From the original report published in:

Editorial section, 8 May 2012 Tuesday, p. 4, Gangtok edition


Remembering the Bosnian War Twenty Years After

The late-April 2012 sentencing by the ‘Sarajevo War Crimes Tribunal’ (S.W.C.T.) of Rasema Handanovic (39), a former member of the ‘Muslim Forces’ of Bosnia, to five-and-a-half-year-imprisonment because she participated in the massacre of twenty-six Croatian civilian and military-prisoners in the village of Trusina, Herzegovina, in April 1993, has received widespread media coverage, and has rekindled popular memories of the ‘Bosnian War’ twenty years after it was initiated principally with a confrontation between the Serbian forces and the Bosnian Muslim civilian population – the Bosniaks – in eastern Bosnia. The war officially continued from 5 April 1992 to 14 December 1995 in south-eastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula and concluded with the internal partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with the ‘Dayton Agreement’. The belligerence, which was the worst in Europe since the 1939-45 Second World War, killed approximately a hundred thousand people while displacing over two million.

The Bosnian War was a complex phenomenon, initially (1992-94) marked by an uneasy alliance between the three states Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and Croatia, which were p0itted against Republika Srpska, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia. In 1994-95 occurred a realignment between the belligerents with ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’ (N.A.T.O.)-forces joining the united armed forces of Croatia and Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to bomb Republika Srpska and A.P. Western Bosnia into submission. Whereas the First and Second World Wars have had been chronicled in millions of authentic and elucidating historical works, general readers, especially in India, scarcely have well-documented records of one of the more important internal events which tested the interrelationship among different southern European ethnic groups. The Bosnian War, which would see reported ethnic cleaning and genocides by both the Serbs and Croats in their respective territories, including the ‘Lašva Valley Ethnic Cleansing’ of Bosniak Muslim civilians by members of the Croatian Defence Council (H.V.O.) and Croatian Army (H.V.) cadres (May 1992-April 1993), and ‘Srebrenica Massacre’ of 11-22 July 1995, in which the Army of Republika Srpska (V.R.S.)-personnel under General Ratko Mladić (b. 1943) and ‘Greek Volunteer Guards’ (G.D.G.) were reported to have had summarily executed 8,373 Bosniaks, had been commemorated in different works of superior fiction, including publications by Semezdin Mehmedinović, Eve Ensler, Scott Simon, Steven Galloway, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Kersh, and Joe Sacco, among others. Zlata Filipović’s Zlata’s Diary (1993) earned her the sobriquet of ‘The Anne Frank of Sarajevo’. But no work or film can precisely capture the horrors of the approximately fifty-thousand Muslim and Catholic Christian women who were understood to have been intermittently raped after being detained at different eastern Bosnia and Grbavica camps, most notably at the ‘Karaman’s House’, Foča. The ‘Manjača Concentration Camp’ allegedly operated by the Yugoslav National Army (J.N.A.) personnel and Republika Srpska authorities between 1991 and 1995, and the Dretelj, Heliodrom, Keraterm, Omarska, Trnopolje, and Uzamnica Camps, can easily be compared to the different concentration camps the Nazis had set up for incarcerating the Jews at such places as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belsen.

The principal leaders during the Bosnian belligerence were Slobodan Milošević (1941-2006) (President of Serbia), Radovan Karadžić (b. 1945) (President of Republika Srpska), Ratko Mladić (the V.R.S. Chief of Staff), Vojislav Šešelj (b. 1954) (paramilitary leader) and Fikret Abdić (b. 1939) (acting president of A.P. Western Bosnia), who were pitted against Franjo Tuđman (1922-99) (President of Croatia), Janko Bobetko (1919-2003) (Croatian Army general), Alija Izetbegović (1925-2003) (President of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Sefer Halilović (b.1952) and Enver Hadžihasanović (b. 1950) (the two chiefs of staff of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ‘À.R.Bi.H’), Mate Boban (1940-97) (President of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia), and Milivoj Petković (b. 1949) (H.V.O. Chief of Staff). Later, Leighton Smith (b. 1939) supervised the N.A.T.O. bombing campaign against Republika Srpska.

