Fading Memories of Tipu

This story of the Srirangapatna Summer palace was got during my personal trip to Mysore and the nearby areas with my family. The moment I saw these paintings and roof of the summer palace in total neglect, immediately the idea struck me to write about it and on my way out to my luck the ASI curator of this summer palace bumped into me. I quickly asked him why these historical paintings are being maintained so shoddily, he replied that he had written a numerous times and the ASI Bangalore nor the Delhi office have got back on the restoration work. This ASI person than on helped me to get the whole story and also gave the letters written to the Bangalore circle with a CC to the Delhi office. Since Anshu Vaish (who was with the Madhya Pradesh government as cultural secretary during my tenure in Bhopal) was posted as the director of ASI in Delhi I wrote an email to her and got some kind of response to have the whole picture for the story in place. Though it did take me a month to finish the story, I was happy at the end as the ASI has started their restoration work and the ASI curator of the museum is a very happy person now. This appeared in the Bangalore Mirror's edition on the 15th July 2008.

Priceless paintings at former Srirangapatna ruler’s summer palace suffer from neglect and they need immediate attention

Daria Daulat Bagh, a structure built by the erstwhile ruler of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan, transports us back to history. The Bagh, situated on the banks of Cauvery River in Srirangapatna, treasures centuries-old paintings, engravings and arms that depict Tipu’s struggles against the British. The State of these collections are also a grim reminder of their fight against time and neglect.

The shoddy maintenance by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has resulted in the paint peeling off walls, ceilings and canvases. This teak wood structure, built in 1784, used to be Tipu’s summer palace. It stands on a raised platform at a height of 1.5 meters.
The murals on the corridors describe Tipu’s ordeals in the battlefield. Now, you can see some yellow patches that expose the walls behind –a result of scratching by visitors with their nails.

According to records, a palace built by Moghul Governor Dilavar Khan inspired Tipu to build this palace. A remarkable feature of the Bagh is the amount of wood used on the ceilings, walls, pillars, canopies and arches. While the outer walls are devoted to war scenes and portraits, the inner walls are lined with floral and geometric patterns.
Now, they are in an appalling condition as the paint has peeled off the wooden base.
The painting, “The stroming of ‘Srirangapattanam’, done by Sir Robert Ker Porter in 1800, depicts the capture of Srirangapatna, on May 4, 1799. It features several English officers, including General Baird, Sergeant Graham and Colonel Dunlop. But now, it has gaping holes.

The same painting shows Tipu’s soliders offering stiff resistance, with the walls of Tipu’s fort, minarets of the mosque and ‘gopura’ of the Ranganatha Swamy temple in the background. This painting too is in a bad shape and needs some restoration. When we spoke to the ASI officials at the museum, their reply was: “we too are saddened at the museum’s state of affairs; we have written several times to the ASI, Bangalore circle but there is no positive reply from it.”
When we wrote to Mrs Anshu Vaish, Director General of ASI, New Delhi, she asked ius to contact Dr S V P Halakatti, the superintending archaeologist of ASI’s Bangalore circle.
Mrs Vaish also said she has asked Dr Halakatti to reply to our queries. The latter, however, remained incommunicado.

Museum Masterpieces

A portrait of Tipu shows him wearing a turban, a striped shirt, a necklace and a belt adorned with precious stones to which is attached a sword. G F Cherry painted the portrait of Tipu as a prince adorns the wall. It was painted by John Zoffany in 1780.
Besides, there are 18 pencil sketches, including those of Tipu’s seven-sons – Sultan Fateh Haider, Abdul Khaliq, Maizuddin, Mohiuddin, Yasin Sahib, Sultan Sahib and Shukrullah. Also on display are the sketches of Mir Alam, minister of the Nizam, his son Mir Dauran, Krishna Raja Wodeyar III and his maternal uncle, Nandi Raja. These portrait sketches were drawn by Thomas Hickey, an English artist, between 1799 and 1801.
The museum showcases coins of various denominations, including the double paisa, paisa, half paisa, quarter paisa and one-eight paisa, issued by Tipu from different mints at Bangalore, Calicut, Chitradurg, Dindigul, Gooty and Srirangapatana. Medals made of sliver, copper and bronze, issued by the English to commemorate their victory over Tipu are also on show.

Sightless get new view of Sanchi Stupas

This story and picture of the then Leader of opposition of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickramasinghe and that of the Blind children of the Arushi were a double whammy for me and one can say just landed on my lap while I was a private visit to the Sanchi Stupa with my wife in November 2000. First their was a huge crowd surrounding the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and later I saw some blind children gathered around the board and trying to read what was written in Braille to their in-charge. My passion for photographing them started much to the annoyance of my wife. I still went ahead and started to speak to the children and to my surprise I landed a national level story for the underprivileged.
So after I went back to Bhopal and released the pictures of the Sri Lankan’s visit to the holy Sanchi Stupa and later asked my Editor if I could go ahead and write about the blind children’s involvement in putting up a board in Braille to help the other visually impaired visitors to this world heritage site in Madhya Pradesh. Below is the Story which on the front page of the Hindustan Times all India editions and the picture of the Sri Lankan leader which was used in the Bhopal Edition of the Hindustan Times.

