A Living Monument and a Dead Tank

Devanahalli was something of an important city for several dynasties which ruled large parts of (what is now) Karnataka, before the British conquered and unified a lot of different regions and kingdoms. Having read vague accounts of a quiet, forgotten and preserved fort which houses Tipu Sultan’s birthplace, one holiday (Karnataka’s birth anniversary), we decided to visit the old military stronghold. Devanahalli was something of an important city for several dynasties which ruled large parts of (what is now) Karnataka, before the British conquered and unified a lot of different regions and kingdoms. Having read vague accounts of a quiet, forgotten and preserved fort which houses Tipu Sultan’s birthplace, one holiday (Karnataka’s birth anniversary), we decided to visit the old military stronghold.

 Taking the airport bus and then an auto are not the wisest or most economic way to travel to Devanahalli, but we realised this only after an interesting adventure to the place. You may end up missing your Air-conditioned Volvo bus due to faulty timings published on the BMTC website, be subject to incredulous looks given by the conductor on it, and paying astonishingly high prices (even by ripping-off-auto-drivers-in-strange-places-standards) for a roughly 7 kilometre ride from near the airport to Devanahalli – all of which can put you in a bad mood fairly early in the day. If you’re not driving to the place, the most convenient way to get there is to take a train from Bangalore City. 

Last year, on my way back to Bangalore after an extended holiday at Mysore, Ooty, Kodaikanal and Coimbatore, I had found the day-long drive down the Bangalore-Hyderabad highway, the most enjoyable part of the trip. Maintained well from the proceeds of very regularly collected toll taxes, the road is wide, beautiful, safe and urban as its bypasses or flies over the many villages on its way. It is also a journey in observing some of the greatest bastions of our civilisation – from the windows of your cruising vehicle you can see large and open fields, tall and proud windmills, sellers of many different varieties of coconuts, and factories with pollution-under-control. The route from the airport to the Devanahalli fort covers around 7 kilometres of the erstwhile National Highway Number 7.

The Fort at Devanahalli is a brick wall which encircles a living town full of people and activity. Over the years, the modern lives of quite a few families have magically sprouted from and blended into the many historic structures that dot their hometown. The monuments, visibly belonging to different phases of time, have undergone a series of many renovations over the years, unless they were specifically 'deemed to be of national importance’ by the Archaeological Survey of India. Here we find centuries old stone walls and pillars standing tall over freshly marbled floors; ancient, disfigured idols of gods and goddesses adorned with trendy new saris. Just as we had reached the fort that late morning, we had been forced to stop just outside the low entrance of the formidable military fort to allow the passage of a large herd of buffaloes being driven out to graze through them.

One can go up to the grassy top of the Fort by climbing some rough stone steps. Here, along with grazing cattle and brave herdswomen, once can walk along the battlements with their immaculately engineered crenels. An almost ethereal landscape of the surroundings from where an attack may come, can be viewed through these crevices. One crenel however, is blocked with a wall, breaking the regular pattern of the Fort. This was evidently the temple where the soldiers of the Muslim King prayed to their gods for courage, mercy and forgiveness. As I walked by this one closed crenel, I wondered what the soldiers who held this Fort had been feeling when they had surrendered to the colonial masters in 1791. In the same year, the French royalty had finally surrendered control of their country to its first democratic constitution. 

             

Today, the Fort is surrounded by a few agricultural fields, which act as a buffer between it and the National Highway. Many years ago, there was an expected moat around it, buffering it from sudden sieges.  Peaceful human activity can now be carried out outside the walled area as well, though the area within is where ice-cream carts and students returning of college on bicycles may be met. Noone ever attacks here anymore.

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Home to many ancient, large and ornate hindu temples, which continue to be protected by the International Society of Krishna Consciousness to this day, the Fort at Devanahalli was given its present form by the Sultans Hyder Ali and Tipu. In fact, Tipu Sultan’s birthplace is located just at the outskirts of the Fort and is a ten minute walk through the fringes of a village from its main entrance. The actual birthplace of the quirky Sultan is a let-down, having spent the day looking at the fancy fort that he engineered. It is a mere memorial at a spot next to a grassy path, marking the spot where he is believed to have been born. Nothing else remains preserved today to here can tickle your imagination. No palace, castle or manger.

Our dampened spirits were restored just a little later, when on the walk back to the Fort from the birthplace, we stumbled upon a leafy entrance to something which from outside looked like pictures of the Great Bath of Mohenjodaro found in any standard history textbooks. Venturing inside the gate, we found ourselves in an almost abandoned stone amphitheatre-like structure, with a small puddle of water at its grassy centre.

