December 16, 2008
Tuesday

Antony Andrews is still as gorgeous as ever. Ask me how I know that Lord Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is still as cute as a button and I’ll tell you that I had the good fortune of seeing him today at a star-studded gala Holiday Concert at St. Paul’s Cathedral in aid of the Cancer Research Fund. I was a guest of Bishop Michael and Cynthia Colclough and in the line-up of celebrity readers were Dame Aileen Atkins whom I saw recently at the West End in The Female of the Species and John Sargent whom the entire UK is buzzing about after his success in Strictly Come Dancing. Apart from Atkins and Andrews, however, I have to admit that I did not recognize the names of any of the other local celebrities.

This evening crowned for me the series of fabulous Advent and pre-Christmas events in the Cathedral that have truly put me in the festive spirit and allowed me to meet so many interesting folks–all guests of the Colcloughs. Tonight was extra-special because in the audience was Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady Ogilvy, a cousin-in-law of the Queen and a patron of the Cancer Research Foundation who swished out of the cathedral just a few feet in front of me in a resplendent gold brocade coat and fabulous glittering necklace. There was also Connie Fisher who is currently playing Maria in the London stage version of The Sound of Music and Rupert Penry Jones who read Sir John Betjeman’s poem Advent 1955. The best readings were by Atkins who did a hysterically funny version of Shirley Valentine by Willy Russel and Andrews’ extraordinarily moving reading of Captain R.J. Armes’ account of an encounter between British and German forces at the trenches during World War I in a piece entitled Christmas Truce. Punctuated by carols performed by the Vicars’ and Boys’ choirs and a number of sing-a-long songs in which the audience joined, the evening made for a fine concert indeed.

Outside on the steps of St. Paul’s, you’ d think you’d regressed to the Victorian Age for suddenly a number of characters stood before us–each seemingly had walked out from a different page of Dickens’ novels. A Beadle grandly announced the distribution of mince pies to all who cared for one. More Victorian characters on stilts entertained the crowd as they dribbled out of the cathedral, a Victorian policeman did the rounds on his Penny Farthing bicycle while blowing frantically on his antiquated whistle and Victorian vendors bearing large trays of mince pies and baskets full of chocolates distributed them around generously acquiring more supplies from a Victorian fruit cart that was parked nearby. It was all thoroughly jolly indeed and did actually make me feel as if Christmas is around the corner–which, of course it is! In keeping with the coming holiday, I made my way to the side of the Cathedral and the pathway that leads to what my neighbor Barbara calls the “Wobbly Bridge” (it’s actually the Millennium Bridge that began to wobble dangerously the day it was inaugurated!). There I took pictures in front of a towering tree strung over with aquamarine lights.

This event brought the curtain down on an eventful and busy day. After I drafted our Almeida Family Christmas 2008 letter while it was still dark outside my window, I took the bus to King’s Cross Station with the objective of seeking out Platform 9 3/4 which features in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. This is the station from which Harry and his classmates board the train that takes them to Hogwart’s School for Wizards. Though I have read only the first book and seen the first movie in the series–Harry Potter and the Scorcerer’s Stone–my students are passionate devotees of the series and it was at their behest that I went pottering about King’s Cross Station as so many fans have done before me. In fact, now that my students have enthused me, I have decided to spend the next semester reading the rest of the series. Because so many readers have poured into the station looking for this platform, the City authorities decided to create one. I followed signs to Platforms 9, 10, and 11 and lo and behold! There was Platform 9 3/4 and a luggage cart that was in the very process of disappearing into the wall–in exactly the same way that Harry Potter and his friends find their way to the train. Of course, I had to take a picture pushing the luggage cart at this charming site. Only in London, kids, only in London…

Next, I walked along the fabulous red exterior of Sir John Betjeman’s beloved St. Pancras Station (now almost covered with scaffolding as construction to refurbish it into a five star hotel continues). It was my intention to get to the British Library to renew my Reader’s ID Card which recently expired. I had thought that producing the expired card would do the trick, but it turns out that I have to produce documents all over again proving my place of residence. Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back there tomorrow. It’s a good thing the British Library is so easy to get to on the bus.

