The National Carrier

I saw a newspaper headline today about Air India. The state owned airline requires INR 40,000 crores of capital infusion to get going all over again. Currently it functions in a shrunken form, playing second fiddle to a host of private sector airlines that commenced the other day.

Why aren't our parliamentarians asking the question what good will come of this? Nor is this question being asked by the popular media. A few opinion page articles in pink papers questioning the airline's existence compares with the hysterical obsession of the media on wealth found in the Travancore temple. Politicians and opinion makers have shown alacrity in claiming the temple's wealth (passionately collected and defended by its keepers for centuries), as that of the people. But they don't care about the tens of thousands of crores thrown into the public sector entities such as Air India. And now throwing good money after the bad.

Think about the hundred(s) thousand schools in rural India without teachers. This money could get them teachers. This money could get potable water, or basic healthcare, or security where none exists.

India runs a huge fiscal deficit. It spends a great deal of money in its social programs that are pro-poor. And it spends beyond its means. Government admits to large scale pilferage and attempts have been there to do something about it. Not with spectacular success yet. In this background, where every penny counts, why do we want get involved in maintaining behemoths that are not social or security programs? Why? Is it for the compassion felt for the employees of these organisations, or the benefits these organisations confer to the powers that be?

SUVARNDURG

The name that struck fear in the heart of every European Imperialist at sea

At close to 4 in the afternoon, we had already travelled in the autorickshaw for nearly 45 minutes. A long ride. Four of us sat at the back, with little Neel on his mom’s lap. My friend was kind enough, as he crammed himself in the front seat, sharing it with the driver. Even in Konkan, the summer afternoons are not quite the kind and comforting variety, with hot gusts pounding.

Then there was an abrupt turn bringing us on a wide beach. The rickshaw drove through its firm sands and moved off to a rocky road up. What was in view against the backdrop of burning sun, was a lighthouse of antiquity. Old, yet gracefully guarding the seas from a cliff. As the rickshaw ramped up closer to the light-house, we were in view of a bay, flanked by basaltic-hill-cliffs on either sides, and terminating in a gentle beach. A magnificent view behold-ed us, as what seemed to be over 150 fishing trawlers crowding the bay, running riot with their colors. The larger ones had cabins and the Indian tricolor fluttered atop (understandable, given that bigger vessels are deep sea trawlers). But there were also a host of other flags on each vessel.



This wasn’t still the breathtaking sight I had longed to see. The sea fortress Suvarndurg (The Golden Fort) hid behind the cliff that hosted the lighthouse. The Bollywood would have us believe that fishermen on the Bay were to be found in their famous loincloth, dancing and singing. But the men sported shorts and bermudas of different kinds and so also mobile phones. They seemed busy with their business. Times have obviously changed. But some things haven’t changed. I was soon to find out. Several boatmen sat on the rocks that dotted the shoulders of the lane. The lane itself merged into a jetty. We inquired for hiring of a machine-boat. Pandhari Raghubir appeared authoritative, when he instructed one of the boatmen to show us the sea fort. The price agreed seemed reasonable.

A little later an indigenous machine powered wooden boat appeared. Much bigger than the manual (rowing) boats I rode on the rivers of Ganga and Teesta. Its size was the same as the boat that we rode in the morning to spot dolphins off the Karde beach, each boat packing 12 or more. But there was one difference. The morning waters were calm; placid as a lake. At 4.30 in the afternoon, the tide had returned and the waters were full of energy. Our boat rocked to and forth, and wobbled side-to-side. My wife was the first to panick. I tried to calm her down. We sought our boatman’s advice. He reassured us. Halfway out of the bay, the panick grew larger. Our boatman drew out a more determined statement, which roughly translates to: “There can be no bigger gaurantee of safety in the seas, than the presence of a Koli”. But by the time we were on the outer edges of the bay, the rocking boat had begun to make me feel dizzy as well. We forced the boat back to the jetty. Knowing fully well, that this was now or never, we could not take chances.

We were back at the jetty. The Koli boatman, slightly peeved, told us that we were the first ever to return from his boat, without being delivered to destination. Disheartened, I watched from the shore a family of 17 occupy the same boat and head to the sea. There were some large boats in the bay, with a cabin in it. These were deep sea fishing trawlers. These waited patiently at the rear end of the bay. Smaller boats offloaded their catch by the tons and carried to the shore at knee deep waters. At this point, bullock carts offloaded the catch and wheeled it on land. Bullocks by the dozens stood on the waters, even as waves intermittently submerged the whole of their feet.

We did some rethinking and soon we made up our mind. The new plan was that my friend and I would go. Just the two of us, and we will hire a much bigger, stabler boat. One Mr Kalekar, who seemed to own the facilities, instructed his chief sailor (Raghubir) to get a much bigger boat, and also instructed them to charge us a meager INR 300. I thought they were going out of their way to help us. Happily we rushed to the jetty. But there was some waiting. The next hurdle was availability of boat. The only boat of the size we desired stood anchored right in the middle of the bay. Raghubir’s yells and screams instructing whoever cared to listen, to unanchor the boat, were in vain. The lights were fading fast. The gloriously bright summer sun was paving way for long-stretched shadows of the cliffs and lighthouse. Watching us impatient, Raghubir with his bloated tummy jumped in the sea. He told Kalekar that he wasn’t sure if his breath would last until the destination – he hadn’t done this in a long long time. He swam towards the boat, while we watched nervously from the shore. I didn’t want him to drown and certainly didn’t want to be the cause. By this time, it was also getting clear to me that while modernity had pervaded many walks of Koli life, it mostly remained limited to dress and mobile phones. At Harnai, 250 KM away from the cunning megapolis, Kolis seemed to preserve their touch with the sea, and their word. I would not go out of my way for anyone like this.

Nearly 350 years ago, a small child by the name Kanhojee, had only one sport available --- sea. And his mates were not children his age, but adult Koli seamen like Raghubir. He sprinted past the shores, where I stood now. He played the very waters that made us dizzy a while ago. He was destined to be a legend.

