Tag Archive | Cornwall

In Western Cornwall—Penzance, Mousehole and St. Michael’s Mount.

Mar8

Thursday, March 5, 2009
Cornwall

I had a rather restless night. High winds blew fiercely against my windowpane and I was very cold. Grabbing another comforter from a neighboring bed at the hostel, I tucked it around me and tried to return to sleep. It is a relief to have the 10-bedded dorm room with en suite bathroom entirely to myself. This is the sort of luxury for which you pay pennies and get massive returns.

Room with a View:
The sounds of the Atlantic’s breakers reached my ears and when I sat up in bed and turned slightly to take in the view, I was dumbstruck. Dawn was just breaking over the eastern skies that were tinged a pale orange. Soft jade waves lightly bordered with creamy surf flowed lazily towards shore. I could have gazed upon this scene without moving a muscle for hours. But though it was only 6.45 am, I decided to get ready to face my day as I had a lot of ground to cover.

Breakfast was a delightful affair as the sea kept me company outside my window. Over muesli, toast with butter and apricot jam and instant coffee (the only discordant note), I de-stressed as I watched the relentless waves make their journey to the sand-covered rocks of the cove. I took it really easy, savoring each bite, relishing each sip, but all too soon, it was time to pick up my backpack and rain slicker and leave for the bus station to start my long journey to Penzance.

Off to Penance:
I caught the bus an hour earlier today (at 8. 55 am) after purchasing an Explorer ticket for 6. 50 pounds. The journey to Truro was the same as yesterday’s except that the sun was out, shining full and glorious upon Cornwall, and bringing into sharp focus the lone stray horses in pasture, so similar to the ones I had seen in Ben Nicholson’s paintings in the Tate St. Ives yesterday—and I understood afresh the sources of his inspiration.

Exploring Truro:
When we arrived in Truro, I decided to explore the town a bit and my rambles took me towards the lovely Cathedral with its five spires. I got some beautiful shots of it from a bridge that forded a shallow stream en route to an antiques store in which I browsed. A flea market selling vintage items also caught my attention, and then it was time to catch the 10. 35 bus for the long ride to Penzance.

I enjoyed observing my traveling companions en route for they spanned many decades. The high school kids and the college students (most from Truro College) gave way to the elderly (loads of them) out on shopping jaunts into the bigger cities from their tiny pastoral villages. There is a uniformly polite interaction between them and the driver (Pleases and Thank yous every single time) and a tremendous patience as the driver waits for them to hop on and alight—the likes of which would be unseen in London where life is so much quicker paced. I got talking to a nice man who summed it up when he told me that in Cornwall everything can be achieved tomorrow and he said that when you have lived in such a place for a while, you grow accustomed to its lifestyle.

The Fabled Cornish Landscape:
I found the passing scene outside my window so fascinating that not for a moment did I doze off. Indeed, I can say that I saw Cornwall from a double decker bus and a better way to see it would be tough to find. The buses take rural routes that pass by villages that Time forgot. You see fields lying in fallow, daffodils blooming along wayside hedges (surely they can’t be wild, can they?), horses in pasture, the remnants of tin mines and their smoke stacks, occasional towns with their familiar high street retailers and everywhere the inevitable bakeries selling Cornish pasties and luxurious cream teas. This is the quintessential Cornish countryside and viewing it in this fashion was a dream come true for me. And then, of course, there is the sea that is never too far away. It is like being on New York’s Long Island where you are always just a stone’s throw away from the North or South shores.

First Glimpse of St. Michael’s Mount:
And so it was that we turned a corner en route to Penzance and there was Mount St. Michael looking for all the world like its French counterpart–Mont St. Michel–that sits in the English Channel just off the coast of Brittany. Llew and I had been there many years ago in the company of our friend Patrick LeClerc and the memory of that sunny day was strongly with me as we approached the bustling township of Penzance made famous by Gilbert and Sullivan through their opera The Pirates of Penzance.

On to Mousehole:
But I did not linger long in this area deciding instead to take the bus to Mousehole (pronounced ‘Mowzall’). Of course, by this time, it was 12. 40 and I had spent the entire morning on a bus…but what better way to see Cornwall on a relentlessly windy day than through the heated interior of a comfortable bus? I mean the sun was gorgeous but the wind made me miserable as it whipped around me in icy gusts flinging my hair all over my face and tugging on my hat. When I realized that a bus to Mousehole would follow not too much later, I decided to board it and off I went.

None of the books I had read had mentioned anything about the drive along the coastal road from Penzance westwards to Mousehole; but though short and brief, I would rate it as one of the best I have ever taken and in this category I include such world-famous rides as the one along the Italian Amalfi Coast from Naples to Sorrento, the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to San Diego and along the Hanna Coast on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. I mean it was breathtakingly staggering. The sea was a much deeper blue–almost aquamarine–than it was at Newquay and I understood for the first time why they call it the Cornish Riviera; for the blue of the water was as startling as that of France’s Cote d’Azur at Cannes or Nice!

I could not get enough of it as I kept my eyes peeled. The bus wound slowly along the low-lying hills past neat sea-facing cottages but each was more modest than the next and there was nothing showy or ostentatious about these homes that hugged the waterside as might have been expected of similar homes in Malibu or Carmel in California.

Along the way, we passed by the town of Newlyn, almost as famous as St. Ives for its own artists’ colony that led to the creation of the Newlyn Artists’ Circle. Their works are also on display in the renowned museum in the town whose cove is full of colorful fishing boats that bring in the famed Cornish seafood.

Within twenty minutes, we were in Mousehole, the tiny village in which the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”) spent his honeymoon and called ‘the loveliest village in England’. Now I know that a lot of English villages claim this distinction. My own particular favorite still continues to be Castle Combe in Wiltshire. Thomas’ new marriage must certainly have lent enchantment to his view! Though undoubtedly pretty, in that it clings to the softly rising hills in tiers and overlooks a jeweled ocean, I cannot imagine why Thomas was so taken by this place. It is very similar to all the Cornish villages I had traveled through all morning and can boast nothing to distinguish it so spectacularly from the rest.

Still, I decided to stroll at random through its ‘town’ and discovered that there wasn’t much of a town to explore. The few stores that dotted its narrow winding streets were mostly closed. At Jessie’s Dairy, I bought a take-out Steak and Potatoes Pasty for 2. 60 pounds that was made to Grandma’s recipe and was scrumptious. Not only was it gigantic but also it was stuffed to the gills with a very tasty stew-like stuffing that was hot and peppery and very satisfying. I felt so invigorated that I almost walked along the Cornish coastal pathway from Mousehole back to Penzance but then decided that I would save time and take the bus to allow myself to get in good time to my next destination—the village of Marazion from where I intended to reach St. Michael’s Mount. Already I could see it in the distance in Mount’s Bay and my desire to get there was suddenly fierce.

So I hopped on to the 1.25 bus and was back in Penzance at 2.00, which left me enough time to buy a few souvenir postcards and find my way down the High Street back to the Bus station for the 2. 15 bus to Marazion.

Marazion and Mount St. Michael:
The bus arrived at Marazion at exactly 2. 30 pm. I had stopped briefly in the Tourist Information Center in Penzance, obtained a map and was told that the Causeway that linked the island with the mainland and would allow me to walk across Mount’s Bay to get to where the castle and the Cathedral of Saint Michael were perched would be accessible by foot only after 3.30 pm when the tide receded. Not to be daunted, I boarded the bus and enjoyed the uninhibited view of a rainbow that painted itself magnificently against the cloud- filled sky. A passing storm had generated this natural wonder; but then the clouds had parted leaving the rainbow to stain the sky as the sun bore down upon us again dispelling the awful feeling of discomfort which the wind continued to create.

Marazion is tiny, a very small one-horse town (if that). At Marazion Square, I tried to find a few stores that would allow me to while away the time until 3. 30 (for I did want to give walking across to the Mount a try) but there were none. It seemed sensible to make my way down to the waterfront and finding a few stone steps very conveniently located, I began my slow descent to the pebbly beach, much in the manner of Louisa in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. The wind did not stop whipping itself around me, much to my annoyance.

I climbed a small rock called Chapel Rock and kept waiting for the tide to recede. It was almost
3 pm and I wondered whether I really ought to chance it and try to ford the chasm between mainland and rocky island. What kept me dithering was the fact that the entire island was closed (it being the off-season, it is only open to the public on Tuesdays and Fridays). I wondered if it was worth making the trip only to have to walk along the quay on the other side and do nothing more exciting.

