Destinations :: Edwardsville, Ill (1998)

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A tree blooming in my sister's house

As my sister and a nephew were insisting on us to visit them in the US we travelled there in 1998. Pre-travel formalities take a lot of time, especially those relating to the US visa. Thankfully those days were different and Donald Trump was yet to ride on the back of Uncle Sam.   Having had the visa we bought US Air tickets under VUSA that make flying to distant destinations in the vast country much

In my sister's idyllic house

cheaper.

We flew from Mumbai to Paris and from the Charles De Gaulle Airport to John F Kennedy Airport. After an overnight stay in a hotel on the Sunset Avenue somewhere not far from JFK we moved towards La Guardia airport to catch a flight for St. Louis in Missouri. My sister’s place, Edwardsville, Illinois, was only few miles away from St. Louis across the Mississippi River.

Anoter snap in the same premises

The way to La Guardia was interesting. We passed through Flushing Meadows Where US Open tennis tournaments are held. Besides, it was from Flushing Meadows that the United Nations functioned for some time before moving to its present location on East Side of Manhattan. Our Kashmir problem was referred to the UN when it was still located in Flushing Meadows and it remained unresolved for

At Alton in a restaurant with my sister

decades before being finally declared as a dispute that has remained “Unresolved”. The name Flushing Meadows has, therefore, somehow remained embedded in my mind.

After a stop-over to change over to another flight at Pittsburgh we reached St Louise around mid-day. My sister was waiting at the Airport and we drove across the Mississippi to

In Alton

Edwardsville, a university town in the state of Illinois. It was the same Mississippi which we were taught abought in schools and the college, one of the longest rivers in the world that originated up north in Minnesota and flowing down around 2000-odd miles drained into the Gulf of Mexico. At St Louis, however, the River was not at its widest.

While Edwardsville is claimed to be third oldest city in Illinois, its university, Southern Illinois University (SIU), has one of the largest campuses in the

My sister and I

United States. My sister used to be a professor at the university and later, on retirement, she was honoured by the status of Emeritus. She had a beautiful independent house on a Drive that led to the Edwardsville Lake. Behind the house one could see the spread of Prairies and her grounds at the back and the front had lots of trees. In fact it looked idyllic. It was far from the University but that is how it is in the US and that is why automobiles are so important there. In fact, with no public transport they are a necessity. Even the closest mall was around six kilometers away.

There were a few things which caught my eyes. First, I found there were no boundary walls separating the neighbouring properties – not even a proper fencing. Apparently, unlike in this country, people do not try and

At the Alton resturant

encroach on the neighbours’ property or, perhaps, if they did the law enforcers would take care of them. Another thing that I observed and found it to be unusual was absence of policemen on the streets. Even after a rather violent spell of weather which brought down numerous trees obstructing traffic to manage which there were no traffic policemen but only young scouts. The youngsters managed the things very well. Good training for young people and at the same time relieved for the cops to more important jobs.

Back in Edwardsville with my sister

The business concentration as also the older settlements, known in the US as “downtown”, was a few miles away but there was nothing much here. Everyone, however, had to visit the “downtown” to get essentials or to transact businesses or for availing banking services. It was a nice tightly constructed urban settlement. The absence of the pressure of population was palpable.

While in Edwardsville we went on a day-long outing to Alton, a town up the Mississippi River. One gets some fascinating views of the River as the town stands on a cliff at an elevation.  It is supposed to be a decaying town, though we did not see any signs of decay. It was a flourishing

My wife at my sister's house

town during the times of river trade. However, it could not stand up against the new means of transportation and the river trade declined impacting the town’s economy. And yet, it seemed to be doing pretty well. The town boasts of being the location of the last debate for presidential election which was won by Abraham Lincoln.

During our stay we also had two day-long outings – to St Louis and Cahokia Mounds, remains of an old (American) Indian settlement. I have written about them separately. We also took a trip to Chicago impressions of which I will record separately.

Memoirs of an ordinary Indian :: 2

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Gwalior Fort

In the early 1940s Gwalior was small town though it was the capital of the Gwalior State, one of the bigger states – in the same league as Mysore and Hyderabad with the Maharaja getting a 21-gun salute. A rich state, Gwalior was ruled by the Scindias, the collaborators of the Marathas who ruled over Delhi, albeit for a short while. Descendents of the legendary Mahadji Scindia who happened to have sacked Bengal, the Scindias ruled over a pretty big area that covered not only Baghelkhand, Bundelkhand but also parts of Malwa. Mahadji’s loot of Bengal was reportedly stacked up in the Gorkhi palace that later became a school run by the State where my three elder brothers studied up to the secondary level. Legends had it that shovelling off a little bit of earth in the palace grounds would occasionally yield precious stones.

