A star fort

I had been to Puttur in Dakshina Kannada a few weeks ago. A lovely place, with farms, groves, forests and lovely traditional houses, all set amidst undulating hills. The drive down to Puttur took us via Sakleshpur and just about 10km from Sakleshpur was a little gem of a fort in a place called Manjarabad.
Here's what the fort looks like in Google Maps:

To my knowledge, this is one of the most complete star-shaped fort you can see in India today, and certainly the most accessible. Back in the 1600s, star-shaped forts were all the rage in Europe, especially France and Italy. In that period, the French were universally acknowledged as being authorities on military architecture. The General Commissioner for Fortifications (yes, there was such a post!) under Louis XIV, Sebastien Vauban, had written treatises on the subject and was considered the foremost expert on the subject. His designs were used by military engineers everywhere. Fort McHenry in Baltimore, in the US, built around 1799, is a great example. The British built star-shaped fort in a town called Ninety-six in South Carolina dates from the mid-1700s. There are plenty of other examples from Europe, too.

Photo credit: miuina / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

In India, both Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali before him had alliances with the French. Both had regiments of French soldiers in their armies and both used their services in the renovation and building of their forts. Most of the forts in their kingdom, such as the forts in Bangalore and Nandi hills, for example, were those that had been built earlier and which they renovated during their reign. Manjarabad was one of the few forts that was built from scratch in 1792. And it appears that when not constrained by a previously existing structure, Tipu and/or his French engineers decided to follow a European pattern much more closely.  Everything from the plan to the design of some of the elements within the fort, such as the turrets at the corner of each bastion, seems to betray a French influence. Compare the turrets or sentry-boxes at Manjarabad (left) with those in a Vauban-designed fort in France (above).


In India, Fort William in Calcutta, built in the 1700s, was also star-shaped. Here's a picture of it taken from Wikipedia. A lot of the original walls still stand, but as it is the headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army, most of us cannot get to it. There is also a star-shaped fort in Jhansi, again inaccessible to non-military folks, and another in Potagada in Orissa, which as far as I can tell, is mostly in ruins. In other words, Manjarabad's star-shaped fort is one of the best-preserved and perhaps the only example of 17-18th century French military architecture that you can see in India.

The original Lalbagh

It all started almost two years ago, when the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru asked INTACH to organise some walks in Bangalore to coincide with an exhibition they were having on artists of the 1700s and 1800s. One of the walks we did then was at Lalbagh Botanical Garden.

I've always loved going to Lalbagh (except perhaps on some weekends when you can barely see the trees for the people). Researching the history of the garden for the Parichay was fun - re-reading Tipu's letters where he asks for seeds from elsewhere, reliving Cleghorn's excitement over the Sultan's garden that was to become a botanical garden...

But we had chosen Lalbagh for the NGMA walk because in the eighteenth century, a lot of Englishmen who came to Bangalore - soldiers, draughtsmen, artists - seem to have been fascinated by the place. In the late 1700s, Europe was in the grip of the Picturesque movement, so when artistically-inclined chaps came and saw here a readymade picturesque garden, complete with mandatory ruin, it was but natural that they tried to capture its picturesqueness in their sketches. Robert Home, James Hunter, Robert Colebrooke and Claude Martin all sketched views of Lalbagh.

Spurred on by MBK, I tried to take a closer look at the paintings and at maps that we had for the same period...and was a little startled. Why, it looked like today's Lalbagh was not where the Lalbagh of the 1790s was. A couple of emails to colleagues and friends who are considerably wiser than I, some meetings, a few discussions, and several months later, we had put together a note which was later published in Current Science. Take a look. And the next time you go to Lalbagh, think about how different it once looked.

Cannon and fodder at the Battle of Bangalore

It's been a while since I posted here, mainly because I have been travelling a lot. But I couldn't pass up writing about the Battle of Bangalore on its 220th anniversary.

Did you know there was such a battle? Why, our very own fort was at the heart of things then. Bastions and breaches, bullocks and the British, cannon and fodder, bayonets and betrayals: the Battle of Bangalore had all the drama, blood and gore associated with battles. It was a short battle, with the siege lasting only two weeks. But the consequences were pretty far-reaching, or at least I like to think so. After all, capturing Bangalore made the assault on Srirangapatna (and hence the eventual defeat of Tipu) possible. Here's more on the Battle in my article in Deccan Herald.

Lalbagh again

What a coincidence, and an unpleasant one, too. Soon after I wrote that article on Tipu's gardens for Deccan Herald a few weeks ago, the Horticulture Dept announced a slew of proposals for one of his gardens - Lalbagh. And what ill-thought out proposals they are!! A musical fountain, and a laser show to name a few. Apparently, they were impressed by what they saw in Singapore's Sentosa Island and want to recreate that look here. As someone on Intach's Facebook page commented, we don't want the Sentosa look, we want the Lalbagh look! And quite apart from questions of water shortage and maintenance of extravagances like musical fountains, have they thought about the effect laser shows will have on Lalbagh's birdlife?

And of course, there is the question of history! For more than 250 years, people have tended to the garden, adding to its wealth of trees. In 1891, when Lalbagh's area was just about 100 acres, it had 3,222 species of plants. Today, its area has more that doubled to 240 acres, but the number of species has decreased to 1,854. Isn't it obvious then where all or at least a part of that Rs. 84 crores should go? Into planting more trees, methinks.

More on Lalbagh in this article I wrote for Deccan Herald.

Tipu and his gardens

There was an item in the news recently about the State Forest Dept. seeking an amendment to the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act (1976). (A big Thank You to Sheshadri of Hasiru Usiru for this information). The gist of the proposed amendment is that permission should not be required to cut trees of 42 species. Among the 42 species that the Forest Dept. wants people to be able to freely fell are beautiful and useful species such as neem, jackfruit, peepal, banyan, mango, tamarind and sheesham.

I couldn't help but contrast the cavalier attitude our administrators have towards trees with that of a ruler who died on this day 221 years ago: Tipu Sultan. Among his many proclamations was one that directed his amildars to try and plant 200 trees in every village. Another said people found guilty of minor offences could plant trees instead of paying a fine -- 2 mango and 2 jamun, to be looked after till they were of a certain height! There is also a story of how Tipu was thrilled to find a nutmeg tree during his capture of the fort of Cochin: here was one of the species he had been seeking to introduce, for it was not found in his kingdom. Tipu had the tree carefully uprooted, wrapped in rice straw and transported to one of his gardens in Srirangapatna. The tree died unfortunately. But some of the nutmeg and clove seedlings that he asked his ambassadors to bring back from Mauritius and elsewhere survived. Some of those were probably planted in Lalbagh too.

The next time you enjoy the peace and quiet of a morning walk in Lalbagh, spare a thought for one of the men who made it possible.

For more on Tipu and his gardens, read this published in today's Deccan Herald.