Tag Archives: British East India Company

a travel guide to colonial delhi

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If you have been to Delhi, India’s capital city, your memories of it would most likely comprise of evocative Sultanate and Mughal monuments. Monuments which are remnants of the multiple cities that flourished here over the past one thousand years.

But no one can deny the city’s most alluring charm, perhaps just a tad bit more than its monuments, is its dense green canopy. A veritable garden city, its broad leafy avenues transform into tunnels of foliage in the monsoons. Large roundabouts embellished with manicured lawns, regal palms, and flowering bushes punctuate the roads at short intervals; roads lined by whitewashed bungalows set amidst their own personal gardens. Expansive reserves called the ‘Ridge’ run wild with jungles. And then there are the countless parks laid out neatly around the city’s monuments and jogging tracts through dark forests.

What if I told you none of this greenery is indigenous to Delhi. That the green cover is the Britishers’ most visible legacy to the city which they made their capital from 12 December, 1911 to 15 August, 1947. Even the Ridge, which Delhiites take much pride in, is draped in the Vilayati Kikar, a Mexican species, planted by the British. Its deep roots kill off any competition, especially Delhi’s native trees. Continue reading →

global art shot: kampani kalam, when east met west

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Two friends seated in discussion. Way back in the year 1810-12 in Delhi. Two very real, very ordinary people. Just like you and me. And if it weren’t for an art form that went by the name Kampani Kalam in the local Indian lingua franca, or Company Paintings in English, these two gentlemen would have been forgotten in the pages of time.

But they survived. The two, not meeting my eye, but seemingly fully aware of being the focus of my attention last Sunday, were part of a special exhibition at Delhi’s National Museum. Some two hundred other paintings hung around me, but this hung in the spectrum of time. Their true-to-life faces, their elaborate local costumes, even the hair on their arms and chest.

Through them, I could travel back 210 years. In a flash. Continue reading →

srirangapatna, historical capital of tipu sultan: the why, what, where, when, how guide

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Some 18.5 kilometres to the north-east of Mysore city, on an island called Srirangapatna, lies a dusty town lost in time. Its current worn state belies its glorious past which still reveals itself shyly from behind its weathered structures.

Key historical events have taken place on its softly undulating plains. Larger than life rulers who till date evoke strong emotions made the island the centre of their universe.

Welcome to my guide on Srirangapatna, capital of the 18th Century ruler Tipu Sultan aka the Tiger of Mysore. The Why, What, Where, When and How guide of a town well off the usual tourist circuit, but deeply ingrained in every Indian history book, mass media, world museums and private collections.

[Note: Top image: Detail, Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, 4 May 1799, British East India Company painting.] Continue reading →

why tipu sultan’s dariya daulat bagh will take your breath away

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Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago lived a man renowned for his opulence, and bravery. He was fearless. Nothing scared him. Or perturbed him. He also had a deep abhorrence for the British East India Company and its colonial inroads into India.

His name was Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. And his capital was Srirangapatna [spelt Seringapatam by the British], an island plonk in the middle of the mystical Cauvery River in present-day Karnataka.

It was to this tiny little, steeped in history, sleepy town that I found myself one day during my Mysore travels. Where.time.stood.still. And there were stories galore. Continue reading →

beyond the obvious: lucknow beyond its heritage precinct

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Lucknow had still not fully woken up as I took a rickshaw from my hotel in the chaos surrounding the railway station to classical Chattar Manzil built by Frenchman Claude Martin, hidden behind the wide leafy avenues of Qaiser Bagh. “We start at 7:30 am,” the guide at Uttar Pradesh Tourism had informed me over the phone.

I was the only person on the walk which revealed a Lucknow far removed from its iconic Nawabi heritage precinct—a side of Lucknow brimming with lesser recounted stories and unsullied beauty. From this one walk, further stemmed, a series of explorations to equally lesser known parts of the city, spanning a few centuries and a few geographies.

The sum of all these detours was an affirmation that there are two parts to every place’s lure. One, those that get touted, and have travellers and tourists alike clambering to check them off their list. These are the ones which make it to backdrops of selfies, travel guides, and blogs galore. And then there is the other part. The ones which often remain forgotten in the pages of history or are so embedded in local life they remain hidden from the casual outside eye.

This post is about those hidden gems and travel experiences in Lucknow. The Lucknow beyond its obvious attractions. Read on and you’ll know why they made it to this list. 😊 Continue reading →

a self-guided walk through lucknow’s historical precinct

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Can one really argue the pleasures of sitting inside a monument, suspended in time, or a leisurely conversation with a local through whom the past lives on? Isn’t that how travel to places steeped in history should be like?

