London and Some Lesser Known Sights

My students and I bought travelcards for one week at the tube (subway) station in Heathrow airport, a one hour ride took us to Paddington from where we reached our low budget hotel situated in a tranquil street two minutes away from the station.

Later we took the tube to Westminster and went round the Houses of Parliament into the gardens and looked down at the Thames. Unfortunately the water was flowing into the ‘right‘ direction, so when I asked my standard question, ‘Where‘s the North Sea in your opinion?’ the answer had to be correct. It‘s nice to ask this question when the water is coming in and then explain them what ebb and flood mean.

Unfortunately Westminster Abbey is more often closed than open, it‘s always closed on Saturday afternoon so we could only admire it from the outside. From there we went to Buckingham Palace crossing Green Park, a lively sight on a sunny weekend day.

For the evening I had booked a walk with www.london@walks.com. Get to know the city on foot, an intelligent concept, be guided by people who know the tour well, who have anecdotes ready and who can deliver what they have to say in a pleasing manner. I had decided on Kensington and on the Ghosts of the Old City Walk.

Although we had the best possible guide (Tom Hooper), I wouldn‘t do the walk through Kensington again, it‘s just not as attractive as, say, Hampstead, I was rather disappointed. The students couldn‘t compare and followed the guide and his stories dutifully impressed. The stories surrounding Princess Diana to which we listened sitting on the grass in front of ‘her‘ palace touched us Germans only superficially, but must be the highlight for British groups.

DAY TWO
Sunday morning saw us in a nunnery, the Tyborn Convent, 8 Hyde Park Place, Bayswater Rd. W2. I had read about the place in the book Secret London by Andrew Duncan some years ago and written to the prioress asking her if we could visit. I‘ve been there three times already and will include it again if there‘s a next time, what better chance for 18-year-old students to get to know an alternative life-style?

The 25 Tyborn nuns belong to an enclosed Benedictine order which means that they never leave the convent, not even to visit relatives. They spend their time in study and prayer. The site is near the former gallows of Marble Arch and they pray for the souls of the Catholic martyrs executed there during the reign of Henry VIII. Every day they relax for one hour playing games or taking exercise in the convent garden, when indoors it‘s snooker and scrabbles for them.

From there into the outside world, to Speakers Corner just across the street. What a homey feeling it gave me to see two speakers again I‘ve seen every single time I‘ve been to London and to Speakers Corner!

Camden Street Market next. My colleague and I took our students there, told them not to just stay near the station, but to walk on because the more interesting things are beyond the bridge across the canal, but then we ‘got lost‘. We went our separate ways, not only because it‘s impossible to stay together there, but also because we had our individual plans for our spare time. We forgot to tell our students that on Sundays one can only get out at Camden Town tube station, but not get in, one must use the station before or after when going back to the centre, but they were intelligent enough to find that out on their own.

At 7.30 pm the teachers and the students met at St. Paul‘s tube station for the walk The Ghosts of the Old City. Lesley, an Irish actress, guided us. The students, boys and girls alike, took to her at once, later they told me that this walk was the best and two even said that it was the highlight of the whole week. We enlarged our vocab on ghosts and gallows considerably and became (verbal) experts in the fields of beheading, quartering and disembowelling.

DAY THREE
The Globe Theatre and the Shakespeare Exhibition therein was the destination of the following morning. London without a bit about Shakespeare isn‘t possible! We were near the Tate Modern and so later told/ordered them to at least walk through one floor, alone or in groups, anyway not with us teachers, no money would be spent in vain as the admittance is free, and just look. Surprisingly for them, not surprisingly for us, some of them (one can never please everyone) were quite impressed.

After that the students could do what they wanted. They asked us about Madame Tussauds, my colleague and I told them that there were lots of wax celebrities which meant nothing to foreigners, that the only part of the exhibition which could be understood by everyone was the Chamber of Horrors. Then my colleague said, ‘If you‘re interested in horror stuff, you can also go to the London Dungeon which is also on the South Bank, not far away, it‘s cheaper and there are fewer visitors.‘ I remembered former students telling me that it was really too childish, well, to cut a long story short, in the end we talked them into going to the Imperial War Museum, admittance free and certainly not childish. The next day they told us that the advice had been good.

I stayed in the Tate Modern for more than three hours‚ on my own and undisturbed, what a wonderful place! In the evening I saw the play The Woman In Black at the Fortune Theatre, Russell St, WC 2, a ghost story with two actors and a ghost, fitting into what we‘d already seen and heard of London. The students discovered the Happy Hour at the Pubbar Oxygen, 17 - 18 Irving Street, Leicester Square, which they liked so much that they returned there every night.

