'Brief Encounter' Gresham Lecture and More Jubilee Walk

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
London

Phew! What a busy (and very productive) day I had! I am trying so hard to get as much work out of the way before Chriselle arrives tomorrow so that I can devote all our time together exclusively to her. I read about 25 pages of The Order of the Phoenix in bed as soon as I awoke at 6. 15 am, then checked and responded to overseas email (a lot of mail has arrived from India even before I am awake and a great deal comes in from the States towards the end of my London day) before I washed and ate my breakfast while watching Breakfast on BBC!

At 8.00 am, I transcribed my interview with Florence Daly, then revised my chapter for the new anthology on The Anglo-Indian Woman which, I have just heard from the publisher Blair Williams, is to be co-edited by my friend Margaret Deefholts and her daughter Susan. And a better editor than Margaret it would be hard to find, so I hope Blair knows how fortunate he is that she has agreed to take on this monumental task--because only a writer knows how much work an editor has to put into getting an anthology out!

When that was done, I graded a bunch of papers on 'Issues in Contemporary British Politics and Culture' and truly enjoyed reading my student's responses to a lot of the topics to which they've been introduced during their year in London. By then it was almost noon--time for me to stop for a shower, a light lunch (pizza and cheesecake--OK, not so light!) and then I left for Gresham College to attend another free lecture.

This one by Roger Parker, Gresham Professor of Music, was on the film Brief Encounter and the recurring role played in it by Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number 2. Now I had seen this movie only a couple of months ago and had found it charming but awfully dated. I was curious to see what Parker had to say and in the few extracts he showed from the film and his very enlightening commentary, I learned to 'look' in a rather different way at the film--through the eyes (and ears) of a musicologist. I found him a very engaging speaker indeed with a delightful sense of humor to boot and I was sorry to hear that this was his last lecture for the season because he seems to be a much-loved member of the lecturing cohort. Darn! I so wish I had gotten to know about these lectures earlier.

It wasn't long before I caught the 341 bus from Gray's Inn that took me to Fleet Street from where I hopped into the Number 15 and off I sailed to the Tower of London to resume the Jubilee Walk. To my good fortune, it was one of those old Routemaster buses which, when I get to ride in them, I always consider an unexpected bonus. It was going to be Part 4 for me and I felt curiously energetic.

The Jubilee Walk Part 4:
This bit took me through a part of London I had never seen before--the East. It is the very heart of London's Financial District (its Wall Street, I guess you could say) and at the very start of it, I passed by Monument, the 201 foot tall pillar whose height is of much significance. You see, the Monument was erected to mark the horror of the Great Fire of London and its height is exactly the same as the distance from the bakery in Pudding Lane where the fire is said to have originated in 1666 destroying most of the city and reducing it to a heap of ashes. The only upside of this disaster was that the plague was finally eradicated from the city as the carrier rats were drowned in the River Thames in their attempt to escape the flames.

Recently refurbished, the monument glows with a sort of inner light that is hard to describe. The beautiful bas-relief at its base has been stripped of centuries-worth of dirt and grime and the crowning ornament at the very top of the pedestal is glowing with the new coating of gilt that it has recently received. It is possible to climb the 311 steps to the very top to receive stunning views of the city--which today I was sorely tempted to do as it was such a clear day. But I decided not to get sidetracked from my goal (which was to traverse a good part of the Jubilee route) so perhaps I shall keep this challenge on hold until July when my friend and travel companion Amy Tobin is intending to come from the States to spend a few days in London. We had climbed the 500 odd steps to Brunelleschi's Dome in Florence in March of last year--so I guess we can try to repeat that feat this year at the Monument--if I can twist her arm to do it with me!

Then, I was tramping the pavements again following those silver disks and arriving at the crossroads where The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street aka The Bank of England made her imposing presence felt in the center of a traffic island. It is here that a very striking structure marks the Jubilee Walkway. A conical shaped marker provides the information that I am standing in one of the busiest parts of the city of London. Each day, I read, 350,000 people commute into this area to work. And at night, there are only 5000 residents left here. That explains why on the Bank Holiday Weekend, this area was as dead as the dodo! There was just no one here! I was astounded. I mean, can you imagine, up there in all those countless offices are 350,000 people hammering away at their computers and keeping the (rather sluggish) wheels of the economy turning!

When I finished marvelling at that fact, I turned my attention to the Neo-Classical edifice that is the Bank of England. Ever since I worked at the Reserve Bank of India (following my dad into the institution in which he worked for 40 years) when right out of college and while reading for my Masters in English at the University of Bombay, I have wanted to visit the Bank of England. Little did I know that I would have to wait for so many years, nay decades, before that dream could be accomplished. But no, I did not go inside. I had to content myself with an exterior visit and a few souvenir pictures before I set out again, this time arriving at the equally imposing Guildhall.

It was here that I introduced for the very first time to the Guildhall Art Gallery. I had no idea that such a place existed. And when I popped inside, after I had taken in the medieval building that for a moment made me think I was back in Bruges in Belgium, I discovered that entry was free to "residents of the City". Now since I live on High Holborn, I am a resident of the "City"; but, of course, I wasn't carrying anything on me that would proclaim this fact. I mean who goes around carrying any kind of document that contains one's address? Well, OK, maybe if you drive a car, you might have your driver's license with you. But otherwise, I can't imagine that many people might have such a document in their wallets.

At any rate, the security guard, a fellow-Indian from Poona, who was delighted to discover that I was originally from Bombay, informed me that after 3. 30pm entry was free. He suggested I visit the Clock Museum on the opposite side of the quadrangle for free and then return in 15 minutes time. I had, by then, decided that the Guildhall Art Gallery probably deserved a visit all its own and resolving to push off, I made a mental note to return--perhaps on a rainy day!

So I set off again, this time following the route towards the Barbican which I discovered is a mammoth complex that has been created in the midst of a glass and concrete jungle that can be terribly perplexing if one doesn't have a good map. Indeed, I was in a part of the city that I had never seen before surrounded by modernist architecture--all towering skyscrapers and glinting window panes--that were not my cup of tea at all. It was rather thankfully that I found my way out of the maze. By then I was tired and spying a Waitrose tucked away in a corner of Beech Street, I nipped in for some rum and raisin ice-cream and decided to look for a bus to take me back home. It was only a few minutes before I spied both a bus stop and a 55 that came trundling along to take me along Clerkenwell Street which I recognized immediately from one of the self-guided walking tours I had taken a few months ago--and then, presto, there I was at the intersection of Gray's Inn Road and only a few yards from home.

A nice cup of Earl Grey (make that several!) with lemon and a touch of honey and a slice of Victoria Sandwich Cake and I was ready to grade the rest of my papers and transcribe yet another interview with John Stringer who is easily the most fascinating Anglo-Indian subject I have yet interviewed in England. Not only did he have extremely unconventional views which he expressed with a delightfully wacky sense of fun but he had the privilege of meeting both Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru in his lifetime and he told me about these with the utmost animation. When that was done, I returned to some more email correspondence which is flowing in copiously as my students are sending me the outlines of their final research papers for approval.

I had started working at my computer at 5.00 pm and it was after 9 .00 pm when I stopped to eat my dinner (Chicken Kiev and a salad) while watching New Tricks on the Alibi channel. By 10.30pm, I was in bed, having brushed and flossed my teeth, hammering out this blog and getting ready for my last night alone at home before Chriselle joins me.

Tomorrow at this time, Inshallah, I shall have picked her up from Heathrow and brought her home to my flat. I am counting the seconds until her arrival.