 In two of its four directions it was surrounded by small structures. One of them was old, unkempt and housed a distorted idol of an unrecognisable God. Outside it stood a few ancient pillars and some large pictures of Gods, some of whom had their heads torn off. The other structure was locked, and could have been a temple of some kind. Outside it were 2 tulsi stands – an old one and a new one. Neither of them had any holy plant growing from them.

 Wild grass had taken over the wooden steps of the bath/amphitheatre, and goat droppings at some places suggested that only sometimes, cattle was brought in here to graze by the very agrarian people of the town. There were very few wrappers thrown on the ground. Apparently, neither the archaeologists, nor the enterprising people of this historical town knew what to do with this devastatingly beautiful structure. Having had imagined many romantic and spiritual stories which explained what happened at this place, and walked around the square steps several times, I noticed that there was only one flowering shrub amidst the green wilderness. It was at a corner of the lower-most layer of steps, and in the sunny, cloudless afternoon, its fresh yellow blossoms, stood for all the life in dead, ancient stone that we had witnessed that day.

JUST SOME CLASSIC

[ Our focus looms into a hostel room. Three girls sit around on their beds. Priyanka labors on an assignment due in the next week. Ankita is watching a movie on her laptop –eating, and Tania who has just entered seems to be settling her things, and making her bed. ]

Tania (settling down on her bed with a laptop): can you believe the picture I just bbmed you guys?

Priyanka : hmmm

Ankita: ya.. its some food. Dude! I can’t seem to get my mind to work since the past few days. I’ve been dazed and uncollected. I don’t want to work or read, or do anything I like. I’ve been a lump here, watching sitcoms and eating!

Tania (ignoring the second part of the interjection): You don’t get it! This lady’s trying to push it off as her cooking!

Ankita: so??

Tania: that’s not cooking! That’s assembly. She’s thrown in store-bought things together.

Priyanka: hmmm

Ankita: She can obviously do more than I can.

Taniaa: NO! That’s not the point. This is not COOKING!

Ankita( this time its her): hmmm

tania: Listen. Give me a name. I’ll start blogging about food on it. Right now.

Ankita: now? Ok. Mastication!

Tania: eh. Shut up.

Ankita: Bhukkad!

Priyanka: hmm

Ankita: ok ok .. gimme a bit, ill think

[this is followed by a while of similar kidding around]

Ankita: What about Tuck Shop Classics?! And then goes into a long series of explaining why it was an apt name….

[our focus now zooms into a text that Ankita is has typed out: It says: Tania just inspired me in a very strange way, and got me to being myself again. It’s strange. She often talks about food. About how she likes cooking and eating, and wants to monetize the same. Today she suddenly asked for a name for a blog and began writing about it. After a little messing around, we came up with one, and she started… after a year of stalling…just like that. Maybe I should get around to reading On Liberty now…]

Priyanka: hmmmm

Momento…

She observes in wonder the changing shades

From yellow to orange to deep red

And finally to purple and the darkest of blues

There were splashes of gold, and now silver.

The sky.

She sees them fly away and back

She can feel their endeavors

Hope, fear and the goal,

She hears their many voices in tongues myriad

- We must all survive.

She feels the wind blow

The it dust it carries, the fragrance,

The birth dust being transported to mothers,

The sensuality of birth;

She lets herself sway a little with the gusts

Indulging their attempt to carry her away,

Not quite being able to oblige completely and ignore

The powerful clasp

Of that which has the power to pull towards itself

Like the mother wants to – the earth.

She smells it. She is aware

Of all this, at once,

As her heart throbs with the rhythm of all that is around her,

And her breath falls in tune with that of the living leaves (the ones that she hears shake)

She moves from horizon to horizon,

Treading softly and moving swiftly,

She is aware.

In passion.

In the vitality of her stillness,

The corpse, as she lies, in State.

…Momento Mori.

In Defense of West/Bengal

- denying the 'poribartan' to Pashchim Banga

While everyone around me, who is in any way connected to the grand renaming of West Bengal, seems to agree that this is among the greater atrocities committed by a government of the State in recent past (with this, i am not trying to steal the thunder of certain other greater atrocities), maybe, things which affect identities in such ways, should be left to referendums.

Why the people of Bengal should be deciding what they want to called? The answer is simple: because their leaders don't have the Finnisian Duty to Rule - something which stems out of the capacity to solve coordination problems.

An entire array of evidence can be invoked to demonstrate the same, but here I restrict myself to the renaming of Bengal 'to get the administrative advantage'.

