Saturday, June 29, 2019

Good bye Birkbeck, University of London

Meeting Dr. Julia Laite who works on Trafficking of women and Dr. Rebecca Darley, my Co partner from the Medieval History for a final cup of Coffee and hoping we meet again. It has been a rich experience meeting many colleagues and sharing their research interests and getting to know different scholars working in History. Bye, bye and thanks  for the wonderful and warm hospitality and the rich learning experience. I only hope we are able to carry out some of the joint research projects  that we have planned both in History and Women's studies.

 




Saying goodbye to London

We thought we had said good bye to London but my Nephew Saurabh thought otherwise. He told us we can rest in the flight and so off we went to explore more of London. We went around seeing many other places and London by night before we said our final good byes. Saurabh has now been in London for thirteen to fourteen years and knows it very well. I enjoy going around with him for he can give me many details which are not very well known. He showed me the most expensive apartments in the world, the Ecuador Embassy where Assange took refuge after wikileak and the balcony from where he addressed the press. We started at Knightsbridge and visited Harrods, the shopping areas with all famous brands in one place. I was fascinated with their purse collection.Harrods boasts of having the first escalator in London in 1898, and customers were given brandy when they reached the top to revive them of their ordeal. It is spread over five acres and has 330,departmental stores and is a shoppers delight. Around this area there is a large  number of population from Qatar who come with their expensive cars and stay in the nearby apartments, all owned by them and shop in the area with the famous brand names. Then we walked towards the various gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and enjoyed the views of the Buckingham Palace and the surrounding gardens. We saw London by night and had a lovely Italian dinner at a well know restaurant. A lovely evening  Saurabh and thanks a lot for showing us around.














Thursday, June 20, 2019

Meeting my Nepher Saurabh Baurai

 Today evening met my nephew Saurabh, who took us around the Mayfair area and we had dinner out here. May fair is situated on the edge of Hyder Park in between the city of Westminster and Oxford Street. A very upfront  area and this it is one of the most expensive area not only in London but  in the world. There are many pubs and restaurants with names like Hakkason, Sexy Fish, Annabel, Coya Maifair, Roka Mayfair. The earliest reference that, we have to this area is that when the Roman's attacked Britain in 43 A.D.  they built a fort here. Slowly down the years it became an area for the aristocracy to settle. A Shephard market would have an annual fair once a year  from 1686-1786.The sixth Earl of Coventry found this to be a nuisance and a public opinion was created against it and the fairs closed down. However, the area is still called Shephard Market. Another unique thing about this area is that Savile Row has the best tailors for making suits. A number of shops here make shoes and clothes to order. This reminded me of my Medieval Societies Course, when I speak of Medieval markets, I tell my students that these markets did not have a concept of ready made  and things were made to order. A medieval merchant would have been very shocked with a  fit for all clothes or shoes. This tradition is still alive out here. This area has some off the oldest shops and buildings. When I saw 1526,written on a wall, I said to myself, My God we were fighting Babar at that time. Even Charles has a Palace whose backyard is on one of the streets. A great experience and thanks Saurabh for showing me the old London which, I could not have discovered on my own.














Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Digital Humanities workshop

  Attended a very interesting workshop today at the University of London on Digital Humanities. From the time, I have taught a course in International Institute of Information Technology, IIIT in Hyderabad this area has always attracted me and I continue to be involved with digital formats like E. Pathshala, Moodle etc. I feel that digital humanities and Social Sciences an academic field concerned with the application of computational tools and methods to traditional humanities disciplines such as literature, history, and philosophy can definitely enhance our knowledge systems and make knowledge more accessible to a large number of people.  Through this medium both traditional knowledges like Literature, History advance scholarship. There is so much one can do with digital humanities.





Tuesday, June 18, 2019

The British Library

 The British Library is a Scholars delight and a Mecca for the researcher. I consider my self to be very lucky to to be here in London  and since this is not very far  from where I am staying, and is at walking distance, I can visit this now regularly in the morning. Thanks a lot Urmi Mala ji from JNU who took me to the library. It was a pleasure meeting her and discussing issues related to our common interest.  I have now, got my readership card. The British Library is the National Library of UK and one of the largest libraries in the world with 170 million items and artefacts from every age of written civilisation in the form of print, digital, sound and art form. The section that was of interest to me, the India Office Records, is on the third floor and this is like manna from heaven and food for the   hungry. One can so easily get any record that you want. The people in this section are so helpful to the researchers and they explain the process to you with lot of patience. I was shown, Moin Martin, 1988,The general guide to India office records, London, British library. Here there were the Archives of the East India Company from 1600-1856. Board of Commissioners for India affairs, 1784-1850,India Office Records1858-1947.Besides this it has many private papers, autobiographies, family records. In fact this has, 500,000 printed books 60,000 periodicals, 250,000 photographs,and two centuries of Indian print records, all from 1850 onwards.My God, this was a researches dream library. When we were students in India working for our Ph. D working in the late 1970's, it was such a nightmare getting manuscripts, making rounds of different  libraries, trying to get research material. Now, life has become easy with digital resources and imagine working in British library. I really felt like registering for another Ph. D. There are two bookshops on the ground floor, many coffee and eating joints around the place inside and outside in the lawns. On the ground floor there was a museum too. I was very disappointed for it did not allow photographs to be taken. I do not know why, for photography is allowed every where in London in museums and other places. May be the material is very precious but what I saw today was beyond my imagination and some thing which I saw for the first time in my life. This has sections divided into literature, art, sound, religion. Under literature, I could see the real manuscripts in their own writings of Jane Austin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Brown, Keats, Shelly. I am not sure if they have any  thing on Shakespeare for I could not see it. There were Quran from 9th cen to 14 th cen hand written and so beautifully written, the Hindu texts of Upanishad, Vedas written. I could see many miniature paintings and the albums  of Dara Sikho. There were letters of Gandhi, one signed by him, Sarojini Naidu supporting England for the First World War and other letters. I could find the copies of all my books here, including the one with my student S. Jeevanandam on Devdasis. A very thrilling day for me and I almost felt that I have stumbled on a hidden treasure.














Monday, June 17, 2019

Key Note Address University of London Conference

 A wonderful Conference at Birkbeck, University of London on, The world of Medieval women :Comparative prespectives. Gave the keynote  address which was very well received. Here historians do not know much of Indian history, especially of  Medieval India. I also enjoyed listning  to others, especially medieval history  scholars from Paris, Leeds, Birmingham and of course Birkbeck. At the end of the day the realisation dawns that though  we are  in different area, different geographical locations and yet women were going through the same kind of constraints and restrictions, be in Europe, Byzantine, Egypt, South Asia in a particular period. It will be great if a book comes out of the Conference where we have a comparative study of women. Suresh also attended this Conference as a passive historian and told me that he enjoyed listning to  different histories across the world.