The beer refresh-es,
The food is mediochre:
A quaint pub in Hampstead
A Hampstead haiku
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The Patient Assassin
I love browsing in second-hand bookshops. Occasionally, I come across really good books that I had not previously known about. The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand (published 2019) was one such discovery.
The Patient Assassin is about the life and exploits of Udham Singh (1899-1940), a pro-independence, anti-British activist. Some of his friends were killed in the notorious Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in mid-April 1919. Under the command of General ‘Rex’ Dyer, several hundred innocent men, women, and children, were shot dead within the closed space of Jallianwalla Bagh, a walled public garden in Amritsar. Many others were injured in this cruel attack whose supposed purpose was to subdue the people of the Punjab so that they would not rise against British rule.
Dyer died of illness in England, having been proclaimed a hero for his malevolent deed. Michael O’ Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, who thoroughly approved of what was done at Jallianwalla Bagh and other horrific treatment of Indians, retired to London.
Udham Singh had friends who were killed at Jallianwallah Bagh. He made it his mission to kill O’ Dwyer. The author of Patient Assassin, Anita Anand, traces Udham’s complex and mysterious life from the Punjab to London, where he shot dead O’ Dwyer at a meeting at London’s Caxton Hall in 1940. Ms Anand weaves an exciting tale based on her researches of Udham’s colourful and exciting life. Her book about a real person makes far more engaging reading than most fictional thrillers.
I was very pleased to stumble across Anand’s book for two reasons. One is that it turned out to be an un-put-downable read. The other is that it chimes with something that I have been working on.
In mid 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra, who like Udham Singh came from the Punjab, shot dead Sir William H Curzon Wyllie, a retired important British administrator in India, at the Imperial Institute in South Kensington. This assassination horrified the British nation and many in India.
Dhingra had come to England study engineering at University College London several years before shooting Curzon Wyllie. He had become involved in the freedom fighting activities that were centred on India House in Highgate between 1905 and early 1910. It was Dhingra’s fatal shots that hastened the demise of India House, a student hostel and meeting place which was regared by the British as a ‘centre of sedition’. I have almost completed writing a book about India House and its members, including Dhingra, and it should be available for sale soon. Its title will be “Ideas, Bombs, and Bullets”.
Finding Ms Anand’s book quite by chance was a great delight for me. Unintentionally, it might almost be considered a kind of sequel to what I have just written.
A line of bollards
Keeping cars off pavements,
Lined up like soldi-ers:
Praise London’s bollards
This won’t hurt a bit!
One of my dental colleagues, a very confident fellow and a competent operator, told me this true story many years ago.
One day, he had a nervous male patient, a well-built strong looking man. However, the patient was extremely anxious, as many dental patients often are. The patient needed to have root canal treatment and was convinced that he would experience much pain during the procedure.
As my colleague prepared his local anaesthetic syringe, he said, trying to be reassuring:
“Don’t worry, sir, after I have given you this injection, the procedure won’t hurt a bit!”
The patient turned to my colleague brandishing his tightly clenched fist, and said:
“You’d better be right because this will certainly hurt you!”
- Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
St John’s finger
It might have been in the Bargello, or more likely in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, both in Florence (Italy), that there was (and probably still is) an exhibit that captured my imagination when I was a young child. Amongst a collection of holy relics housed in elaborately crafted silver and glass containers, there was one holy relic that looked a bit like the stub of a discoloured cigar. It was, so the museum label stated, a bone from the index finger of St John the Baptist. Whether it was or was not, this item fascinated me, and even haunted me.
Many years later when I was looking into the story of St Appolonia, the patron saint of dentists, I read that one of the miraculous properties of the body parts of dead saints is their ability to reproduce themselves – a feature that must have been useful for those who used to sell such things. I am glad that I had not known this when I used to stare fascinated at St John’s finger, which I then believed to be exactly what it claimed. That would have spoilt my amazement, which I always felt when I saw that piece of bone in its ornate container.
Photo from flickr
We did not mean to visit Dubai
I must admit that Dubai was never on the long list of places that I hope to visit during my lifetime. It was a place that, without any rational explanation, I felt like avoiding. Benidorm is another of these places, as are, for example, EuroDisney, Ayia Napa, Eilat, the Seychelles, and Sharm El-Sheikh. However, when flying on the excellent Emirate Airways, it is necessary to change ‘planes at Dubai’s fantastic airport.
A few years ago, we flew from London to Bangalore (India) by Emirates, This entailed changing ‘planes at Dubai. After embarking at Heathrow Airport, we were told that our departure would be delayed while a defective aircraft component was changed. Consequently, we departed about two hours later than we should have. As a result, we missed our connection in Dubai.
At Dubai, we were directed to a desk that dealt with connection/transfer problems such as that we faced. An extremely helpful man with an exuberant moustache and beard offered to put us on the next flight to India, which would have taken us to Bombay rather than Bangalore and advised us that from Bombay, we would no longer be in the care of Emirates. This did not sound satisfactory. Then, he said:
“If you are not in a hurry, why don’t you spend a day in Dubai and take the next day’s Emirate flight to Bangalore?”, adding quickly, “Emirates will put you up in a hotel and pay for our meals and accomodation.”
We opted for that, and within a few minutes we were whisked in a limousine to a hotel close to the airport. There, we were settled in two adjoining luxurious rooms.
Next morning, we decided to see Dubai as we had most of the day to do so. We bought day tickets for the city’s superb rapid transit rail service and visited the oldest part of Dubai, on the Creek. At the Creek, we bought day tickets for the small boats that criss-cross the Creek.