With the 1989 dissolution of the former socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Muslim-majority-nation, achieved independence in 1991, and it was followed by the establishment of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia. The continual existence of the Yugoslavian military personnel in Bosnia and Herzegovina as V.R.S. servicemen in spite of the Yugoslavians’ official exit from the country mobilised the Croatians to form the defensive H.V.O. while the alarmed Bosniaks reorganised themselves as À.R.Bi.H. cadres. These defensive measures infuriated the Serbs, who were known to have been massacred during the Second World War by the Croat-supported Nazis, to attack the Bosniaks. During the infamous ‘Siege of Sarajevo’ – Sarajevo being the capital-city of Bosnia and Herzegovina – thirty thousand former Yugoslavian and Republika Srpska military personnel surrounded the city from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996, and in the ensuing gun-battles, approximately 6,110 Bosniak soldiers and 10,000 civilian residents of the besieged capital were estimated to have been killed, and over 56,000 city-dwellers grievously injured. On 5 February 1994, a single 120-milimetre-mortar-shell landed in the centre of a crowded Markale (market-place) killing 68 civilians and wounding 144 marketers. The war, which perplexed most of the citizens of the fighting-nations by its real objectives, could be ended only after the direct intervention of the ‘United Nations’ Protection Force’ (U.N.PRO.FOR) and N.A.T.O. troops from April 1994 onwards.

The Bosnian War, which ended with the ‘International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’ (I.C.T.Y.) trying principally the Serbian politicians and military officers, has been commemorated in several award-winning Hollywood films, latest in Angelina Jolie’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey”. Importantly, the confrontation alarmed the Indians against relying on European aid too much for many of the European countries, since the 16th century, are engaged in assaulting one another over imperialistic and allied interests. The Indian Army could also understand the destructive force of snipers in modern belligerence for Serbian snipers often wrecked havoc in the war. Twenty years passed away since the Bosnian War was declared, Europe is still seething in tension, including the uneasy relationship between the Balkan countries, and chances of the re-eruption of violence, unless the international community demonstrates utmost strictness in handling and condemning unjustified warring all over the globe, cannot be ruled out.


– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 4 May 2012.

Originally published in:

Editorial Section, page 4, 1 May 2012 Tuesday, Gangtok-edition


Re-availability of “Mein Kampf”: Reviewing Discretions

A 25 April 2012-report by Gareth Jones and Alice Baghdjian of ‘Reuters’ regarding Bavarian state government’s decision to use excerpts from Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiographical “Mein Kampf” (‘My Struggle’) on German school curriculum from 2016 onwards has generated controversies all over the world.

Though aware that contents of the book, which also contain Hitler’s political ideology, are easily available on internet, critics of the decision are scared that an official decision to revoke the 67-year-old ban on “Mein Kampf” would not only lead to the re-Nazification of European culture in the long run but also might attract inquisitive youngsters to the Austrian-born German military leader’s ultra-nationalistic ideas. However, both the German Jews and the English intellectuals have welcomed the move, including the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History’s preparations to publish an annotated version of the text, so that the maturing individuals could read and identify the erroneousness and perversities of the Second World War-German Führer and desist themselves from following the ‘suicidal philosophies of narrow nationalism, racism, megalomania, and xenophobia’.

In the 21st century, when history carefully remoulded and propagated by victorious Allies after the 1939-45 war has come to be re-examined, and the Allied bombing of Dresden (February 1945), Berlin (November 1943), Rome (May-July 1943), and the twin Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945) are being considered war crimes just like the Nazi blitzes of London (September 1940-May 1941) and Rotterdam (May 1940), this brouhaha regarding the official republication of Hitler’s autobiography is understandable. Undoubtedly, young Germans reading “Mein Kampf” would be exposed to the anti-Semitic ravings of Hitler (1889-1945), but some rather unpalatable issues regarding the conception of the German military general’s 1925 publication are bound to be rekindled as well. In India, where “Mein Kampf” is almost uninhibitedly sold in English translations, the criticism of the Bavarian government’s decision will induce in conscious readers an urge to review the years of their own domination by the English. The unalterable conclusion that Hitler and his Nazi cronies like H.W. Göring (1893-1946), J. Streicher (1885-1946), P.J. Goebbels (1897-1945), and H.L. Himmler (1900-1945) among others drew Germany to exhaustive destruction because of their erroneous expansionist and exterminatory policies notwithstanding, both the Germans, all of whom are most often censurably identified with the Nazis by readers – the Allied views having had been inculcated upon them – and the Japanese, who are almost always held responsible for initiating the Second World War with complete obliviousness being adopted to the the-then foreign policies of appeasement followed by the European leaders especially of France and England, had helped the Indians in their own ways in their struggle against the annihilatory English colonialism. Subhas Chandra Bose’s ‘Indian National Army’ personnel were strategically and tactically supported by the so-called ‘Axis’ forces against the English who would often embark upon genocidal tactics against the subaltern, and these facts require remembrance when any Indian self-guardedly approaches “Mein Kampf” for its intrinsic defects and depravities. The best scenario for Indian readers would be to dismiss the implausibility and errors of “Mein Kampf” without forgetting that when Hitler began dictating the first of the 782 pages of “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf W.R. Hess (1894-1987) at the “Landsberg Prison” in the summer of 1924, during his incarceration following the failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of Munich (8-9 November 1923), the post-Great War “Treaty of Versailles” (signed on 28 June 1919) had demanded war reparations of 132 billion Papiermarks from the vanquished Germany, it was taking 4.2 trillion Papiermarks to purchase an American dollar, millions of Germans were unemployed and helpless, and the French forces had occupied the Ruhr area of North Rhine-Westphalia because the defeated country could scarcely pay back the belligerence-damages.

