Rabbiting On

Hudleston’s Garden from Brodie Castle or “We Agree to Disagree” : A (Virtual) Bun fight with the Theosophists Running ‘Blavatsky News’

2011-05-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

Agree to disagree or disagree to agree, why quibble? More to the point, what makes Theosophists come down from the supposedly high ground which they occupy to take issue with an obscure blogger albeit one with a disclosed identity?! That is the subject of this blog post. (I say “disclosed identity” because the bloggers of Blavatsky News have a becoming or, as the case may be, unbecoming reticence about making their identities known, even in private correspondence with me, merely signing ‘Blavatsky News’).

So, what is the fuss about? It springs from an old post by me in this blog, right here : "One Touch of Adyar Changes us Forever " . It is a post, a very long one, about some topography in one corner of Madras, a bit of topographic reconstruction, with the use of a few period drawings, the writing of which I enjoyed immensely. That was in October, 2008, a long time back and almost forgotten.

Nearly two years later however, a blog styled Blavatsky News ran a post of its own (July, 2010) pointing out some “errors” in my blog post. Still later, by the end of April, 2011 to be precise, I stumbled on this blog post when looking up the famous William Quan Judge case (this is an early 20th Century case that broke the Theo Society up into rival factions). Blavatsky Noose (henceforth BN) seems to be a blog run by three people of a distinctly theosophical persuasion, these contributors styling themselves Jaigurudeva, Hari Hamsa and Padma (real or fictitious names, I can’t say).

The link to the BN post by Padma is here (http://blavatskynews.blogspot.com/2010/07/hudlestons-garden.html) and you can read the full post on the blog. The preamble to the BN post extracts from the mast head of my blog about “chattering aimlessly & pointlessly” and about the URL “gibber and squeak”. A nice touch that, a pointed and suggestive reference that sets the context for BN’s own post, never mind the relevance of the extracts to that post!! Point taken but that, in itself, is not the reason for the bun fight. It is the “errors” the BN post attributes to me. And BN’s bland insistence that it is right and will not publish a retraction.
A Backgrounder

This is going to be a long post about an even longer, previous post in this blog. Ideally, those with the inclination and time should read the original post. It is a long post but, I hope, an interesting one which describes some local history albeit in its own meandering way. For those without the time or the inclination, here is a brief statement of the problem so that they may be spared a reading of the original post :

That initial post was about a building called Hudleston's House which stands, to this day, in the estate of the Theosophical Society in Madras. Hudleston's is on the south bank of the river Adyar, thus facing north across the river. And I wrote about a view of the building, by one F J Delafour, taken from Brodie Castle on the north bank of the river. And the trivial argument between me and BN is about which building in the Delafour watercolour below is Hudleston's, the one on the left or the one on the right of the picture. That is all that this post is about!

Now, to the “Errors” in my blog post that BN points out :

1. That I “mistake Blavatsky Bungalow, acquired by the Society in the 20th century, for Olcott’s residence, the octagonal building near the headquarters building”.

2. That I am “in error about the state of the Hudleston building when it was purchased by Olcott and Blavatsky, mistaking the additions done after 1907 by Mrs. Marie Russak as part of the original structure”.

AND (especially)

3. That “in the watercolour …. by F. J. Delafour, …. …. …., Hudleston's Garden is the first building on the righhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift, and much the way the Theosophists must have seen it”. In my blog post I had said it is the building on the left.

“Error” 1 : Blavatsky Bungalow mistaken for the Octagon

This comment in the BN post was based on the statement in my blog post:

“a grand octagonal house which Col Olcott took for his residence, and the other, a still more spacious structure which is used as a guest house today. As you can see, the Octagon House is washing its face at the present time”

but the picture I provide is of Blavatsky Bungalow, which was not part of the original purchase.

Yes, BN is dead right, I am in the wrong . The picture above is of the Blavatsky bungalow (not part of the original purchase). I have admitted as much in my e-mail message to BN from which I quote below:

“it is very clear that I was wrong in describing in my blog as the Octagon, what is actually the Blavatsky Bungalow. Even though the pictures on the blog post are not necessarily to be read, in every case, with the text below, the picture and the text, in this specific case, do relate to each other. No disputing that and I will publish a correction in my blog.”

Sheer carelessness on my part, when writing a long post and wrapping pictures around the text, but I make no excuses. I am in error and admit my mistake, in all candour.

“Error” 2 : the Marie Russak (1907) additions in the Delafour drawing mistaken for the Hudleston building

This is what the original BN post says : “Unfortunately he is in error about the state of the building when it was purchased by Olcott and Blavatsky, mistaking the additions done after 1907 by Mrs. Marie Russak as part of the original structure.”

On a plain reading, the use of the words “state of the building” suggests that I had assumed in my blog post that the original Hudleston building has remained unaltered to this day. But I have said no such thing. On the contrary my blog post states, right above my long shot photo of Hudleston's : “you will see that the hocus-pocus or superstructure in my digicam shot, additions by the Theosophists to provide rooms for Annie Besant, is missing from the Delafour view of the 1840's. But if you can visualise the pile minus the superstructure, it is Hudleston's and the angles are about right.”

When this was pointed out to BN, I got a response with BN’s comments on the other two “Errors” but a response or explanation in respect of this “Error” 2 was discreetly avoided. Naturally because, whilst not mentioning Marie Russak (a rich American widow who in 1907 paid for and carried out extensive improvements on the river front of the structure) by name, I had clearly pointed out the additions made by her.

What Russak had done, in effect, was to build an extension spank in front of the original north front of Hudleston's but attached or connected to it by a small "bridge" or vestibule (see picture below which was in the original post but not discussed in the text). Still later, Annie Besant carried forward the "improvements" by the addition of a floor or two. The result is that you could no more see the original facade from across the river.

It is possible that BN's quibble was that I should have called my picture, from across the river in the original post(see below, after the "bridge" pic), "Russak's" and not "Hudleston's. That may well be the case in theospeak. But to expect me to conform would be mere hair splitting because the entire structure is one whole integral building which, for me and a number of others, is always Hudleston's (else, when describing the building, we would have to talk of the Russak wing, the Olcott modifications, the Besant floor for J Krishnamurti and so on!). Moreover, I do not have a Blavatskyan ability to conjure up either the "materialized" or "astral" forms of the north front as it was in 1856 or in 1882 in a pic taken in 2008. I can only snap what exists. And I have referred to the alterations or modifications. So, BN has, clearly, jumped the gun.

OK, round 2 to me.

“Error” 3 : Is Hudleston’s the Building on the Left or the Right of the Dealfour drawing?

“Error” 3 is a most interesting question, the deciding round as it were! Why? I will explain in due course but, first, a correction and then a recap of the purported “error”.

I should firstly say that I think the artist of the drawing below might be F J Delatour (with a T and not an F as in Delafour). Christies who auctioned the drawing in 2008, goofed up, I suspect, in reading the signature because there is no such name as DelaFour in the annals of Madras, as far as I have been able to check. I think he most likely was one Francis Delatour from the family which took part ownership in the old, and subsequently bankrupt, Madras firm of Arbuthnot & Co. His name appears in a few Madras listings of the period (and the family were given to variously spelling the name as Delatour, Delautour and even Lautour).

Now, if you see the Delatour picture above, there are two main buildings, to left and right, neatly bisected by the column in the foreground. There are also two hazy outlines of what look like outbuildings on either side of the building on the right. You can see them by zooming the image on the Christies site here : http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ZoomImage.aspx?image=/LotFinderImages/D50749/D5074958.

BN’s contention is that : “in the watercolour …. by F. J. Delafour, “The river Adyar, Madras, from the terrace of a villa,” circa 1836 (because Elphinstone Bridge, shown at the right edge of the picture, was not built until 1840, V. Narayan Swami believes the date to be 1856 not 1836 as given for it), Hudleston's Garden is the first building on the right, and much the way the Theosophists must have seen it.”

Hrrmph …. so, according to BN even my attribution of Hudleston House, the centerpiece of my blog story, as the building on the left of the pic is wrong!! Is that right (or left)? We will see.

When I protested that I am right about the building on the left being the main building, here is what BN wrote to me (and my responses are below each comment):
“In the matter of the building you identify as Hudleston’s Garden in the picture: if you insist that it is the building on the left of the column, then we must agree to disagree for the following reasons:

a. The octagonal bungalow is clearly shown in the picture on the right, as also the location of the main building to the guest house to its right.

The Octagon and the guest house that BN refers to are two buildings on either side of Hudleston's and they are not seen in the Delatour because of the tree line (alternatively, these two outbuildings were probably not in place in 1850 odd when Dleatour drew his view). That the distant (right of pillar) building in the drawing is Hud House because there are two outbuildings either side of it is a mere assertion by BN, which ignores the fact that, viewed from Brodie's across the river, Hudleston’s (OK, Russak's annex) is in the direct, dead straight, line of sight (whereas in the Delatour the building on the right of the pillar is on a sharp right diagonal, 75 degree, orientation). Per BN, these outbuildings are respectively the guest house and the Octagon. The outlines are so hazy, who is to know? And, more to the point, who is to say? One can certainly not discern the outlines of the Octagon and the structure on the right of the main building is too small to be the guest house. We need to dismiss this assertion as I will make clear in my responses below to BN’s further comments.

b. In a river view sketch of the property, published in The Path of New York, June 1892, as part of the series “Habitations of H.P.B.”, the main building is depicted in much the same way as the structure in the painting’s right.

BN is referring to a PDF document of The Path (a journal published by the very same William Judge in looking up whom I came across the BN blog) of 1892. You can reach it here : http://blavatskyarchives.com/theosophypdfs/the_path_v7_april_1892_march_1893.pdf
and pages 71 to 75 refer.

But, I publish, further below, the scans of the article, “Habitations of H P B”, referred to by BN. The article is so relevant in context, and a reading of it so essential to follow the argument, that I will provide my responses to this and the further two arguments of BN following those scans.

c. The building on the left in the painting features columns and a roof; descriptions of the building occupied by the Theosophists indicate no such addition (see Hodgson’s 1884 plan of the upper rooms). Are you saying that Hudleston’s Garden had such columns and roof and that by 1882 said columns AND roof were removed (in a building facing the river and the effects of the Madras monsoon!)? We have never seen that claim made before.

My responses to these queries appear below the scanned pages of the article “Habitations of H P B”.

d. And then what happened to the buildings on the right, if it isn’t the property occupied by the Theosophists? Walking along the river from the headquarters building to the bridge you will find no remnant of such a structure. Once you pass Arundale House, which was constructed in the 20th century, you will find no other building till you come to the main gate. Are you also saying that these buildings were also torn down, with nothing left of them, not even the foundations?”

Again, the scans of the article first and the answers to these (increasingly hectoring and grand inquisitorial) queries thereafter!

SCANS : Habitations of H P B

OK, I will deal with each of the above objections or “contentions”. And, if there is any reader still left at this point, I must crave his or her indulgence and attention given the apparent tedium of all this. (It is a tedium not of my making but one that arises from the convoluted and absurd arguments put forth by BN). Because what follows is really important for an understanding of the the way the main building developed over the years. And, of course, to settle the question of its true location (i.e, whether it is to the left or the right of the pillar in the Delatour picture).

First, then : BN b. In a river view sketch of the property, published in The Path of New York, June 1892, as part of the series “Habitations of H.P.B.”, the main building is depicted in much the same way as the structure in the (Delatour) painting’s right.

BN is referring to the picture, taken from a photo, on page 75 of The Path (the 5th of the scans above). Note that the operative term in the BN response is : "much the same way". But I am sorry, equivocation and hedging won't do when it comes to these things, either the two buildings (in the Path and the Delatour depictions), when compared, look the same or they don't.

They are two different buildings. All you have to do is zoom the 5th scan above and compare it with the zoom view of the Delatour in the Christies site here. The principal difference is that the two "towers" clearly seen on either end of the river front in the Path article picture (scan 5) are missing in the Delatour building on the right of the pillar.

There are 3 reasons why the two "towers" (and the superstructure or 'lean to' on the terrace in the scan 5 pic) are significant :

1. BN would do well to read page 73 of the scan (the 3rd scan above) which says, right at the top, that "Her (Blavatsky's) room was an addition to the building (Hudleston's) and in a way joined the two towers which rise at the back (the North or river front) corners at either end". Parentheses and words within them added by me for clarity. The Blavatsky chambers were added to the first floor level only in about 1883, post the 1882 purchase by Theo Soc.

2. Ergo , in Delatour's time (c. 1850 - 60) the lean to's on the top of the building (as seen in scan 5, between the two towers) did not exist. But the "towers' did.

3. BN is erring, by asserting that the Delatour buillding in the right of the pic is Hudleston's, in imputing to a mid 19th Century drawing certain additions (the 'lean to' or barsati or superstructure) made, post acquisition in 1882, by the Theosophists.

And, don't forget that the buildings in the two pictures look completely different, no question of "much the same way".

Now to BN's point c. : "The building on the left in the (Delatour)painting features columns and a roof; descriptions of the building occupied by the Theosophists indicate no such addition (see Hodgson’s 1884 plan of the upper rooms). Are you saying that Hudleston’s Garden had such columns and roof and that by 1882 said columns AND roof were removed (in a building facing the river and the effects of the Madras monsoon!)? We have never seen that claim made before."

Simple, the Hudleston building, even as it originally was (and before the Theosophists mangled the river front into a rabbit hutch), did have columns on both fronts. Here is a floor plan of the building as it was in 1882, the year the Theos purchased it (taken from the Theo Soc's own publication, a little booklet titled "Adyar : Historical Notes & Features upto 1934"). In this plan, the river front is the one at the top (and you can also see the outlines of the two "tower" wells at either end) :

And you can see that the building to the left of the pillar in the Delatour has two "towers" on the top of the roof. OK, but, as the Theo Soc booklet says, other than the ground storey, there was just the one room in one of the "towers' at the top of the building with the rest of the roof being flat. So, it is clear that Delatour put in a full first floor to add appeal to the drawing but retained the "towers" at the second storey or roof level. (Although this is a capriccio element in his drawing, he seems to have anticipated some of the additions to come!) That is one of my reasons for saying that Delatour has put Hudleston's in the left of his picture. The other reason is the very thing that BN objects to, the columns.

A Paragraph (with the I Floor Plan) added subsequently on the 6th May 2011) : I realised that I had not touched on a reference to the 1884 "Hodgson" Plan of the I Floor mentioned above by BN. This I Floor plan was made post the additions to the roof or 1st floor level carried out in about 1883.So, that plan is completely irrelevant to the debate because the Delatour drawing dates from well before 1884. I don't know which it is, whether BN is being merely specious or genuinely caught, transfixed in a theosophical time warp of 1882 - 84 in all the quibbles it raises. Anyhow, that famous "Hodgson" plan is reproduced below (note the two tower wells again) :

That leaves BN's objection "d. And then what happened to the buildings on the right, if it isn’t the property occupied by the Theosophists? Walking along the river from the headquarters building to the bridge you will find no remnant of such a structure. Once you pass Arundale House, which was constructed in the 20th century, you will find no other building till you come to the main gate. Are you also saying that these buildings were also torn down, with nothing left of them, not even the foundations?"

Ho! But I never did say nothing about the buildings on the right in my original blog post. And for good reason. Because, contrary to what you imply about those structures being part of the Theo estate (not to mention all that make believe about one of them looking "much the same way" as Hud house), I consider them to be buildings outside the estate and on the other side of the Elphinstone bridge.

Let us go back to the Christies zoom image of the Delatour. The bridge, at first glance, seems to stop midway on the river (before the stand alone big tree on the extreme right) but that impression is more apparent than real because the Adyar (being tidal at this point) is almost a kilometre wide. If one opens again the Christies zoom image , one can just about make out what could be the true land fall of the bridge, just in front of the big building. There is what looks like the final arch of the bridge just in front of the building and to the eastward of it.

So, what I can say is that this right hand side cluster of buildings in the Delatour are those further westward of the Theo estate boundary and the Elphinstone bridge. In support of this I go back to the article in the Path (scan 4 above) which clearly shows a building cluster to the west of the bridge. As the text on scan 4 (page 74) says : "the vicinity was once in great demand before the trade of Madras declined", a decline to which Arbuthnots, owned in part by the Delatours at one time, contributed.

Mind you, this is what I thought even when writing the first post but, not having held the drawing in the hand, I did not want to aver or sign in blood about this (which is why I avoided mention in my first blog post).

However, the more I think about this the more likely this seems to me to be the case. Because, looking through the little Theo Soc booklet mentioend above (Adyar Historical Notes), I came across what Annie Besant has to say about the view from her room on the top of Hudleston's :

Describing a pan view, east to west, from her window (the same set of rooms in which Blavatsky lived): "We see two large houses, nearly hidden by trees,beyond the bridge, and then more trees, hiding the western horizon".

A description that accords completely with the text and picture of the view across the bridge (page 74, scan 4) of the Path article:

So, I am more certain now than before that the structures on the right of the Delatour relate to the houses west of the Elphinstone. And I am emphatic in saying that this cluster has nothing to do with Hudleston House and its two outbuildings.

Art History, Topography & the Codicil in the BN Response

There, that is what I have to say in response to the BN criticisms of my blog post. Simple, right? One might almost say "Elementary .... etc". So, we are done and we can all get on with the rest our lives, can we?! Well, yes .... almost. But I must refer to a codicil in the BN reply (at the end of all the arguments dealt with here) :

"Yes, we understand, looking at European landscape paintings of India from this period, we are not looking at photographic representations. Your post made us reread the chapter on “The Indian Picturesque: Images of India in British Landscape Painting, 1780-1880,” in C.A. Bayly’s An Illustrated History of Modern India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1991, for which we must thank you.

The painting in question features much of the criteria described therein: India as Britons wanted to see it. So who knows what the building on the right was to represent (though it is very similar to the rectangular building facing the river, adjacent to Blavatsky Bungalow, with its columns and all). Perhaps the artist thought it this was a more suitable view from Brodie’s “Castle.”

Art history to the rescue, is it? Or insurance (i.e 'trust in God but tie the camel's legs also')?! Clearly, I detect more thana little uncertainty and hedging on the part of BN!! But who needs G H R Tillotson, C A Bayly et al, one might as well follow Shakespeare or Sheridan in the matter, for all the constructs art historians write (investing the artists with a 'romantic vision' which the artists themselves probably did not feel or share). BN would do better, but not much better, to read landscape history by W G Hoskyns or Oliver Rackham (though probably not Simon Schama)! Ideally, BN should study the Delatour drawing closely and relate it to the known topography of the place by stepping out of the hallowed precincts of Theo Soc into the real world across the river. I mean, BN ought first to understand the original Hud House structure thoroughly and then go and stand where the artist stood before twitting my post by airing such idiosyncratic and absurd arguments (which betray BN's poor knowledge of the Hudleston structure and location). Because I have got my facts and my topography right.

As I often say, the only way to understand or view a topographic drawing is to "focus, squint and (as it were) enter the picture"! It is only then that a whole world of depth and dimension and of topography and what the artist did to the topo, will open up. This internal evidence, related with the external (lie of the land) is, in my experience, the best way to understand what the artist was up to, art history be damned. It follows that I am no art historian, nor an expert on art, though I have, and have always had, a consuming interest in drawings and prints of the period.

So, I can say with confidence that Delatour was not imbued with any romantic vision when taking this view. His execution is faithful to the topography and the sweep of the river and includes the island in the foreground.. As I have discussed above, he has put Hudleston's exactly where it stands, i.e in the direct line of sight from Brodie Castle. And he has drawn the bridge and some distant buildings beyond the bridge (and beyond the Theo Soc boundary) in the right pespective and orientation (but, to appreciate this, one must stand on the terrace of Brodies where Delatour drew from). His only sin or caprice was to give Hudleston House an extra floor. And perhaps to conceal its outbuildings (the Octagon and the Guest House) behind the casuarina trees. Or may be they weren't built in 1850 odd when the drawing was done, we don't really know.

Here is a small strip from a Madras map of 1920 with me (it is a large map, 3 inches to the mile and a deadly accurate one, based on the usual cadastral triangulation). This section shows what I mean by the direct line of sight between Brodie and Hud House (the deviation from the straight and true being only a 5 degree diagonal) :

Before I move on to more general observations, I must thank Blavatsky News, though that is an amorphous, pompous name with which to sign off personal mails. I wish I knew which one of the three in BN was writing to me, may be it is a reply drafted by a committee of the three. It could be Padma, who made the original BN post but I am not sure. I am not even sure if Padma is a male or female, a real or fictitious name (though I asked about the latter). Which one then? Prompts me to recall the lines of Eliot :

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

Well, regardless, I have to thank BN because that post (and BN's reluctance to publish a simple retraction) got me revisiting an old but favourite topic. I may write tongue in cheek about BN but that is only in an effort to liven up the post and to sustain the interest of any unsuspecting reader who may chance on this blog. In actual fact, I don't think this is a slanging match between us but, hopefully, it will be a joint effort to understand better the history of the building and the topography. I can see that the BN trio are committed to the building's heritage and history and that they are serious about what they write.

The Price of the Building in 1882

In the course of our mail exchanges, BN asked : "And why did Huddleston’s Garden come on the market so cheaply in 1882?"

My 'know it all' response was : "As to the price of the building in 1882, I think it was a high price given that there was no easy access in those days to the south of the river. Moreover, there was nothing in the Adyar Besant Nagar area, I am told, even as late as 1970 except waste land, gardens and fields plus a few settlements. It would seem to me that the price paid was high, i.e right."

Sorry BN, I now find that I had lied. There is a write-up by Col Olcott in the Adyar Historical Facts booklet which describes the purchase of the property in 1882 and I quote from it : ".... .... the price asked, Rs 9000 odd or $ 600, was so modest, in fact, merely nominal, as to make the purchase of it seem feasible even for us. .... .... .... .... The cheapness of the price is accounted for by the fact that the opening of the railway to the foot of the Nilgiri Hills brought the lovely sanatorium of Ootacamund within a day's ride of Madras, caused the high officials to spend half the year there, and threw theri grand Madras bungalows on a market without bidders. What I paid for Hudleston's Gardens was about the price of the old materials if the building should be torn down. In fact, that was to have happened if we had not turned up as buyers just when we did."

Thus Col Olcott on the price of the property. Yes, I remember another account (see my previous psot) stating there was a mortgage on the property for Rs 7500 or nearly 90 % of the price. That implies, firstly, that the property was bought by the Indians on spec (with a mortgage) and, next, that, since the mortgage outstanding was almost the market value, there was pressure to sell it for just enough to repay the mortgage and to cut losses.

Why Bother at all?!!

Alright, there we are but, paid servant and performing flea that I am (my each livelong day being usually spent in just keeping one step ahead of the game in the workplace), why spend so much time and effort on a blog post that few people, if any, will care to read? What can be the motive for writing and inflicting on the world a tedious piece on some remote topography which the world doesn't really need?

Before I explain, a picture or two. First, a shot of Hud House from across the river (filched from a travel site) :

See what I mean? Up close, Hudleston's river front, as modified by Marie Russak, Annie Besant and sundry others, maybe an architectural kitsch, thanks to the execrable, insensitive modifications. Fotunately, the foreground on the river side is so narrow that you are spared the full vista.

But at a distance, from across the river, in its riverine setting, framed against the blue Madras sky, the building has outline, a grand, compelling presence and it makes an emphatic statement. In fact, it speaks to one, as at once an eloquent and mute witness to the life and times in Theo Soc and as an inseparable, memorable part of the Madras skyline for nearly 200 years. Also, just look at the view from the building itself (pic "borrowed" from a Leadbeater site) :

When I see this building, it is forever Madras to me, a building that housed many an illustrious theosophist, a personal roll of honour that includes the kind, gentle Col Olcott, the great Annie Besant and the quiet, self effacing George Arundale not to forget J Krishnamurti. That is another reason, the most important reason, for dwelling at such length on its location, "wasting" my time and yours. I leave you with some more visuals (all of it plunder from the internet) :

Charles Leadbeater on the roof terrace of Hudleston's as modified and built over (c. 1915 I would think). See what I mean about the deplorable, makeshift architectural "improvements". Nevertheless a valuable pic, supposedly taken by J Krishnamurti.

The Messianic & the Saturnine : This one above is a favourite, showing J Krishnamurti (left) and Charles Leadbeater (right) on the roof of Hudleston's. Nitya, Krishnamurti's brother, is in the middle. Across the river can be seen Brodie Castle. Wish this picture, from a paperback with me, would reproduce better but this is the best possible.

These pics show how the character of the building has changed over the years. One thing hasn't changed though. I refer to the presence of the flying foxes or fruit bats (see scan 4 of the Path article above). I am pleased at their continuing adherence to theosophy as a sign that the Theo Soc has been taking excellent care of the eco system within the property, even if the fruit bats have more drastic methods of expresing their contempt for my blog (see end of previous post on the subject) than BN!

A Long Lucid Interval & A Cluttered Hang : Not Forgetting the Peacocke Reunion in Hamilton, NZ, Oct 24 & 25

2009-10-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

Firstly, let me wish you all a Very Happy Diwali!! Secondly, a word or two about why this blog has been soporific for the last six months. Since April, to be precise.

To begin with, May and June that is, it was entirely due to work and late, very late, nights in the office. Taking a bit of a breather in July, I got involved with an exhibition of my collection of prints in August, the second such since 2008. The one in 2008 was on engravings of Madras city and consisted of some forty-five items. This year's exhibition expanded on the idea and was called "From the City to the Presidency" and a hundred items were displayed. 'Presidency' refers to the old Madras Presidency of the British Raj, consisting of the whole of the four present day states of South India, except for the old Princely states of Hyderabad, Mysore and Travancore. Displays of Madras city were also included, about twenty in number
but there were no repeats from last year's set.

The exhibitions were held during the annual Madras Week celebrations, commemorating the founding of Madras in 1639 (22nd August) by the East India Company merchants, Francis Day and Andrew Coggan.

As in the previous year, a catalogue in colour was issued at the exhibition and the greater part of August was spent in writing this. It took some time, what with work and with the need to relate the display to the context of the exhibition, the background, the history, the notes on the artists and so on. And from Septemeber until now, I simply didn't get round to making a post, put it down to laziness.

Never mind, here are some pics of the exhibition. Rather a cluttered hang is it not, the gallery is no Guggenheim but is quaint and interesting in its own right (look at the old roofing and flooring), it was actually the hot water bath room (water heated by wood fire, as common in India over 60 or 80 years back) of a GOM called Sir C P Ramaswami Aiyar, with his 5 acre estate and house in the heart of the city having, later, been converted into a Foundation etc by the family. True to its origins, the small gallery is called the Vennirul (hot water bath) gallery!

Note the roofing and flooring in the gallery, I was told about 2000 people visited over the 10 days the display was on and I am sure 1950 at least went away bemused and wondering what all the fuss was about, may be 50 or less spent some time on the exhibits and, perhaps, 5 or 10 really liked it!! Fairly good press coverage, some with mugshot (why? it should have been more pics of the the engravings!), and a nine page colour spread and report in a lifestyle mag. But on the whole, the event must have left about 1950 people rather puzzled.

The pics are not mine but lifted from a well known local blog which covered the events of Madras week.

Turning to more important and topical subjects, the Peacockes in the antipodes are having a reunion in Hamilton, New Zealand on the 24th and 25th of this month (website). I expect there will be much exchange of anecdotal and archival matter, old photos and letters, a get together of cousins and distant cousins. It must be late spring, if not early summer, in New Zealand at that time and I am sure there will be beer and wine flowing as well as great conviviality. I am sure the Reunion will be a memorable and most pleasurable one and I wish all the Best to the Peacockes attending and, especially, to Mary Winter and Andrew Peacocke, two of the organisers.

I have been invited, most kindly and repeatedly, by Mary and Andrew but am unable to go. However, I went to the Nilgiris for an all too brief week end and took some pics of some of the sort of hillscape scenery that Stephen Ponosonby Peacocke, who founded the Peacocke clan, had drawn and left for us to enjoy (see post : "Ooty Preserved").

My pics were taken with the BlackBerry's rather unsatisfactory camera but the haze and mist helped to some extent in covering up for the deficiencies of the camera and in the cameramanship. The pics were mostly shot from a vantage point some 6000 feet above sea level.

View of the Rolling Downs from Hadathorai near Kotagiri

The Deccan Escarpment : Looking North ex Kodanad Point

South Eastwards ex Kodanad Point : the Bhavani Resrvoir

Bhavani Reservoir in the Mist

Doddabettah Peak (Hazily) ex Hadathorai (in the middle of pic, at top & above the township on the slopes)

Deccan Plateau ex Kodanad (North Easterly View)

Due East ex Kodanad Point (taking in the craggy Rangaswami Bettah) looking towards the Biligirirangan Range (aka "the Billies")

Looking Eastward to the town of Satyamangalam (Centre B'ground)Nestling in the Foothills

Our Driver Unwittingly providing Scale to the View!!

The Moyar Valley with Rangaswami Bettah in Stark Relief

Rangaswami Bettah Standing Proud of the Range of Hills (it is actually about 5000 feet high and is climbed monthly by the locals for worship at a temple on the very peak!)

The Moyar Valley showing the Winding Course of the River : the Mysore Plateau to the North (the settlement you see is a village of the Kotahs a dwindling tribal people, the only habitation in this 1000 sq KM valley - who said India is thickly populated?)

The Moyar Valley to the North : A Clearer View

Looking due South (ex Hadathorai near Kotagiri) towards the City of Coimmbatore = the one in the Foreground is the Town of Mettupalayam

View towards Coonoor ex Hadathorai

Warwick House, Kotagiri : A Typical Planter's Bungalow - Note the two Men on the Roof : Blots on the Landscape

God's watercolours, I call these views! Something Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke understood very well and delineated beautifully. My cameramanship is poor and though I do watercolours they are sixth grade stuff, as my wife is always quick to remind me. But Peacocke got the views to perfection, he had a photographic eye, a true artist'ss eye.

And these pics are included here as a sort of curtain raiser to the Peacocke reunion. For the clan foregathering in Hamilton to see the landscape their ancestor drew (and as it looks to this day). It is also a peace offering to Mary Winter and to Andrew Peacocke for my failure to attend the reunion.

Zoffany's Cock Match & Other Conversation Pieces : A Croaking Chorus or the Frogs of Aristophanes?

2009-03-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

What is a Conversation Piece? In the original sense in which the term was used, it referred to a drawing or painting of a group of people, such as a family group,engaged in conversation or in some activity like dining ("soul food"?) or sport. These days, the term is used to refer to any drawing of a group that interests the viewers and leads to conversation about the subject, or subjects, of the drawing. I understand Conversation Pieces as a genre began first to be painted in England in the early 18th Century and portrayed prominent people or high society.

There are a number of framed pictures, mostly engravings plus the odd watercolour or pen & ink, hung in my house. And my wife is beginning to get annoyed with me. In truth, she is already extremely annoyed with me not only about the hang, or overhang, some of it hanging askew at times but also about the boxes of unframed prints and, especially, the books pulled out from their shelves and strewn about in the bedroom and in my study (which she dismissively calls the book room). On such occasions, I very reasonably observe to her that as she is not having to carry the load on her head, why should the litter trouble her at all. And that is when the argument starts.

But that is not what I wanted to say as it is easy enough to keep one jump ahead of trouble at home. All I have to do is put the books back in their shelves before she tidies up on me, so that is simple and easy enough. My difficulty is altogether different and I will try to explain below.

I have already said that the house has lots of framed pics hung in most of the rooms.But none of my visitors or friends give them a second look. That I can understand, everyone need not be taken up with these images, you need to be interested in that sort of thing. But when I show them one of my Conversation Pieces, that too one of the most celebrated of that ilk, and it leaves them cold, that can I not understand. For all the blank reaction it provokes, my visitor could be looking into the mirror and thinking "hey,very ordinary, nothing worthy of note here", as if seeing his or her own image. Here is that Conversation Piece I am referring to (pic taken through the glass and slightly out of focus in trying to avoid the flashback, but there is good clarity if you click and enlarge):

This is an engraving by Richard Earlom of the celebrated drawing, Col Mordaunt's Cock Match, by Johann Zoffany, drawn in 1784. It is a goodly sized engraving, image area 18 x 26 inches (height preceding width), published as a mezzotint in 1792. The version with me has added hand colouring, which I suspect is period but aftermarket. Here is the original uncoloured mezzotint :

Col Mordaunt's (Zoffany's) Cock Match

You can see that it is a busy scene and a crowded picture. It needs a key and I did manage, years ago, to scrounge a xerox of the original key from a dealer, Sotheran of Sackville Street. Unfortunately, I can not trace the key from out of all the bumf with me or the key has been tidied up on me, not sure which. I did manage to get a key from a Bombay dealer but it is a reduced version and doesn't reproduce well(but do click and enlarge, you can then see the numerals and text clearly enough) :

Johann Zoffany (1735 - 1810)

With a picture like this I had better begin with the artist, Zoffany. He was born in Frankfurt - on - Main, the son of a Bohemian Jew who was court architect to the Prince of Thurn und Taxis. His drawing skills were noticed even at school and as he did not distinguish himself at studies, Zoffany was apprenticed to a painter at a young age. After about a year of this, he "borrowed" some gold from his father's money chest and betook himself to Rome where he spent the next ten or twelve years as an itinerant artist, copying pictures from the galleries and so on. By this time Zoffany heard of his father's death and, judging it safe to return home, he took up residence at Coblenz in Germany. He married a local girl, it was not a happy marriage for the lady at any rate, Zoffany is said to have been unkind to her.