The administrative advantage spoken about here, relates of course, to the alphabetical disadvantage faced by the state when it comes to getting support from the center. (an idea that the ABP tried to feed into the mind of every impressionable Bangali when there were going to be aircrafts named after each Indian state and West Bengal would be the last to receive one). The solution to this was to rename the State to something that can be placed much higher on the alphabetical order of states.[1] And therefore, our learned representatives decide, unanimously, to move from 28^th to 22^nd on the alphabetical-order-list; when there was the obvious option of being 4^th, by being just Bengal, the way most people would have wanted it to be. Yes, the all party meeting agreed that this was ‘the administrative advantage’. {And you thought a legal education may have taught ‘her’ the art of logical and analytical reasoning!}

While the change of name shows a complete lack of reason-objective nexus, it is important to note certain definite dangers and obvious lack of prudence of such a move.

A case was made for a change from West Bengal to simply Bengal in 1999, by people living in Northern Parts of Bengal, who are not, historically West Bengal as it was created by partition. This must not be mistaken by a distinct later demand for Gorkhaland, but a wish for inclusive naming by a sizeable chunk of Bengal, who are not historically West Bengal. A change of name, should ideally have considered that part of the state, for whom, this change of name would just reaffirm to an often ignored population, the government’s intention of a policy of exclusion. Here obviously, the government has not just failed to solve a coordination problem, but also to identify it.

In this regard, there does exist the historical argument for retention of an element of ‘West’, in order to remind future generations, as my friend Rajarshi puts it, of “the horrors of Partition, the deplorable rule of the British, the politics of hate and religion. The scars that my grandparents bore after Partition should not be buried in the sands of time and the dust of amnesia.” – a claim which isn’t really the reason for retention of ‘pashchim’ in the new name.

Thus, there may emerge two conflicting claims, one historical and the other from the point of view of inclusion that emerge regarding the retention of the component of ‘west’ in the name – both serious issues of identity, which the leaders made no attempts at solving, while simply de-anglicizing a name, which needs no such modification.[2] {I wonder if there were no other pressing claims of ‘change’ besides a name that no one had any issues with.}

The all party meeting that sat on the 19^th of August, was obviously a very useless one. The leaders we have elected, are obviously not whom we have consented to. Their lack of the Finnisian Duty to Govern, presents us with no reason to oblige by it or by any of its rulings. Our votes do not, by any means indicate compete Consent to whatever you do, but are merely an attempt to chose the best from a group of really bad options, with an inkling of hope. Here is a matter of identity and existence – not that of a single person’s mistaken dreams. Calcutta isn’t London (or even Kolkata. See: footnote 2). And West/Bengal is not Pashchim Banga.[3]

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[1] Competitive federalism much? could they really figure no other way out to channelize benefits towards themselves? what are the Bengali representatives doing in parliament anyway?

[2] There was no demand or opinion from any quarter advocating such a change, like in some other parts of the country. Here, I’d like to make an argument regarding the change from Calcutta and Kolkata – an attempt on the part of the government to get out of a colonial hangover. Fallacy – Calcutta or Kolkata or any such thing IS a result of a colonial hangover. There was no city, before Calcutta. At best you could go back to calling it Alinagar, as it had been named after Ali Vardi Khan as a result of a conquest by the Murshidabad Nawab, just before Clive and Charnock established a stronghold here.

also, as Arudra Burra claims, an argument from the point of colonial continuity stands no ground by itself. You must substantiate it with content.

[3] Interestingly, most parts of the country can’t even pronounce the word!

smells

I never believed myself to be an olfactory person, but hostel-life teaches you strange things about yourself. And now, my most intense bouts of homesickness are accompanied by hallucinations about some smells that i relate to home and find divine comfort in.

So, here are some of those smells that make having a nose such a wonderful feeling:

• the Netaji Subhash Airport, arrival section with a strange melange of humidity, desert ACs, mishti and the secret cigarette smoke of some erring officer smoking in some corner.
• petrichor
• oxford bookstore
• metropolitan book co.
• the old corridors of the main building at school.
• polished wood
• damp wood
• sawdust
• davidoff coolwater
• the 9 o' clock kitchen smell.
• home. right after unlocking the main door
• the dentist's clinic
• the homeopathic doctor's clinic
• spirit.
• the non-ac dhuti-paanjaabi store in jogu baajar
• the ac dhuti-paanjaabi store in jogu baajar
• inside the the metro rail!
• park avenue products
• aftershave
• south city mall
• the lst staircase
• khichuri
• the 'footpath' outside the sugar and spice factory
• the academy of fine arts
• durga pooja
• poojor dhoop
• the mud in the school field.
• apple sellers
• the al fredo at jalepenoes!
• detergent left behind on freshly washed clothes
• the smell of vegetation after it rains
• icing sugar
• sandalwood
• sandalwood powder
• sandalwood paste
• clove in water
• the bhuttawala
• melting butter
• the muriwalla's shorshe tel
• flury's
• the calcutta highcourt corridors
• gyaan manch
• the series of smells that come as you walk down all of elgin road.
• newspapers
• new books
• inside Giggles
• diwali.
• ghee being heated.
• Subway
• SEOMP gate
• my room. on a winter night. snuggled in my quilt.
• the aforementioned quilt.
• the aforemention room in the summer when the airconditioning has only partially sucked out the humidity.
• certificates
• the dust that rises on the field at the end of sports day when everyone runs back to their enclosures.
• ma.

a comedy more divine.

Long long ago when people were not so many, and God and His Angels could afford interact with them from the pulpit and through conferences with the news-papyrus reports, a new Bill was introduced in the Divine Assembly.
The bill was a result of a PIL filed by the Peoples Association, posted to the courthouse at Judgment Avenue. The notice spoke about how people believe that God and His Angels, may succumb to bribery ( of course, since they are based on god and his angels) and other extra constitutional measures, and sell their consciences to get more Ambrose and nectar than the rest, and that their wings get shinier.
At that time in heaven, shiny wings were a fashion statement. Only the coolest in angels had shiny wings. Gabriel, who at that time was not as over hyped as he is now, had a rather dull pair of wings. Besides, Lucifer had already shown, as precedent, how this was a strong possibility.
Therefore the people (smart as they were!) decided that they shall prevent further major harm from happening.
As a result of this PIL, the Divine assembly passed the Anti-Defection Act. This act was initially a big success. It gave the mediator angel the right to decide if an act was an act of defection. The mediator angel could, from time to time be impeached, so a proper system of balance and checks was maintained.
However, over time the angels began getting restless. Things were getting dull and boring. No angel had shinier wings, so they could not bitch about anyone. No angels got fatter by consuming too much Ambrose and Nectar. The opposition didn’t have much work so they slept. And the owners of Al-tehelka were forced to close down their business.
Finally, a time came when they had had ENOUGH. The leader of the opposition introduced the Official Secrets Bill in the Divine Assembly. Under this bill people no longer had access to the proceedings of the assembly. Nor could they read any of the bills, statutes and amendments to the constitution, as there were now under the head of ‘ecclesiastical affairs’. A hidden clause of this bill was that it made null and void the provisions of the Anti Defection Bill. They didn’t really need to keep it hidden, as people on earth were not allowed to read it, but they did anyway, as a safety valve. . Since the executive had still not been fully separated ( or immune from the affects suitcases of Shimmer-the currency of heaven) from the judiciary, the Judgment Angels said it was okay to do so, as it was not part of the basic structure of the heavenly constitution.
The Official Secrets Bill was passed unanimously.
God tried to intervene since he loved people and this bill was against the principle of accountability, but he couldn’t do much, as he was merely a nominal head, who had to act in accordance to the ‘aid and advice’ of the de facto leaders.
He too gave his consent.
The Official Secrets Act came into being.
It was now that the angels used their magical powers to summon Cloud Nine to form a misty barrier between them and the people. Visibility was deliberately kept low, so that people could not know what they were doing. But at the same time, they couldn’t see what was happening on earth clearly either. Then again, what they couldn’t see could not hurt them. They had enough to ‘see to’ anyway.
On Earth there was major agitation. There were rallies and protests and meetings. But no one heard. People sent a few bombs up to heaven to terrorize the angels into listening. But cloud 9 was soundproof too. So no one heard.
They tried to pass a Right To Information ( RTI) PIL, but it got refused, as mortals were no longer allowed to mess with ‘ecclesiastical affairs’.
The people were sad.
And they sadly decided that since God wasn’t hearing, they’d make a parliament of their own where things would happen, well, the ‘correct’ way......

through rose coloured glasses...

Walking down an ancient tramline.... faster than the tram moves towards its shed....the pompous blaring of the loudspeaker... my destination - the legendary architectural vision of Sir Hogg, the New Market, a relic of the splendour of old Calcutta and its aristocratic obsession. The bad quality speakers are belting out the trilingual hum honge kamiyab-we shall overcome - aamra korbo joy, in all their pompous glory, while a man asks this backpacked Calcuttan the way to a place around where she got lost just yesterday, somehow brings out the spirit of the city.