While I was debating my options, I sat down on the rocks and enjoyed the mild afternoon sunshine and the cries of the seagulls. This was the Cornwall for which thousands of tourists descend upon this southwestern corner of England each year. And here I was–having the panorama all to myself. I hugged the scene closely to my heart and stored it in my memory…St. Michael’s Mount rising sharply not a few hundred meters in front of me, a couple of children playing with their dad on the shore, a black Labrador chasing a ball obligingly for its owner and those perpetually encircling seagulls whooping lustily at the sky. I soaked it all in as I sat in tranquil meditation thinking how fortunate I had been to undertake this journey and to arrive at so enchanting a destination.

Then, it was almost 3. 30 pm and I decided against the walk to the island—not because I was tired but because I felt that being unable to climb to the cathedral or the castle made the entire excursion pointless. I nipped into the Post Office instead, back at the bus stop, where I found postcards and a Cornwall magnet (featuring a Cornish cream tea!), then hopped on to the 4. 05 bus and made it back to Penzance in time to catch my 4. 20 pm Bus Number 18 back to Truro.

Savoring Cornwall:
It had been an amazing day, filled with sights that would stay with me, I was sure, for the rest of my life. In the summer, humanity must be converging upon this part of the country in a manner than can only be oppressive. So, I was grateful to be able to savor these spaces when I had them entirely to myself. For me, these spots are not just venues that I have visited, but stops on a journey that have served to make me conscious and appreciative of life’s simplest blessings.

Along the long ride to Truro, I continued to enjoy the Cornish countryside. After a ten-minute wait, I caught Bus Number 90 back to Newquay that entwined itself around tiny villages as we lost light rapidly. I was at the Newquay bus station by 7 pm and I spent the evening transcribing an interview (I knew I would use my laptop after all and get some work done) as I sipped Cornish cider in my room, munched Thai sweet red chilli crisps and then hammered out this blog as I relived my day.

The sound of the Atlantic’s breakers still echo in my ear as I get ready for bed. I can think of no better location for a writer than a room that overlooks the Atlantic in this most idyllic of fashions and I felt blessed that, for a few days at least, this was my room with a view!

Captivated by Cornwall–Discovering St. Ives

Mar8

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
St. Ives, Cornwall

Departure for Cornwall:
As always happens when I have to awake in the middle of the night, I slept sporadically throughout and awoke spontaneously at 2 am. It was I who called Llew to tell him not to bother to call me as I had awoken already. We chatted for a bit. He worried at the thought of my going out into the London night at 2. 30 am but I reassured him that the city is buzzing all night long. I got out of my building at 2.45 only when I saw the N8 bus a few meters away. This allowed me to cross the street and hop right into it without having to wait alone on High Holborn at that hour.

At Victoria, there were late-night commuters hauling their strolleys behind them all along the street leading to the Easybus stand where an older couple were already ahead of me waiting for our coach which arrived at 3. 30 am. Because there was no traffic at all, we reached Stanstead at 4. 48 and within minutes, I was all checked-in and waiting at the gate for my 6. 30 am flight to Newquay.

Touch Down in Cornwall:
Dawn had already broken over Southwestern England as our aircraft lost height on its descent into Cornwall. I was so pleased to be able to spy the biodomes of the Eden Project from the air. Indeed, though the sky was thickly overcast, Cornwall looked bright green at that early hour though I did discern some patches of leftover snow especially over Bodmin Moor. The landscape was crisscrossed with tarred roads that ran through it like narrow black ribbons and occasional traffic was easily visible on them. Then, we were touching down into the wilderness of Newquay airport (at exactly 7. 30 am) and since my bus to the City Center was not for another half hour, I sat in the airport lobby and waited.

It was horribly cold outside today and my expectations of mild Cornish weather were shattered as the icy wind whipped around me. I was so grateful for my warm layered clothing and was thrilled to be able to settle down in the heated coach that took me to Newquay Bus Station from where I followed directions on the five-minute walk to St. Christopher’s Inn where I had a reservation. The sound of the thundering Atlantic waves reached my ears and when I caught my first glimpse of the sea, I also caught my breath, as the pale jade expanse was startlingly beautiful.

At St. Christopher’s Inn, I discovered that check-in time was 2 pm. I could leave my bag there, however, and after extracting my camera and the few essentials I would need for the day, I left it in the care of a young staff attendant to look for the Tourist Information Office as it had just gone 9 am. However, when I did find the Office, I realized that they were closed. It is still off-season in Cornwall and many seasonal businesses remained shut.

A lovely man named Allan in the next-door Council Office did, however, go online to help me find bus schedules and other information. It was not long before I was seated on the bus making my way to Truro, a junction of sorts, from which I needed to connect to another bus. All along the way, I enjoyed the Cornish landscape. Our bus wove lazily through tiny villages somewhat pretentiously and amusingly named High Street and Higher Bugle! Fields with lone horses and new-born black lambs prancing in the early spring sunshine passed outside my window. For indeed Spring had arrived in Cornwall and daffodils were everywhere. Leaving the built-in recesses of Newquay behind with its garish casinos, amusement arcades and surfer’s supplies stores was a relief for rural Cornwall was serene and spiritual and a salve to my travel-weary senses. It wasn’t long before we arrived in Truro and I was able to get a quick look around the market.

Stopping in Truro:
Truro is a bustling town with a cathedral whose spires reach out above the rooftops of uniformly built houses. In the market square, as I was browsing around the stalls, it suddenly came down again ferociously, but just as suddenly, the rain stopped and it was then that I realized that it wasn’t rain at all but hailstones the size of small peas. No wonder the local folk were shaking their heads in bewilderment. It appears that such occurrences are rather rare in these parts and they were quite perplexed by the strangeness of the weather.

Arrival at St. Ives:
Back on the bus to St. Ives, I enjoyed the sun once again—in fact, I have rarely seen such mood swings in the people as impacted by the weather! When we finally reached the town of St. Ives, the sun had disappeared behind a dark cloud and it looked as if it would pour again any second. I decided that it would be a perfect time to closet myself inside the Tate St. Ives which, at any rate, is the chief attraction of the town other than its beaches. Within five minutes, I was at the waterfront and there was Porthmeor Beach with the fierce waves bringing froth and foam to the sand’s edge. The setting of the museum is indeed stunning–a very futuristic space built in 1993. I was grateful for my Metropolitan Museum connections that got me in for free and saved me the 12. 50 pounds that it would have cost to see both the Tate St. Ives and the Barbara Hepworth House and Garden for which a joint ticket is issued.

Exploring Tate St. Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museums:
The Tate St.Ives does not have a permanent collection. Though created to showcase the work of the Cornish artists who made the area their home and set up an artists’ colony there as early as the 40s, it specializes in setting up periodic exhibitions that focus on the work of the major figures who contributed to the area’s development as a significant artistic Mecca. Leading this movement was Hepworth herself and her husband Ben Nicholson as well as other artists such as Luke Frost and Bernard Leach and it was the work of some of these artists that I saw for the first time today. Apart from their very abstract canvasses, the museum boasts a really singular design and a charming café on the top floor whose picture windows afford some of the most stunning views of the ocean and the lands that embrace it on this sheltered cove.

When I had taken my fill of photographs from this vantage point, I went out in search of Barbara Hepworth’s Studio and Garden and spent the next half hour taking in the individualistic vision that led to her arresting body of work. Ranging in size from small tabletop pieces to gigantic compositions that grace the garden that she personally designed and planted, it was interesting to see her workspace and the tools she used to accomplish her unique designs. Without the use of any machines, she was able to fashion abstract shapes and forms and give them depth and a character that was entirely her own. I shuddered to learn that she passed away in a fire that engulfed her home. Apparently, she was asleep while it broke out leaving her oblivious to it.

Becoming a Beach Bum:
Then, I was out on the cobbled streets of St. Ives enjoying the seaside ambience of this renowned beach resort, checking out its stores, enjoying the ‘tasters’ passed out by the old-fashioned chocolate shops and honey and marmalade stores, buying myself a genuine Cornish pasty from a small bakery that the locals patronized (I ordered a “Premier Steak” because that’s what I heard a regular Cornish customer order) and enjoying its warmth, the crispness of its crust, the flavor of its filling and thinking of the origin of this most regional of foods—the need for Cornish miners to fix themselves a meal that could be eaten underground without silverware. In fact, I remembered that in one of her recent novels, Anita Desai had talked about the Mexican empanada having originated when Cornish miners moved from the tin mines of Cornwall to the silver mines of Mexico in search of work taking the pasty with them and indigenizing it for local consumption.