Unable to establish himself as an artist in Germany, Zoffany moved again, this time to England in about 1760. His initial struggles included time spent as a painter of clock dials, these clocks now being collector's items, and apprenticeship to an artist called Benjamin Wilson. Zoffany was not very happy in Wilson's employment but, being a lover of theatre, made the acquaintance of the many theatre and acting types who frequented Wilson's London studio. And that was how he came to the notice of David Garrick, the theatrical personality and impresario. Followed membership of the Society of Artists, many commissions for Conversation Pieces and portraits, including "theatrical" portrayals, then election to the Royal Academy as one of the original members (see below his portrait of the academicians, the artist having put himself at left extreme) and Zoffany soon came to attention of King George III. This was to lead to a visit to Italy and to the production of the Tribuna of the Uffizi, a Conversation Piece by Royal Commission. Of that more anon, let us go first go with Zoffany to Lucknow.

John Maddison : Zoffany 1783

Academicians of the Royal Academy : Zoffany 1771 -- 72
(to see the image in all its glory go to the Royal Collection)

The bottom having dropped out of the home market for Conversation Pieces by about 1780, due to overkill no doubt, Zoffany decided to go to India to make his fortune. He put up the necessary sureties to the East India Company and got permission to make the journey to India. One of the sureties was John Maddison, stockbroker and a member of the Goldsmith's Company, whose portrait Zoffany drew. Maddison also took care of Zoffany's affairs during the latter's absence in India. Zoffany was not permitted by the Company to travel on board an East Indiaman for some reason but managed to circumvent this restriction by signing up as a Midshipman aboard a company vessel.
In Calcutta

Zoffany arrived in Calcutta in September 1783 after an eight month voyage, including a month en route in Madras, and soon found his way to Lucknow. He knew the artist William Hodges who was touring India at the time. It is likely that Hodges had written to him about the fabled wealth of Lucknow in Oudh and the rich pickings to be had there. It is also known that Zoffany met Hodges when he arrived in Calcutta, so it is probable that the latter gave him introductions to people in Lucknow . The month in Madras had been useful in gaining an intro from the Governor, George Macartney, to the Governor General, Warren Hastings. That, in any case, is the documented story but we must not forget that, by 1784, Zoffany was nearly 50, a Royal Academician, no less and painter to George III, so I would think the Macartney introduction was just by the way. Anyhow his acquaintance with the Governor General resulted in a number of commissions in Calcutta including some from Hastings himself.

18th Century Lucknow

Hastings paid a farewell visit to Lucknow in the spring of 1784 and Zoffany joined him in June of that year. The Kingdom of Oudh (in reality a Nawabi or Viceroyship for the Moghul Emperor), with Lucknow as the capital, had been founded in about 1725. The Nawabs paid only nominal allegiance to the Emperor but their independence was curtailed in 1764 when the ruling Nawab, Shuja ud Dowla, tried conclusions with the British in the Battle of Buxar. The British retained Shuja ud Dowlah as Nawab but extracted annual tribute from him and also posted a Resident at Lucknow. The Nawab retained his powers within Oudh but had to defer to the British in matters of defence and also had to pay for an army they maintained in Lucknow for his "protection". The ruling Nawab in 1784 was Asoph ud Dowla who had succeeded Shuja in 1775.

Asoph ud Dowla, dissolute and indulgent, was given to the pleasures of the table and of the bedstead, with a reported harem 1500 strong. In spite of which he did not father an offspring and the successor to the throne was Vizier Ali (whom we have already met, see post below on Benares), an adopted son. Asoph's 22 year reign was one of extravagance and downright decadence but it was also a period in which he encouraged the arts and the famous pehle aap (after you) culture of Lucknow may be said to date from his time. He aslo had a court of hangers-on, unusually, many of them British and European with the most notable being Claude Martin.

A description of the character of the Nawab by Louis Ferdinand Smith from the Asiatic Register 1804 : " He is mild in manners, generous to extravagance, affably polite and engaging in his conduct; but he has not great mental powers, though his heart is good. He is fond of lavishng his treasures on gardens, palaces, horses, elephants and, above all, on fine European gems, lustres, mirrors, and all sorts of European manufactures, more especially English, from a 2 d deal board painting of ducks and drakes to elegant paintings of a Lorraine or a Zoffany, and from a dirty little paper lantern to mirrors and lustres which cost up to Pounds 3000 each".

Asoph ud Dowla (Watercolour said to be after Zoffany)

Claude Martin (1735 - 1800)

When it comes to judging Claude Martin I am reminded of the story of the cabaret master (or presenter) who quoted Shakespeare : "Ladies and Gentleman, what you are going to see is neither good nor bad; only thinking makes it so". He was born near Lyon, enlisted as a soldier with the French East India Company in 1751 and arrived in Pondicherry shortly thereafter. There is a family anecdote about how, when news of his enlisting reached home, his stepmother ran to the depot to bring him back but Martin refused, saying he wanted to go and make his fortune in a foreign country. At which, she boxed his ears, saying in tears : "Go, you obstinate one, but don't ever come back except in a carriage", and gave him a purse of 24 coins.

Claude Martin by Francesco Renaldi

Well, seek his fortune Martin did but only after changing sides from the French to the British in about 1760. By this time the French were on their last legs in India and our soldier of fortune, by a side-ways shuffling of the feet as it were, switched his allegiance. He did serve his new masters well and earned their confidence, seeing action in a number of skirmishes with local rulers both in South India and in Bengal, including Buxar in 1764. After a period spent on the Indian Survey under James Rennell, Martin went back to soldiering, this time to quell some trouble from the Bhutanese on the border. That he was guilty of looting the treasury in Bhutan is a charge often levelled at Martin but that is not the only way he enriched himself. By the early 1770's Martin was permanently established in Lucknow, first as Surveyor under Rennell and later as Superintendent of the Arsenal. And when Asoph ud Dowla acceded to the throne in 1775, Martin also managed to worm his way into the Nawab's inner circle of Europeans.

The Nawab's Inner Circle

Probably the foremost among the inner circle of Asoph ud Dowla was Martin. As the Nawab was fond of things European, chandeliers, sculpture, china, objets de art Martin saw to it that he became purveyor in chief to Asoph. This was perhaps the principal means of his personal enrichment. But there were other facets to Martin as well, such as his endowment of three schools in his name, the La Martiniere in Lucknow, Calcutta and Lyon. The two in India are certainly among the best boarding schools in the country to this day. The one in Lucknow is housed in Constantia, the palatial home Martin had built for himself.

La Martiniere in Lucknow

But there were other notable Europeans as well in the circle of Asoph ud Dowla. Firstly, Col John Mordaunt, Chief of the Nawab's Bodyguard and the illegitimate son of the 4th Earl of Peterborough. Schooling had not done much for his three R's as is clear from a letter he wrote to his friend : "You may kip the hos as long as you lik". Unfitted as he was for a learned or respectable profession, a cadetship in the East India Company was secured for him. A t some point in time in India, Mordaunt became an ADC to Hastings and thus had the opportunity to be presented once to Asoph ud Dowla. It is believed that that is how he entered the Nawab's service. More than a head of the household bodyguard, he seems to have been a social secretary and master of ceremonies (and revelries) to Asoph ud Dowla. The Nawab regarded Mordaunt as a friend, not surprising if the accounts of the low tastes of the two men are to be believed.

There were two other intimates of the Nawab, Col Antoine Polier and John Wombwell, both servants of the East India Company in Lucknow. Polier was French but born in Switzerland in 1741. He had been Chief Engineer in Calcutta at one time but by about 1780 had become resident architect in Lucknow. And Wombwell was a man from Yorkshire, employed as the Company's Accountant n Lucknow. Here is a picture by Zoffany of the friends at ease, one among the fine Rogues' Galleries the artist excelled in painting :

At Ease : Polier, Martin & Wombwell (Zoffany in the Background) : Zoffany 1786 - 87

Col Antoine Polir & Friends : Zoffany 1786 - 87

I love this picture, almost as much as I do the Cock Match and some of Zoffany's other masterpieces (like the Tribuna and the Academicians). Firstly, it is big, some 55 x 72 inches. Next, it shows a group of friends at their ease, lounging around. The scene is said to be Polier's house. Claud Martin is the focus of the picture and he is seen explaining to Wombwell, to his left, a set of plans believed to be those of the house he constructed for himself (now the La Martiniere school in Lucknow). Don't fail to note the Indian servant holding up the plans for inspection. To the left is Col Antoine Polier inspecting some fruits or other produce, presumably from his gardens, being proffered by his servants. And don't fail to note that the servant at extreme left has elephantiasis of the leg!

This oil is in the Victoria Memorial collection in Calcutta, purchased and presented to it, if I remember right, by Lord Curzon.

Zoffany has put himself,as was his wont, into the picture. He is sketching in the background but facing us and it looks as though he has three of his other paintings on the wall. Then the monkey next to him, holding aloft a banana. Truly, a depiction of friends at ease and very topical too.

The author Rosie Llewellyn Jones, rightly celebrated for her triad of wonderful books on Nawabi Lucknow, suggests in an article that Zoffany has put the monkey in the picture to illustrate the European plundering the riches of Oudh or of the East. Maybe, on the other hand, maybe not. Why couldn't the monkey have been simply a pet monkey kept by Polier? Zoffany was not above making a point or two or above putting a little joke into his paintings but I wonder if, given his times and his friendships with the subjects of the pic, this "allegory" came to his mind.

Back to the Cock Match & the Dramatis Personae

The context to the picture out of the way, it is time to look at the content. Firstly, this is another shot of the engraving I own but both this pic and the earlier one have been tricked up on Picasa, each according to my whim of the moment (the real difference is that the former was shot by me in artificial light and this one here by Shivakumar in the open in afternoon light, the former is good for enlarging and seeing the detail, the one immediately above for an idea of the engraving as it actually looks).

Alright, what have we here, what is going on in the picture? First, it is a busy scene, a crowded scene. And it is a big engraving (the original oil at the Tate is even larger). Asoph ud Dowla loved cock fights, elephant fights and perhaps all forms of sport in which he did not have to do any of the work. And the Europeans were not averse to a bit of "good, clean, innocent" fun in this way, being used to cock fights in their own countries.

The occasion is a cock match between the birds of Mordaunt and those belonging to the Nawab. Hastings was witness to such a match on his arrival in Lucknow in April 1784 and is believed to have asked Zoffany to record another such occasion for him. The picture that Zoffany drew is sheer drama and comic theatre.

In this disorderly and somewhat unruly scene, we can make out the Nawab and Col Mordaunt quite clearly. The rotund, roly poly figure of Asoph ud Dowla is moving, arms outstretched in greeting, towards Mordaunt who is portrayed sauntering into the arena in his shirtsleeves, striking a nonchalant, casual posture. I can almost hear the two of them uttering endearing but foul imprecations and lewd entreaties to each other, such banter being known to be a feature of their relationship.

The European contingent is seated, or standing, mostly under a small awning to the right of the drawing, a sort of dress circle for the privileged. Many of them affect languid airs, seemingly unconcerned with the proceedings and intent on conversation among themselves. To the extreme right of the picture, there is a group of three Europeans in animated discussion about the birds that two of them are holding. The fat Englishman in the group, sitting down, is Lt Golding. Next to him, bird in hand, is Robert Gregory, an assistant at the Lucknow Residency who had already been warned by his father that if he continued to gamble on cock fights he would be cut off from the inheritance. As luck would have it, years later, when Gregory Senior was walking past a shopfront in the Strand he chanced to see the Earlom engraving of the Cock Match in the shop window, recognised his son and promptly cut him off from his will with the entire estate going to a younger son. Candid canvas!!

The usual suspects are all there. Claud Martin, prominent in the red coat, is sitting on a Diwan talking to Trevor (later Sir Trevor) Wheeler, an assistant at the Residency. Antoine Polier (clean shaven in this pic), in a brown coat, is seen standing at the left of the Dress Circle. Sitting in front of him, holding a Hooka, is John Wombwell. Zoffany, as he often had a habit of doing, has put himself in the picture, he has his right arm over the back of his chair, has turned round to face us, sketching pencil poised at the ready in his right hand. Standing with hand on Zoffany's shoulder is Ozias Humphrey, another artist who was in Lucknow at the time.

Is that all ? Don't fail to note the courtiers, the servants and the Nautch girls or dancers in the left background all perfectly delineated. And middle of the picture, just below the awning for the Europeans, is a Hindu pederast fondling a Muslim boy in skull cap, much to the indignation of a lunging courtier who is being restrained by another man. And lots of other detail and caricaturing of interest, just click and enlarge to see for yourself.

I recently came across a book on the Indian influence in British art of the 18th and 19th centuries. The two authors of the book say that the vacant place on the Diwan next to the one that the Nawab has just vacated (to greet Mordaunt) could have been intended by Zoffany to suggest the presence of Hastings who, given the inquisition against him in England at the time, could not be actually shown to be taking part in such friviolous proceedings. A conclusion too easily, and temptingly, reached it seems to me. What about a seat then for Col Mordaunt, it is more likely the vacant place was meant for him. I am not quibbling for the sake of it but I wonder how right it is to impute notions and constructs when writing history or art history. I, however, agree with the authors when they say "the drawing is sheer comic drama, a kind of mock battle between Europe and Asia fought by chickens representing the two worlds .... so curiously conjoined in Oudh".

Zoffany's Cock Match : The Daylesford & Ashwick Versions

Now, the picture or the engraving of the Cock Match that you see on this post or, for that matter, will see anywhere else is what is known as the Daylesford version, after the place where Warren Hastings lived on his return from India. We already saw that Hastings had commissioned Zoffany to do an oil of the cockfight at Lucknow and the artist did draw one and ship it to Hastings. The ship was wrecked en route to England, or so the story goes, and the painting did not reach Hastings. When, on his return to England, Zoffany came to know of the loss he shrugged it off, saying that the lost picture would do for Neptune's gallery : "that ancient collector but sorry connoisseur", and proceeded to do another one for Hastings. Luckily he had his original sketch with him and was able to work up a full fledged drawing. So, that is the Daylesford or Hastings version and the actual oil now hangs in the Tate Gallery.

Now, there are records of two other versions of the Cock Match which Zoffany had done for the Nawab. The Nawab had perhaps seen the sketch and wanted a drawing for himself or equally, because artists like Zoffany would want to milk the maximum out of any sketch, the artist put the idea into his head. Why two copies were ordered is very much a question to be asked but it seems there were two at Lucknow. One of them, which came to be known as the Ashwick version, was gifted by Asoph ud Dowla's successor, Ghauzi-ud-din Hyder, to Richard Strachey, Resident at Lucknow in 1815 - 17. This was brought to England and became the Ashwick version after the place in Somerset where Strachey lived. Here, below, is the Ashwick version :

Cock Match : Ashwick Version

Almost identical to the Daylesford one but with a lightly sketched in or reduced cast of Extras. But, in essence, it is the same Cock Match, the Firanghis are all there, as is our friend the pederast and the indignant courtier. So, there were two versions with the Nawab in Lucknow of which one, the Ashwick above, was given to Strachey (a grand uncle of Lytton Strachey)in 1817. The other version remained in Lucknow until the Mutiny of 1857 when it was presumed destroyed. But there is enough evidence in print, including by Fanny Parkes, of the existence Ashwick and Lucknow versions. The Ashwick version, as far as I know, last came to notice at a 1915 auction in Sotheby's when it was bought by an unknown buyer. I have no idea if it changed hands since then or, even, if it still exists.

One puzzling thing is, of course, why would the Nawab want two copies of the same painting bu that is not so problematic as the next question (after all the Nawab may have liked the picture sufficiently to want two copies or replicas). And that next puzzle is why the historians and the art historians have gone totally silent about this version. Out of sight is out of mind perhaps as, to the extent I know, no one has sighted the Ashwick for many years but its authenticity is very much in doubt now (at least to me, the figures don't look like Zoffanys, in fact the drawing seems to be a copy by someone else).

Zoffany left India after six years, after spending over half of his time there in Lucknow and the richer by about Pounds 50 thousand (probably about 3 to 5 Million Pounds in today's money).

The Tribuna of the Uffizi

We need to jump farther back in time to discuss the Tribuna of the Uffizi. This, in one way of looking at the subject, could have been a separate post. But, I wanted to out with it all in one post, so that we have something to compare with the Cock Match and to see a little more of Zoffany's output. Also, the subject of Zoffany and the Tribuna is topical as I will explain at the end.

Mind you, while I know a little bit about the Cock Match I know even less about the Tribuna but I was lucky to find a book which is available on the Internet Archive : Johann Zoffany R.A by G.C.Williamson, published in about 1900. This plus what I knew, supplemented by an excellent key I found on a site on the Net : The Gentlemanly Hang is what I write below.

First, the arresting, spellbinding picture drawn by Zoffany :

The Tribuna of the Uffizi : Zoffany 1771 - 72

Very briefly, Zoffany decided in about early 1771 to visit Italy. This was because an assignment to accompany Captain Cook on his voyage to the South Seas fell through due to no fault of the artist. When Zoffany let his intention to visit Italy be known, came a Royal request that he make a sketch of the gallery in Florence, should he visit that city. It was the wish of Quenn Charlotte and George III seems to have endorsed the idea. Zoffany was to be paid the expenses of the journey and Pounds 300 a year for the length of his visit. This sort of sponsorship and Royal commission was exactly what the artist was looking for and he made good use of the latter, as we shall see.

Zoffany duly reached Florence and, given the Royal commission in his pocket, was presented at court and offered all assistance and facility by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to produce the picture. Ever the thrusting upstart emigre from Europe, Zoffany hardly needed such encouragement because, styling himself the Queen's painter, he threw his weight about at the gallery or the Tribuna as it is called, commandeering the place, restricting public access at times and ordering not only the hang to be changed but insisting that pictures and sculpture housed elsewhere be brought in and displayed in the gallery for the purpose of his composition.

It was good that he did so, because he seems to have given his all to the composition and making of the drawing and the result is a riveting, stunning view, a piece for endless conversation. Here is the key I found on the Net and, rather than belabour this post with my second hand accounts of the English grandees in the picture, I will let you work the details out with this key :

The Key to the Tribuna of the Uffizi

Still, there are a few notable things to say. Firstly, that Zoffany is again in the picture (No : 4 in the Key), he is in the left background, head peeping out from behind a picture he is holding out for inspection by the small group that surrounds him. Zoffany is, of course, trying to interest the group in the picture which is a Raphael, perhaps more correctly Raffael, of the Madonna and Child. Zoffany apparently bought this Raphael for a nominal price and is trying to sell it. And No : 1 in the key, the man in the brown coat who is facing Zoffany is George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, the 3rd Earl Cowper who bought this picture.

George, the 3rd Earl Cowper (1738 - 89) was a man who arrived in Italy on the customary Grand Tour and never left it. Even aftr he succeeded to the Earldom and its large estate, he continued to live, and finally to die, in Italy. Zoffany also painted a portrait of the Earl and I put a replica or copy of it below, in this picture he is a jaunty, dashing, florid faced grandee doffing his cocked hat to someone :

Jaunty Grandee : George, 3rd Earl Cowper ( drawing after Zoffany)

Now, the Earl is said to have paid a high price for this Raphael and also endowed an annuity of a Hundred Pounds a year on Zoffany for life, which the artist drew for nearly 40 years. It is said to be a genuine Raphael but public opinion wasn't so unanimous apparently. I scarcely associated the following number in the Pirates of Penzance with the Zoffany picture until I read the Williamson book linked above :

I can tell a genuine Raphael from Gerard Dow's or Zoffany's
I know the Croaking Chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes

Gilbert & Sullivan

The scoundrel in Zoffany also made a tidy packet out of the desire of the prominent Englishmen visitin or residing in Florence to appear in the picture. He would paint them in on request, only to rub them out of the picture as soon as they had left Florence. And if any of the visitors should give him offence, he had his revenge by scrubbing the offender out of the picture!

All this was to no avail, for when Zoffany got back to England after an extended trip to Vienna the King and Queen were not exactly pleased with the picture. For one thing, the artist got back to England only in 1778, after a long interval of 7 years plus. Secondly, the Royals thought the picture too crowded and with some perssons included in it who were not exactly very popular at court. Finally the Queen is said to have bought the painting after some years, paying 600 Guineas for it, far less than the 3000 that Zoffany had hoped for. It was never hung in the Queen's chambers but is now getting a revival.

The Conversation Piece : An Exhibition in the UK Based on Zoffany's Drawings

And that is what makes Zoffany topical, as I discovered to my surprise and pleasure when Googling around for stuff on the Tribuna. The Royal Collection is holding an exhibition on the theme of the Conversation Piece, centred around the drawings of Johann Zoffany. The exhibition is, first, at Holyrood House, Edinburgh from the 27th March to the 30th September and, next, from 30th Oct to Fbe 2010 in London at the Buckingham Palace. I will certainly make it a point to catch the Tribuna at the Exhibition (the Cock Match won't be there I am afraid, unless they decide to include borrowed exhibits from the Tate), perhaps in London. One picture I would specially like to see is the Zoffany below, of Charles Towneley and Friends, painted in 1783 just before the artist left for India. I like Zoffany's use of the light in this picture, the way he lets it fall on the subjects of the drawing :

Charles Towneley & Friends : Zoffany

Why a post on Zoffany, artist and upstart scoundrel rolled into one. He is the master of the conversation piece, a master of detail and of irreverence, not above putting in a subtle or not so subtle joke when composing his masterpieces. Consider the vignette in the Tribuna of Zoffany selling a pic (pup?) to the Earl, remember that his drawings are dotted about with the odd pederast or a black monkey or a morally outraged courtier or a group of poker faced Royal Academicians staring critically at nude models. Above all, see the delineation of features, maybe of character too, in his paintings and the stunning detail in the Tribuna where you can even see the fluting and whorls on the picture frames.

To really appreciate the Tribuna, go to this page of the Royal Collection to see the zoomable image. That is, if you don't plan to see the exhibition or, perhaps, even if you do.

To, see a similar zoomable image of the Academicians at the Royal Academy, in all its depth and dimension, go to this page of the Royal Collection (if you do, you will end up seeing the exhibition, no matter what you think now).

To learn what was going on in 18th Century Nawabi Lucknow there are many period books as well as historical accounts, but get yourself the three absorbing books on the theme written by Rosie Llewellyn Jones which are of the historical account variety :

1. A Fatal Friendship
2. An Ingenious Man (the Life of Claud Martin)
2. Engaging Scoundrels

To really dive into Zoffany's life and work, also to understand the genre of Conversation Pieces get yourself the Exhibition Catalogue. I have already ordered my copy.

Zoffany : Self Portrait

Unreal City : Dhrupad Nights in Benares

2009-03-08T03:01:00.000-07:00

" 'How Do You Like London ? .... London, Londres, London ?' Mr Podsnap asked the Frenchman, putting - we notice - capital letters into his accent. 'And Do You Find, Sir,' he went on, 'Many Evidences that Strike You?'.

Nothing else but Evidence strikes us. The place is all Evidence, like the sight of a heavy sea from a rowing boat in the middle of the Atlantic where you are surrounded by Everything and see nothing. But Evidence of what? There is no possible answer".

Thus begins V.S.Pritchett's "London Perceived" but the words are even more appropriate as a description of Benares.

Benares : Luminous City, Surreal City, Unreal City! For more than 10 years Vasumathi (Mrs Blogger) and I had been wanting to visit the place. Firstly there were the fabled ghats, then the boat rides on the Ganges not to forget the throngs of pilgrims or the famous Banarasi vegetarian food, the sights and sounds, the colours, and the Firanghis, some of them in their matted and combined locks manifesting all the zeal and earnestness of newly converted acolytes. And of course, Benares is etched on all Indian, Hindu psyches, being the holiest of holy cities, so there were also a couple of temples that we planned to worship in.

But there were other compelling reasons too to visit Benares. Our friend Shivakumar and I had been wanting, for a number of years, to attend the annual Dhrupad music fest in Benares. Shivakumar one day informed us that this year's Dhrupad fest was scheduled for the 21st to 23rd February. That became the proximate or immediate reason for the visit but, as I said, there were other good reasons too. As a print junkie, I wanted to find out a little more about the Benares where, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, had lived two remarkable men who were also great artists : Samuel Davis and James Prinsep, both servants of the East India Company. Also, there was the architecture of Benares or what remains of it, both Indian and British. All this also added up, at least for Shivakumar and me who always have an eye to the main chance, to a good excuse to goof off from work for a few days.

Orderly Queues : Shiv Ratri A.M

We were going to be in Benares spank in the middle of Shiv Ratri which brings some two hundred thousand pilgrims to the city. But Shivakumar has friends in high places and we were able to get good accommodation in the Old Circuit House, as also VIP ushering in the temples. And, in line with our policy never to catch a cold whether at base or abroad, we also made sure to have a car and driver available to us for the duration of the visit.

Old Circuit House Benares

Framed in Corinthian : Circuit House Interior

The Benares Dhrupad Mela

The All India Kashi Raj Trust, an NGO established by the Maharajah of Benares began sponsoring an annual Dhrupad Mela (festival) in the city some 30 years back. The setting for the concerts couldn't be better, the Mela being held on the banks of the Ganges at Assi Ghat, the first of the bathing ghats on the Ganges in her northerly course past the city.

Mishrajee, A Dhrupad Musician of Benares : He Daubed Attar of Roses on Us

Dhrupad has its origins in the hymnal music of Hindu temples as sung for over a thousand years, the emphasis being on the tonal purity of individual notes or swaras, so the gamak or glide or glissando is usually eschewed in Dhrupad music. Dhrupad's counterpoint is the Khyal, a musical form that took shape in the mid 18th Century. Khyal is influenced by Mughlai or Persian music and by Sufi singing and is eclectic and improvisational in its presentation whilst remaining true to classical restraint and form. I have actually grown up on a diet of Khyal, it is very much the music I prefer to listen to but Dhrupad, ever classical and pure, is also a great attraction.

And the fest provided all that I had expected of it, the good , the bad and the indifferent. The last two are to be expected in a programme that lasts from 8 P.M to 4 A.M three days in a row and is unticketed. But we had some outstanding performers, Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar, Pandit Abhay Narain Mullick, Pushpraj Koshti and so on. Also some very good up and coming women singers such as Kaveri Kar and Madhubhatt Tailang, dhrupad previously not being known for its lady performers.

Readying for the Programme : the Ganges to the Left

To my surprise two artists sang as the opening number Raag Desh , a haunting, tender and plaintive melody that is a favourite with me but one that is usually presented as a secondary or minor item in a Khyal performance. But the Dhrupadias were able to carry it off with aplomb in their grand and classical rendering and it was a great pleasure to hear Desh thus given pride of place. I actually removed to the steps of the bathing ghat where it was agreeably cool and dark and the impact of the melody on the banks of the river was something special. Of course, I could also smoke a surreptitious cigarette or two on the ghats which added to the enjoyment.

The Rajah of Benares (Middle) at the Dhrupad Fest

Kaveri Kar Who Sang Exceptionally Well

Here are some pics, the opening of the concert by the Maharajah, some performers and the audience, some of whom, especially the foreigners, seemed to be very knowledgeable about Dhrupad. Well, enough said about music by someone who can not sing for crying out loud. Also, something needs to be said about Benares itself before we move on to the two aforementioned very interesting and remarkable men, both Fellows of the Royal Society, who lived in the city.

Benares or Kashi

This was my first visit to Benares, although I intend to go again and see the place at leisure. So, all I can say is that it is well known that the city is thought to be 8ooo years old and ranks with Alexandria and Peking as one of the three oldest city civilisations in the world. We Hindus think it is even older, of course. When one sees the vibrancy and the bustle that animate the place, it is easy to understand what has sustained this urban chaos for so long. Bewildering it may be but the chaos, the throngs of pilgrims, the faith and good cheer they bring to the pilgrimage and the squalor cheek by jowl with great beauty contribute as much to the making of this great city as its location on the Ganges and its unique Vedic and musical culture nurtured over millenniums.

Withered Beldame : Palace of the Maharajah of Vizianagaram

Hindu pilgrims visit this city but do they go there only to acquire a reserve of merit in preparation for death, as is sometimes said? I don't think so at all. It seems to me that though they visit Benares as an act of pilgrimage, of recharging their spiritual reserves the question of death or its premonition has nothing to do with it. It may be that they undertake the visit calling to mind the great spiritual quest stated in one of the Upanishads :

असतोमा सद्गमय। तमसोमा ज्योतिर् गमया।
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय॥

Asato mā sad gamaya
Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya
Mrutyormā amṛutham gamaya

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (1.3.28)

From ignorance, lead me to awareness;
From darkness, lead me to light;
From death, lead me to immortality

One other thing that impressed me about Benares is that the Ganges is Uttara Vauhini here, that is to say she reverses her south easterly progression and courses north past the city, doing a complete dogleg in fact. That is supposed to be rather special in the Hindu conception but it is nothing to compare with the sheer pleasure of an early morning boat ride on the river, past the spectacular show afforded by a succession of Ghats, there are 64 of them over a 5 K.M stretch.

Jai Bajrang Bali !! Pahelwan (Indian Wrestler) Beefcake on Panch Ganga Ghat

We learnt a great deal about Benares by boaning up on two definitive, contemporary books about the city. One of them is "Benares, City of Light" by Diana Eck and the second is " Benares, World Within A World" by Richard Lannoy. Both books succeed in giving a sense of the ideas and the cultural continuum that animate and revitalise the city and of its primacy as a centre of religious and Brahminical scholarship. For a sense of what it is like to take up residence in Benares, read the Alice Boner Diaries 1933- 67.

Battering Ram in His Pomp : He is Chief of Security at Dashashwamedh Ghat

Samuel Davis & the Views of Bhutan

I got interested in Samuel Davis on reading "Views of Medieval Bhutan" by the late Michael Aris and after seeing some of Davis's picturesque views of the country. I was looking high and low for the book and, when in London in 1995, I contacted the publisher, Serindia, only to be told the 1982 book was out of print. But I don't give up so easily and asked if there was some place where I might be able to get hold of a copy. Pat came tha answer, "Katmandu". What, Katmandu? "Yes", he continued, "there's a Pilgrim Book House in Katmandu and the owner, Mr Ram Tiwary, specialises in books to do with Tibet and the Himalayas, he's conceivably the only one who might be able to give you a copy".

It was a moment's work to get the telephone number from the Nepal Embassy and I was immediately on the phone to Mr Tiwary who said, "Yes, how many copies do you want". That was that and the book arrived in about a week. I called the publisher to thank him and asked his name. "Aris". Aris? "Yes, I am the author's younger brother, Anthony". Small world, eh? But there is a Pilgrim Book House in Benares as well, the original store I believe, and it is worth a visit for the stack of books, new, old and rare, on Tibetan and Himalayan studies, History and much more. Michael Aris who, sad to say, died of cancer in 1999, was the husband of Aung Saan Su Kyi. Small world again, though I don't know either of them.

But we are forgetting Samuel Davis. He was born in 1760 in the West Indies where his father was stationed with the army commissariat and, on the death of his father, Samuel Davis returned to England a few years later. A friend of his late father secured for him a cadetship with the East India Army (but with the option of leaving the army for the civil service) and that is how the 19 year old Davis arrived in Madras in 1780. It is not clear how Davis attracted the notice of Warren Hastings, the Governor General, but he did and he was soon posted in the Bengal Presidency. Davis was confirmed in the Bengal Civil Service about 10 years later but, before then, he had undertaken the journey to Bhutan in 1783 as part of Samuel Turner's embassy to Tibet.

