This and that...

India at Booker 2008

2008-11-08T09:14:00.001-08:00

It has been ages since I last wrote a blog entry. I have travelled a little since the end of April which was when I typed in my last post; a few of those trips, the ones to Cornwall and Granada, were largely successful, whereas the one to Wales was a disaster, with the law of averages catching up with me and the skies opening up for the entire duration of my visit to that Western country of Great Britain.

Now, as it turns colder by the day, and sometimes getting warner by the day, but, in general terms, getting definitely colder, I am happy to be lazy in the warmth afforded by the commendable heating in my room, and read novels, most of which were purchased for a steal from The Book People. And it is on my readings that this scrap will focus on, and the topic I have chosen for myself is the Man Booker Prize 2008, which was awarded ultimately to the magazine columnist and debutant novelist Aravind Adiga, originally from my home town: the city of Chennai (erstwhile Madras) in the South East coast of India. More specifically, I am going to write about three novels, all describing India, of the present, of 150 years ago and of the 17th century. One of the three won the Booker award, another made the shortlist and the third failed to make the shortlist to the surprise of many but not all. In writing this entry, every effort is made not to reveal anything that would spoil the pleasure of anyone reading or planning to read any of the novels discussed below. In fact, the only step I will take towards that end is to say not much more than what one can gather by reading the inner side of the front flap of the hardback editions of these novels.

Book 1: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Atlantic Books: a powerful indictment of the two Indias of today - one of the cities and the other of the "Darkness", of the remote villages, one village whose blessing or the scourge is the muck of the holy Ganges; one of the rich, bribery-capable "entrepreneurs" and of the "drivers", who are not employed only as drivers - "the rich don't have drivers, cooks, barbers and tailors. They simply have servants". The author does seem to pass on a message to his readers - the infectivity of corruption and bribery, a way of life whose web does not let escape the progressive master just returned to India following progressive education in the progressive USA or the naive driver, or rather servant, from the Darkness. The interactions between the progressive master, his corrupt-to-the-root brother and the naive servant and his community of other, for want of a better word, satanic servants are dealt with with exceptional sensitivity and make for pulsating reading. The novel is set in the form of a letter being written by The White Tiger, the freak servant of the progressive master, to the Chinese Premier prior to the latter's visit to India. I read a customer review somewhere - probably Amazon - that said that this aspect of the novel rings rather untrue. I beg to differ from this opinion because I strongly feel that this is the defining aspect of the novel - an Indian individual, who has seen both sides of the India in the course of a couple of affecting decades, writing to the Premier of the country's neighbour, which is seen as his own country's competitor, about what lies underneath the glossy cover pages of India. Having said that, I am not sure that the novel is creative enough, or "literary enough" (the latter is pardonable since it is the writing of a poorly educated former servant and now entrepreneur) to have won what is probably the most prestigious award for a work of fiction. It is more a spiced up documentary and notwithstanding the excellent presentation, the story itself holds no surprises. Further - this may be seen as a strength or a liability depending on your own view of things - there is not a single character in the novel with whom I am able to sympathise. According to the Booker committee 2008, this was the best novel coming out of the Commonwealth in 2008. It is definitely a very good one - underline the very - but I would have been very disappointed if none of the other shortlisted books were any better, in terms of creativity and its ability to pull me into the story, forcing me to gobble up page after page, hurtling towards a much-anticipated climax, irrespective of the number of pages to be consumed in getting there, while not compromising on the beauty of the language that is the medium of communication. Hoping against hope, I opened the other India book to have made the shortlist..

Book 2: Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (Part I, Ibis Trilogy), John Murray: A terrific historic novel based largely in Bengal and the "Black Water" of the Bay of Bengal: what lies beyond where the Ganges ends in the Sunderban estuary, bringing together a colourful cast of native, English and French characters and men born for sailing. This novel is an epic: it runs for nearly 500 pages of a tall hardback, but once you start reading it, you cannot but go through it and wrap it up in two days and hope that the author brings out the second book of the planned trilogy soon. It is founded on the first of the Opium Wars by which the West forced China to accept import of Opium, produced in the factories of Eastern India, which was, as I gather from another source, the second largest source of cash for the East India Company in India after land revenue. The novel tells the story of Ibis, the once slave-transporting double-masted schooner bought by the leading Opium trader in India, a Mr. Burnham; it tells the story of Deeti, a woman married to an impotent worker at an Opium factory and whose "shrine" documents the many characters and inanimate objects of the novel in the form of caricatures and Kalua, a giant of a man belonging to a very low caste; it tells the story of Paulette, the daring daughter of a deceased French botanist, her "brother" Jodhu, a genial boatman and Zachary who is the survivor, metamorphosing from a "Black" to the Second Mate of Ibis; it tells the story of Neel, a bankrupt, convicted and disgraced Zemindar and his fellow-convict, the Parsee-Chinese called Ah Fatt; and it tells the story of the probably schizophrenic Gomusta, Baboo Nob Kissin and his search for Krishna. And all their tales are intertwined and linked together by Opium, caste-based and religious tensions in the community and profiteering from the trafficking of migrant workers. I do not want to say any more for the fear of leaking out more than I should - I have already named more characters than what you would get to gather from the story's official gist - and would leave you to buy or borrow the book, read it and long, as I do, for Mr. Ghosh to finish his next novel. And I take vain pride in the success of the novel and the thrill and enjoyment it gave me as Mr. Ghosh went to Oxford on the same scholarship (given by the Inlaks Foundation, India) that I got for my first one year of pre-PhD stay in Cambridge - never mind the fact that he won the scholarship three decades before I did! Two novels of India in the shortlist, but how can we forget one of the pre-shortlist favourites for the Booker, Sir Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, which ended up not getting anywhere close to making top Six?

Book 3: Salman Rushrie, The Enchantress of Florence, Jonathan Cape: a cross-cultural poem, seeing parallels, contrasts and interactions straddling generations between the Mughal Court of Akbar and the tumultous Florence of Niccollo Machiavelli. One sentence from this novel reads as follows - "language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough": the same should hold true of the language that flows out of the author's pen. Many reviews have been critical of the novel, for its exposition of the author's command over the language while sacrificing the pace of the story. I could agree with these critics that this novel could have been much shorer than its 350 pages, but would it have still retained the magic or its enchantment over the reader of my mentality? No. While making it absolutely clear that I do not believe that any lesser language would have done justice to the medley of thoughts in the mind of Akbar relating to his own vanity, freedom of expression, faith and his lust for his own creation: the imaginary queen Jodha, I must also go on record that at least the early chapters of Part II, dealing with Florence and the "Three Friends" could have been more concise. Beautiful is the very opening of the book describing the lake of Fatehpur Sikri - a lake which is not to be ignored by the reader - under the golden light of the setting sun, which also sees the introduction of the golden-haired traveller from Florence who seeks to find a home for himself while opening the Pandora's box of the tale of the Enchantress of Florence. The Enchantress is the fictional lost sister of Babar, Qara Koz, who leaves everyone in the wake of her youth in Persia, Turkey and Florence enchanted by her beauty, leading to the invention of tales of her sorcery and healing powers. Not just these foreign worlds that she physically enchanted, but also the city of Sikri that knows only her tale, the particularly talented painter of the court and the Emperor who is already prone to fancies and is not "content with being". Enchanting are the passages in which the above mentioned painter draws and falls in love with Qara Koz even as the tale is narrated by the foreigner. The novel is amazingly creative, effortlessly merging history with the fable to such an extent that at many points I had to search Wikipedia to make sure that what I believed was fact was fact and what was fiction was fiction. Such is the power of Sir Salman's writing and me saying any thing more about it would amount to sacrilege!

Now, the Booker Committee decided to totally ignore the Enchantress, not being impressed with those qualities that left the Great Mughal in a trance, and consider The White Tiger a better novel than Sea of Poppies and the other shortlisted books (which I am yet to read). Their decision is fully respected and I am fully aware that objectivity in judgement of art is nearly impossible. However, I am not sure that my own subjective judgement agree with that of the committee. If I were to pass a judgement on these three novels - I state once again that I have not read the other four novels in the shortlist - I would rank them as follows:

1. Sea of Poppies
2. The Enchantress of Florence
3. The White Tiger

Sea of Poppies pipping the Enchantress because the latter lost its grip over me in the middle few chapters while Sea of Poppies never did and this weighs heavier in my mind than the victory that Enchantress achieves in the spell cast by a poetic writing style.

