Jo Dikhta Hai Woh Bikta Hai?

I’d like to start off with thanking those who wrote in asking me to post a post soon. To my great satisfaction, this was one absence from the blog that wasn’t caused because I ran out of ideas. It wasn’t the case of a Writer’s Block … simply a Blocked Writer. I was reading an article online where they commented on how a good blog is one that is updated daily. Which makes mine occasionally good I suppose. I see some logic in that argument. Blogging is good practice for an aspiring writer. Blogging daily would require rigor and discipline and a commitment that is hard to estimate upfront. My blog is the longest writing exercise I have certainly indulged in. If I keep at this, some day there would be enough material to cram into a book (notice how I avoid mentioning that the book actually needs to sell). Not a radical idea though. Others have done it. I saw a debate on NDTV; a program called ‘We the people’ where Barkha Dutt moderates discussion on a topic which on most occasions involve raucous adults in serious need of being taught manners in letting others talk. The topic of the debate was the state of blogging in India. One of the participants was a young girl who has a personal blog called The Compulsive Confessor. She’s single and writes on topics ranging from drinking to dating to sex and offers what can has been termed as a mild (or heavy, depending on what other blogs you have seen do this) dose of voyeuristic pleasure into the life of an urban Indian woman. There’s more to her blog but there’s a reason nothing else catches the eye. A lot of discussion went on about whether the blog was read because of the nature of the content or the quality of it. In the absence of other blogs in the same genre from the same gender and nationality, her blog definitely is its own USP. I looked up her blog online and thought it was alright. I have read several other blogs that are much higher quality in their choice of topics and execution. But the reason I bring this up here is that recently I read about her in Outlook India. She has her own book coming through. My first reaction is cynical. Would she have gotten the offer were commenting on non-controversial things? I am not so sure. I haven’t read the book obviously and I don’t think I’ll get my hands on it either. I am not shooting for a book contract so I can avoid from pouring out details of my personal life on this blog to entertain and titillate. But if that's a short cut for going onto greener pastures, isn't something amiss somewhere? It makes me wonder if Rakhi Sawant’s famous dictum: “Jo dikhta hai who bikta hai” is true. Is modern India so wrapped up with things that are bright and shallow that quality is a function of visibility? How many girls from ‘Chak De India’ went on to bigger better movies? To my knowledge, only the ones who had the glamour quotient. My commentary might be a tad too caustic and judgmental based on limited examples and I’d love to be proven otherwise. Let me know what you think.

Rukawat Ke Liye Khed Hai

Famous Doordarshan Message Translated: "Sorry for the interruption." Wanted to drop in a line about the ongoing break from blogging. Life happened. Will resume transmission shortly.

Transient

I am but
A simulacrum of self.
Slightly different
From a moment ago.

Like a whisper
Separated by decibels
From the uttered word

Like a shadow displaced
On its owner’s
Whimsical moves

Chakraview: India Quiz 2008

My quiz club, the Microsoft Redmond Quiz club is organizing Chakraview: India Quiz 2008 for AID (Association for India's Development) on August 23rd at 2 pm on Microsoft campus. I have been involved with the club from the start and this is by far our biggest event, hopefully exceeding the 70+ people who showed up on a weekday for the Bollywood Quiz I conducted. I thought I might use this forum to garner support from locals (Sridhar, that's you) and slightly remote (RTD2, that's you) for this event. We are doing a fairly good job at making sure that if you are in Seattle, you are most likely to hear about it, but it can't hurt to spread the word and extol the virtues of an event like this. Most people get intimidated by the concept of quizzing and I submit that good quizzes are where you already know the answer to the question and it isn't a test of trivia. We have strived to do that in our club and this event will be no different. Plus, it is for a good cause.

Here's the text of an e-mail I had sent out about the event: feel free to pass it around to anyone you know who might be interested in this.

What links common English words like catamaran, shampoo, bungalow, juggernaut and pajamas?
Which Indian cricketer’s restaurant serves ‘Multan Ke Sultan Ki Tikdi’, a dish priced at Rs. 309?
What Indian organization beats Chinese People's Liberation Army, Britain's National Health Service and Wal-Mart as the world's largest employer?

The answers (English words derived from Indian languages eg. catamaran from the Tamil word kattumaram, Virendra Sehwag and Indian Railways) all relate to our great country, a place Mark Twain called the ‘cradle of the human race’.