The Samuel Turner Embassy to Tibet was a follow up measure to the first such Embassy led by George Bogle in 1774. The objective in both cases was to explore possibilities for trade with this remote and little known country. Samuel Davis as appointed Draughtsman & Surveyor to the mission, a recognition of his drawing skills besides the surveying he had learnt as an engineer in the army.The Mission itself was judged a success, some form of trade with Tibet opened up further but Davis himself was never allowed into Tibet and had to return to India from Bhutan. The Tibetans were a very withdrawn, inward looking society and suspicious of foreigners and there is some speculation that they were wary of Davis's evident abilities.

It is not clear how Davis aquired his drawing skills and there's some speculation that, in his boyhood, he came into contact with Thomas Daniell the celebrated artist. Even if such were the case, it is not likely that Davis, aged only about 10 when the contact is said to have taken place, imbibed any special skills from Daniell. But that he was an outstanding artist is easily judged by his superlative views of Bhutan, even today a beautiful country of exquisite mountainscapes and tasteful architecture. Here are a few examples, of which the first only is mine (apologies for the poor scan), it is the palace of Punaka Dzong engraved by the famous engraver James Basire and published in 1800 (as part of Turner's account of his Embassy to Tibet).

Punakha Dzong

Davis, trained in survey and engineering in the army, was also fascinated by the elegantly designed, indigenous cantilever and suspension bridges in Bhutan and drew many sketches of them :

Suspension Bridge at Chuka

Cantilever Bridge at Thimphu

After his return from Bhutan Davis resumed his Bengal Civil Service career and, when posted in Bhagalpur, did renew or make contact with the Daniells, both Thomas and his nephew William. The Daniells were in the midst of their extended 7 year tour of India and spent nearly a year staying with Davis in Bhagalpur. That was how they became aquainted with his Bhutan drawings, six of which William published in 1813 as aquatints. Both these and the Basire engravings are almost impossible to get and the aquatints below are ones I filched from the net :

The Palace of Punakha Dzong Aquatint

Nandeshwar Kothi : The Night (Morning, rather) of the Long Knives

Davis served as Magistrate in Benares from 1795 - 1800 and though his time in this posting was marked by high adventure and heroics, the association with the city was also to be the making of Davis as a scholar. First the events at Nandeshwar Kothi, a large, rambling building in which he lived during his posting in the city. The building belongs to the Maharajah of Benares and is set in extensive grounds, although much changed from its original appearance what with shopfronts and hoardings cluttering up the view.

View from Murichom, Bhutan (Detail)

Benares had only in 1775 been ceded to the British by the Nawab of Oudh, Asoph ud Dowla, and in 1797 the Nawab was succeeded by his son Wazir Ali (Vizier Ali). But there were questions about his legitimacy as rightful heir. What really got Wazir Ali into trouble, however, was his wilful conduct after accession to the Musnud or the throne and the British intervened to depose and exile him to Benares in about 1798. The 19 year old Wazir Ali naturally felt hard done by, as there had been intrigue against him by his uncle, the brother of Asoph ud Dowla, in which the British had willingly connived. It was now Wazir Ali's turn to engage in intrigue and he bided his time.

Meanwhile, in early 1799, the British decided to relocate Wazir Ali to Calcutta, as it was finally realised that Benares, on the border of Oudh, was no place to base a deposed ruler in. Ali didn't take very kindly to this order, for order it was, and decided to strike. He agreed under duress to leave for Calcutta on the 15th January but began recruiting a numbe of armed men instead of making preparations for the journey.

Davis, as Magistrate, was one of the two senior Britons in Benares, the other being George Frederick Cherry, Agent to the Governor General, and an accomplished artist, and thus the man responsible for minding Wazir Ali. On the morning of the 14th January, Ali paid a visit to Cherry at his house, taking along with him 200 armed mercenaries. The visit actually turned out to be an ambush and Cherry and his English assistants were murdered in no time.

The mob now made for Nandeshwar Kothi but Davis was swift to act. The house has a narrow, winding staircase, wide enough for just one person, which gives access to the terrace. Davis moved his wife, children and servants upto the terace and with a spear in his hands stood guard at the top of the stairs, an entirely defensible position given the narrow, winding access up the stairs.

The rest is histoy. The action lasted an hour and a half but having, in the first few minutes, found that they did not fancy the idea of jousting (or fencing for they were armed with swords) up a narrow stairway with the entrenched Davis the assailants tried in vain to pick him off with muskets from outside the house. Some help arrived on the terace after about an hour, in the form of Davis's servants and the armed local constabulary, as Wazir Ali's men were all now on the outside of the house. They were figuring a way to ascend up the wall. But with the reinforecements available, Davis decided the terrace was perfectly defensible and so it proved until Ali and his men retired. With the arrival of further reinforcements, the action was over by eleven A.M, an hour and a half after it started.

And this from the book of travels by Lord Valentia, Viscount Annesley who was in Benares not long after the event : "I examined the staircase that leads to the top of the house, and which Mr Davis defended with a spear for upwards of an hour and a half, till the troops came to his relief. It is of a singular construction, in the corner of a room and built entirely of wood on a base of about four feet. The ascent is consequently so winding and rapid that with difficulty one person can get up at a time. Fortunately, the last turn by which you reach the terrace faces the wall. It was impossible, therefore, to aim at him while he defended the ascent with a spear; they, however, fired several times, and the marks of the balls are visible in the ceiling. A man had at one time hold of his spear, but by a violent exertion he dragged it through his hand and wounded him severely. This gallant defence saved the settlement as it gave time for the cavalry, ..... about ten miles from Benares, to reach (the house) and oblige Vizier Ali to retire .... ".

Here is an engraving of the 'Attack on Mr Samuel Davis's House' by Maj Henry Samuel Davis :

Wazir Ali's Siege of Nandeshwar Kothi

The three of us went up the winding stairway of Nandeshwar Kothi as I was curious to verify the facts of the story published in 1844 by Sir John Henry Davis, son of Sam Davis, titled "Vizier Ali Khan or the Massacre of Benares", available in the Internet Archive. Shivakumar and I re-enacted the episode jousting or fencing at each other with twigs, just to see if Davis could really have seen off such a mob. The stirway was narrow and winding and it did seem Davis would have had the better of the exchanges. V, unfortunately , refused to oblige by shooting a pic of the two of us, declaring "this is too juvenile for words". So, sorry, no pic of us re-eenacting history.

Astronomical Studies

Life in Benares for Davis was much, much more than self defence. Benares, in point of fact, was to be the making of him as a reputed academic and astronomer. The young Davis, in his Bhagalpur days, had got to know the renowned orientalist and founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Sir William Jones (1746 - 94). With the encouragement of Jones and the assistance of the Hindu Pundit astronomers of Bhagalpur and Benares, Davis was to emerge as one of the foremost authorities of his time on Indian astronomy. He, in fact, was one of the earliest, if not the first, to present to the West an account of Indian astronomy in all its thorough and elegant ramifications of time divisions, eclipse computation and trigonometrical functions.

Man Mandir Observatory from the River

All this led to election to the Royal Society by 1792, when he was hardly 32 years old. And Davis's study of Indian astronomy got an added fillip upon his posting to Benares where there was a Hindu Observatory, the Man Mandir, built in 1710 by Raja Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur . Davis went on to become the Accountant General of Bengal, retired to England in 1804 and later became a Director and then Chairman of the East India Company. I found an interesting tidbit in the autobiography of his grandson Rivett-Carnac (another family with India connections extending over five or six generations)that the Hon Mountstuart Elphinstone, Davis's assistant in Benares and later to become Governor of Bombay, used to visit Davis's house in London annually to do Pooja to the spear!

James Prinsep : A Man of Genius in Benares

Davis and his escapade have taken up more than his allotted space. Still, the real hero of Benares is another man, a true genius who left his mark on the city as indeed he did on every place he lived in and every subject he turned his formidable energy and intellect to. This was James Prinsep (1799 - 1840), also a Fellow of the Royal Society and, in fact, the youngest to be elected a Fellow of that body. And a blog post is hardly the medium to present the genius of this man, Assayer, Architect, Engineer, Linguist, Epigraphist, Artist, Demographer, Cartographer, Urban Planner and many other things rolled into one. A book running to a few volumes and meticulous research will be what it takes, so I will confine myself to a mere catalogue of his achievements.

James Prinsep fell in love with the city where he arrived in 1820 and where he was to spend the next 10 years of his short life. He was born on the 20th August 1799 in Chelsea, London and his father, an Alderman of the City of London, was reduced by business losses to straitened circumstances and had to remove to Clifton for the education of his sons (it was a large family, nine sons and two daughters). It is said that the three youngest boys, James included, had but one pair of trousers among them and had to go out by turn.

James Prinsep showed early aptitude for maths and for building and designing mechanical toys. So, an architectural carer was intended for him and he was apprenticed to the great Augustus Pugin for a time before quitting due to illness. As James had no inclination to go into the army, another opening in India suggested itself. This turned out to be a career in Assaying and Minting and Prinsep prepared himself for this by taking lessons in Chemistry. He was also apprenticed to the Assay Master of the Royal Mint and obtained a certificate of proficiency after a year.

Prinsep's Work in Benares

That was how, in September of 1819, the 20 year old Prinsep arrived in Calcutta, together with his younger brother who had got a commission in the East India Company's Bengal Army. He immediately commenced service in the Calcutta Mint as assistant to the Assay Master, Horace Hayman Wilson an eminent Sanskrit scholar and also Secretary of the Asiatic Society. Prinsep's job was in the Subordinate Service which, unlike the Covenanted Civil Service, carried few perks or privileges and also paid much less. But the opportunity to associate with a scholar like Wilson no doubt made up for all that. In less than a year Prinsep was posted to Benares as Assay Master.

James Prinsep(Medallion)

Apart from taking charge of the construction of the Mint building, James busied himself with producing a detailed map of the city which was ready in the end of 1821. He later had the map (29 x 19 inches) lithographed in 1825 at his own expense. After all these years it remains an outstandingly accurate map of the city, based on a survey carried out personally with the thoroughness and passion that Prinsep became known for. Here is a detail of the Cantonment or British Quarter from the map of 1821 :

Benares Map (Detail)

The survey done for the map also resulted in a Directory of Benares with details of the various Ghats, Temples, open spaces, important buildings and their ownership as well as family histories. The Directory also includes a comprehensive list of the Punditry and the subjects they specialised in. It was in fact a gazetteer of the city with details of commercial establishments and merchant houses. Unpublished, the Directory is in the archives of the Asiatic Society.

The map and the Directory led in due course to a Census of the city in 1826. A previous census, carried out in 1803, had produced wildly exaggerated figures for the population, so Prinsep was careful to avoid falling into the same error. Of course, the work on the map and the Directory had given him the necessary preparation and intimate knowledge of the city's labyrynthine quarters. Moreover the citizenry knew him and trusted him. That was important because the populace of those days had a not unjustified suspicion that a headcount was a prelude to higher taxes.

There was a unique difficulty attendant to a census of a pilgrim city with a large floating population : how does on reckon the floating population to determine the headcount of permanent residents? But Prinsep was equal to the task. With characteristic thoroughness and confidence, he also chose a period of high pilgrim influx, the Lunar Eclipse, to assess the pilgrim numbers in the city. Enumerators were stationed at the five principal approaches to the city and at all the landing stages of the ferries with bags of pebbles by their sides( a pebble being thrown into a basket, to be counted later, as each arrival passed through).

Prinsep's Architecture in Benares

Prinsep went on to design and build a bridge, the Karam Nasha bridge, over a waterway across the city. Besides helping overcome the superstition of pilgrims that contact with the waterway annulled the religious merits of their pilgrimage, the bridge also resulted in improved throughput of traffic within the city :

Karam Nasha Bridge

There were other buildings too though Nandeshwar Kothi seems to be wrongly attributed to Prinsep. Besides the Mint, he had a hand in the design of St Mary's Church in Benares. The church itself was consecrated in about 1824 but, when it was enlarged in 1827, Prinsep was the one who undertook the work, adding a handsome steeple. It is interesting that, though he trained under Pugin, all of Prinsep's designs are Georgian or Baroque.

Then there was the restoration of the Gyaan Vaapi mosque or Aurangzeb's mosque, built originally in about 1675. Prinsep dismissed the mosque itself as architecture unworthy of notice but thought the soaring minarets. 147 feet high, were an exquisite work of design. But the minarets were beginning to list by Prinsep's time in Benares. With great engineering and structural skill, Prinsep carried out maramut or restoration on the minarets and they are, even today, very much in the perpendicular.

Gyaan Vaapi (Aurangzeb) Mosque

Then followed the drainage system for Benares, a pilgrim city sorely in need of such an amenity. Prinsep's proposals for the system were accepted by the civic authorities in 1825 and the work, involving plane level surveys, sub strata analysis and a clear trace of the entire network, which commenced under Prinsep's supervision on the 1st of Jan 1826, was fully ready in 19 months with no accidents whatsoever. Prinsep's drainage system is considered to be a marvel of engineering even now. The same system, with a few extensions and new outfalls, serves the city to this day.

All this was accomplished in a 10 year period, before the man turned 30 and he still found time and energy for discourses with the Pundits, for Sanskrit and also for Astronomy, and for the establishment of the Benares Literary Society. The Man Mandir observatory, already mentioned, became a regular stamping ground of Prinsep and he fixed and periodically updated the longitudinal position of Benares beteen 1825 - 32. A meteorological profile of the city was also carefully compiled with instruments acquired with his personal funds. He also set up a printing press in Benares in 1822. I suspect it could have been a litho press but I do not know for sure. If it was a litho press it must have been the among the first such in India.

As a Family Memoir put together by Prinsep's brother says : "to extend the catalogue to a detail of the roads, bridges, drains and other works of every variety of description, .... would fatigue the reader".

Benares Illsutrated

Speaking for myself, I find Prinsep's drawings of Benares to be at leeast as important as his other contributions. Benares Illustrated was first published in 1831 with 35 plates lithographed by Louis Haghe of London. A further two volumes of 13 and 10 plates respectively were issued in 1832 and 33. I have reproduced a few of the plates rather than gush gush about the high quality of these drawings.

Bruhma Ghat

Dushashwamedh Ghat

View Westward from Ghoosla Ghat

View of Gyan Vapee Well

The Kharoshti & Brahmi Scripts

Election to the Royal Society had come through by 1828, making Prinsep the youngest person to be elected a Fellow of that institution. By 1830, he was transferred to Calcutta and, among other things, took up Secretaryship of the Asiatic Society. All those years hobnobbbing with the Pundits of Benares and soakig up the Sanskrit language and Indian history had not been in vain for then followed two major discoveries : the deciphering of the Kharoshti and the Brahmi scripts. These were landmark discoveries in Indian epigraphy and archaeology and were to make the name of Emperor Ashoka widely known in the world. Maj Markham Kittoe, himself a major figure in Indian archaeology (and of whose architectural work in Benares thre is a sampling below) had just then discovered Ashoka rock edicts in eastern India.

Enter Prinsep, to make a seminal contribution, for the edicts had to be deciphered. Following up on a hunch that the same letters occurred at the end of each edict, he cracked the entire Brahmi script. In the course of the work, he was regularly reporting progress to his friend Alexander Cunningham, one of the last lettrs ending : "chalo bhai, jaldee pahonchogae" ('come on my friend, we're getting there', a common cry of Palanquin bearers to help lighten their burden)!

Compared to the Brahmi, Prinsep's cracking of the Kharoshti was simplicity itself. He found that the old coinage of the Kushan period (BCE) was inscribed in both Greek and Kharoshit, so the deciphering was a piece of cake. To say that is hindsight really, for there were a number of other numismatists but the thought had occurred to none except to the enquiring mind of James Prinsep.

Sadly, Prinsep died of overwork in 1840, hardly 41 years old and it is said he was subject to insanity in his last days. Insanity? I wonder! It could have been delirium.

But I was surprised to find that he had been active in England as well, perhaps during home leave, as I found on this website, The Mausolea & Monuments Trust . Here is the relevant excerpt from a write-up by Lucinda Lambton, a really fine writer on a very inetresting topic, and I am going to follow her output henceforth: "Back though, to Bristol’s Arnos Vale, where there is singularly splendid Hindu temple; which, to my delight I discovered to have been be built by a James Prinsep, who studied under Pugin and who then was to spend an alarmingly fruitful life in India – working in the Calcutta mint for which he devised scales that could weigh a three thousandth part of a grain ! He redesigned the Benares Mint and became the authority on Indian currency. A prolific architect, he also devised the Ganges drainage plan of Benares. He devoted his later years to Indian antiquities ; deciphering inscriptions on temples which had even baffled the author of the first Sanscit-English dictionary. This Hindu Temple in Bristol is therefore a work of serious scholarship„.not to be confused with the fancy dress Eastern garb that was to clothe such British buildings as Brighton Pavilion. It was designed to honour the remains of Raja Rommahun Roy…..known as the father of modern India, and the first Indian to be buried in Britain, in 1833.
It is a beautiful little building, sadly all too rare an achievement today with monumental masony . For now I fear there is a quite lamentable quantity of ill designed modern monuments, sadly illustrating the descent of our funeray art. Gaze about you at memorial monuments of the c.18th and c.19th and your every artistic sensibility is satisfied,. Seek out that of the 20th and 21st centuries and every one is smashed".

Well, I don't know if Prinsep was in England at the time or if he sent the design from India but the picture below (from Wikipedia) of the tomb has a touch of the listing tower in the Manikarnika Ghat, doesn't it? I also came across this interesting site on Ram Mohun Roy, the stormy petrel of Indian social reform.

Raja Ram Mohun Roy Memorial, Bristol

Back to Benares

I am sorry that Davis and Prinsep hogged such a deal of blogspace. The fact is, they kept intruding into the post and refused to go away until I had said something about them. But they did have a lot to do with Benares, didn't they? I personally think it is the other way round, that Benares was the making of these two remarkable men, an instance of how the city continues to inspire men to this day.

At 4.30 A.M on Shiv Ratri day (the23rd Feb) we were ushered into the Vishwanath temple and had an easy time of it, an almost exclusive (but for the official escorting us and the priest) face to face with Vishwanath Iyer and his consort Annapoorna. It was only when we came out in about a half hour that we realised the waiting queue exceeded a hundred thousand pilgrims.

Vasumathi with Pilgrims from Andhra (Dashashwamedh Ghat)

We felt the usual pang of guilt but, to my great surprise, I realised that the crowd was very orderly, good natured, cheerful and patient, extraordinarily and commendably patient. There was no restiveness, we only saw good behavior all round. It then hit me that these folks had probably made long journeys from every corner of India by train, bus or ferry, that they were almost exclusively from the low income group and that the journey, a pilgrimage really, and the cost of boarding in Benares involved significant financial expense for most of them (unlike us who had flown in, us who have resolved never to catch a cold and who were housed in comfort in the city). And then the long wait of 10 or 12 hours or more to have the merest glimpse, if that, of Vishwanath. I am not being maudlin but seeing this orderly and cheerful, faithful queue was an extraordinary experience. This is the real India and you can see it round the year in Benares. No need to go anywhere else.

Shiv Ratri Queue 150 K Strong (End of Line @ Dashashwamedh Ghat)

There were a couple of other temples which impressed us, one of them being very small shrine for the monkey god Hanuman, actually a Bala Hanuman or Hanuman as child, at Assi Ghat, right where the Dhrupad fest was staged. It is said Tulsi Das who wrote the Ramayana in Hindi used to sit under a peepul tree next to the shrine and that, as he wrote the Ramayan, the Hanuman used to sit by his side and read it! It is a picturesque, idyllic spot with the Ganges below, sylvan and peaceful and the peepul tree still stands (is it the same after 400 years?) :

Assi Ghat : Tulsi Das Platform & Hanuman Shrine

The other temple was the Bindhu Madhav shrine at Panch Ganga or Madhoray Ghat, also a smallish shrine located in an old house by the side of the Aurangzeb Mosque. It used to be the largest temple complex in Benares, Akbar the Great having generously provided for its expansion in the 16th century. But in 1672, great grandson Aurangzeb, in a fit of iconoclastic zeal, had it razed to the ground and the eponymous mosque came up in its place. As is usual on such occasions, the beautiful idol of Bindhu Madhav (the youthful Vishnu) had been spirited away and, much later, it was installed in the old house where worship still continues. The idol is made of a huge block of Shaligram or ammonite (about 3 1/2 x 2 foot, extremely rare in that size), a fossil stone found in the Gandaki river in Nepal. The idol must be a thousand years old if not more and is a superb carving in the gleaming black Shaligram and very tastefully decorated :

The Shaligram Idol of Bindhu Madhav

We found in the shrine an old portrait of a dignitary and the articulate and friendly priest, Murlidhar Ganesh Patwardhan an ex bank official, told us that it is of Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi, an erstwhile ruler of Aundh state, a small 800 square mile principality near Poona. It is, unusually, a Brahmin kingdom and the family have been managing the temple for several generations now. The last, distinguished scion of the family was the former ruler, Apa Pant, a diplomat who was High Commissioner for India in London, whose autobiography, "A Moment in Time", is well known. He was Oxford educated but, when at home, used to be dressed in a dhoti and remained bare chested (as customary in those days) and, in the 1930's, this was resented by the English. According to their notions or prejudices, an Oxonian ought to have known better!

Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi (late Ruler of Aundh)

The Ghats from the River

Manikarnika Ghat

Haveli (Indian Mansion) near Manikarnika

We took an hour long boat ride at 6 A.M, very bracing and invigorating in the cool of the morning; the early spring of India was still a couple of weeks away and the slow glide on the river was a therapeutic experience. The speed of the boat is at the most 2 1/2 miles an hour, a very relaxing if not stately progression with the panorama of the ghats on one side and the sunrise to the right.

A Close View : Manikarnika

Manikarnika : Another View

It is no use my trying to convey any further a sense of the sheer pleasure of an early morning boat ride on the Ganges, it is something one must experience oneself.

Dashashwamedh Ghat

Dashashwamedh : A Close-up

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya : Lead Me from Darkness to Light

Ganges Sunrise : Another View

Bhonsla Ghat in 18th Century Splendour

And Lo! The Hunter of the East
has captured the Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light
(with apologies to Omar Khayyam)

Bhonsla : Taken A Few Moments Before the One Above

Some Architecture

The Queen's College in Benares was built in 1847 - 52 by Maj Markham Kittoe,as much as enthusiast for architecture as for archaeology. It now houses the Sanskrit University and is a building in the "correct" Gothic style, Puginesque in its ovrall form and also in the detailing. It has been accused of making no concessions whatever to, nor having any empathy with, its Indian setting but Shivakumar and I found it one of the best examples of British architecture in India. It is certainly worth a visit and some gazing, here are a few pics :

Queen's College : Gothic Splendour or Kittoe's Folly ?

Queen's College (Sanskrit Univ) : Another View

Again

A pair of splendid gatehouses designed by Kittoe caught my attention, they are worthy of note of and by themselves. Here's one :

Gate House Sanskrit Univ (Queen's College)

And there is a handsome, low slung outbuilding, the College Library, also designed by Kittoe :

Queen's College Library : Maj Markham Kittoe

And more architecture of note, both Indian and British :

An Old Haveli : the House in Which Laxmibai, Rani of Jhansi was Bron

The District Court

Anglo Bengal College (Built in 1905) : Typically Indian Kitsch in Foreground is A Latterday Addition

Another Haveli

And, one of the best, the Lal Khan Mausoleum at Raj Ghat built in 1773 (not much is known about Lal Khan except he was a General, probably serving the Nawab of Oudh):

Apparell'd in Celestial Light : the Lal Khan Mausoleum

A Minaret : Lal Khan Mausoleum

The Banaras Hindu University's Museum is one of the best kept in Indai and ought to be visited. Lots of sculpture, Kushan, sarnath, maurya artifacts, an impressive numismatic collection (so Shivakumar tells me) and losts else. There is a room specially for Alice Boner, the Swiss sculptor and artist, who lived in Benares and a room full of the paintings of Nicholas Roerich. Here is a grim looking Vasumathi, standing beneath a figure of Govardhan Giridhari (Krishna holdin aloft the mountain of Govardhana):

B.H.U Museum : Govardhan Giridhari (Kushan Period)

Prinsep on Benares

I will let the Master himself, James Prinsep, sum up Benares : "There are few objects more lively and exhilarating than the scene from the edge of the opposite sands, on a fine afternoon, under the clear sky of January. The music and bells of a hundred temples strike the ear with magic melody from the distance, amidst the buzz of human voices; and every now and then the flapping of the pigeons' wings is heard as they rise from their crates on the housetops, or whirl in close phalanx round the minarets, or alight with prisoners from a neighbour's flock. At the same time the eye rests on the vivid colours of the different groups of maale and female bathers, with their sparkling brass water-vessels, or follows the bulls as they wander in the crowds in proud exercise of the rights of citizenship, munching the chaplets of flowers liberally presented to them. Then, as the night steals on, the scene changes, and the twinkling of lamps along the water's edge, and the funeral fires, and white curling smoke, and the stone buildings lit up by the moon, present features of variety and blended images of animation, which it is out of the artist's power to embody. He may give in detail the field upon which these scenes of life are enacted, but the spectator's imagination must supply the rest."
(Intro to Benares Illustrated).

I am going back in the wintr, may be in January, to people gaze and to amble around in the ghats in exercise of my own rights of citizenship.

Lalita Ghat

Negotiating A Safe Return

As our return flight was about to land in Madras, Vasumathi, to my left and Shivakumar (from across the aisle) started inquisition proceedings.

V : Now that you've been to Benares you are expected to give up something, may be an item of food or a habit or something. What will it be?

Self : Give up something? No, I don't think I will give up anything, thanks.

Shivakumar : But as a good Hindu, you are expected to.

Self : Good Hindu ? I suppose I am. Well at least an OK one but I ain't giving up nothing. The idea!

V : What about your smoking habit ? (this somewhat hopefully.)

Self : No, certainly not. Besides, not smoking is also habit forming.

V & S (In one voice) : Then what will it be?

As I replied, "I will give up the notion,as if I ever had it, that I should give up something", the plane touched down in Madras. A feathertouch landing.

Ooty Well Preserved & Flourishing

2009-02-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

The Ooty Preserved post (see below) brought in a number of comments or messages to my personal mailbox and all the credit is due to the drawing skill of Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke which is what that post is about. I publish, as a sort of Post Post Script, the most interesting among the messages received. Firstly, a guest post very kindly written by Mary Winter (3 x great grand daeughter of the artist) at my request.This was intended to be published with the original post but, as it happened, Mary was travelling then and was able to send in the wrie-up only now.

Mary Winter's Guest Post

"My name is Mary Winter (nee Peacocke) Great Great Granddaughter of Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke. I am married with 2 children and currently live in Napier, New Zealand.
30 years ago a Peacocke family reunion was held in New Zealand for the descendants of Stephen Ponsonby & Isabella Louisa Peacocke (nee Brydges) my great great grandparents who came to New Zealand from England in 1857.

Being a teenager at the time, I was not really interested in dead ancestors and I had the rest of my life to meet the rest of the family.Fortunately my father attended the reunion and acquired a copy of the Peacocke family book (compiled by Neville Peacocke).

Fast forward another 20 years and my interest in my ancestors was ignited after reading this book. So this was the clan I belonged to! I wanted to know more of course. The internet was a great place to start, I googled, left messages on ancestry sites, military sites, royal sites and printed out pages of information. One piece of new information always led to another query and another search.

Last year I was browsing the message board of a site where I previously left a message for other people who were researching the name Peacocke. There was a posting from a person saying they had some lithographs by Stephen Peacocke, done while he was in India. I promptly emailed this person, V.Narayan Swami, not really expecting to hear back. How exciting it was therefore when I did receive an email back from him. After exchanging some brief information about ourselves and our common interest - Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke, Narayan offered to have photos taken of the lithographs and email copies to me. I was dumbfounded, would he really he go to all that trouble for someone he does not even know?

Well it seems he was as passionate about the story behind his art works as I was about the Peacocke family history. “I am having them photographed to go on my blog anyway,” replied Narayan. “It is no trouble to email you the photographs.”
I was delighted with his readiness to send me the scans and eagerly awaited the arrival of the email with the photos. In the meantime I posted off a copy of the Peacocke family book to Narayan as he was interested in Stephen’s life in NZ.

The email arrived and I must confess it really was quite emotional seeing the lithographs, I was blown away, they were beautiful, the drawing seemed delicate but the subjects are strong and real, I felt I was looking at someones (my gg gfather’s) thoughts, I was seeing what he saw through his eyes.

All this was a little overwhelming, mixed with the thought that a man I did not know, who lived in another country, who was not a Peacocke had shared my interest in my ancestor. I thank Narayan for his kindly thought in sharing the scans and for making me proud of my great great grandfather for drawing these beautiful images. The lithos sparked a memory that I had seen some drawings as a child, another little search began. I spoke to my brother in the States and he emailed me some of the same lithos as Narayan has, but uncoloured. Also through Narayan’s blog and message board postings I was contacted by a man, Richard Borley, in England who emailed me an image of a miniature portrait of Stephen Ponsonby’s father – I think these lithos are alive and bringing all this together!!!!

Narayan & I were connected by searching for the same information for two very different reasons, I am learning a little about art and India and from him, I’m not sure that he is learning anything from me!!!!! (But he did, he learnt info about the artist otherwise not available to him!!)

I suggested Narayan is now an honorary Peacocke and should attend the Peacocke family reunion which is being held on 24th, 25th & 26th October 2009, in Hamilton, New Zealand".

Thanks, Mary, glad you were able to touch the past in this way and connect with the works of your ancestor. I am sure it always feels good to renew a sense of family and, indeed, of family pride. One more instance of how we can always learn something from old drawings and prints, in addition to their obvious visual appeal.

And here is Richard Borley from England, who Mary mentioned in her post above.

Richard Borley's Message

"Hello. I have just come across your blog when I was looking for information on Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Peacocke of the Third Regiment of Foot and who got married in Bath, Somerset, UK on 11th June 1808 to Louisa Tottenham (Ponsonby).

I have a portrait miniature of Stephen which is by George Chinnery (celebrated artist of various locations in India before he skipped leaving large debts and went on to Macau where he spent 35 years and also ran up huge debts.) and thought to be from C1800 or so.

There is a love note from Louisa to Stephen in the back of the miniature".

That was his first message. Ho ! A Chinnery, I mean a Chinnery, miniature of the artist's father and a Love Note, of the 18th Century, at the back of the pic!! He had a hope if he thought I would let the matter rest there. I applied for more details and Mr Borley replied with a scan of the pic to boot :

"The attached is an image of a portrait miniature of Lt-Col. Stephen Peacocke painted by George Chinnery around late 1779/1800. Certainly it was painted before Chinnery went off to Madras in 1802 and then Calcutta in 1807. Chinnery amassed huge debts in India and left hurridly in 1825 for Macau where he also ran up debts of some magnitude.....but he was a superb artist if an erratic human being!.

Inscribed on the back of the miniature is:-

"My beloved, my adored, Stephen, my idolised and matchless husband, married June 11th, 1808. Louisa Peacock"

As far as I am aware Stephen Peacocke, unlike his son, never went to India but he was involved in the Peninsula War in Europe".

Wonderful news!! It made my day to be able to see what, to me, sight unseen (except digitally as it were), and though as Borley says this artist rarely signed his works, looks every inch a Chinnery. What a lovely, informal study of the callow young subaltern in his Guards uniform! There is the unmistakeable stamp, and more, the skill and the appeal of Chinnery all over it.

And Richard Borley didn't stop there, he wrote :

"Are you interested in William Makepeace Thackeray? I have a portrait miniature ,also by Chinnery also from his time in India, showing his mother Anne and William as a young baby. A beautiful image of a complex time in the family in India".

"The Chinnery of Ann Thackaray, who came from and Anglo-Indian family, and William appears to be painted when the child was about 2. I think this was in Madras. His father died when he was 4 or so and he was then shipped off to England. His mother remained in India and very shortly married a lover from before her marriage.

Whilst the miniature is not signed, Chinnery signed very little, the accuracy of the miniature and style is confirmed by a known full painting of Ann by Chinnery".

Oooh!! Isn't this the Chinnery to beat all Chinnerys? I would rank it on a par with the Chinnery of the Kirkpatrick children, Kitty and William (see earlier post on George Chinnery's Kitty K) if not higher. A truly great informal study of an exuberant and youthful mom and her child, the famous author to be. And a Madras connection to boot!!

I have reason to be really thankful to Richard Borley, who seems to be a serious collector and is certainly someone I should get to know better as we do have some common imterests. I should also apologise to him for, while he graciously gave me permission to publish his messages and the Peacocke miniature, I have published the Thackeray miniature without requesting his specific permission, hoping he will not mind. Thank you Mr Borley, you also very kindly let Mary and me have the Peacocke scan, I will be writing to you soon.