To the Lakes of England (5)

2008-04-17T14:23:00.001-07:00

Man, it has been a while and I have taken a couple of trips to Norfolk and I am yet to be done with my Lake District blog. And I have a long way to go, yet!! And I better finish before I go on my next trip to the Lakes, the coming Friday! This one is going to be quick - just a summary of a guided bus tour of 10 lakes organised by Mountain Goat Bus Tours, Windermere.

The guide was Alan, a teacher of radio communications, and a passionate Lakelander. The bus arrived to pick me up from beckmead, bang on time, and then headed off towards this swanky hotel where some of my to-be copassengers, also Indians, were staying. Once they were safely on board, the bus passed through Troutbeck and we got to see Beatrix Potter's Troutbeck farm nestled as cosy as it can be in the valley.

Our next stop of interest was Kirkstone Pass, highest road pass in this region, and called so because of a certain church-shaped stone; and churches are called Kirks in Scotland, apparently!

Following that, we went over to Ullswater, considered by a section of the population as the most beautiful of the lakes; fact is that it is the second largest of the English lakes. At that time of the day, and given that we did not have too much time to explore this lake in detail, I did not find it sufficiently appealing.

From there, we went straight to the North Lakes, absorbing gorgeous views of the lonely Blencathra and the smooth Skiddaw mountains. And then to Castlerigg stone circle; one of those God knows what things set up by ancient beings; or by aliens, as some people believe (no comment!). Seriously, I wonder why this stone circle was built here, in the most gorgeous of locations with some of the best views around! Whatever the reason, whoever had the opportunity to sit there for a while and do whatever they liked, with no pressure except avoid being eaten by wild animals, was damn lucky!

This was followed by lunch in Keswick, then a cruise on Derwentwater lake, a view over Derwentwater from what is called Surprise View (also due to a sudden drop down into the valley if you are stupid!).

Then driving down Borrowdale - the most beautiful valley in England - we reached Honister Slate Mine. Here is what is called Honister Pass, which is quite narrow and looked rather brooding, under the stormy clouds.

The rest of it was rather fast; we saw Buttermere (quick snapshot below) and Crummock water, two rather lovely lakes that could be photographically exploited under the right light, Bassenthwaite lake, the only "real lake" in the Lake District (whatever that means), through Winlatter forest and then back to the South Lakes, Grasmere and Rydal - two villages where William Wordsworth resided!

And then back to Windermere, for some after-dusk shots of the lake!

To the Lakes of England (4)

2008-04-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Finally, I have forced myself to write part IV of this series. So, where was I? Ah yes, I set off on the walk from the Tourist Information Centre supposedly towards Orrest Head. But, as has become rather too usual with me, I got the route wrong and ended up walking back and forth a main road, trying to find some sort of a footpath that would lead me uphill. I finally found it, behind brightly coloured iron railings - this was much to my chagrin, as the guide I had with me directed the reader to walk behind those very iron railings. Now, what matters is that I found the footpath and started on my leisurely climb. The footpath took me along sheltered tree-lined paths that largely insulated me from the somewhat hostile weather out in the open.

It was not until I entered what looked like a picnic spot with wooden benches that I realised that the weather, which appeared to be clearing earlier, had gone back to the familiar state of dense clouds, drizzle and strong winds. It meant, from a photographic point of view, that I was faced with a situation that was new to me - shooting in weather that is very far from ideal. In a way, worse was to come, as this picnic spot was still not entirely out in the open - just that it offered a vantage point from which one could see Windermere and the hills around it through some clearing in the woods. I took a couple of snaps here that hopefully illustrates the poor contrast of the distant views.

And soon I realised that the very consumer Sigma lens I was carrying was making things far worse than they really were (nothing I could not work around later on the computer, but I was not sure when I took the shots) and I changed over to the old manual focus Nikkor 35-105mm lens - I wanted to use a telephoto range lens since I was shooting well into the distance. This lens immediately seemed to do better and I felt relieved that my first results with the Sigma were not entirely due to my limitations as a photographer!

Soon after, I came to a point where a few steps of a relatively steep climb brought me to the open Orrest Head and I immediately came face-to-face with the full force of the weather, which I would now call nasty. There were a few people already there, but as the wind seemed to be picking up and the drizzle getting heavier, they decided it was not worth it, leaving me alone with the elements. I set up my tripod - in the process, I had to remove my skiing gloves, thus letting my skin interact directly with the chilly wind; and the wind just blew the gloves away and I had to run after it a few steps downhill on the side opposite to that I had climbed in order to retrieve it. I am glad that I was successful in getting it back; otherwise the rest of the evening would have been miserable! With the tripod in place and the Nikon D50 safely fixed on to it (I decided not to get the Nikon F100 out in all this miserable weather), I set about capturing low contrast images showing views over lake Windermere on one side and some greener valleys on the other. The shots over Windermere presented a particularly frustrating problem of having to wipe the front element of the lens every few seconds: the drizzle was falling at an angle and towards the camera. God knows how many times I had to wipe the lens dry, but I did it and managed to take some shots including those of "God's finger" breaking out through the dense clouds!

Despite the stormy weather, and may be because of it, and definitely because of being the only one taking in the sights at that moment, a strong feeling of independence and incorruptible and insuppressible power seemed to rise in me - an unexplainable feeling of exhilaration! That did not last wrong: as if pricking a balloon full of air with a pin this chap came running hard and fast up the hill wearing only a T-shirt and short pants with his fit dog and passed downhill on the other side in no time! Pffffffffffftttt!

Soon it was time to return to the guest house, and on the way back I had a lunner or whatever they call it - the evening equivalent of the early afternoon brunch! As I walked back, the cloud cleared - a state of weather that was largely constant over the next days - and that meant I had to take a walk again, a low-level walk to the lake. And that is what I did after having dumped most of my kit in my room and taking only the D50 with the 35-105mm lens and the tripod. I walked to this little mound called Queen Adelaide's hill for some simple view of Windermere and the mountains beyond under a sky glowing in the twilight sun.

On climbing down from this hill, I walked to a nearby jetty and bagged a few slow-speed snaps that make the lake look like a could of vapour; later I realised that, due to the winds that had not quite calmed down, there was substantial shake in most of these images, and hence a visit to the same location on another day was going to be essential.

Then, on the walk back to the guest house, I took a crappy shot of a waterfall that I could only just see in the overpowering darkness.

Finally, back in the guest house I set about transferring and digitally processing my pictures of the day!

To the Lakes of England (3)

2008-03-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

I walked on to the streets of Windermere, my hefty jacket wetted by the drizzle. I was not exactly sure how far Beckmead Guest House was from the station and so I took a taxi and it is worth mentioning here that I did not have to pay more than the minimum fare and I was already outside the central areas of this little town. My initial impressions of the town itself, even if one discounts the weather, were not particularly impressive. It was clearly touristy with guest houses and restaurants lining the its few streets, and I was rather convinced there would be very little local flavour to savour, in contrast to the quaint Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, something I guessed right

Beckmead Guesthouse is run by an old lady, who reminded me immediately of Verna, who was my first landlady in England, and for that matter, outside India. As with most English places, the house was fully carpeted: I generally hate carpets, but at least the ones here were soft and furry and did not irritate me in any way. The room was small and sufficient and neat and well supplied with ingredients for making coffee, tea and hot chocolate. There was also a TV, which I did not put to much use anyway.

I was not planning to sit around in the room doing nothing, even in this weather, and accordingly stepped out, mentally charting out my plan of action for the day. I first went over to Mountain Goat tours, with whom I had booked my bus tour for the next day, and made sure everything was alright. I also wanted to go to Wastwater and Eskdale, which were not easily accessed by public transport from Windermere. But Mountain Goat were running a daily bus tour to these remote areas and I booked myself on this trip for the Sunday. That done, I walked over to the nearby Tourist Information Centre and took a local map and some advice on where to walk that afternoon. All the while, the weather appeared to be clearing slowly - definite breaks were appearing in the clouds and the drizzle was no longer incessant. For once, I had to admire the weather forecasters: this was almost exactly as predicted by the Lake District Weatherline a day or two earlier. Even though the town failed to impress me, as the weather started to somewhat clear, I took a couple of snapshots for the record.

