Sex and spices in a Jaipur hotel

TheWest Australian believed that if you loved Tea With Mussolini, Venus, Ladies in Lavender and Late Bloomers, you will love The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Love them? They were my favourite films ever! Then add Howard's End, Room with a View, The Shooting Party and My House In Umbria, and you will have my favourite cinema-going life in a nutshell.

I read a very mixed review of the film called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, suggesting that the acting and photography were beautiful, but that the story was quite limited. The lack of originality would, it was suggested, be particularly acute for the film goer who had never been to India and who had not read books about Indian society. The fact that the film was based on Deborah Moggach‘s super 2004 novel, These Foolish Things, was not seen to rescue the story line.

None of this bothered me in the slightest because of three factors. Firstly I love Moggach’s novels. Secondly spouse Joe and I travelled widely in central India. Thirdly I know a great deal about the academic history of this huge British colony, at least before independence.

Arriving by tuk tuk; first glimpse of their new hotel in Jaipur

Even more importantly, the fact that the film’s target audience was likely to be people aged 50 or more made us ideal candidates for loving every frame of the film directed by John Madden. Older people should know more about real life. Since spouse’s sister became a widow 18 months ago, we have also dealt with every aspect of poor mental health, loneliness, unemployment and physical frailty associated with mature age.

All the characters had their own story. Judi Dench had become widowed and couldn’t cope with modernity and its endless requirements. Bill Nighy and Jean Wilton were a married couple whose financial security was precarious and their serenity in retirement was looking even more precarious. Ronald Pickup planned to resurrect his sex life, thousands of ks from home. Maggie Smith, a very fine actress, was a rather nasty lady who needed surgery she couldn’t afford. The character we can probably identify with most easily was a High Court judge played by Tom Wilkinson. He had been very happy in India as a young man and hoped he could recapture his youth. Celia Imre was looking for something new, not her lost youth revisited.

Is there anyone in the universe who hasn't been bored witless in airports?

The Jaipur hotel might have been once a very elegant place, but that was decades ago. By the time the group arrived, the hotel was somewhat crumbly. But Sonny the hotel owner, played by Dev Patel, was young and keen, and tried his best to make the dilapidated hotel into a home. Sonny was fighting his own battles. His mother (Lillette Dubey) thought the hotel would fail and, worse still, she disapproved of his beautiful girlfriend (Tina Desae) who worked at a call centre.

Joe and I loved Jaipur’s architecture and history when we were touring India a few years ago, but I did find the city messy, noisy and a tad chaotic. And since the film’s cinematography in Jaipur was so accurate and so colourful, I thought I could smell the spices coming out of the cinema screen. So it should not surprise the cinema-goer that older Europeans escaping to India might find that their lives had become messy, noisy and a tad chaotic.

Hotel owner Sonny and his girlfriend taste freedom from mum

I am with Ed Gibbs in the Sydney Morning Herald. For  cinema goers able to relate, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will come as a welcome surprise. A sunny but shrewd musing, it offers an oft-ignored section of the cinema-going audience a delightful hit all their own. And I would add that it offers oft-ignored issues that mature people worry about – financial stability, quality health care, lost youth, rekindled sex lives and graceful retirement.

Kadir Cup: champion pig stickers in India

Colonial Film talked about the romantic excitement in which the British Raj held pig-sticking, noting that this kingly sport in India began only in the early 1800s, and grew out of the decline in bear-sticking and bear hunting with dogs.  Under pressure of hunting the bears retired to the heavy forest, with wild boar quickly replacing them as the game of choice, being both plentiful and good sport. Strong, fast and aggressive when threatened, the characteristics of wild boar rendered it ideal game, both from a sporting and moral point of view – the boar was a combination of speed, cunning and ferocity who fought to the end with the utmost courage…a very brave opponent.