Nick Balmer's Message

Finally, this from Nick Balmer, who I have mentioned in the first Ooty post :

"Hello VN.

I enjoyed reading your post about Ooty very much. Do you know the date
of the engraving?

It appears that it must be quite an early one in Ooty's development.

My 4 x great uncle arrived there on the 13th of June 1823. He had left
Calicut on the 5th of June. This is the final part of his account.

I can trace the earlier bits of his route using 1953 maps and Google
Earth quite easily. I would love to trek this again, but I don't
suppose it would be terribly politically correct these days to use a
Palanquin as he appears to have done.

Regards

Nick Balmer

Nick's 3 x great uncle was Thomas Baber, an East India Company official known for his fair and high minded conduct. At the time Baber's account, below was written he was Collector of Calicut in Kerala, to the west of Ooty. More on Thomas Baber can be gleaned from Nick's blog Malabar Days.

Page 316.

I encamped for the night , on account of my bearers and coolies, who
suffered more this, than any preceding day's journey, in consequence
of heavy rain and bleak winds. From this river to Ottakamund the
distance is about ten miles, from the most part over downs more level
than those on the western side of the river. The whole face of the
country between Neddibett and Ottakamund is decked with the richest
verdure, and watered by rivulets and springs in every direction,
interspersed with patches of jungle in deep glens and vallies. The
productions of these hills are totally different from the lowlands.
Here are white dog-rose, honeysuckle, jasmine, marigolds, balsams,
with out number (tomentosa), hill gooseberry, wild strawberry, Brazil
cherries, viotlet-raspberries (red and white), &c. &c. Many parts are
literally covered with ferns and lichens in great variety. The
climate is most grateful to an European in health, and reminds one
more of his native air than any part of India I have visited.
Arrived at Ottakamund on the 13th of June, where I met with a most
hospitable reception from Mr. John Sullivan, the principle collector
of Coimbatore.

Pages 310-316, Journal of a Route to the Neelghurries from Calicut,
Asiatic Journal (New Series) III".

There we are. I must now reluctantly turn away from Peacocke's Ooty as we have to look at the founding of Madras, besides which there are the etchings of Balthazar Solvyns demanding attention as well as what Benjamin Robins was upto in Fort St George, Madras in the mid 18th Century. And where is Swati Shresth (see post on the Madras Hunt Map) and her promised post? I have to remind her. More work to do.

Ooty Preserved : A Footnote or Codicil

2009-01-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

There were a few appreciative comments on the Ooty Peacocke post within a short time of its issue in the blog. The most interesting of them is one from Swapna, saying : "Lovely to read your post on the Peacocke prints.

The entire set of 16 are part of the Raj Bhavan art collection in Ooty, which I had the privilege to view two months ago. But the prints there are black and white - no tints added!"

Very true and very much to the point. It feels good to know that there are some like Swapna who do go through some of the posts in this blog with interest. Thank you Swapna.

Rather than merely post a reply to the comment, I publish below, as a sort of epilogue to the post, my responses to Swapna. Because, she has been very perceptive in noting the state of the Govt House, Ooty lithos and the point she makes is important enough to justify this codicil. Here is my guess or explanation about the black and white lithos : "Thanks, I too had noticed that the Govt House lithos appear, repeat appear, to be in black and white state. My explanation, or guessplanation, for it is that : a) these might be "first proof" pulls from the press, i.e printed from only the master or key stone which is inked only in black and b), if so they were probably presented by the artist to the Governor of Madras (Govt House, Ooty being very much on the map by the 1840's). Or it may be that c) the tints have simply faded over time, because there is a suggestion of a tint in at least some of them. Unless one can examine one of the lithos, out of the frame, in the hand, in good light and with a magnifier it is hard to tell. In any case, a tint is only a very light overlay given on the paper to provide the image with an overall tonal wash, as it were.

FYI, a "first proof" is an artist's proof to decide whether the engraved or lithographed image is good for printing or if the master stone or plate needs to be touched up further. As such, a first proof would usually have the artist's remarks in pencil about the touch-ups needed. The Ooty lithos do not but it would have been an easy matter for Peacocke to get an extra set of the first proofs, sort of artist's perk you see, and present it to the Governor. This also presupposes that Peacocke, who was back in England in 1847 when the lithos were issued, and the Marquiss of Tweeddale, the Madras Governor of the day, knew each other (else there is some other explanation for the provenance of the Govt House lithos which, of course, I can not know of). Hence, guessplanation.

I, on purpose, did not mention the Govt House lithos in the first blog post. Because, the explanation would have been technical, that is to say dull, and in any case I can only guess about their seeming black and white state. I did manage, on the quiet, to get a decent shot of one of the Govt House lithos which I put below in all its stark, first proof state of grace". I leave it to you to judge for yourselves if faint fawn and grey tints are apparent in some parts of the image or not".

View at Ootacamund, Neilgherries

Ooty Preserved : The Sunlit Hillscapes of Capt Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke

2009-01-27T01:15:00.000-08:00

This is looking to be a somewhat convoluted post, so I had better begin at the beginning. In 1999 a Bombay antiques and prints dealer and a good friend of many years, offered me nine lithographs of Views in the Neilgherry Hills by Captain Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke - nine out of a set of sixteen. The Neilgherrys are today's Nilgiris or the Ooty (Ootacamund) Hills in the western ghats of South India.

I had long wanted to get hold of these Peacocke views because they rarely come on the market and counted myself lucky to get as many as nine at the same time. A few months later the same dealer offered me the remaining seven as well (they came from a full set of sixteen owned by a keen collector known to me who was disposing of the entire set for whatever reason). I, most reluctantly, passed on that very thoughtful offer having in mind resultant, possible wifely criticism (I had splurged recently on a few other things , so discretion was the better part of valour). But accountability for one's actions is an occupational hazard, it is a recurrent but manageable situation in almost everyone's life, so it was a big mistake to have passed up the seven Peacockes.

View Near Hullikkul, Koondahs

Tinted Lithos : Some Tedious Background

My nine prints are tinted lithographs with added hand colouring. What is a tinted lithograph or, for that matter, what is a lithograph? Most of us know that a lithographed image is drawn on stone, in reverse so that, when printed, the picture will have the intended orientation. Drawing on stone or preparing a stone plate is based on the principle that grease and water are mutually repellant. So the stone is wetted, the image is drawn in greasy ink and, after further preparation for highlights, shade and so on, made ready for printing. Sounds simple but it is a complex chemical process and also requires great skill on the part of the lithographer to work up the stone, after the outline is drawn, to produce the right effect in the printed image (as I hope to show below). But many artists appreciated the freedom that the litho stone gave them to draw freehand (whereas a copper or steel plate would need engraving skills which most artists did not possess).And the lithographer would then take over the job of working up the stone to produce the depth and highlights required in the picture. Some highly skilled lithographers also themselves drew or rendered the artist's picture on stone, under the supervision of the artist.

And a tinted litho? Well, it was realised quite soon after the advent of lithography that the use of two or more stones could help achieve a basic tint or colour wash to the image as opposed to a black or sepia image printed with only one stone. So, a master stone or key stone was prepared in the way described above and one or two additional stones of the image prepared by a process of litho transfer which is a way of tracing direct from the master stone and transferring the trace to another stone. Now, the master stone is used to print the outline and other details of the total image in black and the second and / or third stones used to apply the tint or wash, usually grey and fawn, in those portions of the image where the respective colour wash is required. And the effect in the printed picture is of a basic watercolour wash.

My nine Peacocke lithos are tinted ones but with minimal hand colouring added after printing. It is easy to make out that they are tinted because the grey and fawn washes are apparent. And, if you look closely at the bottom left and right corners of the pics, you can see minute pinholes at each end. This was done to achieve register when printing from multiple stones, that is to ensure that the colour washes did not spill over into unwanted areas of the image. The pins held each stone in correctly aligned position in relation to the master stone from which the outline was first printed. So much for tinted lithos from someone who has never pulled a print in his life let alone drawn on stone.

Travellers' Bungalow, Sispara

The Peacocke Lithos

There are two stand-out features in all the Peacocke drawings. Firstly the play of sunlight in the background whence comes the Sunlit Hillscapes of the title to this post. The soft but brilliant glow of the light in our South Indian hills is beautifully captured by the artist in each of the drawings, see for yourself. The lithographer, Paul Gauci, also had a lot to do with this but we will deal with that later.

View from the Upper Bungalow, Coonoor

And, secondly, the topographic representation is very lifelike. The elevations, the distant houses are all in proportion and scale. Enlarge any pic here by clicking on it and this will be apparent - the distant houses, the scale and the depth, there is drama in Peacocke's topography. I think he was trained in surveying in the army and used this training to telling effect in his Neilgherry views.

Now, have a look at this one below. It is of the Bearers' Godown at the Avalanche, Koondah. An avalanche fell at this place in about 1830 and hence the name :

Bearers' Godown at the Avalanche, Koondahs

Note the distant saddle of the hill to the right and the figures going up a track, with a palanquin in the procession. Also the play of sunlight and shadow on the hill to the right. The following description of this particular view is from the book "India Observed" by Mildred Archer and Ronald Lightbown (London 1982) :

"Peacocke, Major Stephen Ponsonby (fl. 1835 - 55)

Peacocke joined the 25th Foot (King's Own Borderers) as an Ensign on 25 October 1833. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 15 September 1837 and Captain 23 August 1839. In 1853 he was promoted to Major but by 1854 -55 he appears on the retired list.

.... from Views in the Neilgherry and Koondah Ranges, Western Ghats, Madras, and about the stations of Ootacamund and Coonoor and the Segoor, Koondah snd Coonoor Passes published by Paul Gauci, 9, North Crescent, Bedford Square, May 1847.

Coloured lithography.

Peacocke's lithographs reflect the .... romantic escape from the plains. The .... print shows a halting place on the journey up to Ootacamund .... A party can be seen continuimg the journey by palanquin".

A brief interlude into jargon : Coloured lithography refers to a hand coloured litho, be it an ordinary litho or a tinted one. And a colour lithograph, by contrast, is one printed in colours whether with subsequent hand colouring or no.

The Avalanche

Mary Winter (a Peacocke descendant)

What I knew of the artist is that he was in India in the 1830's with his regiment the King's Own Borderers and that he was in Ooty at some time during this period convalescing from an illness. That is when he drew these stunning hillscapes which were published as lithographs in London in 1847. I knew that much, nothing more.

A View of the Low Country & Coonoor Pass

But since establishing contact with Mary Winter (nee Peacocke), of Napier, New Zealand, some six months back I have gathered a lot more - the year of his birth, his family background, what he did in later life and even what he looked like. For all of which my sincere thanks to Mary, 3 x great granddaughter of our Stephen and the one to keep the Peacocke flag flying high.

There were only two or three ways to find out more about Stephen Peacocke and I tried some of them. One way is to infest the British Library (Oriental & India Office Collections) when I visit the UK but there is scarcely time for that during those visits, especially considering the bureaucracy involved at the BL, reading tickets, prior requests and appointments and so on. So that was out, though, as there probably is so much to find out at the BL, I think I will ask Nick Balmer who does manage to visit the BL often to do a service for me. I considered writing to the regiment, now known as the King's Own Scottish Borderers, but never got around to it. I did find out from the East India Army list that Peacocke had already retired by 1854 - 55. So that left the internet option of Boolean and algorithmic Googling.

I left a note on a genealogy website which had posted some desultory exchanges, none of them from a Peacocke, on Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke's descendants. Almost a year later there was a breathless message from Mary Winter saying she was born a Peacocke and could she have scans of the lithos please. Then followed a lively and brisk exchange, I sent the scans, Mary sent me a pic of Col Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke, taken in later life (about 1857 says Mary), which you can see alongside. So, that is our man though I was a little disappointed that the picture was not of the young subaltern in the Neilgherrys but a later pic. That is no fault of Mary's and in any case there was no photography in the 1830's.

This was Mary's response on seeing the scans : "I got them all - WOW!!! they are beautiful, I can't believe Stephen drew those!!!
The colours are exquisite too, I feel like I am looking at picture of someone's thought, they are so delicate yet very detailed. My favourite is, Bearers' Godown at the Avalanche, Koondah.
I am blown away, I cannot thank you enough. .... .... I really am speechless!!!!!!".

Blood may be thicker than water but, since we know that water and grease do not mix in lithography, Mary is right of course. These are outstanding pictures no doubt. Next, it was my turn to be surprised. Because Mary sent me a book, all the way from Napier, which was "the Peacocke Family in New Zealand" published in about 1980. The book is replete with old family photographs including those of Stephen Peacocke and of the family house "Hawthornden". It is a detailed account of Stepehen Peacocke's life after his emigration to New Zealand in 1858 and of his descendants.

Capt (later, Col) Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke

From the book Mary gave me, I gleaned that Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke had been born in 1813, the first child of Stephen Peacocke, an officer in the Scots Fusilier Guards, and his wife Louisa. The family was of the officer class with close connections to the landed gentry. In 1833, the 19 year old Stephen joined the 25th Foot as an Ensign. This was not a posh regiment like Peacocke Senior's Scots Guards but he got the chance to serve with a detachment of the 25th Foot (later King's Own Scottish Borderers) in India. It is not clear when and for how long Stephen Peacocke was in India but I think it was in the 1830's, possibly the mid to late 30's (I am hoping that Nick Balmer may, one day, be able to ferret out the details for me from the British Library). He was married in England in 1837 to Isabella Brydges, the daughter of a Baronet, this must have been during a furlough back to England.

View of Coonoor from the Ootah Road

The views must have been done between 1835 - 40 though published much later, in 1847. And we already know that he made Major in 1853 but quit the army a year or two later. After a spell in Madeira, Stephen Peacocke emigrated to New Zealand in 1858 and founded the lineage that is still going strong in both New Zealand and Australia. Stepehen Peacocke did attain to the rank of Lt Colonel in the Auckland Militia and died in 1872.

Peacocke's Neilgherrys

The Nilgiris or Blue Mountains of the Western Ghats remained largely unknown and unexplored until about 1812, when two Englishmen form the Civil Service in nearby Coimbatore went up the hills and returned with accounts of rolling downs and a bracing climate. The Collector of the district, Sullivan, then took matters into hand and the settlement of the hills began in earnest in no time. By 1835 or 40, Ootacamund or Ooty, the principal station at 8000 feet, was well established, with a Governor's Lodge, the Commander in Chief's House and so on including a church, St Stephen's. Another artist was there in Ooty, may be a few years before Peacocke for his views were published as aquatints in 1837.This was Richard Barron, also an army officer, but not an artist in the class of our Stephen. Nevertheless, here are three of his naive but brightly coloured views - the second is from the BL archives, the other two are with me, of which the third is Barron's famous study of the Todas, a tribe of pastoralists and the original inhabitants of the Neilgherrys for a millennium or longer. (Just so that the difference in class between Barron and Peacocke is clear, I have put below the three Peacocke's own study of the Todas):

A General View of Ootacamund : Richard Barron

View from the Lake : Richard Barron

Taken at Kandelmund : Richard Barron

Todas Munds (Huts) & Todas : Peacocke

Other settlements and stations soon followed, all within 10 or 12 miles from Ooty, firstly Coonoor, then the barracks at Wellington and then Kotagiri. But the landscape of today's Nilgiris is much changed from the Neilgherrys of Barron's and Peacocke's times. The hills still look green and refreshingly cool but about half of the landscape is the emerald green of tea or the dark green of coffee. And then the urbanisation and the tourist litter. But, if you can get out of Ooty and Coonoor, there are still the rolling downs, pockets of rain forest, waterfalls and a big game reserve.

There are a number of period books on the Nilgiris in the Internet Archives but the best is one that is not in that collection. It is "Ooty Preserved" by Molly Panter-Downes, whence comes the first part of the title to this post. It is a short little book written in 1967 and leads you forward in time from 1800 to 1965. The Brits staying on in Ooty post independence, the changes post 1947, the early history, the church, the club, the hunt, the local gentry are all described engrossingly. The book is hard to find but I hope the visuals of Peacocke and Barron in this post will compensate for that.

Mary Winter's K / O Punch

Mary wrote again : "I tracked down the drawings I remember seeing as a child, my Aunty gave my sister, brother and I some each - but my brother took them all when he went to America in the late 70's. I asked him to email them to me and lo and behold some are of the lithos you sent me. Unfortunately they are not the originals!!!! Thought you may like to see them".

And later : "these are the same as yours except they either arn't coloured or they have faded badly - I will try and track down some more of his drawings, he can't have just stopped drawing when he left India".

Ho ! That is interesting. And gratifying. As I wrote to her : "Mary : Well done, very well done, brilliant, in fact superlatives aren't sufficient to describe your pursuit of your ancestor's drawings. You seem to have in your family, if I am counting right, 14 of the 16 Ooty views of Peacocke. And between what I sent you and the ones you dug out, we have all the 16. Also,I can take some of the credit for I helped jog your memory about the pics your Aunt gave you and your siblings a long time back, else you wouldn't have remembered them any time soon, right?!Actually I am delighted, for your sake, that many of the lithos are heirlooms in your own family and, for my sake, that I can claim a small share (of the credit, not of the lithos) in reminding you of something that must be priceless for you .... I hope you hijack as many pics as possible from your brother for you, after all, are the one who keeps the Peacocke flag flying!"

General View of Ootacamund (per kind favour of Mary Winter)

Mary thought these are not originals and, though not examined in the hand by me, I am perfectly sure they are and have assured her so. Mary's lithos are in their original, tinted state before hand colouring, exactly as they came off the press. You can see the dark grey, almost greenish, and fawn washes from the tinted stones. I was quite surprised by this as I had thought until then that all the Peacocke tinted lithos were issued hand coloured. That could still be the case and, if so, what Mary Winter has could be the first state i.e tinted but uncoloured, a sort of artist's proof before hand colouring. In that case, they are more valuable than the other versions but there is no indication, by way of notes or signature, that they are proofs. The most likely explanation could be that the publisher let Peacocke have a few copies before addition of hand colouring, a sort of artist's perk. And hand colouring of course added to the cost of the lithos, so Peacocke may have just kept one or more tinted sets.

Here are three or four more dramatic views, better than those with me, from Mary Winter's collection :

Mr Grove's House, Waterfall, Kaitie

View Over the Native Village, Coonoor, Looking Towards Ootacamund (from Mary Winter's Set)

Waterfall from Bungalow at Colhutty (from Mary Winter's Set)

Roadcut Between Coonoor & Ootacamund (from Mary Winter's Set)

View at Ootacamund, Neilgherries (Mary Winter's set)

Paul Gauci, the Lithographer

If you go back to the Barrons and the hand coloured Peacocke's above, you will see that there is a veritable splash of colour in all the Barron drawings. I think hand coluring was used liberally to make up for the obvious shortcomings in Barron's views : the lack of perspective and depth, the amateurish sketching of the hills and the treetops which look like broccoli heaped together. And the engraver has succeeded to a large extent in his purpose.

The Peacocke lithos, on the other hand, are in subdued colours, mostly fawn and dark green, or various shades of the two. In fact the hand colouring in these lithos is minimal and confined to the objects in the foreground - a little colour added to the clothing or some green to the grass in the foreground. So, the pictures convey accurately the impression of how our South Indian hills look. That is, a sort of overall dark green, relieved by some light green and, above all else, the soft but dazzling light that reflects from the distant hills (I should know, having managed a coffee estate in the hills for the last 8 years and lived there onsite from 2000 to 2005).

The skills of Peacocke, the artist, are evident but less so are the skills Paul Gauci brought to preparing the stones. He had to get the depth and dimension true to the original Peacocke drawing and ensure that the highlights, specially the sunlit hills in the background, are captured in the stone and the litho. This must have involved scraping and smoothing of those parts of the stone and the extent of smothing had to be judged to a nicety. Paul Gauci was a Maltese, running a litho press in London with his father, Maxime, and brother, William. The firm was among the leading lithographers of the day, ranking with Hullmandel and Day & Son. Moreover Pual Gauci was a trained artist and surveyor and all his training and experience seem to have gone into the preparation of the stone plate.

View in the Koondahs, near Sispara (Mary Winter's set)

The Peacocke Reunion 2009

The last Peacocke reunion in the antipodes was nearly thirty years back, Mary tells me. But there is one slated for this year and this post is written as much for Mary Winter and for the forthcoming Peacocke reunion as for this blog.

View in the Hills, Hullikkul

Mary has invited me to the reunion, promising that I will be made an honorary Peacocke if I do go. Napier, NZ is the Art Deco capital of the world but it is a long way from Madras . But, who knows, if I show up in Napier the collective might of the Peacockes might wangle for me the key to the city! I think I will "volunteer".

The Madras Hunt Map 1911 & 1913 or How Green Was My Neck of the Woods

2008-12-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I acquired, quite by chance, the Madras Hunt Map of 1911 & 1913. It is a big map, some three and a half by two feet and is drawn on a generous scale of two inches to the mile. The scale is thus better than most Ordnance Survey maps issued in the UK. Being a hunt map it is mounted on linen backing and dissected, i.e cut into rectangular strips to fit the folds of the linen backing. The folded map has an integral cloth case and is thus a pocket map for use in the field.

The Map

There are some other interesting features about this map. It was printed at the Govt Survey Office, Madras, the map having been drawn by a government surveyor and issued by the Survey. It must be very unusual for a hunt club map to be officially produced in this way and the explanation must be that many senior civil servants of the Madras Government were active members of the Madras Hunt Club. Still, it shows the privilege that goes with seniority, something that is not available to low men on the totem pole. I have a good idea who in the Government got the Survey to bring out the Hunt Map, as you will see below.

Next, the map was printed in only 50 copies in each of its two editions (mine being the latter one). This is not surprising as the hunt club was exclusive and limited in its membership.

The map is printed as a helio zincograph. That is to say, it is a sort of photogravure from which a print or a lithograph is made. A faithful trace of the original map is made and the traced outline is laid on a plate of zinc on which a bed of light sensitive gelatin has been applied. When exposed to light, the gelatin beneath the blank areas of the trace will harden while remaining soft under the outlines and the text of the map. In this way an etched outline of the map is transferred to the plate which can then be made ready for inking, printing and so on. The process is a zincograph because zinc plates were preferred for this purpose as touch-ups, corrections or highlights could be easily added to the zinc plate by hand in case the image transfer or light exposure was less than perfect. And helio, of course stands for light.

Zinc plates prepared in this way are printed off as lithographs. The interesting thing, again, is that the map is a tinted lithograph or, more properly, a colour lithograph. Multiple zinc plates were prepared, one for each colour and there are at least four colours in this map, so three or four plates must have been used. And the printing has perfect register, which means that there is no overlap of one colour into the domain of another even when printing from a series of separate plates. Nothing really special about all that since many helio zincographed maps from 1850 odd were printed thus. But this map was printed in the Madras of 1911 which is what makes me swell with pride!

Madras As It Was in 1911

The really singular thing that struck me about this map was its value as a record of landscape history - the open aspect of Madras in 1911, the number of water bodies, coconut, banana and casuarina gardens and paddy fields. There were bush and bramble, woody patches, hillocks and wide open fields and that is how it came to be an ideal terrain to hunt the jackal and the silver haired fox. The map, being doubtless based on a cadastral survey, has legends for all the landmarks, water bodies, gardens and cart tracks. Many landmarks are sign posted as also long forgotten monuments and houses of people prominent then. The extent and number of water bodies in the 12 x 20 mile area of the map is remarkable for a city that is now known for its shortage of potable water.

The number of Shrotrium gramams or villages is also remarkable. The Shrotrium was a type of privileged land grant made mostly between 800 to 1500 A.D by Hindu rulers to Brahmins. Shrotrium means learned in the scriptures and Shrotrium grants of entire villages were awarded in perpetuity to the Brahmins rent free. Thus Tiruvanmiyur, Tiruvottiyur and other well known suburbs of Madras were all Shrotriums. The Madras Estates Act of 1945 did away with Shrotrium rights and the Govt resumed the lands, thus bringing to an end a thousand years and more of privileged land holdings peaceably enjoyed. Be that as it may, the Madras of 1911, with its water bodies, paddy fields and Shrotriums detailed in the map, must have been a truly pastoral country.

The Madras Hunt

The Madras Hunt is the oldest of the British Hunts in India. Says Somerset Playne in his Southern India published 1914 : "Hunting in Madras is a sport of some antiquity. No detailed records of the Madras Hunt exist prior to 1868, but the hunting of the jackal has apparently been carried on from a very remote date, the earliest record available being a letter dated 1776 from a gentleman then resident in Madras to his relatives at home on behalf of the then so called "Madras Hunting Society", asking them to try and arrange for a yearly draft of twenty couples of hounds to keep up the local pack. It may be presumed that the Madras Hunt is entitled to the distinction of being the first hunt established in India. Hounds are out two days a week and the jackal is the quarry hunted. The small Indian silver fox is occasionally found, but it usually affords little sport, as he leaves very little scent. Jackals are plentiful, and there is seldom much difficulty in finding at once, a point of some importance, as hounds throw off at daylight, about six o'clock, and hunting men have to be at their offices some four hours later. This does not leave much time, so that a quick find is indispensable.

The country hunted is not an ideal one, as it lies to the south and west of the city of Madras, and is very soft and often very false at the commencement of the season when the north-east monsoon is prevalent. The paddy fields, which are flooded with water, are deep in mire, and treacherous ground causes a lot of unseating of riders. The ground gradually dries up, until about the end of the season, February or March, it is nearly as hard as the high road, and dust is flying. It, however, usually carries a good scent, but its greatest drawback is the prickly pear, which is found nearly everywhere, and is very sore on hounds and horses. There is practically no fencing beyond an occasional "double bund". The coverts are large and very strong; almost everything that grows has thorns on it; and it is a tribute to the dash of the foxhound that he will face it at all. The "wild jack", as hunted in Madras is, contrary to usual conviction, by no means an unworthy substitute for the fox, and he usually takes a lot of bringing to hand".

In fact H.H.Dodwell in his The Nabobs of Madras, published in 1926, traces the existence of the Madras Hunt in 1751, citing a case concerning a horse that Governor Pigot rode ina "fox chase" in that year.

What Do We Know of the Madras Hunt

I am sorry to have to say that little or no archival material relating to this premier hunt club in India survives today. All the records and proceedings of the Madras Hunt Club, including much visual material, were held by the Adyar Club which, in the 60's, merged with the Madras Club. And S.Muthiah, who has been digging deep into the local history of Madras for the last two decades, tells me that the worthies directing the affairs of the Madras Club decided to junk all, I mean all, of the hunt club records and that was the end of that. I guess they decided that there was not enough room in the club library to house all the pulp fiction they were buying up. Surely this is what is meant by "exchanging a priceless heritage for a mess of potage".

At the risk of a digression and worse, of swanking online, I am tempted to quote the following passage from the Tempest because it seems relevant in context :

Miranda :

Abhorred slave
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill. I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or another. When thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
With words that made them known. ....

Caliban :

You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

So much for how well we learnt club traditions from the British!

So, what do we know of the Madras Hunt, besides the fact that it was the oldest British hunt in India, the only one to have a hunt map issued and the one whose papers are irretrievably lost?

The Hunt Club met twice a week in the season, which was about November to March. Whilst hounds were imported from England in the early years, they did not adjust well to the hot weather and so began a collaboration with the Ootacamund Hunt, established in 1844, and the beasts were sent off to the cooler climes of the Nilgiri hills for the summer. There were also attempts at cross breeding the English hounds with the native Poligar hounds, hardy beasts which were entirely at home in Madras conditions. I have also included above a picture of the Assembly Rooms at the Madras Race Course draawn by the Daniells in about 1790 odd. Hunt meetings of the Madras Hunt Clubinvariably started at this spot before gallivanting off in pursuit of its quarry.

Besides the jackal and the silver fox, the hunt sometimes also went after the wild boar, a more exciting and dangerous sport. I have two visuals of a Wild Boar Hunt here, the first being "Beating for A Boar" by Hnery Alken and the second, "Hog Hunting : the Find" by John Platt, neither of them being mine but filched from an online site :

We know the Madras Hunt was in existence as early as 1750 but when did it fold up? By about 1925 hunting activity was on a reduced scale, given the changing urban scape of Madras. Anyhow, of the twelve hunt clubs extant in India before partition, namely Delhi, Meerut, Nerbudda Vale, Jaora, Poona, Bombay, Bangalore, Ooty, Madras, Peshawar, Lahore and Quetta, only a few had survived by the early 1950's. These were the Bombay - Kirkee (an amalgamation of the Bombay and Poona clubs), Meerut and Ooty. So, the Madras Hunt was not one among the survivors.

So, who got the Govt of Madras to publish the hunt map? Top of my list of suspects is Sir Arthur Lawley (1860 - 1932), later 6th Baron Wenlock. He was Governor of Madras in 1906 - 11 but seems to have had a prior stint in Ootacamund as Captain Lawley of the Hussars. During this period in Ooty ( about 1891 - 95, which coincided with the Governorship of his elder brother, the 3rd Baron) he held the Mastership of the Ootacamund Hunt, which he did a lot to revive. In fact, the Wenlock Downs in Ooty, a 40 square mile area ideal for jackal hunting, is named after him. (It was said of the Wenlock Downs by Sir Frederick Price that the life of the jackal within this space is : "as that of the Grand Lama, except for the high privilege of dying in the course of nature or by the jaws of a pack of fox hounds").

I think we have established the motive and all that remains to be said is that he was Governor at the period of the crime : remember the first printing of the hunt map, it was 1911. I don't think a mere Chief Secretary to the Government, high placed though that office is in the civil service ranks, would have been able to pull it off but a Governor was quite a satrap within his province. It would have been an easy matter for Sir Arthur Lawley to have oredered the printng of the map. My case rests there.

I will be adding more visuals from my collection of field sport engravings in a post on this topic to be written by Swati. I am also hoping Swati will tell us exactly when women joined up in the meets of the Madras Hunt. It should have been post 1850 or even as late as the final decades of the 19th Century. Military men were certainly part of the hunt meets even though the civilians dominated the membership rolls. Being billeted from time to time in different parts of the country, the soldiers appear to have had membership rights to the Hunt Clubs wherever they went. Swati doesn't think so but I will let her explain why in her forthcoming post.

Enter Swati Shresth (not to Forget Nick Balmer)

Whatever I have said above was already known to me when I acquired the Madras Hunt Map. In ferreting around for more info, it was suggested to me by Theodore Baskaran, a keen wildlifer among other things and a longtime friend, that I contact Swati Shresth. When she met Baskaran a few years ago, Swati was a graduate student at Jawaharlal Nehru Univ in Delhi and working on hunting in British India. But the last five years and more she is enrolled at Duke Univ in the U.S working towards her Ph. D on Hunting in the Madras Presidency in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Just the person I needed, there could be none more qualified to report on the topic.

On e-mail contact, Swati was gracious enough to agree to do a post on the topic for me in this blog but went on to explain that she was, just then, on her way to London to look up archival material in the British Library. But so was I going to be in England at the same time and we lost no time in setting up a meeting at the library itself. I roped in Nick Balmer whose blog "Malabar Days" is one that I keenly follow. We spent an engrossing four hours on a Saturday morning at the British Library and here are a couple of pics I took of Swati and Nick :

Nick Balmer is keen as mustard about a number of things, the time his three ancestors spent in India, gunpowder, guns and hunting in British India. I always talk nineteen to the dozen on at least some of these topics, so young Swati and us fogeys had plenty to discuss. The upshot is that Nick will be providing Swati with tons of first hand, first person accounts by his ancestors on their own hunting experiences in India and Swati will be using all of that plus her own vast store of background info to write up an interesting guest post for this blog. And I will be taking the credit. Watch this space!

Gon Out Backson, Bisy Backson

2008-12-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

No, I am not usually a very busy fellow at work, rather, I like to be on the ball and avoid the necessity to work late. But exigencies do arise and I have not been able to publish any new posts in the last four weeks or more. And there are many posts in the making, quite a few almost done. I want to be out soon with the Madras Hunt Map and then with a post on the wonderful views of the Neilgherries by Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke. Then thre is Mukund Murty returning with a Vengeance in addition to quite a few more that I have partly or mostly written.

And now I am travelling, for the next two weeks or so. Hope to catch up around or after Christmas. Meanwhile, here is a lovely litho by Stephen Peacocke, of the Bearer's Godown at the Avalanche ( a place, not a landslide) in the Neilgherry Hills of South India, drawn between 1835 - 40 and published in London 1847. One of sixteen such riveting views by this artist.