Come join us for Chakraview as we embark on a journey of rediscovery of India. From Tendulkar to Tagore, from Panipat to Pushkar, from Amitabh to Ashwathama, come test your India Quotient. This will be a fun event for one and all where you answer questions on Indian history, culture, sports, rulers, entertainment, mythology and much more.

When: 2pm, August 23, 2008
Where: Microsoft Bldg 99 (14280 NE 36th St, Redmond, WA 98052)
Open Registration -- there is no entry fee!


Visit http://seattle.aidindia.org/chakraview to register and try out some fun questions. Write to chakraview2008@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Fourier Transformed

Fourier=Four Year. You get the idea. The very same quality of bad punning maintained, its been four years to the day that I started this blog. Perhaps I should get a long service award if this lasts another year. Thanks all for being a loyal and willing audience; those that do comment regularly and those whose silent presence I feel. Onward march to the next year!

Entropy

Coffee had spilled out of one side of his cup in an orderly file, leaving a stain on the white surface of his favorite mug. He stared at this deliberate disharmony. It felt like a rebel streak against the blandness the cup lived and died by. He envied that for a moment. To rebel is to live with a cause, regardless of any phrases you may have heard to the contrary. It’s a passion discovered and pursued, even if you are a few drops of water squeezed out of beans at a very high temperature.” Passive passive”, a colleague had once described him jokingly, referring to his apparent lack of proactiveness, and surprisingly enough, reactiveness too. It’s as if nothing moved him, nothing challenged him, nothing motivated him. He was flotsam in the massive river of corporate progress. A minion among many. Destined to follow, never to be roused. And thus transfixed he spent days and weeks and months at his desk, filing his reports, doing his chores with nary a hint of zest. Now he stared at the coffee and his own inconsequence. Something within him clicked. Inspiration struck him when he least expected it. What magic a brown lining on a white cup won’t do? Twenty minutes of furious work at the keyboard and he was good to go. A quick walk to the server room, some copying of files and a forceful pressing of the enter key later, a sly grin broke out on his face. He walked out of those doors one last time. The next morning the happy lot walked to their sleeping computers only to find their data corrupted, system brought to its knees, the company wiped out and an image of a dancing clown with the message below: A Taste Of Nikhil’s Nihilism!

Sundance Festival

What do I do with sun's charity?
When it goes over the top
Scorching to bed and searing to rise
My sleep screeches to a full stop

P.S> An ode to two days of scorching summer and the red-eyes the red hot sun has given me. No one thought it to be a good idea to have air-conditioners in Seattle. Local warming anyone?

Yellow Dawn

Absolutes scared him. Finality of any sort was anathema. You could call it a commitment issue. Binding himself to half-truths was his way of life. Every morning he’d touch his tools of trade with a touch of reverence before he started. Keeping his coffee just out of arms reach, he cracked his knuckles, adjusted his glasses and pulled his chair a little further. Thus began another day at work. Sitting in front of a computer, he fired up the neurons in his brain and transported himself to a world of make-believe, a potent concoction of adventure, romance, scandal and intrigue. A world where he was God. He didn’t go there alone. Wrapped in his sub-conscious were chunks of information, names of people, and a deadline to meet. Those pieces entwined with his fertile imagination and then there was light. As if possessed, his fingers obeyed and the monitor complied as God’s words appeared: ‘Aishwarya marries a peepal tree’

P.S> I have been reading Amitabh Bachchan’s blog daily (he is far more prolific than most blogger’s I know). You may or may not agree with his ideas and clarifications, but I admire his effort. This short post was inspired by his civilized rebuttals.

P.P.S> The title is a play on Red Dawn and Yellow Journalism

Daily Dose

We live in the age of information overload. Knowledge is power but there is a fine line that you tread in terms of the time you can invest to get the data you need. What does one consume? How much does one consume? How much is relevant? How much is accurate? What do you need to retain? What can you discard? In the democratized world of the internet, knowledge is democratized too and spread far and wide. There isn't a single source of good relevant information and one needs to hunt. I wrote to a friend of mine today morning asking him suggestions on sites he visits and blogs he reads in order to stay abreast of the latest in technology news. Its a necessary skill to have. If you need to be sufficiently aware, then you need to troll in an adroit fashion as well.