I am prone to believe there is only one unalloyed way to explore heritage precincts—on foot, on your own, and at your own pace. With no stringent “you have 15 minutes here” or the need to absorb a site amidst a non-stop rattle of facts and stories, some true, some crafted just to enchant you.

Last month, I also discovered no city deserves one’s space and slowed down pace more than Lucknow, where nothing much has changed inside its old city walls over the past 250 years. The mosques and imambaras are still functioning. Travellers from far and wide still gaze at its colossal monuments in wonder. Continue reading →

lucknow, revolutions of 2 kinds: residency 1857 and ambedkar memorial 2008

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Revolution
rɛvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/ (noun)
1. a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.
2. a dramatic and wide-reaching change in conditions, attitudes, or operation.

Martin Luther King Jr’s above quote is one of my favourites. But not all revolutions are violent massacres aimed at toppling a system by a populace who have reached their limits. At times they are opulent statements made to put a point across. The purpose remains the same. Change. I saw both in Lucknow, in the course of one day. One from way back in 1857, and another from 2008. The disparity was striking. The commonality inspiring. Scroll through, and you will see what I mean. 🙂

The Residency, 1857

Continue reading →

24 hours in incredible allahabad

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Amitabh Bachchan’s hometown. If one is Indian, it is the first thing that in most probability comes to mind when one hears of Allahabad. This is by virtue of the superstar’s constant vocal affirmation, flaunted with much pride, of its role in his life. It is where he was born and spent his childhood and youth, before becoming the country’s biggest and brightest star, still shining at 75.

To those spiritually inclined, Allahabad is evocative of all that is sacred in Hinduism. The meeting point of Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati, the city is built on the site of the ancient Aryan town of Prayag—the place for offerings. And perhaps, thus, by pure logic, it is also the site, since time immemorial, of the largest Hindu gathering held every 12 years on the banks of Sangam, or the confluence, in the form of the Maha Kumbh.

Rarely on most travellers’ circuit, Allahabad often gets side-lined in favour of its more popular neighbours on either side—Lucknow and Varanasi. But, like everything else in India, it too oozes of history, heritage, and stories galore, as I was quick to discover. Continue reading →

36 hours in pune

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Pune youth at the 8th Century Pataleshwar Cave Temple celebrating Pune Heritage Week
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It took me three years to make the journey to Pune, a city nestled in the Sahyadri hills four hours by road and 149 kilometres away from Mumbai.

Every second person I have met in Mumbai has been somehow connected to Pune. It is either through their family or studies [when they were younger] or if nothing else a place they go to chill out. I figured this in itself warranted I see it with a local, and here I mean a Mumbaikar with one foot in Pune. And so I waited. And waited. Till my desire to explore the city out-weighed the comfort of a well-versed, impossible to pin down, human guide.

Clueless about the geography of the city, but armed with a smattering of facts, figures, and stories from poring over books and articles, I found myself one fine morning seated on a bus aptly named Shivneri. For the uninitiated, Chhattrapati Shivaji Maharaj was born in Shivneri Fort on the outskirts of Pune.

But more of that later on in the post. I was headed to Mumbai’s lesser known and lesser glamorous, yet historically and culturally [as I was soon to discover] richer neighbour. It also happened to be heritage week in Pune which turned out to be in my favour. Continue reading →

st. mary’s church in camp, the oldest anglican church in the deccan

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For some obscure misguided reason, I was under the assumption Camp [the Cantonment] area in Pune would be just one road. To add to it, my rather simplistic imagination envisioned Pune’s famed historical churches, built to serve the then Poona’s British Raj gentry, to be standing sentinel on both sides of it in a homogenous line. I could not be more wrong.

After being driven through a maze of wide, empty streets on a Sunday morning, I found myself dropped outside a poker faced, art deco facade by a cab driver with the announcement, “Old church.” Before I could ask or argue he had sped away, and there was I in the slowly rising heat, wondering, my brows raised towards the heavens, where the hell was I?

Almost, as if in answer, a woman with a beaming smile stepped out and wanted to know what I was looking for. Her name was Sheeba Reuben Deshmukh, a counsellor and committee member of the Oldham Methodist Church, the church I had been dropped at.

I explained to her I was a blogger from Mumbai and exploring Pune that weekend.

“Have you been to St. Mary’s?” Continue reading →