Be that as it may, the town was a delight to stroll through and I was charmed by everything I saw. Best of all, I had it to myself. Though many of the restaurants were still closed, there was enough of a buzz to make the place feel lived in without becoming overwhelming. I had seagulls for company along the railings that separate rock and cliff from foaming breakers. I spied Godrevy Lighthouse on an island in the distance—the lighthouse that inspired Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness novel To The Lighthouse. I took pictures galore, trying to capture, as the artists had done through their paints and canvases, the light, the angles of the rooftops and the colors of the sand, the ocean and the sky in that particular brightness which only Cornwall seems to possess.

I walked through the entire curve of the harbor, stopping to buy postcards and searching for magnets (but finding none that took my fancy). I knocked around narrow cobbled streets that were reminiscent of Mykonnos’ ‘chora’ (Old Town) for me with its winding roads, small picturesque balconies and shop windows. I guess all beach resorts have the same laid back ambience, the same combination of bleached sea whiteness with the shocking dashes of color that come from kites and inflatable toys and beach wear. All of it was delightful and I soaked it in, glad to find myself finally in Cornwall where I have often dreamed of being.

Missing the Sea:
I realized, with a sudden pang, that the ocean took me sharply home to Southport and my beloved Connecticut coastline, for I have indeed missed the sea and my close proximity to it in the landlocked environs of London. All my life, I have lived close to the sea-side. In the Bombay suburb of Bandra where I grew up, I could walk to the promenade of the Arabian Sea in three minutes and in Southport, the harbor and the marina of Long Island Sound are similarly close at hand. The salt tang of the Atlantic and the waves that licked the St. Ives’ shores reminded me that these same ones had originated in the same ocean not too far from my permanent home in America and on that nostalgic and very sentimental mode of contemplation, I passed the rest of the afternoon.

A Commuting Faux-Pas:
Then, at close to five, after I had passed by a stone church and its adjoining Memorial Gardens filled with more vivid primroses and daffodils, I climbed uphill towards the bus station and caught the 5 pm bus to Truro where I arrived at 6.30. I had a half hour wait before I made my connection at 7 pm for a bus back to Newquay but that was where I wasn’t thinking right. I waited at the same place where I had alighted from St. Ives instead of at the gate where my bus to Newquay would depart. This meant that I missed the last bus and had to take one run by the Western Greyhound bus service, which did not leave for another 45 minutes. It had grown uncomfortably cold by this time and all the major stores had closed down leaving me with no place to shelter in while I awaited the bus.

Finally, I found the foyer of a hotel called Manning’s and there I settled for 20 minutes before the coach did trundle along and take it with me. I nodded off for a bit and arrived at Newquay at 9 pm and made my way to the inn where the bar was lively with youngsters.

I, however, was pooped and settling into my room, I wrote this blog and went straight to bed.

Lecturing at the V&A, Visiting the Royal Academy of Art and a Posh Private Club

Mar8

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
London

Today was a day for museum hopping. Awaking, as usual, at 5 am, I did a lot of writing in bed, then called my nephew Arav in Bombay and spoke at the same time to his mother, my sister-in-law Lalita whose birthday it was. I also caught up with my brother Roger and told both him and Lalita that I had a new understanding of the kind of life they have led for over 20 years as cabin crew members with Air-India, for I have often felt like a stewardess myself this year as I have lived out of suitcases on my many jaunts and awoken in strange beds wondering, for a few seconds, in which part of the world I was.

Then, I had my yogurt and muesli breakfast at 7. 30am, showered, and left my flat by 9.15. Instead of bussing it, I took the Tube to South Kensington and arrived a little too early to start my 10 am gallery lecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum for my South Asian Studies students. I decided to explore the area that is fashionably known as “South Ken”, a stronghold of London’s French community, according to my Parisienne student, Julia Anderson.

And she was quite right. I passed by Jolie Fleur, a tres chic florist whose window displays were as beguiling as the ones you see all over France. There were any amount of cafés trottoirs (pavement cafes—yes even in the chill of late winter) selling filled baguettes and cafes au laits and even a delicatessen with a stock of typiquement French ingredients such as pate and saumon fume and cornichons, not to mention Proust’s famous madelienes! It was fun indeed to wander around this little corner of Gaul and I did wish I had more time especially to browse in the vintage stores—another time, perhaps.

I arrived at the V&A a few minutes after ten, but my students were nowhere to be seen. I settled down in the lobby (as that was our meeting spot) and awaited their arrival while admiring the stunning Dale Chihuly chandelier, which is one of my favorite pieces in the museum. It is funny but after having spent only a few days in this place, it feels like home to me—in the same way that the National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum in New York do!

When at 10. 15, there was no sign of my students, I began to worry. Did I not make myself clear that we were to meet in the lobby? Had I make a mistake with the time? We were meeting at 10 and not at 11, right? With all these worries floating through my brain, I took a deep breath, decided to stay calm and wait patiently. It was possible that they were stuck in the Tube, wasn’t it? A few minutes later, they burst upon me, laughing and apologizing and sighing with relief, all at the same time. It seems that they had been waiting for me at a side entrance, not the main one. When we failed to connect, they had begun to panic!

Well, all was well, fortunately, that ended well, and we made our way to the Nehru Gallery of South Asian Art which I had studied a few weeks ago and where I took them through a brief history of Modern India as manifested by its art and craftsmanship. We examined Mogul and Rajasthani miniatures, Indian calico cottons, marble and wooden (jali) carvings, gold (jari) embroidered sarees and sheraras as worn by Muslim nobility, gold and bejeweled ornaments including turban pieces worn by men that were studded with emeralds, rubies and sapphires, wooden furniture inlaid with ivory (gifts from Indian royalty to East India Company officials), bidriware, enamelware, ivory furniture, a golden throne, Tipu’s famous Tiger, the jade drinking cup of Shah Jehan, and a host of other marvelous items that had them exclaiming and asking all kinds of very relevant questions. I also took them up to the museum’s jewelry galleries where they did some more exclaiming and finally, I led them to the café where the restaurant rooms featuring the work of William Morris, Poynter and Gamble are showpieces in themselves.

We parted company as they returned to campus for their next class while I took the bus home. While eating my lunch (Pizza Paradiso’s pizza), I finished watching 1947 Earth as I do want to start work on the lecture I am giving in Italy later this month based on this movie. Despite the fact that I have seen it so many times before, it never fails to brings tears to my eyes and I was deeply saddened, once again, by the end of the film in which the author Bapsi Sidhwa herself makes a cameo appearance.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all these things, I was also trying desperately to reach the Podiatry Clinic as I had finally received my letter in the mail informing me that a referral had been received on my behalf and that I was required to call and make an appointment. Except that though I tried more than 50 times (I know because the number of tries I made are recorded on my cell phone), I always got the message “User Busy” back! All day—I mean from 9. 30 am (when they opened) until 3.00 pm—it said “User Busy”. I am convinced that something was wrong with that line. But, get this, at 1. 10pm, when I finally did get through, I got Voice Mail, informing me that they were closed between 1.00 and 1.3 0 for lunch! At 1. 45, I got “User Busy” once again. It was enough to make me want to tear out my hair by the handful in frustration! I was keen to make the appointment as I would be in Cornwall for the next few days and wanted to get the business of fixing an appointment over with!!! In the end, I simply gave up. I guess I shall try again tomorrow.

Next, I turned to packing—or rather re-packing. Having decided to take my laptop with me, my backpack was inadequate and I had to move all my stuff into my duffel bag. This was swift work and by 3. 45 pm, I was heading out the door again, this time to the Royal Academy of Art to meet Rosemary who is a member there. She is privileged to use the museum for free and to take companions along as well. We had planned to meet there at 4. 15 and since I did not want to be late, I took the Tube again—as buses are very unreliable and do not work if one has an appointment to keep.

Though I have passed by the Royal Academy dozens of time in the bus, I had never been to this gallery and I have to say that I was floored by the splendor of the building. Its Neo-Classical quadrangle is grand in every sense of the term and the rather contemporary fountain in the center is the only element that clashes, I thought, with the dignity of the place. Like Rosemary, my taste is much too traditional and both of us would have preferred a cascading fountain in the center rather than the kind that spouts water sporadically from the ground (as also seen at Somerset House). A wonderful bronze sculpture of Sir Joshua Reynolds at the entrance is a very appropriate touch for, undoubtedly, he had much to do with the setting up of this venerable institution.

Rosemary and I were there to see the special exhibition on ‘Byzantium’. It is funny how I have learned to pronounce the word “Byzantine” the American way—I now say “Biz-en-teen’. It sounded odd to hear the very English Rosemary pronounce it as “By-zin-tyne”. Yet before I moved to American that was exactly how I would have pronounced it myself! While we were in the midst of the exhibition, I realized that I had seen quite a few of these pieces before in the Treasures of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice last March. In fact, the signature piece that is used on all the publicity posters–a very ornate censer in three different metals—silver, brass and copper—I do remember seeing with my friends Amy and Mahnaz when we were in Venice last year. Some of the pieces reminded me so much of the staggering beauty of the Pala D’Oro especially in the precious stones that were studded in the gold settings that formed the frames of some of the work.