Edited by Bernhard Stempfle and published by Max Amann, head of the “Franz Eher Verlag”, “Mein Kampf”, which was initially titled “Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice”, is divided into two volumes consisting respectively of twelve and fifteen chapters. Continuously and erroneously focussing on the ‘Jewish peril to the German state’, this rabidly-anti-Semitic publication, which would also partially contribute to its author’s miserable fall, debates on globalists versus continentalists, and also on intentionalists versus functionalists. Other than mentioning then necessity of the “National Socialist Movement” in a ‘decadent and suicidal’ Weimer Republic, “Mein Kampf” also discusses the problem of lebensraum for the Garman ‘Aryans’ in a ‘country infested with the Jews’ – a very dangerous point which would ultimately lead to the ‘Holocaust’, or the genocidal annihilation of approximately six and a half million Jews. So, while “Mein Kampf”, which sold over six million copies in Germany in 1940 alone, remains a dangerous propagandist publication, it also has associations of German’s post-1914-18 War miseries with its conception and sales.


– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 29 April 2012.

Originally published in:

Editorial Section, p.4, 29 April 2012 Sunday, Gangtok-edition


Launching Agni – V: Some Reflections

Like numerous other national and international dailies, the Himalayan Mirror of 20 April 2012 notified its readers about the successful test-launching of Agni-V, India’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (I.C.B.M.) that has an approximate range of 5,000 kilometres – according to announcements of officials of the Defence Research Development Organisation (D.R.D.O.) – extendible unto 8,000 kilometres or even more, as estimated by the researcher Du Wenlong of China’s People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences (P.L.A.A.M.S.) – from Odisha’s Wheeler Islands at 08:07 a.m. of 19 April 2012. With the 17.5-metre-long and 50,000-kilogram-weighing ballistic missile precisely hitting an Indian Ocean target 5,000 kilometres away after only 20 minutes of flight, India, which presently maintains the world’s largest standing volunteer army, has propelled itself into the very small and elite list of countries that have indigenously-developed missiles of over 5,000-kilometre-range: China, France, Russia, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. While the Obama administration of the U.S.A. has adopted a neutral – or, even, congratulatory – stance regarding India’s Agni V test-launch, the state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times has lambasted the Indian defence officials for their ‘missile delusion’, and cautioned the Euro-American countries about the ‘fact’ that ‘India’s military spending has increased by over 17 percent in 2012’ and that it has ‘again’ become world’s ‘largest importer of ammunitions’. Of all the countries, China and Pakistan seem to be most concerned about the successful test-firing of the Indian I.C.B.M.

The following chart makes a comparative study of some of the more powerful postmodern I.C.B.M.s (some of which are launched from submarines) by their countries of development/deployment:

Name of the I.C.B.M./S.L.B.M. Common Name/N.A.T.O. Reporting Name Country of Development/Deployment Approximate Effective Range (in kilometres) Approximate Weight (in kilograms) Length (in metres) Diameter (in metres)
Dong Feng 31-A East Wind/ C.S.S. – 10 China 11,200 – 12,000 42,000 13 2.25
Dong Feng 41 East Wind/ C.S.S. – X – 10 China 15,000 --- --- 2
Dong Feng 5 Eurus 5 China 12,000 – 15,000 183,000 32.6 3.35
J.L. 2 Giant Wave – 2 China 12,000 – 14,000 42,000 13 2.25
M 45 M 45 France 6,000 35,000 11.05 1.93
M 51 M 51 France 10,000 52,000 12 2.3
Agni V Fire India 5,000 – 8,000 50,000 17.5 2
Jericho III Jericho Israel 4,800 – 11,000 30,000 15.5 1.56
R.S.M. 56 Bulava Russia 8,000 – 10,000 36,800 11.5 2
R.T.-2U.T.T.KhTopol-M S.S. 27 Sickle B Russia 11,000 47, 200 22.7 1.9
R.S. 24 Yars Russia 11,000 210,000 23 2
R.T.-2 P.M. Topol S.S. – 25 Sickle Russia 10,500 45,100 21.5 1.8
L.G.M. 30 Minuteman U.S.A. 8,100 35,300 18.2 1.7
L.G.M. 118 A Peacekeeper U.S.A. 9,600 87,752 21.8 2.3
U.G.M. 133 Trident II Trident D 5 S.L.B.M. U.S.A. and U.K. 11,300 58,500 13.41 2.11

India’s test-launching of Agni V comes at a significant time. Come October 2012, it would be fifty years of the Sino-Indian War, a 20 October-21 November 1962 border conflict at Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh which found approximately 12,000 Indian military personnel confronting over 80,000 People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.) cadres, and which ended in military victory for the Chinese. Though the relationship between the two South Asian neighbours, which had nose-dived since the war, improved in the first decade of the 21st century, there have had been intermittent diplomatic unpleasantries in 2012. In February 2012, it was estimated that India will reach U.S. $ 100 billion trade with China by 2015, and yet the two countries are cautiously expanding and modernising their respective arsenals. D.R.D.O. officials are, however, maintaining that the April 2012 missile testing is neither aimed at accelerating the South Asian arms’ race nor planned against any neighbouring nation. Rather it would act as a deterrent for any country should it plan to attack India. The South Asian giant has had faced four major international conflicts since its independence from the English rule: other than the 1962 Sino-Indian War, it was involved in belligerence with Pakistan in 1947 (21 October 1947-31 December 1948), 1965 (5 August-23 September 1965), 1971 (3-16 December 1971), and 1999 (3 May-26 July 1999). Nevertheless, in spite of its possession of missiles by the 1999 Kargil War, India never used them against its enemies. The above chart, on the other hand, suggests that India is consolidating its position as a respectable power. Its missile arsenal consists of the Agnis, the Prithvis, the Dhanushses, the Brahmoses, the Sagarikas and the Shauryas, among others. Under development are the Agni VI I.C.B.M.s and the Nirbhay subsonic cruise missiles. In spite of its nuclear capabilities, stock of missiles, and superior armed troops, the world’s largest democracy is resolved to maintain international peace and harmony and strictly observes a ‘no-first-strike’ policy.

India is constantly being ravaged by international armed insurgents, and yet the country’s restraint and tactics in dealing with terrorists have earned it respect in the west. The countrymen, however, has obvious reasons to be proud of their armed forces. The world’s largest standing volunteer army consists of approximately 1.4 million active and 0.9 million reserve personnel. Indian Air Force is the fourth largest in the world. Indian Navy is world’s fifth largest naval force. Reports from the Foundation for National Security Research (F.N.S.R.) indicate that in recent years India has carefully and yet speedily consolidated strategic partnerships with Russia, the U.S.A., and France not only for modernising its troops but also to play major roles in world affairs, especially in ending international conflicts. In spite of the fact that the South Asian country, which is globally the fourth largest economic power in terms of real G.D.P. and the second-fastest growing major economy, has the third largest armed force in 21st century world, it has never sought to colonise any country, neither has it ever acted as an aggressor. The land of Mahāvīra (c. 599 B.C.-c. 527 B.C.) and Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha (c. 563 B.C.-c. 483 B.C.) and, and, later, of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), loves peace and believes in maintaining international harmony as long as possible. So if the D.R.D.O. officials have successfully test-fired a missile, it is most likely that it is for strengthening the country’s military arsenal against any unreasonable invader rather than to terrorise any nation.

- Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 22 April 2012.

Originally printed in:

Editorial Section, Gangtok edition, 19 April 2012 Thursday, p. 4.