DAY FOUR
We only looked at the Tower from the outside (very high entrance fee!) the next morning, listened to the speech of a student who was the expert of the day and then walked on to the Tower Bridge where I made my students stand with one foot on either side of the bridge. Although heavy lorries were passing, we didn‘t feel much, maybe we were too heavy? After a while a British teacher with a class from elementary school shooed us away, he wanted them to spit through the gap. I asked him if that meant good luck, he said, ‘No idea, I‘ve just made it up‘.

After a detour to Katherine‘s Wharf and an envious look at he yachts there we entered the Dockland‘s Railway and discovered the most modern part of London, it‘s a surreal feeling to sit in the (aboveground) train and glide through a city of steel and glass. We got off at Canary Wharf (pity that visitors aren‘t allowed to go up to the top) on our way back from Greenwich where we visited the Observatory, also admission free now.

What did I plan for the afternoon? The Hindu Mandir in Neasden, the biggest Hindu temple outside India, made of white marble and limestone, a real gem in the run-down and ugly suburb in the north-west of London. Neasden is outside zone 2 and one has to buy an extension ticket to get there. The students were very impressed indeed and two decided to make it No 1 on the list of what they liked best in London.

DAY FIVE
On the following morning my colleague took the group to St Paul‘s while I went to King‘s Cross to buy the tickets for our day trip to Cambridge on our last but one day. I had my
‘special event‘ when Euston Station where I had to change on my way back was evacuated because some jokester had left a piece of luggage on a platform. Later we met at Covent Garden Tube Station at 11.30 from where our guide Tom guided us on the walk Behind Closed Doors.

Of course, one can‘t leave London without seeing the British Museum, our students were completely knocked out after that and went back to the hotel to sleep!

DAY SIX
On our last morning (we had to leave for Heathrow at 3 pm) I took the group to Fortnum & Mason, the high class food store for the well-off. We did *not* buy a real scorpion in a bottle of vodka or crisp worms to be strewn over soup, but we found some special half price offers like Assam tea or pickled walnuts to take home as souvenirs. Later I went to the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly where I could easily have spent several thousand pounds and the students went shopping, of course.

‘He who is tired of London is tired of life’ (Samuel Johnson).

Swinging Rococo

Not even ten minutes on foot away from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street the connoisseur tourist finds Manchester Square with the Hartford House on one side. The building contains one of the world’s finest private collections ever assembled by a single family, and since 1897 when the widow of Sir Richard Wallace died leaving to Britain its largest private bequest ever, no artefact has been taken away or added.

When I arrived there on a Sunday afternoon a free guided tour had just begun. The guide was clearly in love with the house, the art collection and the rococo period from which most artefacts come which was a good thing because her enthusiasm was infectious.

The first rooms show the portraits of the Hartford/Wallace family, but you don’t want to know their history! It’s rather complicated due to illegitimate children and constant country-hopping between England and France. More often France than England because of which the ambiance of the museum is predominantly French.

In the house proper the guide made us stand in front of cabinets and wardrobes and admire the material, the craftsmanship and intricate patterns. Without her I would certainly not have looked for minutes at powder-boxes, pomade pots, clothes brushes, chandeliers, mirror frames and writing tables with wood intarsia or an inkstand with delicately painted putti, rose garlands and miniature globes, surmounted by the French Royal Crown. There was a bell inside the crown once so that the princess to whom it once belonged could ring for a servant to come and fetch her letter.

From the landing to the first floor one looks at two enormous pictures by Boucher from the middle of the 18th century, "The Rising Sun" and "The Setting Sun", strange titles because what they show is rosy-fleshed nakedness in abundance, so much so that a commentator at the Salon of 1753 remarked that one shouldn’t take one’s wife or daughter to the exhibition, the nudity was too shocking. I bet he didn’t close his eyes, though, but fought heroically against the shock and went on looking!

Do pictures have an aura? Some do, I believe. When I entered a room I was magically drawn to the picture ‘The Swing’ painted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in 1787 which according to a critic is ‘awesome and drop-dead gorgeous‘. I agree wholeheartedly.