Like Gorkhi, another palace was converted into an educational institution, this time it was a degree college for women. Next to it was an adjunct to the Palace which too was converted into a girls’ school where education used to be free. My sister did matriculation from this school. The Scindias were progressive and had placed emphasis on education, especially girls’ education. Madhav Rao Scindia, the great grandfather of Jyotiraditya, was a forward-looking prince who ran a kind of administration that came in for praise by bureaucrats who served much later in the government of Madhya Bharat and, on its merger with it, of Madhya Pradesh. Madhav Rao built some magnificent structures in the town and elsewhere in his kingdom.  It was he who had the Tighara dam, as indeed several others, built to provide water-security to his people in the capital. After a hundred years the citizens of Gwalior even now are making use of it.

Like Gorkhi, another palace was converted into an educational institution, this time it was a degree college for women. Next to it was an adjunct to the Palace which too was converted into a girls’ school where education used to be free. My sister did matriculation from this school. The Scindias were progressive and had placed emphasis on education, especially girls’ education. Madhav Rao Scindia, the great grandfather of Jyotiraditya, was a forward-looking prince who ran a kind of administration that came in for praise by bureaucrats who served much later in the government of Madhya Bharat and, on its merger with it, of Madhya Pradesh. Madhav Rao built some magnificent structures in the town and elsewhere in his kingdom.  It was he who had the Tighara dam, as indeed several others, built to provide water-security to his people in the capital. After a hundred years the citizens of Gwalior even now are making use of it.

***

A recent pullout of a national daily on property matters mentioned the Special Development Area that is colonizing Tighara near Gwalior to create a “counter-magnet” for the National Capital Region. Reading about it launched me on a nostalgic trip down the proverbial memory lane. Images from the childhood in Gwalior jostled around and prompted me to record them for whatever they are worth.

Tighara is a few kilometres out of Gwalior, Tighara was way out of town those days, beyond the low hills in the west behind which the sun would go down every evening. It was mysterious for us children as we were told that the place was infested with tigers. In fact, reports of tiger-sightings on way to the place and at Tighara itself used to be common. I could see from our terrace over the second floor on summer nights occasional lights of vehicles climbing down that lonely road. I still wonder whether they were the lights of vehicles of shikaries who went that side and beyond looking for big game.

It had a huge body of water created by damming of a small river by the name Sank. A BOAC sea-plane that used to fly between London and Sydney would regularly land on the Tighara waters in the early ‘40s. Among other places that it used to touch in India were Karachi, Allahabad and Calcutta. Our house used to be in its flight-path and, hence, it was an object of much curiosity as it flew past. I was still a very small child when the family was taken once in some acquaintance’s vehicle to the Tighara Dam. We walked on top of the dam from where we could see virtually an endless expanse of water. As there was a very strong breeze blowing, I recall, holding on to my mother. A little later, lo and behold, the sea-plane came in to land, touched down with what appeared to be a massive splash and taxied for some distance before coming to a halt. Boats went out to fetch the passengers, crew and the cargo. It was exciting for us children to have watched a plane land on water – perhaps a rare sight in India even today.

Nonetheless, the latest reports suggest that Nitin Gadkari, a minister at the Centre has plans to introduce sea-planes again to connect places that have remained unconnected so far. It seems to be a good proposal as many of our important and interesting towns would then be opened out to the world

Photo from internet
(To be continued)

***

Killing of rationalists

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Gauri Lankesh

Gauri Lankesh’s killing has created a great stir in the media. Somebody has described the killing as the “Sword” winning over the “Pen”. From what appears on the surface it might seem true that an array of free-thinkers, including Lankesh, have been killed by unknown assailants, generally presumed to be belonging to the Hindu extreme right. There is, though, no convincing evidence against any organization of the extreme right. The Rightists have been blamed for the killing only by surmises as the individuals killed were of Leftist orientation. Whether these individuals were really Leftists is also doubtful as liberal thinkers expound opinions that could more frequently verge on Leftist thoughts without the propounders being hard core leftists.