The Sinking of the Unsinkable: Remembering R.M.S. Titanic

On 14-15 April 2012, the world commemorated the centenary of the sinking of one of the world’s more luxurious and larger passenger ships, R.M.S. Titanic, in northern Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom (Southampton) to the United States of America (New York). The centenary remembrances were observed in India too. Though none of the one thousand five hundred and fourteen people killed in the maritime disaster was Indian, the fabulous amenities of the ship, the financial expenditures associated with the building and capsizing of the passenger liner, and its perceptible pomp and glamour, alongwith the fact that it was an English ship, and India, in 1912, was an English colony, led to the understandable repercussions in India. Though R.M.S. Titanic was not the world’s largest ship, among its 1324 passengers on board were some of world’s more renowned, powerful, and wealthier dignitaries, intellectuals and business personnel, including Isidor Straus (1845-1912), William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), Helen Churchill Candee (1858-1949), John Thayer (1862-1912), Cosmo Duff Gordon (1862-1931), John Jacob Astor (1864-1912), Benjamin Guggenheim (1865-1912), Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown (1867-1932), and Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912). The usual media attention given to these individuals, the combined resources the Titanic passengers ($ 6,000,000), the tragic deaths of some of them, alongwith the spectacular success of the two English-language films Roy Ward Baker’s A Night to Remember (1958) and James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), have led to the ‘acknowledgement’ of the capsize of R.M.S. Titanic as one of the more disastrous peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Sinking of large vessels in war or by collision is as old as the period when they came to be increasingly used for business and ferrying passengers. In well-documented history, the English Tudor carrack warship Mary Rose, which capsized on 20 July 1545 during an Anglo-French naval confrontation, causing deaths of approximately 400 English naval personnel, was one of the earlier ships to sink. On the other hand, the sinking of the German cruise ship M.V. Wilhelm Gustloff by the Soviet submarine S-13 on 30 January 1945 in the Baltic Sea, which killed approximately 9400 Germans, and the capsize of the Filipino passenger-ferry M.V. Doña Paz in the Tablas Strait on 20 December 1987 after a collision with the oil-tanker M.T. Vector, in which 4375 people died, are two of the worst maritime disasters till date. Between 1707 and 2012, there have had been incidents of around 166 peacetime ship-sinking, while between 1588 and 1982, approximately 147 major battleships were lost at sea. Yet, among all these, the tragedy of R.M.S. Titanic has found the most consistent focus, with hundreds of memoirs and fiction having had been written on it to the extent of myth-making. Interestingly, in 1898 the American novelist Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915), who would also predict the U.S. Pearl Harbour Bombing in his short-story “Beyond the Spectrum” (1914), published a novella named Futility which featured an enormous English liner Titan that hit an iceberg on an April night and sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, a stoker, John Coffey (1889-1957), inexplicably left R.M.S. Titanic at Queenstown, Ireland, later claiming to have had a ‘sense of foreboding’ about the voyage and about the fate of the White Star Line-owned 1911 passenger ship which weighed 46, 328 G.R.T., and was 269.1 metres long, 28 metres wide and 53.3 metres high (from keel to funnel-top). The ship, which left Southampton for New York on 10 April 1912, had 9 decks, lettered ‘A’ to ‘G’, and the 29 boilers and 159 coal-burning furnaces that gave R.M.S. Titanic its incredible 23 knots per hour speed, required supply of 825 tonnes of coal a day. Importantly, though there were 2223 people – passengers and crew – on board the luxury liner on its maiden voyage, there were only 20 lifeboats, which could together carry a maximum of 1178 people.

Constant research have recently had made many significant and startling statistical data regarding the so-called ‘unsinkable’ ship known to inquisitive commoners. With its official number of 131428, the ship had 2 fifteen-tonne-anchors, 3 giant propellers, 4 funnels, and approximately 10,000 light bulbs were used to light it up. In 1912, a first-class-passenger would have to pay $ 4350 for a Titanic journey from Southampton to New York; the rates for second and third class tickets were respectively $ 1750 and $ 30. The luxury liner had 4 restaurants, a 30' x 14' swimming-pool, 2 barbershops, 2 libraries, a fully equipped gymnasium, and one fully-equipped photographic darkroom. Edward John Smith (1850-1912), who captained R.M.S. Titanic and went down with it, had 43 years of experience at sea, with 26 years of travelling on the northern Atlantic Ocean, and was assisted by Henry Wilde (1872-1912) as the Chief Mate. History is silent about what caused these efficient officers to ignore warnings – which had been arriving regularly from The Caronia, The Baltic, The Californian and The Mesaba between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on 14 April 1912 – about the presence of large icebergs on their ship’s route and continue with the speed of 21.5 knots. Perhaps the wireless operators John G. Philips (1887-1912) and Harold S. Bride (1890-1956) were so busy forwarding the passenger telegrams that they could not appropriately react to the iceberg warnings. When the watching officers Reginald R. Lee (1870-1913) and Frederick Fleet (1887-1965) finally spotted a large blue iceberg directly in front of the ship at 11:39 p.m., First Officer William M. Murdoch (1873-1912) could do little about stopping the collision that occurred 37 seconds after the sighting.

