Part one: An English holiday

The centenary exhibition 'Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths' is where it all started.

A visit to the British Library in London in May 2017 was the kickoff for the cognizance and the notion of timeline in my lifetime of travel.

The extraordinary survey of the historical milestone, 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution took me back to my stay in Moscow in the early 1980s when Russia was the USSR and also carried the moniker Soviet Union.

I recall Lenin embalmed in his mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square, and the ephemeral performances of Bolshoi Ballet. The Soviet-bloc boxed architecture of towering dimensions. The government-operated food stores and their shortages. As well as the treasure troves of antique shops that dotted the city. 

A panorama of memories floated through my mind, as I weaved through the aisles of the monumental mounting of an out-of-the-box exhibition; scanning rare black and white photographs of the Romanov imperial family, archival letters, missives, posters, films, books;  mesmerizing one into a time-frame a century past.

The exhibition aisles were uniquely curvilinear and undulating, weaving the visitor through. The ubiquitous hammer and sickle symbol of communism and the proletarian worker-peasant alliance were dominating the visual wonders.

Muscular, angular human forms characterise Soviet posters.  And there I found the autobiography of Anna Anderson, a Polish-born woman who claimed to be the only surviving Romanov - Nicholas II's daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

The imperial family was massacred in 1918. DNA tests as recent as in 2007 found no proof to her life-long claim. She died in 1986. Some of us will remember Ingrid Bergman's role in the 1956 classic film 'Anastasia.'

Any literary pilgrim will seek out literary temples; destinations in themselves. And such is London's British Library in Euston. Here we have an ongoing literary feast. Here is the final resting place of books of legendary writers, not only British but also global authors - a heavenly haven of literary treasures.

F Terlizzi, the director of the sixteenth century Angelica Library in Rome termed his turf as a 'vaso dei libri' or 'a vessel of books'. Here is a wordsmith at his best. And the British Library aptly qualifies. Elsewhere in London for bibliophiles, the book store aficionado and the library enthusiast; other favourite literary meccas include Foyle's on Tottenham Court Road, Daunt's Travel Book Shop and the Oxfam Charity Bookshop in Marylebone.

The latter, before a year or two, would only stock second-hand books. It now includes a range of donations from accessories, to bags, clothes and curtains. I prefer the earlier exclusive contents. Those bargains have provided meaningful hours of discovery over the years.

A discovery as I bussed up Piccadilly en route to Stoke Newington (birth place of Daniel Defoe of 'Robinson Crusoe' fame); my eyes crossed an elegant building opposite the Royal Academy carrying the name 'Assouline'.

I got off at the next bus-stop, and entered a unique book boutique or a (literary salon?) set in a 1922 building designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the very architect responsible for much of the layout of central New Delhi.

Assouline, the esteemed New York publishing company of high-end art, design and lifestyle coffee-table books, celebrated 20 years of rich dividends in 2016. I was entering its first international flagship store. Staring out of wood-polished shelves were enticing books on Bali, Dali, Chanel, Egypt, New York, London, Paris, Jaipur and Japan.

If only one could place all of them in one's shopping basket. At Assouline luckily, there are none. A cafe downstairs and an upstairs replete with a 'cabinet of curiosities' make Assouline a must-see literary salon as well as a venue for viewing architecture.

Regretfully, I missed some 2017 milestones. A weekend later was the Zee Jaipur Literary Festival at the British Library. An off-shoot of the Indian literary meet hosted an array of top-notch authors; including Shashi Tharoor, William Dalrymple, Karan Johar, Amit Chaudhuri and Namita Gokhale.

"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world!"- Gustave Flaubert

The author Lawrence Norfolk billed it as "part circus, part post-graduate seminar and part revolutionary assembly!" Now who on earth would not want to be part of this party?

This year also witnesses 70 years of the independence of India from colonial Raj. An Indian literary summer brought together Indian authors writing in English and British writers writing on India.

A week later was the sharing of the great and the good in literature and arts at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye in Wales. The event attracts annually a torrent of talent that incrementally descends on this town of books. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of its literary landscape.

