simple enough – a hunk of meat roasted, served with a gravy made from drippings as well as a Yorkshire pud (traditionally also usually made from the drippings). When you get to have this feast surrounded by community, it takes on reverential meaning. Was so glad that I got to do this tradition in a lovely pub called The Swan surrounded by food and laughter.

Though it was a quick visit, it was a soul-filling one. From Oxford, I go on to London for a quick stop for an organized tour and then off to London!