The hunters on horse back with their spears

In introducing the imperial sport of pig-sticking, The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum has amazing footage of the annual Raj sporting event, the Kadir Cup Meeting. The museum suggested that the earliest of the pig-sticking tent clubs seems to be the Poona club, founded early in the C19th. And as the century progressed, the event was held annually in Meerut near Delhi, taking place over three days and drawing increasingly large and excited crowds. Country Life magazine called pig-sticking a national obsession in the British Raj, the Wimbledon of its sport.

Each hunter on horseback carried a 6' spear which was grasped near the butt-end and used overhand, driven down at close quarters into the hog. Umpires supervised the hunt and the first rider to hold up a bloodied spear progressed to the next round in the competition.

The most famous winner (in 1883) of the Kadir Cup was Sir Robert Baden-Powell who wrote a book on the sport called Pig-Sticking or Hog-Hunting: A Complete Account for Sportsmen - And Others, published in 1924. Lord Baden-Powell was a lieutenant-general in the British Army in India and Africa, and was the founder of the Scout Movement in 1906. People took notice of his opinions.

One of his chapters was titled Pig-Sticking’s Value to the Indian Civil Service. Here the author suggested that the sport offered a model of the panacea that the Raj might need, for on the pig-sticking field it could be shown that the white man and the Indian can be mutually good friends and comrades where they have a sport in common. The Indians could learn about teamwork, authority, planning and responsibility. The Indians, in return, could share their knowledge of local geography and of local wildlife.

The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum noted that the sport was associated with the higher echelons of the military and colonial administration, and was seen as an ideal pastime to aid in the improvement of the colonial classes. In colonial India, in particular, young officers out of Britain had to get accustomed to the heat. Pig sticking discouraged young men from the "morally deleterious escape to higher altitudes" in the hot season, so that the long, hot nightmare season became instead the healthiest and happiest part of the year.  And this sport took the young civilian out into his district, allowing him to enter into ‘friendship with his headmen, which cannot be got through official correspondence and chuprassies’.

The grand prize, Kadir Cup, with a wild boar on the cover

The 1934 footage from Colonial Film acknowledged that while the more serious literature showed how quickly a fun pastime could be invested with the utmost symbolic gravity, the purely hunterly writing about the sport was more straightforward about the other connected pleasures. The film provided a less varnished picture of the sport in its Imperial context, providing evidence of the luxuries the pig-sticking set expected to enjoy when at a hunt meet or just out for sport with a riding mate.

Wonderful photos of the post-hunt moment are available in Africa Hunting. The men are beautifully groomed, fully dressed and lined up in proud rows. The vanquished animals lie in a row in the front of each photo, trophies from a very successful day out. So which was the most important moment of the entire day - the preparations, the event's starting horn, the frantic chase or the first kill? I would suggest the post-hunt photos, complete with trophies.

I found this post difficult to write because I do not even eat meat, let alone spear wild boar for sport. Yet it is important for us to understand the practice. And its meaning in colonial India.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Baden-Powell

India, 1897

India's brave soldiers in Brighton, 1914-16

The Royal Pavilion in Brighton was designed in the early C19th by John Nash for Prinny, the pleasure-loving Prince Regent who became King George IV. But did Edwardians realise that the Royal Pavilion had not been a royal residence since 1850?

Queen Victoria loathed this lumping symbol of the dodgy Georgian ancestors whose image she distanced herself from. So in 1850 she sold the palace to Brighton council. [Only the original fittings and furnishings were moved to Buckingham Palace and Osborne on the Isle of Wight, where they remain].

Secretary for War Lord Kitchener was told: "Understanding that the Royal Pavilion at Brighton is specially suited for hospital treatment of Indian troops, the Corporation beg to place it at His Majesty's disposal for that purpose". The palace had a very Indian external architecture and both Islamic and Mughal taste in the interiors. So the Brighton dignitaries thought it would be very home-like for any Indian soldiers who found themselves wounded, 7,500 ks from their families.

Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Nonetheless it was still something of a surprise when, in Nov 1914, builders moved into the palace. Luxury carpets and curtains were removed, linoleum laid over the ballroom and stone-flagged kitchens, and 700 beds were installed under the gilded ceilings and chandeliers. Prinny’s Georgian kitchen was changed into an operating theatre.