Be that as it may, one still tends to feel that the “Sword” can never be mightier than the “Pen” – not in this day and age. The 21^st Century is not the time when practitioners of swordsmanship are likely to win over those who have intellect and can facilely wield their pen to put across their enlightened thoughts and opinions. The “Sword” can have a few successes here and there but ultimately it is the human genius that would take mankind forward. Civilisational progress or cultural advancement cannot be checkmated by violence. It has not happened in the past and it is not going to happen in the future.

So, whoever or whichever organisation is behind the killings seems to have lost its bearings. One wonders whether they are afraid of the impact that these liberals could have on their clientele. Kalburgi, Dabholkar and Pansare, the three other victims of unknown assailants, had a very small area of influence. They were largely unknown up in the north. They hit the headlines only on being shot down otherwise many had never heard of them. They don’t seem to have figured in any of the intellectual or liberal discourses. They might have had their own respective circles and might have written books but those had very limited circulation. And, yet they were gunned down.

Likewise, take for instance Gauri Lankesh; she was an editor of only a privately-run tabloid – not a newspaper of repute, just a mere tabloid published in the local language and one that used to come out only weekly. Her opinions expressed in it would have circulated not beyond the four corners of Karnataka and, there too, among those who had liberal or, one might even accept, Leftist orientation. The readership would not have been in millions as it is on record that Gauri’ Patrike was not as popular as that of her father. Yet she had identified herself with the problems of Dalits and minorities and was anti-casteist associating herself with movements such as those opposed superstitions. Above all, she was a journalist who campaigned for justice and also, perhaps, for rational thought and action.

 And, though she was a transplant from Delhi after her father’s death and was not quite well versed in Kannada language journalism she seemed to have been very effective in her opinions that used to be frank, forthright and unbiased, loaded with facts and truth. Despite the falling ethical standards, more so in Karnataka, people lapped up her writings. Quite clearly, in these days of paid and fake news there is still space for independent and unbiased journalism, howsoever minuscule it might be. Surprisingly, those who arranged to have her killed were afraid of ‘corruption’ of the minds of these small numbers of people.

Speculations were rife about the affiliations of the killers. According to a theory, the killer could be one of the Maoists as Gauri was successful in bringing over some Maoists into the mainstream. The Maoists were presumably afraid such a process could denude their cadres and weaken their outfit to fight for their cause, whatever it is. They, however, accused the Hindu right extremists for this supposedly false propaganda. Their outfit had recently declared in a press statement that they had nothing to do with Gauri Lankesh and they had no reason to kill her. Innocence of the Maoists, nonetheless, is yet to be proved.

On the other hand the investigating agencies have come to the conclusion that the gun used to kill Gauri was similar to the ones that were used to shoot down other rationalists Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. Evidently it is one and the same individual or organization which eliminated all the four rationalists. The finger of suspicion, therefore, points towards the Hindu extreme right as the rationalists were all opposed to the undesirable and obscurantist practices observed by the Conservative Hindus.

What was Govind Pansare like? He was a member of the Communist Party of India – a more tempered Left party than CPI (M) or CPI (ML). He used to encourage inter-caste marriages and fought against obscurantist practices of Hindus. Likewise, Narendra Dabholkar, too, was against such practices. He was a qualified medical doctor but he also used to run an organization against blind faith, belief in miracles and obscurantist practices of Hindus. He, too, was against the caste system and promoted equality in society that included the Dalits He also worked as an office-bearer of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations.

MM Kalburgi, third of the victims of unknown assailants, was a highly educated man with a PhD in Kannada. He was a prolific writer and wrote tens of scholarly books. Obviously, for his scholarship he was appointed the Vice Chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi. He was a Lingayat, a caste that dominates the politics of Karnataka; but he was a progressive Lingayat. He fell afoul of the Lingayat community as he made some unpleasant comments against Basava, a 12^th Century philosophers revered by the community. Besides, he had scant respect for Hindu idols which also did not please the staunch Hindus.

All the three as well as Lankesh, though Hindus, had a perspective of Hinduism that wasn’t quite in sync with the perceptions of common men, unthinking, unlettered, and a somewhat begotted lot as they are. Rationalists have always had a tough time down the ages and in numerous cases, starting from Socrates, had to pay with their lives for their rational and scientific beliefs.

 It must, however, be asserted that rationalists and free-thinkers are always ahead of the contemporary world and, hence, are derided. But, mostly what they said yesterday could come about today in the midst of society with all the societal sanctions.