I was now ready, armed with my cameras and lenses and the tripod fixed to my Karrimor rucksack, to take the walk up to the Orrest Head viewpoint at 784ft and less than a mile walk from the Tourist Information Centre. And not without apprehension about what the weather would do to my photographic ambitions and even if, in the rain, I would be able to enjoy exhilarating views of the Lakeland 'fells' from this 'view-point'. The only way to answer these questions was to go up to Orrest Head and I did just that.

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (2)

2008-03-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

The day dawned and I was waiting for the taxi that would take me to the train station. It was 5 minutes past the time the taxi was supposed to arrive and I was still waiting. Worried, I called the taxi company and was told they had got the address wrong - Chestnut road instead of Chesterton road. When i called them to make my booking, I gave my address once and there was no confirmation. Given that and my accent, I am not surprised that they got it wrong. But all is well that ends well: a replacement taxi arrived the next minute, impressing me, and five minutes later I was at the train station, well in time for my train.

A word on the weather would be appropriate here: "crap". It was dull, grey and there was every prospect of rain. And it could only be worse in the Lakes: afterall, with saturated clouds from the Atlantic hitting against its mountains, which are the tallest in England, this region is supposed to receive a large amount of rainfall. I kept shaking my head so many times during the morning, looking up at the sky and largely seeing not so much of a break in the thick grey blanket of rain clouds. And it was cold. But I was wearing my newest acquisition - a rather heavy and thick jacket meant for the mountains, and hence, I am not entirely justified in complaining about the chill. Here, it would be appropriate to quote a fellow passenger on one of the trains who commented we were going to have a "Siberian Easter".

I will conclude this blog entry with a few comments on the train ride.

As I got on the train the first thing I noticed was a lack of space for large items of luggage. I have traveled by train in England many times, but this was the first I was traveling with so much luggage and I must say, it was tricky to get everything suitably positioned. And if one compares the situation here with the space in Indian trains, you have no comparison really! I cannot, in my wildest dreams, see anyone comfortably placing the large trunk boxes that often go on Indian trains in the English ones.

I had to take four trains during the journey; Cambridge to Nuneaton, Nuneaton to Crewe, Crewe to Oxenholme and a local train between Oxenholme and Windermere. The first two trains ran on time, but the one between Crewe and Oxenholme was delayed by 15 minutes. And given that I was supposed to wait only for 10 minutes at Oxenholme for the train to Windermere, I was justified in deciding that I was going to miss my connection and end up waiting another hour. Luckily, this was not the case. In fact, the train to Windermere was also late because it was caught behind the delated service I was on!

All said and done, I arrived at Windermere station at about half past one, facing the bleak prospect of a grey holiday!

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (1)

2008-03-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Over Easter, I went to the Lake District National Park, in the English county of Cumbria, in what is the considered the most beautiful corner of England. In this series of blog posts I will share my experiences that might inform the uninitiated as to why William Wordsworth thought the lake district were more beautiful than the Alps despite the English mountains being upwardly challenged! In this first part, I will write about the plans I made for my trip and nothing about the trip itself.

I decided to go to the Lake District for Easter, way back in January, when I was still on my Christmas-New Year holiday in Chennai. I made my first plans, looking for train or coach routes and hotels in early February. And finding a Bed & Breakfast with a vacant single room was already proving to be difficult though I was searching more than 6 weeks ahead of my proposed trip. The booking process involved one whole week of evening web browsing and one failed attempt at booking one in Keswick, in the North Lakes - and all this when I could have just called the Tourist Information Centre and asked them to make a booking for me! Following this I was forced to shift my base to Windermere town, on the shores of Windermere lake, the longest in England. I was going to stay in Beckmead Gust House here. I would be staying here from Thursday, 20th March to Monday, 24th March.

Then I purchased my train tickets including seat reservations where possible. I made a particular note of getting seats reserved following the rather frustrating experience at London's Paddington station durin Easter last year that put paid to my plans of travelling to Penzance and Land's End in Cornwall.

I then booked myself on a bus tour of ten of the lakes, run by Mountain Goat bus tours. I expected this to give me a good overview of the sights in the National Park that I could investigate in more detail later on this trip or future trips. But otherwise, I felt overwhelmed by the options at my disposal - I was faced with the problem of too many! How did I tackle this problem? Did I really enjoy my trip? And most importantly, was the Weather God favourable - the forecast looked bleak the day before I was to leave!

(to be continued)

John Constable's subject

2008-03-11T13:56:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, it was time to take it a bit easy and not travel too far. So I decided to go to Stour Valley or Dedham Vale, also called Constable country, for this was the inspiration to a British painter from two centuries ago whose set his massive, and beautiful six-foot canvases depicted scenes from this region. To be frank, I had not heard of John Constable until I read about him somewhere on the net last week, and had not seen his works until I saw them in a National Trust Exhibition in Flatford, an idlyllic village in Dedham Vale. All right, to the story from the beginning.

The weather forecast was no good - surprise, surprise! And when I went to bed on Friday night, I was not sure if I would go anywhere. My initial plan was to be there by 8AM, which would be about an hour and a half after sunrise. Appropriately I woke up at 4:30 in the morning only to see a rather evil forecast for the whole day. I just cannot remember what really went through my head those few minutes except that I went back to bed. Definitely, given a terribly cloudy day, there would be no point in going anywhere that early in the morning!! And anyway, I dont think I even intended to go there even later on in the day at that moment. But, you know, you can never predict what will happen - I woke up at 9:15 in the morning and at 10:30 found myself stomping along with my complete digital kit and tripod towards the train station. It did not matter that I was starting so late for my destination was rather close to home, in the nearby county of Suffolk and just about an hour and a half away by train.

Alright, I took the train from Cambridge to Ipswich and then on to Manningtreee which was where I started on the National Trust-recommended walk to Flatford village. The first sight of interest was a field full of sheep in the foreground, various representations of the hand of Man in the middle ground and a stormy-looking sky in the background. Snap!

Further along the walk, there was a fenced off region where some of the largest specimen of cows were grazing. Among these was a particularly massive and menacing, but stupid-looking, individual who must have decided my intentions were not holy and decided to keep an eye on me even as I studiously kept to the way-marked foot path making sure I did not make any sudden or calculated detours that would take me any closer to this herd of cattle. Whereas, under different circumstances I might have considered photographing these characters, I decided it would not be wise to do so while under this humongous animal's surveillance.

The walk then leads to the Cattawade marshes on the Stour estuary offering intriguing views of reeds, water, wooden gates and fences in various stages of disrepair and high pylons. It is also supposed to be good for bid watching, but as is usual with me, I saw not a single interesting one.

The next point of interest on this walk is Flatford itself. It is a very pretty village with row boats and ducks on the river, quaint little houses and a small bridge across the river. There is also a National Trust tearoom which sells good fruit scones!

Then there were two options - I could either walk back along the same route to Manningtree or go further on to Dedham, a village on the Essex side of the Suffolk-Essex border. I took the second option for I thought I had all the time in the world. This leg of the walk was mostly uninteresting - there are supposed to be panoramic views of the Stour Valley from a relatively high point along this route, but just one week after being on top of Hope Valley and also under a dull grey sky and somewhat wet weather, the panoramic views did not turn out as enchanting as they were supposed to me. May be one would get a better impression on a clearer, dry day well into Spring or in Autumn. However, I got to walk along some very nice tree-lined footpaths, which despite not offering great photo ops, allowed me to switch off and soak in the calm and quiet atmosphere.

Just as I was about to enter Dedham, I saw a boat house and a few boats that I obviously photographed.

I am unable to write much about my impressions of this small village here because of the following reason: I just dont have any, or rather, did not have enough time to form an impression. Read on!

It was when I entered Dedham that I realised how lucky I was! I was there just in time to catch the last bus that would take me to any kind of a town from where I could take a train that would somehow take me back to Cambridge. I did catch the bus that went to Colchester train station from where I took the train towards Peterborough, got off at Bury St. Edmunds and changed to the train to Cambridge. If I had been a few minutes late, I would have to take the walk back to Manningtree and given that it was turning a bit too wet, it would not have been the ideal situation, never mind the fact that the return route would have been substantially shorter.