R.M.S. Titanic went down into the northern Atlantic Ocean, 640 kilometres away from mainland and approximately 2000 kilometres away from her destination, at 02:20 a.m. on 15 April 1912, almost two hours before The Carpathia could arrive for rescue. In between the fateful midnight and earliest morning, hundreds of actions of bravery and cowardice were enacted on board the sinking liner. In recent times, investigative television channels like Discovery and The History Channel have minutely covered the different expeditions undertaken by scientists and historians to the wreck of the ship lying around 3700 metres below the sea-level, and they have identified an improper and poor-quality riveting to be one of the principal causes of the liner’s sinking. Whatever might have led to the disaster, the fate of R.M.S. Titanic continue to remind people of the terrible forces of nature and the dangers of pride and presumption.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 18 April 2012. Picture by: Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay).

Silent Garners of the Past: The Museums of Dakshin Dinajpur


As originally published in:

Editorial Section, 16 April 2012, Monday, p.4, Gangtok edition

The Spaniard-American philosopher George Santayana had once predicted, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it!” In order to avoid this forcible and often-unpalatable repetition, it is necessary to have a well-supplied and accurately-informed knowledge of the past. In the district of Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, the responsibility of imparting historical knowledge to individuals rests with the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur and Balurghat College Museum. But lack of interest on part of the Dakshin Dinajpur residents has begun to induce an element of frustration and disillusionment among those who are in charge of these two treasure-troves. What is desperately needed in these trying times is a resurgence of enthusiasm in the glorious past ages of Bengal when chivalrous kings and their courageous soldiers clashed against the marauding foreigners and left behind relics of their times which have been diligently and cautiously collected by the two individuals associated with these museums – Narayan Choudhury, the sexagenarian curator of the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, and Achintya Krishna Goswami, the late Associate Professor of the Department of Sanskrit, Balurghat College, whose personal interest and endeavours had led to Balurghat College Museum becoming one of the more enriched museums in whole West Bengal.

A brief sojourn at the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, in which approximately one hundred and six ancient images, broken idols, statues, and other artefacts dating between 5th and 12th centuries have been carefully displayed for public-viewing, is bound to fill visitors with awe and nostalgia. The museum itself is housed in a reconstructed colonial sub-gaol built in 1910 to incarcerate primarily the armed Indian freedom fighters. Even after independence, it acted as a detention centre until 2002, when it was closed down and a new correctional home became operational near Khanpur. The district museum was inaugurated on 13 October 2004 by two of the the-then left-front ministers of the Government of West Bengal, but the credit for the establishment rests especially with Choudhury, a Balurghat-resident who personally collected almost every historical object displayed at the museum from all over Dakshin Dinajpur, including Harirampur and Gungarampur, and the two former Dakshin Dinajpur district magistrates Sushil Paul and Romit Mutsuddi, who actively supervised the reconstruction of the sub-gaol. Today the museum is a spacious construction, with cream-coloured walls, close-circuit cameras, an internal police camp, and a museology library, which has an impressive collection of approximately 450 rare books. “If funds permit, we shall provide for a light-and-sound show, secure the blackstone and sandstone idols with glass-boxes, and there are plans to inaugurate a Muslim-era-coin-display-centre on the first floor of this museum”, informs Choudhury, the retired-district-library employee and honorary curator, who is assisted in his work by Tapash Mondol (38) and Kaushik Roy (30), other than three personnel from a local security agency. Roy, who seems as interested in speaking about the artefacts as Choudhury, adds, “A catalogue regarding the displays is scheduled to be released by the Office of the District Magistrate of Dakshin Dinajpur, which is directly in charge of the museum’s affairs, very soon”.