More on Peacocke and his Neilgherry views later, let me now extend to you all the compliments of the Season.

"One Touch of Adyar Changes Us Forever" : Brodie Castle from Hudleston's Garden

2008-10-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

I very well remember the date, it was October 1, 1996 in London.I had just stepped out of the hotel but remembered that I had left some papers behind in the room. When I ran up to the room the telephone was ringing . Could it be Christies calling so soon? The lady at the catalogue counter had promised to look for those two exhibition catalogues and get back. Yes, she had found the two catalogue I wanted – one of the recently held sale of Daniell Oils by the P&O Company and the second,relating to an earlier sale, the “Visions of India” exhibition of the Paul Walter collection. Moreover, she had found a copy of the 1995 Paul Walter sale catalogue as well.

I had appointments to keep but Christies was round the corner from my hotel. Moreover, one could keep appointments all one’s life but never again find these catalogues (there was no E-bay then, I think). So, to Christie’s I went first, thanked the lady and pocketed the catalogues. As I was leaving, she implored me, “ don’t breathe a word about the Daniell catalogue until you leave the building, there are many people wanting one and you will start a stampede”.

Later that day, I managed to pick up “Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon” by Peter Washington, a book I had been looking for, for over a year. It is the story of the Theosophical Society at Adyar in Madras, a short distance from my permanent home. Back home in Dubai, where I was living then, I looked through the catalogues at leisure. Item No. 173 in the 1995 Paul Walter catalogue had me sitting up. It was a watercolour view of Brodie Castle in Madras and the catalogue description read :

Justinian Gantz (1802 - 62)

“View of Brodie’s Castle, from Mr Hudleston’s Garden, Madras, signed and dated ‘Just Gantz, ‘52’ (lower centre) and inscribed ‘Brodie Castle from Mr Hudleston’s Garden’ (on the reverse). Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour, unframed 10 3/8 x 16 ½ inches”.

The accompanying visual in the catalogue was only printed in monochrome.
I knew the item had been sold (it was the previous year’s catalogue) but couldn’t put the picture out of my mind. Christies were good enough to put me in touch with the successful bidder but he responded with a price that was four times his winning bid, way too high compared to my budget. The only course was to wait, there was a good chance that buyers may not offer his price as the Christie’s catalogue surprisingly gave no information about the picture except what is quoted above ( I was later to find out why). A good chance but only a chance, not a certainty and I had no option except to wait in faint hope. And I could not put the drawing out of my mind.

The Gantz Trio of Madras

Now, for someone from Madras with an interest in period drawings of the city, any drawing by one of the Gantz family, father and two sons, is rather special. Madras alone of the Indian cities had this distinction that it could boast of three fine local artists in residence over a 75 year period ( roughly 1800 - 1875). John Gantz (1772 - 1853) is thought to be of Austrian extraction and he and his two sons, Justinian (1802 -62) and Julius Walter (1816 - 75), ran a lithographic press in the city besides being extremely accomplished artists. A little digging into the history of lithography in India leads me to believe that the Gantz press was the first private, i.e commercial litho press in the country.

Drawings of the Gantzes decorate many of the posts in this blog, including this one. You can judge for yourselves the quality of their output. And let me add that Justinian and Julius Walter were both christened at St Mary's, Madras (as were all the other children of John Gantz).

Our Outings on the Adyar Flats

Brodie Castle form Hudleston’s Garden ! This is a lovely Madras view very familiar to me and one associated with many a pleasant outing to the spot with my friend Shivakumar. That is another reason I hankered after this watercolour. I have enjoyed this beautiful view on many a Saturday and Sunday morning between 1989 and 92when I lived even nearer to the Theosophical Society than I do now. Here are two visuals of the front of Brodie Castle, a photograph published by the Hindu and a beautiful contemporary etching in my collection by Bruce Peck, presumably based on the photograph.

If Madras had its Gantzes in the 19th Century, it can boast of Bruce Peck in the 20th and 21st Centuries, again a distinction that few other cities can claim. I have quite a few of his beautiful views of Madras and Kodaikanal dating from 1988 to 95. I see from his website that he went to school in our South Indian hills, still visits India annually and produces landscape etchings of Madras, the Western Ghats and of Benares.

I said I lived very near the Theosophical Society (or Theo Soc, as abbreviated in my bird notes) and most Sunday mornings would find Shivakumar and self, equipped with binocs, telescope (mine) and tripod (his), trooping into its extensive estate of nearly 300 acres on the banks of the Adyar. The idea was to do a checklist of the birds in the Theo Soc gardens and in the Adyar mudflats alongside. Oftentimes we came across Radha Burnier, the Society’s handsome President, inspecting her demesne. As we loped past, we must have looked to her a most un-theosophical minded pair of fogeys, if not downright blots on the landscape.

After a quick ramble through the Society's gardens we would move on towards the south bank of the Adyar. It was a moment's work to slip through the barbed wire and on to the relatively drier mudflats of the Adyar estuary and a couple of hours could be spent watching water birds and birds of prey. Mind you, the river is tidal at his point, being less than a Kilometre from the Bay of Bengal. So, one had to be mindful of the odd sea snake as a bite by one of these babies is always fatal(that there is no anti venom for sea snake bite makes no difference as the poison is said to kill in a very few minutes). Not there had been any reported incidents in recent times, sea snakes seldom venture inshore but still : the sea snakes were around, we are not terribly adventurous types, we only wanted to record the birds, so we had to be careful.

The bird watching on the estuary was actually a couple of hours of hard grind with little or no ease, wading around in knee deep water at times, the sharp morning sun beating down on us . But we enjoyed ourselves for there were waders by the thousands and birds of prey soaring overhead, especially the magnificent White Bellied Sea Eagle and some Harriers. And the wind in the face always gave us enthusiasm for the vigil. Above all else was the view : a sheet of water with the rivermouth and the Bay of Bengal to the right, Chettinad Palace, a Rajah's palace on the north bank, shimmering in the haze. Also, an unbelievable calm in the midst of an urban setting, something one can find only on the Adyar flats, with the bridge and the traffic nearly 2 KM's to the left. George Arundale, a past president of Theo Soc who no doubt had enjoyed this view, wrote : "One touch of Adyar changes us forever ". By Adyar, he surely meant the Society but I always thought those words equally described this riverine idyll.

Looking across the river, Brodie Castle is the first landmark to the left followed, to the right, by a temple, the Chettinad Palace, the Quibble Island Cemetery and so on with the view merging inot the distant Forshore Estate, an old housing development.

The House that James Brodie Built

James Brodie was a civil servant of the East India Company in Madras from the year 1784 and was Garrison Storekeeper in about 1800. In 1796 the Company gave him a grant of 11 acres of land on the North Bank of the Adyar river on which he quickly built himself a large house. In fact, a survey of 1798 has been found with the house marked on it. Brodie is described as : "tall and slender; with a calm and placid countenance .... wore powdered hair with a queue behind, a sky blue coat, with two or three large buttons .... in the fashion of the close of 1790 - odd". He married Miss Ann Storey in 1785 and got into some trouble with the East India Company in 1800 for trading on his own account, being asked either to resign his position with the Company or to desist from such trading.

Brodie built himself a grand, classical house with a colonnaded and pedimented portico but added a medieval or Scottish touch in the form of two castellated turrets. Brodie suffered a reversal in his fortunes sometime after the construction of the house and had to let it to a succession of civil servants. He did manage to resume the property sometime before his death by drowning in 1802. Brodie was fond of boating and the house backs on to the Adyar with steps leading down to the river. Ann Brodie apparently had a dream about her husband drowning in the river and cautioned him against going to the river. But he did and was drowned in the Adyar.

The glory days of Brodie Castle were by no means over with the death of its owner. For the next 150 years it housed the senior civil servants of Madras, the property having reverted to the Company . "Brodie Castle, the most imaginative of the merchants' palaces, with its long drawing-room jutting out into the Adyar river and catching every breeze, was occupied in 1930 by Charles Cotton, then Chief Secretary to the Madras Government, who had furnished it with a fine collection of 18th Century furniture and china made in or for South India and the Daniell brothers' paintings and prints of local scenes. .... I remember well the scene one morning as the great man, a spruce little figure in his white topee, silk suit, monocle and Old Etonian tie, emerged on the steps of the portico, while his car and attendants waited below". Thus Humphrey Trevelyan in 'The India We Left'.

The building is now in use as the College of Music and is still in good overall condition, in spite of being subjected to the TLC of the state public works crew (for example, a mini temple has been installed in the main drawing room which still catches every nuance of the Adyar breeze). An entire three KM stretch of road leading up to the castle was called Brodie's Road but was renamed i the 1960's. Happily, the final short spur or home stretch of some 200 Metres leading to the building is still called Brodie Castle Street.

Hudleston's Garden from the North Bank

Hudleston's Garden is in the Theo Soc estate on the south bank of the Adyar. John Hudleston was a civil servant of the East India Company of about the same period as Brodie and it is likely they new each other.

I found this pic from a past auction listing on the Christie's site. It is a watercolour by one F.J.Delafour of a view across the Adyar which is taken from the north bank.

The Christies notes to the listing state :
"Delafour was an artist from the circle of Justinian Gantz, eldest son of John Gantz. A signed, inscribed and dated watercolour of the same subject is now in the India Office Library, see fig. 1. The inscription reads 'West View of the Adyar River from the Terrace of the Adyar Villa. Just Gantz, Madras. 1836'.

Justinian Gantz is described in the East Indian Register as a 'Miniature Painter'. He helped his father with the family's lithographic press and specialised in making drawings of the houses of his European clients.

In the early, turbulent days of Madras, the Adyar River was the scene of many violent incidents, but by the time of the present picture it had become a tranquil and elegant suburb, as indeed it remains today. At the extreme right of the picture can be seen a part of the famous Marmalong Bridge, built by an Armenian in 1726 but now replaced by a modern bridge. The bungalow seen across the river became the home of the Theosophical Society of Madras".

Christies topographic description is wrong in that the bridge at the extreme right of the drawing is not Marmalong bridge which is at least another 4 or 5 KMs to the south west on the river's winding course (and, because of many bends in the Adyar, has never been visible from this point at any time). The bridge depicted by Delafour is the Elphinstone Bridge, also called now the Adyar bridge, which was in use till 1973 and which, though unused now, still stands. The Elphinstone Bridge in the pic was built in 1840, in the Governorship of Lord Elphinstone, so the dating for the picture, 1836, is wrong. I suspec it was drawn in 1856 but that the handwritten 5 was a bad 5 and mistaken for 3.

I was dumbstruck on seeing this listing and the picture for more reasons than one but, to understand why, you must see it in its virtual full size state so let me send you to the Christies web page of the listing. You can enlarge and zoom in then.

Firstly, was Delafour just another lazy fellow who preferred to draw from the comfort of the shade, as it would seem, or was he, in fact, trying to take the view from an unusual, remarkable perspective. The vista from the set back position of the artist is neatly bisected by one of the columns of the terrace. And, moreover Delafour from this set back, has given us a wide angle view of the river,his detailing of theforeground in no way detracting from the sweep of the Adyar and the grand setting of the houses on the south bank.

Next, I realised I was probably looking at Hudleston's Garden on the far bank. It is the building on the left, the spot from which Just Gantz had drawn his view of Brodie Castle across the river. So these two watercolours could be a matching set of views across the Adyar river, one of Brodie Castle and the other of Hudleston's Garden.

I was actually in London on the 22nd May, 2008, the date of the Christies auction. It was an extended visit of 8 weeks from the middle of April, the company I work for was getting listed on the London Stock Exchange and the listing came through by the end of May. So although I knew about the auction I had no time for it, not being able to look left or right at that juncture. In any case, I would not have been able to match the winning bid and yet .... and yet .... . I eat my heart out when I think of this picture that I can not own, a companion piece to Brodie Castle. But I compliment whoever bought it because he or she had the good sense to be able to spot a remarkable drawing. I only hope the buyer knows the background and has a Madras connection.

The Hudlestons

Of the many Hudlestons who served in Madras over two centuries plus there are three from a distinguished branch who are our men. John Hudleston (1749 - 1835) entered the Madras Civil Service in 1766 and probably knew his contemporary, James Brodie. By 1782, he was Military Secretary to the Madras Government and a member of the Council by 1790. As Military Secretary, he was instrumental in negotiating a treaty of peace with Hyder Ali in the first Mysore War and retired to England around 1800, becoming a Memeber of Parliament and a Director of the East India Company. He was the one who got a grant of the 28 acre property from the Company and most likely built the house - a garden house as the English termed such houses - as the style of the building accords with that of many others built in Madras around 1800.

John's son, Josiah Andrew (1799 - 1865), also entered the Madras Civil Service and retired as Chief Collector of Madras in 1855. Josiah Hudleston was also a famous guitar musician and composer. His son, also Josiah (1826 - 92), was a Colonel in the Madras Army and probably retired in the mid to late 1870's when the house was sold to an Indian. In 1882, Col Olcott and Madam Blavatsky, the founders of Theo Soc, bought the property from one Muthiah Pillai for a down payment of Rs 1000 with a mortgage of Rs 7500 on it which they assumed. For the full story, including intimations to Madam Balvatsky from the "Master", let me send you here. For the money they paid, what the Theosophists got was about 28 acres, the main house, a tank (which was converted to a tennis court), a swimming pool, stables and two substantial out-buildings -one, a grand octagonal house which Col Olcott took for his residence, and the other, a still more spacious structure which is used as a guest house today. As you can see, the Octagon House is washing its face at the present time (and seems to need no help in this from Shivakumar or me) .

The theosophists exulted over their acquisition. Col Olcott wrote that it is "hard to imagine our pleasure in sttling in a home of our own, where we should be free from landlords, changes, and the other worries of tenancy. Our beautiful home seemed a fairy place to us". And Madam Blavatsky : "It is simply delightful. What air we have here; what nights! And what marvellous quiet! .... I am sitting quietly writing, and now and then gaze over the ocean, sparkling all over as if a living thing really .... The moon here against the deep dark blue sky seems twice as big and ten times brighter than your European mother-of-pearl ball".

I was lucky to be able to contact David Hyde, 3 x great grandson of John Hudleston, courtesy that wonder engine, the internet and by Dave's kind permission the pics of John and Josiah Andrew Hudleston are borrowed from Joan Hyde's Scrapbook. For the full fascinating history of this family's life in New Zealand,written by Dave and his twin sister Audrey, please go to Dave Hyde's site here. The Hudleston family crest has been borrowed from here. Finding in Dave Hyde a descendant of the Huddlestons of Madras made the day for me. He has plans to visit Madras in a year's time and I am looking forward to taking him round to the Theo Soc!

Reciprocal Views of Brodie & Hudleston's : A Topographic Reconstruct

I needed to wait for the monsoon to let up a bit before I could go into Theo Soc and Brodie Castle again to shoot some of the pics here and I was able to do that today (more pics hoisted on Picasa). I hauled Shivakumar, who lives right next door to Theo Soc, out of bed bright and early this A.M and we were outside Hudleston's by half past six. There were two other reasons I wanted to visit the spots : firstly I remembered that there were two other Gantz watercolours in the British Library collection and it suddenly struck me that they might be of Brodie Castle. The BL descriptions in each case simply state "A European House in Madras" etc but I went back to the site and Bingo! they are Brodie views by Just Gantz!! The first one below is a frontal view, and the third is of the house taken from Adyar mudflats, mid river (both drawn in 1841). I have interposed the other Brodie watercolour (from Hudelston's Garden) between the two for comparison.

Simple enough but, without the British Library going to the trouble and expense of hoisting all those wonderful images online, where would I be? But there was another question that was troubling me and that is with reference to the striking watercolour view by Delafour from the north bank. I was sure the building to the left of the column was Hudleston's but I had to go to the north bank of the river to make sure. And, was the view taken from Brodie's? Bingo again! First below is the pic I took today from the first floor terrace or verandah of Brodie's and below that is the Delafour again in all its glory :

There are a couple of things to be explained : firstly, you will see that I had to cheat a bit in that I took the pic from the first floor of Brodie. Given the overgrowth and the dense treeline there wa nothing for it but to go upstairs. But Delafour took his view from the ground level terrace or verandah (in his drawing, you can make out the stockade at the river bank).

Second, you will see that the hocus-pocus or superstructure in my digicam shot, additions by the Theosophists to provide rooms for Annie Besant, is missing from the Delafour view of the 1840's. But if you can visualise the pile minus the superstructure, it is Hudleston's and the angles are about right. Here is a fuller view of Hudleston's from Brodie's across the river :

So, the Gantz of Brodie from Hudleston's and the Delafour of Hudleston (from Brodie) are reciprocal pictures of the sisters facing each other across the river. Because some important people lived in the two houses : a succession of Hudlestons in the eponymous house and, in Brodie's, a succession of senior civil servants. I am trying to find out who lived in Brodie Castle in the 1840's if the Madras Archives can dig out the details for me.

And, there are three Gantz views of Brodie Castle, reflecting its importance in 19th Century Madras, and a delectable one of Hudleston's by Delafour. I am glad I own at least one of them (yes, that Brodie watercolour by Gantz was put up for auction again at Christies, I came to know of it on 1st Oct '99, exactly 3 years to the day I first learnt of its existence and mine was the winning bid at a price below my original offer to the seller!): but I know I will never get to own the two with the Brit Lib. And what makes me eat my heart out is the Delafour because another individual has it and I don't know if it will ever come up for sale and, if it does, whether or not I can afford it!!

But I console myself that the Gantz watercolour that I have is a picture that neither the BL nor the Delafour owner will get to have. And that, being a local, I have been able to figure out what neither Christies nor BL knew about the Delafour and the Gantz drawings : why, they didn't even know which buildings those were!

The Theo Soc

In a post about the two houses, something must be said about the Theo Soc which has been using Hudleston's house for its headquarters for the last 126 years. The Society may also be expected to hold the property in perpetuity. I am totally ignorant about philosophy and theosophy but I am proud of this old society which provides us so much lung space. I am very fond of George Arundale's words about the Adyar; to quote them more fully : " Adyar touches each one of us here .... .... . While we are here we are changed, little or much. When we go away, something of Adyar goes with us, for one touch of Adyar changes us forever".

The Society, in the past, had many outstanding and colourful characters associated with it : Col Henry Steel Olcott, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, J.Krishnamurti, Rukmini Arundale. As Peter Washington demonstrates in his "Madam Blavatsky's Baboon", some were colourful rather than outstanding. There is the 'conjuring trick' phase of Madam Blavatsky's time and then there is Charles Leadbeater whose tastes, Washington reports, "ran to small boys and tapioca pudding, in that order".

Today, the Theo Soc is a highly respectable institution, almost stodgily so, a good neighbour to all of us that goes about its business quietly. Only, I suspect its memebership is not growing as it should and I am reminded of Stan Laurel's words to Oliver Hardy in the movie, Chump at Oxford : " You think they would advertise this place, to let people know it was on the map". But I am told there is a membership drive on at present.

I will always remember Col Olcott as Shivakumar and I walk about the Theo Soc's sprawling estate, watching the odd bird or the huge colony of fruit eating bats that inhabits its trees. Col Olcott's vision for the Society recalls to my mind the threnody of Mark Antony to the forum :

"Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber. He hath left them you
And to your heirs forever - Common Pleasure
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves".

The fruit bats, committed and resident theosophists that they are, would surely agree - even if one of them deposited a gooey heap on my sleeve this morning in token of its contempt at my puerile blog posts.

As I complete and publish this post on Diwali eve, I wish you all a Happy Diwali.

Curzon's Delhi Durbar 1903 & the Photorealism of Mortimer Menpes

2008-10-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

There were three Delhi Durbars, the one of 1877, then the 1903 Curzon's Durbar and lastly the 1911 Durbar. The notable thing about them is that they were all held in Delhi. British India may have been ruled from Calcutta upto the time of the 1911 Durbar, Bombay might be Kipling's urbs prima in indis and Madras the oldest of the three Presidency cities but Delhi was rightfully the imperial city. Delhi has a three thousand year history, some of its old buildings boast of a 1200 year vintage and it was the capital of the Moghul empire. In comparison the three hundred plus years old Madras, Calcutta and Bombay are mere upstarts.

The first two Durbars were not graced by the presence of the Sovereign but King George V and Queen Mary were present at the 1911 Durbar. The absence of the Sovereign notwithstanding, Curzon's Durbar seems to have been the grandest, the most colourful and entertaining, not to mention widely acclaimed.

Curzon's Durbar

The British considered a Durbar a distinctly Indian idea, exemplifying the Indian love of fanfare and ceremonial. In fact, a Durbar is no different from a Coronation or Investiture and such ceremonies are universal. For who in the world does not like a little tamasha or fanfare and ceremony with a free banquet or two thrown in. Durbars in India were traditionally held to celebrate the accession to the throne of a King or the marriage of a Prince and similar milestones. So, the 1903Durbar, held on New Year's Day, was to proclaim the accession of King Edward VII. It was intended both as a celebration and as a reinforcement of the idea of Empire and of India's place in it. We kick off with a watercolour, of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught and the Curzons astride their respective elephants, by Sheldon Williams :

Th e moving spirit behind the 1903 Durbar was the Baron Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy between 1898 - 1905. What makes Curzon's Durbar so interesting, apart from its colourful and grand pageantry, is the personality of Curzon himself. And then there is the pictorial record of the proceedings left for us by the artist Mortimer Menpes.

Curzon loved any form of public display of imperial power. Having initiated the Victoria Memorial project in Calcutta, he was not one to let go of the opportunity to grandstand once again by staging a Durbar. Extremely able and scrupulously fair minded, Curzon's chief shortcoming was to consider as a personal affront, any criticism, modification or veto of his proposals by his superiors.

So, the undercurrents were there from the beginning, two of which involved the India Office and the British Cabinet. And the third notable cause of aggravation was Curzon's handling of the 9th Lancers, a British regiment then stationed in India.

The India Office

The India Office in London had always been a body for the status quo insofar as management of Indian affairs was concerned. The Secretary of State for India was a minister in council, just as the Viceroy in India was a proconsul in council.

And the council of the India Office was made up of retired Indian Civil Service officers. They had served out their time in India, retired as Governors or Lieutenant Governors or as members of the Viceroy's council and the India Office appointments were sinecures for just such loyal and senior retired civil servants. John Maynard Keynes, the economist, worked for the India Office at the beginning of his career (1905) and left in disgust after about a year. Keynes described the functioning of the India Office council as "government by dotardry", observing of its members that "a little over half showed manifest signs of senile decay and the rest did not speak".

The British cabinet was little better. Arthur James (Bob's your Uncle) Balfour had just become Prime Minister.As Curzon watched in amazement, Balfour populated the cabinet with his cronies and schoolchums. While some of them were able men many, like St John Brodrick, were completely out of their depths in the cabinet roles they were given. Curzon knew many of the ministers, inluding Balfour, Brodrick and Lord George Hamilton at the India Office, intimately.

Curzon & the Cabinet Lock Horns

The bone of contention was firstly about a party given at the India Office to the Indian Princes or, more properly, Maharajahs who had attended the 1902 convocation of King Edward. The dotardry of the India Office council decided that the cost of this reception, about Sterling 7000, should be paid by India. Curzon protested : India had contributed handsomely towards the just concluded Boer war, the expenses of the Duke of Connaught's attendance at the Durbar were to be paid by India; so, why could the British Treasury not pay for the reception of the Maharajahs instead of foisting the charge on India?

Curzon had in mind that the Indian press, both English and vernacular, was voluble and alert to such iniquities. The Congress party could, moreover, make political capital out of such a decision. But, above all else, the Viceroy was being totally fair in insisting that India alone, of the colonies, should not be discriminated against in this way.

This protest by Curzon ruffled feathers at the India Office. The normally gentle and placid Lord George Hamilton, cabinet minister for India, took the knuckleduster out. He did not want the Viceroy's protest to go forward to the cabinet and asked that Curzon withdraw his letter. Hamilton wrote to Curzon : " the Secretary of State in Council, who has, by law, exclusive control of Indian revenues, decided, after full consideration .... ...., to incur this charge ....in my judgement the expenditure on the Delhi Durbar and the cost of the India Office ceremony stand or fall together. The greater cannot be justified by impugning the lesser. I have sanctioned both and am ready to defend both". Impugning the lesser - these guys certainly knew how to write a letter!

Curzon refused to back down. The Viceroy's council supported him fully and he wrote back that he was not questioning the authority of the Secretary of State but the fairness of asking India to pay for the entertainment, by the British government, of the Princes in London . Since the expenses of the Duke's Durbar visit would be paid by India, the inequity would be noticed and viewed unfavourably by the Indian press and nationalist circles. The protest now had to be put forward to the cabinet who were unhappy to be pressured in this way by the Viceroy. But there were no logical grounds for turning down Curzon's demand; there simply was no case for the entertainment of the Maharajahs to be passed to India. Curzon won the battle but surely lost goodwill with the cabinet.

A second run in with the cabinet was over the announcement of a fiscal relief as customary in India on the occasion of a Durbar. Curzon wanted to announce a reduction in the tax on salt. The worthies in the India Office demurred insisting that such a measure would be associated with the Sovereign as, after all, the Durbar was in his honour.

Being people who lived by precedent,they were naturally against the creation of a new one. More wrangling and acrimony with the cabinet resulted before a compromise was reached and it was agreed that Curzon, as head of government in India and without taking the King's name, would announce a promise of early fiscal relief.

The 9th Lancers

There was also the incident of the 9th Lancers : two of its soldiers had clubbed an Indian cook to death and the victim had identified them before dying. There were also some other witnesses but the matter was hushed up by the regiment without even a court martial. Curzon was livid when word of the incident reached him and wanted the culprits to be brought to book. Some 84 Indian menials, cooks, batmen etc, had been killed in this way in the previous 20 years by the British other ranks and only two of the culprits had been sentenced. Curzon, understandably, was outraged and demanded exemplary punishment.

But the regiment closed ranks and the chief of the local command, Gen Sir Bindon Blood, supported them.

In the face of this bland insistence that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, the Commander in Chief and Curzon decided to withdraw leave privileges for the entire unit for a six month period, sufficient stricture and indictment for such a proud regiment.(Curzon minuted : " if it be said that dirty linen should not be washed in public, I say'let there be no dirty linen to wash' ".) Because the 9th Lancers was a socially well connected regiment Curzon became unpopular with influential circles in England. It was also at about this time that the scheming and self seeking Kitchener was appointed, at Curzon's request, commander in chief of the army in India. From the outset, Kitchener began fishing in troubled waters and an incident like this was right up his street. He had influential connections back home and spread much calumny about Curzon's treatment of the Lancers.

It was put to Curzon that, given this background, the 9th Lancers need not be part of the review at the Durbar. But Curzon, ever magnanimous, would have none of it believing that the regiment should not be disgraced in that way.

The Coronation (aka Curzonation) Durbar

There were two weeks of festivities, parades, firework displays, banquets and balls centered around the New Yaer's Day Durbar. Curzon personally planned and oversaw the arrangements which included the rigging up of a temporary city : electric lighting, telephony, a light railway, medical services were all provided. There were luxurious, colourful tents and Maharajahs by the drove complete with retainers and campfollowers.

All this in addition to the Duke's party and the British civilians and army officers and their families, the British, Indian and Princely states regiments, elephants, camels, dancers and so on, not to mention the amorphous Indian public which was known to love a grand spectacle.

There were exhibitions of the finest handicrafts from all parts of India, sales of which actually helped recoup a good deal of the expenses of the Durbar. Modern marketing and sponsorship also arrived in India with British companies paying for the right to be the official travel agents, tent suppliers or beverage dispensers.

But I was not there and I had better let Mortimer Menpes bring you the colour and appeal of the Durbar through his eloquent pictorial record. But one incident I must mention is the one about the fox terrier which took it into its head to take centre-stage in the proceedings. On Durbar Day proper, January 1st 1903, the little fellow became so excited as the elephant mounted Curzons rode into the Durbar arena that he cut across to the dais and sat on the Viceroy's throne, barking excitedly.

But a lesser man than Curzon would have faced a greater embarrassment when the 9th Lancers marched past. In the words of Mortimer and Dorothy Menpes : "Just before the 9th Lancers passed, the atmosphere was electric. As the regiment came into view the whole stand rose and cheered itself hoarse; women waved their handkerchiefs .... men flourished their sticks and shouted bravados. .... There is no doubt about it : the fact of the Viceroy's guests standing up and cheering showed exceedingly little tact. .... this was hardly a fitting moment to give vent to their feelings. It was a distinct stab at the Viceroy .... He did what from his standpoint he knew to be absolutely right. For his own guests to choose that moment to insult him seemed hard and ungenerous". Let me add that Curzon had spent Sterling 3000 of his personal money to host these low people at the Durbar.

Mortimer Menpes

Menpes (1855 - 1938) was born in Australia, came to England when about 20 and apprenticed under James Mcneill Whistler the famous American artist who lived in England then. Menpes seems to have been a man of many parts, wrestler, cook, crack pistol shot and interior decorator besides being a highly rated artist and portrait painter. He became prosperous through his art, much of which was published in illustrated book form by A &C Black in London with text by his daughter Dorothy, and from fruit and carnation farming. Menpes also drew some criticism for not being able to draw except from photographs. This is patently untrue or at best true only so far as it goes in that he also sometimes drew from photos. A look at the chromolithographs and portraits in this post will show that at least some of them are based on photogravure. But a look at the Balfour portrait will suffice to understand that Menpes could draw freehand with ease and great skill. He was a truly outstanding artist of his time and was also one of the most innovative in that he also did draw from photographs besides being a highly proficiente etcher and engraver as well as lithographer. Menpes had his own printing press in London which produced all the prints for his illustrated books.

Menpes and Dorothy came out to India for the Durbar of 1903 and the book The Durbar, published by A & C Black, followed later that year with text by Dorothy and a hundred chromolithographs by Mortimer Menpes.

The plates were produced in the Menpes Press under the personal supervision of the artist. Menpes's Durbar drawings are perhaps one of the last instances of the handmade print or engraving making a brave last stand against the advent of photography and photo offset. Menpes is on record about his Durbar and other Indian drawings : "his wish was to capture the brilliancy of Indian sunlight, the dazzling luminosity of atmospheric effects, rather than to make studies of local colour and native types". Judge for yourselves how well he succeeded.

My favourite is this one, titled 'After the Show', a common enough scene even today in our villages and cities. It is night time and the only thing missing from the picture is the chillum pipe but one can imagine that for oneself. The conclave is evidently taking place after dinner and this is where Kipling comes in :

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;

.... .... ....
The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,
The knives were whetted and -- then came I
To Mahbub Ali, the muleteer,
Patching his bridles and counting his gear,
Crammed with the gossip of half a year.
But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,
"Better is speech when the belly is fed."
So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep
In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,
And he who never hath tasted the food,
By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,
We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.

.... ....

I bought my copy of Durbar sometime ago for well under a hundred dollars. I see copies now offered online for prices ranging from $ 500 to 2000 but there are still a very few going at about a hundred bucks. If you wish to own a copy, let me send you here to access the online version and you can decide then.

I have included a selection my favourite Durbar views of Menpes but there are more online : evocative of early 2oth Century India with a feel and immediacy for the costumes, the "brilliancy" of the dazzling Indian light, the colour and the splendid animals. There is also the ugly bear portrait of Kitchener, probably cheering the loudest when the 9th Lancers gave the eyes right to Curzon.

But this post is as much to bring to attention the highminded and fair character of Curzon, possibly the best of our Viceroys, as it is to display the images of the Durbar that Menpes has given us. The Viceroy made sure that over three hundred veterans of the Mutiny were invited to the Durbar and honoured. One of them, long bearded with sword in hand, is shown above. Menpes gave the fanciful title "Akalis Fanatical Devotee" to the picture but he is no fanatic and what is more, a brave veteran of the Mutiny who fought loyally for his British masters.

I have used throughout the pics of Menpes online at the internet archives, not wishing to break up my precious copy. In the hand the pics look even grander since the touch and feel and 'see with the real eye' are everything when it comes to colour visuals.

The Durbar excited the popular imagination in England but the incomparable Saki (H.H.Munro) brought to the proceedings his own uniquely lopsided view which is all about the Durbar and also really nothing to do with it at all. Can not resist including, as a tailpiece, this story by one of my favourite authors. Enjoy!!

THE RECESSIONAL
Clovis sat in the hottest zone but two of a Turkish bath, alternately inert in statuesque contemplation and rapidly manoeuvring a fountain-pen over the pages of a note-book.

``Don't interrupt me with your childish prattle,'' he observed to Bertie van Tahn, who had slung himself languidly into a neighbouring chair and looked conversationally inclined; ``I'm writing death-less verse.''

