Bored of life in London? Not so, says CJA chair Rita Payne
Rita Payne, chair of the Commonwealth Journalists Association’s UK branch and former Asia Editor of BBC World, writes about her poetic and cultural encounters in the past week in London
It’s a cliché but true, if one is bored in London one is bored with life. I’m always amazed at how much one can see and do.
Last Saturday I had been planning to enjoy a quiet weekend but decided at the last minute to go to the Poetry Olympics organised by a group called the Movement for Third World Solidarity.
Several well-known personalities took part in what was a genuinely multi-cultural event. Among them were the British actors Steven Berkoff and Eleanor Bron, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Moazzem Beg and Pakistani writer and film-maker Mahmood Jamal.
The poems ranged from lyrical to quietly thoughtful to quirky and humorous. A slim, elegant woman, Patience Agbabi, recited verses about finding an identity as someone whose parents arrived in the sixties from Nigeria but who was raised in a white foster family.
Patience played cleverly with the sound of words and her delivery was powerful and exciting, bringing sometimes painful experiences to life.
One of the most moving presentations was by Moazzem Beg who began writing poetry for the first time when held in Guantanamo Bay detention centre. He said he was aware his writings would be censored and wrote for his captors hoping they would read his poems and understand. He ended on an uplifting note describing an occasion when one of the American soldiers who had been a guard in Guantanamo Bay stood alongside him on a public platform in a gesture of reconciliation.
It is interesting to contrast the Poetry Olympics with my visit, a few days earlier, to a dazzling exhibition at the city’s V&A museum. Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts has more than 250 magnificent Indian objects.
The exhibition covers the period from the 18th century when the great era of maharajas began to the end of British rule in 1947. It begins with the recreation of an Indian royal procession complete with a life-size model of an elephant adorned with jewellery and surmounted with a silver howdah.
Among the treasures on display are three thrones, gem-encrusted weapons, necklaces, belts and other ornaments dripping with diamonds, emeralds and pearls, court paintings and rare photographs.
Together the displays explore ideas of kingship in India, the role of the maharaja as religious, military and political leader and patron of the arts. It reflects the shifts of power and taste in the 18th and 19th centuries and the impact of the disintegration of the Mughal Empire which led to a period of political change in which rival kings laid claim to territory.
The exhibition ends appropriately enough with a gleaming and lovingly maintained Rolls Royce. Whether or not one is a fan of royalty, the V&A does provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a rare inside view of India’s regal past.