City of Bath (2)

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)

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

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

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

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.