Nine kitchens, some catering specifically for Hindu religious laws, were erected in the grounds, and enlisted men from the Indian army were quickly shown how to cook standing up at a western stove. A halal slaughterhouse was opened in town. The Sikh temple was a marquee erected in the Pavilion grounds. Muslims were able to use the lawn in front of the Dome, as this was facing East.

In early December, the first Indian patients arrived from the Western Front.

 Brighton Corporation commissioned Allen H Fry to take official photographs of the hospital, which were then issued as real postcards

Clearly there was a wonderful opportunity for propaganda. The avuncular care of King George V for his wounded Indian subjects was central to the spin doctoring. It seemed that King George insisted on giving up his own bed, and was prepared to roll bandages for his lads. In fact King George and Queen Mary only visited the Brighton Pavilion once, as far as I can see. They presented the Victoria Cross to an Indian soldier and had the event filmed (11 minutes of footage survive). Yet the publicity continued to suggest that, despite no royal being in the palace for 64 years, Brighton Pavilion was still the royal couple’s home and that they spent each day, playing cards with the patients and writing letters to the soldiers’ loved ones.

Were they hidden motives for helping the wounded Indian comrades? Rosie Llewellyn-Jones suggested that small groups in India, both Muslim and Hindu, were actively working against imperial rule, in collusion with Germany and the Ottoman Empire. If Turkey entered war on the German side, there was an added concern - Indian Muslims might not be prepared to fire on fellow Muslims fighting for Turkey. It was essential, therefore, to show that the differing religious groups were being well cared for.

Sikh soldiers in the music room, by CHH Burleigh. Brighton Museum.

A souvenir book was published, with text in English and Urdu, and given to former patients on their return to India. The book promoted an idyllic image of the hospital and the care they had received: "In many an Indian village in the years to come, these soldiers, their fighting days long over, will talk to their children's children of the Great War. Their faces will then glow with pride as they tell of the day when they were lying wounded in a Royal Palace, and the King and Queen came to their bedside." Postcards of the same caring images were sold in the hope they would be posted home to India.

The Daily News acknowledged that the Indian soldiers were mown down in such numbers that existing hospitals behind the lines and on the south coast of England could not cope. 1.5 million Indians enlisted during the First World War, of whom 43,000 were killed and 65,000 were wounded. As more and more Indian soldiers were wounded, two other buildings in Brighton were turned into hospitals. The York Place schools were converted into a hospital for the more heavily wounded troops, while the Elm Grove workhouse, renamed the Kitchener Hospital, treated the less wounded.

These three Brighton hospitals, so urgently opened for 2000+ Indian casualties, were told they were closing when the Indian divisions were withdrawn from France. By January 1916, there were no patients left.

So the Pavilion had become a media spectacle and a source of propaganda, for the royals, for Brighton and for Britain. Only recently has the war time history of Brighton and its Royal Pavilion has been reanalysed and displayed. Since late 2010, the Royal Pavilion has mounted a permanent exhibition, displaying the Indian hospital, complete with archive photographs, paintings, beds, uniforms, medical equipment and newsreel footage.

King George and Queen Mary visited the hospital, 1915.

Readers will enjoy the book by Joyce Collins called Dr Brighton's Indian Patients, December 1914-January 1916. It was published in 1997 by Brighton Books Publishing.

Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad

Because the Nizams were a ruling Moghul family in Hyderabad who had not fought in the first Indian War of Independence, they were given special privileges by the British. Thus although Hyderabad was just one of the princely states of British India, it was allowed to retain control of its internal affairs. This worked out well for the Nizams - they ruled their state as a inherited monarchy for 223 years (1724-1947), until Indian independence.

Falaknuma dining table - longest in the world?

As befitted a wealthy, cultivated royal family, the Nizams aspired to be important patrons of the arts. Their stunning and indecently expensive architecture, pearls, diamonds, furniture, art works, jade, carriages and cars came from various cultural traditions - often European, blended with Hindu and Islamic tastes. Of their ten palaces, one was more beautiful than the next.