(See http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/DedhamVale for more pictures and http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-flatfordbridgecottage/w-flatfordbridgecottage-walk.htm for more information)

Light in the Hope Valley

2008-03-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

This Saturday was one with a difference. The difference was not because I decided not to travel - I did travel, but, for the first time, I went on a guided walk. And, this was also the first time I was in the heart of a National Park - the three earlier trips being to the fringes of different NPs. That said, I will describe the day from the beginning.

I did not have a great night, I must say. I was unable to find sleep till it was half-an-hour past midnight and I had to wake up at four thirty in order to be ready to take my train. And it turned out to be a windy night; I do not know how strong the winds were, but I know that they were strong enough and lasted long enough to slow down my North-bound trains in the morning. I could hear the wind whistling inside the permanently closed Victorian fire-place in my room. On a different day, I would have just decided to call off the trip and curl up under my warm (and sometimes hot) duvet. But not today! Fortune favours the brave, they say! I decided to be brave and went to the train station, as usual.

I was headed to Hathersage, a little village in the Hope Valley, on the railway line between Manchester and Sheffield. My first train, at 5:50 in the morning, was from Cambridge to Peterborough. From there I was to take the train to Edinburgh and get off at Doncaster, then transfer to a train to Sheffield. From Sheffield, it was 15 minutes in a local train to Hathersage. Just before my first train arrived at Hathersage, some official in the train came and told us that there were some power failures north of Peterborough and we should expect problems. Good start to the day, I thought! But the problem was not as difficult as I imagined it to be. The winds were strong and as a result, the train towards Edinburgh could not run as fast as it should and ended up reaching Doncaster about 20 minutes behind schedule, which meant that I missed the train I was supposed to take to Sheffield. But luckily, Doncaster and Sheffield are well connected to each other and there was a train just leaving in another 10 minutes or so and I took it. This train would reach Sheffield just five-six minutes, if it ran on time, before my local train into the Hope Valley was to leave. It did run on time, Congratulations! And still I had to walk as fast as I could in order to find and get to the platform from where my train would leave. And all is well that ends well. Soon I was standing on the platform at Hathersage station, waiting for 10AM to arrive so that we could get on with the walk.

At this time, things did not look rosy at all! It was gray and there was an incessant drizzle falling and being driven on to my face by the wind, which was not as wild as it was earlier in the day. It was under these circumstances that the walk leader, John Howson and the walking group organisers (TransPeak Walks, http://www.transpeakwalks.co.uk), Peter Wild and Angela Ritchie, came to pick us up, on time. John had even brought a couple of nice dogs too! One thing that I immediately noticed was that out of the 20 odd people joining the walk, no one except me seemed to be under 40 and I am under 40 by a long way (phew!). To see relatively old people going on walks along cliffs (albeit not high) on a blustery morning was amazing to me.

Our first stop was in Hathersage village, just to give people some time to visit the restrooms if required. At this time, I got talking to Peter, who kindly offered to take my tripod and attach it to a special provision in his rucksack (I have made a mental note to get a bag of that kind for my future trips). And given the time I had, during the walk, to take pictures, I never once felt the need to use the tripod on this day. And once people were ready we set up on our walk. We walked along the village streets where I got my first view of the greens before cutting on to the grassland and muddy paths.

The first object of interest was what is called the Bronte Cottage, for the literary Bronte sisters (Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre). I cannot recollect why this cottage is called so, but it was only a non-descript and run-down little structure. But close to this cottage is North Lees Hall, which is thought to be the inspiration for Thornfield Hall, which features in Jane Eyre.

After viewing these buildings from the outside, we continued on our walk along paths on pretty woodlands and the valley towards Long Causeway, which is the ruin of an old cliff-top Roman road, and Stanage Edge, which I had read earlier affords some exceptionally beautiful views of the Hope Valley. The walk is definitely not the easiest and is not suitable for wheelchairs - there are too many stiles to cross. But, what really made my day was the fact that the grey clouds had started clearing and streaks of sunlight was lighting up the valley. And I just had to look over my shoulders to be graced by this view.

Soon, we were on the path with a gentle incline and on to Stanage Edge. Stanage Edge is a 3.5 mile long gritstone escarpment that overlooks the Hope Valley. The Long Causeway Roman road is just somewhere near the mid-point of the edge. It is not very high - at only about 30 meters - but attracts a number of rock climbers. (I was told that some students in Sheffield University learn rock climbing just because they are not too far off from Stanage). And we did see many of them, some of them even taking shelter from strong winds in little caves on the rock face.

While walking along the cliff, I was able to take some telephoto shots of the valley floor, with the combination of the clouds and the sun orchestrating a special performance of lighting up patches of the valley, while leaving other areas in shadow. This is what I would call picturesque and amenable to some creative Black and White conversions as well. What one gets to see is the gritstone rock outcrops of the Stanage Edge forming strange and sometimes funny shapes in the foreground and beyond is all the magic of the beautifully lighted and green valley floor. It not being a very clear day, the distant valleys appear to be mired in mist, offering only low contrast views through the curtain of sun light formed where there is a break in the clouds. Of interest is what I learnt - that the landscape that had unfolded in front of my eyes was not all natural, but was a product of a thousand years of human activity, sheep farming in particular.

Soon it was time for lunch. I was not going to spend my time eating food while there was some good light, strong foreground, middle-ground and background to be photographed. And, having shifted to my wide-angle lens, I set about taking a number of pictures, some of which were to my satisfaction. It is also worth mentioning that though it was dry by now, it had rained earlier and so the grass had retained water and this water was being sprayed around by the wind to such heights and with such a force I had not imagined anything less than a cyclone to possess.

Post lunch, we started on our walk downhill and back towards Hathersage village. While walking along the plains, one again had to just turn back to catch lovely views of a pair of peaks rising above the ground, one seemingly covered in green and the other in drier brown! And that too with the storm clouds having largely withdrawn and with some fluffy white clouds floating around under an otherwise blue sky. A sight to behold!

Finally, on the walk back we also went to a small church which is where Little John of Robin Hood and Co. is supposed to be buried.

I must say that during this walk, I got chatting to Peter and Angela, the organisers of this walking group. And following the walk, we went for a coffee together and then they took me on a car ride through other towns of the valley, Hope and Castleton, before dropping me off at the Edale train station from where I took the train back to Sheffield. During this car ride I did get a brief overview of various aspects of the Peak District and its attractions. And I would definitely visit the Peaks again, on a more-than-a-day trip, possibly in the third week of April, when there will be a Peak Distrct Walking Festival going on there! And I could join in on another of TransPeak Walks guided trek.

For more pictures, see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/PeaksHope_valleyStanage_edge and http://www.flickr.com/photos/achoos/sets/72157604048026345/. The latter has only a selection of my personal favourites. Write to me if you like any of the original hires images, which have had some more attention from me since they were uploaded to the above album.

To the Yorkshire Dales

2008-02-25T13:03:00.001-08:00

Three in Three!! Three day trips on three consecutive Saturdays! A personal record at least, if not more. Last week, it was time to go North again, this time to Richmond near the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This is a Georgian town that is easily accessible by a combination of bus and train. All that you do is go to the Cambridge train station, buy your ticket to Darlington. Then take the train to Peterborough, direct or via Ely, and then jump on the National Express East Coast train (formerly GNER) towards Edinburgh / Glasgow / New Castle and jump off it in Darlington station. Then you take a shady-looking staircase and get to a street where you can catch the X27, a fast bus service to Richmond. In total it takes less than four hours! Perfect! And that is what I did. My first train (to Ely) was at 06:32 in the morning and I was in Richmond at about 10:20.

The first thing that struck me about Richmond was that it was clearly a market town. It does not require something of the scale of an expedition to the North Pole to find that out. The X27 coach stop is right in the market square. The town was, in a way, unsettling. Here was a Georgian market town with some really venerable looking, but not pretty, buildings and at the same time you could see a whole lot of modern shops, all in one go. Why should that make it any different from Cambridge? Cambridge is as much a hotch-potch of history and the modern! Very simple. As I stood in the market square, right after getting off the bus, I was in what was a very open space and the contrast was just a bit too obvious to the eye. Very well, I would rather not get into trouble waffling about these thoughts, but rather get back to business.

