A CAPITAL JOURNEY

Washington DC is the capital of USA. The Senate is housed at the Capitol building, but apart from these numerous government buildings and offices, (which no one is really interested in), Washington is famous for its museums. Now every other city has a museum or two- I remember even our own humble Nagpur had one called “Ajab Bangla” in my childhood. God knows if it still exists, or, if it isn’t taken to be a “Bhoot Bangla” these days. But I would say DC is a city of museums, and the best part is that most of these museums are free!
Pankaj had a conference to attend (which he chose because it was in DC: is a fact self-evident!) So I got all excited about my first summer vacation in this country. We had been to New Port for a day before, and to New York, but never as tourists. This time, however, I did everything that tourists do: this mail will explain what I mean by the “touristy” things…
Now here, train tickets cost just as much or sometimes even more than flight fares! So we decided to take a flight, of course. I really don’t understand this western logic- who will want to spend lots of time on the train plus pay extra money for it? Anyway. Sometimes the more “advanced” countries are seen to be advancing in the reverse direction! Like first they give us vegetables so very coated with pesticides and insecticides that they can’t rot for a month, and then they sell what is called “organic” market products, (grown as naturally as they can be) for a double cost! So we had to take a flight from Hartford to Dulles Airport, leaving at 7.30 am. This meant that we woke up at 4 am and started from the house at 5, so that we could drive to Hartford which is almost 50 miles away from Branford. This was the worst part of the trip, the rest of it turned out to be pretty relaxing. We boarded a little plane, with only three rows (but it was full! So many people chose to get up early like us, I suppose!)
We reached Dulles at 8.30, but our terminal was far away from the main terminal, so we took two buses to reach the car rental office. We got a pleasant surprise when our car turned out to be a Ford Escape, a SUV (Sports utility vehicle), as huge as our Indian Tata Sumo!!! It was brand new and fully equipped, 6 CD drive for music, remote control to open doors, power windows! Now we had to drive for another hour before we got to the Downtown DC area, where the Westin Grand Hotel was located. (Here I made some use of my map-reading skills I have acquired in Germany, and guided Pankaj through the maze of one-ways in the Downtown area) It is a different matter, of course, that Pankaj hardly ever took my advice, which is why we reached there in time 
The hotel was not very grand, but as good as Centre Point, maybe. (The lady at the reception counter told us with a huge smile that she was giving us a room with a view- which turned out to be a construction site!!) But the bathroom was capital…a huge bath tub, little shower area and a separate toilet (considering that combined bath and toilets is a western concept)! I immediately jumped into the bath tub (it made Pankaj think I was going to spend all the rest of my days there!) That was bliss!! The hotel did provide internet service into the room, for just 10.95 $ a day…so we decided against it.
That day Pankaj had time to come with me, so we started out. It was cloudy throughout our stay, but thank god it did not rain. Otherwise I would have seriously had to enjoy only the bathtub there! That day we took the metro to the Smithsonian Museum and the Washington Memorial. The Smithsonian museum of American History is the most famous, most crowded and worst kept museum of all! It was a dark and gloomy place with a quite a lot of kids running about in all directions and nothing much to offer except old railway models and Thomas Edison’s notes on his invention of the light bulb. I thought the bulbs they used in this place must be from the Edison times, considering the amount of light they emitted.
The site of Washington Memorial, a pillar of 555 feet height, was closed for construction, but the pillar is visible even from outside, so we did take some photos. It is said that there is a Lincoln Memorial right opposite the Washington memorial, with a huge artificial lake (The Reflecting Pool) in between both. But we did not get to see any of these, thanks to the construction. I was disappointed. The Lincoln memorial has a great statue of Abraham Lincoln in a contemplative mood, reflected across the pool…anyway. That day it took us a long time to figure out the directions in the first place and the nearest metro stations in the second. So my legs were aching badly by the time we got home. Lunch was pizza and dinner was sandwich (there aren’t any better options in DC for people like us- vegetarians) The eating places near museums and the main area are either terribly expensive or do not offer a wide choice, so we had to come to the downtown to eat everyday.
We entered into a museum of Women in the Arts, which was of some interest to me, but came out looking at the entry fee- $ 11/- I thought of going there alone later (because Pankaj had no business there as it is) but had no time. However, we went to the museum shop and bought some trinkets- a ruler with names of famous women authors, picture postcards etc…This is the touristy thing I was talking about- being more interested in photos than in museums themselves, spending half an hour in the museum/gallery and 3 hours in it’s basement-shop- eating more than ever and walking about aimlessly!!!
But we did get into the Library of Congress the next day, when the conference was only for half a day and Pankaj was free after 12pm. We liked this place the most. Made especially for the use of senators, it is free for anyone with a photo identification (though one can only read books inside and not issue them out) The library was originally only one building, but now has expanded into three, because 10,000 books are added to it everyday! Every thesis written in the United States is available here, so is Pankaj’s thesis!
The great hall, meant to be the entrance of the library is of marble, with painted glass ceiling and statues of angels all over, representing all the professions, which means that the library is not just for the esoteric, but for the common people too. We arrived just in time for a free guided tour- that was lucky. The elderly lady (a volunteer, I suppose) explained what the several paintings meant and the history of the library etc. Constructed in 1800, destroyed by during war and rebuilt to the original design again… now the frescos look grand and fresh, as if there were a conflict in time- the design is ancient but the building is new. Inside the great hall, there is a great dome, the central office of the library and the reading room. We were not allowed inside, but could look on through a glass on the first floor. This dome was impressive with gold borders and statues of learned men around it.