Nawab Vikar-ul-Umra, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad, started building Falaknuma Palace in 1884, choosing to use an English architect. He completed the giant task within 9 years. Alas he couldn’t pay all the costs, so by 1898 the palace had to became the home of his nephew, the 6th Nizam Nawab Mahboob Ali Khan. His family used and loved the palace until after the end of WW2.

Falaknuma Palace was, since the beginning, filled with Italian marble, stained glass windows and Venetian chandeliers in its 220 rooms and 22 halls. When an important hotel chain started renovating and restoring the palace in 2000, they wanted to preserve the taste of the Nizams wherever possible in the new hotel. The rooms and halls were decorated, as of old, with ornate furniture, rich handcrafted tapestries and brocades. They retained 40 huge Venetian chandeliers and intricate frescos, paintings and statues.

Falaknuma Durbar Hall

The old palace opened as a hotel in November 2010. As the Taj Hotel’s history page reports,  the palace library is home to the rarest of manuscripts and books, selected and brought back by the Nizam himself. Its walnut carved roof was designed to imitate the one at Windsor Castle. A marbled staircase still takes guests to the upper floor, complete with balustrades, marble figurines holding candelabras and an historical picture gallery along the staircase walls.

Although spouse and I always stay in university digs or cheap bed-and-breakfasts when overseas, the new hotel has two significant rooms that I would like to cast my historian’s eyes over. Firstly the 101-seat dining hall, considered the largest in the world, where the Nizam ensured that his banqueting guests ate from solid gold plates. Secondly the Durbar Hall, complete with its carved wooden ceilings, long line of chandeliers and parquet flooring. The Durbar Hall, typically the ruler’s formal meeting space, once hosted royal guests like King George V and Czar Nicholas II.

The renovated palace hotel, 2010

Falaknuma Palace Hotel even has a resident historian, Mr Prabhakar Mahindrakar. The Style Saloniste blog tells of meeting and spending time with Mr Mahindrakar, examining the architectural and art treasures of the palace hotel. Her interior photos are worth a closer look.

Hyderabad, India

Maharaja splendour in Canada

In conjunction with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Art Gallery of Ontario hosted an extraordinary exhibition in 2010-2011. The exhibition explored in depth the opulent world of the maharajas, from early 18th century until Indian independence in 1947. Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts allowed Canadians to see for the first time 200+ spectacular works of art created for India’s great kings — including paintings, furniture, decorative arts and jewellery. These magnificent objects chronicled the many aspects of royal life and celebrated a legacy of cultural patronage by generations of maharajas, both in India and in Europe.

Golden thrones

The jewellery was stunning. Just one example will do... very nicely indeed. The Maharaja of Patiala bought the most fabulous De Beers Diamond from Cartier of Paris who set it as the centre piece of a ceremonial necklace in 1928. The five rows of diamonds encrusted in a platinum chain became known as the Patiala Necklace, holding the seventh largest cut diamond in the world and the largest single commission in Cartier’s history. In recent years, Cartier re-found the necklace, bought it and spent four years restoring it.

2,930 brilliant diamonds in the Patiala Necklace.

Should the viewer be proud of the maharajas’ amazing patronage of all the arts? Or cringe at the outrageous distribution of scarce resources in India back then? I personally think I would be angry.

But the Ontario museum was very clear. It was the first exhibition to celebrate the opulent world of the maharajas and their unique culture of artistic patronage. The curators and interpreters did a wonderful job of presenting the treasures in a historical context, learning how the rulers lived, what they valued, the political role they played and how, ultimately, the forces of history circumscribed their powers.  I suppose their influence partially depended on how many Princely States there were in India proper. Wiki estimates that the number ranged from 160 in 1872 to 202 in 1941.

