Melancholic Ecstasy

My 47 day stay in England has finally ended and indeed it has been an awesome experience. Fortunately enough, my last week there turned out to be the high point of the whole thing and I got to see Rafael Nadal play on Centre Court at Wimbledon. My seat was right behind and to the right of the referee 12 rows behind. On the downside, all the three matches were straightforward sfaairs with the victors not dropping a set. But then again you can’t get everything.

It was also to my tremendous bad luck that I did not get a chance to go to Old Trafford. I made up for it by say 80% when I went to the Enirates Stadium in North London. Why Emirates? Well, skillwise I would say that Arsenal are unmatched in the EPL (even better  than United) and hence they are quite an admirable side. Anyway, the stadium is quite well built. There is a beautiful museum chronicling the history of the Gunners.

The last two days were spent in trying to pack (and re-pack) the horrendous amount of stuff I had to take back with me. The flight back on Friday was very very uncomfortable leaving me stiff for the best part of Saturday. On landing, it felt amazing to finally smell the wet, sweaty and salty air of Mumbai, a moment which was surely the cherry on the icing …

Daily life here is a bit of an oddity. For one, what you do has nothing to do with what you want to do. I mean it is quite normal on weekdays when people have schools, colleges, jobs and the like. But on weekends when you have free time, you need blessings from the Almighty to achieve your goal. Why? The bloody English rain!

Normally a family guy here would come home after work Friday evening and check the BBC website for the weather forecast. If BBC predicts more rain than ‘light showers’, then he seriously considers spending time at home with his kids playing Cluedo. If any other prediction pops up, then he declares to his family,”Its gonna be a bright and sunny day tomorrow so better start preparing for a picnic.” Now there are so many parks in this country that land developers in India would go crazy deciding where to start building first. So, picnics are all too frequent.

But then again, the ‘weather’man is no ‘rain’man and is even more unreliable than the Indian cricket team. So ever so often you end up with a wet, soggy picnic or you end up spending a perfectly beautiful day inside your house watching stupid stuff on TV. Then you spend atleast 2 hours cursing the weather guy for ruining a hard earned weekend. 

Surprisingly, at night the same guy finds himself staring at his computer screen again reading what the skies have in store for him tomorrow. Now I know what its like to be under the weather … 

It is now almost a week since I came here and I have been to a few places here and there. Yesterday I went to Trafalgar Square where the great admiral Nelson was standing on top of a tall pillar. I ignored him and went straight into the National Art Gallery beside it. Few things I learnt there …

1. European artists had few subjects to paint. So about 75% of the paintings they made were about Jesus Christ (Jesus!).
2. Even Jesus Christ did not manage to do a variety of stuff in his life so 90% of his paintings are about his birth, death and him leaving his mom.
3. Rembrandt, Monet etc. were just weird sounding names for me, but now I know that they were truly great artists who managed to grow out of painting the Gods.
4. Modern art is bullshit. The National Gallery does not have modern art, but from what I have seen of it, it is just a sad way of painting something you can’t manage.

Planning to go to Greenwich some time soon. Also have to see Lord’s. Another quote to sign off

   “Cleavage cleavage everywhere not a single one to be had”   

                                                                                 – Kaustubh Bhat