Vilayat Mein Padhai (A Trip to Cambridge, UK, 16-Sep-2006)

So here we were, visiting one of the top two seats of learning in UK (the other being Oxford), and certainly one of the topmost in the world. Cambridge was formed by scholars who has escaped from Oxford because of some issues (don’t remember what) in 15-16th century. All those "hamara beta vilayat mein padhke aaya hai" (or son has studied abroad) type of dialouges in old Hindi movies would typically refer to Oxford or Cambridge. Always having fooled myself that I am one of the studious-types, a visit to the town of Cambridge was perhaps the right beginning of my “tourist-trips” in UK.

A visit to Cambridge is a visit into history. The story of Cambridge is twofold. Bigger one is the story of its sons and daughters, the story of men and women who studied in these colleges and went out in the world to achieve greatnesses and contribute to advancement of humankind in several ways. I cannot describe that here, that’s too big a story. The other story is the story of the architecture of the college buildings and the story of punting on River Cam, as seen from a tourist’s eye. That is the story that I am telling here.
The town is a university town. A typical street is tree-lined, with one or two churches or chapels, one or multiple colleges and a few buildings. The average building is 3 centuries old, with many being 16th century. Our trip began with taking a round of the town in the open top tourist bus, which was a big waste of time. The actual trip began at this juncture, the main street, the street leading to King's, Trinity and other colleges.

As I said before, the place is full of stories. The first was this. Supposedly, this is an apple tree and is a direct descendent of the apple tree under which Newton presumably got the inspiration for his gravitation theory. Man, what a claim!

Proceed ten steps further and you have the famed Trinity College to your right. Yes, the Trinity College. From Newton to Amartya Sen. This is the biggest of all colleges in Cambridge, and the richest. Its net worth runs in billions of pounds. At one time, it owned most of the land between Cambridge and Oxford.

Next is King’s college. Architecturally the best, King’s college was built by Henry IV. Intricate carvings on the front door were just an introduction to the splendour inside. The tourist entrance is through the magnificent chapel. Lovely vaulted ceilings, beautifully painted windows and Rubens’ Adoration of Magi! The chapel is really something. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed.

The college itself, with its lush green gardens besides the River Cam is sure to take your breath away. So after exploiting a few photo opportunities in the gardens, we went on to the highlight of the trip, punting on River Cam.

For those of you who don’t know punting, punting is very different from rowing and can be done only in shallow waters. Instead of a paddle, you have a long punt-pole in your hand, and you dip the pole in the water till it touches the river bottom. Then you push against the river bottom with the pole and that force pushes the boat ahead.

There are these boat companies which have students taking tourists for a chauffeured punting ride. With typical British wit, these students will give you a running commentary about the colleges you pass along the River and tell you about the history of the university.

The first college that we passed was St. John’s. The ivy-covered walls of the college light up with multiple coloured leaves in autumn. There is an interesting story about St. John’s façade. Apparently, the mayor of the town decided that only one out of St. John’s and Trinity will have a clock tower, and rules that whichever college builds it first will be allowed to keep the clock tower. St. John’s started on this ornate clock tower in keeping with the architecture of its façade, which obviously took some time to build. Trinity very smartly built a wooden clock tower and hence finished it much earlier, and hence got the right to have a clock tower. It then broke that wooden tower down and built a new one with the design in keeping with rest of the college.

This is the Bridge of Sighs. A strange name for such a beautifully designed bridge! This bridged is named after a bridge of the same name in Venice, which was named so because it led from prison to execution chambers. In the case of Trinity College though, the bridge is named so because it leads from the hostel to the examination rooms and the results chamber.

Next was the Trinity College hostel. Pretty unpretentious for a building which has hosted so many greats! When Prince Charles came to study at Trinity (he had very ordinary A-level results but who can refuse the Prince!), he said that he wanted to be treated like any other student and ended up taking the whole of the top floor of the hostel for himself and his bodyguards. The story goes that Prince Charles bodyguards used to always accompany him, even inside the classes. So when it came to giving the exam, one of the bodyguards decided to give the exam as well, and ended up scoring more than him!
This is the King’s College Chapel, building and ground as seen from River Cam. Supposedly, this point is the most photographed point in Cambridge. And I must admit - none of us was a good enough photographer to capture the unique way in which this point symbolises Cambridge.

The story of River Cam is the story of the bridges across the river, as much as about the colleges besides it. The next one we came across is Mathematical Bridge. There are at least ten theories about why the bridge is named so. One is that this bridge was originally built of all mathematical symbols. According to our punter (!), the bridge gets its name from its geometric design of having all its struts as tangents to the lowermost arc.

Every city faces modernisation. Cambridge faced this in late nineteenth/ early twentieth century (yes! That’s modern from Cambridge’s perspective) in the face of this building. Apparently, the architect wanted the building to reflect the trees on the other side of the Cam. The thin, vertical windows are supposed to be the gap between the trees, and the bar at top is supposed to be the cloud. Height of imagination! The town of Cambridge considered this building experimentation enough and stopped making any more new buildings on Cam.

After finishing our punting trip on Cam, we rounded up our trip at the Church of Jesus, one of the last remaining circular churches in the world.

Before I end my travelogue, here's a photograph of the place where the real education of most of the Cambridge students takes place, and no pilgrimage to Cambridge is complete without visiting this place. Yes, you guessed it right, I am speaking of University Arms, the local pub.

The thing that impressed us most about Cambridge was, the way history is alive here. In Cambridge, the centuries old buildings are beautiful, as they are at other places steeped in history, like my native country India. The difference is - here in Cambridge and in general in England, the beauty is maintained; here, the buildings are still in use and used in a way that proves that used does not mean worn or dead.

Till the next trip then….