One element of colonial history need not have worried the Canadians. When the V&A showed the same exhibition in London, they made a serious attempt to put the myth of the maharajas in its proper courtly context, to explore the visual and artistic expressions of Indian kingship before and after the maharajas' Victorian heyday. As a result, the V & A show was haunted by the sad story of the princes and the British, telling how the British first bullied the princes into submission, schooling them in western tastes, then both  mocked and envied the monsters they had created. Finally, the British quit India, leaving the maharajas to be abolished. The Ontario exhibition was presumably not haunted by colonial guilt.

1934 Rolls Royce Phantom II, custom-built

Processions in India during the 1800s were complex events that celebrated various kinds of power and prestige. They revealed tensions in political authority, social hierarchy and religious tradition. And the British representatives had to assert their colonial role without appearing to endorse or participate in the worship of Hindu deities who formed the focus of much of the event. So company-paintings were produced by Indian artists, presumably for British buyers, many of whom would have been employed by the East India Company.

Mysore Scroll, mid 1800s, now 6 ms long

Paintings of Indian architecture, occupations, castes, rituals and festivals in India were fascinating eg The Mysore Scroll with its 1,250 individuals portraits in mid-1800s dress. The British often used company-paintings as illustrations for publications, or sent them home as souvenirs. This type of painting declined in popularity around the 1840s with the introduction of photography.

A less arty but perhaps more spectacular exhibit was Star of India, an amazing 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom II custom-built for His Highness Thakore Sahib of Rajkot. Built with a polished aluminum hood and wing panels, the Star of India was expected to fetch a mind-boggling £8 million when it went on the open market in 2009! Even a German museum page that is normally blase about the top end of the Rolls Royce range became a drooling mess when examining the Star of India. It was not just a car; rather it was a symbol of a bygone era, when the maharajahs reigned in India and displayed their unfathomable wealth in the shape of fanciful and ever more lavishly designed cars. Unfathomable seems to be an appropriate word.

For those who couldn’t get to the exhibition, I have three recommendations. See the stunning images in Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts at The Victoria & Albert Museum, in Alain Truong's blog.

Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts, 2009

Or read Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts (2009) by Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer. Their goal was to examine the real and perceived worlds of the maharaja from the early 18th century to 1947, when the Indian Princes finally ceded their territories into the modern states of India and Pakistan. Or read Maharaja: The Spectacular Heritage of Princely India (1988, 2009) by Andrew Robinson and Sumio Uchiyama. Both books show that the Maharajas spent their lives in extravagant expenditure and unparalleled splendour. The authors created quite a picture, full of throne rooms, gilded ceilings, crystal fountains, gardens with strutting peacocks, treasures made of precious metals, bejewelled elephants, weddings, celebrations and festivals.

See a splendid film on the Maharaja Collection,  recorded  while the treasures were still in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Delhi Durbar - grandly celebrating British colonialism

I was looking at Colonial Film for information about the welcome to, and education of Indian princes in Britain in the late 19th century. Instead I got involved in the Delhi Durbars and will cite Colonial Film as much as possible.

Queen Victoria's Durbar Room at Osborne House, created 1891

Durbar was a term used in India to refer to a ruler’s court, or to a ceremonial gathering at the court. Towards the end of the British Raj, three imperial Durbars were held in Delhi, each marking important royal events. The first, held in 1877, marked the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Queen Empress of India. The second, held in Jan 1903, marked the coronation of King Edward VII. The last, held in Dec 1911, marked the coronation of King George V, and was the only Durbar that the ruler attended in person.

Called the Proclamation Durbar, the 1877 Durbar was held in January 1877 to mark the coronation and proclaim Queen Victoria as Empress of India. The 1877 Durbar was largely an official event and not a popular occasion with mass appeal, as the later Durbars were designed to be. It was attended by the Viceroy of India 1st Earl of Lytton, maharajas, nawabs and intellectuals. Although it was several decades overdue, the event was supposed to represent the end of the transfer of control in India, from the British East India Company to the British Government. Inside Victoria Memorial in Kolkata is an inscription taken from the Queen’s message, presented to the people of India.