The last rooms contained some magnificent icons that had arrived in London from the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, and from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. They were superb and very exciting to examine as I have never really had the chance to study icons so closed and in such a large number. For me, this was certainly the highlight of the exhibition. I told Rosemary that I would like her to take me to the special exhibition that has just opened on Andrea Palladio, as coincidentally, I am, later this month, going to be staying in Vicenza, Italy, the city of Palladio, with my friend Annalisa Oboe, who lives there. While Llew, Chriselle and I have visited Annalisa in Vicenza before, this time I really do want to take careful notice of his ‘Palladian’ architecture that is showcased all over this city.

The museum closed at 6 pm and Rosemary suggested we go out for a drink as the evening was still young. It had started to drizzle by this time and since I had no umbrella, we shared her’s. Instead of hunting around for a pub in the rain, at her suggestion, we made our way down St. James’ Street towards her Club—The Royal Overseas League Club–where she has been a member for a while and her partner Christie Cherian is on the Board of Directors.

Indeed, the building was another one of those posh London residences that have been converted into private clubs or into hotels and in the lovely interior with its ornamental staircase, its portrait of the Queen and its beautiful flower arrangements, we ordered our drinks (a white wine for her, a Guinness for me) and settled down to one of our cozy chats. Rosemary ran into a friend called John Edwards to whom she introduced me as “her friend from New York” and John suggested that I take a look at a special exhibition in the foyer of oil paintings by an artist from New York.

Soon, it was time for us to leave as I had to wake up at 2. 15 am for my flight to Cornwall and at about 7. 30, we parted company and went our separate ways. Back home, I finalized the packing of my duffel bag, ate my dinner of Thai Green Curry (Chicken) with Tiramisu for dessert before I got ready for bed at 9 pm.

I called Llew and told him to call me at 9. 15 pm which would be 2. 15 am (my time), just in case my cell phone alarm did not go off, and on that note, I hit the sack.

A Routine Sorta Day!

Mar2

Monday, March 2, 2009
London

Up again at 5 am, I spent most of the morning preparing for my classes today and fine-tuning my grant application. I am also getting material ready for my trip to Cornwall on Wednesday and did remember to book my Easybus ticket from Victoria to Stanstead airport.

When I did get out of bed at 7. 30 am, I ate my breakfast (Tesco’s Muesli with yogurt and honey) while watching a part of 1947, Earth–Deepa Mehta’s film on the partition of the Indian sub-continent which is based on the novel Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa. I have been invited by my friend Annalisa Oboe of the Modern Languages Department at the University of Padua in Italy to give a lecture to her graduate students on March 19 and I do need to get started with the research and writing of this paper. And, of course, since I am intending to comment on the adaptation of the work from page to screen, I need to watch the film one more time and show excerpts from it. After a very long time, I shall be taking my laptop on a trip–this one to Cornwall–where I intend to continue working on this presentation as well as transcribing two of the interviews I did with Anglo-Indian subjects.

I set off from home a little earlier than usual to teach my Monday classes as Llew wanted me to pop into a camera store to take a look at a new camera that he intends to buy for us as I have damaged the one we have been using for almost ten years. I hopped into Jessops on New Oxford Street and took a look at the model, only to discover that it is very similar to the one we currently own–but sleeker, smaller, lighter and with a larger viewing screen. I liked it as much as Llew does and I green lighted his proposal to go ahead and buy it–in the States, of course, where it is much cheaper (almost half the price that was quoted to me by the guy at Jessops). Truly, we are so fortunate about the reasonable cost of living in America–this is being brought home to me not just while living here in London, but indeed on my recent visit to Norway where the prices of everything were just exorbitant!

My classes went off well and while I ate my tongue sandwich lunch at my desk, I managed to touch base with the real estate agent who represents my landlord in the hope of being able to extend my lease through the summer months. The issue of my summer accommodation continues to be a worry (as it is for my colleague Karen who has also been served with notice to vacate her Islington flat by the end of May) and I hope I shall be able to resolve it soon. What I am realizing is that it in London one only starts to look for June accommodation in May! It really doesn’t serve any purpose to try to be the early bird… so I simply must try to develop patience.

Right after my second class ended, I had a private Tutorial in my office with my South Asian Studies students who are coming along very well in their reading and writing through the independent study module that I am supervising. They handed in their assignments to me (0ne report on a film, another on a book) and have completed reading Dominic Lapierre and Larry Collins’ Freedom at Midnight as well as seen Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. We had a very animated discussion indeed and I am very pleased with their progress.

I barely had the time to send in my application for the grant by the deadline when I had to leave my office to attend the General Faculty Meeting held upstairs at 6 pm. Dinner (an assortment of finger sandwiches and drinks) was provided and I had the chance to socialize with some of the new friends I’ve made among the faculty such as Emma Sweeney, Julia Pascal and Moira Ferguson. It is funny but though I do not see them very often (faculty members always have differing schedules and so rarely meet outside of such venues), I feel quite comfortable with many of them and do enjoy catching up with them. So many have been asking me to get together with them for lunch or coffee and I am keen to do this now that I know that my time here is limited and fast drawing to a close. I also met Karen today after a very long time. Now that we are teaching on different days, we no longer meet regularly and I do miss our weekly dinners. She has also been entertaining her in-laws from the States while trying to meet a publication deadline and coping with poor health. We resolved to get together soon, though with all the traveling I will be doing this month, any plans look doubtful.

I returned to my office after the meeting to tie up a few loose ends and left about 8. 30 pm to catch the bus and get home to respond to my email and write this blog.

It was a good beginning to the week and I am looking forward to the rest of it with much anticipation.

Chained to my PC!

Mar1

Sunday, March 1, 2009
London

I awoke again at 5 am. I am now convinced it has something to do with the temperature in my bedroom–perhaps it is too warm! While in Oslo, I slept effortlessly until almost 7 am each day. Yet, here I was, unable to get back to sleep and, left with little choice at that unearthly hour, I turned to my PC to hammer out my Norway Travelogue. I was all done by 7. 30 am–it did take me two and a half straight hours, but when it was done, it was time to say a quick Hello to my parents in Bombay and tell them that I would call them later for a longer chat as I needed to shower and get ready for Mass.

Stephanie and I had both decided that we would stay put at home this Sunday as she was feeling under the weather and I had a pile of things to do. When I was done showering, I made myself a cup of coffee and gulping it down quickly, I set off for St. Etheldreda’s Church to which I was returning after several Sundays as my weekly sojourns with Steph have taken me to services all over the Home Counties! It felt like home and quite suddenly I was gripped by the strange feeling that I have attended Mass in this church all my life–it helped, I suppose, that Fr. Sebu, a priest from Kerala was the chief celebrant this morning!

Indeed, as I walked home, London felt like home. There is a certain ease now with which I find my way around unfamiliar places, with which I use the internet to find bus routes, with which I find the cheapest ways to purchase air tickets or theater tickets or opera tickets. Though I still feel as if I am on a year-long vacation, I no longer feel unsure of myself in this city. And this is a blessedly calming feeling indeed.

I ate a big bowl of cereal with yogurt and honey as I was starving, but I did not linger over it as I had a great deal of items on my To-Do List. One after the other, I ticked them off, the most crucial being the finalizing of a draft for an application for a grant that I need for the summer. I brought my blog up to date, drafted my February newsletter, downloaded my Norway photographs from my camera, unpacked my backpack and put things away while re-packing for the trip to Cornwall that I shall be doing on Wednesday. I did have a long chat with my Mum in Bombay and then with Llew who told me all about a 50th birthday party he had attended last night for our friend Kim Walton in Connecticut.

A mid-afternoon telephone call brought me the very spontaneous invitation to supper from my friend Bishop Michael Colclough. I was looking forward to seeing him and his wife Cynthia again as I hadn’t seen them for a while as both they and I have been traveling so much. By 7. 15 pm, I was at their lovely and very gracious home at Amen Corner near St. Paul’s Cathedral were we sat down for a long chat. Their boys Aidan and Edward were home and we all sat down to a cozy family dinner of Cottage Pie and Corn and Coleslaw with fresh pineapple and butterscotch ice-cream for dessert. It was simple home-cooked fare brimming with flavor that was served in a mood of generous hospitality. Best of all, I managed to catch up with my friends and learn all about their recent trip to Tenerife and about the boys’ upcoming exams as they grapple with their Law studies.