Business! Whenever I travel, I start my business at the nearest Tourist Information Centre. One generally finds old lady volunteers there who are particularly efficient in pointing to the right guide leaflets and suggesting places to visit, given the time available to you. And it was no different here. The only difference was that the weather was crappy. I generally travel in fine weather, with nice blue skies and warm temperatures. It was not cold here, by any standard except the tropical one, but the sky was a dull grey and it was windy. And the wind brought with it droplets of water that struck my face pretty much continuously. These are minor things anyway and would hardly deter me from walking around the countryside with my cameras and kit. I came out of the centre armed with a minimal map of Richmond marked with public footpaths. In my mind were those walks that the volunteer had pointed out as particularly worth taking.

Even as I am writing this, I am taking a look at the crumpled piece of paper containing the map that was given to me by the lady at the Tourist Information Centre. I will definitely not win an award for map reading - I might, for completely misreading maps. This was made very clear as I kept studying the map and walked in a direction that was completely opposite to that I was supposed to take. But at least, not being a complete dumbo, I was able to realize my mistake and get back on track. And once I realised I was walking in the opposite direction, it was rather easy to retrace my steps and go in the other direction without the help of the map at all. Cool! Though I must say that some of the streets that I came across on this walk looked completely adverse to anybody's well being, like the one pictured below!

Then I was headed towards the Castle Walk. Richmond has a castle, believed to have been constructed soon after the 1066 Norman invasion of England, in ruins. And this walk, which includes an ascent of some dimensions that did leave poor me somewhat breathless, goes around the castle ramparts affording views of the castle as well as the river Swale several tens of meters below. Just a few words about this river Swale. This is the fastest flowing river in England and this part of the Yorkshire dales lies to the North and is called Swaledale, after the river. So, back to the walk. I must once again emphasize that it was really windy and on several occasions I was resigned to sit on the benches provided along the walk rather than try walking against the wind. And just whenever there was some sort of a let up in the wind force, I managed to set up my tripod and get a few shots of the river and the slopes on the other side of the river.

Having completed the castle walk, following a descent on to the Riverside road, I crossed over a bridge and got to the other side of the river, where there were a number of woodland conservation walks. One of the walks I took here, once again involved a tiring ascent, and unfortunately did not afford great distant views. But it was still a lovely experience as it was different being lined by trees yet to get over the autumnal shedding of leaves.

The next walk was easier, involving a stroll by the riverside and definitely offering chances for creative photography which, unfortunately, I was not in the mental shape to take advantage of. It was one of those days, when you can have even your best cricket batsman scratching around for ages and scoring nothing. And I, being terribly humble, am hardly the greatest cricket batsman (read photographer!). And yet I did get a few decent shots I am somewhat happy with.

This walk was then followed by a stroll on the Riverside road, towards the Swale falls, a rather small waterfall. Once again, as a consequence of my poor photographic form I was unable to make good use of opportunities available. My best shot of the falls is below. It was near here I chatted with an old couple who were tourists as well, and who, to my great surprise, were not aware of the name of the river and it was left to me to enlighten them.

Post water-fall was lunch time and I ate at this restaurant called Seasons which is located in the old station building, which I believe, is no longer in use as a railway station.

Thus rejuvenated, I started walking back towards the castle. This time I wanted to get into the castle rather than walk around it. After all, if it were a castle then it should provide a vantage point to view the beautiful dales that make up its estate. These were sights I had hardly got till now, with woodlands blocking the view. Further, giving some food to the brain helps as I soon realised that the best way to capture these landscapes was to remove the wide-angle lens and put on the telephoto one. And is what I did. And may be, in all the wind, that was where my sensor caught that large piece of dirt! That did not matter much to my photographic ambitions - I could clone out the stuff in Photoshop. It is a totally different matter altogether that it has prompted me to finally send off the camera to the repairer for a sensor cleaning exercise, all paid for by my nice camera insurance company.

I shall go on record here saying that the wind had become totally incorrigible. While I was shooting from the castle ruins, my tripod was being rendered almost useless by the force of the wind and I am still unable to comprehend how it managed to give me a substantial number of pictures without noticeable shake. The wind was so strong that when I was talking to mum over the mobile phone form the castle, she was able to hear the howling gusts. Well, getting back to the sights, there were two broad classes - one, views from the open terrace and two, views through little, shapely gaps (the castle builder, God bless his soul, would want to call them windows). Irrespective of whether the views were from the open or through these gaps, they were gorgeous. From one side, you would get to see almost entirely open valleys with woodlands, the nature being disrupted at the most, by a single road that was definitely not busy with traffic. On the other side, was a view with a greater diversity of subjects: from the buildings of Richmond in the foreground to the valleys in the background. In short, this is a place I would recommend anyone to pay a visit, for both an experience of a historic market town as well as views of the dales.

Then it was time to get back to the Richmond market square to take the bus back to Darlington, something I did without putting a foot wrong and then to take the train from Darlington to Peterborough and on to Cambridge! The end of a day that gave me great pleasure and a lot of pain to the back and to my legs!!

Fore more images, please see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/RichmondYorkshire_dales (though, personally, most of these pictures will hardly be on my personal fav list).

Down to The South

2008-02-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I went out, once again, on a day trip. This time, I went southwards, to the South Downs National Park. The South Downs is one of Britain's 'breathing spaces' that extends from Winchester in the West to Brighton and Eastbourne in the East. Near Eastbourne, the South Downs meet the English Channel at the Seven Sisters National Park, the Seven Sisters being a series of milky white chalk hills that overlooking the channel. 'Overlooking the channel' is an understatement and belies the drama associated with it. May be the best way to look at it would be to see it from the point of view of a little wave that runs in from somewhere in the sea towards the land, looking to wash the sands and crash on the little pebbles and rocks and instead comes face to face with a massive structure, a couple of hundred feet high; a massive structure you would not want to strike hard; as it is a structure that is menacing in its scale and yet has peace written all over it, being so white, milky white! And yet, I read that this structure recedes into the land by a bit over a feet every year, thanks to the action of our little wave!

So, to the practicalities. The Seven Sisters country park, as this site on the South Downs is called, is easily accessible by public transport. All that you have to do is take the train from London Victoria to Eastbourne. And take the bus to Brighton from right outside the Eastbourne station and get off the bus, 15-20 minutes into the journey and you are there at the park's visitor centre. And then you start walking along an easy access path that is dotted by sheep poo (the park being a working sheep farm), but allows you pretty views of the downs with a little pond in the foreground. And the bonus is the pair of white mute swans that one can see swimming on the pond - at least I was fortunate enough to see them there.

Further down the walk, you will join the South Downs Way, a long distance National Trail that runs from one end of the South Downs to the other, a distance of about 100 miles. You dont have to walk the 100 miles, since a walk of about 500 meters affording views of combinations of green, yellow and brown of the Downs brings you to the coast and to exhilarating views of the Seven Sisters.

Forget the seven sisters, you also have a relatively dirty looking hill on the other side, and this, along with the pebbles, chalk rocks and the terrain, makes for a lovely landscape photo subject, provided the light is right!

And you look the other way to the Seven Sisters and you just stand and admire the work of nature in deriving such geological formations. And from an artistic point of view, you look for photographic opportunities. By the time I had taken pictures of the dirty cousin of the Seven Sisters (sounds somewhat like the five aunts Bertram Wooster dreads!), I was dead tired and I took a little break sitting in the shadow under one of the Seven Sisters. And while here, I took some lazy snaps of the pebbles and the colour of the sister giving me shade.

And very soon, I was back and, this time, took the photo ops presented by the sisters themselves in collaboration with the matching or contrasting colours of the rocks lying on the beach and went snapping. And yes, there were occasions when it was tempting to reach places on the beach, which my attitude and physical consitution would not allow, in order to grab interesting snaps. But better sense prevailed!

And soon I was on my way back, taking a quick picture of the hand of man on the coast - a cranky looking tyre and a colourful piece of furry cloth left on the floor.

I finished with snaps of excited bikers and walkers in the landscape.

Finally, I ate at the farmhouse restaurant, which is next to the visitor centre by the bus station - note that I could not find any place to have a snack or anything closer to the beach - and offers a rich cream tea meal comprising two large scones, clotted cream, butter, jam and tea. And then it was time to take the bus back to Eastbourne and the train to London.