Delhi Durbar, 1903 (Life)

On New Year's Day 1903, newly crowned King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were declared Emperor and Empress of India. The occasion was marked by a grand ceremony held at the Delhi Durbar, a spectacular festival organised by the British government via Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India (1898-1905). This Durbar was intended to impress the outside world with British power and influence in India, and to reinforce Britain’s role as a unifying presence in India.

1903 Procession by Menpes

To highlight the glory of the monarchy and its Empire, the 1903 programme of events ran over 10 days. It began with the grand opening procession where the Viceroy, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught (brother and sister in law of King Edward VII), other British and Indian dignitaries paraded through the streets of Delhi. The most spectacular part was the line of Indian princes riding on bejewelled elephants.

Coronation Park, north of Old Delhi had been turned into a gigantic tent city, complete with temporary light railway to bring crowds of spectators out from Delhi. The tent city had its own post office, telephone facilities, shops, a police force, hospital, magistrate’s court, sanitation and lighting systems. Charlotte Cory was particularly impressed with Maharajahs who came with great retinues from all over India. The massed ranks of the Indian armies, under their Commander-in-Chief Lord Kitchener, held daily parades, band practice and polo matches. This Durbar included sports, music, a state ball, a huge display of Indian arts and crafts, and a review of 34,000 troops.

There is an Australian connection to the 1903 celebrations. Mortimer Menpes (1855–1938), an Australian artist, author and illustrator,  published the book "Durbar", which told the tale of the spectacular event and illustrated it in beautiful detail. In June 1903 Menpes also exhibited the pictures he had painted of the Durbar at a fancy London art gallery in New Bond Street.

Rabbiting On has the most wonderful paintings from the 1903 Durbar, with a particular focus on the central figure in the entire process – Lord Curzon. Old Indian Photos has stunning photos.

Delhi Durbar, 1911

The 1911 Durbar cost over £1 million to mount, and was over a year in preparation. Over 200,000 people were expected for the events taking place in Delhi’s Coronation Park. This Durbar was of course used for particular political purposes. King George announced the reversal of the unpopular 1905 decision that had partitioned Bengal, while also announcing the transfer of the capital of British India from Calcutta, in Bengal, to Delhi.

Royal ceremonials were a popular subject for early newsreels. Consequently this event was probably the greatest effort in news coverage that the young film industry had yet undertaken. Over a dozen cameramen from five different British film companies were despatched to cover the Durbar. Speed was of the essence, and the companies competed with each other to process their films and rush them back to Britain for viewing. The films were hugely popular in Britain, with interest being fuelled by incidences which had been covered in the British press. The films were also distributed widely abroad; to India and the Empire of course, but also to non-British countries elsewhere. The films included the unveiling of the King Edward Memorial Tablet, the Presentation of Colours and the Church Parade.

Delhi, (ex)Viceroy's House

In Dec 1911, King George V laid the foundation stone for India’s new capital, Delhi, rather than Calcutta as it had been. The decision to build a residence in New Delhi for the British Viceroy was taken straight away. This Viceroy’s House was to give the impression of a perpetual and rock-solid British Raj. The building and its surroundings were to be 'an empire in stone', 'exercising imperial sway'. And they were!

How impressed were the Indians with the Durbars, attended as they were by lines of Indian princes riding on bejewelled elephants, maharajas and nawabs? They seem to have been written out of Indian history because nationalists campaigning for Indian independence at the time and in later years did not want to be associated with princely rulers. The princes' perceived decadence was a source of some embarrassment. Nationalists wanted that part of the independence struggle to be be deleted from history because maharajahs were seen as too closely associated with the worst excesses of the Raj.

Kerala India: Christian and Jewish architecture restored

The Jews of Kerala State (on the SW coast of India), who arrived in India some 2,500 years ago, settled in and around Cochin/Kochi as traders. They were attracted to Muziris, which was a thriving port that had trade contacts with the Mediterranean, the Middle East, China and East Africa. By the 18th century, there were 8 synagogues in five different Kerala towns and villages: 3 in Cochin, 2 in Ernakulam and one each in Parur and 2 other towns.