Then, I was on the bus again returning home after a long day that had me practically chained to my PC. I have caught up with almost all my pending chores and have decided to carry my PC with me to Cornwall as I do wish to use the evenings to transcribe a couple of interviews, edit and caption photographs on my hard drive and just organize the material that I have been gleaning and collating through my research.

Another week begins tomorrow and with it comes the promise of more exciting travel and the joys of the English seaside. I can’t wait…

British Library, Discovering Clerkenwell and Exploring the Tate Modern

Feb21

Saturday, Fenruary 21, 2009
London

Despite going to bed at 11. 30 pm last night, I awoke at 5 am, then forced myself to get back to sleep again as I am afraid that this lack of sleep might not be too good for my health! Luckily, I did doze off and woke up again at 6.45 am at which point my day’s work began.

I started off by drafting a longish response to the collaborative preparation online workshop in which all overseas NYU faculty are currently involved. Responses have been trickling in from Paris and Florence and with Karen having sent in her contribution from London, I thought it was about time I put in my ha’penny’s worth. It took longer than I expected, but it was finally done and I emailed it to my colleagues scattered around our satellite sites in Europe. A call to my parents in Bombay (to whom, for various reasons, I haven’t spoken for a few days) followed, after which I made a Eurostar booking for my trip to Belgium (I shall be visiting Brussels and Bruges) and a Youth Hostel booking for accommodation there. I followed this by another accommodation booking at St. Chrisgtopher’s Inn in Newquay, Cornwall, and finally got down to eating my breakfast while doing my Alternate Soaking–by which point it was a little after 9 am.

A shower followed soon after and then I was leaving my flat to catch the bus to the British Library where the Frank Anthony book that I am seeking is stocked. Only problem is that when I reached the Asian and African section where I have been carrying out the bulk of my reading, I discovered that the book is “off site” in Boston Spa, Yorkshire. Of course, I requested that it be sent to me here in London and since I expect it to arrive on Tuesday, I have earmarked that entire day for research and reading at the library itself–as I might only refer to the book for three days at the library itself.

When I walked out of the Library, the sun was shining gloriously and the world suddenly seemed spring-like. There was still a decided nip in the air but it did nothing to chill the spirits of the vast numbers of people that had taken to the streets to bask in its cheer. What a perfect morning for a walk, I thought, as I rode the bus back home (during which time Llew called me and we had a chat), dropped off my bag and other non-essentials, pulled on a baseball cap and my sunglasses, grabbed my book (24 Great Walks in London) and set off to discover nearby Clerkenwell.

And what a lovely morning I had! The walk is entitled “Monks, Murder and Masons” and it took me into what the book calls “London’s secret village”. Indeed, I would never have ventured into this part of the city were it not for the book and yet the area is in my own backyard! Starting right outside Farringdon Tube Station, it brought me to The Castle, a pub that has the unique distinction of owning two licenses–as a public house and as a pawnbroker! There are three gold balls outside the pub to proclaim this fact. The pawnbroking license was granted to The Castle by the Prince Regent (later George IV) who ran up a huge debt at a near-by cockfighting ring. In despair, he turned to the pub next door and asked the owner if he would accept his gold watch for a loan. Not recognizing his royal patron, the pub owner agreed and money changed hands. The next day, an envoy appeared at the pub with enough money to retrieve the watch and a pawnbroking license which the pub has proudly displayed ever since. I entered the pub to see a painting on the wall that depicts this fascinating story.

Going through a really narrow alleyway that was reminiscent of the novels of Dickens, I arrived at St. John’s Square under a stone gateway that Shakespeare would have known. This lovely gateway that dates from 1504 was once the main entrance to the Priory of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. Following their dissolution, it became the Office of the Revels. Contemporary dramatists like Shakespeare and Marlowe would have brought their plays here to be licensed for public performance. By 1877, the space was acquired by the organization that evolved into the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade which has branches world-wide. I was able to take a quick look at the small but very interesting museum inside on the ground level though I could not mount the stairs leading to the opulent rooms upstairs, Those could only be visited through a guided tour that began at 2 .15 pm.

The walk continued towards St. James’ Church, Clerkenwell, but since it was closed, I could not visit it. It has been on this site since the Middle Ages but was rebuilt in the 18th century. Just past Clerkenwell Close, I arrived at the Middlesex Sessions Court, a beautiful and very impressive building that, by the middle of the 19th century, had become the busiest courthouse in England. When the courts moved elsewhere, the premises were occupied by the London Masonic Center. As if on cue, just as I arrived there, a stream of suited, booted and tied Freemasons poured out of the building, crossed the street and made their way to a pub at the corner for a noon day tipple.

I, on the other hand, crossed into Farringdon Lane and arrived at the most fascinating part of the walk–the Clerk’s Well–from where the entire area derived its name in the Middle Ages. You can actually see the well or spring which became known as Fons Clericorum. It once gushed forth abundantly and was popular among the locals clerks. Lost for centuries, the well was rediscovered in 1924. It lies below ground level and can be glimpsed through glass windows.

Once in the street called Hatton Garden, the center of London’s diamond district, I found myself gazing at the Police Court that provided the inspiration for a scene in Dickens’ Oliver Twist–though the modern offices on the ground floor belie any of its Victorian antecedents. From there, it was on to The Bleeding Heart Tavern where we once had dinner with Karen and Douglas when Llew was visiting London. The gruesome story that gives the pub its name is probably more a result of legend than reality.

In another five minutes, I was back home for lunch (soup and noodles from Wagamama) and taking a much-needed nap. I wasn’t so much drowsy as tired and decided that a few mintues shut-eye would do me a world of good. I woke up about a half hour later, got dressed and set out again–this time to see the Tate’s Modern collection on the South Bank as the museum stays open until 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

I caught the bus to St. Pau’s, then crossed the Millennium Bridge on foot, astonished at the huge crowds that appeared like black ants ahead of me on the bridge. Clearly, the excellent weather had contributed to the presence of spring fever for people were prancing around light-heartedly and taking pictures galore of the urban scenes on both banks. Within a couple of minutes, by 5.00pm, I was in the gallery gazing upon the gigantic spider in the Main Turbine Hall. This recreation based on the original by Louise Bourgeois made every visitor who entered the gallery stop dead in his tracks and gaze upon the humongous creation.

I decided to spend my time taking in the museum’s permanent collection most of which is on the 3rd and 5th floors. But before I began, I took the lift up to the seventh floors for some of the most gorgeous city views. In fact, on the seventh floor, the viewer is at a height that is almost parallel to the dome of St. Paul’s whose impact is just stunning. I got some really lovely pictures from this angle of the glistening Thames and the large number of sailing craft that plied its waters.

Really pleased with my pictures (because every other time I have been to the Tate the weather has been gloomy and my pictures have appeared suitably grey), I started my exploration of the collection. Among the many famous works that dot the galleries, the one that most struck me was entitled ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver” by Cornelia Parker to whose work I became introduced just a couple of weeks ago at the V&A Museum when I saw her suspended work entitled ‘Breathless’. That one was composed of a collection of trombones, clarinets, trumpets and other wind instruments that she had flattened and then strung from the ceiling where they swung gently like one of Alexander Calder’s mobiles. This one, composed of thousands of pieces of silver that she acquired from junk shops was flattened out by a steam roller. She then composed thirty vignettes comprising trophy cups, cutlery, platters, etc. and has strung them from the ceiling where they simply mesmerized me as they seemed to do some many other visitors. Indeed, a whole large gallery has been devoted to this breathtaking piece of Modern Art with which I found myself connecting instantly. I was also pleased to find Roy Lichtenstein’s “Wham” on display–this is one of Marina Versey’s 100 Masterpieces of Art. I have been trying to see every single one of them in the various musuems around the world where they are on display.

It was 8 pm when I finally finished seeing the permanent collection. I was tired but not exhausted as I had the good sense to use one of the compact folding stools available for the museum’s aged visitors. It proved to be very helpful to me and as I crossed the Millennium Bridge and took the bus back home, I could not help but think how wonderful a day I had spent.

If the weather holds out like this, Stephanie and I will have a lovely time tomorrow–but given the lousy weather we’ve been having for the past three Sundays, I am not holding my breath, and I am sure, neither is she.

An Uneventful Day…Except for Travel Planning

Feb16

Monday, February 16, 2009
London

Today was a fairly uneventful day. But for the fact that I taught two Writing classes, met with one student during my lunch break during which time I also squeezed in a meeting to sort out the details of our proposed trip to Suffolk, nothing much happened.