My mind went back to a post I had written in August of 2004. This listed my daily quota of browsing: sites that I would unerringly spend time on each morning to gather my daily dose of data. I am reproducing the list verbatim here:
-- TimesOfIndia (Yes, yes, it is a tabloid, but I have read their newspaper since I could read one)
-- Google News
-- New York Times
-- Mid-day (I need my dose of Mumbai-specific happenings)
-- Rediff (for news, movies, cricket)
-- Indiafm (my daily dose of Bollywood happenings)
-- Dilbert (daily dose of humor)
-- Slashdot (a brief glance into the geek world)
-- Cricinfo (there is always some cricket happening all around the world)

Here's the big surprise: four years hence, I still revisit the entire list still without any new additions (the only deletion is TimesOfIndia. It has sunk beyond redemption). Clearly this net I cast has withstood the test of time. The two sectors I think the above list doesn't cover too well are business and technology. I read the Economist, Newsweek, OutlookIndia off and on, and also have the Time magazine delivered to my place each week, but that is clearly not sufficient. The radio serves me well too, as I follow the NPR on a regular basis. The list of sites has served me well thus far and my obsessive need for knowing things is largely satisfied (it also stands me in good stead in my quiz club :-))However, I'd be interested in knowing how the rest of the world copes. Drop in a line. Tell me about your morning quota of browsing. Suggestions to add to my list are also welcome.

The Silver Screen

Light slashes
A cover of darkness
From far above.

Giants walk,
Fairies sing,
Miracles happen.

An alternate reality
Mesmerizes the devout
Four times a day

Chaanta Laga

The “obnoxious weed” (courtesy Matthew Hayden) is at it again. A couple of weeks into the Indian Professional League, Harbhajan has usurped the most entertaining factor in the league: the cheerleaders. Somewhere down the line after the mind-numbing display of batting over the first two weeks, the matches are beginning to be regularly lop-sided. I get it though. IPL is not about the cricket. It’s about entertainment. It’s about Shah Rukh Khan jumping in the aisles and Preity Zinta rushing to the ground to give “her” team a good old hug for finally winning a match. It is about the razzmatazz and the ability to satisfy the short attention spans of the viewing public. The format of the game is biased towards the batsmen and it takes an extraordinary bowler by McGrath to dictate terms. We’ll get to that later. The debate on the merits of this form of the game can be endless. To get back to the top selling points of IPL, the cheerleaders were heralded as the great “innovation”. Vijay Mallya brought to India the pom-pom wielding Amazons from the Washington Redskins. Their presence was warranted so much that Dravid and co. were banned from the ground while they perfected their routines. They hogged the limelight, they hogged TV time by jumping to action anytime a four or a six or a wicket came about (and there were plenty of those to come by) and the hogged the radars of the moralists who are worried about the length of their skirts upsetting the rather delicate minds of the Indians who apparently can’t keep their eye on the ball.

They had the center stage, until Harbhajan arrived. He captained his side, the Mumbai Indians, to a third successive loss in the IPL. Perhaps his patience gave way. Perhaps the culprit, the man who can single handedly bring down India’s cricketing reputation down, Shantakumar Sreesanth, needled him a wee bit too much. But it happened nonetheless. Harbhajan’s hand rose above his head where you couldn’t fault him for not bending his elbow enough, and it came down with the grip of a doosra, one that an inexperienced Sreesanth couldn’t be faulted for not anticipating. It landed on Sreesanth’s face just in the right area sending his head into a spin that he couldn’t handle. On being thus dismissed, he let his disappointment known. Tears rolled down his face uncontrollably and the rest is televised history.

Perhaps Harbhajan took his loyalty to his team too seriously. Aren’t these players a bit like hired mercernaries? Would a Pollock really care Mumbai wins or Bangalore does? What’s his loyalty to the city? As per the franchise system he might get transferred somewhere else. These matches are a bit like matches I played in our building while growing up. Two strong players would be captains and the rest be picked turn by turn. Everyone just played to get their chance to do their bit with the bat and ball. Winning would be a bonus. No teams would be the same over two days and it really was entertainment. Perhaps this simplistic view of the IPL is necessary for me. Cricket after all is my passion and I’ll love IPL, even if I end up treating it with the partiality of a step-child. While IPL doesn’t give me the satisfaction of watching cricket, the least I can derive of it is the entertainment. For that, I need to thank Harbhajan and congratulate him for topping my charts. It’s a slap in the face of the all-domineering cheerleaders.

The Interview

He treads intrepidly
Through the claustrophobic
Passages of memory.
Failure closes in
Garbed as questions;
Attempted yet Unanswered,
Much like life’s mysteries.
A circular linked list,
A binary search,
Oh, and your toughest challenge please.
He swats them aside; these thoughts
Straightens his tie
And walks right in
“Good morning”, indeed.