Bertie looked interested.

``I say, what a boon you would be to portrait painters if you really got to be notorious as a poetry writer. If they couldn't get your likeness hung in the Academy as `Clovis Sangrail, Esq., at work on his latest poem,' they could slip you in as a Study of the Nude or Orpheus descending into Jermyn Street. They always complain that modern dress handicaps them, whereas a towel and a fountain-pen---''

``It was Mrs. Packletide's suggestion that I should write this thing,'' said Clovis, ignoring the bypaths to fame that Bertie van Tahn was pointing out to him. ``You see, Loona Bimberton had a Coronation Ode accepted by the New Infancy, a paper that has been started with the idea of making the New Age seem elder and hidebound. `So clever of you, dear Loona,' the Packletide remarked when she had read it; `of course, any one could write a Coronation Ode, but no one else would have thought of doing it.' Loona protested that these things were extremely difficult to do, and gave us to understand that they were more or less the province of a gifted few. Now the Packletide has been rather decent to me in many ways, a sort of financial ambulance, you know, that carries you off the field when you're hard hit, which is a frequent occurrence with me, and I've no use whatever for Loona Bimberton, so I chipped in and said I could turn out that sort of stuff by the square yard if I gave my mind to it. Loona said I couldn't, and we got bets on, and between you and me I think the money's fairly safe. Of course, one of the conditions of the wager is that the thing has to be published in something or other, local newspapers barred; but Mrs. Packletide has endeared herself by many little acts of thoughtfulness to the editor of the Smoky Chimney, so if I can hammer out anything at all approaching the level of the usual Ode output we ought to be all right. So far I'm getting along so comfortably that I begin to be afraid that I must be one of the gifted few.''

``It's rather late in the day for a Coronation Ode, isn't it?'' said Bertie.

``Of course,'' said Clovis; ``this is going to be a Durbar Recessional, the sort of thing that you can keep by you for all time if you want to.''

``Now I understand your choice of a place to write it in,'' said Bertie van Tahn, with the air of one who has suddenly unravelled a hitherto obscure problem; ``you want to get the local temperature.''

``I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient,'' said Clovis, ``but it seems I asked too much of fate.''

Bertie van Tahn prepared to use his towel as a weapon of precision, but reflecting that he had a good deal of unprotected coast-line himself, and that Clovis was equipped with a fountain-pen as well as a towel, he relapsed pacifically into the depths of his chair.

``May one hear extracts from the immortal work?'' he asked. ``I promise that nothing that I hear now shall prejudice me against borrowing a copy of the Smoky Chimney at the right moment.''

``It's rather like casting pearls into a trough,'' remarked Clovis pleasantly, ``but I don't mind reading you bits of it. It begins with a general dispersal of the Durbar participants:

`` `Back to their homes in Himalayan heights
The stale pale elephants of Cutch Behar
Roll like great galleons on a tideless sea---' ''

``I don't believe Cutch Behar is anywhere near the Himalayan region,'' interrupted Bertie. ``You ought to have an atlas on hand when you do this sort of thing; and why stale and pale?''
``After the late hours and the excitement, of course,'' said Clovis; ``and I said their homes were in the Himalayas. You can have Himalayan elephants in Cutch Behar, I suppose, just as you have Irish-bred horses running at Ascot.''

``You said they were going back to the Himalayas,'' objected Bertie.

``Well, they would naturally be sent home to recuperate. It's the usual thing out there to turn elephants loose in the hills, just as we put horses out to grass in this country.''

Clovis could at least flatter himself that he had infused some of the reckless splendour of the East into his mendacity.

``Is it all going to be in blank verse?'' asked the critic.

``Of course not; `Durbar' comes at the end of the fourth line.''

``That seems so cowardly; however, it explains why you pitched on Cutch Behar.''

``There is more connection between geographical place-names and poetical inspiration than is generally recognized; one of the chief reasons why there are so few really great poems about Russia in our language is that you can't possibly get a rhyme to names like Smolensk and Tobolsk and Minsk.''

Clovis spoke with the authority of one who has tried.

``Of course, you could rhyme Omsk with Tomsk,'' he continued; ``in fact, they seem to be there for that purpose, but the public wouldn't stand that sort of thing indefinitely.''

``The public will stand a good deal,'' said Bertie malevolently, ``and so small a proportion of it knows Russian that you could always have an explanatory footnote asserting that the last three letters in Smolensk are not pronounced. It's quite as believable as your statement about putting elephants out to grass in the Himalayan range.''

``I've got rather a nice bit,'' resumed Clovis with unruffled serenity, ``giving an evening scene on the outskirts of a jungle village:

`` `Where the coiled cobra in the gloaming gloats,
And prowling panthers stalk the wary goats.' ''

``There is practically no gloaming in tropical countries,'' said Bertie indulgently; ``but I like the masterly reticence with which you treat the cobra's motive for gloating. The unknown is proverbially the uncanny. I can picture nervous readers of the Smoky Chimney keeping the light turned on in their bedrooms all night out of sheer sickening uncertainty as to what the cobra might have been gloating about.''
``Cobras gloat naturally,'' said Clovis, ``just as wolves are always ravening from mere force of habit, even after they've hopelessly overeaten themselves. I've got a fine bit of colour painting later on,'' he added, ``where I describe the dawn coming up over the Brahmaputra river:

`` `The amber dawn-drenched East with sun-shafts kissed,
Stained sanguine apricot and amethyst,
O'er the washed emerald of the mango groves
Hangs in a mist of opalescent mauves,
While painted parrot-flights impinge the haze
With scarlet, chalcedon and chrysoprase.'' '

``I've never seen the dawn come up over the Brahmaputra river,'' said Bertie, ``so I can't say if it's a good description of the event, but it sounds more like an account of an extensive jewel robbery. Anyhow, the parrots give a good useful touch of local colour. I suppose you've introduced some tigers into the scenery? An Indian landscape would have rather a bare, unfinished look without a tiger or two in the middle distance.''
``I've got a hen-tiger somewhere in the poem,'' said Clovis, hunting through his notes. ``Here she is:

`` `The tawny tigress 'mid the tangled teak
Drags to her purring cubs' enraptured ears
The harsh death-rattle in the pea-fowl's beak,
A jungle lullaby of blood and tears.' ''

Bertie van Tahn rose hurriedly from his recumbent position and made for the glass door leading into the next compartment.
``I think your idea of home life in the jungle is perfectly horrid,'' he said. ``The cobra was sinister enough, but the improvised rattle in the tiger-nursery is the limit. If you're going to make me turn hot and cold all over I may as well go into the steam room at once.''

``Just listen to this line,'' said Clovis; ``it would make the reputation of any ordinary poet:

`` `and overhead
The pendulum-patient Punkah, parent of stillborn breeze.' ''

``Most of your readers will think `punkah' is a kind of iced drink or half-time at polo,'' said Bertie, and disappeared into the steam.
*

The Smoky Chimney duly published the ``Recessional,'' but it proved to be its swan song, for the paper never attained to another issue.

Loona Bimberton gave up her intention of attending the Durbar and went into a nursing-home on the Sussex Downs. Nervous breakdown after a particularly strenuous season was the usually accepted explanation, but there are three or four people who know that she never really recovered from the dawn breaking over the Brahmaputra river.

Airr Commodore Nanu Shitoley, DFC on Hurricane Sorties in Burma

2008-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Anatomy of a Tac-R Hurricane Sortie (2) : Mukund Murty Badgers Nanu Shitoley, A Burma Pilot

Mukund Murty returns to complete his account of Hurricane sorties on the Burma theatre in World War 2 (please see his previous post below which is by way of a backgrounder to this interview). I am simply delighted that Mukund has been thoughtful enough to capture for us this account of an Indian pilot in the Burma front; there are too few such first person accounts by Indian officers in spite of the major roles they played in this cataclysm. What is more, once Mukund gets the Commodore going, it turns out to be oral history in the best tradition of Studs Terkel. Read on.

ENCOUNTERS WITH WW2 VETERANS

Air Commodore Nanu Shitoley DFC

By Mukund Murty

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nanu Shitoley was kind enough to share his time and hospitality with me one evening in January 2004, thanks to a meeting fixed up by my old family friend and his neighbour, Dincey Muncherjee [IAF transports, who later flew 747-400's for Air India and S'Pore Airlines]. As I walked down the road from my place in Colaba to his, I was terrified at the prospect of reaching later than the appointed hour of 7pm - an extra huff and a wheezy puff ensured that I just made it ! What followed was an hour and a half of the story of a fascinating life, including the sortie to Tamu I have semi-fictionalised at this link [which epitomizes the sheer grit and determination which earned him his DFC]. Alas, his log book is lost [as are photographs], and with it, details of the 300 hours of operational flying which he did in Burma, at the end of which he received his well-earned DFC. What follows is based upon his memory, supplemented, in parts, by extracts from the Official History of the IAF in the Second World War….

Narayanrao Khanderao Shitoley, IND/1841, was born in September, 1923. His mother was a Rane from Goa. His father, Khanderao Shitoley, lost his parents at a very early age and so came to Gwalior, to be looked after by his distinguished uncle, Sir Appaji Rao Shitoley, a member of the Council of Regency in the Princely State of Gwalior. Khanderao studied at the Sardar School in Gwalior and later at the Benares Hindu University, where he had the opportunity to interact with Annie Besant. Upon his return to Gwalior, he joined the Gwalior State Army after the First War and thereafter settled down in his own estate at Nej near Ankli [close to Belgaum].

Nanu is a Rimcollian through and through - the pride at having schooled at the Royal Indian Military College [RIMC] in Dehra Dun from 1935 to 1941 is very evident when he talks about his own time there or about other Rimcollians who joined the services [Nur Khan was a class-mate, whereas Ranjan Dutt and Asghar Khan were senior]. Dehra Dun was even more special, as his sisters were in school at Woodstock, so family holidays were mainly spent in Dehra Dun or Mussoorie itself.

One morning in 1941, there was tremendous excitement at School - an RAF squadron leader had come to recruit for the Air Force ! He took one look at Nanu and selected him for the 11th Course [Biblo Crishna of 10 Sqn was from the 12th Course] - the fact that he was a Rimcollian was in itself enough to get him through the first round of selections [the Air Force had not been getting recruits of very good quality of late, therefore Rimcollians from the RIMC were considered an especially good catch !]. This was followed by a medical lasting 2-3 hours at RAF Station Lahore - here again, they knew all about the RIMC.

Once he'd cleared his medicals, it was off to the Initial Training Wing [ITW] at Walton in Lahore for three months of square-bashing where his instructor was Wg Cdr Hogg, a scout master who'd been commissioned for the duration of the War. The Chief Instructor was Wg Cdr Russell. The ITW was later shifted to Poona, and the course extended from 10 to 14 weeks, and towards the end of 1943, to 18 weeks.

This was followed by a one year's course in Hyderabad where he underwent training as an Observer [1]. Observers, when they qualified, were entitled to wear half-wings with an 'O,' which all of them wore with a greater pride than the later 'N' wings of Navigators. This was because Observers were put through a more intensive course which taught them, in addition to advanced navigation, wireless telegraphy and gunnery, visual and artillery spotting techniques as well. Cecil Naire of 7 Sqn., when I asked if he had been a Navigator, recoiled with Patrician horror and cried "Oh no, I'm not a Nevigaytah, I'm an Observah !!"

Following the course, Nanu was posted to No. 5 CDF, then at Cochin flying Wapitis, in August 1941. He continued there until the end of '41 or the beginning of '42, when, following the Japanese defeat of British forces east of India, Observers who wished to re-muster as pilots were given the opportunity [and, indeed, the encouragement] to do so. Nanu's re-mustering as a pilot coincided with the disbandment of 5 CDF [whose personnel formed the nucleus of 8 Sqn., then forming with Vultee Vengeances at Trichinopoly] in March 1943, and he remembers leaving Cochin to go to Agartala for a month or two, followed by a Signals course at Andheri in Bombay.

At last - No. 1 EFTS [Elementary Flying Training School] at Begumpet in Hyderabad [the other EFTS, No 2, was at Jodhpur], with its palpable smell of young mens' anxiety, competing with the smell of the hot oil/ fabric/ fuel smell of the DH-84 Tiger Moths they flew. The duration of the course was 10 weeks [subsequently extended to 12].

He was then off to No. 1 SFTS [Service Flying Training School] at Ambala for intermediate and advanced flying training. The school was initially divided into two parts, 10 weeks for intermediate training and 11 weeks for advanced training. With the formation of the OTU [Operational Training Unit] at Risalpur [in 1942], the duration of the course was subsequently reduced to 18 weeks in 1943. Here he flew about 150 hours on Harvards. Going from the docile 130hp-engined Tiger Moth to the 550hp Harvard with its retractable undercarriage, variable pitch, strong swing on take-off and predilection to ground-loop on landing, helped the young pilots to master the intricacies of the Hurricane [many pilots like AM DG King-Lee and Hoshang Patel, remember the bite of the Harvard and the later Spitfires like the XIV, but think of the Hurricane as docile…].

Nanu then went to Risalpur where the Hurricane OTU was located [the Vengeance OTU was at Peshawar where, subsequently, the Hurricane OTU also moved]. He remembers that they first had to thoroughly master the Hurricane's cockpit drill - until they did so, they were not allowed to fly. In order to accomplish this, there was a dummy Hurricane cockpit, complete in every respect, in which pilots had to practice, hour after hour, memorising the litany of the check-list [this is a very interesting piece of information, indeed - I have not heard of anyone else speak of a mock-up before].

Finally, Hurricanes…! He flew about 40hrs on this wonderful aeroplane, which was thorough in all respects, consisting of 12 weeks of flying, squadron and gunnery training, including a four-week fighter reconnaissance course. From the beginning of 1944, all replacement pilots for ground attack squadrons were sent to Ranchi for a special 3 week ground attack course - Nanu said that only the better ones were chosen for such flying.

At last, he got his posting - it was to No.1 Sqn at Imphal, where he arrived in May or June 1944. Arjan Singh was the CO, Rajaram commanded 'A' Fight, which Nanu joined - and 'B' Flight was commanded by Raza [Anand Ramdas Pandit was a senior pilot in 'A' Flight at the time]. The Army Liaison Officer [ALO] was Maj. Sam Foster, whom Nanu remembers as someone who "sort of looked down his nose" at the Indians [no one would, by the time the Squadron had finished proving itself in fourteen months of intense action !]. He remembers that No. 1 Sqn. shared the airfield with 28 Sqn. RAF, their old friends from the first Burma campaign [who were also on Hurricanes], as well as a squadron of USAAF Dakotas. There was hardly any interaction with the Americans, however, as they had a different mess and technical area.

At the frontline. Pilots of No.1 Squadron with the CO, Arjan Singh sitting at the drivers position in the Jeep. Last row L to R (Standing on Jeep): K N Kak DFC, A R Pandit DFC. Middle Row L to R (Standing on Jeep): A C Prabhakaran, Rishi, Koko Sen, Major Williams, Arjan Singh DFC, D P , Tutu, R Rajaram DFC, 'Bonzo' (Dog), Pop Rao, Gupta. Front Row L to R (Standing on Ground): Hafeez, Doc Herbert (sitting on step) and Tallu Talwar.

He remembers that they were engaged in almost non-stop Photo Reconnaissance/ Reconnaissance/ Ground Attack sorties, the last two at tree-top height - there was zero margin for error, and he remembers frequently encountering Japanese anti-aircraft fire on these sorties. Although the Japanese air force strength was low, the threat from their superlative fighters was nevertheless there, and so they sometimes used to get an escort from the RAF, usually in the form of two Spitfires, as the Hurricane was at its most vulnerable on such sorties, which he said were typically of 11/2 to 2 hours with long-range tanks. Although some RAF Hurricane squadrons had removed two of the four 20mm cannon from their aeroplanes for improved performance, Nanu does not remember this practice being followed in 1 Sqn. [neither does Hoshang Patel remember this practice being followed in 6 Sqn.]. There was a very real danger from Jap fighters when they used to go on sorties to photograph Jap airfields in the Kabaw Valley - here they needed the Spitfire escort more than ever. Once, he was tasked for a photo-reconnaissance sortie over an airfield in this area. He was alone, escorted by two Spitfires [based out of Tamu]. He was at about 3000' concentrating on the photo-recce, when the Spitfire Leader called out to his No. 2 - there - in the distance - they were being followed by three Japanese aeroplanes ! Inexplicably, they did not attack, and he has lived to tell the tale !

He spoke of how the Japanese targeted transport airfields operating Dakotas [to disrupt the Allies' excellent supply-dropping system which ultimately saved Imphal]. He remembers how, one day, three RAF Dakotas on a supply-dropping sortie near Kalewa were all three shot down.

RAF Dakota landing at Imphal Air Strip , March 44 (L)
An RAF Dakota dropping supplies Tiddim Road (Below)

In Imphal, they all lived in Bashas. The idea of the 'Anatomy of a Tac-R Hurricane Sortie' came from an experience he related to me of a sortie to Tamu. He doesn't remember the name of the Leader of the sortie [who later joined the PAF on Partition], only that he made a safe wheels-up landing at Tamu. He said that while the No.1 or the Leader looked after the navigation, the No. 2 was the Weaver who kept their tail clear. His keenness for flying is evident - he smiled and said that Arjan Singh recently told him "Nanu, I've got you so many times in my log book !" This is further emphasised by the fact that he could make it back to Imphal through severe weather, alone, a mere month after he'd joined the squadron with less than 200hrs of total flying time and only 40hrs on type…

No.1 Squadron at Imphal and beyond

As mentioned earlier, the Squadron flew 354 sorties totalling 466 hours and 45 minutes in August 1944, even though the weather was so bad that they couldn't fly for eight days.

In September, the weather deteriorated even further, and the squadron could only fly 292 sorties totalling a little more than 400 hours. However, the duration of the sorties was getting longer, with the Japanese being slowly but inexorably pushed southwards. The Rivers Mu, Uyu and Myittha were recce'd for signs of traffic. The railway line - this was the Kawlin-Shwebo-Mandalay-Meiktila line - between Kawlin [90 miles SE of Tamu - sortie distances were huge…] and Indaw was carefully observed - although all the bridges had been destroyed, the stations appeared to be occupied ! In a rapidly-changing battle scenario, the position of Allied troops had to be marked as well. One of the most important sorties carried out on the 13th September was the photography of Taukkyan airfield SW of Kalemyo, with its 2000 yard long runway. While several craters were observed, it appeared to be in good condition overall [it was - this airfield is now Kalemyo airport !].

A view of the 'Chocolate Staircase' showing some of the 39 Hairpin bends (L) JAK State Troops attacking the Kennedy Peak (Above Right) A pair of Jeeps on the Muddy Tiddim Road (R)

October 1944 was a momentous month for the Allies, and a busy one for No. 1 Squadron. The fall of Bumzang was quickly followed by that of the critical Tiddim [the three critical points of the Japanese assault on Imphal were Tamu to the south of Imphal, Tiddim to the south-west, and Ukhrul to the north-east] on 18th October. The squadron did sterling work in the Kalewa/ Kalemyo area, more than 120 miles away from their base, flying a record 439 sorties [including three at night !] totalling 779hrs 40' despite bad weather during the earlier part of the month. For this work the Squadron received four congratulatory messages from XXXIII Corps - a mammoth photo-reconnaissance task had been carried out, 9, 555 prints were developed, and the Squadron well-deservedly praised "for skill and speed with which air photographs have been produced and dropped on forward troops."

Work going on in a Mobile Photo Processing Unit

November saw an even greater effort by the 17 pilots of the Squadron who flew an incredible 525 sorties totalling 1000hrs 30' of which 25hrs 10' were by night. Whilst most of the sorties were in the Kalemyo/ Kalewa area, they went further south upto Gangaw and Monywa [almost 200 miles away from Imphal - a glance at the Hurricane's fuel consumption given in Note [2] above gives an idea of the flying being carried out to the very limits of human and aeroplane endurance] and east upto the Mu River. On these sorties they usually went in pairs, but sometimes also singly. They were sometimes provided with a Spitfire escort as there was a very real danger from Japanese fighters on these sorties so far south of Imphal [the 460 mile range of the Hurricane vis-a'-vis the 1864 mile range of the Oscar would ensure that any combat was one-sided !].

The bridge at Hpaungzeik over the Neyinzaya Chaung [chaungs or streams were raging torrents in the monsoons, which would disappear into dusty tracks during the dry months was critical for the taking of Kalemyo, just south-west of it. Reconaissance by day showed that the bridge was unserviceable, but piles of wooden planks stacked along the banks of the Chaung gave rise to the suspicion that these planks were placed on the bridge at night and used for traffic. Sqn. Ldr. Arjan Singh flew over Hpaungzeik on the night of the 3rd November, 200 miles in the dark, and confirmed that this was, indeed, the case ! Kalemyo fell on the 15th November….

November 1944 saw two casualties for the squadron, one fatal. On the 22nd, an aeroplane returning from a recce of the Wetkauk-Naungmana area force-landed after a glycol [coolant] leak. Although it caught fire after landing, the pilot got out safely and, after a three-day trek through hostile jungle, returned home. The other pilot, DF Eduljee, the only AFC holder in the IAF at this time, failed to pull out of his dive whilst strafing some camouflaged bashas in the Shwegyin area.

December 1944 saw the Squadron fly 335 sorties totalling 775hrs 15'. The sorties were getting longer….

December was a crucial month with the opening of the Trans-Chindwin offensive. The principal players were IV Corps under Lt. Gen. Sir Frank Messervy, comprising 7th & 19th Indian Div. & 254 Tank Bde. XXXIII Corps under Lt. Gen. Sir Montagu Stopford, comprising 2nd British & 20th Indian Div., 268 Bde. & 255 Tank Bde. [both Indian].

Lt. Gen. Sir Frank Messervy (Left) was the GOC of IV Corps Lt Gen Montagu Stopford (Right) commanded the XXXIII Corps

In the north, the 19th Indian Div. crossed the Chindwin and despite the difficult terrain and the fanatical resistance of the enemy, rapidly progressed eastwards, capturing Pinlebo on the 16th December, Wuntho on the 19th and Kawlin on the 20th December, a distance of nearly 80 miles.

In the south, the 20th Indian Div, crossed the Chindwin at Mawlaik and took Maukkadaw on the Chindwin on Christmas Day.

Such rapid advances only further emphasized the criticality of accurate aerial reconnaissance in order to determine the position of the Allied troops as also the position and intentions of the enemy. However, this was easier said than done - the terrain was so difficult, that the tracks themselves could not be seen easily from the air, let alone troops. So it was back to basics once again by resorting to the First War system of troops displaying ground signals, these positions marked on the map when the troops were spotted by the low-flying aeroplanes, and the map then being dropped by the pilot onto the Headquarters at Mawlaik.

What about the enemy - what was he doing ? He was withdrawing quickly to the Irrawaddy, there to regroup, but he was blocking the road at frequent intervals with tree trunks, most of these booby-trapped. No, it was not going to be easy…

January, 1945. On the 2nd January, the 19th Indian Div. took Kanbalu, and Shwebo on the 7th. On the 9th of that month, the 19th Indian Div. crossed the Irrawaddy and secured Thabeikkyin. On the 10th January, the 20th Indian Div. had captured the Japanese communications centre at Budalin, and by the end of the month the 2nd British Div. had also reached the Irrawaddy.

Dispositions in Burma on 24 Jan 1945 (L) Jat Machine Gunners at Monya (Above)
Troops from the 4/10 Gurkha Regiment strike a Burmese Village (R)

At last, after very costly fighting, Monywa, the chief Japanese position on the Chindwin, was taken on the 22nd January by the 20th Indian Div. On the same day, other units of the Division took Myinmu, only 40 tantalising miles west of Mandalay after heavy fighting.

What was the squadron doing during this period of intense army activity ? Strangely, there was a lull in their operations "with intermittent flying as and when called for." Upto the 15th January, the Squadron flew only 42 sorties, almost all photo-reconnaissance, over a nine day period. 2nd & 19th Indian Divs. began their push towards Shwebo, which they took on the 7th January, 1945. From the 16th upto the 28th January, no sorties were called for by the army. This well-deserved respite for Nanu and the rest of the Squadron, was, however, all too brief.

The drive to Meiktila was about to begin….

The enemy was, as usual, cunning - he made no attempt to stop the Allies from coming towards the Irrawaddy, but dug into well-sited and well-manned positions on the other side of the river, there to meet the attack with the river at the back of the attackers, a tactic reminiscent of the First Sikh War at Sobraon on the 10th February, 1846…

A section of well armed Chin Levies with a Captured Japanese Flag (L)

Budalin in Flames being attacked (Below)

A direct frontal attack would therefore have been suicidal. Field Marshal Sir William Slim, the Allied commander, decided upon subterfuge, to move IV Corps secretly from the left to the extreme right, gain a bridgehead near Pakokku, 58 miles northwest of Meiktila, and then strike at the pivotal enemy headquarters of Meiktila. To this end, two movements took off in a southerly direction from the main road between Tilin [now known as Htilin] and Pauk - both manoeuvres aimed at diverting Japanese attention from the proposed point of crossing of the Irrawaddy at Nyaungu, 17 miles southwest of Pakokku.

Field Marshal Sir Viscount Slim (L)

Gurkhas clear a village near the Irrawady (Below)

No. 1 Squadron was tasked with the Tac-R requirements of IV Corps. Imphal was now too far from their area of operations, so a detachment of the Squadron moved 175 miles south of Imphal, to the newly-prepared PSP [Perforated Steel Plate] airfield of Kan, 15 miles north of Gangaw [which was 80 miles from Pakokku, one of the points where the Irrawaddy was to be crossed] during the last week of January. The crossing of the Irrawaddy was planned for the 14th February, and the Squadron was to cover the deception movement [towards Tilin and Pauk] of the troops southwards. The area east of the Irrawaddy naturally demanded greater attention, as the crossing of that great river was imminent and everything depended upon accurate information on what the enemy was up to. So the Squadron was busy on reconnaissance and also attacking any target of opportunity, especially loaded carts.

February, 1945. On the 1st February, Lingadaw, on the way to Pakokku, was captured, and on the 3rd, Myaing, on the way to Nyaungu. Myitchie, eight miles north-west of Nyaungu, at the point where the Irrawaddy turns due south, was captured, and the stage was now set for the secretly-planned crossing of the mighty Irrawaddy….

Gurkha Patrol in the Pakokku Area (L)

Trucks crossing a river in the Pagan Area (R)

The 19th Indian Div. had already crossed the Irrawaddy on the 9th January at Thabeikkyin, and this intrepid Division now consolidated this achievement with another bridgehead crossing at Kyaukmyaung, just 40 miles north of Mandalay. Although both bridgeheads had been subject to fanatically furious counterattacks; the 19th had not only stood firm but had, on the contrary, expanded and strengthened its positions. The 20th Indian Div. crossed at Allagappa, 40 miles west of Mandalay on the 12th February, securing and strengthening its bridgehead after severe and heroic fighting on both sides.

A Starting point on the river bank(L)

Stuart Tanks move upto the river (R)

During the wee hours of the 13th February, 1945 the 7th Indian Division began crossing the Irrawaddy at Nyaungu as planned, and on the 24th February, the 2nd Indian Div. crossed the river at Ngazun, between the 20th Indian Div.'s bridgehead at Allagappa and Mandalay - they were now less than 25 miles west of Mandalay….

4/10 Gurkhas moving across the river (L)

A Bridge being built by the engineers (R)

Progress in the 7th Indian Div.'s sector was rapid. After crossing at Nyaungu on the 13th, they took the oil wells of Pagan the next day. The 17th Indian Div. now took the offensive in this sector and on the 24th, Taungtha, an important Japanese maintenance centre fell - the speed of advance can be imagined by the fact that Taungtha is 40 miles north-east of Pagan, from where they had started only eleven days before. The first of the airfields, Thabutkon, fell on the 26th and the 17th Indian Div.'s airborne brigade was flown in from Palel. Meiktila was attacked on the 28th and fell on the 4th March - this success was short-lived, however, and Meiktila was re-taken by the Japanese and it would not be back in Allied hands until the 3rd April…

In keeping with the rapid movement of the ground forces, No. 1 Squadron had to move south from Kan to Sinthe, a PSP runway which had been prepared on the 9th February. Sinthe was about 20 miles north-west of Nyaungu, the place where the 7th Indian Div. was to cross. Living conditions were basic, with the pilots living in tents. Each tent was shared by two pilots, and Nanu had, as his tent-mate, Bunny Cariappa [who later joined Ariana Airlines], Thimayya's brother-in-law.

On the 14th February, the day Pagan was taken, the Squadron flew 28 sorties, and on the 16th February, 32 sorties. The skies over the Nyaungu - Meiktila sector reverberated with the sound of the Squadron's low-flying Hurricanes.

The pressure to take Meiktila was enormous, and it was naturally the centre of the Squadron's attentions. It was also a veritable devil's cauldron of anti-aircraft defences. Four of the Squadron's aeroplanes were hit seriously, and the Squadron had another fatality.

On the 26th February, on a reconnaissance between Taunggon and Mahlaing [25 miles north-west of Meiktila], one of the Squadron's pilots, Norris, "a boy from Bangalore," was hit near his heart. Semi-conscious, with superhuman courage and incredible airmanship, he somehow managed to regain the Allied lines where he actually managed a forced landing. The crew of a tank watched horrified as the aeroplane slewed across the rough ground, ran and gently pulled him out as soon as it had ground to a halt, and rushed him to a field hospital. The boy died there the next day…

Medics at the 5th Indian Division(L)

Surgery on Trestles(R)

Meiktila fell on the 4th March, taken by the 17th Indian Div. This was a disaster, an unthinkable disaster for the Japanese, and they threw everything into getting it back. In this, they had been helped by the rapidity of the Allied advance, as seen by the fact that a strong Japanese column had retaken a dominating hill feature in Taungtha [on the 24thFebruary, Taungtha, an important Japanese maintenance centre fell - the speed of advance can be imagined by the fact that Taungtha is 40 miles north-east of Pagan from where they had started only eleven days before] just after the 17th Indian Div. had victoriously passed it ! The vital airstrip of Meiktila fell soon afterwards, and the 28th East African Bde. was driven back 13 miles to the Letse area.

Frontier Force troops attacking a village at Meiktila (L)

A Howitzer of the 9th Jacob Mountain Battery being fired (R)

March was confusing, with closely-run see-saws between the Allies and the Japanese…

A Map showing the Irrawady Crossings (L)

3" Mortars open fire at Mandalay, while a Bren Gunner keeps cover in the foreground (Above).

For example, Allied tanks and troops were located at Gwebin on the 1st March; on the 18th, Allied troops and vehicles were about three miles north of Gwebin, which meant a retreat ! On the 21st, a battle was noticed near Ywathit, south-east of Letse, two days later, Allied troops were seen in Ywathit itself……! The Squadron flew 618 hours during the month, despite the fact that late at night on the 4th March, nine aeroplanes had been damaged and nine airmen injured [no fatalities, thank God !] when the Japanese bombed the airfield, having flown nearly 300 miles over featureless jungle from their airfields around Rangoon - typical of the enemy's superb airmanship, to say the least….

However, by now the Japanese were thin on the ground, and, in order to reinforce Meiktila, they had to pull out troops from elsewhere. As a result of this, Mandalay [a name which conjured the same magical image for the Allies, as did Paris for the Germans during the First War] fell on the 14th March, and the 5th Indian Div., which had come all the way from Jorhat, re-took Meiktila on the 3rd April.

End of the tour

By now, the Squadron had spent close to fourteen months of intense, sustained action, and on the 26th March, they were relieved at Sinthe by 7 Squadron, who had just converted from the Vultee Vengeance to the Hurricane. No. 1 Squadron, however, continued operations until the end of March.

This brought to a close an operational record few squadrons in any air force can boast of - 4,813 sorties totalling 7,219 hours 45' over 14 months, an average of 343 sorties and 516 hours per month.

This was recognized by Air Vice-Marshal Stanley Vincent [who, as Gp. Capt., commanded Northolt during the Battle of Britain], AOC of 221 Group, who paid this richly-deserved compliment to the air and ground crew of the Squadron " The reliability of their Tac-R and photographic work has remained at a high level throughout, and ground crews have set a record of serviceability of aircraft which is second to none in any Air Force in the World."

