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I alighted in Boston's Back Bay station (yes, it shares a name with the second-nearest bus stand to me in Mumbai). My friend Malavika picked me up and we took a short walk to the nearest Green Line station. Boston has many metro lines but the Green is the most used and has several branches. That day we decided to stay in and I had vegetarian sushi (!) for the first time.
The next day we crossed the river to Cambridge and looked around Harvard University. We went by Uber, so we did not park our car in Harvard Yard.
It seems to be a beautiful and stimulating place to learn.
After a look around, we made our way to Assembly Row, which was that week's location for Urban Sketchers Boston, a weekly sketching group. There was no missing the meeting point — a giant Lego giraffe.
We all sketched for two hours and then regrouped. It was a lovely, wholesome group with artists of all levels — I hadn't held a colour pencil in years and I didn't feel like a rank outsider.
Our next halts were the picturesque North End and Long Wharf areas. The North End was where Italian immigrants settled.
The Long Wharf is, well, a long wharf. Next to it is the New England aquarium — that's for my next visit.
Now it was time for an aerial view of what I'd seen so far. So up and up the giant Prudential Tower we went — in a very fast lift! The view from the 52nd floor was fantastic.
On Sunday, we went to the Museum of African-American History. It has some exhibits in one building, then a guided tour in the next building which used to be a meeting and prayer hall. Our guide was knowledgeable, captivating and handsome. He told us how Massachusetts outlawed slavery by 1790, but segregation persisted. White people taught the African-Americans Christianity, but not before they removed the anti-slavery parts from Bibles! A school for Black children was founded in the next building. In the meeting hall where we sat, thought leaders discussed the future of the school, the place of Black women within the movement and more.
The area comprising present-day Boston had several hills that were flattened and the rocks used to reclaim land from the sea. Beacon Hill is the only one that remains. We walked around under a cloudy sky, past the State House and into Boston Commons park.
Monday morning saw me go for a riverside stroll.
But most of the morning was spent at the Museum of Fine Arts. Being in America, for the first time no less, I wanted to see the gallery of the Americas. It had paintings, chairs, silverware and more. Many of Bostonian John Singleton Copley's portraits were on display.
In the afternoon we went for the Duck Tour! It's a tour in a boat-van, a replica of a WW2 amphibious vehicle called the DUKW. We started from Prudential, drove past the Boston Public Library and a few nice old churches; between the State House and the memorial to the 54th Regiment in the Civil War (comprised of African Americans). Soon we were at the Charles and it was time to descend. We went under the Longfellow bridge, named for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who lived here.
The guide was a genial and witty gentleman. He talked quite fast even for an American so you had to hang on to every word.
On my last day, I started at the Old State House. It has a small museum of the independence struggle. It is right by the spot where five people were gunned down in what's now called the Boston Massacre. I pointed out to the museum guide the (not very deep) parallels to the Indian freedom movement: the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre and the salt tax (a similar sore point in America was a sugar tax). She nodded politely; I don't think she was impressed.
The museum had an exhibit with various examples of violent resistance, including a few labour movements and then the January 6 2021 insurrection! The goal was to get kids — and adults — thinking about when violence is and isn't justified. There was also a short film playing about how a bounty was placed on the heads of Native Americans in the area, and how present-day members of the Penobscot Nation read the government order and reacted.
Having got some more context on the American independence struggle, I walked down to the Tea Party Museum. That one is an experience: the story is narrated by actors in full costume and character, and visitors are assigned characters as well, with names of real people who were known to have taken part in the event. Samuel Adams and other Massachusetts heroes gave rousing speeches — "no taxation without representation" was the catchphrase — then the cohort moved onto the boat. Kids acted out throwing boxes of tea overboard. We moved back indoors, where we were shown some short films and videos, including one where paintings on the wall appeared to be talking. It was colourful and memorable.
For lunch we went to Eataly in Hynes/Prudential — a supermarket with Italian and European food stalls. It was quite crowded for a Tuesday afternoon - rightly, because the food was tasty.
We went back to the north side of the river to look at the Bunker Hill memorial — which is not on Bunker Hill — and the USS Constitution.
All of these — as well as the Old State House and others — are connected by the Freedom Trail, which marks all the places in Boston connected to the independence struggle. By the way, Mumbai also has one, connecting August Kranti Maidan, Mani Bhavan, Gokuldas Tejpal House (where the Indian National Congress was formed) and more.
The Bunker Hill monument commemorates the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, which the British won but only after suffering heavy casualties, which contributed to them losing the war later.
The USS Constitution was one of the original six ships of the US Navy. It has exhibits about how soldiers on it lived. I have no love for the US armed forces, obviously, but it was well done and looked beautiful on the water.
We took a ferry back to the main city, and headed to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. They were full of life, packed with stalls and activities. A magician was unfortunately just winding up his performance as we approached. I will never have the famous New England Clam Chowder, but I did try some corn chowder with croutons and it was nice.
It was almost time to go — but not too late to see the Boston Public Library. It's big and beautiful.
Before I knew it, I was at South Station bus stand waiting for my overnight bus back to NYC. I would love to be back soon. The Museum of Fine Arts definitely deserved more time; a baseball game would be fun to watch too. Of course, a proper NYC visit would be fantastic too, with several days to spend at the many museums.
My (brief, geographically limited) impression of America? Vast and generally friendly. I saw people of various skin tones, shapes and sizes, accents, first and last names. And as a result, most people don't really care where you're from. Mainly, if you're in a place like a New York subway station, you just shouldn't hold up the line. But also, flags and patriotism everywhere.
It was election season, but being mostly in confirmed blue areas, it wasn't a huge deal. I saw the odd "coconut tree" t-shirt and overheard a lady who was worried about Trump's comments that people "wouldn't have to vote any more" if he won (several news cycles ago, already mostly forgotten).
Boston in particular had a chilled-out air. It seems like a nice place to live. I will say it's a bit uncanny that everything around is not more than 300 years old. In India we really take it for granted that we are surrounded by far older temples, forts and palaces, side by side with offices, airports and stadia. The land has that heterogeneous texture.
So that's it for this trip! Hopefully some other workshop or conference will come calling before long, and I can watch movies on another paid-for flight. So long, catch ya later, America!