We are in a lush green garden, a man (the husband) is somewhat hidden under a bush beside the tree onto whose main branch a swing is tied. He’s got a rope in his hand with which he has set it in motion. A young woman, clad in a pink dress with several layers of petticoats, a stark contrast to the green of the background, sits laughing on the swing, she’s just kicked off one of her shoes and set it flying into the air thus revealing a part of her leg at which a man (her lover) who’s kneeling in front of the swing is peeping. It could be kitschy, but it isn’t; if you’re in a foul mood, go and look at the picture, you’ll leave smiling, you’ve just looked at pure joy.

Rococo artists were not interested in depicting the drabness of life, the paintings are ‘dream-like, escapist and untainted with the realities of everyday existence‘ (the same critic).

On to the gallery, a big room for the main part of the collection, meaning Rubens, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Velasquez, Van Dyck, Titian, Watteau, in the adjoining rooms there are Flemish and Italian masters, among them 20 paintings of Venice by Canaletto, and many more pictures by many other big names, one can get dizzy there.

We were in a house people lived in, yet didn’t see any real living quarters, no kitchen, no bedrooms, so I asked the guide if we would get to see where the former residents slept? She thanked me for the question and told the whole group that they had slept on this floor. I looked at her open-mouthed, what? Stinking rich and no beds? Did they sleep on the floor to guard their pictures? After a while the penny dropped, ha! Not on ‘the’ floor, but on ‘this’ floor! Floor, one of the words with different meanings (English for beginners!), I’m sure I can use this in class one day.

The tour ended there, we were informed what else there was to see in the building, but asked to go there on our own. The collection of Armouries on the ground floor is also famous worldwide, I looked closely at the shafts of some rifles and admired the excellent craftsmanship, inlays of ivory, ebony and mother of pearl, but the whole display gave me the creeps. I find it obscene to see arms as objects of beauty and have them decorated and ornamented.

I looked briefly at the collection of majolica plates, did not go into the museum gift shop although it looked enticing and decided to call it a day, I felt I’d deserved a piece of cake in the café in the courtyard which has got a glass roof transforming it into a covered plaza. The café is run by the French company which is also responsible for the restaurant in the Louvre and the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower, but alas, it was not to be. I had stayed in the museum for too long and was asked to leave, because they were closing.

Immediately after its opening Tate Modern became the most visited modern art gallery in the world beating its nearest rivals the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Once upon a time there was the Bankside Power Plant on London’s South Bank, a brick building of gargantuan dimensions, designed in 1947 and shut down in 1981. Then there was the Tate Gallery on Millbank with more artefacts in the storerooms than in the exhibition halls. The two came together when it was decided to use the Tate Gallery only for British art and call it Tate Britain forthwith and to exhibit international modern art in the transformed former power plant.

The Swiss architects Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron won the competition, they were they only ones who didn’t intend to demolish most of the building, but reuse a significant portion of the plant. "This is a kind of Aikido strategy where you use your enemy’s energy for your own purposes. Instead of fighting it, you take all the energy and shape it in unexpected and new ways."

They left the 500 ft/152 m long and 115 ft/35m high turbine hall intact as the main entrance hall, kept the taupe walls and black steel girders and put a glass ceiling on top of the building so that all exhibition halls have natural light.

When you walk across the foot bridge from St. Paul’s Cathedral across the Thames heading towards it, you understand that it could only be nicknamed Cat
hedral Of Cool. Tate Modern is a statement, it just *IS* and couldn’t be otherwise. Getting off the foot bridge you turn right to get to the main entrance, the turbine hall. No counter and till are waiting for the visitors, the admission is FREE!

We arrived around noon and decided to begin with a cup of coffee and a snack in the Café on the 2nd floor, alas, the coffee machine was out of order and we were complimented into the restaurant on the 7th floor. The prices are much higher there, certainly not for students travelling on a shoe string, but you can admire the cityscape from both sides of the building up there and you can take a free copy of the Guardian with you. I did that and so the price for the cappuccino and a sandwich was OK in the end. (I came back to the Café later for refreshment [the coffee machine was working again] which I took on the balcony outside facing the Thames and the City, great view!)

‘Modern’ art refers to the 20th century, I doesn’t make sense to mention the names of the artists whose artefacts you can find here, the rest of the article would be filled, believe me, the great (and not so great) names are all there. The artefacts are displayed neither chronologically nor according to the artists or styles, they’re assembled according to themes.

Getting down from the restaurant one passes the 6th floor which is for members only, the 5th floor offers Nude/Action/Body and History/Memory/Society. It has - same as the 4th and 3rd floor - two entrances, but it doesn’t matter on which side you begin, the about 30 rooms are all connected so that you pass them all once you’ve entered.