To our relief, Raghubir reached the boat and brought it to us. As the boat powered itself into the sea, Raghubir shouted “Jai Shivaji”. Three and quarter centuries ago, Shivaji stormed the sea fort of Suvarndurg, ousting the Bijapur army from it forever. He renamed the sea fortress Suvarndurg. From Suvardurg, it was possible to vigil the seas for about over a hundred kilometers around. Shivaji entrusted Tulaji Angre with Suvarndurg. It was to prove a correct judgement, for Tulaji kept it in Maratha hands for his life. As we powered away into the sea, the waters leaped up and then sank with the same abruptness. I gripped the pillar with both by hands. The overcautiousness/fear seemed unfounded, for this boat was rather stable and there were no side to side wobbles. The waters were deep and interspersed with rocky crests, some visible and some not visible. Our boat entered a narrow pass between two rocky surfaces that held their heads above water. The view of the Suvarndurg was breathtaking. Giant walls of rock-bricks rose vertically – a sight familiar to tourists, except that it stood on waters, not land. Interestingly, the sea-fortress was within a striking distance from another beach that we didn’t know about. A village lay by the shore, which seemed to derive its name from the holy temples it hosted. The waters were calm here. It seemed the best way to reach the fort would be from this village. But I wasn’t sure. On a relook, this short route appeared extremely dangerous. This route was strewn with pointed rocks, occasionally keeping their heads above the water. For keeping the boats from straying in this area, a number of flags were hoisted atop the rocks, with the rocks themselves often not visible.




The sea fortress was now visible. We were looking at the eastern front of the fort, and the setting sun illuminated it from behind. The fort appeared like a stone-wall, afloat in the ocean. Unlike the janjira fort of the Siddis, Suvarndurg hasn’t used every inch of the tiny island at its eastern edges. So we landed on shallow waters and walked around 20 steps on sand. We were guided to an opening into the gigantic stone walls of the Suvarndurg. The formidable walls made up of stone stood testimony to the skills of Bijapur and Maratha engineers. The opening delivered us to a little courtyard, with a gate to its south. The entry gate (the wood gone), was rather modest. This was understandable, for the Golden Fort is less than a tenth of Janjira’s size. So, economic use must have been the key. Beyond the entry gate rate, lay what seemed to be an expanse of jungle with a big depression in the middle. It was obvious that the depression was host to most of the buildings. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would have looked like in its heydays. And I could see a base brimming with soldiers, back-to-back built quarters on the depression, busy with extensive activity of food and drinks, ramparts crowded with canons and the men manning them, helper boys lining the parapets with cannonballs and utilities. The Admiral stood somewhere in the compound, in his Royal robes, discussing the next moves with his commanders – drawn from various nationalities including Dutch, French and Portuguese.

Kanhoji Angre (KA) struck fear in the hearts of European ships, whether merchant or navy, sailing on Indian waters. He ascended to head the naval possessions of the Marathas in 1698 and was the most befitting reply that India ever produced to the European Colonial Powers. No European ship was safe on Indian waters, if it didn’t buy its protection (Pass or Dastak).

The Europeans defied him frequently, to their peril. And Angre’s naval actions were largely reserved for the ships of the European Imperialists. At this point, the Portuguese power was waning and that of the British East India Company (BEIC), rising steadily.

Many things that I had read previously about BEIC’s wars with KA were inaccurate. But I was not quite interested in precise history here. What had already got my attention was the fear of the name KA (for them “Conajee Angria”). I must admit, it gives me pleasure to find records of such fear and respect for the Maratha navy (Angre) in BEIC forces. It matters less that result of combined European forces attack on Colaba (Alibag fort) and Kennery (Khanderi) was a humiliating defeat for the Europeans. What matters more is the belief among English and Europeans that KA’s forces came from an invisible, impregnable fortress that lay beyond mist and beyond the horizon – where no ship could sail --- and is was named Suvarndurg – the abode of the KA himself. In the 1st half of the 18th century, even calling this name out was forbidden on India bound ships. The fear psychosis transported me to the Pirates of the Caribbean series, of flying ships and sea ghosts – the sailors’ fears of the adversaries, known and the unknown.

It was somewhere towards the end of the 17th century, when the Siddys of Janjira, representing the Mughal navy, sieged Suvarndurg. The Governor of the Suvarndurg had decided surrender, when he was overstepped by one of his young officers called Kanhoji Angre. The young officer assumed charge of the garrison overnight and had the Siddys retreat back to Janjira.

I stood at the western ramparts of Suvarndurg and overlooked the wide open sea. The endless expanse of the Arabian Ocean. The waters at this end had been lined with ships of the British, Portuguese and the Abyssinians (Siddys), at various points in time, laying siege of the Suvarndurg. And several generations of the Angre family commanders would have stood right here to assess their enemy, before dealing a blow.

Tragically, the entire fort is in ruin and neglect. This is also not on tourist radar yet. What could be worse than its present state is that if irresponsible tourists discover the place before ASI or Government of Maharashtra restores it. There was a fresh water tank in Suvarndurg, that served as the primary source of water – now covered in green moss. The canons were absent from the fort.

It was already getting dark and we had to head back, we were reminded. We walked the little beach of the island to reach for the boat. Now it struck me why this piece of land may have been left untouched. Suvarndurg housed a brisk ship-building activity. It must have been on this beach!

On our way back, Raghubir was in great mood. He was joined by some boys from his clan. He laughed and sang. They celebrated their music. As for me, I was greatly satisfied too.

India and neighbors: some thoughts

The question of Kashmir is at the heart of India- Pakistan relationship. this can not be denied. Would it get solved in the near future? A good question that has no answer. And not many would like to answer that. Hopes have always been trashed. So much so that now people don’t hope. There are hardliners on both sides, precluding a practical solution.

Probably one most practical way in which this could get resolved would be one of the two sides relinquishing its claim (for all practical purposes). Impossible? May not quite be. In long standing standoffs of history, it is finally the stamina that matters. Often one party is weakened over a period, eroded by time. This finally allows the other to take the ground. India has shown much larger stamina. It has grown much larger since its independence. Education and industry have given it the economic power to afford larger defence forces, better technology deployment. And given all this, the general moral in India is much higher. Pakistan has been spending way too much to remain in the ring. The money that should have gone to build better roads and providing education and healthcare, now ends up in defence budgets. Population by and large is dissatisfied and angry, and war-cries against India have often seemed to be the only potent cement to bind the provinces of the nation. It probably realised its limitations at war-field confrontation, and has concentrated energies to produce private militants to fight. By and large, despite the tragedies it has unleashed on India (security personnel casualties, innocent people getting caught in cross-fire), it is more in nature of irritation, than a weakening force. It has seen a part of itself severed once in 1971. Pakistan could lose stamina at some point in time. May be in a few decades?

But this analogy should provide more worries to India than comfort. India has had long-running disputes and a short, yet decisive war with China. China has economically surpassed India, rather overwhelmingly. It is also a larger and better governed country. Foreign policy, military strategies and capabilities, governance, government machinery etc. are well concerted to achieve their objectives. And its much larger stamina would mean, an out-of-breath India could at some point in time be a mere spectator to what China decides in relation to territorial disputes etc.