Dough aur Dough Paanch

The aroma of mouth-watering, spine-tingling, soul-uplifting food spreads outward from the kitchen. About fifteen feet away, I am going through my justifying a day of leisure by gorging on EPSN’s collection of twenty-five greatest cricketers. The smell makes me stop at a eulogy to Viv Richards’s legendary World Cup final performance. Even the King can’t arrest my attention any longer. There is Ambrosia in the house, and as is the norm, it hasn’t been cooked by me. I have been spoilt by riches to which I have direct access: great chefs. From my grandmother to my mother to my wife, I have had access to some terrific cooks. I can’t leave out my roommate back in Texas A&M who was the Indian Association’s chef-in-charge for our entry into the International Food Day contest. Luck by chance, I have nothing to do with it. I was blessed into a family of great cooks, and I don’t remember asking my wife how she cooked when we dated. It is in these circumstances that my inability to cook is highlighted to the extreme. Am I driven by the abject desire to cook badly so I don’t have to cook at all? Does my devious mind deliberately misunderstand the emotional reactions insufficient salt can’t bring about? No, no, absolutely not. It is said that when one of the senses if impaired, it heightens the others. Perhaps my lack of ability to judge when a vegetable has crossed over from being cooked to being burnt has helped me memorize directions better. Who knows?

I learnt to cook a few days before I left India for the US. My abilities till date had been limited to boiling milk in the kitchen that I dutifully did. With generous doses of training from my other and recipes written in my own hand-writing to avoid any contention, I headed to braver shores to try my skills. Alas, as Avinash and my other roommates would agree, the results were far from desirable. It is as if I couldn’t get it at all. The recipes might just as well have been a regional language movie I am watching. I could grasp the story but not the intricacies. The chick peas swam in a sea of excess water, the pulao often turned brown as it stuck to the bottom. The jury was out, and I was limited to cooking once a week for everyone’s benefit. Marriage didn’t change matters much, with my wife’s fabulous cooking and the wondrous division of labor that all married couples duly agree to in order to function as good roommates.

Years have passed and I have exercised my right to cook once in a while. Yet, the tag has stuck. That I am an ordinary cook has been written into my hand (metaphorically) like Vijay in Deewar. The self-deprecatory jokes (and this article) don’t help either. As is my wont, I generally go onto the internet to look for recipes for things as simple as Alu Sabzi. As an engineer, I have an analytical mind that can follow detailed instructions. I have attempted to apply these skills to cooking. But how does one contend with improper specifications: what does a ‘handful’ mean? What size of the spoon were they referring to? What is Nigella called in Gujarati? I grapple with these question and my soul searches for answers as my daal rightly falls short of salt. I may be an ordinary cook but I aspire for greatness too. Perhaps my heart will once find the right balance of spices to make Alu Gobi, or ambition will take me into making a concoction involving paneer. Till then, I struggle in the shadows and let the experts do their work. I reassure my guests at every dinner party that I had nothing to do with the food. They breathe easy. But it will change one day. A dish would be present in the mix that no one identifies as tasteless or off or difficult to eat. It will be cooked by me and no one will know the difference. That would be the ultimate compliment. Redemption will come.

Uno Momento

Each moment arrives ripe with possibility, with the promise of the unexpected. Some crystallize steady liaisons into life long affairs, others trade old romances for new ones. Some let it pass through while immersed in the silence of rippling water on a small electric water fountain; some choose to jump towards the earth, held only by a shred of plastic and a cord that absolutely must function. In some strict sense, each iota of time is the same, yet can be measured differently by the impact it has. Which makes some moments more important than the others. Each moment is hardly just that, it is a decision. An inalienable bit of truth that you can’t detach from you for the times to follow. And there are others when time stops and stretches itself, like an extended yawn on a Sunday morning. I love those moments. When you see a rain drop tear itself from the sky and watch it pass by you onto the ground as you stare out the window of your third floor office, or when you see the ball seem to slow down as it comes from the bowler’s hand, as if to give you that extra half second to play your shot.

We live in large measures of time: hours, days, years too. Yet most of life is humdrum and just a straight line connecting the dots that are the highlights of one’s life. And by that, I don’t even mean all significant events, but simply those that stand out without warning, that approach you without announcing the unbridled special feeling they bring along, and they are rarely spectacular to others but yourself. Here’s to celebrating your own private collection of extraordinary instants. For there's a charm when a moment is passing; watching that transience take over when you’ll never be what you were and never be what you will become.