Each room has a poster beside the entrance on which an introductory paragraph gives an overall definition of the subject in question, under it the subject is described in more detail. Of course, one can’t read all this information, but wherever I did so, I found it very well written and easy to understand. I really can’t fathom why someone should need courage to look at the artefacts, they don’t do anything to the visitor, they don’t suddenly attack them. They’re there and it’s up to you to go near or to pass by, no work of art will be offended if you do so. Tastes differ, and the next visitor will perhaps be fascinated by just the picture you didn’t want to look at or didn‘t even notice.

The 4th floor is used for Exhibitions for which you have to pay. The themes on the 3rd floor are: Still Life/Object/Real Life and Landscape/Matter/Environment, again presented in an aesthetically pleasing way with excellent descriptions.

What I can’t leave uncommented is the attitude ‘I don’t like much when it comes to modern art and when I think of what gets the Turner Prize I feel sick.’

The Turner Prize can’t be equalled with modern art, it would go too far to discuss it here, just forget it for a moment. When you go to Tate Modern you won’t see it (if you don‘t go there during the time when the work in question is exhibited), what you can see are several thousands of artefacts. You don’t like much? So what? Then you’ll like at least something! Why, I remember exhibitions in which I only liked *one* exhibit, but in case I liked it so much that I integrated it into my imaginary museum, the money wasn’t badly spent. And Tate Modern is free!

"I don’t understand modern art", is a funny remark and can’t be taken seriously. It implies that you understand traditional art. Indeedy!? Do you know the Bible forward and backward, can you understand all the biblical scenes on Gothic altar pieces? Do you know all the Greek gods you find on Renaissance pictures? Do you know the flowers which are depicted so exquisitely and their symbolic meanings? Ha! You’re only used to these pictures more, but you don’t understand them better necessarily.

If you’re a beginner, interested and eager to widen your horizon, you could take an audio guide (1 GBP) with you. I haven’t done so, but my experience with audio guides from other museums is very positive, they’re mostly intelligently made.

Or you could just go and enjoy and encounter art works you’ll never forget and learn to consider as friends. If I hadn’t written so much already I could introduce you to some of my findings, but on second thought why should I? Go there, assemble your own imaginary museum!

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

On Sunday, July 1st, 1855, a demonstration against the ‘Sunday Trading Bill’ was held in Hyde Park. The Chief Commissioner of Police had placards posted announcing that this meeting would not be allowed to take place. Nevertheless, nearly 150.000 people assembled, around 40 policemen appeared and arrested 140 rioters. The Bill was withdrawn, but a further meeting was held in the park the following Sunday.

Ten meetings followed during the year at varying intervals on subjects such as proposing an address of sympathy to the Emperor Napoleon on the course he had taken with respect to the war in Italy, one to express sympathy for General Garibaldi and protest against the French occupation of Rome.

The most important meeting was the last, on July 23rd, 1866, when the Reform League advertised a meeting in Hyde Park and the police issued a ban on any such demonstrations or meetings on that day. When 18.000 people had arrived by 5 o’clock the gates of the park were closed, leaving as many people inside as outside. Shortly after 7 p.m. Mr Edward Beales, Lieut. Colonel Dickson, and other leaders of the Reform League, advanced to Marble Arch, yet the police hindered them from getting into the Park. The men raised the question of by what statute or law or principle of law the Commissioner was acting in declaring the meeting illegal, but then proceeded peacefully to Trafalgar Square to hold a meeting there.

On July 25th the Reform League held another meeting and gathered in force. Mr Beales informed the people present that his visit to Mr Walpole had resulted in his promising that the right of public meeting in the Park should be legally tested. The test came when on May 6th 30.000 people assembled under the slogan ’The Parks are the Peoples’’ and the meeting went off orderly, without the slightest disturbance, with little more than a dozen policemen around.

A great victory for free speech which the British have enjoyed ever since! Btw, the police can still be seen there, but the law protects the groups of people listening and not the speaker!

HOW IT DEVELOPED

The following section is based on a text I found on the net written by a Sri Lankan, not only because it is the most enthusiastic appraisal I‘ve read so far, but also because it shows that SC is not limited to the location in Hyde Park any more, but has become an idea.

"SC is the most famous location in the world symbolising democratic rights. It is also probably the most democratic, successful and influential university in the world.

Among those who have attended meetings there, are some of the most influential figures in world history like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin and Orwell. SC has had a more powerful influence than any university in the world, because here there are no entry requirements, no rules of intellectual formality and above all no class restrictions.

