India 100 Years Back

The daughter of an Indian maharajah seated on a panther she shot, sometime during 1920s.

A British man gets a pedicure from an Indian servant. 

The Grand Trunk Road , built by Sher Shah Suri, was the main trade route from Calcutta to Kabul. 

A group of Dancing or nautch girls began performing with their elaborate costumes and jewelry. 

A rare view of the President's palace and the Parliament building in New Delhi!

Women gather at a party in Mumbai ( Bombay ) in 1910. (It's the time to Disco)

A group from Vaishnava, a sect founded by a Hindu mystic. His followers are called Gosvami-maharajahs.

An aerial view of Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi , built between 1650 and 1658. 

The Imperial Airways 'Hanno' Hadley Page passenger airplane carries the England to India air mail, stopping in Sharjah to refuel. 

India Pakistan Partition 1947 - A sad day in History

WORLD'S BIGGEST MIGRATION OF HUMAN BEING ON EARTH

The Partition of India and Pakistan which took place on 14th August, 1947 is still known as the WORLD'S BIGGEST MIGRATION OF HUMAN BEING ON EARTH, where Over 1 million people migrated from India to Pakistan
Millions left for their promised new homeland with smiles on their faces as trains left both India and Pakistan.
This is a train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off.
                      

In 1947, the border between India and its new neighbour Pakistan became a river of blood, as the exodus erupted into rioting.
These pictures are by Margaret Bourke-White from Khushwant Singh's book Train to Pakistan, Roli Books.
Overcrowded trains leaving for Pakistan following the partition.

  Another image of people on the train to Pakistan.

Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home.

In a couple of months in the summer of 1947, a million people were slaughtered on both sides in the religious rioting.
Here, bodies of the victims of rioting are picked up from a city street.

The massive exchange of population that took place in the summer of 1947 was unprecedented.
It left behind a trail of death and destruction. The Indian map was slashed to make way for a new country - Pakistan.

The street was short and narrow. Lying like the garbage across the street and in its open gutters were bodies of the dead

With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi.

Men, women and children who died in the rioting were cremated on a mass scale.
Villagers even used oil and kerosene when wood was scarce.

WORLD'S BIGGEST MIGRATION OF HUMAN BEING ON EARTH

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A tour of old Bangalore(50 Years Back) Rare Pics!!

Welcome  into the past. here are some images of Bangalore, generations old, that are apparantly lost in the pages of history. Come, travel with me back in time to the banglore in the days of the raj, when it was still a small cantonment town. the year was 1946. And the place, Namma Bengaluru.

Does this frame look familiar??? It should. This is the BRIGADE ROAD. The left hand side building is still standing, and housed the Ashok Electricals, the Post Office, now it is the LEE and Luis Phillips showroom. The road hasn’t got any bigger, but the traffic and the crowd definitely has.

1955 photo of Vidhana Soudha under construction. The construction began in 1952 and was inaugrated in 1956.

Does this frame look familiar??? It should. This is the BRIGADE ROAD. The left hand side building is still standing, and housed the Ashok Electricals, the Post Office, now it is the LEE and Luis Phillips showroom. The road hasn’t got any bigger, but the traffic and the crowd definitely has.

The above picture is of Hosur Road. the present day electronics, IT and BPO Hub.

This strong stone building is now only known as the Oriental Building( presently houses the LIC) and is at the intersection of MG Road (then called as, South Parade) and St. Marks Road. There apparently was a large circle at this juncture as can be seen in the photograph. The road you are looking at is St. Marks Road.

                               The town hall area….

This is the Mayo hall. It sure looks much more regal than what it does today. It houses the Courts and was apparently also one of the main Police Station jails. I do not believe that the staircase shown in the picture still exists, and the view is supposedly that from Residency Road, only after taking a print out will I be able to compare because the building is so symmetrical.

Observe something?? The licence plate shows BAN565 suggests that there were under 1000 cars in Bangalore in 1946. or in the entire state (then known as the state of Mysore).

How Language Created Borders...