This library has the Gutenberg Bible, the first flawless “printed” book in the world apart from many other books of historical importance. There are only three flawless copies, because printing was not an easy task then.
The next two days were more productive in that sense because I was alone all day and Pankaj was attending the conference. I used to order a heavy breakfast and set out to explore the city. It was my first taste of freedom after I came here- I was in love with the metro which made me independent, and with the crowds which made me feel safe! There were hundreds of families with kids around. That day I went to the Arthur Sackler Gallery, which was hosting an exhibition on the Asian Games, apart from its usual collection of Asian arts. Japanese screens and Indian idols cast in Bronze (not Abhijeet Sawant, mind you!) were all fantastic. (Most of the Indian antiques end up in foreign museums- what a shame! The Kohinoor is still not back!!) I was just in time for the free tour here too- so I thought I would see what the comments about Indian sculpture were! Initially, a mother left her twins to take the tour (maybe it was a school assignment) and there was me with the tour guide, but the company picked up numbers as we went along. The tour guide was an elderly lady with quite a sound knowledge of Indian philosophy, it seemed to me.
There was a very interesting phenomenon in this gallery- an artist called “Freer” created a whole “peacock room” for his patron…so he decked up the whole Danish leather upholstery in brilliant blue green and gold, with two huge peacocks on one wall and the rest of the place covered in different types of peacock feather designs. Freer himself was a great admirer of Eastern (Japanese) art, so his work combines the western and eastern themes. Finally however, the patron was furious because he did not like the idea that much- so one of the two peacocks on the wall symbolizes the patron, with an angry look and the other peacock, Freer himself! Later, the patron realized that this room became a hit with the spectators, and repented. Now the room in the museum is literally picked up from the house of that lord and fitted into a given space. So that was the story of the peacock.
Then I came into the Asian games section- with beautiful models of chess, pacheesi (what we call “saripaat” in Marathi) and Chinese checkers. I did not know that chess originated in India, though I knew that Emperor Akbar used to play chess with real figures in his courtyard! So here were the sets in ivory and marble, studded with rubies and emeralds in some places, really grand! Then a “snakes and ladders” board was written in Sanskrit- with the hundred boxes symbolizing gau yoni, brahmacharya, grihasthashram, shudra janma, kshatriya and Brahman-janma and so on, whereas the snakes were for paapkarma and ladders for punyakarma! So if you performed a Yadnya, you would get a ladder straight to a lower heaven!
So that was mostly the end of my day. Our dinner at “Aatish” a Pakistani restaurant turned out to be a disaster, we spent a lot of money finding out the place and eating there. Anyway. The next day I was introduced to the wife of another person attending the conference, like Pankaj, so we set out together this time! The National Archives was “overflowing” with tourists, so we barely managed to get inside! (This was just like India, except that we were taken inside the building to watch a movie by the time the museum was cleared, rather than having to stand outside in the sun!) I must however, mention with pride that India has such a fully developed system of handling crowds, which this country lacks totally. Go to any temple, any public place- there are benches to sit through long waiting lines which are covered for shade too! Here in the USA, nobody expects crowds, sort of, so they are all exasperated to see a hundred people (only) at such tourist attractions.
Now the National Archives houses the famous “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson, which is a very old, mostly faded document, about as impressive as the royal seal of Shivaji where no one can decipher the letters! But it was a great thing to see, so I was inspired to buy a printed copy of it, for just $ 2 at the gift shop! The art gallery was a great discovery- and I thought I should have spent more time there, rather than looking at a history as alien to me as that in a text book! The National Art Gallery is the greatest collection of paintings I have ever seen in my life- though I must mention that Zwinger, in Dresden was more interesting though smaller. This gallery was divided into around 70-75 little sections, housing British, Italian, French, Spanish, German paintings starting with 12th and 13th Centuries…I love looking at paintings though I don’t understand a thing about it, so there I was in the company of Fra Angelico and such great sounding names for two hours and could have spent the entire evening there. But the exhibition was open only till 5 pm and I had to visit the shop too …
It is a very strange thing that such great paintings by Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet or Picasso should be made into greetings, posters, handkerchiefs, cups, pens, letter pads or table mats…but such is the capitalist culture- it copies and markets everything it can, (much to the satisfaction of the lowly class like us, who can afford a $3 poster of a lovely painting, though we can never even dream of owning a real one, even of some obscure artist!) It was like belittling art for the sake of making it “Accessible”, which is an ethical issue of which the less said the better.
Pankaj called in the meanwhile to say that we must be leaving as soon as possible before the weekend traffic catches us, so I returned to the hotel. But getting out of DC was another ordeal- the uniqueness of the capital lies not in its museums but in its beltways (which means that even if you start off on a highway no. 95 North, you suddenly come across a flashboard saying you are on 495 South- which made Pankaj panic!) Actually, a beltway is a highway that runs in a circle and comes back to the main interstate highway at some point or the other! (But we found this out only when we reached Rohit’s place in a suburb of Baltimore, so it was no use on the road) Well, USA is a heaven of sorts for us Indians, but if your car were to break down on a highway, there would be no one to help you out. You will have to wait at leastfor an hour till assistance comes, that too, if you are in a position to make a call. Otherwise, you will die on the road but won’t find a single shack of “Car/luna/scooty Repare Garaje” nearby. Everything is as impersonal as it can be- even the roads are not called by human names like “Senapati Bapat Road”, but by utterly cold numbers and letters- I 95 or 267... “Pineview Drive”, when we came back from the trip, was quite a welcoming sign considering this. I was almost homesick after the ten day trip combining New Jersey, Washington and Baltimore- but of the other places, some other time!