KULFI AND THE ICE FACTORY

I often noticed the kulfi maker. This was one hard-working man, who showed up punctually at 8.00 am on the road pavement each day, where he would begin his first batch of production for the day. His production unit consisted of a metal drum with a handle on top, filled with liquid ingredients. Then there was a large cylindrical bucket and a bag which lay zipped by the side. The drum was placed inside the cylindrical bucket, with the remaining space in the bucket being filled with ice. The drum would be moved in circular motion using the handle. More ice would be added at intervals, until the liquid in the drum froze into kulfi -- the Indian ice-cream.

The technique is primitive. But it served the kulfi maker. However, it always brought me two contradictory thoughts. One, that the process is ultimately driven by ice, therefore the process could not predate the refrigeration engineering, or to be more precise the time when the first American ships brought ice to Indian shores. Second, medieval India accounts talked about our royalty enjoying kulfi, with the blistering heat of Delhi and Lucknow being sought to be cooled with kulfi. Both could not be true?

The Journal of Fanny Parkes is an 800 page account of day-to-day life and events in India during 1820-1840, by wife of an English officer of little significance, who was tossed around and transferred across India. William Dalrymple has been behind a new abridged version of this fantastic work. And my answer lay here.

India manufactured ice well before refrigeration reached her shores. North Indian royals and elites seemed to have their regular supply. There were several ice factories in major cities. And (presumably) the East India Company owned a factory in each of such locations. In Fanny Parkes’ journal, she gives account of the production process in Allahabad’s English ice factory around 1820 (i.e. nearly 2 centuries back). Parkes’ account tells us that:

The ice was manufactured during winter by exposing water to dry and freezing winds, in managed ice pits. The ice pits are managed by the adbar. On a winter day, “should there be a crisp frosty feeling in the air,” the abdar “prepares for action at about six or seven o’clock, by beating a tom-tom (a native hand-drum), a signal well known to the coolies in the bazaar, who hasten to the pits”. They “fill all the rukabees with the water...”. “If the night be frosty, without wind, the ice will form...”. Once the ice has formed, the coolies, each “armed with a spud, knocked ice out of the little pans into a basket...ran to the ice-house, and threw it down the great pit”. During the summer months (April to July 1st week), this ice was devoured steadily from the pit. “The natives make ice for themselves, and sell it at two annas a seer...”

The account filled my heart with joy. Albeit, the ice was affordable only by rich. But we had the technology nevertheless! Now when I see the kulfi maker (he’s grown old), I do so with a definite knowledge that he is a link to a rich heritage).

India's Education System: Better than West?

The rich countries have been kept worriedly busy for at least a decade, on how to improve their education system to compete with the developing countries. Leaders have repeatedly asked the question ‘what is wrong with our education system’? The US President once identified poor mathematics skills of young citizens as the biggest concern.

The fact is that it is a battle with sheer numbers from the poor countries.

Will Durant (the great American historian and philosopher of the twentieth century) posed the question that if Darwin was correct on the survival (and multiplication) of the fittest, then today the human world is in a state of contradictions. The third world is increasing its population at an alarming rate, while the rich world’s population is shrinking. This had never been true earlier for the human race. Remember, through the second half of the last millennium, Europe’s achievements in science & engineering and military growth leading to colony-building, coincided with a rapidly rising population. This would not have been a coincidence. For, Europe would not have won its colonies without the support of its bulging population. For instance, every British joining the East India Company posting in India was usually one of 5 or 7 or more siblings, packed off by the family to an internship and bread-winning journey, because it could barely afford to feed another mouth, leave aside education. So what sense do you make of the present world, where the rich countries are technologically, militarily and economically far more powerful, but have got fast outnumbered by the poor?

Coming back to education, does the problem come from the fact that with a cozy life, one wants to enjoy the comforts, not struggle on? When people are used to affluent, easy life, superior education system alone cannot guarantee competitive advantage. Is that the problem with the rich world?

How hard to study and what to study is not a matter of choice to kids in poor countries like India, China and elsewhere. It is a matter of making a living. What is drilled into young heads is that they must try hard, for only if they can edge competition out, can they survive. This approach or practice (coupled with average/poor education infrastructure) may not guarantee the best crop. But certainly produces an army of average crop. An army which is ready to fill in any opportunity anywhere in the world. Quality of education is (much) poorer in developing countries and success can be explained only by desperately hard efforts expended by individuals to make the best of available education opportunities, for, the price of non-success is too high – abject poverty combined with social condemnation. Not that it results in high success rates. Success rates are rising, but are still low. In a big population, even a small proportion of desperately hard-working individuals attaining success, translates into formidable numbers. The game is of sheer numbers.

The choices are quite stark in poor countries like India. If you have a good academic background, i.e. you’ve studied hard, absorbed skills, and entered the job market, you get a direct entry to upper middle class income and lifestyle. Should you prefer to miss the education part, the result could be ending up working hard, often physically, barely making two ends meet and there will be no housing or education opportunities for children. In short, you’ve been condemned to hell. In rich countries, average efforts in education can still get you a decent life and therefore, competing like mad from school onwards isn’t necessary. This makes life better, and probably somewhat easy. Between studying hard or not, competing hard or not, the consequences do not seem as stark. So how do you get working class parents to make heavy compromises in life, so that kids can go to college? In most Asian countries, for example (and including the OECD member South Korea), parents live frugally, so that the children can go to good school and attend a university. Children burn away the best years of their lives under the study lamp, so that they can get their passport to middle/upper middle class income. Parents and children alike, are hungry to achieve this.

The fact remains that in the rich world, the education opportunities as well as the quality of education is much superior.

END of RELIGION?

Society, state and religion had always been closely interlinked. The bible and Vedas are largely codes of life. They detail how to live a life, the dos and donts etc. The organization of religion enforces these codes and these codes also became the basis on which justice was delivered. Further, the state machinery was made to link closely with that of the religion, and the king with the god. The Pharaohs of Egypt were propagated (by their administrative machinery) as Gods, or agents of God. So also in ancient India’s Hindu states where the king was thought to be an incarnation of the God. In much of the Christendom, the rulers derived their legitimacy from religion; by representing themselves as rulers approved by the Vatican; undertaking crusades to further the cause of religion (which it didn’t: for the mere recovery of Southern Portugal, Turkey and West Asia was lost to Islam). Caliphs ruled the Islamic world for a long time and even the Mongol marauder Timur (Tamerlane) actively sought religious approval (even as he ordered elephants to crush the quaran-clasping little boys to death in present day Iraq).

People believed in god. People accepted the codes of life as given by the religion. Religious organization and authority worked hard to enforce these. People feared god. That made the task of compliance much easier. A ruler having the approval of religion had an easy job then. As long as he and his government was in sync with laws accepted by religion, along with concessions that majority people wanted, he would not face rebellion, and even the maintenance of law and order would be easy.

