LONDON ON A ROLL London manages to preserve the past while reinventing itself for the future THE WHOLE WORLD lives in London. Walk down Oxford Street and you will see Indians and Colombians, Bangladeshis and Ethiopians, Pakistanis and Russians, Melanesians and Malaysians. (0) .......... . It is estimated that by 2010 the population will be almost 30 percent ethnic minorities, the majority born in the U.K. (1) .......... . Annas Ali, a 17-year-old Londoner of Bangladeshi descent, feels deeply rooted in the British society. (2) .......... . The neighborhood is called Bangla Town. Union Jacks fluttered next to the green-and-red flag of Bangladesh. Indian music echoed off Victorian brick houses. "I was born at Mile End hospital a half mile away and grew up in Hunton Street. My father had a restaurant there.” (3) .......... . In the 1600s French Huguenots built a church on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane. Later it became a Methodist chapel. In the 1890s it was converted into a synagogue. (4) .......... . Bangla Town has also had a recent influx from the world of fashion, art, and pop culture. Jarvis Cocker, the lead singer of Pulp, lives nearby. So does Chris Ofili, the young artist of Nigerian descent whose painting "The Holy Virgin Mary,” depicting a black Madonna embellished with elephant dung, caused a firestorm of controversy at the Brooklin Museum of Art last year. (5) .......... . The result is a fusion of cultures unique in London. Annas himself is eclectic. With his dark skin, raven black hair, and lustrous brown eyes, he reminded me of Mowgli in the Jungle Book. (6) .......... . He is a devout Muslim, an Asian Londoner who talks Cockney English. The gold rings on his fingers were from India, his stylish, midnight blue cardigan - "pure wool,” he told me proudly - from Prohibito, a clothes shop on Oxford Street popular among teenagers. (7) .......... . "I want to go to the London School of Fashion.” A Today it is used by Annas and other Bangladeshis as a mosque. B "I have been here all my life,” he told me, as we dodged our way through the festive crowds filling Brick Lane in the East End for Baishaki Mela, the Bangladeshi New Year. C Most of these Londoners are the children and in some cases the grandchildren of the many thousands who came here from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent during the fifties and sixties, after the British Empire imploded. D "I want to go into fashion,” he said. E As if clocking the minutes of a new age, the world's largest observation wheel now spins on the wrist of the Thames. F But his hair was cut in the latest London style: short in back, long and slicked back with gel at the front. G Bangla Town has seen centuries of immigration. H Fifty nationalities with communities of more than 5,000 make their home in the city, and on any given day 300 languages are spoken. I Alexander McQueen, the fashion designer, has his workshop on Rivington Street.