angavastrams at Westminster Abbey...

I was listening to the guide at the British Museum holding forth on Chinese pottery, when this Indian family came up to us. They wanted to know if the koh-i-noor was kept at the British Museum. I was under the impression it was in the crown jewels at the Tower of London. When I said so, the woman said they’d been to the Tower but apparently it wasn’t there. Anyway the guide disabused them of the notion that it was in the museum. Later that week when I went to the Tower, there in the middle of the crown, was this huge diamond and there is was a board saying the Imperial Crown with the koh-i-noor diamond! Wonder how those folks missed seeing it!

Victoria Station is a fun place to people watch. I was waiting for someone when I saw this desi enter the burger king. He was a normal looking desi – sober suit, beer belly and … a blue and red Superman belt buckle!

Went to an English pub and had a tough time ordering beer! The bartender was East European with a killer accent and then there was moi, with a weird desi-american blend accent! Getting a beer was never more exhausting!

These medieval Christians (actually even till later) were strange! They love to bury the famous and rich in their cathedrals. So as a visitor you suddenly realise you are literally walking on somebody’s grave! Rather disconcerting to look down and read, “Here lie the remains of so and so”. At the end of my week in London, I was tired of churches and cathedrals. They started to look the same with graves, stained glass… Though, I made it a point to go to the Salisbury Cathedral since they have one of the original copies of the Magna Carta. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography of old documents.

Westminster Abbey is the oddest as it is chockfull of commemorative monuments and graves for variously numbered Kings, Queens, other aristocrats, famous poets and writers. Just as I was wondering what they did with Darwin, I discovered he was buried in the Abbey! How sacrilegious!

My favourite commemorative monument was this one to some soldier. It had cherubs and female figures –either the Virgin or some Diana/Athena type female. And the piece de resistance - an older but buff (as someone once said) bearded guy reclining with just an angavastram strategically draped…

Then there was Cromwell’s grave with the dates entered as 1658-1661. He sure did a lot for a 3 year old!! Ha! Elizabeth I and Mary I are buried together in the same tomb. Though the effigy is only of E. Poor Mary didn’t warrant a tomb of her own. Didn’t they hate each others guts?

p.s. Saw this in The Guardian, Friday June 01. The article was about the climate change talks – “Given his track record on this subject, putting Bush in charge of talks on climate change is like King Herod opening a nursery”.