If it is the Hindu Right that has eliminated these four forward-looking people, one can only say that their action would not achieve whatever they were after. In fact, their act will strengthen the rationalist movement and many of the Hindu beliefs may undergo a change in not too distant future. Already, people are restive and there is a growing feeling amongst them many of the features of their religion need to change pushing the Hindu clergy into a minority. One more thing has to be appreciated. For more than a thousand years Hinduism faced the Islamic sword of the Mughals and the bullets of the British but it came out unscathed and, perhaps, is flourishing like never before with all its benign and malign features.

If such massive powers could not subdue Hinduism it is very unlikely that a few rationalists would be able to make a dent on it. But, surely their sacrifices would not go in vain. Hinduism will certainly change in this era of Science and Technology and will assume a more rational visage whether the suspected sinister Hindu groups like it or not.

Photo from internet

18^th September 2017

Memoirs of an ordinary Indian

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Currently the Town Hall again. In our times it was Regal Talkies

After I stepped into my ninth decade I increasingly realized the distant past of my life was fast receding away from me. My days in Gwalior, from my childhood to adolescence and adulthood all were becoming a blur. The years in service were relatively recent yet many of the facets of my experiences in several parts of the country have been lost to a kind of amnesiac. Some basic features relating to my rather extensive travels, especially at home, I have tried to record in my travel writings.

Mine has been a very ordinary life. Yet my life and times, particularly of more than several decades ago would perhaps be of interest as they would be evocative of life in that era that now seems so distant. It was an era of innocence, truth and simplicity, largely untouched by crookery and crookedness of the current times. Things have changed since then: we think differently, we speak differently, we behave differently and interact with people differently, worship our gods differently, we dress differently and we even eat differently. There has been a sea-change in these more than 75-odd years. As I see it, in many respects there has been a slide and in many others we seem to have gone up a few notches.

 I have been scratching my brain t remember those by-gone days and have been only partially successful. My effort, after all, is that of a man, advanced in years, to peep into his growing-up years. That it was spent in a lower middle class family which was perennially haunted by want and scarcity is another matter. It was my parents who by their doggedness and hard labour kept us afloat and did not allow us to feel the sting of want. Sometimes these memories startle me and make me ponder over how wonderful my parents were in embracing their changed uncomfortable ctrcumstances after uprooting themselves from their very comfortable environment in far away Bengal only to lead an austere life in a land that was alien to them. I suppose only those times could produce such amazing people with formidable levels of fortitude.

Without beating about the bush I would rather unfold right away whatever I remember of those very early days:

My earliest images are of the house in which I grew up and lived till I left Gwalior for Mussourie to join the civil services. It was a rented house – which would be called a flat these days – and we had the first and second floors with open terraces on top of them. Covered balconies ran right along the house’s inner and outer sides on the first floor. The inner veranda overlooked a square courtyard, surrounded by four houses including ours, the ground floor being used as go-downs for grains in which our landlord, a bania, used to trade as a middleman. It had a massive neem tree that used to keep the courtyard shaded and cool in summers. The outer balcony overlooked the junction of four rather broad lanes. The lane in front ran from north to south branching off the main artery of the town known as Indragunj about a couple of hundred yards away with the beautiful structure of the high court on the other side of the road. Right in front of our house was a walled up huge property in the fields of which maize used to be grown after the rains. At the far end of the property an old fashioned building sat overlooking Indragunj. It housed Miss Hill’s School, acknowledged as one of the better private schools of Gwalior. Its Principal, Mrs. R Hukku used to live on the premises and was very close to our family. Clearly, with the vacant lands being cultivated the area was till then in the outskirts of the town.

 Sitting on the junction as the house did, one could see all the four lanes. Our lane originating from Indragunj ran for a furlong or so after the junction towards the South to end up into narrower lanes and alleys heading in two different directions. It too had a walled-up property of a Maratha feudal with houses only on one side with newer constructions of numerous flats right in front of our flat. Only the third lane that took off from the junction towards what was known as Lohiya Bazar in the west separated it from our building. The fourth lane ran eastwards between the two walled up properties and met the road that was known as the Daal Bazaar, the Grain Market. These two bazaars were named after commodities – pulses and iron and steel. Most of the traders in these two bazaars who were banias by caste would trade in them.