This was recognised by more tangible awards. There were DFC's for Fg Offr Rai, Fg Offr AR Pandit, Sqn Ldr R Rajaram, Fg Offr KN Kak, Fg Offr MN Bulsara, Fg Offr PS Gupta, Sqn Ldr Arjan Singh, Fg Offr BR Rao, Mentioned in Despatches for Fg Offr Rao, Fg Offr Kak, Fg Offr Rishi [the Equipment Officer], Warrant Officer Tara Singh [the Armament Officer], and Flt Lt Patwardhan [the Adjutant].

The move to Kohat began - 'A' Flight under Rajaram, accompanied by Nanu Shitoley, Ronnie Noah [from UP] and Bunny Cariappa. 'B' Flight under HN Chatterjee, accompanied by Gupta, Joseph, and one other pilot.

At a forward airfield thats been turned to a quagmire due to the Monsoons, Fg Offr A C Prabhakaran, Flt Lt Ramaswamy Rajaram and Fg Offr S Hafeez pose by one of the Hurricane IIcs. Unfortunately both Prabhakaran and Hafeez were to die in operations later on in late 1944. Rajaram became an Air Marshal and AOC in C of SWAC. But he died of Leukemia in 1966.

Just short of Kumbhirgram, the weather, their old enemy, which had made Hafeez and Prabhakaran collide and lose their lives, which had killed Rajendra Singh when he was ferrying an aeroplane back from Calcutta, which had almost taken Nanu's life some months ago, intervened. When Chatterjee landed at Kumbhirgram, he was horror-stricken to find that his entire flight was missing ! Rajaram carried on towards Kohat, taking Bunny Cariappa with him and leaving behind Nanu and Ronnie Noah to search for the handsome PS Gupta, Joseph, and the other pilot. They gave up after two days of searching - no wreckage, nothing.…

There were two more DFC's - for Nanu Shitoley, who had flown 300 hours on Operations in less than eight months, who had been recommended for the medal in Sinthe itself, and Flt Lt HN Chatterjee - the announcement came in Kohat, where the Squadron had gone for a well-deserved rest.

Post Independence

From 1949 - 1951, Nanu commanded the newly-formed Comm. Squadron. This was followed by a six-month stint, training as an Aircrew Examining Board Examiner on Dakotas at Naisborough in Yorkshire for six months where, apart from the Dakotas, he also flew Ansons and Oxfords. He also qualified as a Flight Instructor at the Central Flying School [CFS] at Dishforth, flying Harvards. Whilst in England, he picked up a Holland & Holland 375 Magnum for 100 pounds [Service Officers were also picking up wonderful handguns like Webleys in India at that time for Rs. 100/- !] with which he used to go duck-shooting in Agra and Bharatpur. There was also neelgai and deer shikar in Agra.

This was followed by a stint in the [again] newly-formed Aircrew Examining Unit in Delhi, where he served upto 1953, where he served with people like Hegde and Bunny Fernandes. In 1953, he gave shape to the CTS [Conversion Training Squadron] in Agra to convert pilots onto Dakotas…

Nanu told me a story during his time in Comm. Squadron. Once, he had flown Nehru to Bombay from Delhi. Before the trip back to Delhi, the crew did a full pre-flight check - everything was as it should be. Then there was an unexpected delay, and unbeknowns't to the aircrew, the ground crew had put the pitot cover back on. They took off - there was no airspeed showing ! What should they do, carry on or return ? Just then, the Navigator called and told him "Sir, I have no airspeed !" to which Nanu phlegmatically replied "Neither have I, old boy !" He had carried on to Delhi and relied on his prodigious flying skills to get them home - returning to Santa Cruz airfield in Bombay would have reflected poorly on the IAF, something that was unacceptable to him.

Another vignette of his time with Comm. Squadron was the story he told of the time when Bhim Rao force-landed a Devon with Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the then Home Minister, on board, on a flight from Delhi to Rajasthan. A huge crowd had collected around the aeroplane after the successful force-landing, and Patel was whisked off in a car. Patel praised Bhim Rao in Parliament for the skilful way in which he had brought the aeroplane back….

Air Marshal Gibbs with DFC Awardees and the Next of Kin of a DFC Recipient. From left to right in the last row are Chatterjee, A R Pandit, Gibbs, Minoo Engineer, Shitoley,Rono Engineer. BR Rao's son is in the front (L) .

DFC recipients Ravindra Rao (on behalf of his father Late F/O BR Rao), RM Engineer, NK Shitoley, AR Pandit, HN Chatterjee and MM Engineer (R)

Nanu says that there was a small pressurised compartment in a Dakota, especially made for Patel, after his heart attack. He also feels that Patel should have become Prime Minister of the newly-independent India, and not Nehru.

Another Comm. Squadron story…one day, Chandan Singh was tasked to fly Krishna Menon to Delhi. There was heavy fog, and no flying was possible. Menon, as was his wont, was pacing up and down and ranting about the delay, when Chandan Singh gently pointed out to him that even the birds were staying on the ground !

Once he had flown Jawarharlal Nehru to Karachi. Some of his old friends who were now in the PAF, invited him to Kohat. As soon as he entered the old Mess in Kohat, the old Pathan Aabdaar [chief waiter] rushed to Nanu and enveloped him in a bear-hug !

In 1961, Nanu went to Los Angeles to the University of Southern California to attend a course on Fight Safety. His course-mates were from the US, the UK, Pakistan, Turkey, and even a distinguished Luftwaffe fighter pilot of the erstwhile Wartime Jagdwaffe, whose name he cannot recollect ! There were two USAF pilots - one white and the other black. He says that the latter did very well at the course. One night, when they had all decided to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner, this pilot very subtly excused himself - only later did Nanu realise that this was probably because this was an exclusive restaurant where a black person may have been made to feel unwelcome - this was 1961, mind, when the Civil Rights movement was in its nascent stage !

He commanded AF Stn. Palam, having also managed to fly [once a fighter pilot…!] Hunters [of 20 Sqn.], Mystere IVa's and MiG 21's. He speaks especially fondly of the Hunters….

He retired in April 1975 as SASO [Senior Air Staff Officer] Southwestern Air Command, Jodhpur, after a distinguished career spanning 34 years in the Indian Air Force.

He is now retired in Bombay with his charming wife and daughters, still very much the flyer, as he describes the movement of aeroplanes in the age-old tradition of the aviator, and grins, and talks about the Hurricane, and Burma….

Webmasters Note [01 December 2006] : Air Commodore Nanu Shitoley DFC passed away on 14 November 2006 at Mumbai.

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[1] Email received from K Sree Kumar Nair about Observer/ Pilot courses

In response to one of the questions about wanting details of those early Pilots' Courses run in India that were sent in their entirety to train as Observers: Air Marshal BS Krishna Rao, quoted in "Aviation in the Hyderabad Dominions" by Mrs Anuradha Reddy, says: "1st, 2nd and 3rd Courses, although they were Civil Pilots Licence 'A' holders, were recruited only as navigators [observers as they were called in those days]. The 4th Course was trained as pilots, some were sent to the UK for training and the rest in India. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd course observers were converted in 1940 and 1941 to Service Pilots. ACM PC Lal, AM Rajaram, AVM Sondhi, Air Cdres Atamaram and Lodhi were some of these... [Air Commodore Ratnagar, in his recent recollections to Jagan, says he was classified as 3rd Course, but sent to train as a pilot, and passed out, with 4th Course, starting at RAF Risalpur, 14 Jun 1940 -- also that he was the only member of 3rd Course to train as a pilot. Minor discrepancies apart, can we agree that these two officers' recollections, of 3rd Course, are reconcilable?] ACM Lal also adds, in "My years with the IAF", that he trained initially as an Observer, with the promise that he would be converted to a pilot later. He doesn't identify his Course number in his book, but he started his training, at RAF Risalpur, on 14 Nov 39. So I got the course numbers, and the number of courses, to which this was done, wrong -- but the basic fact, that some of the early Pilots' Courses were sent, in their entirety, to train as Observers, basically right. It'd be interesting to work out which course Cecil Nair belonged to, though based on what he told you he may well have undergone some elements of pilots' training before being sent to train as an Observer. [Again btw, Stephen Ambrose says, in the "Wild Blue", that the USAAC, around that same time, was actually sending the *best* performers from initial training and ground school to train as navigators, not as pilots -- navigators were considered to require more intellectual prowess and mental acuity than the pilots -- a sentiment I know a few retired navigators would agree with!!]

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References/ Bibliography

[1] Interview with Air Cmde. Nanu Shitoley DFC and Wg Cdr Hoshang Patel
[2] AP 1564 B & D Maintenance Manual and Pilot's Notes for Hurricane IIA, IIB, IIC, ID, IV and Sea Hurricane IIB, IIC
[3] Pilot's Notes for Tiger Moth Aircraft RAAF. Publication No 416, Feb 1944
[4] Pilot's Notes for Harvard 2B A. P. 1691 D
[5] History of the Indian Air Force 1933-1945, Orient Longmans 1961
[6] www.bharat-rakshak.com
[7] British Aircraft - R. A. Saville-Sneath, Penguin 1944
[8] The Illustrated Directory of Fighting Aircraft of World War II - Bill Gunston, Salamander 1988
[9] Hurricane at War - Chaz Bowyer
[10] Hurricane at War : 2 - Norman Franks, Ian Allen 1986
[11] The Complete Air Navigator - D. C. T. Bennett, C. B., C. B. E., D. S. O., Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons 1950
[12] Ground Studies for Pilots Vol. 3 - R. B. Underdown, Blackwell Science 1993
[13] Old photocopies of W/ Cmdr. 'Randy' Randhawa's notes [AP1234?] Chapt. 4 'Pilot Type Compasses'
[14] Actual Instruments/ Equipment in the writer's collection - Type 'C' Leather Helmet, Mk. VIII Goggles and Type 'G' Oxygen Mask, P-8 Compass, Dunlop Air Pressure Gauge AHO E1, SS & S Co Ltd London Vertical Speed Indicator No 148/ 41, Navigational Computer Mk. III D*, Computer; Dead Reckoning Type AN 5835-1, 'Unique' Navigational Slide Rule
[15] Vintage Flying Helmets - Mick Prodger, Shiffer 1995
[16] Luftwaffe Vs RAF Flying Clothing/ Flying Equipment - Mick Prodger, Shiffer 1997
[17] The Royal Air Force 1939-45 - Andrew Cormack/ Ron Volstad, Osprey Men-At-Arms Series 1999
[18] RAF Combat Units SEAC 1941-45 - Bryan Philpott, Osprey 1979
[19] Eagle Day - Richard Collier, Pan 1969
[20] Operational Navigation Chart 1 : 1, 000, 000 J-10 Burma/ Thailand
[21] At them with the Bayonet ! The First Sikh War - Donald Featherstone, Jarrolds 1968
[22] Jane's Guns Recognition Guide - Ian Hogg/ Rob Adam, Harper Collins 1996
[23] The Battle of Britain - Film, Harry Saltzman production 1968
[24] Models of Zero, Oscar and Tojo made by Dhananjay Murty
[25] Last and most important, several incredibly pleasurable hours spent in and around the IAFM Hurricane, Delhi, 1989/ 90 when my son and I used to clean/ maintain/ preserve her and other aeroplanes there t bases.

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Copyright © MUKUND MURTY. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of MUKUND MURTY is prohibited.

A Period Piece : Culinary Jottings for Madras

2008-10-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

I had long heard of this book by Wyvern (real name Col Arthur Robert Kenny-Herbert) and got myself a paperback, facsimile reprint, published 1994 by Prospect Books, for the very reasonable price of seven quid in London in 1995. It is now available online, free, at : http://www.archive.org/details/culinaryjottings00kenn

Col Kenny-Herbert (1840 - 1916) arrived in Madras in 1859, after his schooling in Rugby, to join the Madras Cavalry. After his retirement in the early 1890's he returned home to found the Commonsense Cookery Association. Culinary Jottings was first published in 1885 in Madras by Higginbothams Ltd, a firm that is still in business (see pic).

This period was the High Noon of empire in India, plenty of memsahibs came out to stay in the country for the entire length of the spouse's service. But since it was unimaginable or out of the question for a memsahib to take to domestic duties when the husband was a de facto ruler of a district, cooks were a necessary part of the domestic establishment. This is where Wyvern comes in with his Culinary Jottings and homilies on cook management.

Culinary Jottings is purportedly a book on Anglo Indian cuisine but is really mostly about how to prepare authentic Brit food, albeit Frenchified in the fashion of the late 19th Century, in steamy Madras (the souffle should not collapse), making maximum use of ingredients locally available. It is not a mere recipe book but a serious cookery book of, and in the style of, the times with the author going into enormous detail on getting every step just right. Wyvern has a rambling, person to person style and sometimes bludgeons you with detail, but the book makes first class reading as an amusing diversion. Especially to be commended are Wyvern's fulminations on the cussedness of Ramasamy and Meenakshi (the Madras equivalent of Joe and Jane ), his generic names for all Indian cooks.

At the risk of being tiresome by quoting at some length, here is a sampler on what Wyvern calls " Ramasamy's Awful Soup" :

" Ramasamy's .... self-taught method of soup-making may be briefly described as follows : He cuts up the soup-meat, and bone, and throws them into the digester pot; he next adds the vegetables, pepper, salt and spice, covers the dish with water, puts the vessel .... on a good, brisk fire and walks off to his rice, leaving his tunnycutch* to watch the broiling. All she does is to see that there is plenty of firewood under the digester. .... boiling point is speedily reached in this way of managing matters. In an hour or so the cook returns and finds the water he put onto the pot to be reduced to about one-third of its original quantity; this is, of course, a very strong broth, he accordingly strains it off, and calls it his "first sort gravy". He then returns the meat & c. to the pot again, covers it with water and lets that boil away. The liquid thus produced, I need scarcely say, is terrible to look upon, and very nasty to taste, the whole essence of the meat having been frittred away by this first process. It is a dull, greasy looking fluid like dish washings. Nevertheless, Ramasamy strains it off and calls it " the second sort gravy". He next amalgamates the two "sorts", browns the mixture with burnt onion, and clarifies it with the white of an egg. Having got it clear, he rasps some raw potato into it to obtain a nice glutinous starch, and when the soup seems sufficiently gummy, he strains once more and sends it to the table".

Concludes Wyvern : "Setting aside other considerations, pray observe the wastefulness of this awful process. .... half the quantity of soup-meat and bone required by the ignorant native cook may be saved if he could be prevailed upon to follow the laws of intelligent cookery". (And pray observe Wyvern's liberal use of hyphenation).

(* A tunnycatch is literally a water carrier but refers to a general factotum, as often female as male, who all cooks had to have.)

Having a couple of live-in Ramsamy's of our own for the last ten years (strapping,eager beaver lads, keen to please) , I empathise with Wyvern. I see nothing racist in his remarks, there are over thirty passages in the book on the foibles of Ramsamy, and they are properly to be seen as tirades against the inborn cussedness and obstinacy of cooks in general. I know, I know and I often liken the inventiveness of my lads to that of a telegraphist trying to impart sense to a telegram he only needs to render into Morse and belt out.

The book is mostly British food, no conessions to the geography of Madras other than use of locally available stuff. So, it is mostly a book to be dipped into and enjoyed, why would I want to eat English food in Madras, but there are a few Indian dishes which Wyvern commends.

The most notable of them is Madras Club Mutton Quoorma which is best when made with gorse and bramble fed Indian goat rather than with New Zealand lamb. This is one dish we often make at home. I provide the inspiration, courtesy Wyvern, Vasumathi my wife, a strict vegetarian by the way, chips in with a vigilant, Wyvernesque supervision and the lads excel under those conditions. All our friends, Indian and the odd firangi, love this Quoormah, its notable feature is that no chillies are used in its preparation and the almond and cashew nut paste gives it a creamy quality. Try it, it is on Page 303 of the book.

Below from the Economic Times, Bombay :

The return of Culinary Jottings for Madras

3 May, 2008, 0302 hrs IST,Vikram Doctor, TNN

I first came across Colonel Kenney-Herbert while reading Elizabeth David. This British writer who has near Goddess status in food writing was an admirer of the Colonel, praising his Culinary Jottings for Madras particularly in her study Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen. That was some recommendation and I was also intrigued because I had just moved to the city that was still to be called Chennai. Who was this culinary genius who had flourished in such apparently unpromising surroundings?

Madras at that time was hardly the Raj city of the Colonel, but vestiges still existed in grand old buildings, in Higginbotham's booksellers which had published his Jottings, and the cavernous halls of the old Spencer's department store which would have supplied him with the imported tinned food whose over-use he deplored, but which he was often forced to use in order to produce what he felt was an acceptable standard of dining. These were just vestiges, and I thought the Colonel's book would bring them to life so I searched hard for it.

I asked second-hand booksellers and checked old libraries, but no one had a copy. Finally, a few years back, I got one thanks to Mr S Muthiah, Madras' historian, who had himself made a copy from a book found in a British library. Promising to return it soon, I fled to a photocopying shop and made my own copy from it.

It was worth the trouble. The Colonel's Jottings, which he published under the name Wyvern (which I'll use for brevity) is wonderful for many reasons, of which nostalgia is just one. Its certainly interesting reading anecdotes from his career which spanned from 1859, just after the Rising, to 1892, near the apogee of the Raj, but the book was never meant to be a memoir.

It really is, as he explained with full Victorian floridness: "A Treatise in Thirty Chapters on Reformed Cookery for Anglo-Indian Exiles Based Upon Modern English and Continental Principles with Thirty Menus For Little Dinners Worked Out in Detail."

To deconstruct this imposing subtitle one has to understand the culinary history of the period Wyvern wrote in. Coming to India in 1859, as a young man he would have known many British residents from the East India Company days when it was acceptable to adopt many Indian customs including eating mostly Indian food. Wyvern fondly recalls a "fine old servant of honest John Company" who would host 'tiffin' parties where he served "eight or nine varieties of curries with divers platters of freshly-made chutneys, grilled ham, preserved roes of fishes, &c."

But Wyvern's time in India saw the end to this world of Anglo-India (the phrase used to mean literally the British in India, and not the mixed race community that took on the name later) and the establishment of an Empire where British and Indians were rigidly divided. This was reinforced was by the insistence that the British live in a style identical (just grander) to what they would have lead back home.

So curry might be acceptable for breakfast or lunch or a private meal at home, but for formal public purposes it had to be British. As Wyvern notes in his introduction, he no longer saw any use for a curry based cookbook for the 'Anglo-Indian in England'; what was needed was to make food fit for "the Englishman in India."

The problem was that what this meant wasn't too clear since English food itself was undergoing profound change. The country based cooking of the past was being abandoned as England industrialised, and its new wealth drew foreign chefs like Francatelli and Soyer to London to set a new French influenced style. But there was a lot of confusion and poor execution, and this is what Wyvern wanted to correct.

He clearly had plenty of experience of the new cooking, yet he didn't go to the fashionable extreme either and denigrate all English cooking. He notes approvingly how a French waiter only coats salad leaves with the lightest vinaigrette dressing ("The thing to avoid is a sediment of dressing"), but also goes into the details of how to make a good English bread sauce or brown gravy.

Nor, despite his subtitle, does Wyvern disdain curries. He points out that because they are falling out of fashion people are forgetting how to make them properly, so have no idea of how good they can be. Naturally he's well aware that all curries aren't in the Northern style that others assumed was standard for all curries, and he emphasises the value of typically South Indian ingredients like tamarind and coconut milk. His appreciation for Indian vegetables is also quite unlike the British (or many Indians for that matter): "With cold cooked country vegetables, I have made capital salads; young brinjals, the mollay-keerai, bandecai, country beans, greens of all kinds and little pumpkins gathered very young, are all worthy of treatment in this way." He even recommends snake-gourd, 'podolong-cai', cooked in brown gravy as "well worth trying when vegetables are as scarce as they always are in hot weather."

That's an interesting way to look at snake-gourd, a vegetable most people turn up their noses at, and it shows another reason to value Wyvern. The Jottings fall into an interesting category of books on how to make foreign food in India, written by foreign writers based over here (Tarla Dalal on Mexican food does not count), so there is both authenticity and practical applicability. The entertaining Italian cookbook Food Is Home by the Goa-based chef Sarjano is one example, and then there's The Landour Cook Book from American missionaries based in that hill station, a book on Vietnamese cooking by the Vietnamese wife of an erstwhile director of the Alliance Francaise in Chennai, and other such books by the wives of diplomats.

Their great value is to show us how to look at available ingredients here differently, as Wyvern does with coconut flowers: "A very superior dish... The white stalks of the flower, if quite young, can be served exactly like asparagus. I.e.: — boiled, laid in a very hot dish, with plenty of butter melting over them.
Parts of the Jottings, it is true, can make one squirm since Wyvern didn't escape the British prejudices. A running theme in the book is to talk about Ramaswamy, meaning the standard native cook, whose abilities he acknowledges, but whose many shortcomings are deplored especially in comparison to Martha, a standard plain English cook. Ramasamy's shortcomings include lack of cleanliness, love of shortcuts like using tins and taste for dubious decorations like country parsley (coriander leaves).

It easy to get annoyed by this, until one considers how often we have heard upper-class housewives in India say exactly the same thing about their cooks. Wyvern is also fair, and his real point about Ramasamy's failings is that they are due to employers who don't get involved with their kitchens, leaving the cook directionless, yet faulting him when problems inevitable rise.

Wyvern's basic message is that we need to think intelligently and without prejudice about the food we eat. This is conveyed in a manner that is detailed without being boring, stern without being forbidding, and leavened with a bluff, military sense of humour and an unselfconscious appreciation of the joys of food.

It's not far from Elizabeth David's own style, so one can see why she appreciated him. The good news now is that Culinary Jottings for Madras has been reprinted by Prospect Books, the specialist food book imprint set up by the late Alan Davidson.

Tom Jaine, who has revised and extended Davidson's magisterial Oxford Companion to Food, now runs Prospect and very kindly sent me a copy of the reprint (their second, after a first in 1994), which has an introduction by Leslie Forbes with details of Wyvern's subsequent life.

This is a facsimile of the fifth edition for which Wyvern added on a fascinating essay on Indian kitchens, which for some reason was dropped for the seventh edition which is what I had earlier. Wyvern seems to have fiddled around quite a bit with his editions and given how interesting he always is, it would have been nice to have an appendix with all the major changes.

But that's a detail, compared to the joy of having him back in print at all. Sadly Prospect doesn't have an Indian distributor so those who want the book will have to order directly from their website at www.prospectbooks.co.uk I hope an Indian distributor will take up Wyvern's book, which should never have vanished from out book and kitchen shelves.

Air Operations in the Forgotten War : Mukund Murty on Hurricane Sorties in the Burma Theatre

2008-09-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

A GUEST BLOGGER : Mukund Murty, WW 2 Fighter Pilot Manque

I am pleased to publish a post by Mukund Murty, friend, former colleague, licensed pilot, air battle enthusiast and airwar buff extraordinary. He was born at least a generation too late to fly those Hurricane sorties he describes so engrossingly below and I know he regrets it. I point out the bright side to him : life was not so comfortable in those days and besides one had to wear a helmet while flying but he refuses to be convinced.

As if to rub in the point that he would gladly sport a helmet at the drop of a hat, he has published below a picture of himself in one of those Hurricane helmets and goggles, looking for all the world like a hobgoblin.

Quick change artist that he is, the bearded Mukund who lives in Bombay is also known to wear a turban on some week ends and he is then always mistaken for a Sardar : he came home to Madras one fun Saturday evening last month but refused to arrive in a turban. Here is Mukund, on that convivial and bibulous evening in Madras, trying gamely to keep the beat to the singing of Vasumathi (Mrs Blogger) who is in splits at his gallant accompaniment.

I am very interested in all the antics of the Second World War myself but the canvas is too vast and I stick to the land battles in Burma and North Africa, with a side bet on the D-Day landings and, especially these days, to the absorbing tactics and story of the Battle of the Atlantic. And I know Mukund is the boy for the air force stuff, having vicariously been flown by him in a Hurricane over the mountain fastnesses of the Arakan, or in a Flying Fortress over the devastations of Europe. The post includes many photos of people and memorablia from his personal collection and embodies the many hours he has spent over the years chivvying octogenarian WW 2 pilots in different parts of the world and reviving their failing memories by plying them with Rum and Whisky. And I like his posts, they are typically longwinded, something I favour too, the Devil is in the detail and so is God. So, don't miss the explanatory notes at the end.

I must thank Mukund's buddy, Jagan of Bharatrakshak who readily agreed for some of his pics to be used. Mukund now takes up his narrative of the Burma air war, a narrative that is primarily from the perspective of the Indian fighter pilot.

Anatomy of a Tac-R Hurricane Sortie

Mukund Murty

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Dedicated to Nanu Shitoley, DFC - Hurricane Pilot & My surrogate father, Hoshang Patel - Hurricane Pilot

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Dear Reader, I suggest that you read through the article first,, and then read the explanatory notes at the bottom.

Imphal airfield, the first week of August, 1944......

Battle of Imphal - Map

The morning had dawned with the suddenness typical of Eastern India - an all-too-brief twilight turning bright and hot, with an abruptness which never ceases to shock. It had rained heavily the night before, and by early afternoon the clouds had built up once again, pretty little cotton-ball cumulus growing into magnificent, distant, turrets in the air. By late afternoon, the clouds were flirting with sunbeams and it had turned quite dark, intermittent rain hissing through the trees and the delicious smell of damp earth heavy in the air.

Tamu [1], only 50 statute miles SSE of Imphal, had just been re-taken on the 4th August, and it was essential to find out what the enemy, always fanatically dangerous, was up to.

A two-aircraft Tac-R [Tactical Reconnaissance] sortie had been ordered, and the pilots, the Leader and his Wingman [the Leader would navigate, whilst his Wingman kept a lookout for Japanese Oscars on the prowl], filed into the basha [rectangular thatched hut] which served as the Briefing Room for the usual briefing on target, time of take-off, duration of sortie, fuel.......[2]

Because of the importance of the sortie, the CO himself was present. A handsome young Sikh officer, a legend in his own time, he was passionately loyal to his men. They, in turn, worshipped him. The briefing was conducted by the English major who was the Squadron's ALO or Army Liaison Officer, and would also invariably have contained a re-iteration of Tac-R requirements [Pg. 133 of the Official History of the IAF in WW II].....

Flt. Lt. Haider briefing pilots before strike on Kangaw Valley

'Though the withdrawal of the Japanese troops, tired and worn out as they were, was not as well-camouflaged as their advance had been, effective reconnaissance demanded careful observation and accurate interpretation of the things observed. It was not enough to know whether a track was capable of taking mechanical transport or fit for being used by mules only. It was required to be observed whether it showed signs of being used and, if so, by what kind of transport. A bridge might be found to be unserviceable, but well-worn tracks from both ends of it might prove the passage of traffic along the route. Several tracks converging on a point might be an indication of a mechanical transport park. Hoof marks, imprints of elephants' pads, ruts made by cart wheels and tyre marks had , of course, their own tales to tell. If wheel marks abruptly ended in a jungle it was almost certain that vehicles were parked near the spot. Even an apparently insignificant detail that jungle creepers were seen across a road was not devoid of importance as it showed that the road was not much frequented [italics mine to show the phenomenal amount of detail required to be picked up whilst flying at 200mph, at 50ft above the trees !]. Besides searching for all these signs, the pilots carried out attacks whenever any target was noticed. During July, targets were plentiful and many attacks were made on motor vehicles, river craft, covered trenches, bunkers, bashas, gun positions and troops with good results. When it appeared that any target could not be adequately dealt with by it, the reconnoitring aircraft held its fire and directed other aircraft to the target [for example, just three weeks ago, on the 14th July, the CO himself had led six Spitfires to the Chassud area where he had noticed a number of Japanese troops].

As the time for take-off approached, the two pilots picked up their equipment [3], helmet and oxygen mask casually slung across the back of the neck, the Webley revolver in the webbing holster banging against the hip, and the seat-type parachute slapping the back of the thighs as they walked out to the aircraft, maps in hand. Fortunately, the monsoon-humidity-dripping sweat of the early afternoon had dried with the freshening breeze; but on the other hand, this also meant that clouds were building up, and both knew that the weather was a deadlier killer than the Japanese. Only on the 29th July, the squadron had lost two pilots who'd failed to return from a reconnaissance of the Tamu-Sittaung area. They were last seen entering cloud near Palel by another pilot. Ah, but then, the Leader and his Wingman were both young, and youth has a marvellous knack of looking at life, not death… The Wingman stopped for a moment to look up and smile as an exhilaratingly raucous flight of parrots flew past, their green plumage contrasting startlingly against the grey of the distant cumulonimbus each time they flew through an occasional sunbeam.

The aircraft were standing dispersed near some trees, the ground crew fussing over their wards, checking, re-checking, nervous excitement charging the air with a palpable electricity which caught at the throat - so you swallowed consciously and tried not to let it show….

The two Hurricanes stood hunched as only a Hurricane can, with its distinctive hump-back, its earth brown and dark green camouflage [4] gleaming dully in the late afternoon sun, the four protruding cannon barrels advertising an unspoken menace. A quick word with the ground crew, a pre-flight walk-around commencing and ending at the trailing edge of the left wing, sign the Form 700 for the aircraft. Right foot in the spring-loaded retractable footstep below the trailing edge of the left wing, right hand clutching the spring-loaded hand-hole slot behind and beneath the cockpit canopy, heave yourself onto the wing. Press the hand-hole cover shut and the linked retractable footstep also shuts with a 'thunk,' flush with the bottom of the wing. Right hand on the canopy [or hood], left hand on the top of the windscreen, push your left foot into the spring-loaded slot beneath the cockpit, pull yourself up, right leg into the cockpit, followed by the rest of you and all your various paraphernalia. Slip one leg through the Sutton quick-release harness strap as you sit, 'Click, click,' the ground crew pushes the shoulder pins into the slots, 'click,' you slide the leg pin into the slot, tighten the harness - the seat parachute feels hard and lumpy beneath you. Twist to the left, R/ T jack in, oxygen mask tube into the bayonet socket, and you're ready for the 'Preliminaries,' as the Pilot's Notes delightfully puts it [5] .

Hurricane Mk IIc , KZ-371 'R' of No.1 Squadron IAF at Miranshah, NWFP in late 1943

During the engine run-up, two men had clung grimly on to the tail to make sure that the 1280 horses of the Rolls-Royce Merlin XX did not slam the aeroplane onto its nose. After all the checks had been completed, the Wingman quickly once again made sure that the hand-brake-like seat adjustment lever on his right was pulled all the way up to ensure that his seat was raised to its maximum so he could see better whilst taxying - it was. He quickly pushed in the knob and set the gyro compass directly in front of him, making sure that it was showing the same heading as the P-8 magnetic compass in the bracket just below the instrument panel [just below the gyro compass, in fact], then set 150 degrees against the lubber line of his P-8 compass, the course to Tamu. Mentally, he reminded himself to constantly check his gyro compass every ten minutes against the magnetic compass [the gyro drifted, you see, so that it had to be constantly re-set every ten minutes or so to ensure its accuracy] and - most important - to make sure that before heading back, he set the course home, 330 degrees, against the P-8's lubber line. He, more than most pilots, would know - after all, he'd been trained as an Observer in Hyderabad for a year in '41 [6]. A quick glance at the pneumatic pressure gauge on the floor - Brakes - 100 psi [pounds per square-inch] - the two short needles at the ten o'clock and two o'clock position on the inner radius of the gauge - Pneumatic Supply - 220 psi - the long needle with a hollow circle a quarter-inch below the tip - at the three o'clock position on the outer radius. H'mm - good...

The Dunlop Pneumatic gauge

Both the Hurricanes now sat with the characteristic, soft, 'dhrik-a-dhrik-a-dhrik-a-dhrik-a,' of their idling Rolls Royce Merlins, propellers turning right [from the point of view of the pilot], the play of light sometimes making them strobe and appear to turn to the left… The Leader looked across at his Wingman, grinned, and gave him the thumbs up. He was answered by a nod and a thumbs up. Quickly one of the mechanics jumped onto his left wing to help guide him through the slushy quagmire of the dispersal to the pucca runway which, thank God, was a proper tarmac, unlike the PSP [Pierced Steel Plate] of nearby Uderbund 50 miles to the West where some of his friends in 7 Squadron were .

Monsoon rains at an Assam airfield turn it into a quagmire

He waved the chocks away and heard the hollow wooden slithering as they were pulled forward and away [7] by the remaining mechanic - a thumbs up - his left hand went up in a return thumbs up and dropped onto the throttle whilst his right hand, holding the stick back, flicked off the catch holding the brakes. Throttle in the hollow between left thumb and forefinger, easy does it, gently ease her into a slow walking pace. Watch the mechanic sitting on your wing as he guides you, mind you don't run into your Leader, quick glance at your temperatures and pressures, easy on the brakes - overconfidence can tip her onto her nose and gosh; worse still, can throw the poor mechanic onto those whirling prop blades .