I recently saw a beautiful advertisement on television. It was an ad by Idea, featuring Abhishek Bacchan and many other characters. The theme of this ad centered around the idea that linguistic divide is not a barrier instead it can be used to resolve differences. It is a fascinating thought. The India that they try to show in the ad is the India of my dreams.Sadly that is also the India that I might never get to see.

Language was created to bridge the gap between people. It was "supposed" to be the medium of communication. The way through which one man could express himself to others. It was created to spread love. But, hasn't it become another cause of conflict between various sections of society? Tamilians say Tamil is the greatest, Hindi speakers would say Hindi is the greatest of all. The Marathi people have become so obsessed with their language that they are willing to forget humanity for the sake of their native language. What kind of barbaric society have we become? Makes me feel like hating all the languages!

But then again, is "language" the real issue behind the conflict ? Hell No! Language in itself is so great that it does not need this high voltage drama to save it. It is the politicians who use such sensitive subjects to antagonize people and play politics over it. The day they made a decision to divide states linguistically our fate got sealed. Linguistic division created small societies and we got used to being a part of the small societies so much that we forgot everything about our common identity. In this country everyone became a Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi , Madrasi and finding an Indian in this crowd became "Mission Impossible".

There are so many examples one could name that are a bi-product of this linguistic divide. The Tamil Nadu language trouble(Read Dravidian Movement ), the Telangana row, the whole Marathi Manoos crap , U.P. government banning English; our country is full of such issues. A Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha wins an election based on this issue. Karunanidhi recently spent some Rs.480Crores on a Tamil language festival. This is a huge amount to spent on such a cause. Why didn't Karunanidhi think of other means of spending this money. Aren't we a "poor nation"?

All these efforts that every group is making to save their own language, according to me, are murdering the spirit of the language. Why can't we just let certain things be? Its important to save our languages from dying a bad death I know, but can't we do it together as one nation? Does saving one language means killing the other one? What about co-existence? Whatever happened to brotherhood? Where did our sense of oneness go? Why did we let politics enter within ourselves so much that we forgot the difference between right and wrong? Why???

The Life and Lies of Lalu

In the very first class of journalism our broadcasting professor asked us: Who is the one Indian Politician who has made the best possible use of media ? No one in the entire class had a clue. We came up with names such as the Gadhi's or Advani but the answer was Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Recently I came across a blog which was written in the form of an Obituary to Lalu Prasad Yadav called Once there was a man called Lalu. The blog is a tale of Lalu's rise to fame and his not so sad demise. Lalu or the Indian Politics' funny man was one of shrewdest brains of Indian politics. He was the man who changed the face of Bihar from bad to worse and of Indian Railways from a constant looser to a profit making machine. 

He will also be remembered for all the wonderful speeches which tickled our funny bones. But Lalu will always be best remembered the Chara Ghotala or the Fodder Scam which sent Lalu to jail and Rabri,his wife, straight to the CM's chair. 

During his regime most Bihar was living under the light of a LALTEN (lantern) which coincidently was also his party symbol. He lasted in Bihar for 10 long years and with all his devotion he sucked money out of the state and into his bank account. Now if you think that it's selfish act, think twice. Remember the weddings of Lalu's kids? It was a popular saying in those days: the place where Lalu marry's his kids, flourishes. So all the money he spent on those wedding might have been public money, but in the end it was the public who was gaining from it, right?

Well Lalu never thought that he will ever lose his hold on Bihar. Who would have thought that after 10yrs of love the people will forget him? Life was so much interesting in his times. Elections were never peaceful they always entertained people with nice fights. Who doesn't enjoy bit of an action? There was no electricity in the state. No electricity meant no work and full family time. Very bad literacy ratio as the kids never went to school, so more playing time and all-round grooming. 

After all the wonderful gifts he just won 4 seats this time. It seems like Lalu’s era is truly over. Now Bihar is growing and doing better at uninteresting things like GDP’s and NDI’s. Life was much simpler in his time but sadly those are the times no one seems to be missing. This truly is the demise of Lalu, India’s best funny man ever.