America Through My Eyes
Boston
Telugu Original : Dr K.Geeta
English Translation: V.Vijaya Kumar
Harvard University:As we stayed in a hotel an hour away from Boston, the night before, we left early in the morning and reached the first sightseeing place in Boston, “Harvard University”, at seven o’clock. It all began in drizzling rain. It was a cloudy morning. As we got off the bus, it started raining heavily outside. We rushed to the first shelter in sight. When the rain subsided a little, we walked a little distance and entered the university gate. We didn’t feel like we came to a very famous university or a prestigious university in America. Old buildings, dirt, and filth everywhere, roads with poor footpaths. Around the canteen where we stopped until the rain subsided, we saw people walking around with beards, perhaps researchers, with book bags slung over their shoulders.
The university tour is like a self-guided tour, which means walking around the main entrance for about an hour and seeing the buildings from the outside!
In fact, there is a facility for pre-booking university tours and audio tours also.
Wordsworth House, Indian College, Massachusetts Hall, Johnston Gate, Harvard Hall, John Harvard Statue, Freshman Dorms, Holden Chapel, Phillips Brooks House, Science Center, Memorial Hall, Memorial Church, etc. are worth seeing there. As we hadn’t either time or scheduled well before, we simply confined our visit to the Johnston Gate, the official main gate, took photos from the outside of the statue of John Harvard, and visited the Dorms and Widener Library Building.
Our guide asked, “Do you know why one of the shoes of this statue eroded the paint on it? It’s believed that the visitors who touch that shoe will study in this college.” As soon as he said that, everyone ran away! I led Siri there to touch the shoe funnily!
On the way, we saw a memorial church, a memorial hall, etc.
We crossed the road, to a corner cafe in the building, called University Health Sciences and bought ‘hot chocolate’, and started relishing.
The guide rushed there and started shouting “Get ready, get ready!”
MIT: The next stop is MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) where the guide hurried us to spend hardly half an hour and allowed us to take a photo of the building.
As a part of my Engineering M.S, I was attending daily online sessions by watching Professor Gilbert Strong’s math videos in Applied Mathematics during that period. I suddenly felt thrilled he must have been in those buildings somewhere! As I was an Ekalavya disciple to him, I was greatly disappointed not to meet him.
We saw the campus canteen, went inside, sat here and there, in half an hour. We spent a short time in line, taking photos near the man-shaped statue of white railings outside MIT. William Barton Rogers was the founder of MIT. We took pictures around the building named after him.
Looking at universities reminded me of Andhra University where I pursued all my education. An elegant excitement started suddenly somewhere in my mind. Students have such love for the institutions.
But I feel the pain of hoping that I was not lucky enough to study at Harvard or MIT! They are World renowned universities. Getting a seat in them means a successful life. But the cost of education touches the skies, which is a strange thing in America. American education had two elements, one talent, and the other financial capability or at least eligibility for scholarships. Not thinking of all these implications, I fell into thoughts, though I was not worthy of even a dream, so I turned my attention away.
I told my children to study well so that they can study here.
They shook their heads horizontally and said, “Boston, New York… The East Coast of America looks old and shabby. There is no brightness in the air here like in California!” showing their repulsiveness.
That is true! ‘What kind of cities are these? Oh, God! I felt.
All the buildings in the city of Boston are dark brick, rain-soaked, and some have not been repainted for ages! They evoke looking at a very old-fashioned city.
When the children said that modern downtowns are great and beautiful, I said, “Old cities are always symbols of culture and history, the beauty of seeing in them is like that only.”
Varu nodded as if she understood.
We allowed a ten-minute stop at the 17th-century Trinity Church outside to take photos.
It’s a great relief to stand in the huge open space between the surrounding buildings in the downtown square and look around.
It was because of a working day, and people were seen roaming the roads.
Seeing a man holding an empty coffee cup, begging on the side of the road in such cold weather, I couldn’t help feeling, what a great country until it changed!
Compared to New York, Boston seemed to be somewhat cleaner.
Cruise: From there, our next stop was the Boston Cruise.
Apart from visiting the beautiful city of Boston on the cruise, the historic Boston Tea Party of Boston Harbor, the World War II era, Civil War historical meeting places, etc. are all attractions in this tour.
The water rowing trips of that day also went on smoothly, as if we were walking around regardless of the cloudy sky and the cold. The cold and the wind blows you away even if you put your head out an inch from the glass doors.
It was a very peaceful hour.
Quincy Market: Next stop is Quincy Market for lunch and shopping.
Two hours of stay allowed there. Oh, plenty of time!
Quincy Market is a famous indoor market. Food and Shopping Centre. But some shops were not open yet because we went quite early. Especially the Indian food stalls. We used to eat Chinese food every day, but when we saw Indian stalls, we ran there. But they didn’t open! Since we were very hungry, we decided not to wait longer for the Indian stalls and bought some noodles and bread. After that, we shopped around and bought small things.
Since it was the month of December, the biggest Christmas tree was placed on the road. It is magnificent, standing like a Mahogany tree with beautiful decorations.
The bus returned at around 2 pm.
The South American mother and daughter who came with us became good friends.
We all took photos together and said goodbye to each other.
From there we had to change to another bus. The last day of our long bus trip of 5 days was the last hours of travel. The children were eager to go back home. But for me, it made me sick! How good it would be if this life was spent on a continuous journey like this!
After completing this trip, we planned to tour around New York City.
That made us more excited to finish the rest of the journey.
*****
(Rest in the next part)
A post graduate in English literature and language and in Economics. A few of my translations were published. I translated the poems of Dr. Andesri , Denchanala, Ayila Saida Chary and Urmila from Telugu to English. I write articles and reviews to magazines and news papers. To the field of poetry I am rather a new face.