A thought, in case the authorities read this. I was surprised to find that I could get absolutely no signal on my mobile phone near the beach. And this being a tourist location, a coast, but importantly, remote, I wonder what one would do if there is a necessity (however improbable that may be) to quickly call 999, the emergency number!!!

(For more pictures, please see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/SouthDownsSevenSisters)

Moors and Fog

2008-02-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been quite a while since I made an entry in this blog, but here I am once again, in Happy 2008!

I returned to Cambridge after a holiday in good old Chennai on the 21st of January and it was getting warm in England, at least in Cambs. It was over 10 degrees anyway and so, let us say, relatively warm. And with the passage of the next few days and a couple of weeks, it did look as if Spring was coming. And if daffodils are anything to go by, spring was upon us - daffodils were blooming, in the village of Sawston, in the University's Botanical Gardens and on the Genome Campus. And what lovely weather we had last Saturday, clear blue skies, the perfect temperature - neither too warm nor too cold, though one had to wear a layer of woolen. And I did take advantage of this excellent weather to take my first trip to the North of England in nearly two years. I went to Marsden Moors, a National Trust estate in Yorkshire, just north of the Peak District National Park. It was not trivial getting there, having to change trains thrice. I spent more time on the train and in train stations than on the moors. The consolation is that this estate lies just adjacent to the Marsden train station. Forget the following: (i) I lost both my graduated ND filters and the filter holder (ii) I almost got lost on the walk from the moors to the Marsden train station - well I did get lost, but had the presence of mind to retrace my steps and get back to a point from which I could reassess my situation and take appropriate corrective action (iii) on the return journey, one of the trains was late by a few minutes leading to my missing my connection and having to wait another hour and a quarter for the next train. Forget these, and the trip was a real pleasure. Beautiful hills running alongside little streams flowing on rocky surfaces; the brilliant sunlight creating alternating patches of shadows and highlights; and mountain goats or sheep grazing on the hills and possibly looking for opportunities to knock me down from the back, but I would never give them that chance - I would run away from them before they could run at (or more often run away from) me. Well, I cannot describe this location in words as Hardy describes Wessex, but I hope the sample photos below would tell you more than what my words can.

Please see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/MarsdenMoorsYorks for all pictures taken on Saturday, 9 Feb 2008 at Marsden Moors, Yorkshire.

How fickle is the weather here? Just three days after the glorious day described above, we had today, a crazy and cold day, which was foggy with visibility down to a few metres for most of the day - the fog just refused to lift until, God knows when!! It was foggy at 8AM, foggy at 12 noon, foggy at 7 PM (when the pictures below were taken) and NOT foggy at 11 PM. So, fog for at least 11-12 hours of a day that was just three days behind the glorious weekend! Bah!

Please see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/FoggyNight for all pictures I took on the foggy evening of 13th Feb 2008.

When Vishy Anand won a World Championship..

2007-10-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

..I had no idea there was a Chess World Championship going on.. BBC Sport does not seem to have any section dedicated to the coverage of chess, at least no section that is easily detectable on its pages, despite the fact than an Englishman, Nigel Short, was a leading player of the game not too long ago.. An Indian has won a 'World Championship', an individual to whom such success is not a flash in the pan - he has been a world-leader in this game for many years now and has won several Chess 'oscars' and has been- and is the World Number 1.. he had been unbeaten throughout this championship and that too in a tough field.. And I had no clue all this had happened!!

Is it because the World Championship in Chess has always remained a subject of ridicule, with all and sundry organising a 'World Championship' and calling someone the World Champion? Maybe, or rather must be, for I cannot think of any reason other than that for the World Champinship of this lovely game to have received such a lukewarm reception. But at least, as far as I have read, there seems to an air of the genuine about this championship with most top players including Kramnik and Leko participating. And that is something!

Will FIDE ensure that there is order in the organisation of the game and its World Championships and also ensure that these tournaments get more publicity than they do, in the interest of people like me who follow the game casually, but with a lot of interest!

And congratulations, Vishy Anand!

The Norfolk Broads

2007-09-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

So, I took a completely disorganised trip eastward, to the Norfolk Broads, yesterday, again a Saturday. Generally I take great pleasure in planning trips out of Cambridge carefully and well in advance, irrespective of how well the plans work out! But the trip described last, to Bury St Edmunds and the one described here, to the Norfolk Broads were totally arbitrary. The present one the most random trip I have taken since I practically had no idea where I was to go!

So, what are the Norfolk Broads? I would rather not explain in detail but point you to the appropritate Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broads.

It would resemble in many ways the scenes that you would get to see on the boat rides back home in South of India, but here, there is one difference: while the rivers, obviously, were formed by natural forces, the depressions that are now the lakes were dug out by hand in medieval times!!!

My first port of call was this place called Hoveton and Wroxham. It was a 15 minute train ride from Norwich. But thanks to some engineering works on the rails between Ely and Brandon, the trip involved several changes involving buses and trains. But somehow, I did get to Hoveton and Wroxham. This place is called the capital of the Broads because it is supposed to be pretty much the gateway to the Broads. Well, true, but only if you had a car to drive around or had the time to rent a boat all for yourself and take it around. Public transport was pretty much non-existent and even the brochure supplied by the Broads authority had no practically useful information on getting around by public transport. And given all these limitations, I did take a guided river tour on the river Bure lasting an hour and a half covering the Wroxham and Salhouse Broads. The commentary during the tour was very very good and mentioned how the waters here were pretty much polluted in the 70s and it required a concerted effort in the form of legislation and implementation to clean it all up. During this tour, one gets an opportunity to see a variety of water birds! And one can also easily observe the presence of quite a few thatched houses!

Following this tour, I walked around this little reserve park in Hoveton, where one might get to see birds amidst the reeds, but I did not see any. In all probability, the large dogs that were being walked by quite a few of the toursists (or locals) might have scared the birds away!

And then I took the train back to Norwich and realised it was still too early. Then I decided to go to the Broads in Suffolk and decided to choose between the train that went to the east-most coast of England - Lowestoft and that which went to Great Yarmouth. I plumped for the former and went on the train and only to get down at one random station called Oulton Broads North, a short while from Lowestoft. I walked around this Oulton, which was totally deficient in any kind of sign-posts, but somehow reached the banks of river Waveney. I decided I did not have the time to take another guided river tour, but walked for a while along the banks, seeing several swans and boats and dogs. And then it was time to take the train back to Norwich and then to Cambridge. This particular train route between Lowestoft and Norwich is quite pretty and one does get to see several marshes.

So that is about it for today.

The Saturday

2007-09-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

Today was a Saturday with a difference. Because the internet connection at home was not functioning, there was little I could do at home. I decided to roam around Cambridge. Cambridge was not without incident - I saw this fellow, dressed in black standing on a chair with a display board next to him, berating scientists and evolution and arguing that everything was designed intelligently by God. He even had a reason - Boeing 747 and 777 are similar, but they were both independently designed by a man; therefore just because scientists observe similarity between species at the molecular level it should not be taken as proof for evolution; in fact, as the Boeing example illustrates, every form of life is an independent creation! There was some crowd around him, and to them, this was good entertainment. There was laughter - they were laughing on Mr. Black's face! But Mr. Black was determined to put his point across. There was an elegant looking Englishman who walked up to him, tap-tapping his cane on the pavement and asked him, "are you being serious?", and walked away, with a mischievous smile on his face. There was this totally shaggy fellow, with a beard that resembled the hair of an electrocuted cartoon character, who chose to argue openly with Mr. Black. Mr. Black was showing a 3D drawing of a eukaryotic cell and saying, "scientists describe that this is how a cell looks like", offending me, a bacteria man, and continued, "but they dont know how it came about because it was put there by God!". Our Mr. Shaggy was not to be deterreed - he said, "this evolved from cellular forms that were much simpler". Mr. Black asked, "how do you know that?". I was tempted to retort, but the man standing next to me said, "common sense mate" and walked away and I followed his example, moving on!