I did visit the large Jessops Camera store on Oxford Street to find out if they could help me fix my camera. Not only would they take 4-6 weeks to do this, but they said the charge would be 120 pounds! Given that our camera is about 9 years old, the salesman told me it was not worth it at all. At any rate, I have managed to find a way to keep it working even though it will not be most convenient. This has taken the worry out of the problem for me and I have now laid it to rest.

My meeting with Alice at NYU led to the finalizing of our plans for our student trip into Constable Country. We’ve now decided to include the medieval town of Lavenham in our itinerary. We will be headed to Dedham, East Bergholt, Flatford Mill on the River Stour and then on to Lavenham in Suffolk. It promises to be a fun-filled day.

I also had a chance to talk with Robert about our forthcoming trip to Cornwall and have a better idea now about our itinerary there. We will be making our base at Newquay, visiting the Eden Project and Tintagel, legendary castle-home of King Arthur, and Boscastle. I have decided that since a whole day will be spent by my students on the bus getting to Cornwall, I will go two days earlier and see some more of the region on my own. I am keen to visit St. Ives, for instance, where the Tate St. Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum are worth a visit as well as the town of Penzance (made famous by Gilbert and Sullivan in their opera The Pirates of Penzance). I will then head to Newquay and meet the bus when it arrives with the students late on Friday evening.

In an attempt to find transport to Cornwall, I went online and through Ryanair found a free (yes, Free) ticket to Newquay. Inclusive of taxes, my ticket cost one penny but because I made the booking online with my credit card, I had to pay 5 pounds! I will now get on the phone tomorrow and make accommodation arrangements for myself for two nights at the same hotel where NYU will be putting me up for the two nights that I will be spending there with my students.

I also managed to find myself accommodation in Paris through a French student of mine and since I am keen to experience the Chunnel, I went online to the Eurostar website and found some incredible fares. I am looking at spending a week in Paris somewhere during the first or second week in June when the weather will be much nicer and the responsibilities of teaching will be behind me. Now all I have to do is find another week somewhere on my calendar to be spent in Belgium–and with that I would have achieved almost all my international travel goals for the year.

I spent a good part of the evening photocopying material from my travel books for the trip I am taking this coming Friday with my students to Winchester and Portsmouth and to all the other spots that Stephanie and I intend to visit at the weekends. That and a bunch of other things that needed to be photocopied kept me busy for another hour, long past my office hours.

It was a very mild day and everyone looked cheerful even though the sun was in hiding all day today. I am amazed to see daffodil stalks sticking their heads out of the ground already–a sight that would be unthinkable in the States in the middle of February. I know that spring comes early to England (“Oh to be in England/ Now that Spring is here!”) but now that I am already spying the little signs that herald its arrival, I am fairly bristling with excitement.

I got back home to sort out all that material that I had copied and to organize it and watch a bit of TV and eat my dinner before I settled down for the night.

I am excited about waking tomorrow to the inauguration of a new channel on TV called ‘Blighty’ which promises to present programs about the quirkiest aspects of British life and culture. It should be, as they would say here, not just brilliant, but loads of fun.

Tomorrow I am also planning to go and do something I have never done before in London–Viewing the Changing of the Guards. I am particularly keen to view this spectacle while the guards are in their winter togs of knee-length grey coats and if I want to get some pictures featuring this garb, I will have to hurry as there doesn’t seem to be much of winter left, is there?

Seeing Imelda Staunton on Stage!

Feb9

Monday, February 9, 2009
London

It was Black Monday–literally! The skies were leaden and rain came down in sheets! It is unusual to get such heavy rain here in London–most times it is just an annoying drizzle. By the evening, the streets were actually flowing and I was afraid of slipping as I don’t think my shoes are equipped to handle muddy ones. It was funny but when Mark, our concierge at NYU, was leaving the building and I asked him if he had forgotten to carry an umbrella, he replied, “I have one. I just can’t be bothered”. To carry it, he meant, and I thought that was a very English way of putting it indeed.

I taught my two Writing II classes–odd, but it seems as if my classes are only just beginning. What with my hoarse throat and the snow of a week ago, this was a first real class. I had to sort out items on the syllabus to bring us back to speed, discuss the change in plans–no field trip to Cornwall for my Writing II (B) class. We’re going instead to Suffolk (Constable Country). I also handed out field excursion assignments to London’s ethnic quarters–which I must try to cover myself! The classes went well–we’ve started our discussions on Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism–and my students seem to be engaging with it rather enthusiastically.

After classes, I went up to Yvonne Hunkin’s office to pay my electricity and media bills, but she was in a meeting and I only met Ruth Tucker. Back in my office, I graded one batch of homework before I set out for my evening at the theater. I was excited as I would be seeing Imelda Staunton in Entertaining Mr. Sloane at Trafalgar Studios.

The streets were flowing copiously by the time I left NYU. It had rained all day and the mood was dismal. I actually used the Thomsons’ birthday present to me for the first time today–a Nautica Umbrella For Two–it was massive! Our English friends in Fairfield, Connecticut, Jonathan and Diana Thomson, had gifted it to me in July when they got to know I’d been posted to London. Diana had written in the card: “This is the thing you’re going to need most in Blighty–a really good brolly!” And how right she was! The umbrella was like a huge walking canopy around me and sheltered me completely on this day made for ducks! Thanks, Di!

I nipped into the Tesco Express at the corner of The Strand on Trafalgar Square for just a second and re-emerged with two packs of Prawn Mayonnaise sandwiches, It had been a long time since I had eaten my rather frugal lunch of a tongue sandwich and a cup of creamed asparagus soup at my desk during office hours. I knew that Rosemary had a ticket for the same show but since we hadn’t made any plans for dinner, I figured I better get a bite to eat or else my stomach would rumble throughout the show! Unfortunately, I did not see Rosemary anywhere during the show though I looked for her frantically before it began, during the interval and at the end. We must make more definite plans next time!

Trafalgar Studios is a very modern space, unlike the ornate 18th and 19th century theaters I have been frequenting. Though I had the cheapest seats on the very last row, the slope was so steep that I had a completely unrestricted view of the stage. Large black and white posters of English actors such as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Edward Fox and John Gielgud, decorated the stairwells–each taken between the 1960s and 1980s! It was fun to see what these thespians once looked like and, in the case of many, such pictures are a revelation about the years, no decades, one needs to slog before international fame can finally come one’s way in this very uncertain acting business.

As for the show, it was such a surprise to me. I thought it would be a comedy–that was what the blurb said, but gosh, it was a classic example of a Dark Comedy. It started funnily enough with Kath, a landlady in the early 1960s, taking in a lodger (I finally understood what the term ‘lodger’ means–a paying guest–and what the term ‘lodgings’ means–a rented room in a house) named Mr, Sloane. Kath is 42, single, desperately lonely, bullied, belittled and browbeaten by her obnoxious brother Ed, and completely taken in by the handsome, sexy, young Mr. Sloane.

Kath was played superbly by Imelda Staunton (I bought tickets for the play only to see her as I had been completely blown by her performance as Vera Drake in the film of the same name for which she won the BAFTA for Best Actress in 2005), Mr. Sloane was played by Mathew Horne and Ed was played by Shakespearean actor Simon Paisley Day who supported Staunton brilliantly.

The range of emotions Staunton had to exhibit in the course of the play was stunning. In turn, she was a lecherous seductress, a harassed daughter, a caring landlady, a pleading sister, a heartbroken lover. The inimitable Staunton slipped into each one of these guises effortlessly and kept the play moving along brilliantly. What I did not expect was the harshness with which she was treated–as a woman and as a sister, her treatment was deplorable and in our day and age of politically correctness, very difficult to watch. Her father (“Dada” played very competently by Richard Bremmer) was pushed around by both his children, then assaulted by Sloane who could have brought much more menace to his role.

The two other great bits of the production were the set that captured succinctly the “hideousness” (as one reviewer put it) of working class domestic interiors of the era (horrid busy wallpaper, stained flowered rugs, a lumpy old velvet upholstered sofa, late-50’s kitschy knick-knacks) and the brilliant use of a Jim Reeves track, “Welcome to my World”. Another ingenious touch was the playing of pop hits from the early 1960s before the play began and during the intermission. It put us beautifully into the mood, the milieu and the moment and evoked the desperation of suburban families and of the brother and sister duo whose need for self esteem allows them to overlook the murder of their father by the unscrupulous lodger.

The other brilliant thing about this play was the writing itself by the late Joe Orton. Glancing rapidly at the Playbill during the interval (which costs 3 pounds and which I, therefore, never buy but invariably borrow!), I saw that he was killed by his gay partner in the 1960s, being snatched away in the prime of his writing career. A dramatist of no less a stature than Harold Pinter spoke at his funeral calling him a marvelous writer.