Permanent Insanity

BCCI has done it again. It has riled me enough to wake me out of my blogging slumber. For days I have been searching for something that I feel passionate enough to write about. Trust the greediest organization that exists today to do this. The IPL tamasha has been in full swing. They have put an end to the international careers of people like Shane Bond because they aren’t competing in their twenty-twenty league. Now they are nailing the coffin efficiently by shunting out test matches. I saw a news article today about how BCCI will sacrifice a test match during England’s tour of India to accommodate, hold your breath, seven one day internationals and two twenty-twenty games!!! Ostensibly, the reason being given is that England’s players want to be back by Christmas. Forget for once the fact that Indian players in the past have always had to tour around Diwali. I mean, you can’t expect the Indian board to care about that, right? However, sacrificing a test match to accommodate two or three more mind-numbing, inconsequential bouts of fifty over games is infuriating. Who the hell remembers these games? Raise your hand if you can recollect any of the matches of the seven match one day series between India and Australia last year. Now, raise your hand if you remember what happened in the test series in Australia soon after. I rest my case. I know of course that I am in a minority. I cling by the silly romance of the test match, the belief that it is a true test of skill and quality. I know that most cricket viewers today don’t have the patience to watch a day long game, and would rather be done within three hours. Watching a test match is out of the question altogether. I know of course that in the long term test matches will reduce substantially, what with BCCI in full pursuit. However, I am entitled to my frustration. Today’s cricket viewer probably deems cricket as mere entertainment, where bowlers are props and the number of boundaries and sixers is directly proportional to the amount of satisfaction a viewer ends the day with. Subtlety is a curse. Unfortunately, BCCI will speed track that argument to satisfy its thirst for money. I feel for my game, and the shabby treatment it is being meted out. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pitches for the South Africa test matches turn out to be deadpan batting tracks resulting in draws (akin to the Pakistan team’s turn) thus allowing BCCI more freedom in killing of what is obviously no golden goose for it.

Street Sell

Stained,
Chipped,
Faithful,
Honest,
Listener,
Confidant,
Heirloom,
Grandmother's
Mirror,
Priceless,
Yours ...
For a buck

Eviction

There there
Don’t believe
All you hear

There are no
Women on Mars
Or men
For that matter

We haven’t
Erred enough
To be
Banished again

P.S: Rumours of a woman spotted on Mars

Glimpses of India

As promised, here are some pictures taken from my India trip. There was not much scope to move around, so here's a little bit of what I have.

Let me start with, what else, a picture from sunset at a beach (regular readers might know of my weakness for the sea and particularly, its shores) Here's a little slice of heaven from India: Alibaug to be precise (a few hours drive from Mumbai).

I made a trip to Ahmedabad to visit family and spent a day going around. The first stop was Sabarmati Ashram, a beautifully maintained sanctum sanctorum of the Father of the nation. Particularly soothing was the wind blowing through at the bank of the river Sabarmati where the ashram is located.

This is R.K. Laxman's tribute to Gandhi, a series of cartoons drawn in his trademark style

Gandhi's working quarters during his stay at the ashram

Next up is Adalaj ni Vav a step well very close to Ahmedabad. The architecture of this place is marvelous. Enjoy the effect of what seems like a series of never ending arches.

Beauty rising out of ruins

Next stop was at the Sun Temple in Modhera, the only second one of its kind (the other more famous one is in Konark, Orissa). The highlight was the massive stepped tank in front of the temple called Surya Kund. There are 108 miniature shrines carved in between the steps. I didn't know this before the speciality of a sun temple is that the first rays of the sun fell on the image of the Sun God during equinoxes.

A section of the aforementioned tank.

Intricate carvings

The Sabha Mandap

Here's an odd picture to complete this post. Spic and span, the new shining (pun intended) India. A mall in New Bombay on a weekday.

Monkey Business

The verdict is out and Harbhajan has been cleared of the racism charge. After the extreme drama where Mike Procter handed out the initial judgement to the constant pressures applied by the BCCI, this has been the ugliest story of the cricketing season. While the suspension was pushed away until this hearing so that the tests could proceed as planned, BCCI took to extraordinary tactics to put pressure on ICC and CA (Cricket Australia). They threatened to cancel the tour, kept their players in Adelaide etc.