And then, once again, I had to decide what I wanted to do. I had a brain wave. I walked along to the railway station, looked at the time table and decided to go down to Bury St. Edmunds or St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, a forty minute train ride away. This place is known as 'Shrine of a King, Cradle of the law'. Shrine of a King because this was where King Edmund, the last king of East Anglia was buried; Cradle of the law because this was where, in early 13th century, a resolution was taken to get ratified the Magna Charta, the fore-bearer of today's English legal and democratic systems. This little town has a ruined Abbey, where the above event took place, located in a supposedly beautiful garden and I decided to see this place for myself. And that is what I did. I must confess that this town is very pleasant. The market is exceptional; for the first time in England, I saw shopkeepers shouting their voices hoarse to advertise their wares, akin to our Indian markets. And I even managed to buy a massive bowl full of green, seedless grapes - should have been around a kilo - for a pound! Cannot imagine getting such value in the Cambridge market! The abbey itself, as said earlier, is in ruins. All that remains is a series of bits of stone walls sticking out of the ground; and in some instances, these bits were large enough to form recognisable shapes. There is a little wall on which was posted a board saying, "Lecture room". I wonder!!! The garden in which this abbey is located is beautiful and is a colour riot, with a large variety of flowering plants aesthetically arranged. This meant that I had a good time with the camera before returning home to find that the internet had started working - a pleasant surprise!

The Abbey ruins (1)

The Abbey ruins (2)

A board describing the historic event

Just a pic I liked

The Abbey garden (1)

The Abbey garden (2)

The Abbey garden (3)

City of Bath (3)

2007-09-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

In this final post with respect to my day trip to Bath, I shall make a few comments on what I call the 'arc architecture zone' of Bath and conclude this series with a few more inane comments.

What is this Arc Architecture zone? Within a space of a few hundred meters, one can find two impressive examples of architecture, one of which is circular in shape, reminiscent of Circus Maximus, (which I have seen only in comics describing the Adventures of Asterix), and hence termed "Circus". Several English luminaries, including Lord Clive of India resided in this all important circus (pardon the pun). While the centre of Circus Maximus would have seen Obelix bashing up the lions and in the event of a less well-covered person being the centre of attraction, the lions gobbling up this person, this circus is more serene and sedate, with a little green space and a tree marking the centre of the circle defining the construction.

The second building was constructed following the successful completion of the Circus and built in the 1760s - does not matter, at least to me, when exactly. This building is called the Royal Crescent and is the most privileged address in all Bath; and as one might imagine, only the really wealthy can afford to own this address. Royal Crescent 1 is a museum maintained by a private body called the Bath Preservation Trust and is dedicated to exhibiting the various features of an aristocratic home in Georgian England. Royal Crescent 1 was some sort of an inn where the wealthy would stay with their sons and daughters of marriageable age; the bringing together of so many wealthy eligibles would have resulted in a number of honorable unions one would expect; but to me, living in this Georgian house would not have been a pleasurable experience. Why? Simply because there was no plumbing available to that building in those days and some specially constructed cupboards served the purpose of toilets! Ladies had to bring water in pails from the river Avon, a mile away and I cannot imagine the feelings of the slaves whose duty it was to keep these cupboards clean!

Coming back from Georgian toilets, what experiences of mine can I share with you here? The first thing that struck me was the politeness of the person at the ticket counter who informed me that photography was not permitted inside the museum. The contrast it represented, with the manner in which this obnoxious chap at Mahabalipuram 'informed' me that tripods were not to be used there, prompting me to not resist the temptation to present a rude retort, was striking. In this museum, every room was populated by an individual who, with the exception of one old lady who did not seem to know much, made it a point to describe to every visitor, salient aspects of what one saw before him / her. One of the ladies was particularly well informed and made a lot of comments on what might have been the life of those who took residence there. Yet another old lady, manning yet another room, and with such wrinkles on her face as would have contributed more than ideal features to a black and white portrait photograph, must have felt lonely for she chose to talk to us a lot on Georgian life; it was she who made it a point to stress on the lack of plumbing in the house in those days, and thanked modernity for having provided the house with good water supply today. She might have been partially hard of hearing, as she kept misinterpreting any question that my friend asked of her; nevertheless, she was as interesting and as genial and as informative as they come - possibly she is from the Georgian age!

With that I would just list a few places that we did not give the attention it deserved or did not visit at all. One is Walcott street, with a range of strange shops, including an antique and a glass-blowers that are worth visiting - both these places were closed for the day by the time we managed to get there. Other places include a series of museums; a couple that attracted my attention were a museum in honour of this chap who first discovered Uranus and said something of having seen farther into space than anyone else and a postal museum situated near where the first ever stamped snail mail was sent!!

With that, I rest my case in favour of Bath!

The Circus

Royal Crescent

No. 1 Royal Crescent

A scene on Wallcott street

A scene off Wallcott street

City of Bath (2)

2007-08-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Having spoken a bit about having walked on pavements lining a great bath, where ancient Romans would have walked once: the differences being in the reasons for walking, and the attire worn and equipment carried, I will now proceed to describing the Jane Austen Centre, which was our next stop.

To make things clear straight up, I must confess I have never read Jane Austen, having just started Pride and Prejudice, which is not one of her 'Bath novels', but one which, as can be gathered from its first ten pages, is based in Hertfordshire, one of Cambridgeshire's neighbours and so, closer to home. That being an aside, how would I describe my time at Jane Austen's centre?

There were old people there, and old ladies, talking in hushed voices, talking in learned voices - they are well-versed in Jane Austen. And when this lady, another old one at that, was giving a lecture introducing the author's works and acting and speaking as some of her characters in the Bath novels (Northanger Abbey and Persuasion), the learned ladies in the audience would nod their heads, looking serious, understanding; while I, looking totally blank, but interested, just made it a point to read these books at some point. There was some description of the author's family circumstances and how it would have affected the text of these novels of hers, but I do not see fit to make any comments on that, as the best I can do at the moment is to read these books and be able to appreciate what was told by the lady there.

The end of the lecture was followed by a visit to the exhibition; which included a special display of costumes used in the movie Persuasion, which again, I have not seen. The costumes looked rather rich and soft and most importantly, pointed to the extremely sleek physique of the ladies who would have worn this and, assuming that the movie makers had been faithful to the original novel, could be a reflection of how the author would have described her characters. And yes, I must not forget to mention that the above point is not mine, but was being made in serious earnest by one of the learned ladies visiting the exhibition - not just learned, but with strong powers of observation that, given all my known strengths, have always eluded me.

Yet another exhibit that is worth describing here is a large-scale reproduction of one of the author's letters to her sister. The edge of the paper was bent and it was mentioned in the label that this had been done to demonstrate that it was OK to write on both sides of a paper in those days - I dont know, but what is the big deal? I generally write on both sides of a paper, particularly if the paper is of a good quality and too expensive to be wasted for etiquettes I am unaware of - not that I would change, even if it is not considered right to write on both sides of paper

And finally, the most important thing that I noticed about the whole exhibition was something from this letter - however much I tried, I could not follow a single word of her writing - such handwriting! Obviously, some publisher would have managed to read it and publish her works, but well, if he were alive today, he could be an Indian pharmacist, capable of deciphering the mangled whatever that doctors write, in the name of prescription!

A view of the exhibits at Jane Austen Centre

Costumes at the exhibition

A letter from Jane Austen to her sister

(To be continued).

The City of Bath (1)

2007-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was the end of a week that presented weather that was (1) disgusting (2) horrible (3) disastrous (4) .... (5) £$%@^!%*@. I would not really go into the details of why it was all that and more, but focus on the positives. The weather God, I am so thankful to him, condescended to shoo away the grey clouds and the wind and the rain; and allowed his bright colleague, the Sun God to show his face; but only just for the duration of the weekend and the bank holiday Monday. No complaints though - He had been timely in being nice. And that meant I had the elements working very well to enable me to take a westward trip to Bath, a UNESCO World Hertage City. And I took the train despite taking a pledge a few months back never to travel by train in the UK following a one-in-my-lifetime-yet incident that predates this blog.

Bath does not contain a single building that, to me at least, is awe inspiring as the Taj Mahal or the Brihadeeshwara temple; neither does it contain a single building as intriguing as Gaudi's Sagrada La Familia. But it is for no reason that the city, as a whole, has been elected a World Heritage Site; and UNESCO uses an more scientific mechanism to make these lists than that private body that asked everyone to vote for the Seven Wonders - even those who had been unfortunate enough not to have seen any of the nominees! The visit Bath website states that there are over 5000 'listed' historic buildings in this city - some number I say!

