Monday, January 09, 2006
Back to the dark side of the moon
I get back to work tomorrow and off the web at-least until late Feb, but before that I tried to treat myself and went on a little excursion to London. Did the customary gallery tour all over again. I can never tire of that!
After a morning with Turner and Stubbs, and having walked as fast as I could away from a Hindi film song shoot on Trafalgar Square, I took a nice little stroll on the South Bank.
The NFT has a very comprehensive Jean Renoir retrospective on right now, so walked in and caught a little gem of a film: Boudu sauve des eaux (1932). It is nice to remind oneself that not every film before the 1960s was moralistic and stifled.
Londoners should be familiar with the old-book-sellers under Waterloo Bridge. My landlord who once made a film on them tells me that they've been there for at-least a couple of decades. Chennai has a good bunch of these guys, and every discerning book-scavenger knows where the best ones are. Well, to cut a long story short, within five minutes of browsing through the 'collection' I found a book that I'd been looking for for a while now. Not available that easily (I found only the German original being sold online), I very badly wanted to get hold of it for a screenplay I intend to work on. When I initially walked through the piles of books I even rubbished thoughts of a dramatically serendipitous nature: but say what you may, there it was, right in front of my eyes, waiting to be picked up and promptly deposited in my rucksack! The bookseller admitted to quite like my tale. Certainly made my day.
While the sky relented a little, I walked further along the South Bank listening to the relaxing sound of water lapping the embankment, walked across the river and to St Paul's, where I was greeted by the surreal sight of a rather large line-drawing of the facade where the building should've been, with the dome sticking up out of it. After the briefest of peeks inside, I walked back across the bridge in search of more institutionalised surrealism to the Tate, where I managed to catch a couple of screenings, which included Bunuel and Dali's Un chien andalou(1929) and Rene Clair's very funny Entr'acte(1924).
Walked, then ran, took a second look at my wristwatch and then dove into the tube to Victoria and caught the coach back to Bristol.
The thing is, there is so much to see in London, that one can never do justice to what it has to offer. There is always something put-off for the 'next time'. I reserve the same special affinty for London that I reserve for Bombay. The charm of a big city you don't quite live in, but love to visit.
Comments to Back to the dark side of the moon
I haven't been to London. Bombay - just once.
But, NYC does that to me. And am an hour's drive away :)
posted by 
Nilu
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