I always believe that Trains are the best mode of transport invented by mankind. Somehow nature has agreed to include this man-made thing into its coterie. I took the early morning train which leaves Bangalore at 4.50am. To underplay, it needs hundred eyes to capture the splendor that you can cherish with a window seat in a morning train. Green fields leave way to bunch of trees only to come again a few yards later. Its like seeing a soliloquy. I reached mysuru at dot 8.
Odyssey #1: The Mysore palace - Where perfection meets the grandeur
The colonial city was basking in the morning rays when I reached there. The gothic inspired arches of railway station has imperial style written on its mortar.
Just leave the railway station, you catch the Sayyaji Rao road which forms the main artery of Mysore. Dotted with colonial buildings and a typical freshness in air which is so common in Karnataka, It took a walk to city bus stand. On the side, of the road we can catch the glimpse of St.Philomenas church whose outlay makes you think that you are in Scotland.
Then we cross some squares, and then we see the Persian inspired bulbous domes of Mysore palace emerging out of thin air. The palace in itself has a rebirth.
The earlier palace used to be a column and beam structure made of wood (available in plenty in this part of Karnataka) which got razed because of kitchen fire during the marriage ceremony of one of a Wodeyar princess in 1897. (A side story here is, in the same year 1897 an outbreak of bubonic plague killed half the city`s population). The royal Mysore king took no time in deciding to reconstruct the new palace, this time more lavish and more fire-proof!
So fire-proof was the design that the Maharajah ordered to make the main pillars of the 'marriage pavilion' in cast iron!
The electricity came to Mysore in 1906, much before the palace construction was completed. So one can see those vintage fans and lifts traversing the rooms whose style is a mix of saracenic, native-indian and european. It makes no compromise with the use of ivory, teak wood and glass-works. And in every direction we see, our eyes always end up in the royal insignia (double headed hawk). Every corner is blended to perfection and it was not so difficult that I started drawing parallels with the city palace in Jaipur (another masterpiece).
The public hall for audience is huge and overlooks the grand garden. Its arches are islamic and its ceiling paintings are Victorian which carries paintings of Hindu deities. This mixture of diametrically opposite culture is quintessentially Mysore.
Here, I would take a stop to mention about the hall of private audience. Its more exquisite than anything and I am running short of adjectives to describe it.
One needs to see the palace in night on Sunday nights.. Thousands of light smile away the splendor of the palace to the night sky. Its a photographers delight. It cannot get more royal than this.
Odyssey #2: SriRanganatha swamy temple, Srirangapatna - Back to those stone henges
We read a lot of history. Many say that first millennium (1AD - 1000AD) is the most golden of the ages that India has seen. Different parts of India had this so called 'Ram Rajya' at different timelines in first millennia. But we have awfully little sculptures of these glorious days.
Some sculptures though have stood against time and conquests to tell the magnificence of those days. The origins of the Sriranganathaswamy temple in Srirangapatnam can be traced to 9th century AD and I decided to make the tryst with destiny on the dusky february evening.
The river kaveri forms an island in three different places on its course to bay of bengal.
One of them is Srirangapatna. Located 15kms from Mysore, this is one place where history puts a comma in it long narration.
So often this place has gone into the history that the present-day municipality has decided to give it a break by negligence.
As we walk inside the temple, you cannot control to connect yourself to the past. The same steps that you have taken would have been treaded by the Hoysalas and the Rashtrakutas and Vijayanagar kings. The sculptures in the pillars (of pillar & beam structure typical of pre-islamic buildings) are lord Vishnu in various poses and gives a eerie feeling which takes you to distant past.
This along with Shivasamudram and Srirangam forms a holy trinity of Ranganatha swamy where Lord Vishnu poses in a reclining posture on top giant snake after taking elixir from the sea of milk. This tri-rangam forms the core of Vaishnavite belief.
Odyssey #3: Dariya Daulat Bagh, Srirangapatna - The garden of sea of wealth
War is the catalyst for change in history of a nation. The history takes a U-turn in such episodes and brings forth tremendous human characters and their bravery. A fitting example for this is Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. Their arsenal and men matched the finesse and discipline of British. Even the great French Napoleon (after conquering egypt) dreamt of having an alliance with Tipoo sahib to uproot British from Indian Soil.
"Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English" Writes a French diplomat from Napoleon times.
The mighty soldiers of Tipu won three main battles against East India company. In the fourth mysore war, the Tipu`s soldiers were outnumbered by Company troops which now included forces from Nizam of hyderabad and Marathas.
Yet, Tipu provided a stiff resistance before falling. The defeat of Tipu in fourth mysore war (called as battle of seringapatnam by British) is one of the major events, along with victory of company-men in Battles of plassey and Buxar, which marks the beginning of company rule in India.
The Tipu sultans summer palace (Dariya Daulat Bagh, now a museum) has a lot of this scenes captured in pictures drawn by the company artist Hickey. The murals in the walls of palace depicts the victory of Tipu over red-uniformed company men.
One thing to notice here is that, Tipu is always depicted in paintings smelling a rose flower which is typically mughal style.
A few kos from the palace is this place called 'Gumbuz' which is mausoleum built by Tipu for his father Hyder Ali. The company soldiers later cremated Tipu too in the same place.
As I told in the beginning of this odyssey, so many times war acts as a catalyst. It creates heroes.
It defies future. The battle of Seringapatnam will surely be remembered for the bravery of Tipu and his men.
On the Gumbuz (on the eastern corner of srirangapatna) now connected by a single town bus which always runs 1/2 hr late, lies the tomb of the person who as a scientist pioneered rocket science and as a scholar wrote poem and basically as a soldier thrusted his sword and made company`s uniform more red. This is Sultan Fateh Ali Tippu (Tipu Sultan) for you.
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