First Time Visit to the Natural History Museum

Monday, June 22, 2009
London

Hard to believe that after a whole year of museum-hopping in this city, there are still some important museums I have not yet seen. The Natural History Museum is a case in point. 2009 marks the second birth centenary of Charles Darwin, perhaps the greatest naturalist the world has ever known--so it seemed important that I should make the time to visit this shrine to his intellectual productivity. As you can tell, science is not my chief priority--which explains why I have visited several rather unknown museums, whilst this one had gone unnoticed.

But first things first. I have to say that I am delighted that my sleep patterns have improved tremendously. I awoke at 6. 30 pm and finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince--yyeess!!!--which has proven to be my favorite of the lot so far--though poor Dumbledore dies and Harry dumps Ginny! With just one more to go, it seems as if I might well meet my goal of reading all seven novels before my return to the States. My students should be very pleased as they were the ones who induced me to start reading the series.

But after reading for an hour, I felt very drowsy again and I fell back to sleep, only awaking at
8. 30 am. After checking email and blogging, it was about 1o am. when I got out of bed and decided to have not breakfast but brunch as I had to leave the house for a memorial service at Royal Holloway College for my friend and colleague Sally who passed away last year.

So I ate a plate full of salad and foccaccia and prawns and pasta--a real smorgasbord featuring all the leftovers I could find in my fridge. Lunch done, I called to find out exactly where the service would be held and discovered, to my horror, that it was not at Royal Holloway's campus in Bloomsbury but in Egham, Surrey, to which I had to travel for the service. That meant taking a mainline train from Waterloo and going on a journey of 40 minutes into the countryside.

I had not bargained for so long a journey and had not left myself enough time. There was no way I would make it to the campus in Surrey especially if there were only two trains each hour to Egham. So I abandoned the idea of attending the service and took buses instead to Kensington where I spent a while browsing in the upscale thrift stores before making my way to the wonderful edifice that comprises the Natural History Museum.

Well, first of all, I have to say that the building is simply splendid. It rivals the Victoria and Albert Museum, I think, in grandeur and bulk. Its entrance towers above in the form of twin turrets and the rest of the structure is equally imposing. Made of honey colored stone with gray granite banding it at intervals, it is covered with wonderful sculptures of animals and birds all around the exterior walls.

But wait till you see the interior. I mean, it is just stunning. I am shocked that I might so easily have missed appreciating this incredible structure. Even if the collection is not really my cup of tea, the building is worth a visit for the sheer splendour of its architecture and I am so glad I went.

There is a kind of austere beauty about the inside achieved by the use of honey colored arches, and pillars and columns, all minutely carved with primates clinging to the sides and a crisscross design reminiscent of bamboo or sugar canes. It is really fantastic. And then, of course, there is the imposing dinosaur skeleton that dominates the central hall causing every kid to take a step back. At the far end of the hall is a lovely marble sculpture of Darwin himself looking benign and avuncular and so kind some kids might consider jumping into his lap for a picture--which might explain why there is a barricade around it to prevent any such hi-jinks!

I asked the guy at the Information Desk for suggestions. Where should a first-time visitor to the museum begin? Did he have a list of highlights? He was helpful but couldn't really answer my questions. All he did was give me a map and describe the entire museum to me. However, because he did suggest that I begin with The Vault, that was where I first headed. This is a section on the second floor that deals with natural stone formations and The Vault contains precious and semi-precious stones, as the guy put it "as large as eggs". And so they were: rubies and diamonds and aquamarines and peridots and a host of other stones. There was also a collection of every kind of colored diamond in the world which took 25 years to put together--pretty impressive.

I was more fascinated by the actual meteorites that have reached the earth after hurtling through space, having originated on the planet Mars or on the moon. You can actually touch a meteorite that was as large as a stool! All of this stuff was pretty wild and I have to admit that I was excited (though for some inexplicable reason, I felt sleepy and at one point was ready to collapse). It was clearly time for a cup of ginger and lemon tea and a cupcake that I had purchased from the famous Hummingbird Bakery in Kensington (a date cake with caramel topping--deeelicious!). This pepped me up somewhat and off I went again.

This time I aimed for the giant sequoia or Californian redwood that is cut in a marvelous cross section that allows you to see the thousand odd rings that proclaim its age--it was finally felled at the age of 1335 years! Of course, having visited the giant redwood forests in California last year, having seen these cross sections before and having actually stood under these trees, I have to say that I was not that impressed. Still, it made a good addition to the museum.

Next, I went out in search of the Blue Whale--a massive replica of it with its skeleton intact is visible on a floor with a whole host of other large animals--elephants, giraffes, hippos, yaks, bison, etc. The size of the blue whale was, I have to say, stupendous, and had I not seen this mammal in relation to the other animals around it, I would simply never have been able to fathom (excuse the pun!) its size! I mean it was staggeringly colossal.

I could not leave the museum without taking a look at the dinosaur section and the museum has a grand one--loads of dinosaur skeletons (though these are all plaster models, I believe) and a few fully mechanized dinosaurs of various sizes that growled menacingly at the kids--much to their wonderment and delight. It is probably because I do not have little ones that I am deprived of the pleasure of taking them to see things like this--but I have to say that this visit to the museum took me back to Bombay and the days when my parents used to take us on weekends to places such as the Prince of Wales Museum where one of our favorite sections was the Natural History section with all the stuffed animals. So it was good and I had a great time and was really glad that I will not be leaving London without having seen the marvels contained within this exotic space.

Before I got back home on the bus, I stopped briefly at the V&A Museum next door especially to take a picture of the Jeringham Wine Cooler (as I did not have a picture of it). I felt a twinge of regret as I left the space because I know that with my stay here soon approaching its end, I shall probably not return to the V&A again for a very long time. Still, I have to say that during the winter months, my forays through these spaces provided me with loads of hours of intellectual pleasure and I am so glad I had this wonderful opportunity.

At home, I attended to my email, made a booking for my bus ride to Oxford and back, tried to fix a few more appointments with Anglo-Indians for interviews, had my dinner, wrote this blog and went to bed--but not before starting the very last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).