In spite of the apparent lack of general enthusiasm in watching historical displays, times are changing, but Choudhury, who had once begun to feel desperate and disillusioned, is happy that they are for the better. “Earlier, people would simply conceal these invaluable statues and idols at their houses or sell them. They would even break the idols to see if there are treasures hidden inside. Now-a-days, we do not have to persuade them too much to hand the ancient idols over to us for display”. Are there noticeable differences in numbers of those who visit the museum as part of the tour to a district that has become famous because of the Bangarh ruins? Both Choudhury and Roy do not believe it. “We get approximately 40 to 50 visitors a day, without remarkable changes in the number other than conducted tours and occasional congregations”, they say in unison. In the register of visitors’ remarks which Choudhury proudly displays to this correspondent are appreciative notes by museologists and archaeologists from different universities of Germany, China, Japan, and the United States of America, other than several Indian dignitaries and educationists. “People should know what wealth is there in their own district! They need to visit here in larger numbers. They should come and watch history speak to them! Where other than the Andaman Islands’ Cellular Jail-National Memorial would you find a prison-house-turned-into-a-museum?” asks the curator. “Visits by officers of the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, both aided and encouraged us, but we were scared lest these idols, many of which belong to the periods of the Pala (A.D. 750 – A.D. 1174) and the Sena dynasty rulers (A.D. 1070 – A.D. 1230), should be taken away from the district”. Both Choudhury and Roy, who are perceptively satisfied with the official aid and grants extended to the museum by both the Government of India and the state government, are waiting for the Gungarampur Museum to become fully operational in order to cater to the historical interests of the district residents and national and international intellectuals.

On our way to the Balurghat College Museum, barely a quarter of a kilometre away from the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, we recall that Bangarh, whose ruins are strewn around the sub-divisional town of Gungarampur, forty-five-kilometres north of Balurghat, was the capital of the ancient Koti Barsha district. During the Gupta period (A.D. 320 – A.D. 550), the whole of northern Bengal was known as ‘Punda Bardhana Pradesh’, which was subdivided into several ‘vishaya’-s (that is, districts). Koti Barsha, also earlier referred to as ‘Debikot’, was one such vishaya. Bibek Das, an assistant professor of history who is in charge of the Balurghat College Museum, discusses the historical significance of the Bangarh ruins with us. He is obviously proud that the museum is the oldest preserving-house in the district, having had been established in 1968, and collects over one hundred blackstone, sandstone, and terracotta images, idols, artefacts, and a number of catapultable-missiles – excavated by the late Professor Goswami – which were used by the military personnel of King Lakshman Sen of Bengal against the invading forces of I.U. Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji in early-13th century. The Turkic military general of Qutb-ud-din-Aybak defeated King Lakshman Sen in A.D. 1206, and started his Tibet expedition from Debikot in the same year only to be assassinated by the later-days’ independent and cruel sultan, Ali Mardan Khilji.

Contrary to the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur, Balurghat College Museum is not open to general public viewing. “We are waiting for further release of funds by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museum and the Department of Culture, Government of India, and thereafter we would be in a position to inaugurate the museum within two months”, informs Das. The museum in his charge houses an impressive collection of ruins, images, artefacts, coins, and other historical materials from the ages of the Mauryas (322 B.C. – 185 B.C.), the Sungas (185 B.C. – 75 B.C.), the Guptas, the Palas, the Senas, the Sultani and Mughal periods. There are some fossils, weapons, bronze statues, manuscripts, British-period silver coins and ornaments, and a (68 x 47.4) square-centimetre stone-inscription belonging to the period of reign of Nayapala (A.D. 1043-A.D.1058). Just like the images in the District Museum, the ancient idols and statues preserved at the Balurghat College Museum are principally of the Hindu gods and goddesses, particularly Shiva, Vishnu, and Durga.

Though the two ‘curators’ of the museums perceptively do not have a direct interaction, both of them are hopeful about the ultimate spread of the reputation of Dakshin Dinajpur as a region rich in historical artefacts. “We want more attention of the public to what we are doing. History is invaluable”, chants Choudhury as we bid goodbye to him in a noon swept by a languid breeze, and take photographs. Das, on the other hand, is waiting for the day when the college-museum would be one of the more important visiting-places for archaeologists and historians working in the district.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 13 April 2012. Photographs by: Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay).

Rajasthan: A Sojourn at the Kings' Land

Keshariya Baalam...Ayo Rey... Padharo Maarey Desh!