Predictably, the Aussie media retaliated with criticism of the reversal of the charge against Harbhajan. They all talk about how CA & ICC bent over to accomodate BCCI. However, the Australians are missing the point. There issue snowballed because (a) Ricky Ponting decided to escalate the issue despite Kumble's suggestion not to (b) the obviously biased Mike Procter gave a horrendous decision where he took one man's word over another's. That the trusted party was white does not help matter.

Australians need to understand that this isn't the first time Indians and Asians have been at the receiving end of such treatment. The Mike Deniss incident was another case in point. It is the pent up frustration of this treatment at the hands of non-Asian teams and match referrees that has led to this.

If BCCI put on pressure, its only because ICC and CA would understand only that language. The fact is that the first judgement was wrong that the only right thing was its reversal. Is it so difficult for anyone to see? In what court of law would you proceed on one man's word over the other? If it can't be proved that Harbhajan uttered the racist comments, then obviously the charge against him is without basis. I am not a big fan of BCCI. It is a powerful yet greedy organization which has never cared for the betterment of cricket. But on this issue, I support their actions. It is a matter of national pride, an assertion of identity. Non-Asian teams have rolled over the Asians for years now with the consent of the ICC. Now, there's no need to take that kind of nonsense anymore. I can clearly see how only BCCI could have achieved this. Imagine if this would have happened with a less influential cricketing board like Sri Lanka. Do you think the player would have had a second trial and be exonerated? That being said, players like Harbhajan and Sreesanth need to be told by the BCCI to conduct themselves better on the field. For all the drama, Harbhajan had a very ordinary series and I would definitely rather pick Murali Karthik for the upcoming series against the South Africans. Put your performances where your mouth is. There is a reason no one sledges Tendulkar.

London Chronicles

As promised, here are some select photos from a stop over at London. This was an absolutely touristy stop over in the city and the photos will reflect that

1. Buckingham Palace

Waited and waited for the queen to call us in for a cup of masala chai and some farsan, but that did not happen.

Instead we were greeted by the sights of a bunch of guards going in and another coming out for the routine change of guard that draws in the crowds. Guess the guards got their dose of caffeine.

2. London Eye

London ki aankh! The slowest ferris wheel I have ever been atop. For all of thirty minutes, people get into 'capsules' that take you high and above the ground allowing for really good views of the city all around.

The light had been ordinary till then, and we weren't sure how that would affect what we will get to see. Instead we got some fantastic views of the Parliament and the Big Ben with the light peeping through the clouds as shown here.

Here's another picture from a different height and angle. I love the detail that is evident in the bridge across the river.

3. Westminster Abbey

A place for a lot of famous royal ceremonies, we missed out on seeing this from the inside because of a time clash and some unexpected closures. I didn't have too many good pictures of the outside. Here's a rare one.

4. Tower Bridge

The fun part is that I always thought this was the London bridge whose fall was being reported to the fair lady. Oh, the things you find out when you step on the actual London bridge. My camera is lousy at night shots. While a little blurred, this is still a tolerable picture.

5. Lords

My personal high point of the trip. There was a one and a half hour tour, most of which was spent in the pavilion and long room as seen in this picture. There was also a museum with the original Ashes urn. I felt like an enthusiastic kid in class, shooting my hand up to answer all the trivia questions that the tour guide was asking.

Here's a view of the media center on the other side of the ground. Fairly modern structure for a ground so old. The view from the media center itself is fantastic, since it directly overlooks the pitch. The famous Lords slope is also very evident from there.

Here's a magnificient view of the ground basking in daylight. A fantastic visit overall. Of course, it helps that my wife is also an ardent cricket fan :-)

6. Sherlock Holmes Museum

A neat idea. They constructed a Victorian era house based on the description of Sherlock Holmes' house in all his stories, and better still, situated it on Baker Street. In the house, they had a bunch of wax figurines of characters from some of his stories. Shown here is the man with the twisted lip.

7. Bath

A small town an hour and a half away from London, this is from the times when London was a Roman city. The focal point, not surprisingly is a bath, a natural hot water spring which was considered a sacred healing place by Romans. The bath itself wasn't anything major to write home about, but the structures were fairly nice.

The actual bath shown below.

8. St. Paul's Cathedral

One of London's most famous landmarks, this was a fantastic place to go see. Its marvelous to see such an old construction still retain its magnificience when surrounded by all things modern. The views from the top were also very nice. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside the cathedral.