The first site we visited was the Roman Bath Complex, comprising a number of open baths, large and small and ruins of ancient temples. While the state of this complex speaks volumes about the maintenance efforts (which should definitely be well-funded by the non-trivial admission fee), I must express my disappointment at the non-aesthetic look of the facilities where one gets the opportunity to view ruins of the temple to Sulis Minerva, a hybrid God - the Celtic Sulis and the Roman Minerva. It is definitely amazing that over a million litres of water bubble (or is it bubbled, I can't remember) out of these springs every day; and these Romans, who, hopefully, should have looked like something out of today's fancy dress competitions, were smart enough (smarter that I can imagine myself to be) to build drainage systems to take out this large excess of bubbling out out into the river Avon.

(To be continued)

The garbage bin as a tourist attraction

2007-08-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, as usual was cloudy but thankfully, not too cold or wet. Thus, I was provided with the weather that was sufficiently amiable for me to take my walk around town. And it not being too bright meant that I had nice soft light to take a few photos. It was not just me who was out and about - there was a decent camera-sporting crowd roaming around the historic streets - punting on the river would have been an extreme vocation, given that the cloud could crack at any time - it is a different matter altogether that it did not for the next several hours! Tourist crowds on Cambridge streets are generally mobile, but there was a particular sight which was attracting attention. What could it be, at this location, that I had so miserably failed to notice?

Well, the answer is, it was a garbage bin!

Why would a garbage bin attract attention? It was no ordinary bin. A particular individual had taken residence in it!! Now, a bit of description: This bin had a lid on it and a large uniform cut was made around its circumference to enable dumping of rubbish. But, this window for the litter was not 'available'. A portion of a guitar, with the tuning pegs leading the way, was sticking out of it and some form of music was issuing out of it. The face of the occupant of the litter bin was invisible. Well, you got it right - it was an ingenious musician who has chosen such a singular method to attract attention and more than a few pennies. And this man was hugely successful in these endeavors. I wonder how many digital camera sensors today would have been ingrained with images of this famous litter bin and its faceless resident!

The Oval and History

2007-08-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

It was Sunday afternoon, the 12th of August, and the weather in Cambridge was not exactly sunny, though did not possess any property worth complaining about. But I was complaining, not about the weather, but about Rahul Dravid not enforcing the follow-on against England. It is a different matter altogether that before long, I had learnt to look upon the decision in better light. After all, India, with all its passion for the game of cricket, got what it really wanted - a series win, more than a win at the Oval. And as the captain of the English team, Micheal Vaughan and the venerable Geoffrey Boycott said, Dravid is not to be faulted for taking such a decision, however negative it might have been, under the prevalent circumstances. Vaughan even went to the extent of declaring that he would have taken the same decision had he been in Dravid's position. And, possibly, this decision might have meant that the game really went into the fifth day, the 13th of August, and ultimately, the distance. But all that mattered to me was that my ticket for the fifth day of play at the Oval was not to be wasted and I was guaranteed to witness a historic moment: an Indian cricket team winning a test series in England!!

And so, the day arrived, with England needing another 444 runs to win the game and India requiring 10 wickets for the win. Given the way the pitch was playing, the likely result was a draw and I did not care, as long as I got to see Kevin Pietersen present a masterclass and Dravid lift the Pataudi trophy. And I did get to see both. I will not dwell too much on the game - I shall leave it to the experts and more importantly to those who write largely uncharitable matters on the Indian team, come what may; to those to whom an Indian win is born out of sheer luck and a loss being due to the miserable 'non-talent' of the country's national cricketers.

The following is simply a collection of thoughts I had that would describe my experience at the Oval.

We had a rather nice place to be seated - located along the central normal to the pitch and pretty much at the ground level, which was particularly exciting to me as that meant I was at the ideal height to get some good snaps! Though it was a bit of a shame that India had set an attacking field for most of the game and as a result there was rarely a fielder close to the boundary and hence to the stand where I was.

Though I did get opportunities to see a few of the team members close up. Zaheer Khan was the first - he was stationed at the boundary for a short while. And he did look very serious and unmindful of and unresponsive to the chants of the goodly crowd. And more than often, he turned to face the stands, only to take a look at the replays being shown on the big screen that was right behind us. And during such moments, he offered opportunities to take photographs, though his facial expressions were not very inviting.

There were moments when RP Singh found himself close to my stand, but did not evoke any excitement from the crowd. And ditto was Dinesh Karthik whose forays to the stands were when he was chasing balls coming off the English bats.

The man of the moment, invariably, was Sachin Tendulkar, who stayed close to the rope for quite a while and showed me why he has always been dear to the masses. His every approach to the boundary was greeted by loud chants from the crowd and more often than not, he made it a point to turn, give a smile, wave his hands, either mutedly or vigorously as his instincts might have instructed him. And the smile seemed a rather permanent characteristic describing his features and thus endearing him to me and the crowd. It is quite something, having to put up with the adulation and blind debasement (to say the least) that he gets to face from the fickle minded Indian cricket lover. The response he received was something not offered to even the greatest Indian cricket captain ever, Sourav Ganguly, who did spend a short while at the boundary ropes.

Here, let me describe the English crowd that surrounded us. This, to them, must have been a time to spend and have fun. If you have seen Obelix stack up helmets that are spoils of war between him and the Roman legions, you would have immediately linked it to the activities of the chap sitting right in front of me - he was drinking pint after pint of beer, available for purchase, at the stadium, and stacking up the empty plastic cups. And at the end of it all, the pile of plastic glasses did reach a non-trivial height. And in contrast were the three of us, writing out banners (our wishes were not always granted) and showing them off and some Mr. Singh sitting next to me who did not seem to have much knowledge of the game and kept asking me strange questions that were totally unbecoming of an Indian (read cricket crazy).

And then, when it was all over - I must admit I did not give much attention to the proceedings on field, except to cheer the moments and personal landmarks (Pietersen's classic century, a beautifully positive half-century from Ian Bell, 2000 test runs to both Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood and of course the wickets that fell) - I did stay back to listen to the men who matter give their interviews. Anil Kumble received his first ever Man of the Match award for his batting. James Anderson, much to my surprise, was awarded the England Man of the Series. And to no one's surprise, Zaheer Khan was made the India Man of the Series. Michael Vaughan made a short speech on the performance of his "young" team. A rather irked Dravid made to justify his decision regarding the follow-on and yet managed a lovely answer that should have been posted on every news site worth its name.

And then it was champaign time and time for the victorious (in the context of the series) Indian team to flaunt their trophy, and time for me to catch a priceless snap: a pretty close-up portrait of a still serious-looking Mr. Dravid waving his hands and the great Sachin Tendulkar sporting a body language spelling excitement, but unfortunately facing away from the camera, on the same 3000 x 2000 pixel frame!

And today, when browsing a website, I did read comments from viewers from India claiming that it was just luck that India won the series - England did deserve to win at Lord's. It did put me off - I say, let us cherish the moment - these guys played so well, as a team and minus a coach - and dominated two of the three tests. And luck and the much talked-about umpiring decisions are part and parcel of every sport and are factors that contribute to the outcome, but that is what they are: part and parcel of the game and the game will not be without them! And I cannot but affirm that luck is of such primary importance that I dont think I would be doing the science I (and may be most other supposedly super-smart scientists) do in its absence!

The rationale

2007-08-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

Finally, I have opened my own blog. And I want to justify this decision of mine with my first entry.

The answer is simple - I have started thinking a bit, about entities beyond biology, computational biology, genomics, microbiology, Skype, Yahoo and British Airways.

What am I thinking about? When I was in school, I used to write short stories, that would, in the eyes of anyone reasonable, border the inane. Now, may be, I could write better literature, if you call it that. But I rarely can commit the time and energy towards it. So, as a replacement, I have taken to reading some classic English literature that allows me to think about the various subjects described in the book concerned. Further, in recent months I have taken to photography, which has allowed me to see things from different perspectives. And having seen a country not my own for close to two years now, I rather reflect on society just a bit. And having not watched much cricket in recent years, I also feel that I am in a promising position to add, in a lay manner, to the whole sack of unlearned and uncharitable comments made on Indian cricket by learned persons.

I do not intend to bring any biology into these blogs, and if I do breach this promise, I would like to hope that it is because it has connotations beyond science.

In short, I hope to make this blog an eclectic mix of everything as far removed from my primary vocation as possible.