The City of Sherlock Holmes

In the summer of 2007, by a combination of some expected and certain fortuitous circumstances, I found myself in the great city of London.

I was in the city for two and a half days. For the first time visitor, there is a wide array of historical, cultural and entertainment related experiences that London offers. I certainly tried to soak up the majority of them such as trips to Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square and so on. However for me, the most thrilling aspect of London was the feeling that I was in the very same city where the great master Sherlock Holmes had lived and worked.

Early on my second day, I walked to Baker Street with an air of exhilaration that was near approaching dizziness. When I spotted the building 221B which now hosts a museum in his name, I stood outside for a few seconds in silence, trying to assimilate the fact that I was finally face to face with something that I had read and re-read, countless number of times, ever since I was in fifth standard. The annals of Holmes had formed a part of my growing up, a very important part and now all the magical lines of Dr. Watson, that have been imprinted in my mind to the point that I could quote most of them verbatim, seemed to spring out of the books and take a concrete shape in form of the building that was in front of me.

I spent a good amount of time in the museum. They say that when you experience the reality of something that you have only read about, you end up in disappointment. Fortunately for me, that was not the case. I felt genuinely satisfied after seeing the museum. One reason was the meticulous attention to detail. All the quirks of Holmes such as keeping the tobacco in the Persian slipper, transfixing his unanswered correspondence in the mantelpiece with his knife were to be seen there. The museum nicely recreated the sitting room, the starting point of so many singular adventures and the bedrooms, study tables and papers of Holmes and Watson. On the topmost floor there was a long compilation of letters from all over the world that had been addressed to that house. Many of them were from ardent fans, some of whom expressed an earnest desire to be inducted under Holmes' tutelage, some of them with information about spottings of various criminals masterminds such as Prof. Moriarty, some of them were bills made out to Holmes or Watson. It was all very wonderful.

On the same day, I also visited the Sherlock Holmes Pub in Northumberland Street, Westminster. It is extensively decorated with Holmesian relics, posters and the ambiance was authentic. The menu listed food items such as 'Hound of Baskervilles', 'A Scandal in Bohemia', 'Dr. Watson's favourite', 'Mrs. Hudson's pie' and so on. As I sat there having a common British meal of fish and chips and sipping a traditional English ale, I fell into a reverie thinking about the life back in the Victorian times.

I thought that I had seen all about Holmes that London had to offer, but one final revelation still awaited me. The next day, I had to catch a train to Glasgow in the afternoon and so decided to take a short trip to the British Museum in the morning. I got down at Russell Square and having studied the map, was walking in the general direction of the museum. However, after a while I was unsure whether I was heading in the right direction and slackened my pace. I looked all around with the intention of asking someone for directions, when all of a sudden, I saw the neat, little street sign ahead.

It was called Montague Street.

"When I had first come to London, I had rooms in Montague Street, just round the corner of the British Museum."

Holmes had told this to Watson while recounting the case of the Musgrave Ritual. It flashed in my mind instantly and a broad smile played across my lips. Not even once, while reading the Musgrave Ritual, had I ever imagined that those words would have any other significance to me, other than being a part of the story. Now they solved my direction problems. I knew that the Museum must be close and soon managed to locate it.

That small incident gave me equal or probably more joy than the long visit to the elaborate Baker Street museum and the Westminster pub.