Today, people are governed by the codes, regulations and constitutions of their nations. The code of life that people live as a consequence of their national constitutions, often deviates/varies substantially from the code of life as contained in their religions. Constitutions of nations are often a manifestation of current conditions; of the modern world; re-adjusting to how individuals should behave with changed realities and conditions. Nations often issue fresh codes of conduct to its citizens, with changes in the societies itself and with change in technology that impacts the very societies. To recount some recent ones would be gay marriages, abolition of conscription, environmental laws etc.

Individuals (citizens) in the whole of the developed world are required to adhere to laws of their nations. A violation is judged with reference to nation’s laws, not religious codes. In the whole of Western Europe and Nordic countries, state’s laws have seriousness in people’s consciousness, often much greater than their commitment to religion. While Christianity forbade interest on money (usury), banking is the most vibrant and glamorous part of so many of these countries.

Are we seeing death of religion?

In my view, no. It is just a period of time when religions are re-inventing themselves. To align themselves to the impact on society as a consequence of change in technology. Distances have shrunk, thanks to air travel, telephony and the internet. The benefit of scientific knowledge has reached out to earth’s inhabitants even in its most remote parts. And my guess is many of the major religions will successfully make this transition. For example, Hinduism itself has made strong efforts to first, do away with some of its practices that were bad and then to incorporate positive things from other major religions and changing times. It has done away with practices such as sati; it has made strides in abolishing child-marriages, inheritance to daughters, making divorce possible --- though all of it with push help from the governments. It has made the Hindu places of worship accessible to all its believers, irrespective of caste. It makes now an effort to abolish cast beliefs altogether.

James Prinsep

Prinsep Ghat is one of the most beautiful landmarks of Kolkata. Not many colonial monuments survive today with their old names. For example, Ochterlony Monument has become Shaheed Minar. Prinsep Ghat is one of the exceptions. Who was Prinsep? A few google searches and book searches lead to some clues: Prinsep “restored Aurangzeb’s Mosque”, he “built a bridge” that was (presumably) a difficult task, and decoding an “ancient Indian script”. Auragzeb Mosque? Bridge? What, where? The results merely suggest Mr Prinsep was an accomplished British Engineer.

James Prinsep was much more than that. He was responsible for many firsts in India: identifying bad health with mosquitos and still water, building first detailed city map (comparable to Google Earth imagery), the first powered ceiling fan, first human flight on Indian skies, high precision weighing machine, archeological restoration, introducing the West to a romantic relationship with India’s river ghats and more. His achievements and his dedication to India and its people is something that we would be compelled to remember for times to come. This is a story of extraordinary efforts and achievements, coming from a seemingly ordinary person, who lived in difficulty himself. This is a story that inspires.

James Prinsep was the seventh son of John Prinsep, who too had served in India. John Prinsep served East India Company during the times of Warren Hastings (1870s), but had made only a modest fortune for himself. While other Company officers had enriched themselves in India, John Prinsep may have been left out because of his opposition to the Company’s policies in India and his opposition to the Evangelicals’ drive on religious conversions. Upon return to England, James Prinsep’s father made a few commercial endeavors and lost whatever money he had. As a result, younger three of the Prinsep brothers spent childhood and early youth under severe constraints. They lived in Bristol, in an attic, partitioned with curtains and the three brothers shared only one trouser between them.

At the age of 15, he started his working life as an apprentice under an architect. Soon, his younger brother Thomas got a job with the East India Company Army, while James got a job with the Company’s Mint (currency production) at Calcutta. The two brothers sailed together to India in 1819. The ship sailed upriver into the Ganges (Hooghly) from the sea, to arrive at a Ghat that was later to be named after his own. To welcome them, their two older brothers Henry and William, were already in India as civil servant and businessman respectively.

James Prinsep was a keen observer of things around him. It took little time for him to realize that there was a huge gulf between the Indians, and the British ruling them. He found an elite class of Indians that the British interacted with, but kept the public at large at bay. Prinsep expressed sadness in his letters home, over the way the Indian employees/servants were treated: beaten mercilessly for the smallest slip-ups.

His job at the Mint involved examination of metal compositions etc of currency coins, to maintain control over the production of coins for the Bank of Bengal (then the equivalent of central bank). The Company maintained a smaller Mint in Benaras and soon, Prinsep was sent there. Though this was a remote posting for a very young man, far away from Calcutta which was then, a grand European city in the East. But Prinsep almost experienced happiness from the moment he left the city to sail up the Ganges. From the time Warren Hastings left India, it was fashionable for the Englishmen to hold in contempt anything Indian. More so because successive Governor Generals preferred around them Englishmen who they thought were ‘less polluted’ by the Indian culture and habits. It was indeed risky to stake one’s career by exhibiting Indian tastes. But James Prinsep remained elusive to such considerations. He admired the beautiful country along the river and then found Benaras to be a great town. He indulged in and enjoyed Indian Classical music. He would spend hours in the cool breeze of the Ghats. He grew increasingly passionate about the Ghats of Benaras, built little over a century earlier by the Marathas. During his 7-9 years of stay in Benras, he made numerous sketches of the Ghats, including some paintings with his artist & businessman brother William Prinsep who visited him in 1830. The masterpieces traveled outside and across the world and introduced the Western world to the enchantment of Benaras over the next few decades.

Prinsep was endowed with two great qualities. He had a mind of enquiry and had a knack for applying his knowledge. These would ensure that he did not limit his stay to merely enjoying India. He found scope for doing a lot of things in Benaras. He began waking up early and would finish off his office work by breakfast time. Then devote his time and energies to his passions. And his passion was to apply the knowledge of science. He built, what was then the world’s most sensitive weighing balance, capable of weighing a spec of dust. He was pained to see the high rate of mortality in the local population. He inferred that the cause was mosquitoes and germs, promoted by the marshy land pockets of Benaras. At his own cost and efforts, he undertook an engineering project to drain the waters. This gave a huge fillip to his already growing popularity among the people of Benras. People gifted him a ground. This time, he used his engineering skills to level the ground to a flat non-flooding landmass, and returned it as a gift to the people for making of a bazaar! Charles Allen (author) notes that this generosity was extended at a time when Prinsep was literally poor himself, with a job that could go anytime because his boss wanted someone else (a friend – the Company reeled under nepotism, one always needed a connection). Then Prinsep takes up two important assignments. One was to restore the crumbling mosque built by Aurangzeb (popularly known as the mosque of Aurangazeb) near the Ghats. The mosque had tilted towards the river and was destined to fall eventually. Prinsep observed the complex structure of building and its towers, taking note of the composition brick-by-brick. The building was dismantled in a brick by brick fashion and then reassembled into an enforced building! The next was a stone bridge over the river Karamnasa. Nobody had succeeded in making a river on this in a century long efforts before him. But my understanding is that this was more a social challenge than an architectural one. The river’s waters were supposed to be cursed and were believed to be a killer for the mere mortals. Only Brahmins could touch the waters and emerge unharmed. Aparently there was a flourishing business wherein some such ‘empowered’ people made a living by transporting people on their backs, for the touch of the river was corroding. Looks like that Mr. Prinsep’s real success was being able to carry out the work with popular support of people, overcoming the resistance of a small section that had frustrated every previous effort. A stone bridge was made over the river and exists today. (see the Google Earth image below).