 Located on the cross-road the front veranda gave us unrestricted view of all the four lanes. Not that there was much to see as there was hardly any traffic or movement during most of the day. The vehicular traffic was restricted to a few cyclists or an occasional tonga. During my childhood even bicycles were unaffordable for the middle classes and nobody would hire a tonga unless he had to go far with the family or had to carry some baggage.

_____

For me, when I was very young the corner of the veranda provided a ring-side view of whatever little action took place in these lanes. Since early mornings, come rain or shine, cows used to assemble a little distance away on the lane running south. Later in the morning they would be collected together and herded along by one herdsman by the name Lachchha, or one of his children, to the pastures out of town. The cows used to be of all shapes and sizes and would either come on their own or were left there by the owners. With them around, there used to be always some commotion. The children from the neighbouring basti would run around collecting dung. Cow dung used to be, and perhaps still is, a very useful resource in the villages. Not only would it provide energy, it would also be used, mixed with clay, to plaster floors and walls by poor people. Children from basti would compete with each other for collecting as much dung as possible and in their anxiety to collect the stuff they would place the vessel they carried under the tail before the cow in question could exude. In the process, fights would frequently break out among them. For a child of three or four like me it was absorbing and I would keenly watch the proceedings. Quiet and peace would resume as the cattle were driven away by Lachchha and after the children had collected the last of the dung from the dusty road. In the evening cows would trudge back towards home raising clouds of dust and mother would promptly shut the doors and windows to prevent its ingress into the freshly swept rooms. It was that typical “godhuli” time (time when cows come home raising dust diffusing the sunlight) of the evening I still wonder where exactly the pasture was where the cows were taken to graze as the cows and Lachchha seemed to be tired.

Photo from internet

(To be continued)

Destinations :: Mandu (1994)

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Jahaz Mahal

Mandu is another historical town of Madhya Pradesh. Located on the Vindhya Hills it falls in the Malwa Region of the State. It is one historical place that is not inhabited. It is only a tourist site and the nearest town is Dhar, 30-odd kilometers away. It is basically a fort the remnants of which one can see and savour. The place at one time was the capital of Mandu principality. While the rest of the city has disappeared leaving hardly any trace, the ruins in the fort around 700

A pond and some ruins visible from Jahaz Mahal

years old, now maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India, are interesting for visitors.

Mandu has had a very chequered history. Starting off in the 7^th Century as a flourishing town, it was taken over by Paramaras who, however, were routed by the burgeoning Muslim feudal warriors who captured it only to lose it after a few decades. Even Akbar apparently had sent his army to snatch the place away from the then ruling Muslim warlord. Anyway, it is a very complicated history of wars won and lost as

Arches along the steps

it turned out to be a long lasting game of conquering the throne and then losing it.

A typical window. 

 What, however, is the most significant memory the Muslim ruling class left behind was the romance between a Muslim ruler Baz Bahadur and a Hindu girl – a mere shepherdess. She was so beautiful that the King, Baz Bahadur, the last Sultan of Malwa, fell neck-deep in love with her. He married her, built a palace for her that fronted the distant River Narmada in accordance with her wishes. So enamoured was he of his consort that he skipped looking after the matters of state and spent his days and nights only with her. Theirs was a legendary romance that came down to modern times through word of mouth and through the songs of Roopmati. Akbar had wanted to capture both of them but, while Baz Bahadur fled away to Mewar his Rani poisoned herself.

The remains are spread over a huge area and one has to have a vehicle to take a look at them. Of note are the Roopmati’s pavilions, Rewa Kund, Jahaz Mahal, Hindola Mahal, Baz Bahadur’s palace. While the Jahaz Mahal and Hindola Mahal were constructed in different eras t

A step-well

hey complement each other as a set of buildings. Jahaz Mahal is very interesting in the sense it is built between two lakes giving the impression of a ship sailing through the waters. It was constructed by Ghyas ud din Khilji more than six hundred years ago.

Hindola Mahal, too, is more or less of the same vintage but it is said that its construction may have started in early 15^th Century during Hoshang Shah’s reign but was completed at the end of the century by Ghyas ud

A pavilion in Roopmati Palace

din Khilji. Hindola Mahal could have been used as an audience hall.

There are remnants of Hindu and Jain structures scattered in the area. Those may be of specific interests of the community concerned. The jahaz Mahal and the pavilions of Baz Bahadur’s Palace and those Roopmati’s Palace are what lure the visitors to this rather indifferently connected place. Nonetheless, the State Tourism Department has a good outfit for spending a night in comfort.