Mukherjee's Walks

It has been a mixture of pride, excitement and envy watching the build up to the launch of my old "mucker", Abir Mukherjee's first ever book (A Rising Man) .  I spend a lot of time thinking that I have a book in me, but very little doing anything about it.  Ultimately, it's probably because I doubt I have any ability to think of and write anything substantively interesting and so I hang onto the dream of the potential instead.

Abir's efforts and the adulation he's received to date are a literary fairy tale and it's great to see if happen to such a great guy.  My copy arrived today and on reading the sleeve notes, I realised that I had a secret that provides more insight into the author than his brooding photo could ever reveal.

So Abir and I worked together at Deloitte.  We had a lot of fun there. Work was an occasional distraction to the constant benign chatter.  But the highlight of my days there would be our regular afternoon walks.  So with this, I want to take you on Mukherjee's Walks and become the first biographer of this artist.

Almost every afternoon, Abir would have an envelope to deliver to the law firm Bird & Bird.  I'm not sure I ever asked why: 1) it was to him to deliver things (he was moderately senior); and 2) why this occurred most afternoons.  But it was an escape that I welcomed (and probably should have been disciplined for).

This week, I retraced much of the walk sad at the building work that had taken parts of it away and realising that it's been about 10 years since we did the walks.  Below I set out the main route, with the my key memories (mostly the bad jokes) that will provide the insight into Abir's creative process.

We would start at Athene Place, our Deloitte office:

Deloitte - Athene Place - occasional sightings of work

This was actually a pretty nice place to work, but escaping mid-afternoon with no official mandate was a rare form of rebellion which I loved.  (I was pretty bored working there and regret not making more of it).

We would turn right out of the entrance towards "Costcutter Court", the centre of the Deloitte empire presided over by "The Big JC".  We would laugh at the pigeons who constantly set off the automatic doors of the Hill House office.

Opposite here was The Greyhound pub.  It wasn't a nice pub at all, stationed in a horrible 60's single storey building.  But when feeling particularly bored at work we would escape here for a game of pool.  I never once drank here in the evening, only whilst "bunking".  It was with real sadness when I saw that the pub now looked like this:

RIP - The Greyhound - London's progress cares not for a convenient pool table

Bird & Bird's offices - Norwich St

Remember we were on official business, so the next stop was the offices of Bird & Bird.  Abir would tell me every time that they had his favourite website address: twobirds.com .  For the life of me, I can't think what we would have been delivering.  Perhaps it was some sort of accountancy/legal drug ring.   

The fact that their office was on the corner of Norwich Street would evoke tails from myself about my homeland.  I'm sure East Anglian influences can be found in his book.

Bird & Bird's new office

Again, I was struck by the change in this part of the City when I noticed a new building being built for the firm.  This forms part of the overall New Street complex that was literally a whole in the ground that we would walk past.  It was like an industrial wasteland in the middle of the City.  A great place for us to hide.  To paraphrase Alan Partridge: "this was the scene of epic conversations, it is now an Itsu".

If we were professional, we would have turned back immediately and been back in the office in 3 minutes.  We weren't.  Instead we would head down Norwich St regaling stories from our lives.  I would laugh at the stories of his father - including one of him  answering "yes" to a question from airport security of "have you any experience with terrorists?" before recounting how they pelted stones at them growing up in India.  We did the walk so many times that the stories were often repeats, but I loved them and I miss hearing them.  I welled up when I read in Abir's thank yous that his father had recently passed on.  I know how much of an influence he was.

We would make our way down Furnival St past Macfarlanes where a girl I quite fancied worked ("Project Tiger" as she was known - a reference to the project we had worked on together  - nothing ever happened (a frequent outcome)).  Girls were a frequent topic of the conversation.  Abir was as unsuccessful and melodramatic as I was.  We analysed things a lot!  But then came a girl who he had met in a bar and was very keen on.  I even made a map for their first date.  Sonal is now his wife and probably hearing the stories that I'm now denied. 

Macfarlane's offices

We would carry on down Chancery Lane past Kings College buildings which would result in tales of why LSE was superior, before ending up at the Royal Courts of Justice which was the farthest point from home.  At less than half a mile from the office, it highlights the weakness of our rebellion!

King College, London. Not quite LSE apparently

Royal Courts of Justice - the point of return

The Inner Temple

From here we would meander back, again not the direct route, but the pretty one.  We would walk through the Inner Temple, even observing the film crew for The Da Vinci Code - an influence? I'm not sure, I've not read his book yet!.

A real literary influence appears in our next highlight which took us back to the office.  We would cut through to Gough Square to take in Dr Johnson's house.  I have no idea whether Dr Johnson was an influence but I know for sure that Blackadder was.  Even though we would walk past this every day, we would laugh about Robbie Coltrane playing Samuel Johnson (""Contrafribularites", sir? It is a common word down our way")  

Dr Johnson's House - writer of the first dictionary "the most pointless book since 'How To Learn French' was translated into French"

Cortina's, Shoe Lane - best tea and toast in London

Maybe we would pay a visit to Cortina's for the best cup of tea in London (though that was typically a morning distraction).  It deserves a mention as it trips here accounted for as much lost productivity as the afternoon walk. 

And with that, we were back at the office.  Probably 30 minutes of the day lost with only a dubious delivery the productive thing to show for it.  Looking back, I like to think that we were work-shopping dialogue for the book.  That's what I'll tell my children anyway.

So below is the route, just over 1 mile long.  I recommend you seek it out for yourself before it is overrun with tourists and the ongoing building renders this path obsolete.  London changes quickly, but you can't build over the memories.  I've got a couple of ideas for where the blue plaque can go though.

Mukherjee's Walk - the making of the artist