The Kerala Jews lived in safety, but it seems that most opted to emigrate to Israel after the new state was established in 1948. Some 75,000 Indian Jews left their homes, synagogues, schools and cemeteries behind; few families remained to look after the communities’ resources which inevitably began to moulder.

Parur Synagogue, 1615

An American architect, Jay Waronker, recently documented 34 synagogues across India, including 7 that he found in Kerala. Fortunately his work and watercolour versions of the buildings have been published.

Michael Freund noted Kerala State was keen to celebrate its multi-religious heritage. The state cherishes its composite culture and wants the synagogues to be sites where locals and visitors can have memories of the Jewish connection. The state government of Kerala, along with the central government, has put aside a large amount of money to renovate and restore temples, synagogues, churches and mosques. The entire initiative is known as the Muziris Heritage Project.

The first synagogue in Cochin, located in the quarter of Old Cochin known as Jew Town, was destroyed in the Portuguese persecution of the Jews in the 1500s. The second synagogue, built under the protection of the Raja of Cochin along with Dutch support, is the present Paradesi (foreign) Synagogue. The most visible part of the synagogue is the 18th century clock tower, which, along with other parts of the complex, underwent repair work in the late 1990s. This lovely building is decorated with hundreds of 18th century hand-painted porcelain tiles.

Paradesi Synagogue, Cochin

Not far from Kochi, the Paravoor/Parur Synagogue 1615 was built on the ruins of a synagogue that had already stood for 500 years. But a blaze in 1662 could have been set by the Portuguese colonisers since they had laid claim to Kerala and they burned the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi about the same time. The Kerala Jews never suffered from anti-semitism at the hands of their Indian neighbours, but the Portuguese colonisers did try to institute the Inquisition.

Preservation plans for this Parur site were drawn up by an important Indian conservation firm, the same firm that had been commissioned by the Kerala office of the Indian Department of Archaeology to restore the nearby Synagogue of Chennamangalam. To reach the synagogue, turn from the main street of Parur onto Jews' Street. At the entrance to this street were two tall granite pillars, an indication that the Jews lived in a self-imposed ghetto.

The synagogue architecture must have once been very attractive; there's a colonnaded pathway that leads from the two rooms, at the street entrance, to the main entrance door of the synagogue in the small courtyard beyond. The stairs to the balcony have unusual flat, shaped supports for the railing and the balcony, with its decorated and gilded supporting beams, have already been restored.

But many important elements were removed. And as the synagogue had not been used since the 1970s, even the remaining elements required repair and restoration. On top of the neglect of 30+ years, the monsoonal climate had a harsh impact on the exterior base, windows, roof tiles and external doors.

Parur’s synagogue was built in the traditional style of Kerala. The style combines white-washed polished lime over a soft reddish-brown local stone walls, timber framing, deep eaved roofs covered with terracotta tiles, wooden latticed screens and large shuttered windows. Drawing from the vernacular design of the region, the influences of the Portuguese and Dutch imperialists, Hindu and other religious building practices, the Parur synagogue added its own Jewish liturgical elements, resulting in a distinct approach to synagogue architecture.
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Kadavumbagam synagogue, with Parur's ark and reading desk

Because Kadavumbagam synagogue's original fittings were taken to Moshav Nehalim in Israel in the 1950s, the reconstructed Kadavumbagam synagogue in India had to be furnished with a Torah ark 1892 and bimah desk from the nearby Kerala community of Parur. So it is a bit sad that we can best see the carved and painted teak fittings of Parur synagogue, but only by visiting the Kadavumbagam synagogue. At least they were saved.
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St Francis Church, Kochi, 1503

Let us compare Parur synagogue to local Christian architecture, built in approximately the same era. St Francis CSI Church 1503 in Kochi is the oldest European church in India and has great historical significance as part of European colonisation of the sub-continent. The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, died in Kochi in 1524 whilst visiting India. His body was, for some long time, buried in this very church.