In 1821, he prepared the first map of Benaras city. The map was to the scale and every single dwelling of the city found place in it.

Soon, Prinsep was transferred back to the Mint in Calcutta. This also united him with his brothers in Calcutta. The Mint was at the church lane opposite St John’s church (I guess today’s Hare Street). Posting to Calcutta would change the course of his life, given his keen interest in everything and the great city’s ability to provide advanced facilities of all kinds. Prinsep started taking keen interest in the Asiatic Society. In those times, survey and civil engineering work put together were throwing up fresh archeological sites at a great pace. Most importantly, coins were coming up from across India. All of these were being sent to the capital of British India. After the death of Sir William Jones, there had been a sort of vacuum in this field. To be fair, the French and Germans were doing equally good work, if not better, in studying India in the 18^th century. But in the 19^th century, they did not have access to archeological evidences from India, as whole of India, Ceylon and Burma passed into British control. The coins had a lot to tell about our heritage. But there wasn’t anyone to listen to what these coins had to say. James began to apply his scientific abilities to understand what the coins said. I had a look at some of these coins recently at the Indian Museum. Each coin had a few strokes of lines besides a picture. If this was text, there was too little of it to allow anyone to understand the patterns in it.

To James Prinsep, this was the kind of challenge that he thought would give him immeasurable thrill. He began to toil in order to finish his official work fast and pour all his remaining waking hours into the study of coins (known as numismatics). To allow him to work (study) longer and more efficiently in Calcutta’s hot and humid weather, James produced what was probably the very first mechanized ceiling fan in India. He employed steam to power the punkhas, that produced better results than the human powered ceiling fans. With these fans, now he could work better and longer. During these fruitful years, James Prinsep established himself as the “code breaker”. He began to understand the patterns in the coins and inscriptions and deciphered the ancient languages. He began to connect what was said in the Sanskrit script with current places and relics. All these put together, he was able to draw up an invaluable pile of information --- the genealogical charts of ancient Indian dynasties. This information confirmed many of Sir Jones’ works, and also corrected some of Sir Jones’ work. Now what was available was a history of India. Answers began to flow; such as which dynasty ruled which geographical part of the country and at what time, details of particular administrations etc.

Then Prinsep moved to the next level. Problem: a large amount of inscriptions and coins related to an entirely unknown script. The letters of this script were strange and bore no resemblance to other found in coins and inscriptions, in either the pattern or specifics. Nor was this similar to any living language. In 1838, after nearly 10 long years of arduous efforts, Prinsep unfolded this as the Bramhi script. This single discovery opened a window to the lost world – a vista to Ancient India.

Prinsep was a serious man with serious devotion to work. But it seems to me that he was even more a family man, a fun loving man. His younger brother Thomas died after falling from a horse, while working on Calcutta’s salt water lakes. James Prinsep wanted to complete his late brother’s work and restore honour. He set about draining the salt water bodies by building canals and reclaimed lands. Another first shows the scientific, yet fun-loving part of this man. A Frenchman appeared in Calcutta around then with a giant ballon, with the dream of flying over the magnificent city and its famed river. But there was no possibility of achieving this, for no-one in India had the faintest idea of how to make this work. Prinsep took the challenge and risked creating the gas mixture that would fly a giant gas balloon. This translated into the first ever human flight on Indian soil (since Krishna’s flight on Garuda?).

I find his life a story of extraordinary inspiration.

A Sacred River

As a boy, the story of the earth’s evolution filled my imagination with lakes, rivers and ocean with swimming pool like water --- transparent to the bottom. That would have been a billion years ago at least. And then little early forms of fishes swimming in these waters would have made it look like a giant fish tank. If I were there, all that I would have had do, was to stand at the bank and look deep into it, to see the fishes swimming right unto the bottom. But then that would have to be few hundred million years ago.

Not really.

In 1579 from his base in Goa, Portuguese Jesuit Father Antonio Monserrate was traveling to Agra to see the Mughal Emperor Akbar. The Emperor wished to learn about the Christian religion. The Jesuit traveled upcountry through central India and then to Agra. Somewhere in today’s Madhya Pradesh, he had to cross the Narmada River. What he saw on reaching there in his own words:

“It is full of fish, and its water is so clear that the fish and turtles, and even smaller pebbles, can be counted. It banks are covered with thick reed-beds, and with health-giving herb marjoram”

In total contrast, today Narmada’s waters are muddy and wash up a variety of filth, by the time it reaches Bharuch. Ironically, the more sacred a river is thought to be, larger the burden of human generated waste on it. Plastic bags, filth, tons of rotten flowers and food…

Looking back, the astonishing account of Narmada’s waters in the sixteenth century is hard-to-believe. But then that was only 430 years ago, not 100 million years back. We have managed to destroy so much in such little time. Our population bulge is as much to blame as the general apathy itself.

Successful Societies

What is the formula for successful and powerful nations/societies?

I have recently been reading a book where its central theme is a traveler in the sixth century, making his way into various parts of the Eastern Byzantine empire. Many of these cities were very prosperous. What strikes is that these cities are very cosmopolitan, attracting people from a large number of nationalities and ethnicities. Business and trade thrives in the bazaars of these cities. Innovative people bring their produce into these markets because these are the only few places on earth where they are quite likely to find patrons. Ideas generated in these fertile places lead to some great leaps in architecture, engineering, science, technology and art. Next, very important, these are no anarchic places. These cities are well governed. There is a rule of law; capable of enforcing itself.

The more you dig into the past, you’d find that for success, you need to be a society/state that is moderate, willing to absorb. Because that also means willingness to learn.

Which are the most powerful places today on our planet? Do they have features? To my mind, it’s been the UK in recent centuries and the US in the 19th & 20th century. They could absorb and utilize minds from various places. From Jewish bankers to Chinese engineers. From Scotsmen to Brazilians. The US fares so much better than say, Germany or Japan, that are homogenous societies. Both have been powerful, but only to a much smaller extent and only intermittently. In comparison, the US and UK have held power over a very long time.

Has our history been that of a plural society? We’ve had to absorb a large number of invaders from the west and north. In addition, internal immigration seemed to have been very much the norm in India. However, so little is really known about our past.