RANIL WICKRAMASINGHE LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN THE SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT GOES AROUND THE SANCHI STUPA BEFORE BEING BLESSED BY THE SACRED RELICS OF ARAHANS SARIPUTTA AND MOGGALLAN THE CLOSE DISCIPLES OF LORD BUDDHA AT SANCHI STUPA DURING HIS VISIT TO INDIA IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER 2000.


Sightless get new view of Sanchi Stupas

Even if Radheshyam Panwaria cannot savour the visual splendour of the Sanchi stupas, he can at least delve into its glorious past now. Courtesy a novel initiative by the Archaecological Survey of India (ASI), Bhopal Circle and an NGO Arushi, a brief on the world famous Buddhist monuments has been put up in Braille and a wheel chair provided at the site for the physically impaired.
Thousands of others afflicted from visual and other forms of physical disability can look forward to visiting this World Heritage monument built by King Ashoka.
There are also plans for putting up more Braille boards at six other archaeological sites through out Madhya Pradesh by the end of next year.
For Starters, this facility has created history in itself, as it if the first of it's kind in the country for the visually impaired where the incidence of partial and total visual disability is very high. This could well be a learning experience for both the governments at the State and the Center to set information boards in Braille at various other historical sites - starting maybe from the Taj Mahal in Agra?
Anil Mudgal, a volunteer of Arushi, mooted the concept. He was bombarded with questions every time he took blind students to Sanchi. "This time when these students were given these details in Braille, they were satisfied. They did not forget anything they had learned through the Braille and this is what provoked me to push this project through."
Dr Mishra said that he was aware of this facility, having seen it in Munich, Germany and at a Roman site, which he visited some years ago. "When the Arushi people approached me, I was thrilled and we went ahead with the project. I feel it will be a success."

Dr Mishra said that the ASI - Arushi endeavour was to put up Braille details and the wheelchair facility in world -famous sites like Khajuraho, Mandu and Bhimbetka. ASI and Arushi are also coming up with other useful projects like information on historical sites in the Braille book format and the audio-cassettes to help the physically challenged. Dr Mishra will be shortly requesting his fellow officers of other ASI zones to make such facilites for the disabled. He feels that it will not be a difficult task since the cost factor is minimal.
Radheshyam, who was seen checking for grammatical or spelling mistakes on the Braille board at Sanchi said that these efforts would "help people like us." Incidentally, he would also pit his chess skills against none other than Vishwanath Anand some time next month!

Tale of two Shiva temples

During my visit to the Bhojeshwar temple in Bhojpur about 40 kilometers away from Bhopal in 2001 I realized that the Shivling at this temple so resembled the one at Thanjavur’s Brihadeeswara temple, which is also is earmarked as a World Heritage site. So I met a couple of ASI officials though they were left astounded by the revelation, and later went through numerous books on these two temple to finally find out how the then Raja Bhoj, King of Dhar had hit upon the idea after finding that Raja Raja Chola had send a large number of men on elephants to get huge hillocks all the way from river Narmada, to the temple town of India to build the Shivalinga for the Brihadeeswara temple. After that the story which I wrote appeared in the all India edition of the Hindustan Times in March 2, 2002.

ANU MALIK and members of his ilk can take heart. Copying ideas from the South has its roots even in ancient history. At least since a 1,000 years, if not more. The Shiva temples of Bhojpur and Thanjavur, if not carbon copies, have many things in common. And the antiquity of the Thanjavur temples makes it a logical predecessor of its Bhojpur counterpart.
Built by Raja Raja Chola in 910 AD, the Brihadeeswara temple in Thanjavur, seems to have the natural inspiration for the Bhojeshwar temple. Built by Raja Bhoj, the legendary King of Dhar in 1010-53 AD, the outer structure of the Bhojpur Shiv-ling was never completed. The one in Thanjavur, however, stands a majestic testament to the glory of Cholan architecture. Both are single-rock structures and boast of being the tallest among Shiv-lings anywhere in India. And thus the debate as to which is the bigger one. According to master craftsman S Devasenapathy Sathpathy at Swamimalai (the seventh generation of Sathpathies employed by Raja Raja Chola to build the Big Temple), the Shiv-ling at Thanjavur is the tallest in the world. A Quick measure, however, reveals a different tale.

To begin with, the height of the Thanjavur Shiv-ling is 13 feet. Taken with its five feet base, the monolith totals 18 feet. The Bhojpur Shiv-ling stands at 20.65 feet, with a base of 12.99 feet high and thus wins hands down on the tall count. However, in width the Bhojpur icon measures 52 feet, while the Thanjavur one is 54 feet. While the Thanjavur Shiv-ling is made of black ston, the Bhojpur one is of red polished stone. Residents can treasure the association preserved by the Thanjavur Shiv-ling, the rock for which went down all the way to South from the Narmada river.
For S Devasenapathy Sathpathy a Shiv-ling at Bhojpur similar to the one in Thanjavur is a revelation. But he says the “the idea could have been taken form Raja Raja Chola, when the black stone for the Thanjavur temple was being ferried to the South from the Narmada before the year 910 AD.”
Maybe the ASIs at Bhopal and Thanjavur could clear the air by telling the real tale of the two temples, built 143 years apart and , linked by more than one common bonds.