Skip to main content

This is India on Europe

Not from wet dream of ultra-nationalist Indians and indo-pak peaceniks
From 'This is India' by Peter Muir. Maps by Frances Muir.1943. It's a funny little book [read here], sample this from a chapter titled Gandhiana:

"If Gandhi were on trail and under oath, he would unquestionably stick to what he believed to be the truth, but his technique of circumlocution, indirection, and irresponsible self-contradiction gives the impression that evasion, not clarification, is his aim.There is no necessity to interpret the language of Rajagopalachari, whose vocabulary in English is no larger that Gandhi's. But few Indians, even, would volunteer to translate the meaning of Gandhi's utterances, his style is so successfully abstruse."

While in a chapter on Jinnah titled 'Mr.Jinnah rolls up a Rug' Peter Muir say's had Jinnah been head of a Christian organisation, he would have been named Jesus Christ Jones. Actually the chapter is a take on caste politics of Hindus, the title itself alludes to an incident narrated by Jinnah in which a Hindu friend of his, a high ranking Congress man, wouldn't break bread with him as it would 'corrupt' him. To prevent corruption while eating, a solution is reached by rolling the rug so that the Hindu is sitting on the ground while rest of the people eat sitting on the rug. Also, in the same chapter we read Jinnah, being a democratic Muslim much like good Christians had no such inhibitions towards 'untouchables'. In fact, in his palatial house in Bombay he had five untouchables working for him as, in his own words, 'They make first-class servants.'

What was that Chinese curse about living in stupid times. Also, it is true that British thought of dismantling Taj Mahal for its Marble. The only thing that stopped them was that marble market was in a slump at the time and the monument was so colossal that even the cost of dismantling would not have been covered by the sale.

Anyway, here's a map of old Delhi.
-0-

Another one.
Europe inside India

From Our India (1940) by Minoo Masani.

-0-

Comments

  1. My heart broke just by imagining India without Taj Mahal. Can't even start to think how could anybody get a thought of dismantling Taj Mahal? Kitne chootiye they woh log yaar.

    Just thankful for whatever reasons stopped the crazy men.

    And very interesting bits about Gandhi.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Satayam vachan. This also means that had a cheaper technology been available or had a contractor squeezed his workforce enough...Taj would have been history. And the funny thing is most people would have been discussing how British dismantled the Taj so that no remains of advanced Hindu civilization could be found at the site. People would have passed photographs of its broken bits around on facebook to pukhta prove how Taj Mahal was actually a Hindu temple.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hahahah. True. And though some of us are disturbed just by the hypothetical scenario of British dismantling it, the rest are still finding ways to scribble their names and heart symbols on Taj and many other historical, majestic sites.

    To rephrase Shrilal Shukla, "Hindustan mein History sadak ki kutiya hai...koi bhi raah chalte laat maar sakta hai."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Shukla ji was a smart man. Me thinks Sadhak par chalta insaan is kutiya say darta hai isi liye kabhi laat mart hai aur kabhi puchkarta hai.


    "I had thought that the practice of writing one's name on walls was confined to English and Americans, or the European nations. But here in this Hindu temple were thousands of Hindu autographs, and it is evidently the proper thing for any pious Hindu, who can write his name, to do so on these walls."

    ~ Augusta E. King from 'The diary of a civilian's wife in India, 1877-1882 (1884)

    The temple here refers to Shankracharya in Srinagar. I am actually right now thinking of working on a post that shows how spreading trash may well have been a ritual for Amarnath pilgrims.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t