Most importantly for this article, the casual visitor might not be able to tell the difference between St Francis Church's external architecture and Parur Synagogue's external architecture.

St Thomas Syrian Church, Parur, 1566

Examine St Thomas Jacobite Syrian Church 1566 in North Parur where the mortal remains of the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem were entombed. When founded, the new church was consecrated in the name of St Thomas the Apostle; the event was inscribed in old Tamil script, in a granite plaque embedded in the wall near the church’s front door.

St Mary’s Church in Bharananganam was first built in 1004 AD, initially  a small church that may have looked like a local temple. When the Portuguese were in command of the affairs of the Christian communities, they wanted to rebuild churches in Christian style.  Finally in the very early 20th century, St Mary's had become large and Gothic, although still built with local materials. 

St Mary's Bharananganam

Bharananganam may not be the largest town in India, but St Mary's became very important when a local woman died and was eventually canonised. Pilgrims flocked to St Alphonsa's grave in the firm belief that illness could be miraculously cured there. The church was renovated just before Pope John Paul II arrived to honour St Alphonsa in 1986, the first ever papal visit to Kerala and India's first ever female saint.

Kochi, Kerala State, SW India

Rudyard Kipling's home in Mumbai

Rudyard Kipling’s birthplace is being converted into a museum. The timber and stone two-storey cottage was built before his birth in December 1865. It is located in the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Bombay/Mumbai and has always been used as the official residence of the school's principal. The cottage is a typical colonial building, with high ceilings and sloping roofs and is surrounded by a lush garden. The cottage has been lying vacant for almost a decade and some parts need urgent repairs.

Kipling's home museum, Mumbai

1865 was a significant year. Rudyard was born then but it was also the year his father, Lockwood Kipling, joined the Art School as principal. So this museum has been a possibility for a very long time. What took the Maharashtra state government so long to decide?

There are at least two problems associated with making this bungalow into a centre for honouring Kipling. Firstly, as History and Traditions of England blog noted, Kipling was only aged six when he left Mumbai. Although he often returned to other parts of India, especially Lahore, Simla and Allahabad, the Mumbai house cannot possibly represent his literary endeavours.

This is not an insurmountable problem. The Art School has a vast collection of paintings, dating from 1850, which will now be part of an art museum. Only one of the rooms will be called the Kipling Room and will be dedicated to Kipling material. In any case, Rudyard wasn’t the only Kipling to have made a huge contribution to Indian culture. Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard’s father, had a real involvement to Mumbai's architectural development. Lockwood’s architectural designs for the notable Victoria Terminus railway station building and the municipal headquarters opposite it were particularly important.

There is a more problematic issue to deal with: Rudyard’s colonialist reputation remains controversial for post-colonial writers in India and elsewhere. Orwell called Kipling as a "prophet of British imperialism", a man so devoted to duty, service and empire that his writing was bound to be full of prejudice, racism and an absolute belief in Britain’s military correctness. The White Man's Burden (1899) will suffice as an example:

Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

A Blog About History recognised the problems that the Mumbai museum faces. The municipal government officials with whom the Museum staff deal... refer to the building, not as the Kipling house, but the Dean’s house. Worse, they believe that Kipling is officially still persona non grata, a situation that is rather slow to change. But he was certainly a man of his time and he wrote better than any other writer about British empire-building. The new museum won’t whitewash Kipling’s pro-colonial stance but it will recognise his work as a product of his passionately-felt ideals. No English writer quite put India on the map as keenly as Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling, The Jungle Book
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And it is not a problem for today’s children. The Penguin India Blog said the young students in her class adored the imaginative world that Kipling created and the fantastic pictures produced by the illustrators. Blog de Monica noted that The Jungle Book was still totally enjoyable for 21st century children. Even before reaching reading age, children have been able to understand the stories. breathedreamgo blog put Kim at the top of her list of loved books about India. She said she had been reading for 43 years and had never read a book that was so in the moment.

I believe the Maharashtra state government is hoping every child, young or old, who visits Mumbai will feel the same way.