Monday, July 26, 2010

In search of an imaginary line

Though I had visited the Greenwich Meridian at least a year prior to M, somehow it did not occur to me to write a travelogue.

But I can’t now help but recall my own enjoyable experience when the three musketeers from Peterborough -Deepthi, Sanchita and I set out in search of the imaginary line ourselves.


Ours was a rather ambitious plan which was to include Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Canary Wharf, Greenwich and the London Bridge, all in a day either by walk or using only the Tube to commute. Besides, we also wanted to have a full Kerala fish curry meal at Deepthi's favourite Kerala House – and yes, this was indeed a priority considering that we were a group of 2 Keralites and 1 Bengali, all fish eaters who can challenge the British at their own game in their own land of ‘fish and chips’!

Believe it or not, we did complete justice to our planned itinerary though many times to stay on the right track we had to resort to mobile consulting with our friends (read Raja, Souvik, Nikhil etc) who had chosen to stay back at Peterborough.


I remember while we were standing by the Thames succumbing to the romance of the night, the cool breeze caressing us, lost in the stunning sight of the beautifully illuminated London Bridge, we were still not sure whether to call it a day. Close to midnight, our aching feet and tired bodies finally gave in and we boarded the tube back to Kings Cross for catching the last train back to Peterborough.

It was a year later that M got a chance to visit Greenwich on his final visit to me in the UK. True to his passion, he came back and wrote a travelogue. Here is a translation of his original travelogue which first appeared in Malayalam on his site which I have now translated in my effort to make amends for not having written one myself !

Click here to read the translation

http://sometravelogues.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-search-of-imaginary-line.html

The Ramassery Idli

This is one of the earlier travelogues written in Malayalam by M on his travel blog . You may click here to read the English translation

http://sometravelogues.blogspot.com/2010/07/ramassery-idli.html


Memories of the Ramassery Idlis do bring back a craving in me to retrace another journey to that part of the world...

If Mullaperiyar collapses

While the thoughts, expressions and creative energies may not match those of the original writer, nevertheless this too is a labour of love.....

Under the label My Translations, I have posted some of the translations I attempted for my best half. Due to the limitations of adding posts on 'My Translations' as a separate page on blogger, I am now moving it to the home page 'My Strokes' itself.

My maiden translation was sometime towards end of 2009 when the 'Rebuild Mullaperiyar, Save Kerala' campaign was launched on blogosphere. It initially appeared on a Malayalam online website started by a group of literary and socially conscious bloggers.

Click here to read the English translation and here for the original Malayalam version.