Without going into detail, we had a wonderful day in Dubai, travelling on boats, visiting museims and historic buildings, and eating superb middle-eastern food. Almost everyone we met was friendly and helpful.
Although I would not choose to visit Dubai again unless we have to because of a missed ‘plane connection, our day in Dubai removed my previous completely unjustifiable prejudice against visiting the place. Our delayed Emirates flight did us and Dubai a great favour!
A sip of water
Like many other parts of Europe, here in London we have been ‘enjoying’ some exceptionally hot weather. Hot as it is outside, it can be even hotter on some of the lines of the London Underground system. The Central Line is one of the worst: its trains are hot as are its below ground stations.
I was travelling on the Central Line recently when I noticed a late middle-aged woman sitting opposite me. Her face was hidden under much make-up. At one point, she opened a metal water bottle, whose colour matched her dress, and took a couple of sips of (presumably) water. I guessed what would happen immediately after she had screwed the lid back on.
My guess was right. She reached into her large handbag, fumbled about, and then withdrew a bag full of cosmetics. First she examined her face in a mirror, then wiped something invisible off her chin. This was the prelude to using a furry brush to re-powder her chin and the skin between her nose and upper lip. When she was satisfied with that, she applied another layer of bright red lipstick to her already heavily ‘lipsticked’ lips. Then, she smiled to herself. I was amazed that such a tiny sip of water could cause so much trouble.
Picture adapted from Amazon website
Joy of reading
Oh what a pleasure it is
To open a new book
And enjoy it
Stung on the tongue: a careless diagnosis
I cannot remember the name of the person who taught us dental pathology back in 1981 at University College Hospital Dental School, but one thing he told us made a deep impression on me. He said that it was unlikely that we would see oral cancers frequently in general dental practice, but when we did see one we would feel a certain ‘jizz’ (our teacher’s word), a feeling that we were looking at something unusual and worrying.
One day when I was in practice, a delightful late middle-aged woman visited my surgery as a new patient. She said there was something on her tongue that had been bothering her for several weeks and was making eating and speech difficult. She had been to her doctor (medical), who told her that she had had a bee sting on her tongue. She told me that she had been taking antibiotics prescribed for it for quite a time and the condition was only getting worse.
I had never encountered anyone with a bee sting on their tongue. The lady’s story and her doctor’s diagnosis sounded strange. She showed me her tongue. As soon as I saw the huge ulcer on the side of it and its peculiar border, I felt that ‘jizz’, which our pathology teacher had mentioned. I knew that the poor lady had, almost without a doubt, a carcinoma on her tongue. I told her my suspicions, and she looked relieved, and was grateful. Clearly, she had not believed her doctor’s story. I phoned the local oral surgery department, and they admitted her promptly.
About a year later, the lady reappeared. During the surgical treatment of her cancer, she had lost several teeth and wanted a denture to replace them. Sadly, her mouth was by now so distorted that making a prosthesis was beyond my competence. I referred her to a prosthetic specialist. Unfortunately, she did not live long enough for his work to be completed.
Whether earlier intervention would have saved her life, or at least prolonged it, is a question than cannot be answered.
In my 35 years in dental practice, I only ever saw two patients with obvious oral cancers. However, I did refer many patients to have unusual looking lesions seen by oral surgical specialists. None of these gave me that ‘jizz’ nor turned out to be cancerous.
Indian patriots in Edwardian London: against the British Empire
Here is something to whet your appetite!
IDEAS,BOMBS, and BULLETS
Indian freedom fighters in Edwardian London
Inside a house on a quiet tree-lined residential street in north London’s Highgate, a young Indian held a revolver in one hand and repeated a solemn oath promising to give liberating India from the British greater importance than his own life…
Pandit Shyamji Krishnavarma (1857-1930) was born in Mandvi in Kutch. He earned his title of ‘Pandit’ because of his very great knowledge of Sanskrit. In the 1880s, he travelled to England where he became an assistant to Professor Monier Williams at the University of Oxford. Krishnavarma’s studies of Sanskrit at Oxford earned him great fame amongst the Indologists all over the world. He also became a barrister. On hisreturn to India, Krishnavarma served as ‘Diwan’ in various princely states, before returning to England in 1897.
By 1905, Krishnavarma had become deeply involved in the movement to free India from the grips of the British Empire. That year, he purchased a house in the north London suburb of Highgate. He named it ‘India House’ and it served as both a hostel for Indian students and a centre for plotting the liberation of India from the British.
Between 1905 and 1910, when India House was closed and sold, this place became known as a ‘centre of sedition’ and the ‘most dangerous organisation in the British Empire’. I have almost finished writing a book, to be called “IDEAS, BOMBS, and BULLETS” about Highgate’s India House and the people associated with it.
Here is a brief introduction to my forthcoming book:
“This is about a little known part of the history of India’s struggle for independence. It concerns events centred on a house in Edwardian London. It is a tale of bombs, guns, lawyers, patriots, philosophers, revolutionaries, and scholars.
A large Victorian house stands in a residential street in the north London suburb of Highgate. Between 1905 and 1910, it was known as ‘India House’, and was a meeting place and hostel for Indian students, many of whom wished to help liberate India from centuries of British domination.
In the 19th and 20th centuries before India’s independence, many young Indians came to England to be educated. This is the story of a few of them, who came to Britain in the early 20th century, and then risked sacrificing their freedom, prospects, and lives by becoming involved in India’s freedom struggle.
This book describes the true adventurous exploits of members of Highgate’s India House (including VD Savarkar, Madan Lal Dhingra, and VVS Aiyar) and its history.“
I will give you more news about my book soon, I hope!
yamey 