The British Museum celebrates the man and his works in an exhibition 'Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave' starting in June 2017. A print of his iconic woodblock of rising and swirling walls of water with the contrasting majestic silhouette provided by the distant Mount Fujiyama is said to be the world's most reproduced image. A 'Great Wave' print hangs on our foyer wall at our home in Dhaka; a graphic memory of our posting in Tokyo in the mid-1980s. It was then that I was introduced to Japan's greatest woodblock artist who lived between 1760 and 1849.

This year marks 40 years since the death of the King of Rock n Roll. When a downward-spiralling Elvis Presley died in 1977, a cynical music industry insider was overhead saying that it was a 'smart career move.' Forty years later, the 'One and Only' is richer today than he was when he died.

A music milestone 'Sgt. Pepper at 50' is the iconic Beatles album that my generation sang and danced to.  News magazines were providing highlights of their forthcoming coverage of the 6-day Arab-Israeli War in June 1967; 50 years of occupation of the West Bank.  Books and magazines, films, music and visuals do stir our collective memories. Seated at a side-walk table at Cambridge Circus; consuming fish and chips - a traditional British food fare - across from us stood a slim brick building. It bore the inscription: 'Spice of Life'. This encapsulates the city of London.

I first set my eyes on the Royal Pavilion in Brighton on the southern coast of England in the mid-1970s. Termed 'British heritage at its most eccentric', I was befuddled at this bizarre concoction of architectural styles. Built as King George IV's pleasure palace in 1823; its oriental, onion-shaped dome, towering minarets and crenellated arches that formed its eastern exterior looked oddly out of sync in an English seaside town with its recreational Brighton Pier and its nearby rolling hills - the Sussex Downs.

The sea is part of the narrative in Brighton. 'Taking in the waters' was and remains a local tradition.  And then this singular odd-ball building appears out of the blue. Some four decades later, I stood inspired before an architectural playful design - a western interpretation of the east since George IV had never left the shores of Britain. Obviously, an individual replete with wishful wanderlust. Here more is more.

Some four decades later, soft spring sunshine illuminated the curves and lines of the splendid Indian-style architecture. The composition of Chinese chinoiserie design determining its opulent yet delicate interior left me in awe. An impeccable output of an interior architect. Brighton's iconic building also served as an Indian Military Hospital for injured soldiers serving in France during World War I.  Such is the impact of time and knowledge. True, 'Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.' However, the eye changes perspective; the eye has to absorb. The eye has to travel.

On-going was the Brighton Festival - a potpourri of creative endeavours open to the public. Brighton has throughout the ages attracted creativity. Jewellery-makers, painters, potters, sculptors, writers have all come here seeking artistic refuge and inspiration. We took in the exhibition of the celebrated master artist of the English landscape John Constable at the Museum of the Brighton Pavilion. Large canvases of his oil paintings depict the luminous light, land and sea of the Brighton topography. Another room hosts an eclectic display of letters, books, photographs, models, objects portraying Brighton in the context of a long-since booming seaside town. Amongst the many items is a copy of an incomplete manuscript 'Sanditon' by Jane Austen, a novel shadowing the setting of Brighton. She was working on it prior to her demise four months later. King George IV was a collector of Austen's books. We commemorate Austen's bicentennial death anniversary in 2017.

A saunter through the idyllic village of Rottingdean on the southern coast, further east of Brighton brought us to the former Town Centre building; now converted into an art gallery, library, garden cafe and a mini-museum - all utterly charming. Highlighting the role of Brighton and Rottingdean in terms of locale; in the museum - Audrey Hepburn appears in a large poster and some photographs. The sixteen year old gamine girl poses on the Brighton rocks. Then still unknown. Two years later, she appeared in 'Roman Holiday' (1953) with Gregory Peck. And the rest is history. Audrey Hepburn, one of the most emulated movie stars of all times died in 1993.  Come September 2017, at Christie's London an auction sale of her memorabilia is to take place.

Raana Haider is a writer with particular interest in the arts, architecture, literature and travel.