A Much Less Frenetic Sunday: Church, an Iconic Indian Restaurant (The India Club), Tour of Benjamin Franklin’s House, Damien Hirst Exhibition at Phillips Gallery

A Much Less Frenetic Sunday: Church, an Iconic Indian Restaurant (The India Club), Tour of Benjamin Franklin’s House, Damien Hirst Exhibition at Phillips Gallery

Sunday, July 30, 2023

London

It was a real soaker of a day! After two blissfully sunshiny ones, I guess one ought to expect this sort of weather in London! Not that it dampened my spirit or enthusiasm.

I awoke early (about 4.30 am—still jetlagged and on Bombay time) to blog, edit and send off my photos and have an early shower while the rest of the household still slumbered. Breakfast was muesli with Greek yoghurt with honey and milk and a slice of buttered toast with blue cheese (Saint Agur—a favorite). Then, I felt sleepy again, slept for another 40 minutes, awoke in time to dress for church and leave the house for another adventurous day!

Church Service at St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge:

Sarah drove me in her little peppermint Fiat (looks like a Mini) to her weekly Sunday service in Knightsbridge where I have been before and expected to see my friends Michael and Cynthia, who also attend this church. En route, we picked up Ann Thompson, who, bizarrely and by a happy coincidence, happen to be the mother of Suzie Thompson, who was the partner for 17 years of Kadambhi Asalache, the Kenyan-poet and wood-carver whose home at 575 Wandsworth Road, had begun my exploration of London this time (on Friday). Ann (who is almost 90) gave me a lot more information about Kadambhi and her family’s association with him.

The service was said by the Vicar Allan Gayle and con-celebrated by a couple of other prelates. As always, I enjoy my attendance at Church of England services because they are fully absorbing from the get-go. The choir (singing a Mass by Hungarian composer Zoltan Khodaly, an associate of Bela Bartok) was simply stunning and there was not a moment for the mind to wander. The homily (as always) was superbly planned, drafted and delivered (please could these Anglican priests come and teach the Catholic clergy in India how to preach?) I loved every second of the Service (although, I will admit that they do seem to go on a tad too long—it was about 1 hour 20 minutes long).

As if this were not enough, there is an hour-long ‘Social Hour’ that follows every Sunday service over a very civilized glass of wine. I picked up a glass of white wine and joined in the conversation and, before I knew it, I was right in the throes of a discussion, with the Lector called Ben Furnival, who informed me that his ancestors were Empire-builders in India (they worked for the East India Company from the 17-19 centuries)! Realizing that the service and socializing took much longer than I had expected, I nixed my plans to go to the Tate Britain to see the Rosettis and instead (as my stomach was craving food and I had drunk a glass of wine on a practically empty stomach and was feeling a bit too buzzed for my liking), I had food on my mind.

Lunch at the Iconic India Club on the Strand:

I cannot believe that I had lived for over a year not even a mile from the Strand (at Holborn) and had never heard of this iconic India spot. In fact, I got to know about it only now that it is likely to close as I read an article about it on Twitter. Anyway, I could see why I had never even seen it before! It is located on a nondescript corner of the Strand, just adjoining Somerset House and the Courtald Gallery. You climb a flight of almost hidden rickety stairs to get to the first floor where the Bar is located and then one floor higher to the second floor to the Restaurant.

Upstairs, there are very modest wooden tables and chairs, dating from the mid-20th century, scattered in a horse-shoe shape. The menu is small and unimpressive. It offers standard Indian classics (dosas and chaat, North Indian butter chicken and South India fish curry). I decided to have a chicken dosa which was not bad at all although some might consider such a thing an abomination! It was served with sambar and chutney and was a bit heavy on the potatoes in the filling. The sweet waiter was Bangladeshi and he made small talk with me before revealing that the place is facing closure. On the walls are black and white photos of Nehru, Gandhi and Krishna Menon and these folks together with Jinnah often met here in pre-Independence days with a bunch of other UK-based journalists, including Chandran Tharoor, father of the statesman and my friend Shashi, to discuss the course of the Indian Independence Movement. It offered then (as it does today) inexpensive food for the belly even as it provided a venue for the dissemination of food for thought. (I paid about 9 pounds for my dosa and with a tip, it came to 12 pounds).

On to the Benjamin Franklin House:

Lunch done, I needed to walk down the Strand towards Charing Cross for the next item on my agenda: a visit to the only surviving home of the American Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin. I saw a bus come along and jumped into it for two stops (the better to save my legs and feet from unmitigated torture—they had already begun to protest).

36 Craven Street, where the house is located is right at the side of Charing Cross. It is a quiet, almost unknown corner of London, but it has gained fame from the fact that Franklin lived here for almost 30 years. He was born in 1706 and died in 1790—spanning the Long Eighteenth Century--and filled his lifetime with his endless interests and obsessions. A printer by profession, he arrived in London to create the Poor Farmer’s Almanac after having successfully produced the Philadelphia Gazette before leaving his ‘City of Brotherly Love’. In London, he rented rooms from Mrs. Margaret Peterson whose daughter Polly became his firm friend. Meanwhile, he had left his own wife and family back in the mother-country! Subsequently, Polly married a doctor called Hewson who was an anatomist. He dissected cadavers as part of his research and profession (many bones were found underground during recent renovation of the home in 1991). Franklin paid the equivalent of 2000 pounds/week today as rent for a whole floor of the house which consisted of about five rooms: a parlor, a bedroom, a living room, etc. His life was busy and included the comings and goings of many prominent personages of the era such as Thomas Paine for, among his many doings, Franklin was also a diplomat whose efforts engineered good relations between Crown and Colony. He was distressed by the waste of the Boston Tea Party and served as one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Meanwhile, he found the time to invent bi-focal glasses (Thanks Ben!), a lighting conductor, to found the University of Pennsylvania (from across the Atlantic!), to write books and correspond prolifically with a number of people, etc.

