i went to Fort St George this morning least expecting to see History spoken by buildings spread across the expanse of the Fort. I imagined it might be a walk thru the exhibits in the museum, but i ended up visualising the fort itself as a museum.
the walk was on the side lines of celebrating 375 yrs of the fort.
we started off with the cupola that stands in the middle of a small circular patch of greenery. The cupola which once housed the statue of Lord Cornwallis is said to be removed from near st thomas mount and placed here by Gov. Erskine in 1940. ( guess he would have foreseen that gens to come would scarce appreciate such objects) The Cornwallis statue is to be found separtely inside the musuem, the base of which depicts the surrender of Tipu's sons ( its probably for this reason that Indians might have found this offending).
we proceeded westward and stopped at a building, which is now an army officer's residence and is a functional example of the earliest buildings within the fort. the idea that the tiled roof and the tall balcony/ verandah would serve as a chamber for cooling the air and pumping it into the rooms was interesting..
we pass by the imposing secretariat building, mumbling to ourselves how it stood out in a kind of stark manner and proceeded to stop at the parade ground. this is the place that is identified as the spot where the earliest structure should have stood..
next we were in for some catholic treat at the st. mary's church ( i had imagined this was there only in the books, its strange i never ventured past the museum to explore this place). Vincent D souza our leader for the walk trained our eyes to see that the structure had 2 parts, later i would read in the museum that the spire came later. The church had a cool and an inviting tone about. as we were a huge mob we were advised to come back and visit it another time. we were also told there plaques within that would speak a lot of history.
church, and a lovely one at that should ring in a wedding and there came the talk of Clive's wedding here and the grand ball in the house that is adjacent, now called the Clive house. we were lucky to get an opp to invade this building and and get a feel of the grand interiors of these structures- the soft thudding feel of the wooden stairs, the grand pillars, the tall roofs, provisions for ventilation and light in the rooms, etc.
- ended abruptly..
the walk was on the side lines of celebrating 375 yrs of the fort.
we started off with the cupola that stands in the middle of a small circular patch of greenery. The cupola which once housed the statue of Lord Cornwallis is said to be removed from near st thomas mount and placed here by Gov. Erskine in 1940. ( guess he would have foreseen that gens to come would scarce appreciate such objects) The Cornwallis statue is to be found separtely inside the musuem, the base of which depicts the surrender of Tipu's sons ( its probably for this reason that Indians might have found this offending).
we proceeded westward and stopped at a building, which is now an army officer's residence and is a functional example of the earliest buildings within the fort. the idea that the tiled roof and the tall balcony/ verandah would serve as a chamber for cooling the air and pumping it into the rooms was interesting..
we pass by the imposing secretariat building, mumbling to ourselves how it stood out in a kind of stark manner and proceeded to stop at the parade ground. this is the place that is identified as the spot where the earliest structure should have stood..
next we were in for some catholic treat at the st. mary's church ( i had imagined this was there only in the books, its strange i never ventured past the museum to explore this place). Vincent D souza our leader for the walk trained our eyes to see that the structure had 2 parts, later i would read in the museum that the spire came later. The church had a cool and an inviting tone about. as we were a huge mob we were advised to come back and visit it another time. we were also told there plaques within that would speak a lot of history.
church, and a lovely one at that should ring in a wedding and there came the talk of Clive's wedding here and the grand ball in the house that is adjacent, now called the Clive house. we were lucky to get an opp to invade this building and and get a feel of the grand interiors of these structures- the soft thudding feel of the wooden stairs, the grand pillars, the tall roofs, provisions for ventilation and light in the rooms, etc.
- ended abruptly..
No comments:
Post a Comment