ILFORD SARAVANAA BHAVAN
At lunchtime I took my umbrella and headed by bus for the second nearby Saravanaa Bhavan in the opposite direction. The ride was interesting and I got photographs from the front seat window at the top of the double decker bus. From the bus the main thing I noticed going and coming back was that there were a number of very elegant official looking buildings and strings of sometimes ornate row houses that looked as if they had once been elegant.
Everything looked from the outside as if it were well maintained. But the huge contrast was between the elegant houses or the official buildings and the store fronts built on the front of them in commercial areas. In the non commercial areas the space in front of the row houses, which must have been gardens at one point along a wide avenue, are now dirt parking areas with two or three cars as well as trash bins in front of each house, meaning that inside there must now be several apartments.
The contrast between the elegant facades and the dirt parking and trash cans is almost jarring. Yet it is a lively area and a lot of people live here, but the old gracious living that must have taken place here is gone. The bus route was through a predominantly Indian area with other cultures mixed in. The Ilford area where the second Saravanaa Bhavan is located has a shopping center with a number of large name stores and the restaurants look higher class than in West Ham. This Saravanaa Bhavan had the same food at the same cost but was much more posh with spacious restrooms and finely decorated rooms for parties and was quiet without the hectic and noisy family atmosphere of the West Ham Saravanaa Bhavan. The whole visit was interesting.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 