The Victoria Pub

The Victoria Pub in Paddington also has a wee bit of History and little did I realise it when Prof. Michele suggested we meet here to have some discussion. I had also suggested him some other eating places.but finally I told him, I would like to come to The Victoria Pub and my, was I glad that we had narrowed down to this place. I have worked with Prof. Michele Chelleni who is an Economic Historian when I was in Paris and Arras for a Fellowship and was invited to his home in Paris many times and we spent a beautiful Christmas eve going to Church with him, seeing the ceremony being performed and where for the first time, I saw African Christian nuns dancing and entering the Church and then we celebrated Christmas with his s whole family. His wife Cristina is a well known painter and we got to know each other very well and I continue to work with Michele on his big History Project on Wages primarily focusing on Women's work in the unorganised sectors in India. He has also visited our home in India and both Suresh and I look upon him and his family, for we have met both his daughters and son, as very dear to us and our very close friends. By chance Michele and Cristina were in London and he suggested that we should meet at Victoria pub. Little did I knew that I was going to witness a piece of History. This pub is as old as Paddington built in 1838.Legend has it that Queen Victoria while going to Paddington liked this place and so it was named after her. A very famous drink here is called Drina, which is a nickname for Victoria given by Prince Albert. This pub has received the Fuller Pub Award in 2007and

2009 and many other awards for being the best pub. It has a library upstairs and lots of paintings decorating it's walls. Charles Dickens wrote part of his book, Our Mutual Friend sitting here. This was also the favourite pub of Charlie Chaplin and Churchil. I felt happy that we were partaking in this history as Michele discussed his progress on the Wage Project and I promised to send him some write ups after I return to India. We had an amazing food and the bartender was a boy from Ahmedabad who was working in this pub since 19 years and felt happy to see us from India. Suresh met a gentleman, about whom I am not sure as to what was his connection to the pub but he proudly took Suresh around explaining all the pictures in minute details as we did our official work.