The house is empty and had, in fact, gone to seed being unoccupied for over twenty years; but it was resurrected by Friends of Franklin, a group that funded its refurbishment. It reopened in 2006 to the public as a private home and tends to attract American visitors more than others. Because it is empty, it is necessary to create visual interest through the hour-long tour. Hence, an actress plays Polly Stevenson. She tells the story of her association with one of the greatest minds of the 18th century’s Age of Enlightenment! She is costumed and wigged and she acts quite well indeed as slides are projected on the walls and sound effects bring the era to life. Actually quite well done, overall. Star spangled banners and bunting on the exterior proclaim the American presence on this street in which a few time-ravaged, 18th century Georgian houses still survive..

It had been a day of continuous rain and it had subsided (thankfully!) to a gentle drizzle when the tour ended and I met my friends Murali and Nina Menon who had just finished seeing the ‘After Impressionism” exhibition at the National Gallery and were able to get to my site very easily.

Hot Chocolate with Friends at Café Cornetto:

Deciding to take a bus to Berkeley Square (the next item on my agenda), we jumped into one going to Green Park. We had about an hour to spend together and decided on a cuppa at a café. Luckily, we spied a Café Cornetto (which has a distinctly Viennese coffee house ambience) and stepped in there. Over hot chocolate and herbal tea and a plate of French fries with mayo and ketchup, we gabbed away, catching up on goings-on in all our lives. Somehow, don’t ask how, the time flew and while the steady drizzle continued outside, it was lovely to stay dry indoors with huge cups of hot chocolate and fun conversation. I first got to know Murali, over 14 years ago, when he had begun following my Blog. Because he too is a huge fan of London’s history, art and cultural scene, he began giving me recommendations for things to do and places to see. Today, he and his wife Nina are firm friends of mine and I was highly appreciative of the fact that they came to Central London and fitted in a visit with me all the way from Wimbledon on such a wet Sunday.

On to the Damien Hirst Exhibition:

Less than an hour later, we walked out of the café and into the rain. Murali and Nina walked with me to the Phillips Gallery on Berkeley Square where I found the Damien Hirst Exhibition that I was dying to see. Entitled “Where the Land Meets the Sea’, it is inspired by his stay in Margate on the Kentish Coast. It consists of a series of oil-painted canvasses (all of which look entirely the same and did not appeal too much to me) and two black and white series of Sea Scapes and Sea Paintings (which I found much more interesting). In fact, the series called Sea Scapes were so realistic that I actually had to go within an inch of them to ascertain that they were not photographs! On the other hand, the Sea Paintings were a return to his abstract expressionism with big blobs of paint in an almost monochromatic black, white and grey palette making up the entire story. Prices were jaw-dropping, ranging from $1 million for the large oil canvasses to $100,000 for the 12X12 inch version. The black and white paintings of the sea ranged from $350,000-500,000 and it almost made me wish I had some spare change lying around. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to see a retrospective of the work of Tracey Emin at the Hayward Gallery. With this partial retrospective of the work of Hirst, I have seen the oeuvre of the two ‘enfants terribles’ of the contemporary British art scene.

Getting Back to Battersea:

I used the facilities at the Gallery and then thought about getting back home as the Gallery closed at 6.00 pm. I walked in the continuous drizzle across Berkeley Square (there is a BBC TV series of the same name that I own) and arrived at Green Park Tube Station from where I took the Victoria Line to Victoria and then found the 44 bus outside the coach station to bring me back to Sarah’s home.

There was time for me then to pack up all my things and put them together before Roz arrived with her car to take me to her place for the next four nights. Sarah brought me a gin and tonic and a glass of rose wine for the two of them and we sat with delicious nibbles: fontina cheese sticks with Procuitto wrapped around, prawn cocktail in canape cases and pistachios. (I have learned from the British how important it is to keep cocktail nibbles light—only then can one do justice to a meal). We gabbed for a bit about theatre, literature and movies before it was time for us to say goodbye. I will be seeing Sarah again for the play (The Patriots) on Wednesday night.

Roz then helped me load my cases into her car and off we went to Simpson Street where she lives, just a couple of blocks away. At her place we sat watching the Antiques Roadshow with Fiona Bruce which we both love. It was located at Ham House in Richmond (a National Trust property that I have visited) and over Roz’s lovely dinner of mushroom ravioli with a light tomato sauce and a salad, we had a lovely cozy dinner while watching the show.

It was a much less crazy day today but I think my feet and knees are thanking me. I hope I will have more cooperative weather tomorrow and that I will be able to stay with my agenda.

Until tomorrow…cheerio!