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To send any message to me, or for private comments, please use the mail id : sudipsam67@yahoo.co.in or Whatsapp me at 919477202742

The bloody diamond

The bloody diamond
This is life

Welcome to the imperfect world

Welcome to the super-real world where survival comes first, much before the high alter preachings of excellence (for others only). So if you are the one who does not have to survive, or does not care - you have a choice not to remain here.

For others, please have a seat and take cover - here anything can happen anytime and you may just become a faceless co-lateral damage. Everything here is related to life and death, pains and agonies, treacheries and conspiracies, cons and deceit, treason and betrayals, despair and darkness - we just do not live in any perfect world.

BUT that is why the blog is here at all - let there be light. It aspires to show the way, to train myself and my friends in the defense against the dark arts. It is also related to hope and courage, renunciation and redemption, indomitable will and lust for life - the immortal battle with the dark side. Red flag fluttering in the gentle wind, all hands on deck, war cries in the air, daggers drawn, no quarters given nor asked, no hostages taken - we must fight till the last man standing

Rest assured, you are in good hands. These hands, with all the talents or the lack of them, with all the liveliness and the inner brooding, with the over-sized ego and the extra-ordinary humility, with all the goodness and the devilish designs - have been war veterans - they have fought for decades in the battle of survival.

Happy surviving




Love in blood

Love in blood

The inescapable war within

It is the curse of the human that we are constantly at wars. War with the Government, society, family, spouse, children, Boss, peer, friends, neighbours. Some of these are overt, some crude, some plain enmity but some are subtle, some barely palpable, some low key and guerilla types, some are cold as razors, some are dry like the funeral pyres.

Most of these cannot be own with force or when you try for winning - sometimes you have to lose to win them. Some are more like trials than wars, they never show the faces, never let you see their pimples, just shadows, the kafkaesque faceless executioners take over.

For all these, we need inner strength, we need strategies. Sometimes the objective is survival, sometimes it's plain escape from the random blades, sometimes the heady delight of beheading the enemy. Sometimes it is sheer joy to be alive, sometimes happiness comes over from a walkover or just a walkaway, without even a careless looking back. Often it is a mixed feeling - the agony, the ecstasy, the brutal orgasm or a complete disenchanted detachment - a shelter in the NOW. They sometimes need courage, need cunning finesse, sometimes ruthless lack of values of a son-of-the-bitch, sometimes daring flamboyant recklessness, maybe even stoic nonchalance. But the best of the best generals in the wars of life, always win without unnecessary bloodshed or even none of it at all.

But the most painful and fearful of all these wars are the ones with oneself. It could be a conflict between mind and heart or even the soul that holds our values dear. And this is one war that always hurts, always wounds, always bleeds one dry, always keeps one awake through the fearful night with the shadows of the beautiful lacey curtains blowing in the gentle wind and making shadows of our most intimate fears within. It is like a nation under seize, and alas, there is no escape. When you will kill yourself softly, no survival strategy ever works.



Monday, November 7, 2011

Some old pics of Lucknow and Sepoy mutiny


I am passionate about Lucknow history and plan to re-narrate and re-interpret it in a book that I started 4 years ago and plan to complete in another 4 years. Enjoy a few of the pictures from my collection in http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2413659453543.2134861.1012989103&type=1&l=3664f2db40

Notes on the associated picture : This picture was taken by Felice Beato, an italian photographer, in 1858. Sikander Bagh (formerly Secundra Bagh), a summer house on eastern side of Lucknow which is almost at the heart of the city now, had been occupied by mutineers who began firing on Sir Colin Campbell's troops. it was a scene of intense fighting in Nov,1857. Following the action, the British dead were buried in a deep trench but the Indian corpses were left to rot. Later, the city had to be evacuated and was not recaptured until March 1858 and it was shortly afterwards that Beato probably took this photo. One contemporary commentator described it: "A few of their [rebel] bones and skulls are to be seen in front of the picture, but when I saw them every one was being regularly buried, so I presume the dogs dug them up." A British officer, Sir George Campbell, noted in his memoirs Beato's presence in Lucknow & stated that he probably had the bones uncovered to be photographed. However, William Howard Russell of  The Times recorded seeing many skeletons still lying around in April 1858.

The British opened fire on the solid brick wall of the building. Holes pounded in the wall turned into wide gaps. The slaughter inside was appalling, and before long the ground was covered with both the dead and dying Indian soldiers. This is perhaps the most notorious photograph associated with the entire struggle and shows the pavilion within the garden where, as Beato's own caption dispassionately recalls that, 2000 Indians were slaughtered. In the restaging of the interior view 4/5 months later, Beato not only positioned the horse and Indians, but, even more chillingly, arranged for disinterred bones to be scattered in foreground to create a constructed image of military triumph and celebration. This is the conic image of the aftermath of the Mutiny. By the time that Beato reached Lucknow, the corpses of the rebels had been deposited in mass graves, and were disinterred so that he could only arrange the bones in front of the ruined building. Look closely enough and the arrangement of bones seems to echo the triangular pediment of the neo-classical façade above. Broken bodies echoing broken buildings in a staging of history to be consumed in the capital of the victor: from the outset, a self-conscious esthetics of violence has informed the production of war photographs as both document and art. The most notable point is that the savagery on the rebels were perpetrated by the Pujab and Gorkha regiments under the command of the British officers. In fact, it were the loyalty (to the British !! sic) of those regiments which were one of the major reasons for the failure of the rebelion.

Beside the previous visits, I went to Lucknow in 2010 for some work at IIM and kept a couple of free days to go over the old city all over again. Secundrabagh is now almost like any other park, except the gate which is still standing and a small memorial erected that tarsely says this is the place where about 2000 rebel soldiers were killed in fighting. The beutiful building was razed to the ground by the British themselves, as they did most of the superb Kaizer-bagh area where the main King's palace was situated and the whole area was overloaded with many beutiful buildings. The other structures have also given away, only a few remnants of the massive pillars are there.

13 comments:

  1. "In fact, it were the loyalty (to the British !! sic) of those regiments which were one of the major reasons for the failure of the rebelion."
    I salute to those Punjab and Gurkha soldiers who paved the way to bring india from feudal system to modern age, especially drag half paralyzed indian society to Renaissance soaked modern european society. If we compare india from 1857 to 1947(only 90 yrs.),and 1857 to 1526(331 years minus 5 years rule of Sher Shah =326 yrs.),we don't need any explanation. And if we compare 1947 to 2007 = 60 yrs. with the previous two rules, this is crystal clear that the strength of modern india lies with English education, NOT with Farsi ( state language of Mughals). It is true, some indians were killed during the turmoil, but the far-reaching affect of giving hands to British, has no comparison. India is fortunate and blessed to get a chance to know European culture & knowledge instead of previous hundred of years rules by Mughals, Pathans, Turks, Mongols, Hun, etc. It was THE British who knocked out the central asians from Delhi and return India to the Indians.
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Published Anupam's comments as it is. No use trying to teach the people who don't understand the importance of freedom, or the difference of the bad elements in the family and the oppressive outsider who sucks the blood. I am not justifying the rule of the Mughals or the present politicians, but isn't it great to be able to fearlessly comment on the rulers themselves (except the case of Ambikesh !!). He should have lived under the Indigo planters, to really understand.

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