Boston had been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. The images of the bombs blasts during the Boston Marathon were horrific. What made it worse for me is it’s a city I am extremely fond of and would have loved to live in.
I vividly remember my trip to Boston a couple of years ago. I took a daylong Boston tour, setting out from Grand Central, New York — just 12 of us in a small van and a guide with a great sense of humour. I just love that the guides have a stock of jokes and trivia that keep you smiling. He did make a lot of jokes about Yale vs Harvard which kept us in splits.
Take a trivia bit about Harvard University, our first stop. John Harvard, after whom the institute was named, was apparently not the founder. He was a benefactor who had made considerable donations including books to the library. When they wanted to put up a statue of Harvard they couldn’t find a likeness. So they just got a student to model for it. Which means that the statue of Harvard at Harvard is not really that of Harvard!!
Interestingly, you find one shoe of the statue is bright and shiny — thanks to a tradition where you rub the shoe and make a wish. Obviously, the wish has to be related to academia. And of course, all of us, like hundreds of tourists before us, dutifully rubbed the shoe and got a photo taken in the bargain. My wish of studying at Harvard has yet to come true but no regrets. Maybe, after I retire in a few years time!
The city itself has quaint parks with statues that underline the sense of humour and light-heartedness of the typical American. My favourite is the Hare and Tortoise. Though the city is considered one of the oldest (remember the Boston Tea Party), it is certainly young at heart. With the fall colours all around, the joie the vivre of Boston comes through. The “Harvard Hungama” posters on Harvard varsity campus reflect the sense of fun and “masti” of the season as well as the fact that there is a significant Indian student population. There are small bookshops, bistros and squares where impromptu music gigs are held. The infectious air and the balmy October makes you want to join the young crowd and sing along.
While one set of tourists preferred the historic tour that covered the Battle of Bunker Hill, some of us chose to go whale watching from the Boston harbour. Out on a boat, we were taken close to a pod of humpback whales. The whales migrate to Florida in the winter and get back north in summer. Being fall, it was close to the time when they would start towards Martha’s vineyard further down on the East coast onto Florida. There was this mother and calf pair who kept us spellbound. Sudden spouts of flumes, smacking the water with the tail fins, it certainly was an awesome experience.
Boston certainly is beautiful and its beauty needs to be cherished.