Mumtaz

   “Some men, on leaving this vale of tears, are fortunate enough to leave behind them tangible and lasting evidence of their greatness. Their memories are perpetuated in the minds of generations to come by, perhaps, books they have written, discoveries they have made or edifices they have designed.

   What man living today, can pick up a copy of Oliver Twist without the magic name of Dickens immediately springing to mind? Who can look at an apple without thinking of Sir Isaac Newton (Discoverer of the Law of Gravity) or, perhaps, William Tell? A dullard, too, must he be who, on looking at a postcard of the Taj Mahal, does not remember Shah Jehan and his wife Mumtaz.”

From “The Journal of Edwin Carp” edited by Richard Haydn.

Musings of a Methodist Apostate

Some inhabit their heart

And drown.

Others live in the mind,

That spectral tenement

Full of clamour and doubt

(There are also those who patrol

The dungeons of the groin

Beating the walls with frantic fist).

But the happy live in their nose

Where the world comes to them

And, should the Black Death call by,

May blossom enthralls

Even when not there.

SRP

A Clash of Cultures

   Two or three decades ago when speeding through the streets of Dublin in a white van laden with building materials I passed the Chester Beatty Library and noticed it was hosting an exhibition of Muscovite enamels, so, instead of racing on to the house I was supposed to be working on, I slewed into the library's gravel drive and wedged my battered charger amongst a smattering of shiny cars.

   It turned out they were about to broadcast a television programme about the enamels – various technicians were dragging cables about, some presenter type was combing his hair – everyone was too busy to mind my being there so I examined the exhibits on display and eventually discovered a weighty publication that described them. It was far too expensive for me to buy so I scanned a few passages. They described how in the 13^th century the Mongols, during what was the only successful winter invasion of Russia (they charged up the frozen rivers on horseback giving no time for defenses to be organised), had sacked Moscow, at the time a beacon of civilisation, and murdered so many Muscovites that one of the techniques for enamelling, that of cloisonné - a word I'd never seen before - was lost for ever. This last fact intrigued me. The book explained that despite there being an example of something very similar to cloisonné in the main cabinet there was no example of this lost process in the collection on display - they did exist elsewhere, but their locations were not given. I asked an attendant where such enamelling could be found, he had no idea, however he did say that there was one person who was sure to know and that was the expert who was about to be interviewed for the television show. As we spoke that very woman was striding toward me on her way to two floodlit armchairs. What a stroke of luck!

“Ah! Excuse me, could you tell me where I could find an example of cloisonné?”

“What? Oh. Over there in the main cabinet.”

“No, that's a different technique. I'm looking for cloisonné - it's a lost technique.”

“Is it. Well look in the other cabinets.”

“I did and there's none. It says so here on page 247.”

   After a moment of intense mutual assessment we separated and she strode off to be questioned by someone more civil, whose hair was not full of cement dust and who knew how to pronounce cloisonné. And I took off in my white van, its spinning wheels scattering gravel and taking me forward to where I once was.