Glimpses – The Minstrel's Music

In and around Cambridge University, UK on 16 June 2010

Cambridge University must be special to most Indians. The first Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as well as our present Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh were students of this University. Not just that, what is cosidered to be modern India’s most consequential love affair between crown prince of the Nehru-Gandhi family Rajiv and the Italian Antonia Maino (later Sonia Gandhi) was staged in these locales.

All this and more makes a visit to Cambridge highly attractive for any Indian in the UK, and I just could not resist when made an offer to accompany our family friends Shivan Uncle, Shanti Aunty, Suraj and Meghna.

We reached Cambridge in a little over an hour’s drive from our place in London. The first signboard that I saw there brought back a lot of those familiar high school jitters – ‘Cavendish’ Laboratory, ‘Charles Babbage’ Road, ‘J J Thomson’ Avenue… Phew! Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computers, Economics… Seemed like Cambridge contributed to most of those long, dreaded, exhaustive (and exhausting!) lessons from school. More was in store.

Now it would be quite unbelievable if I told you that I still remember the path we travelled through the day after these two years, so I will stop short of the chronological narration and just go by the selected pictures that I have here.

University Campus Map in 3D and Braille

We found this very useful 3D map outside the Great St. Mary’s Church. What struck me was that it also had somethings imprinted in Braille for the visually challenged tourists.

Corpus Clock, Cambridge

The Corpus Clock, one of Time magazine’s best inventions in the year of 2008, at the Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. In Bollywood, the song video of the song Mudi Mudi from the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Paa was shot around this clock.

Cycle Stand Cambridge

Realised that cycle stands are as bad and disorganised as they are, be it the Cambridge University or the Garnet Hostel in National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli (where I studied!) One of the greatest personal mysteries I had to face at the finish of my college was that I could simply not find my cycle among all the cycles thrown around in our cycle stand!!

Trinity College, Cambridge

The Trinity College was home to Prime Ministers Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi, mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, cricketer Prince Ranjitsinghji and last but not the least, Sir Isaac Newton!

Entrance to St. Johns College, Cambridge

St Johns College Cambridge

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is a former student and faculty at the St. Johns College Cambridge. After completing his honours degree in Economics in 1957, Dr. Singh worked at the College from 1957 to 1965, progressing from Senior Lecturer to Professor of International Trade. As a student, he won the Wright’s Prize for Distinguished performance and the Wrenbury Scholarship.
The College went on to honour its distinguished alumnus by offering the Dr. Manmohan Singh Scholarship for prospective Indian PhD students.

Newtons Apple Tree Cambridge

Now this one really gave me a shock. How can that tree still survive? I still remember the jokes on this apple tree. Had Newton been in India, and the tree been a coconut tree?! 😀

To know more about this tree visit here

Calvery's Ode To Tobacco

‘Ode to tobacco’, yeah, you read it right. Written in 1862! So you know things weren’t very different around 150 years ago. For complete details of the plaques in the area, visit here.