Skip to main content

Two Regrets & A Smile - II

Relishing the sweetness of modaks and festivities of Mumbai in my dreams, I woke up with the alarm clock shouting into my ears at 6.30 AM on the Saturday morning. I was headed to Oxford (yes the Oxford of the much renowned Oxford University) with couple of my other friends. As planned, we started in time and the journey was pleasant – I slept nicely in the car for most part of the journey :-D.


We took a nice tour around the town and it was refreshing. The architecture and the landscapes are astonishing – see it, feel it, believe it. I got to see some colleges of fame, the cathedrals and the parks, and got an insight to their history as well – too confusing now, can’t remember most of it, as it was full of Williams, Henrys, Edwards and so on.

Took a round of some adjoining museums, I would explicitly cite something about the Pitt Rivers Museum. It houses over 500,000 archaeological and anthropological collections since its foundation in 1884. Looking around the items was an experience in itself. However, something that made me feel really good was a display card near the Asian artefacts section. I was feeling proud indeed, about the recognition (see image below).
Toured some more parts of the town, and it was time to head back home. Going around Oxford, getting to know about some cultures, learning about the art and science of designing and erecting buildings was great fun and an event in itself. However, I felt trivial setback while returning from there. Wish I had studied or could study at the Oxford, it is among the strongest foundation for studies in literature, arts, theatre. It always had been a remorse that I could not study at the FTII or the NSD, and Oxford just got added. Duhh! Regret! Great Deep Regret!

Comments

Advaitavedanti said…
There is nothing in it to make me proud and you'd do well to not feel proud either. Its some nonsense based on AIT cooked up by the Churches, that show you some good but hide within such things, a fake date such as 3500 yrs so that some other cooked-up religion can take an earlier date! For God's sake, our religion predates everything. The religion was not only existing but flourishing in the historical Mahabharata (MB) dates of 5000 yrs old! As Vivekananda (I think) said once that when the westerners were learning how to cover their naked bodies, India was advanced in its Vedas, which even science is yet to catch up with! Ramayana predates MB to God knows when, but even if you just consider just MB, its atleast 5000 yrs old.

In any case, I don't need a western stamp from some junk museum to endorse my religion's age! Thats one of the reasons I avoided stepping in any museum in UK. :)

Bloody firangs. :P
27 August, 2009
Anonymous said…
This is beautiful!
27 August, 2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Down The Memory Lane - The Times of DD

The weekend was bad, rather not so good; my back ache had buckled me to the bed, not allowing me to stay in one position for more than 4-5 minutes. I was surfing through the television channels lying on bed, and soon I noticed that I was doing nothing but going from 0 to 54 (that is the only number of channels I have on my television) and then again 0 to 54, and then again and again. I was tired watching that Indo-Pak terror debate, reality shows were irritating me, and I couldn’t handle any more breaking news with my broken back, neither was I interested in any kind of saas-bahu or the rona-dhona type of soaps, south Indian films dubbed in hindi were a big NO, I was in no mood for business news either, I had also had enough of Ghajini and Rab Ne trailors, songs, and reviews. I remember, only thing that possibly kept me glued to any particular channel was the advertisements – Limca (I love this ad for its jingle, the zing, and the babe, of course), Raymond, Bingo , few insurance ...
58 comments
Read more

Andu & Bandu: Tale of Two Naughtys

All characters in this story may appear to be fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or missing could be surprisingly coincidental. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Virar station, 7pm, Andu (pronounced as UNDO) and Bandu (as BUNDO) were waiting for some other friends to arrive. They all were to go for a picnic near Arnala beach. Amidst the entire crowd, a not-so-beautiful-but-fair girl passed by. Andu, a guy with short stature craned his neck to get her glimpse and then turned to Bandu to check if he saw his act. Bandu too, taking advantage of his height, had taken darshan of that beauty. And they both smiled, rather laughed at each other. “Men will be men,” roared Bandu and they burst out into a thunderous laughter again. Andu and Bandu both are 30 something shaadi-shuda guys, not to each other ofcourse – happily married, not gay-ly . Like the scene at the Virar station, there are many coincidences of them liking th...
26 comments
Read more

Existing In Chaos

50 days! I have been spinning in hectic schedules of work and a strenuous life of intermediate intensity. I have had hardly anytime to catch up with the news, especially at this time when elections are just around the corner. During all these frenzied days of my work life, I have terribly missed Karan (Thapar), Rajdeep, Arnab, and Udayan & Mitali (Mukherjees), of course. Yes, I did catch up with the Oscar ceremony and the hyped Slumdog jazz though. I am exhausted now. I tried to squeeze in some time yesterday to go through the recent political news (I wasn’t interested in what is happening to Kasab or was eager to know about India’s heroic cricketing triumphs). I pulled out some news archives from various websites, newspapers, and did watch news channels for whole three hours yesterday. I liked the oath taking Lead India 09 campaign, I liked Aamir’s representation to think better for this country in one another Lead India campaign, I loved the awareness and initiatives that Jaago...
29 comments
Read more