The Myth of Cheap

There is a popular saying that there is no free lunch. How true. In real life someone has to pay the price. Are countries like India and China really cheap? How come China produces its stuff so cheap?

Someone pays the price. The roadside foodstall is cheaper than the pucca shop 7 feet inside. Reason? The roadside stall pays an illegal rent (hafta?) which is fraction of the cost of the rent paid by a competitor housed in a legitimate piece of real-estate. The cost of transporting a truckload of sand in India is a fraction of its cost in the US. Why? Because the truck used is often very old, whose debt has been long repaid; it may not be road-fit but it can still go on and even spill some sand on the road. What about the counterpart in a developed country? He must invest heavily to keep a road-fit relatively new truck; employ safety tools to ensure that no sand spills on the road. Who pays the price for cheap sand transportation in India or similar countries? People do. The spilling sand destroys road surfaces worth crores of rupees, as moving vehicles keep rubbing the sand onto the road surface. Then goes a cycle of suffering and costs that people must endure for bad roads, including delay and larger fuel consumption.

Why it is cheap? Lands are doled out in subsidies. Especially in relation to China, I read reports of very cheap lands allocated to do business. Lack of safety regulations translating into no investments necessary for safety and health of public at large and workers more specifically. Similarly in relation to other regulations. For example, commercial production/activities in residential areas, thereby saving taxes and electricity tariff -- leaving the government and taxpayer short changed. The fault is also as much with us. We prefer all kinds of savings by evading regulations when it is related to self, but then hypocritically expect developed countries like safety norms, facilities and infrastructure.

Calcutta IV: Tagore, Jones and Shaheed Smarak

Calcutta’s Shaheed Smarak was its tallest edifice for a formidable period of time. Some of the early photographs of the city were taken from this tower’s crown. Situated at the vast grounds of Moidan (which itself means ‘ground’), the tower overlooks a very important part of the city, which continues to be its core. Original name of the tower was Ochterlony Monument, named after David Ochterlony. Ochterlony was a general in the army. The monument was erected in memory of his leading the East India Company to a face-saving treaty against the Gurkhas. The British were outmaneuvered by the Gurkhas in their earlier attempts on the hill kingdom. The English learnt the hard way that the Gurkhas were no easy meat like the Nabab’s wet cannons at Plassey. What was at stake, was the illusion of English invincibility in the eyes of Indians. If the illusion went, with it would go the Empire. Under Ochterlony, there was a face-off leading to a treaty that allowed a face-saving exit to the English. However a monument in his name at Moidan would be a constant humiliation for us. The renaming saves that, and so also a heritage. Ochterlony was also a lover of India, and British resident (ambassador) at the Delhi court. He lived like an Indian prince and unlike other English officers who indulged in pleasures of Indian life, Ochterlony did not get up one day and boarded ship for England, abandoning Indian wives and children. He lived with his family, found suitable matches for his Anglo-Indian daughters. He has been romanticized in William Dalrymple’s several books.

We moved on to see Sir William Jones’s tomb at the Park Street Cemetry. Jones was the pioneer in Asiatic studies. Read Indian studies, or more specifically, read this as uncovering of Hindu heritage. From deciphering of ancient Hindu texts, to digging history, he did it all. He laid foundation to a systematic study of our heritage. John Prinsep (of Princep Ghat fame) completed his one major incomplete work many years later – decoding the remaining syllables of the lost script of Brahmi. The tomb seemed the tallest at the cemetery and certainly, was the only one that seemed cared for – and not without reason.

We visited several other edifices of heritage, such as the grand post office headquarters (GPO), St Stephen's Church in Alipore, St Andrew's Cathedral, Town Hall, High Court and the dilapidated ‘Currency Office’.

Jarasanko was the ancestral Tagore residence in Kolkata. Much smaller originally than its current size, the building kept growing as members grew. Each member of the family left a legacy of his own. The building now houses a university. You could take a guided tour of the building and see most of its parts, complete with display of things used by the Tagore family. The soft Tagore music floating around was magical, to a point that I considered it an illusion. The most striking thing you’d learn is the Japanese influence on the family. By the 19^th century, Japan was adopting western technology and management styles (including for military), to add to Japan’s traditional techniques and technology. This propelled Japan very fast towards an industrial and military power status that few western nations had achieved. Tagore mansion is full of Japanese gowns, cutlery etc. It also displays pictures of masters of Japanese martial arts. The martial arts were taught to the Tagore family by Japanese masters brought to Calcutta. Tagore stood for the idea itself, as articulated by Amartya Sen so well in his essay on Tagore. Tagore disagreed with the idea of boycotting English ideas and things. He maintained that it is only through adapting better ideas and technology, irrespective of where it comes from, that we can become a formidable social and military power one day. India’s progress of the last 18-years, since economic liberalization, is probably a proof of this idea.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Calcutta III: Ram Mohan and Armenian Ghat

Next, we had some disappointments. I was interested in visiting the Armenian Ghat. Armenians had been coming to India for over a thousand years. Of what I knew, they had mostly been coming to work as soldiers under Indian states in the earlier years. Since the Mogul era and subsequently, they came in actively as merchants, just like they had been doing so in West Asia for a much longer period. I learnt that Calcutta had a strong Armenian presence in business & commerce in that era. But I had not been able to learn more regarding the Armenians the city. We overshot the Armenian Ghat turn by 100 meters and given the traffic rules, were forced to board the Howrah Bridge. It meant losing half an hour to return to the same spot, and lost our way. We returned a week later to visit the Ghat. As one looks from the Ghat into the breezy river, Howrah Station stares at you from the opposite bank. The Armenian Ghat was built and donated by a group of wealthy Armenian merchants. Unfortunately, the huge building looks all set to crumble down. We saw a few men wrapped in gamchha (thin cotton towel, generally dyed in red, popular in Bengal and Bihar), bathing in the revered waters of the river. We decided to leave after we realized that all eyes were set on us, as if we were aliens from mars.

Our search for the Armenian Church proved futile. We found the Armenian Street -- a (very) narrow road, guarded from air and sunlight, by the seamlessly connected buildings on either side. But the church was not there. Change in names, of roads and buildings can prove to be very inconvenient. We were actually pretty close, as I would learn later.

But the day was made, when we succeeded in locating Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s house. The influential lord of his times had it seems, many houses in Calcutta. This was the principal one though. We assumed that finding the house on Ram Mohan Roy Sarani (street) would be easy. The street had been renamed recently. The street name was alien to our cabbie. Once there, he recalled it with its earlier name. I had expected to see a wall or two surviving from the original building, after seeing a dated photograph of the dilapidated edifice. To our utter surprise, this seemed like a new mansion. Fortunately for the generations to whom this heritage belongs, a charity-based trust in the Raja’s name acquired the building from its illegal occupants who had stripped the building down to its last wooden window-frame. The building structure is original, but everything else is replica. It was heartening to see a bunch of academics driving the entire project with devotion. They spent a good deal of time educating us on the Raja’s life. There is a museum dedicated to the Raja and is still being populated with fresh acquisitions, mostly from private collections.

