By Tariq Bhatti
A trip around the streets of Glasgow is nothing short of a lesson in history
Do not sleep. It is Saturday and you are in Glasgow. Leave your cozy blanket and make your way to Buchanan Street. Sit on the stairs of Royal Concert Hall; if you are lucky, you may enjoy a street performance by some amateurs, jugglers or young acrobats. The statute of Donald Dewar (1937-2000) first minister of Scotland, adds a sense of history to the contemporary frenzy. He becomes one with the crowd and, unimposing, watches through his glasses.
Do look for St. Enoch shopping mall; you might catch a Scottish band playing traditional symphonies on the beats of drums at the main entrance. You can not afford to miss Argyle Street. Window shopping or just hanging around in the wide streets with whispering walls is an experience worth relishing. If tired, please go to Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Arts, a few steps from these streets. The gallery displays best collection of modern and abstract art; quite a feast for the art lovers.
If it is Sunday and you are still in Glasgow, leave for George Square. Get freshly baked breakfast items and sit on any wooden bench. As I started eating, pigeons came fluttering towards me to share my breakfast. After the last pigeon flew towards new visitors with more food in the square, I left my bench too.
Being in Galsgow for the first time gave me a bagful of mixed feelings -- long-drawn-out, tranquil, strangely connected but elated. Having lived in London for six months, I suddenly felt an openness and a lot of space around me. I did not feel belittled nor did I feel overawed by the magnificence of the city's architecture. Most buildings, despite their grandeur, do not boast of their imperial character. I rather found Glaswegian ambience more inviting and native. For instance it was a pleasant surprise to know that in Glasgow hi means yes. And it is liked if you say "nay bother" instead of "no problem."
Leisa, a lively Scottish woman accompanied me from Birmingham to Glasgow. She kept talking of her love for Glasgow and wished it to be the capital of Scotland instead of Edinburgh. Her interest in the internal political situation of Pakistan amazed me. I changed the conversation to ongoing judicial inquisition of Princess Diana's death, which she dismissed as being irrelevant. She shocked me with her casual response to royalty.
The buses in Glasgow are not as spick and span as of London. People chat in the bus contrary to silent English journeys. Oyster does not work here. Roads are wide but there are patches on various footpaths in the city. You see more broken glass of whisky bottles than one would find on the Oxford Street over the weekends. The colonial exploits were not spent equally across England, it seemed. My assumption of unequal development was reinforced by Yaaz, a student of law at the University of Glasgow. He told me that even today British army gets maximum soldier level recruitment from Scotland. They had no Scottish parliament till 1999, whereas most nuclear installations of UK are in the areas that constitute Scotland.
The University of Glasgow, founded in 1451, is the second oldest university in Scotland and the fourth oldest in Britain. The magnificent main building of the University, designed in Gothic style by Sir George Gilbert Scott, is one of the city's best known landmarks. The University has been on this site since 1870 when it moved from the city centre.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Transport Museum are two other tourist attractions in Glasgow. It was good to see khush aamdeid written along with welcome on the entrance of transport museum that exhibits Pakistani rikshaw, van and bicycle with verses engraved in Persian script.
It takes only one hour and seven pounds to reach Edinburgh by bus from Buchanan Bus stop. People museum, royal palace, castle, parliament and art gallery are the most frequently visited places in Edinburgh.
The Scott Monument built in the memory of famous author Sir Walter Scott -- biggest monument ever built in the memory of any writer -- like much built work in Edinburgh, used to be soot black, but the Binny Sandstone is now restored and looks great at night with Scott and his beloved dog Maida glowing white in their regal chair of Carrara marble.
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