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Published: December 11th 2012
Blessings
Mine is deteriorating slowly in my sewing room.This morning we drove into the
Chamundi Hills, just outside of
Mysore, to a large temple complex. Lots of people were coming to worship and there was a long line-up to go into the main shrine. We contented ourselves with marveling at the tall, carved tower, cream in colour. L__ paid for our blessings, this time a twisted cotton string dyed orange and yellow. The seller expertly tied the string around our left wrist and pressed red paste on our third eye. The string is to be allowed to disintegrate and return to the earth, as we all must. Or, we found around on the other side, believers can hang the string on the sacred mango tree, where it will disintegrate with all the others. When we left the temple complex, we discovered a large
nandi statue adorned with flowers in worship. Also, here was a seller of tiny statues as souvenirs, suitable for my wants. I bought a
dancing Natarajafor J__ and for me.
Next we drove to the
Palace of Mysore, a doubled-in-size replacement for the original wood (
rosewood and
teak) palace that burned to the ground in 1897. This one was finished in 1912 – a fabulous piece of history for
Chamundeshwari temple
Awe inspiring size and decor the people of Mysore.
No cameras were allowed inside. First we walked down an exhibition corridor that showed marble dolls, gifts from dignitaries, two stuffed elephant heads (that hardly looked real), and the
Maharaja’s golden elephant howdah, among other things. The howdah is still used in a ten-day festival in October, but Parvati rides in it now, not the descendant of the Maharaja. (His family lives in a private wing.) Many of the teak doors are beautifully carved with detailed rosettes. And, the ceremonial entrance is guarded by ornate brass elephant-decorated gates that line up with the ceremonial gate on the street. (We entered by the east gate, which has a clear view to the west gate across the compound in front of the palace.)
The greatest room was the large
durbar room where the Maharaja met with officials. Possibly more than fifty feet square, great fluted pillars painted peacock blue supported a stained glass domed ceiling. Every surface was either intricately painted or carved. The floor tiles were from England and wall tiles were
Meissen. The building is
Indo-Persian architecture with 30%!o(MISSING)f the materials from abroad. Stairs were Italian marble. Further on was a private durbar room, that probably could
Palace of Mysore
From the Rose Garden, a stunning view of the great building seat sixty people in comfort, also highly decorated.
The full public durbar room was a gigantic covered room, open fully on one side facing the main (north) gate. An extension was made in the 1930s to seat possibly a hundred more officials. Here the Maharaja heard complaints or petitions. How anyone could see him in a site of such gigantic proportions was not obvious.
Allowed fifteen minutes for photography outside the Palace, I pursued the ferocious tiger statues. These reminded me of
Sharpe’s Tiger by Bernard Cornwell; the
statues were designed by an Englishman (Robert Williams Colton of the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1909, Google tells me.). The “street photographer” of the Palace offered to take our group photo for 50 rupees each, and he knew exactly how to position everyone to get the best of our persons and of the Palace into the photo.
From here we drive to
Srirangapatna, heart of
Sharpe’s Tiger (anglicized to Seringapatam during the British Raj). As stated by Cornwell in the afterworld of his novel, the place is a complete ruin. We drove onto the island, almost all of which is encircled by the wall broken by the historic
Tiger of the Tipu Sultan
Symbol of the Tipu, although this version of the Palace was built after his time. bombardment and now deteriorated by time. A town thrives in the Palace grounds, as it did in the late eighteenth century. The Water Gate, through which the British entered, is identified by a sign, as is the supposed place where the
Tipu Sultan was killed in battle. Some of the corner ramparts, so dangerous to the novel’s characters, can still be seen; the Palace itself is only recognizable by the modern guides. They didn’t even stop the bus. Of course, Cornwell’s novel is from the British point of view: they demolished a savage enemy, who had won three previous battles aided by the perfidious French. The Indians naturally regard the Tipu Sultan as a hero betrayed by his Prime Minister who informed the British about how to enter the Fort; Cornwell portrays him as a Hindu patriot.
We then drove for about ten minutes to the Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace, unaffected by the wars and lately restored. V__ identified this as a masterpiece of India art, unmixed with European art. The veranda walls were covered in large murals with stylized depictions of the three victorious battles. The traitorous official’s face was scratched out at the time of the fourth battle.
Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace
Large public park now, with the Palace in the distance shrouded in green blinds. The high ceilings were all painted with primitive rosettes. Blinds have been added to the veranda’s edge to preserve the paintings because the vegetable dyes deteriorate in the sun’s glare and the rain; unfortunately, the green blinds disguise the appearance of the building itself. The interior rooms are painted with intricate designs, and on the walls hang many sketches of life done by British “house” artists whose job it was to make pictorial records, as photographers do now. The last veranda wall was covered by stylized portraits of officials of the Sultanate and the Hindu princesses. (The Mogul wives were in seclusion, of course.)
Outside we admired the garden and used the toilets. These were clean, of the squat variety. An attendant carefully placed the broken-off door of my cubicle in front of me and responded to my knock when done.
After lunch was an organized shopping expedition. The first shop had shawls, fabric, jewels and rugs of the highest quality, but none of us wanted such beautiful things. The next shop was a honey-trap for me: the government shop with fixed prices at a large fabric counter. By this time, I wanted to buy some cotton to
Vegetable dyes
Using my long lens I was able to capture a little sample of the beautiful designs in the Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace. supplement my curtain project. They didn’t have suitable cotton for this, but they had beautiful linen fabric in acceptable colours ($31.84). (When I compared them to the silk saris later, the orange was almost an exact match, but the dark red was not quite purple enough – still it will work.) As I was asking for cotton they pulled out a fabulous dark red slub cotton that looked like silk. I couldn’t let it go, so bought enough to make new cushion covers ($41.88). For all the fabrics, I bought what I hope is way too much. The third store was a charming craft shop, but my buying fervor was over.
After a rest and swim, we all met in the roof top garden gazebo for wine in the dark, enjoyable except for the permanent fug of burnt something in the Indian air. (No one is bothered much except me.) To our delight, for a relatively brief time, the Palace was lit, and we could see it clearly. A romantic end to a romantic day.
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Marjorie N. Hardy
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Our blessing "bracelets" from Mysore
Judith, I wore my wristlet until it came undone by itself; four months in total. I kept the string, which had stained several lovely white towels orange during our subsequent travels in India, and let it go in running water, as was advised, in the Zambezi River, to eventually go over the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, back in October. It felt quite nice to think that I had four months of blessings while wearing it! It garnered several comments/questions during this time, as you can imagine.