The Raja’s activities in the city were broadly from this building, which has a large tank (now a deadly marsh) in the backyard. The college, which I believe was instituted by the Raja, stands behind the tank.

Colonial Calcutta II: St John's Church

Our next visit was to the St John’s Church. The St John’s Church is less visited today and is (probably) the oldest surviving Church in Calcutta. he church is situated diagonally opposite to the south-west of, what was once the original Fort Williams, and is now the Customs House. The entire area around the Lal Dighi is dense with monuments of the colonial era.

The old Fort Williams had the original St John’s church, housed in a modest structure, built shortly after the victory at Plassey’s field. In 1782, at Hastings instance, Maharaja Nabo Krishna Deb donated the land for construction of a new St John’s Church. The Maharaja was a very wealthy and powerful Hindu royal and a personal friend of Warren Hastings. The land was transferred to Hastings’ personal name. Satyaki and I entered through the iron gates into the large yard. Probably two & quarter centuries ago, it was a quiet site near the Dalhousie square. What set St John’s church different from just about any other place was its understated past, elegance and welcome approach. Though St Paul’s cathedral is an awesome piece of edifice, it seemed less a match for St John’s graceful heritage. A tablet somewhere near the entrance said that the church land was donated by the Maharaja.

The church is spacious inside with ornamented wooden work. A large and glowing painting decorated the walls, with the theme being the angels. The older painting was of The Last Supper by Zoffany, but I forgot to see this, being in a hurry to visit more places during the day. The hall walls are filled with tablets in memory of someone’s someone lost. One of them was from a military officer for his infant daughter, starved to death at Lucknow’s siege at the Sepoy Mutiny. Another was for one captain James Kirkpatrick, by his brother. We could recall Kirkaptrick as William Dalrymple’s lead character in thebook ‘White Moguls’, being the romantic Resident at Nizam’s court.

It was the ‘Organ’ that caught our attention next. While the keys were the size of a piano, it had multiple levers to enable it to replicate sounds of flute, harp etc. The whole set is original and had 2 very big rooms dedicated to its mechanism -- pipes of all sizes and shapes for the air to pass and refine further. Then there was a chamber to generate air. In the earlier era, the church official explained, it was done manually – with men pulling. Now the same work is performed by an electric motor. The organ is used for the mass on Sundays.

There is monument dedicated to the English officers who died at the Rohilla War. We stopped for a while. I thought to myself about the countless Indians who died defending their lands from the brutal assaults of the English. There are no monuments anywhere for the blood lost by these men. There was monument for the Black Hole victims. But I didn’t look at it. I read of an entire village population in Bengal being burnt to death by the East India Company, to punish them. Their fault: growing opium, a threat to Company’s monopoly over opium production and export (to China).

To the north side of the church lies buried, the Calcutta founder, the English agent Job Charnock. Job Charnock’s tomb was built by his son-in-law, Eyle. Built around 1693, it is a relatively simple white and round structure, with a miniature replica of itself set on its crown. Charnock had moulded himself in the Indian way and had married a Bengali widow he rescued from being burnt to death at her husband’s funeral pyre. He ably withstood the immense forces of Bengali society that believed that its pride and piety would be destroyed should she not be killed immediately by burning. Their 3 daughters were married to well off English men in India.

To the side of Charnock’s tomb is a little tomb for the Admiral who was in-charge of at the time of Black Hole and Plassey.

The bonus was here. We could have a look at Hastings’ study room furniture. His table and chair; used for writing the lives of millions.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The Raiders

Civilizations have been torn down after they reached pinnacle of organization, culture and sophistication. Empires have been built on power, technology and management. Comfort and refined then combined with declining military might. And then they have been met with brave and desperate raiders. Desperate raiders come from lands that cannot sustain them. So, often it is a about a desperate effort to find livable lands. A long civilization/dynasty gets torn down and raiders rule. The cycle then repeats itself.

Have things changed?

For millennia, man has always been led to lands where his sustenance would require less toil. Aryans and people from up North, including the Armenians have flocked to India. Afghans, Central Asians and Arabs have poured into India for centuries in the name of Islam. Stories of India’s fertile land and abundant water, sunshine, food made this sound like heaven to every prospective raider. A repeated trend has been that of relatively cultured people being displaced and ruled over by men of low sophistication, but possessing greater skill and zeal for battles. Often civilizations based on logic, knowledge etc have crumbled and given in to brute force. Moors poured into from their desert lands in North Africa, to raid the life sustaining lands of Spain. They were stopped only by organized European powers from moving further up. Seljuks moved south from their inhospitable terrains in the North to the beautiful and easier life in the Byzantine. Similarly Vikings invaded lands. Chinese from certain parts moved southwards in search of greener pastures, to settle in South East Asia and alter its racial mix for ever.

While Europe’s centuries long crusading efforts were largely in vein, losing West Asia & Turkey while regaining Spain, things changed with Renaissance. Advances in technology and management gave them unprecedented advantage to build colonies in all other inhabited continents. Their long enemies were biting dust as well.

Today some lands like China and India that long sustained huge inflow of people, seem too overpopulated themselves. India has absorbed Aryans, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Armenians, Central Asians, Africans and so on. But Indians seldom looked beyond its shores for making a living. Today things seem vastly different. Indians seem to be running into every part of the earth to make a decent living. Has the time come for cycle to reverse? Today’s raiders will obviously be of different kind. Conquests will probably not through savage means, as we saw how Taliban were destroyed. Vietnam’s defeat of Khmer Rouge in 1979 can also be termed as victory of a better set of people over savages.

Probably, given the tectonic shifts in technology, empires can combine refinement and easy going life with enormous power, only if they can maintain economic might. Can’t imagine a bunch of gun-toting men conquering UK or US, unlike the zealous Genghis Khan conquering lands.

So, who might be the next raiders?

Colonial Calcutta I: Chitteswari, Princep, Hastings and Belvedere

To me, Kolkata (Calcutta) had always been a city of Bengalis. The origin of Bengal Renessance and a continuing centre of Bengali art and culture. However, the city was founded by the world’s largest ever multinational company, and continued to be its Asia head quarter until its demise a few decades after the Indian sepoy mutiny of 1857.