Orton brought a great deal of his own working class background into the plays he wrote (particularly in this one). His attempts to transcend it through the procurement of an education and his own struggle with his sexuality were grist to his creative mill–like Mr. Sloane, Orton was apparently bisexual. Because this was a classic Black Comedy, I found it odd when the audience laughed at lines and scenes that were not even remotely funny–in fact, they verged on the tragic–but then, the scenes and the characters’ actions and reactions were so unpredictable and surprising when they occurred that the audience quite lost sight of what would be the appropriate mode in which to react. It was a very good night at the theater, made memorable by Staunton.

It was still pouring when I made my way out of the theater and caught the buses back home. For some reason, I felt quite worn out but then I remembered that I had awoken this morning at 5.30 am and I was no longer surprised.

Discovering the V&A

Feb4

Wednesday, February 4, 2009
London

I had a very early start this morning, awaking at 5. 30 am, working on my PC for a while, then showering, eating breakfast and getting out of my flat by 7. 45 am to take the buses to the University College Hospital for my physiotherapy session. I reached there in under a half hour which was something of a surprise to me. Traffic seems to be moving a bit faster now on High Holborn–which is such a relief.

To my disappointment, I found that Paul is no longer working with me (he has been rotated to another division) and I now have a new physiotherapist–Claire Curtin–who says that she will be in this division for at least 4 months, so is likely to work with me long-term. I find this very annoying as I think the patient loses continuity with a health practitioner. This is also what is wrong about this NHS system–the patient has no control over who he is treated by. He just has to lump it and whether the physician is good or not, he has to stick with him. Anyway, I am not that bad now that my condition needs specialist attention, so I guess I shall just stay with Claire and hope for the best.

Nothing much came out of our session. She basically told me to continue with the same exercises that Paul had recommended. She drew them out for me because their computer is still not working (what??? Even after three weeks? How do these folks function?) However, it seems that Paul has made the referral on my behalf for the podiatrist, so I should be getting something in the mail asking me to see a podiatrist who will then recommend the orthotics that Paul thought I needed. So the rigmarole continues…Claire did massage my right ankle and told me how to do it myself and suggested that I see her again in two weeks time! She could not recommend the exercises strongly enough and told me not to stop, come what may!

I then took the Number 14 bus from Euston and rode on it all the way to Kensington. Now that I have finished my study of the National Gallery, I have turned my sights on to the Victoria and Albert Museum, known affectionately as the V&A. I had visited this museum only once, a few years ago, and been completely overwhelmed by its size and scale. I had taken a Highlights Tour then, but do not remember anything that was shown to me except for the Raphael Cartoons and a Cast Room. When I arrived at the Museum, a few minutes before 10 am, there were a couple of dozen people there already but the museum was still closed. At 10 am sharp, the heavy wooden doors were thrown open and I was the first person to enter the museum today!!!

After my bag was physically examined, I went to the Cloak Room to hand in my coat and bag, then went to the Information Desk to find out about Highlights Tours for the day. There were two at 10.30 am and 11. 30 am respectively that I thought I would take. Meanwhile, I got myself a Map and a list of 20 Highlights of the Museum and started to see those for the first half hour.

In the basement, I saw an ivory inlaid wooden cabinet by Fiammingo. Then in the Fashion Gallery (which is highly reputed), I saw a beautiful dress designed by Vivienne Westwood under inspiration from French artist Watteau. It was fashioned in emerald silk and was gorgeous. In the South Asian galleries, I saw Shah Jahan’s exquisite wine cup, carved in white jade, featuring a flower on the bottom and the head of ram in its handle–truly beautiful! In the Islamic section, I saw the Ardabil Carpet, a gigantic carpet woven in Iran and containing over 4,000 knots per square inch. The Far Eastern Galleries held a really charming Bodhisatava called Guanyin and in the Japanese Armor section, I saw a suit of armor that was presented to Queen Victoria by one of the big gun shoguns of the time. These were the highlights I saw on my own.

At 10. 30 am, I went to the spot where the Highlights Tour began and met my guide, Jane Hampson. She was disappointed to find that I was the only one on the tour but she took me, first off, to one of the Museum’s biggest attractions–The Raphael Room–where we were joined by another visitor originally from Egypt but now living in Australia. For the next hour, Jane took us on a very lively and interesting tour of the museum that included the following objects:

1. The Raphael Cartoons. (These water colors were the basis for the tapestries that hang in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. They were made in Mortlake on the outskirts of London. These belong to the Royal Family having been purchased by Charles I).
2. The Gothic Altarpiece featuring St. George and the Dragon.
3. A Chinese Red Lacquer Table and Throne.
4. The Eltenburg Reliquary (made of wood, whale ivory, and superb cloisonne work).
5. The Plaster Cast Room (with special emphasis on Trajan’s Column–the original of which stands in Rome).
6. A Porcelain Pagoda and Export China in the Chinese Gallery.
7. The Thomas Grace Cup–a medieval ivory cup that is associated with Thomas a Beckett of Canterbury and was decorated during the Renaissance.
8. The Dacre Animals (saved from a stately English country estate before it burned down).
9. Sculpture of Neptune and Triton by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (one of his early works, showing similar compositional elements with his Bachannalia that I show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
10. The Great Bed of Ware (this was made in the 1100s and there is actually a reference to it in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night–which, coincidentally enough, I saw last night!)
11. The Dale Chihuly Chandelier in the main lobby–this has always been one of my favorite pieces in the V&A and I recall taking a picture of it the last time I was there.

I thought the tour was superb and when Jane mentioned that she gives a special tour of the British Galleries at 12. 30 pm, I told her that I would join that as well. Meanwhile, I rushed off to join the 11. 30 am Highlights Tour, this one being given by a guide called Mina Renton. She took the group to the Raphael Cartoons, then moved on to “Tippoo’s Tiger” in the South Asian Galleries.

The title of the work refers to a music box that is concealed in the body of a tiger that is seen devouring a British soldier. As anyone with any knowledge of Indian History knows, “Tippoo” is Tipu Sultan, who was known as the Tiger of Mysore. He defended his territory against the British onslaught throughout the 18th century (as had his father, Hyder Ali, before him). He was finally vanquished and killed in the Battle of Seringapatnam by Lord Cornwallis (yes, the same Cornwallis who was involved with the British surrender at York during the American Revolution!). Mysore then came under British control. I was surprised how huge this object is–for some reason, I kept thinking it was a small table-top model. When I saw that it was almost life size, I was shocked. It is so fragile now and can no longer be wound up to play the sounds that emanate from the dying young British soldiers who is being mauled by the tiger. This design, incidentally, is based on a real-life incident–a Captain Munroe was out hunting in Mysore when he was attacked and killed by a tiger. Tipu was delighted and amused by this occurrence and requested that an organ be made for him in this design. It happens to be the most popular item at the V&A and one that most visitors wish to see. This tour then wound its way to the Bernini Neptune, but since I was keen on joining Jane’s British Galleries tour, I left it and returned to the lobby.

Jane’s British Galleries tour was just fantastic. In the short space of just one hour, she covered such a great deal and explained things very clearly indeed. She went from the 1500s till the late 1700s and confined herself to the ground level only. The British Galleries continued on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels, but those I shall see on future visits.

These are the items I covered with Jane in the British Galleries:

1. A Morstyn Salt Cellar.
2. Henry VIII’s Portable Wooden Writing ‘Desk’.
3. The Bradford Table Carpet.
4. A Funeral Pall for the Brewer’s Company.
5. A Medieval Baby wrapped in swaddling and a slipware cradle.
6. A Virginal used by Queen Elizabeth I.
7. The Drake Jewel (containing a miniature of Queen Elizabeth I and presented to Drake in recognition of his services to the country after the defeat of the Spanish Armada).
8. The Hunsdon Jewels (Presented by Queen Elizabeth I to various courtiers for services rendered to the country).
9. The marble bust of Charles I.
10. Fashionable Men’s Wear in the Court of James I and Charles I.
11. A Mortlake Tapestry.
12. A Marquetry Cabinet.
13. A Sumpter Cloth (used to be thrown across goods in a wagon).
14. A Sculpture by Cornelia Parker entitled “Breathless” featuring real crushed musical instruments and suspended from the ceiling.
15. The Melville Bed from the Melville House in Fife, Scotland.
16. The Stoke Edith Tapestry from a country estate in Herefordshire featuring the estate’s formal gardens.
17. The Badminton Chinoisserie Bed from Badminton.
18. A Marble Sculpture of Handel by Jonathan Tyers originally made for the Vauxhall Gardens.
19. A Selection of Chelsea Porcelain.
20. Four Painted Rococo Panels.
21. An 18th century Mantua or Court Dress of a Lady.
22. A Painting entitled ‘The Duet’ by Arthur Devis
23. The Norfolk Music House Room which originally stood in St. James’ Square, London–later razed to the ground after a fire destroyed it.
24. A Selection of miniature portraits by Nicholas Hilliard.

