Sultan's Palace Survived!!!!

Hello World,

No..I haven’t forgotten you!!!! My laziness just kept me busy all these days….

So here I am …… back in the blogwoods…..

I have been longing to share my bizarre experience I had during my trip to Mysore with my parents….A trip that will stay with me forever….No I am not talking about beautiful sunsets….(though I did find some from Chamundi Hills….)…..

And cutting to the chase…..Our taxi driver-guide took us to the palaces in and around Mysore…it was an interesting ride for me…We were visiting homes of people who lived a long time back…and all of them had something to do with the lives of my forefathers…..

Our first stop was at Srirangapatinam, where we saw Tipu Sultan’s palace….the palace he is claimed to have lived in….Well, old palaces don’t usually look aesthetically pleasing….and no surprise..this one was a dilapidated “ruins-alone-left” half-building with everything except the basement gone….The palace was guarded by gated fence and a government appointed security woman….

Seeing no point in gazing through the “long-lost-yet-fenced”  monarchial debris-leftover….we got back in the car…drove through the rest of Srirangapatinam and started for our next attraction for the day…which what do we know...? was another palace supposedly more famous and tourist-entertaining…..

Just like any other tourist from the southern Indian territories….hearing the terms “Mysore Palace,” and “Mysore Maharaja,” I was diving into the ideas of getting familiarized with lavish monarchial lifestyles that ruled the societies back in the day……

And I was right…The Main Palace…as it is claimed was a treat to the eyes…even from the road…The campus was big…filled with tourists….exploring the beauty of a home that can house a farmer’s market, a carnival, a volley ball court with bleachers on all sides and a mid-size rock concert….all at the same time…all indoors…..  

We had to scramble through the crowd to get our tickets to enter the Main Palace....

The palace was guarded…guards at every 100 ft…footwear not allowed inside the building…it was quite a “decorum-demanding” atmosphere there……I walked along the decorated hallways admiring the architecture that I don’t know jack about…I grew curious when I saw pics (or do I say Hon’ble Paintings?) of the royal family on the walls of the hallways….especially towards those featured british men dressed as the members of the Imperial british govt. that ruled India for over 2 centuries….. ???!!!????

I was like…. “This is an Indian King’s palace…What the hell are british soldiers doing in the paintings with the Indian king’s family?”

I have to say..I have met people from England and they are interesting people (let’s spare their accent please…)…I don’t hate the brits for the 2-century vandalism their old-time monarchial govt. executed on my homeland….I do hate the british government that destroyed India…but the English people of this generation need not bear the backsplash anger…..Just my thought…

Getting back to business…I was surprised to see that the King who enjoyed the awesome palace was friends with the british govt. !!!!!!  They have had friendly meets, “High Tea” I suppose…Social gatherings with display of local culture, processions in honor of the king and the british buffoons who had enslaved the spineless Indian king….. and many more I guess…

I started reading every detail I could find to see how far the brits went to keep their friends happy so they can eat the fresh livers of the rest of India that deserved the nation for itself…..

The tiles came from Glasgow, the chandeliers and every other piece of decoration installed were custom made and imported...What a life!!!! Something struck me real hard….I just visited Tipu Sultan’s palace and as far as I remembered (I still do) it was rubble in destitute at best…..

I asked our taxi-Driver/Guide to take us back to the Tipu Sultan’s palace for I really needed to compare details….he agreed…he was surprised as to why I wanted to see the ugly-looking ruin for a second time in a day when other attractions were still out there for us to visit….

During the drive back to Tipu Sultan’s palace, I kept pondering as to why would we decorate, maintain and charge Indians to check out the home of a holy-blood traitor that sold India to the then british imperial euphemism-loving monarchial maniac govt.?????????

I VISITED THE HOME OF SOMEONE WHO DIED FIGHTING FOR INDIA’S FREEDOM, FOR FREE, BUT STRUGGLED THROUGH THE CROWD, PARTED WITH MY DSLR (YES I LOVE MY DSLR!!!) AND PAID MONEY TO VISIT THE PALACE OF SOMEONE WHO EXCHANGED INDIA’S FREEDOM FOR FREAKIN TILES FROM GLASGOW AND RED-DRESSED GUARDS AT THE GATE!!?????!!!!!?!!?!!?!!?!!!?!!!?

So this is how my country wishes to teach me patriotism….a fine blend of satire, surreal and off-color humor flavored with the realities of the “Yes-Boss” history that violated India from all sides….

I do agree I was not capable enough to realize this until this incident….may be my brains failed to identify these bizarre yet real things….may be this incident merely made me realize my intellectual handicap that had been preventing me from understanding things the way they are supposed to be….understood….

For some reason that I am yet to understand, the concept of patriotism which often times is loosely based on man-made fences on planet earth, is entertaining as well as confusing. I am just happy to call myself something and feel possessive about the same thing, in this case they are geo-social parameters, using terms that someone coined a long time ago. But on the flip side, is it not fair to stand by the ideals of individuals who stood for the benefit of their fellow citizens? Is it wrong to mildly appreciate the sacrifices made by individuals from the past who successfully laid out the possibility of my existence and freedom in a future that they knew for sure they wouldn't see?.....Honestly, I sense microwaves dancing through my cerebral stuff...so I would stop this side of the discussion right here and leave the rest for your intellectual experiments....

Here are some pictures of Tipu Sultan’s Palace, the home of the man who successfully implemented one of the earliest rocket artillery in modern warfare, in an attempt to free India from the clutches of the east-whatever company…

 And here’s the palace of the “Mighty-Hon’ble-My Rat’s Ass-Privileged” king who was brethren with “Feudal Bred-Queen Coached-Barely Missed Guillotine” brits who believed in civilizing the colored Third-World with imperialistic resource-greediness……

 

To all the current generation of English/British people, none of the hate-remarks I mentioned are targeted towards you or anyone who was not directly involved in the imperial rule from the past. I like Beatles, I ride a Royal Enfield and I sure have a lot of my fellow citizens living in England right now…..so Cheers!!! 

To my fellow citizens, it is time we start preserving all elements of our history alike, ……traitors and patriots are part of any political trash bin of every era and ours need more fair treatment….if we can protect the traitors well, we can protect the patriots too…since the very definition of patriot and traitor is subjective and relative, how about preserving every piece of our history with same respect and effort, so we can spend the rest of our generations laughing at the idiosyncrasies our forefathers mastered and marauded….. No offence intended towards anyone who were not directly related to selling India’s freedom for brit-alms…..so Cheers!!!!

I am already feeling a lot better....means...this post is coming to an end...  ;)

Finishing up, I have to say, that trip to Mysore was entertaining and surprising, with another “Wake-Up” call that reminded me that there is so much I need to know and there is so much out there that has not caught my attention yet, in spite of being in plain sight…….who knew Sultan’s Palace Survived!!!!


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Regards,