I had seen Dakshnineshwar, I had shopped at Gariahat and been to practically every place in the city that mattered to Bengali consciousness. But I hadn’t seen much of those buildings and places that made up what was once the Imperial capital in the east. I recalled Busteed’s (1895) comments in his book referring to Calcutta in the early/mid nineteenth century as the most magnificent European city anywhere in the world. The British Officers resented the choice of Calcutta as the head-quarter. It was extremely warm for more than a half of the year, with humidity levels exceeding anywhere one had known. Add to it the problem that the entire landmass resembled a web of water bodies – ponds, canals, water drains, marsh lands. However, not that most Bengali officers liked it any better. The weather was quite difficult to deal with, for Bengali officers who came from landed classes of Bengal from the upper areas that were cooler and less humid. But for the locals who preceded the British, Calcutta villages were just a way life—their home. There were local landed classes (Rajas) who paid taxes to the Imperial Treasury during Mughal Power and then to Murshidabad as Delhi faded. Then I read an account of how Charnock (the East Indian Company agent, and founder of Calcutta) bought villages in the watery lands to consolidate as a single town. The constituent towns/villages of Calcutta had civilization older than the city itself.

We were heading towards North Calcutta’s eastern banks, because somewhere here lay one of the oldest temples in the city. I wasn’t sure of how Chitteswari was pronounced, but could explain to the locals that we were looking for an old temple of Goddess Kali. Satyaki accompanied me and was probably much better equipped with Calcutta’s history. This helped us to get to places with flashing speed. I knew we were venturing into areas that weren’t the safest places. Additionally, the lanes were so narrow in these suburbs that at times I felt that our car was rubbing the walls on either side. In trying to locate, we had moved from one suburb to another, further deep inside and far beyond our initial time and distance estimates. Very close to the sandy banks of the river, stood Chitteswari temple. We were informed that there was no regular worship anymore. The temple was opened once a week. The temple was built in 1615 or so, years before Charnock set foot. I tried to imagine what it would have then been. Probably thick vegetation of banana, coconut, other fruits, sundry trees and plants, lots of overgrown grass all around and heavy breeze through the sandy banks of the giant river. It must have been a temple amidst water bodies and drains criss-crossing all the lands for hundreds of kilometers around and the faithful families from nearby villages making regular pilgrimage to Goddess.

Situated in Alipore, the Hastings House isn’t known by that name anymore to most people in the city. And while we came close with the help of an older map, it was finally a policeman who directed us to go to the women’s college. The building now acts as the B.Ed college for women. As you enter through the gate, the heavy vegetation gives you a sense of timelessness. The house has a giant open space around it. So big that it would elude the imagination of most people. Many believe that Hastings’ ghost is out there looking for a large bunch of papers his managers had left behind in 1785, when he sailed back to England. I read a newspaper report of this building being one of the most haunted in the city. The building is typical of the early period and is devoid of architectural splendor that adorns later buildings of the British era. The building is more characterized by its simplicity, strength and size. I was not clear why it was called Hastings House. Did the famous governor general Warren Hastings stay here before he became governor general? And then at the time of leaving India he sold the house? Indeed this was Hastings' private house before ascended to the post of Governor General. He had a flair for building houses and selling, according to Thacker. Hastings house changed occupants before being acquired by Lord Curzon in 1901 for entertaining Indian princes.

We headed further east to reach the banks of the river, the next place was Princep Ghat. A ghat is supposed to be a stairway leading to the water. And a ghat building could be the big/glorified gate that leads to these stairways. Situated on the Bank of the river, the building is now landlocked and somewhat scarred by the new Hoogly Bridge (Vidyasagar Setu) that runs over its shoulders. Nevertheless, the monument seemed quite different from what I was made to expect from a couple of old pictures posted on the internet. It gleaned white with clean interiors and sported lush green lawns around it. The government has brought to life so many of these monuments, which would otherwise decay and crumble. I was happy to see the building but have no idea if the restoration had in any way damaged the heritage. The river, a few meters away looked splendid from there. In the old days river water came up to the Princep Ghat building? Or was the building always loandlocked and was just a recreation facility on the breezy banks of the Hooghly? James Princep was a great architect to built many bridges and even rebuilt mughal buildings. But he is best known as decipherer of Pali script. Princep ghat was built to welcome incoming Governor Generals. Its several arches are now gone. Also gone are extra rooms etc built. But the stairway that once reached from Princep to the river is also gone, buried probably deep down?

We moved along and entered the grand Strand Road. At its pinnacle, the Strand Road must have been witness to one of the grandest cities of all, with so many of the city’s landmarks decorating its length. Many of the famous buildings of the colonial period are situated on the Strand Road, or just off it. Metcalfe Hall was our next destination. It took us a bit of time to locate most of these buildings because their names had changed and the people recognized the buildings just as office of the current occupier. Metcalfe Hall could be recognized by a description in a book that said the building was at the intersection of Hare Street and Strand Road. Once we had found it, people who we had earlier queried said we should have asked for ASI office. A Governor General, Charles Metcalfe had contributed heavily to creation of the free press in India. May I add free English press? Built 165 years ago in 1844, this imposing building housed the public library and the Agricultural Society of India to begin with. But probably library consumed all the space eventually. Lord Curzon innaugrated the National Library here in 1903, which later moved to Belvedere House. Metcalfe House today is Archeological Survey of India’s (ASI) publication sales centre. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and I could lay my hands on nothing.

The National Library of India is housed in the Belvedere House in Calcutta. It is one of the most imposing buildings I had ever seen. An architectural colossus rises in the middle of the 30-acre lush green gardens. East India Company housed its Governor Generals here until the still bigger and grander Govrnment House (now Raj Bhavan) was constructed. We walked around the library building in a circle. Every which way you look, it gives you an idea of the Company Empire’s power. From this house the empire made decisions and stitched plans to wage wars on Rohilkhand and reduced it to dust, sacked the rich Benaras ignoring the treaties and then went on to bring swathes of the country under their control and taxes. Shamefully, it is also from here that Hastings ordered the siege of Awadh’s zenana on Awadh ruler’s advise to extract the rich treasure of zenana. It was in the woods outside the compound of Belvedere (and not the courtyard as popularly thought) that Warren Hastings and Philip Francis sought to settle their differences through gun. Philip Francis was one of the 3 men whose vote was necessary for Hastings to take any major decision. Hastings himself was the 2^nd man and the 3^rd was Judge Elijah Impey. There was enormous political/power rivalry between the two. But this time, it was a woman, both wanted as theirs. Marian was widow of a French painter, met Francis first and was now Hastings wife. The two men shot each other. For Francis it was double misfortune as he missed his target, and Hastings found his. Fortunately, injury was non-fatal and Francis lived on, for Francis was a lone voice of dissent to the Company's excesses.

to be concluded...

_____________________________________________________________________________________