Being at the British Library, I decided to do something I have been wanting to do for a long while–pour over the special manuscripts contained in the exhibition Ritblat Gallery under the rubric “Treasures of the British Library”. I had last perused these treasures 22 years ago when they were located in the British Museum–in the marvelous domed Reading Room in which Karl Marx scribbled his Das Kapital! In these new premises at King’s Cross, the manuscripts are exhibited in extremely dim cases in order to prevent the ink from fading completely by exposure to light. I spent an hour and a half looking at old maps drawn by cartographers in the 1300s, an excellent Shakespeare section which contained his First Folio of 1623 and a number of works by his contemporaries. There was even a leaf from a play that was jointly authored by a number of Elizabethan playwrights that is actually believed to be in Shakespeare’s own handwriting! How cool is that!!!

In the Music section, I was delighted to see scraps of original paper on which The Beatles scribbled so many of the lyrics of their most famous songs. One of them was by John Lennon who actually used the back of his son Julian’s 1st birthday card! The best part of all is that accompanying the cases which contain the manuscripts are audio extracts from musical compositions, recitations of poetry, etc. I was actually able to listen to several Beatles’ songs and then poetry as read by the poets themselves! It was quite engaging to listen to W.B. Yeats read his own poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ in his thick Irish brogue just as Seamus Heany read from his poem ‘Mint’ and James Joyce read an extract from his own Finnegan’s Wake. All of these writers had distinctly Irish accents which is natural, I suppose, since they were born and raised in Ireland. I heard Virginia Woolf’s voice as well in an extract from a BBC radio conversation. It was these bits that I found most fascinating.

Of course, in the literary section there were also original manuscripts of such classics as Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (I had seen the manuscript of his Jude the Obscure at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge last month), Emily Bronte’s Jane Eyre and early stories that Jane Austen had penned as a child to entertain her family. There was also Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim written in his own handwriting (and bearing evidence of multiple attempts at revision) as well as letters from Rupert Brooke to a woman whom very few scholars knew about until recently. An hour and a half later, I had only seen half the collection and decided that I would return tomorrow as I have to go to the Reader Registration Desk again anyway. I really did want to finish perusing these manuscripts before I left for the States and I am glad I managed to squeeze it in.

Then, I went to NYU to print out some interviews (the Internet was SOOOOOO sluggish and SOOOOOO maddening this morning ) and then I was out of there and walking towards the Waitrose at Brunswick Center to buy a few food items for my Mum in Bombay. Then, off to Tesco’s to buy Llew some of the luxury Muesli he likes–only I found that the Holborn Viaduct branch does not carry it which meant I had to ride the bus to Bank Underground Station where I found it.

With only a couple of days to go before I leave for the States, I am shopping frantically and trying to organize my packing. I have to pack one suitcase to carry to the States and leave one packed suitcase here in my flat. After spending Christmas with my family in Southport, Connecticut, I will board a flight from JFK on the morning of December 26, arrive at Heathrow that evening, spent one night in my London flat before I leave for Heathrow again the next morning, December 27, to board another flight to Bombay. The packed suitcase will then go with me to Bombay. Complicated enough for you????

The last two days have been spent running last-minute errands, transcribing taped interviews and printing them out, filling in grade sheets and handing them in, making phone calls and sending out email messages in order to set in place appointments with my Anglo-Indian subjects for the end of January and the beginning of February. I am proud to say that in the process of two months, despite being afflicted with plantar fasciitis, I managed to do 15 interviews with people who were based in the far-flung reaches of London. It is my hope to do several more in the early months of the new year. In the evenings, I’ve been trying to get some packing done.

Last night, I watched Greyfriar’s Bobby, a poignant movie about a little Skye Terrier that mourned for 14 years on the grave of his master after he died in the late 1800s. The city of Edinburgh made the dog an honorary Friend of the City and gave him free run of the streets. There is a statue of the dog that came to be known as ‘Greyfriar’s Bobby’ (as it lay on his master’s grave in Greyfriar’s cemetery) in Edinburgh today to honor the values of loyalty and faithfulness. My friend Delyse Fernandez had told me about this movie a couple of years ago and I was able to order it on Love Film. Com.

As my first semester comes to a close and I pull my suitcases shut, I cannot help but think what an eventful four months these have been and how dearly I have come to adore this city and how intimately I have grown to know it . I can sincerely say that I have taken fullest advantage of the many benefits that this posting has afforded me. It truly feels as if I have been on vacation for the past eight months and as I start to think of the arrival of my friend Jenny-Lou Seqeuira on Thursday, I know I have one last leg of my Fall semester here in London to anticipate with pleasure.