I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be guided from the back entrance to the front to ensure that I entered the building the right way. The first glimpse I got as I walked in from the grand entrance was that of Masterda Surjo Sen. A strange choice of statue to erect in front of the Calcutta High Court... or perhaps not so strange. You may wonder why there was no Nehru, or Gandhi, or Bose, or Ambedkar. Why the greatest and first among law-breakers chosen over men, who are more known, more glorified, and have contributed more than him. Perhaps, that is the exact reason why...The magnificent and inspiring architecture gives way to courtrooms which are just as inspiring. Courtroom drama here is a joke. Pending cases, lawyers attending court just to ask for more time, badly made arguments and upset judges are what you find in them. You see, they inspire you to initiate a change. Yet, there is some magic in the air when a quick joke is shared within the dusty walls of the courtroom [1]( do read the footnote, it’s not a citation), and a room full of ‘black and white’ lawyers, burst out in laughter.

Met a few friends at their college and was sneaked in with a fake ID card. One of the oldest educational institutions in the city, and we spent a winter afternoon debating on the huge school field. You need to imagine a bunch of kids arguing matters on an open field, people walking around, laughing, talking, and meeting others. You need to imagine, the splendour in this simple exercise of practice, friendship, occasional laughter, constructive criticism, and an element which sets it apart, from a similar exercise elsewhere - a whole lot of innocence.

There’s this one stretch of footpath along the grand colonial building which is really a museum that houses the Ashoka Pillar from where our national symbol is evolved. Artists and poets and students of history and science visit this hallowed place. The footpath is flooded with thriving hawkers of knives, socks, sunglasses, jute bags, attar, cold water, undergarments, photocopied books and pirated music. Among them sits a cobbler who at exactly 1 30 pm draws out a steel tiffin-box out of his bag and begins to eat, a strange mixture of rice, dal and aloo. Sometime during his lunch, a squirrel comes up to him from inside the museum, sits down trustingly next to the old man, and allows him to put into its mouth tiny morsels of this food he works so hard to earn.

I wonder what it is about this place that makes even its own transport system so very different, unique and warm. Even as the first underground metro-rail in the country transports you across kilometres at a price lower than any other form of transport, anywhere in the world, (here I’ve even taken into consideration Bangladesh!), there are trams chugging slowly along with the pride of living a special kind of hangover, knowing that some parts of its city, are doing their best to make sure, it dsn’t die a complete death, at the altar of development and reasonable use of space. The yellow and black ambassador cars which dot the roads as taxicabs, and the shuttle autos that run on some parts of the city, reflect the paradoxical love for convenient exclusivity, and unmindful sharing, that runs among the people here. It is those very people who on buses can have heated discussions about football, and Bollywood, and politics with a bunch of strangers. The very same people, who walk in large numbers to their decisions, giving the city streets the personalised feel that they do.

It was the first time a bunch of Indians had defeated the British at their own game. (no. This isn’t a fictional lagan I’m talking about!) [no. It isn’t even cricket!!] A group of brown men in green and maroon had beaten a team of whites, at a game called football. This, was the first victory before several of the MohunBagan Football Club (a name that now bears the very unceremonious prefix of Macdowell’s). Now they play matches, which are politicized just a tad bit lesser, with mad crowds at stadiums, ready to fight and die, for their own team colours.

They came here by the river.... the white guys that made this city... they settled around the river. And the strand road has remained one of the most important roads since then. There are all kinds of ghats here. From where goods enter a vast hinterland, where the children of dead people shave off their heads, where eunuchs smoke pot, where lovers hold hands, and where ‘Tollywood’ films some of its most poignant scenes. They are also where a ‘Millenium Park’ has been constructed (for families to spend happy Sunday evenings with their wild children), and a fancy Floatel, (which serves coffee and where there are fashion shows) which stand occupying a position of glory only second to that of Princep Ghat, which testifies an era of colonial flamboyance. The river, and its nalas (they are actually failed attempts at making canals), effect the city in ways unnoticeable to many of its dwellers. It is the Ganga... The holy river.... Continuing to be the lifeline of Calcutta, as it’s always been.... The very reason for its existence.

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[1] Ok...you got to imagine this in the proper accent

Judge (with a glint in the eye to the counsel arguing): Your client is a baarbaar??

Advocate: Sir, I do not wish to say it. ( then quietly, as if saying: don’t tell anyone but I’m telling you this) Actually sir, he trades hair for utensils.