There are tens of thousands of people who come to SC once or twice a year, many thousands who come 5-10 times a year, and hundreds who come virtually through hell or high water. When you consider that there is nothing to buy here, there is no music, just human interaction without the mediation of machines and without any protection from the weather you begin to get a small glimpse of the significance of this place. SC is perhaps the most dynamic mirror of human consciousness in the world, a microcosm of the entire planet."

WHAT IT IS LIKE TODAY

And what is SC like today, does it live up to this eulogy?

During the last decade I’ve been to London with groups of students every other year taking turns with a colleague. We always include a visit to SC in our programme - of course, we go there only once a year, but when we observe the same every time we go, it can’t be completely wrong, can it? What we’ve observed during the last eight years or so is the following: Gone is the variety of subjects, SC has been taken over by religious fanatics. I’ve read that the hecklers have become worse, meaning weaker, less inspiring, but why should they be better than the speakers proper?

The last time the students were enjoying themselves immensely, they could follow the speeches, they even joined the discussions, reacted on the hecklers. What the students didn’t bother, because they couldn’t compare, was that there were exclusively speeches on religious subjects. One highly intelligent and learned Englishman spoke about a religious experience he had had some years before, it was a pleasure listening to him even if I’m not extremely interested in the subject. He spoke in a normal voice and so didn’t attract as much attention as two American Christians with cowboy hats who alternately climbed their soapbox and cried, shouted, roared and hollered about Jesus Christ.

A dark skinned man, a Pakistani as we later learnt, a speaker himself who had left his soapbox to heckle for a while, looked at the crowd of listeners and picked out ME! Why ME? He begged me not to listen to the two American cowboys. That made the one of the two who wasn’t speaking at the moment jump to/at us and shout into my other ear that the man was the devil incarnate and that I should listen to them, i.e., Jesus Christ, instead.

First it was quite funny, the bystanders were laughing and applauding, but then it was getting on my nerves as we were moving around in circles and whenever I tried to turn away, one of the two was shouting at me, so I called some of my students, 18-year-old tall and strong young men, to act as my bodyguards, which they willingly did. The whole incident looked like a rehearsed show of stand-up comedians, one student even asked if they were paid for what they did.

Later, when we were gathering to go away to our next destination, Camden Lock, the Pakistani came over to us and we had a serious conversation with him. He’s one of the regulars and told us that these fanatics had been coming for years, always in fat mercs, according to him paid by the CIA. I didn’t get what he was driving at, what the CIA might have to do with them, and he said that their aim was not to preach Christianity, but to undermine Islam. He said that the Muslims speaking at SC only ever speak about Islam and never against Christianity, but not so the Christians. I laughed that away pointing out that everybody listening to them could only take them for clowns and certainly not seriously.

Well, I don’t know about the theory that the CIA is behind those preachers, but when we went away one boy remarked that what the American Christians had said against Islam was certainly true. So, our Pakistani friend might be right when he pointed out that they were dangerous because they could influence young people.

The last speaker I’d like to mention was an elderly lady in a flowery dress who said something along the lines "God is a HE thing", a fascinating subject, to be sure, but once again I had the problem that listening to a woman is harder than listening to a man. Forgive me, sisters, but it’s a fact that when a woman speaks up her voice tends to become higher and a bit squeaky and it hurts listening to it. Yes, it’s unfair, unfair, unfair, but what can we do? Amplifiers are not allowed at SC.

Where are all the young Africans and Asians who envisaged a brighter future for their countries, where is the Brit who used to analyse the current political situation of the United Kingdom, using more swear and four letter words than I’d heard before in all my life? One of the unwritten rules for SC is that no obscenities are allowed, but who comes to check? Where is the nutty president of the imaginary banana republic with his alternative utopia, where are the quacks?

THE FUTURE (?)

I can only observe and ask, but not living in your country I can’t possibly find an answer. In German we have the expression: ‘scissors in the brain’ meaning that you yourself decide to suppress (cut out) an opinion before it even has the chance of being criticized because you’re afraid of the consequences. I do hope that this practise isn’t the explanation for the despicable situation, for this parody of what SC used to be.
The next time I want *HEAR* (VERY capital letters!) about Climate Change, Vivisection, the Monarchy, Capital Punishment, Taxation, British Agriculture, Eating Disorders, Immigration, the Euro, Alternative Energy, Asylum Seekers and, and, and... It’s up to the Brits what’s going to become of this venerable institution the whole democratic world admires and envies them for!

