Tuesday, July 7, 2009
London
I had intended to spend the entire day doing research at the libraries. But you know what they say about Man Proposing and God Disposing. It wasn’t as if I awoke late—nothing of the kind. In fact, I awoke at 6. 30 am, read another 40 pages of Potter, called my parents in Bombay, cooked myself some scrambled eggs with sausages and bacon (as I am trying to finish up all the food in my freezer in preparation for my departure at the end of the month), then showered and left my flat.
At the British Library:
I had expected to arrive at the British Library at 10 when it opened, but I got there about 10.30 and by the time I took possession of the documents that were held for me in the Asian Section (former India Office Library Collection), it was 10. 45 am.
One glance at a longish Anglo-Indian Memorandum of 1934 convinced me that I needed to photocopy the entire 32 pages of it. However, the cost was 88p per page and when I asked the assistant for help, he told me that he would see if the same document was available in Microfilm, in which case I could photocopy it myself at a cost of merely 20p a page—big improvement that! He then called for the item and informed me that it would take at least an hour before it was located and handed over to me.
This lent me the time to read a marvelous memoir by an Englishwoman named Elinor Tollinton who had spent most of her life in British India as the daughter of a former ICS man (A.R. Astbury) and later the wife of a British lawyer (Phil Tollinton). It was like turning the pages of The Jewel in the Crown all over again. She presented the memoir to the British Library in 1988, a little after the Raj Revival of the mid-1980s had brought tons of TV watching pleasure to Great Britain as it soaked in Imperial nostalgia—The Jewel in the Crown, the Far Pavilions, Gandhi, Heat and Dust—all these films had flooded the market at the time probably motivating people like Elinor to tell it as it really was; for she ends her memoir saying, “Recent films and sophisticated propaganda have introduced a picture which does not always accord with the facts. I know because I was there.”
The memoir, typewritten on very fine tissue-like paper is accompanied by an album of photographs that documents the construction of so many Public Works Projects in the undivided Punjab—bridges over the rivers, lodges and government bungalows in the Simla hills and the railroad lines and the new trains that were created to take Raj officials to the hills to escape the heat and dust of the plains in summer. It was not just the history buff in me that thrilled to these words but indeed the travel lover as well, for the memoir takes us through Germany before the war, Northern India at the time of the Raj–particularly Lyallpur (now in Pakistan) and Simla– Oxford where Elinor and her family moved after the Independence of India and Austria where they went on vacations.
It is a marvelous record of the adventures they encountered as they met with a gallery of personalities that fill the history books of the period: Gandhi, Nehru, Rajagopalacharia, Sir John Simon (of the Simon Commission) and Lord Wavel (last but one Viceroy of India). In-between Elinor talks about the epileptic fits that almost took the life of her son, Hugh, and her daughter Elizabeth’s refusal to answer to anything but her nickname, Buffy. At her school interview in London upon returning from India , when asked to spell her name, she said, B-U-F-F-Y, much to her mother’s acute embarrassment.
I had expected to find some information about the interaction of these British officials with Anglo-Indians but except for one small mention of their proficiency in running the Railways, there was nothing at all. Nevertheless, I did not consider it a waste of time and I was swept away into the Edwardian world with a vengeance—one of my favorite periods in history.
When, my document arrived, Chris, the assistant, showed me how to register to use the copy machine and how to photocopy from the microfilm reader. By 3. 30 pm, I was all done but I was starving as I hadn’t even taken a break for lunch having found my reading so absorbing. Back downstairs, it was pouring rain and I ate my quiche in the quadrangle under a large umbrella of the café outside called The Last Word. Then, I decided to wait a bit until the worst of the downpour had passed (as I had no umbrella) and when the fury of the shower had abated, I caught Bus 10 to Hammersmith and then changed to the 391 to Richmond.
A Disastrous Bus Ride:
I intended to travel next to the National Archives at Kew where several other documents were being held for me. This Archives are open on Tuesdays until 7 pm, which would leave me a good two to three hours to examine a few of them. That’s when my plans went completely awry. The bus took ages to arrive and when it did, two of them, infuriatingly, came together. And then the creeping and the crawling began. We were still at Oxford Street about 45 minutes later. By the time, I arrived at Hammersmith; it was already almost 6 pm. Still, I decided to push on and at least get to the Archives so that I could find out where exactly they are located and take the Tube there next time round.
Well, the 391 was even worse and by the time we reached Chiswick Road, it was past 7 pm. Yes, it had taken me three hours to get from King’s Cross to Chiswick!!! The Archives would have closed by then, so filled with irritation at myself for having chosen to take the bus, I got off at Gunnersburys Station intending to return home by Tube as I simply couldn’t stand the idea of doing the same bus journey in reverse!
Pottering Around Leicester Square:
Only instead of taking the Underground, I took the overground train! This meant that I had to get off at Willesden from where I transferred to the Bakerloo Line to get to Baker Street. At that point, I remembered that tonight was the World Premiere of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Well, the premiere was at Leicester Square and while the hoopla had begun last night, I thought I should try to catch a glimpse of at least one star. Besides, attempting to see a premiere at Leicester Square is supposedly one of the free things you can do in London and just for hoots, I thought, why not???
So there I was at Leicester Square where I arrived at 8.00pm. Alas, I was 15 minutes too late for the stars of the film had already entered the two theaters that were simultaneously showing the film and had disappeared. There was a huge stage set up, however, and though most of the crowd had left to grab dinner, a few stragglers were hanging about it. No one was clear exactly what was likely to happen later in the evening but the rumor did the rounds that the stars were inside watching the film and would emerge 115 minutes later to climb the stage and humor their fans.
The stage set was covered with red and yellow flags that featured the Gryffyndor logo on it: a dragon spewing fire, while another crest featured two crowns. I did not have my camera with me and after standing in the midst of the excited crowds for a while, I heard an organizer announce that the film had started late and it would not be until 10 pm that the stars would come out of the theater!
Just when I began to feel as if I should get back home (it had, after all, been a long day), who should emerge from the theater but Mr. Pottymouth Himself–Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen fame with his wife Tana and his two kids. They must have wanted to use the toilet or something for they left the movie half-way through it! At any rate, with the crowd giving him a rather lukewarm cheer, he ascended the stairs with his young family and disappeared on the other side.
I heard someone standing next to me say to her companion, “Who was that?” and her companion said, “Oh, he’s that famous TV cook but I can’t get his name!” My Dad always used to say: “Fame is the food that dead men eat…I have no stomach for such meat” quoting someone or the other! (It was actually Henry Austin Dobson, 1840-1921).
Well, then, that was my brush with fame. I did not feel motivated enough to wait until 10.00 pm and I turned right around, took two buses that got me back home after which I ate a rice and curry dinner while watching extracts on BBC One of the Michael Jackson Memorial Service in LA, checked and responded to my email and wrote this blog before getting to bed.
The new Harry Potter film opens on July 15, so perhaps I shall see it when I get back home to the States—this novel was my favorite of the lot and though I want to go back to Southport and watch all the films in sequence, I must say that I am sorely tempted to see this one right here and now!