I found it hard to believe how much I covered in just two and half hours. That’s why I love these tours!

When Jane and I got talking at the end of the tour, I happened to mention my Plantar Fascittis (which had caused me to sit wherever I could find a seat or bench on the tours) and Jane informed me that she had the same thing, a few years ago. Apart from the massages and stretching exercises, she recommended what her physiotherapist called Contrast Bathing! What??? She told me this meant that I needed to sit with two big bowls of water side by side. One should be filled with water as hot as I can take it, the other filled with water as cold as I can stand it. You are supposed to place your feet for a few minutes in the hot water, then in the cold, the hot, then the cold. This apparently would expand and contract the muscles. Jane claims that ultimately this did cure her completely and, occasionally, when she still gets a twinge, she does this for a few minutes and she is right as rain, again! This sounds to me like Chinese torture but what the heck, since I have tried everything else, I am willing to give this a shot as well. She told me to do this while watching TV and I would not feel it at all!!!

I came home for lunch, caught up with email correspondence and tried to take a short nap; and then before I knew it, the time was 5. 45 pm and I left my flat for my appointment with Rosemary Massouras and Christie Cherian, her partner. We had decided to meet at the Sherlock Holmes Bar which is located in the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street, just a block from the fictional 221B Baker Street where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian detective Sherlock Holmes lived.

It was a lovely evening and over cider and white wine and some nibbles (hummus and pita, feta cheese and sauteed peppers), we chatted about a vast variety of subjects from travel and India, films, our children, my trip to Berlin, etc. Rosemary and I have decided to go together to the special exhibition on Byzantium at the Royal Academy of Art where she happens to be a member and she also wants to do a weekend trip with me somewhere–but is afraid she will not have the stamina to keep up with me, she says!

I took two buses back and got home at 10 am when I had a small bite to eat and after writing this blog, fell asleep.

Spring Classes Begin and Seeing an NHS Physiotherapist

Jan20

Monday, January 19, 2009
London

Rain poured down at dawn on the first day of classes as I showered and breakfasted and left my flat early to take the bus to get to Bedford Square. The idea was to beat every other faculty member to the basement copy machines. I needn’t have worried. No one else had surfaced for a first class on a Monday and I had the premises entirely to myself. In fact, I had only 7 students in my Writing II class in the lovely ornate Room 12 with its brass chandeliers and its ornamental ceiling plasterwork and moulding.

Class One is devoted to going over the syllabus and explaining course requirements and getting to know new students. The way I did this was through an assignment entitled ‘Primary Sources’ in which I ask students to pick any 6 words or short phrases that best describe their journey through life. They then expand on these phrases by writing an accompanying paragraph that fleshes out the essentialist idea and helps create a mosaic that informs the reader about the writer’s past. They set to work cheerfully as sunlight flooded the room. I am looking forward to this course which includes field trips with accompanying assignments to Cornwall as well as Portsmouth and Winchester when the weather turns warmer.

During my hour long lunch break, I caught up on email, did some more photocopying and noticed that life had returned to the campus’ academic building, former home of Lord Eldon, Chancellor of London. Other professors started to descend down to the copy machine. I had a chat with Llew who was headed to Manhattan to meet Chrissie to pick up the stuff my parents and I’d sent through her for him from India. We decided to speak again later in the day.

At 2pm, I left for my second class which is located in the University of London’s Birkbeck College. This Writing II class had a larger enrollment–16 to be precise. Several were returning students who’d taken my Writing I class last semester but several were new faces, three of whom are from Turkey. It is like a mini-United Nations in this classroom with students from India, China, Korea, France and the United States and, no doubt, they will bring a great deal of their own background and heritage to bear upon our study of London’s multi-cultural and multi-racial quarters as well as the ethnographic profile that I have asked them to create based on individual research and personal interviews. It promises to be an exciting semester and I am looking forward to it.

I left this class early at 3. 30 pm (instead of 5 pm) as I had an appointment with the specialist physiotherapist that the NHS has finally allotted me. Imagine… I had to wait for three whole months to be granted an interview with a specialist physiotherapist. This, I guess, is the down side of socialized health care. In the United States, I’d be able to see any specialist of my choice within 24 hours. Here, I had to wait for three whole months! On the other hand, in the United States, the visit would have cost no less than $400–of which I’d have to pay a co-pay of $30 per visit, my medical insurance covering the rest. In this country, I was not required to spend a penny but imagine if I hadnt seen a private physiotherapist as I did in October itself since my Aetna Global Insurance covered it, I’d have been writing in agony for 3 months before I could find relief from pain! It is truly hard to imagine such a situation and it explains why the United States is so reluctant to go the socialized medicine route. The wealthy would never tolerate this sort of time lag even while the poor would finally have access to quality health care. It is an impossible dilemma to resolve and today, the day on which the first African-American President of the United States is sworn in as the leader of the First World, I have to wonder whether we Americans will ever be able to settle this impasse.

Paul was very professional indeed as he started from scratch. I had to go through the plethora of questions–where, when, how did the affliction (Plantar Fascittis) assault me. What have I done so far to relieve my condition? What sort of exercises have I been prescribed? etc. etc. He started from Square One, asking me to walk across the room so he could assess my gait. I was pronounced to have a right foot that is flatter than the left (hence the persistent pain in its arch), a right foot that flares out slightly when I walk, weak hip and knee muscles (that are probably responsible for the pain in my knee every time I have done a bit too much walking). Paul recommended a series of exercises (I will be retaining two of the old ones and adding two newer ones) as well as an exercise that involves the use of an elastic rubber band to strengthen the muscles on my right ankle. He too (like my homeopath Alpana Nabar of Bombay) has suggested that I avoid all unnecessary walking for the next two months at least to allow the muscles and tendons to relax completely. This means that I will have to scrap all self-guided walks though I can still do the museum visits in short spurts. I have to admit that I was rather “naughty” (as my friend Cynthia Colclough puts it) and as soon as the pain in the knee disappeared over the two weeks that I stayed in Bombay (where the warmer weather also helped), I was out and about again…hey, you can’t keep a good gal down! Now I know better and shall follow doctor’s orders walking no more than for 20 minutes at a stretch and carrying as light a load as possible. The very thoughtful gift that Chriselle gave me for Christmas (a pedometer) will prove very useful as it measures the number of steps I’ve taken, the number of miles covered as well as the number of calories that have been expended with each step that I take.

On the way home, I felt the beginnings of a cold. My throat felt raspy and dry and I became aware of a strange weakness descend upon me. I took a Crocin immediately and had an early dinner and got into bed with the idea of turning in early. Then the phone began ringing off the hook–first it was Cynthia catching up with me after my return to London, then Stephanie Provost called. She is a close friend of my close friend Amy Tobin and has also been posted in the UK for a year from the States. She is a marketing whiz and works for Twinning Tea Company and will be launching this product line in Europe. Her work involves a great deal of international travel but she is certainly up for doing anything cultural or artsy as well as taking daytrips with me on the weekends. The good news is that the company has given her a spiffy car–a Lexus–and pays her gas bills! This will allow us to take daytrips at the weekend once the spring thaw arrives. The bad news is that she doesn’t work in London but in Andover and, therefore, lives right now in Wimbledon (on the outskirts of London) and will likely be moving shortly to Richmond. We have made plans to meet on Sunday, January 25, to take a day trip to Oxfordshire to see Blenheim Plaace and Klemscott Manor (home of William Morris) and will synchronize our respective calendars at that point and try to find weekend slots during which we can take in a few new plays and go to the opera. So many wonderful plays have recently opened in the city starring some really big names (James McEvoy, Imelda Staunton, Hayley Atwell, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Edward Fox, Christopher Timothy, Steven Tomkinson, etc.) and I am keen to see them all.

Just then Llew called and we had a long chat and caught up with everything that had happened that day. He had the day off (Martin Luther King Day) and with the USA gearing up for Obama’s big inauguration tomorrow, it promises to be an exciting and very historic day in the country.

I was asleep by 9. 30 and awoke at 5. 30 am (which I guess is better than awaking at 3.30am!) but I still keep hoping that I will sleep until at least 6 am each morning. I guess I am slowly getting there.