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MANDIR

A trip by tube to Neasden, a grim suburb in the north west of London, then a 15 minute walk through a very cheap neighbourhood with concrete flyovers and the most hideous old and new factories in a treeless area of mud spattered junk.

And suddenly we see something foreign, strange, exotic, a snow white building straight out of an oriental fairy tale, by some called The Eighth Wonder of the World: the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. It covers 1.5 acres, is 75 feet high, has one big dome, five smaller ones, seven pinnacles with golden tops and many carved pillars.

Every information makes us gape in wonderment: no steel was used, the reason being that steel sets up magnetic fields which would interfere with mediation, 2.800 tonnes of cream coloured limestone from Bulgaria was taken for the exterior, 2.000 tonnes of Italian (and Indian) marble and 127 tonnes of granite. The stones were first shipped to India, where more than 1.500 craftsmen and artisans carved out the 26.300 parts of the Mandir, each piece was given a computer code and then shipped back to London where the ‘puzzle’ was put together from 1992-1995.

The guide tells us that only Indian marble is completely white and that the Italian marble from Carrara has fine dark veins. Why hadn’t they only taken the Indian variety then? We hear to our amazement, "EU marble is cheaper."

How could the craftsmen and artisans in India know what to carve and how could they be sure that all the parts would fit together in London? The explanation is: The architect followed the ancient laws for building mandirs which have been valid for more than a millenium, everything we see now could have been made a thousand years ago, if the building weren’t (still) so white, it could have been built in the Middle Ages. In fact, the craftsmen and artisans didn’t need any instructions, they knew how to carve the figures and ornaments by heart. New is only what serves the comfort of the visitors of today, such as a heating system, lifts for the handicapped and indirect lighting.

If this architectural concept were transferred to our part of the world, it would mean that the European Christians would have built only Romanesque churches for one thousand years, that there wouldn’t have been a Gothic, a Renaissance, a Baroque period.

HINDUISM

(in a very small nutshell) On the ground floor of the Mandir is an exhibition ‘Understanding Hinduism’ which informs the visitors about the origin, growth and glory of this religion and what Hindu values can contribute to the individual, the society and the world at large.

Hinduism is the world’s oldest living religion, over 8.500 years old. Presently, Hindus compose 13.7 % of the world’s population residing in over 150 countries. Its roots lie in the Indus Valley, the people living there came to be known as the Hindus. No single founder is known. Through penance and prayers, intuition and introspection, seers gained the ultimate experience of God, which they put down in the writings of the Veda (knowledge/wisdom), written in Sanskrit, the oldest language of the world.

Egypt inherited much of its sacred knowledge from India, then passed it on to Greece, from where it became the foundation of European philosophy and religion.

What makes the Hindus special is that they honour the whole of Creation, see the presence of God in everything. To them there are no heathens or enemies, everyone has the right to evolve spiritually, and shall, at some time realise the Truth. Hinduism is liberal, it does not set man a limit of one life, but offers many lives. At the same time, it is strict, it makes men feel responsible for every action they perform.

The Hindus don’t do missionary work, if you aren’t born as a Hindu, you can’t become one.

THE SWAMINARAYAN FAITH

Guru Swaminarayan lived from 1781 - 1830 and was worshipped as a God already during his lifetime. The guided tour begins with a video film informing about the founder of this denomination who lived for the belief in its pure form and stressed the essential thoughts without a hue of hypocrisy.

Pujya Pramukh Swami Maharaj is the fifth spiritual successor of the founder and the present leader of the Swaminarayan faith.

THE INDIANS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Swaminarayan was active mainly in what is now Gujarat in the North of the Indian West coast. People from that region have built Mandirs wherever in the world they happen to live, in other parts of India, in Africa, the USA and Great Britain. In the whole of GB there are about 20.000 Gujarati, in London about 2.000. They have donated money not only for the Mandir, which is already incredible enough, but also for socio-religious projects adjoining the Mandir, such as a library, a meeting room, a mensa with kitchen, a gymnasium, a kindergarten and a school for Indian children.

About 3 million British subjects, 6% of the population, come from the former colonies, among which the immigrants from the Caribbean Islands form the biggest group. Only about 900.000 people come from former British India, but economically speaking they are the most successful, there are hundreds of Indian millionaires in GB. So the Mandir is also a symbol for what the Indian immigrants have achieved in their new home country, although discrimination against them has not completely ended yet.

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The visit of the Mandir is free, the exhibition costs: Adults 2.00, OAP’s and children 1.50
Group and school parties should contact: (020) 8965 2651
Visiting times: 9am - 6 pm, daily, throughout the year