At last - they reached the public road which adjoined the runway. Traffic, mainly military trucks and jeeps, was stopped on either side, with the odd cyclist and bullock-cart. They entered and lined up on the runway, the Wingman to the right and slightly behind the Leader. Brakes on - he gave a thumbs up to the mechanic on the wing who slithered off the trailing edge and ran to the side of the runway. The pre-take-off litany - TPFF [8]…..

Quickly he clipped his oxygen mask on and brought his goggles down over his eyes; right hand lowering the seat a bit so he could shut the canopy - he preferred to fly with the canopy shut as it was less noisy and less likely for his map to fly out of the cockpit; however, a lot of his friends preferred to fly with their canopy open… Eyes on the Leader, who raised his right arm and let it drop. Quickly slam the canopy shut, flick the brakes off, left hand smoothly opening the throttle, right rudder tap-tap-tapping away to counteract any swing to the left, right hand gently, gently exerting an imperceptible forward pressure on the stick. The Leader's tail went up, his own coming up almost simultaneously - a slight swing to the left corrected with instinctive pressure on the right rudder. Lightning glance at the airspeed - 100mph, the Leader's wheels left the tarmac; gentle back-pressure on the stick and his own wheels left the ground. Squeeze the brake lever with your right hand to stop the wheels from rotating, quickly transfer the left hand to the stick; right hand to the H-type slot, thumb on the hydraulic lever catch, move the lever left, with your index finger turn the undercarriage safety catch clockwise - watch it, boy, you're porpoising !! - and move the lever smartly up. The Leader's wheels were tucking up under his wing, first the right leg, then the left. He heard his own undercarriage lock as the indicator lights changed from green to red; quickly nudge the stick forward as his nose lifted slightly with the change in trim; quickly, right hand bringing the hydraulic lever back to neutral [leaving it in the undercarriage 'Up' position could cause the lever to jam], wait for the airspeed to build up to 140 mph, the minimum speed before you can start climbing….

They climbed to 100' to clear some buildings near the airfield and levelled off as he watched the airspeed build up to 200mph. The Leader dropped to 50' above the trees and he followed, juggling throttle, stick and rudder with imperceptible pressure so that his position never wavered, and it appeared as if one hand was guiding both the aeroplanes [9].

Watch your Leader, watch out for that tree, map-read, scan your instruments, stick back - high ground, check fuel, radiator temperature's rising - reach forward and raise the radiator flap lever a couple of notches with your left hand, watch your Leader.....

There - at 10 o'clock below - cart tracks - rapidly move your left hand from the throttle and grab the stick, while you mark the spot on your map and furiously scribble the details on your little pad.......

They were abeam Bishenpur and just about 10 miles south of Imphal, when something made him look up. What he saw turned his blood to ice - there, at eleven o'clock and about three thousand feet above them, hung two dots. His hand moved to the R/ T switch on his mask and he was about to shout a warning to the Leader when the two dots wheeled lazily to the left and he saw them for what they were - eagles ! As he let out a ragged breath of relief, he recalled how on the 21st May, two of his squadron were bounced at just this place by six Oscars. One died and the other had survived, but his Hurricane had taken such a beating that it was a wonder that he'd survived at all [10].

A Recce patrol near Bishenpur sends information back to HQ by R/T Indian troops breaking cover to put up a charge near Imphal

As they approached Palel, halfway to Tamu, he involuntarily tensed - this was where the Japanese 33rd Division had been tenaciously holding on [the other two, the 15th and the 31st had begun to slowly disintegrate]. As they roared over Palel, something caught his eye - troops ! Both saw them at the same time - they were wearing green - ours ? It must be; the Japs wear khaki - but hold it - why've they scattered ?! The Leader reefed into a climbing turn - open throttle; watch it, the Hurri tends to tighten up in a steep turn and she'll roll into the ground before you know it ! Indians, thank God, but no matter - he'd learnt that troops tended to blaze away anyway at anything with wings ! They descended once again and resumed course, and he marked the position of the troops on the map.

Clouds were building up rapidly behind him and he now had the added problem of turbulence - both the aircraft were bobbing up and down, and he had to work very hard just in order to keep station.

Looking back to Malta Hill from Scraggy Hill shows the devastation of the battle field

Ten miles later, they passed the hills of Tengnoupal, where Japanese bunkers had been systematically pulverized by the IAF and the RAF. The lush hills were marred by ugly tree-stumps and pock-marked by craters and the devastation looked like a tropical version of those horrible photographs of the Western Front that he'd seen as a child.

At last, Tamu…

The Leader rocked his wings and then turned left, circling, so they could see if the enemy had dispersed so as to ambush the troops coming down the Palel-Tamu road. Nothing; all quiet, almost too quiet. In his young life, he'd learnt to take nothing for granted, lest something come and bite him when he wasn't looking. Nothing. They flew two circles, the second wider than the first and the Leader then turned on to a heading of 150 degrees, a course which would take them towards the ferry near Pantha, where the oil refinery was. The terrain climbed sharply as they crossed the Nam Palaw Chaung. At the ferry on the Chindwin near Pantha, they circled the road in ever-widening circles, he noted some cart tracks to the side of the road, and what appeared to be vehicle tracks. Tank tracks…? They reefed into a steep turn - yes, they were. Quickly he noted down the spot on his map.

A Stuart tank at the Irrawady
A tank patrolling the Ukhrul Road

The Leader rocked his wings and turned back for Tamu. By now, he could see that the weather had turned ugly near Palel. It had started to pour, the clouds had descended to less than a hundred feet, the darkness sundered from time to time by streaks of lightning. He sensed rather than heard the thunder. Moirang and Langgol which he could see on either side of the Imphal -Palel road on the way out were now covered in dense, impenetrable gray - Imphal was boxed in…. Left hand to the bottom left of the instrument panel as he flicked on his navigation light and the pressure head heat switches, then his hand up - cockpit lights on, two on the left, one on the right, reach down - compass light on - rheostat to full bright. The Leader commenced a gentle turn to the left, climbing to about a thousand feet above the trees. No, there was no way out - they would have to try to go through the dark, billowing cauldron that was ahead of them. They continued to turn, climbing all the time. For the second time, he checked the fuel contents of the main tanks - five gallons each - he flicked the fuel pressurising switch from 'Atmosphere' to 'Pressure.' The Leader levelled off at 15, 000' - with hills upto 13, 000' all around them, height was their only friend. He checked the main fuel tanks again - 25 gallons - he switched off the fuel pressurising pump - his auxiliary tanks were now empty and he had fuel left for a little over half an hour of flying - they had to get home quickly .

Quickly now; bad weather procedures - set the flaps to 40 degrees - eyes quickly down to the right - the little indicator moved three notches down on the indicator - good; propeller speed to give 2650 rpm; speed down to 110 mph. Make sure the radiator shutter was fully open - it was - the temperature was steady at 100 C. A quick glance at the rear-view mirror - clear - everyone sensible, Japanese and birds included, was on the ground - except for them….

The Leader rocked his wings and set course - his gyro compass was showing 330 degrees - quick glance below - his P-8 compass was set on 330 degrees and the red needle was on 'N' for North. His body tensed and crouched, seat belt tightened to the maximum extent possible, eyes scanning his instruments, eyes on the Leader. On this course, they should be overhead home in 15 minutes. But it was not to be… Two minutes later, they were in middle of a nightmare, a maelstrom that tossed and rolled and slammed them about with a shocking violence. At one stage, he thought he saw his vertical speed indicator move straight from 4000'/ minute 'UP' to 4000'/ minute 'DOWN' with such force that his head banged painfully against the top of the canopy; it may well have been more than 4000'/ min, but the instrument was only calibrated upto 4000' ! The Leader turned back, and it was all that the Wingman could do to stay with him - twice or thrice, he thought that a giant hand was about to roll him over and fling him down.

The Climb/ Descent Vertical Speed Indicator

Back onto a course of 150 degrees - the murk eased just a bit after a short while, to reveal Palel beneath them. The Leader's voice, crackling with static, faintly came through his earphones "Shall we try again?" His left hand leapt to the microphone switch on his oxygen mask and he shouted "Affirmative, Leader, affirmative." Again they turned onto 330 degrees and headed into the witches' cauldron. Though the canopy was firmly shut, the sheets of rain caused leaking driblets to fall on his head and thighs. He pushed his goggles on top of his helmet and wiped his eyes of sweat and water - thank God he was wearing soft leather gloves. He swallowed hard and fought the panic that was threatening to engulf him - fuel was getting dangerously low. It was impossible - they were being thrown about with the same violence and ferocity they had encountered the first time, and the visibility was worse ! For the second time, the Leader turned back and he, blind and bouncing about like a cork, gingerly followed. Overhead Palel, the Leader told him that he would try for a wheels-up landing at Tamu airfield. Something possessed him and he called "I'm trying once more to head for home, Leader," and he swung around once more, back towards the maelstrom, onto the course for home….

He knew what this meant - a slight error in navigation and he'd run out of fuel or hit high ground, and then again, the weather itself may decide to relieve him of taking any more decisions and slam him into the ground, aided by the katabatic winds… He shook his head - concentrate ! Fuel was just over 20 gallons; the aeroplane rose dangerously, then fell - don't over-correct; gently now… Keep the compass steady on 330 degrees, and remember, after exactly fifteen minutes you should start descending and looking around for home… He was sweating profusely now, but daren't move his hands from the throttle and stick; watch the course, the aeroplane lurched - watch the speed - she'll stall at 75; watch the clock - another five minutes - thank God the radiator temperature was holding out at 100 C; check the compass - too much off to one side, and he could hit the slope of the valley….

Was it his imagination, or was the turbulence getting less…? With dramatic suddenness, he shot out into the valley, clear of the murderous thunderstorm. He could have sung for joy when he saw, there below him on the left, the airfield. Quickly check fuel - less than 5 gallons in each tank - he decided to make a straight-in approach and landing; let's hope like hell that the fuel gauge is accurate - he wouldn't have the luxury of being able to go around again if he muffed this approach .

Right hand moved the hydraulic lever to the right and down fully down - the nose dropped as the flaps came fully down - quickly he corrected the drop of the nose; he then moved the lever to the left and down and felt the turbulence of the dropping wheels and saw the green lights come on. He caressed the elevator trimmer wheel to ease the load off the stick; speed steady at 110 mph [she'd stall at anywhere between 60-75 mph]. Goggles down over the eyes, canopy back, raise the seat.

He cut power over the threshold and eased back on the stick, back again and ease off the back pressure, and she settled gently on the main wheels with a soft 'tchkkk' keep her steady and the tail came down; stick fully back. Raise the flaps.

He taxied out to where the 'Follow Me' jeep was. Slowly, he taxied behind the jeep back to where they started from just an hour-and-a-half ago - gosh; it felt a lot longer than that ! The chocks were dragged against his wheels [how reassuring that wooden scraping noise sounded !]; run the engine at 800 rpm for half a minute, then pull the slow-running cut-out on the bottom right shelf until the propellers slowed down and stopped with a series of soft, metallic 'clunks.' Fuel and ignition off.

The silence deafened him as he pushed back the sweat-drenched helmet off his head so that it lay wreathed across the back of his neck; he sat as if in a dream as he took in deep draughts of the monsoon-scented air. Death was only seven minutes behind him, but it was already out of his mind. Absent-mindedly, he disconnected the R/T, the oxygen, twisted open the Sutton quick-release harness. His mechanic helped him out of the harness - he was smiling warmly at him and talking - he couldn't hear him, but smiled back and mumbled something - his ears were still filled with the roar of the dead engine. He picked up his map and got out, slightly shaky with the still-remembered turbulence, and jumped off the back of the left wing.

As he walked back toward the briefing hut, he prayed that the Leader had made it OK to Tamu. The CO drove up with the ALO in a jeep - he just smiled at him, giving him time for his own thoughts. As they walked into the basha, a hot mug of tea was thrust into his hands, the ALO lit two cigarettes and gave him one. He took a greedy gulp of the scalding chai, took a great lungful of the smoke, and the words just came pouring out; the weather, his Leader's decision to force-land at Tamu - that was the first thing he said. Then the things they'd seen pin-pointed on the map; and Tamu ? Oh, Tamu was clear - most definitely clear .

The ALO made a few calls on the field telephone - an army unit had picked up the Leader, who had made a safe wheels-up landing at Tamu ! The Wingman slumped back into his chair as the relief swept over him; he was suddenly tired, very tired.

As they walked slowly to the basha which served as the Mess, he looked up at the lurid skid marks left by the sunset and one part of his brain thought "God but it's great to be alive " whilst another part of his brain thought "It's going to rain tonight…." He entered the cocooning womb of the Mess, with its cigarette smoke, conversation, slapping of cards on the table, All India Radio softly playing music in the background. He looked up at the familiar smiling face of Gulbaaz Khan, the tall, handsome Ahmedzai from Bannu, the khidmatgaar [waiter] who had come with them from Kohat, at his elbow with a chhota whisky paani "Thank you, Gulbaaz, thank you." Tomorrow would be a long day.

And yet, all this was just a daily routine for these young men, so many of whom never returned to their mothers in Bombay, or Bangalore, or......

Explanatory Notes for Anatomy of a Tac R Sortie

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(1) Tamu, only 50 statute miles SSE of Imphal, and one of the three pivotal strategic points in the Japanese campaign to take Imphal by the 15th, 31st and the 33rd Japanese Divisions (and thereafter, the Brahmaputra Valley and India), had just been re-taken on the 4th. August by the 23rd Indian Division and the 2nd British Division.

(2) The Hurricane II (the Squadron had converted from the twelve .303 calibre machine-gun IIB to the four 20mm Hispano cannon IIC only in June '44, "but this was not allowed to affect the operational work of the Squadron," as mentioned proudly in Pg. 121 of the Official History of the IAF in WW II) had two Main wing tanks of 33 gall. each, one Reserve tank of 28 gall. just ahead of the engine firewall, and two fixed Auxiliary tanks of 44 gall. each (or two Drop tanks of 45 or 90 gall. each). Assuming that they carried two fixed Auxiliary tanks (several photographs show Indian Hurricanes returning with external tanks), this would give each pilot a total of 182 gall. for the sortie. The Hurricane II Pilot's Notes gives the approximate fuel consumption in Rich mixture (at the tree-top height at which they flew, they couldn't afford to lean the mixture) as follows :

RPM Boost
(lb./ sq. in.) Gall./ hr.
3000 +12 115
3000 +9 100
2850 +9 95
2650 +7 80

Considering the fact that the journey there and back was fraught with the danger of being bounced by Oscars, and therefore required high throttle settings with frequent use of Boost Override (combat boost setting - not to exceed five minutes - else, there was a strong possibility of the engine seizing), this would give an endurance of under two hours. Therefore, a sortie to Tamu or slightly beyond Tamu would take up a travel time itself of 20-40 minutes each way, thus leaving only under an hour for reconnaissance/ loiter/ unforeseen circumstances (such as a pair of Oscars on your tail !).

(3) Equipment was not standard, and depended upon the wearer - typical IAF helmets were Type B or C (leather), Type D (cotton twill), or Type E (aertex - a synthetic material), with a Type D or G oxygen mask. Goggles were Mk. II or Mk. VIII flying goggles, although the writer has seen a photograph where the pilot appears to have Type B-6 or B-7 USAF goggles.

The author wearing Type C Helmet, Type G Oxygen Mask and Mk. VIII Flying Goggles

Some wore flying boots (a 6 Sqn. photograph shows Mohinder Singh Pujji wearing what appear to be 1930 Pattern Flying Boots Type 22C/49 whilst Bandy Verma appears to be wearing 1943 Pattern 'Escape' Boots Type 22C/ 917-924), or shoes with stockings, and some, ammunition boots with anklets (Wg Cdr Hoshang Patel's eyes twinkled as he recalled how Baba Mehar Singh of 6 Sqn. liked to fly bare-feet !). Some used gloves, some did not. Loose khaki half-arm (as they used to be called) shirts and shorts, or loose khaki flying overalls (or full-sleeved shirt and trousers - the danger of fire, and the need for protection from it, being ever-present). The weapons carried also varied - revolvers were the .455 Webley Mk. VI, the .38 Enfield Revolver No2 Mk.1, the .45 Colt 1917, or the .38 Smith & Wesson 1917, while some also carried a machete or a kukri as well. Micky Blake, in his article on the www.bharat-rakshak.com site, says he carried a Sten ! Of the four revolvers mentioned, the writer is of the opinion that the Webley is the best balanced, even though the Colt is 44 gms. heavier. The parachute was typically a Type C-2 - the pack itself formed a seat cushion and two thin cushions snapped onto the 'chute, each providing a small cushioning effect at the back and on the bottom of the seat.

(4) Again, not standard - could also have been grey and green. Also, the insignia varies from Type 'A' (RAF roundels with red inner circle, white middle circle and blue outer circle on the fuselage and wings and red, white and blue fin flash), to Type 'A1' (the same roundels with a yellow outer band on the fuselage, Type'A' roundels on the wings, and the fin flash is also the same as 'A'), Type 'B' (roundels with red inner circle and blue outer circle, with a red and blue fin flash, or with fin flash same as Type 'A,' or even a Type'C,' which had a narrow inner white band between the red and blue), or SEAC (roundels on the fuselage and wings with light blue inner circle and dark blue outer circle, fin flash light blue ahead of dark blue). Again, there were variations between, and even within, squadrons!

(5) PRELIMINARIES

Cockpit of the Hurricane Mk.1 which is currently preserved at the Air Force Museum in Palam, New Delhi. On the right is an illustration from the Pilot Notes.

(i) If fitted with RP (rocket projectile) and a drop tank or RP and a bomb, the aircraft should be trimmed carefully to relieve stick load.

The recommended aileron tab setting (this was to be set on the ground and was not adjustable in flight) is neutral at full load. Then with a drop tank fitted under the port wing, changes in load will cause the following alterations in trim :

Tank empty : Slightly right wing low
Tank empty and RP fired : Trim satisfactory
Tank jettisoned and RP fired : Slightly right wing low
Tank jettisoned, RP not fired : Right wing low

(ii) Switch on the undercarriage indicator and check green lights. Test the change-over switch (these are two switches on the top left side of the cockpit coaming next to the large undercarriage indicator. Undercarriage 'DOWN' was indicated by two perpendicular green lights on either side of the centre of the instrument. Undercarriage 'UP' was indicated by two horizontal red lights on either side of the top of the instrument).

(iii) See that the short (lower) arm of the hydraulic selector safety catch is across the wheels up slot of the gate (this is a slot which looks like an H. The selector lever is in the centre - move it into the right-hand slot for flaps, and into the left-hand slot for the undercarriage - the undercarriage (u/ c) slot has a safety spring to ensure that you don't select u/ c 'up' in a manner to cause you red-faced embarrassment ["Sorry, Sir, I thought I was raising the flaps !!"]).

(iv) Check that the throttle pushbutton master switch is OFF ( a pushbutton on the top of the throttle lever - check it with your left thumb).

(v) Check contents of fuel tanks (this is a beautifully designed tumbler switch - turn it to whichever tank you want a reading of - Port, Centre (Reserve), Starboard, and press a button on the tumbler switch - the contents of the selected tank are indicated on a large gauge below the switch). If fitted with Auxiliary tanks see that the pump switches or control cock are OFF (bottom right side of your seat).

(vi) Test operation of flying controls.

(vii) See that the cockpit hood (or canopy) is locked open (this was not as foolproof a system as that on the Spitfire, in which, by opening the cockpit door one notch during take-off and landing, the hood is prevented from slamming shut - having said that, this is precisely what did happen to Furdoon Dinshaw Irani of 7 Sqn - whilst force-landing a Spit after engine failure, the hood slammed shut, almost scalping him in the process !).

STARTING THE ENGINE AND WARMING UP

i) Set the fuel cock to MAIN TANKS ON on the left side below the instrument panel - with your left thumb and forefinger, twist the large metal switch to the right - there.

ii) Set the controls as follows : Throttle - 1/ 2 in. Open Propeller Control - a small black knob above and ahead of the throttle. Push it fully forward to fine pitch so that the prop will claw your heavily-laden aircraft into the warm, dank air.

Supercharger control - push the knob forward with your left hand for moderate Radiator shutter - reach forward with your left hand, grip the hand-brake-like lever, depress the button at the top, and pull it all the way up for OPEN

iii) Work the priming pump until the fuel reaches the priming nozzles; this may be judged by a sudden increase in resistance right hand to the bottom of the instrument panel on the right, smartly twist the small black knob anti-clockwise, a spring makes it pop out, pull and push it two - three times - there - you can feel the resistance

iv) Switch ON the ignition flick the two small switches at the bottom left of the instrument panel up and press the starter and booster coil buttons to the left of the ignition switches. When the propeller reluctantly starts turning, keep pumping on the primer pump knob - ah, the engine has burst into life. Release the starter button, but keep the booster coil button pressed (to the right of the starter button) until the engine's running smoothly. Push the primer pump knob back in, twist it to the right and lock it.

v) Release the starter button as soon as the engine starts a cough, another cough, and the Rolls Royce Merlin XX rumbles to life, all twelve cylinders settling into a soft, growling, throbbing unison and as soon as it is running satisfactorily release the booster coil pushbutton and with your right hand screw down the priming pump.

vi) Open up slowly to 1000 rpm watch the needle gradually climb up on the large gauge on the top right hand of the instrument panel then warm up at this speed.

TESTING THE ENGINE AND INSTALLATIONS While warming up

i) Check temperatures and pressures check that the tape-like instrument on the right side of the panel shows a minimum oil pressure of 45 lbs/ sq. in, below that, check that oil temperature has risen to a minimum of 15 degrees C, and the gauge to its right shows a minimum radiator temperature of 60 degrees C - see whether the fuel pressure warning light (to the right of the oil pressure gauge) is not on - if it is, it means that the fuel pressure has fallen below 8 lbs/ sq. in. and test operation of the hydraulic system the various washers and seals easily deteriorate in the heat, wet, and humidity by raising and lowering the flaps right hand on the lever in the H-type slot, move the lever right and down - twist to the right and watch the little indicator on a strip of metal move down - good. Now move the lever up and watch the indicator move back to the flaps up position. Return the lever to the neutral position.

ii) Open throttle to +4 lb/ sq.in boost check the gauge on the right of the panel, below the rpm gauge and check the operation of the two speed supercharger. RPM should fall when S ratio is engaged ie., the supercharger is on - pull the knob out and check the rpm gauge on the top right of the instrument panel.

iii) At +4 lb/ sq. in. boost exercise and check operation of the constant speed propeller pull back the small black lever above the throttle lever. Rpm should fall to 1800 with the lever fully back. Check that the generator is charging; the power failure light top left hand side of the panel should be out and the voltage 14 or over grunt and twist to the left and back - check the small gauge on the left side of the cockpit shelf.

iv) With the propeller control fully forward open the throttle up to +12 lb./sq. in. boost and check static boost and rpm which should be 3000.

Throttle back to +9 lb./sq. in. and test each magneto in turn. Bottom left side of the instrument panel - flick
the switch on the left down - a slight drop in sound, felt rather than heard, accompanied by a drop in rpm - back up and on - now the switch on the right for the right-side magneto. The drop should not exceed 150 rpm with each flick of the switch. If your Hurricane is battle-weary, as most were, the slight drop in sound would be accompanied with a slight shudder, and a drop of slightly more than the minimum allowed !

(6) Observers were later called Navigators, but the old Observer course included wireless training as well as gunnery, in addition to navigation.

The P-8 compass is a bowl-shaped instrument renowned for its robust reliability, but it has one inherent issue; you have to set the course by turning the grid ring (which has directions marked every 10 degrees graduated in 2-degree divisions, and is also divided into four quarters by two parallel wires which connect N to S, and E to W) until the required course is set against the lubber line (a small white marker on the inner ring of the compass). You are then on course when the pointer with a red cross is on the large red square marked 'N' for North (hence the expression, "Red on Red"); wonderful, you may well say, so there's no problem getting there and back, right ? Not quite; there is a problem, one that is all the more dangerous because it is an insidious one. You see, you have to remember that when you want to get home, you must make sure that you re-set the course home. In this case, the course to Tamu was 150 degrees on the way out. On the way back, a pilot had to set 330 degrees, the way back to Imphal and home, and then make sure that the pointer with the red cross was back on 'N.' The only problem was that, in the heat of combat, pilots could (and frequently did) forget to set the reciprocal course home, blindly keep turning until they had put 'N' on the pointer with the cross, and head farther and farther away from home, and run out of fuel, with its usually horrendous results. In fact, this problem was so severe that some squadrons used to block off the bottom or Southern half of the grid ring as a reminder - but - you still had to re-set the course home… Photograph of P-8 Compass One can't emphasise enough how the Gyrosyn or Gyro-Magnetic or Remote Indicating Compass (which is a gyro compass which senses the earth's magnetic field) would have eased the pain - although these existed from the thirties itself and were used for several record-breaking flights, such compasses were not fitted on several of the British service aircraft of WWII, especially fighters. Whereas most British aeroplanes had the P Type compass described above, most American ones had the simple E Type magnetic compass in which you could simply read your heading on the face of the instrument (British bombers such as the Avro Lancaster and some others had Remote Indicating Compasses, or RIC's).

I have dwelt at length on this issue as weather and navigational errors (and frequently a combination of the two) accounted for a large number of casualties, both, in Europe/ the UK, as well as in Burma.

Talking about navigation - what about the usage of navigational slide rules/ computers ? Low-flying Tac-R pilots did not have the luxury of being able to use their plastic 'Computer; Dead Reckoning Type AN 5835-1.'

Right: Photograph of the metal Computer Mk. IIID*

Left: Dead Reckoning Type AN 5835-1

'Unique' Navigational Slide Rule

Observers in Vengeances, on the other hand, could use this, as well as the Mk. III D* metal computers, or the 'Unique' Navigational Slide Rule. However, even these were no great solace against the Burma weather (on the 1st. April, 1944, on a raid to Kalewa, Edul Dadabhoy of 7 Sqn. was killed, whilst his Observer, Jamsu Dordie, baled out when they were lost in horrible weather conditions and, according to my friend Cecil Naire who used these computers/ slide rules in Kohima/ Imphal [ I have them now], Jamsu was an excellent Observer - even so, the muck was so impenetrable, they were lost !). Therefore, most relied upon terrain which they'd flown over so regularly (like the Imphal-Palel road, or the Palel - Tamu road) to get them home. In such situations, luck and skill (eg., following a course and knowing the topographical contours) played a vital role.

(7) Unlike most conventional aeroplanes, Hurricanes required the chocks to be withdrawn forwards and thereafter to the side as they would foul and damage the shock-absorber strut and fairing if withdrawn directly to the side as was done for most aeroplanes (Point 6, Chapt. 2, Sect. 4., Vol. I A.P.1564B - Hurricane Maintenance Manual).

(8) T - Trimming Tabs - Rudder : Twist the star-shaped wheel on your left just ahead of the seat bottom fully right to counteract the Hurricane's tendency to swing left on take-off. The Elevator trim wheel just to its left - set it to Neutral - check against the indicator next to it.

P - Propeller Control - push the black knob above the throttle fully forward.

Supercharger Control - bottom left of the instrument panel - push it in for low (Moderate) gear.

F - Fuel - turn the tumbler above the fuel guage onto the different tanks, press the button and check the contents of the main tanks - full Auxiliary tank cocks and pumps - off Pressurising cock - just below the elevator trim wheel - set it to atmosphere F - Flaps Up - there was no need for the shortest take-off run, viz., 28deg. down - it would only use up more fuel.

Supercharger - pushed in for Moderate Radiator - lever up for Fully Open - you'd need to keep the engine as cool as possible for your low-level sortie

(9) Typical Tac-R sorties were flown at about 50' above the trees. Wg Cdr. Hoshang Patel was sent to a course in Ranchi before joining 6 Sqn. where they were put through an intensive three-week course on low-level flying where you couldn't fly above 50'. He tells of how once, on a Tac-R with 6 Sqn., he came upon a Japanese soldier who, upon seeing this ear-splitting apparition, ran to a tree and hugged it tight ! Great presence of mind on the part of the soldier, but imagine such a thing registering upon the pilot !

Ken Lister, DFC, RAF, says in Pg. 125 of Chaz Bowyer's 'Hurricane at War : 2,' "It was always the same thing. Briefed to fly at 50ft above tree-top level, people would fly at 50ft above ground level (italics mine). One can well imagine that with a carpet top of forest there is always one tree that's stuck high above the rest somewhere, and it's not seen against the background. That was the way generally people were killed."

Pg. 120 of the Official History of the IAF states "On 21 May two aircraft of the squadron encountered Japanese fighters for the first time. The aircraft fitted with long range tanks were reconnoitring the Bishenpur area at 1500 feet when they were attacked by six Japanese Oscars from above. The slow moving Hurricanes had little chance of escape"

It can be arguably stated that if the Hurricanes had been lower, they may have stood a better chance of camouflage and/ or escape. However, it must also be remembered that flying at 1500' rather than 50' gave the pilot a better opportunity to observe activity on the ground. When one sits and wonders today how pilots could fly at just 50' above the trees in horrible terrain, in horrible weather, and were still expected to bring back the detailed information they had to collect, one factor which played a very important role in this, was the experience, especially of the Indian squadrons, who maintained a consistently high level of serviceability, and mounted a consistently high number of sorties against the enemy, something which is still not given its due recognition in the world.

No. 1 Sqn IAF moved into Imphal from Kohat on 3. 2. 44 and were continuously in action for fourteen months. In March, they flew 366 sorties totalling about 530 hrs. In April, 412 sorties, 485 hrs. In May, 372 sorties. June saw 327 sorties "in the face of adverse weather which rendered many a sortie abortive and while conversion of the squadron to another type was being effected." (Pg. 121 of the Official History). "Weather in August was very unfavourable and no flying was possible for eight days. Still the squadron flew 354 sorties totalling 466hrs 45 minutes." (italics mine).

Code Cards used by Recce Pilots.

(10) While the superlative Mitsubishi A6M Zero-Sen was also no doubt in Burma, the fighter used in greater numbers in that theatre by the IJAAF was the Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon), or the Oscar which, with a 'combat manoeuvre flap' under the wings, was a formidable fighter which could out-manoeuvre most Allied aeroplanes. In early 1944, the Japanese brought to Burma the Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki (Demon), or the Tojo. This signified a dramatic change in Japanese fighter philosophy which hitherto had emphasized manoeuvrability above all else. The Tojo ushered in the era of emphasis on greater speed. However, the small wings, higher landing speeds, poor take-off view and controllability issues (flick rolls were banned !) did not go to make it too popular amongst its pilots. These were brought to counter the threat of the Spitfires (three squadrons of V's and some VIII's). According to the Official history (pg. 105) "They also improved their tactics. They used decoy aircraft to draw the RAF while their camouflaged fighters flying above attacked their Spitfires. They adopted the defensive circle formation in combat and split into small groups when the circle was broken." During the course of March, April and May 1944, the Japanese had lost 120 aeroplanes, which forced them to abandon the Shwebo group of airfields, Heho and Meiktila, and prompted a move to the airfields around Rangoon. Whilst this greater distance impacted on the time they could spend over Allied-occupied territory, their superb range and endurance ensured that danger from Japanese fighters was ever-present. The Official History (pg. 120) states "Later, long-range reconnaissance was discontinued except on special instructions as several long range Hurricanes including one of No. 1 Squadron were shot down by the Japanese fighters. The extra petrol tank (sic) with which the aircraft had to be fitted for undertaking long range tasks reduced their speed rendering them easy targets for opposing fighters. Flying was therefore limited to within 100 miles radius of Imphal".

A brief, generic (different marks contained minor differences, and sometimes major ones, eg., the Tojo IIC had two 40mm cannon instead of 12.7mm machine guns whereas the III had two 20mm cannon. These have not been included in the interests of brevity) description of the principal actors will be of interest :

Name Engine Max Speed Range Armament
Zero 1200hp 350-360mph 1940 mils Two 20mm cannon, two 7.7mm machine guns
Oscar -Do- -Do- 1864 mls Two 7.7mm or 12.7mm machine guns
Tojo 1260-1520hp 360-376mph similar Two 12.7mm & two 7.7mm machine guns
Hurricane 1280hp 335-350mph 460mls Four 20mm cannon

A Photograph of two scale models shows showing the smaller wing span and length of the 'Tojo' (on the right) compared to the 'Oscar' (on the left).

A scale model of the Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 'OO' - The Incredible Zero

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