I must admit that I had essentialised Rajasthan even before I had visited the largest state of India, with an approximate land area of 342239 square kilometres. It is tenth of the Indian states in terms of population - in 2011, there are approximately sixty nine million people living in the state with a population density of around two hundred and one souls per square kilometre of land.

I had always been fascinated having had read about the land of the valorous Rajputs, like millions of other Bengalis do, I am sure, in Abanindranath Tagore's Raaj Kahini (Kolkata: Signet, 1956; Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 1986). Often, after my All India Secondary School Examinations were over, I would roll on my bed, with a 1991 copy of Raaj Kahini in my hand, and read and reread the exploits of Shiladitya, Bappaditya, Hammir, Maharana Pratap Singha, and Sangram Singha, to name a few. It was in that period - in 1995 - that I came to nurse a deep desire to visit Rajasthan. As I grew up, my desires were accentuated after I had secured from Kolkata's Books Way (I would be ever thankful to Mr. Saladdin for the favour) a two-volume Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, originally published in 1829 and 1832, by James Tod (1782-1835), who served in Rajasthan as an East India Company lieutenant-colonel in the 1810s and 1820s. Tod's form of the English language, to say very politely, is indecipherable, but I remained as unputdownable as ever.

I began to seriously plan a tour to Rajasthan with my wife Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay) in the second half of 2009. It was to be a short affair, I was sure from the beginning - for winter recess at my college was a short session - and I knew we could not afford the luxury of inching in the Kings' Land by train. Aeroplanes operated by IndiGo appeared to be the most suitable mode of transport. I must admit that we had meticulously planned everything well ahead in time - months before. Myself and Sreeparna, courtesy Arzoo.com and I.R.C.T.C. Limited, had booked Kolkata-Jaipur return air tickets and tickets for a train-journey from Jaipur to Jaisalmer, and back. As far as the post-tour estimates are concerned, out tickets cost us INR 18302 in all, out of which INR 16494 was paid for air-fare and INR 1808 for train-fare (including Balurghat-Kolkata return-trip reservation charges). The train journey was to occur by ordinary sleeper class because the A.C. options had already been exhausted. Apparently thousands were bent on travelling by the 14059 Delhi-Jaisalmer Express, which leaves Jaipur three minutes before midnight and enters the desert town half an hour before noon on the next day. It halts at the towns of Asalpur Jobner, Phulera, Nawa, Makrana, Degana, Merta, Gotan, Raika Bagh, Jodhpur, Marwar Mathanya, Osiyan, Marwar Lohwat, Phalodi, Ramdevra, Pokran, Ashapura Gomat, and Shribdrya Lathi, before finally stopping at Jaisalmer after a 921-kilometre-journey from the Indian capital and 576 kilometres from Jaipur.

At this point, please let me warn you that if you are planning to visit Rajasthan in December-January - because it is understood to be the so-called 'season time' - please ensure that you have pre-booked your hotels, for it often costs you dearly at both Jaipur and Jaisalmer when you try to grab a hotel-room-key after a tiring winter journey. We had done it beforehand, and our deluxe rooms at Jaisalmer and Jaipur, between 25 December and 29 December 2009 cost us a total of INR 11437 (including the two-day-charges of INR 2158 for Hotel Bani Park Palace). We put up at Room Number 102 at Hotel Golden City {Near 1st Fort Gate, Opposite S.B.I. (Jaisalmer-branch) Building, Jaisalmer - 345001, Phone: (02992) 251664, Fax: (02992)254565, Mobile: 094141 49464, Website: http://www.hotelgoldencity.com}, while at Jaipur, we resided for two and a half-days on a top floor (air-cooled)-room of Hotel Bani Park Palace {D-160, Kabir Marg, Bani Park, Near Collectorate Circle, Jaipur - 16, Phone: (0141) 2208053, 2204188, Mobile: 098290 51477, Website: http://www.baniparkhoteljaipur.com}. For our transit short-time-without-booking stays at Jaipur, we chose Room Number 402, and, later, Room Number 403, of Hotel Mother India {Fateh Singh Market, Opposite Hotel Rajputana Sheraton Five Star, Near Jaipur Railway Station, Jaipur - 302 006

, Phone: (0141) 2363414, 2214316}. They charge you INR 600 for an ordinary double-bedded room a night, and we were pleased by its amenities. Most importantly, you will have to spend a mere INR 30 for reaching the railway station by rickshaw. To reach this hotel from Jaipur Sanganer Airport, we had to travel approximately 14 kilometres, and the Jaipur Airport Taxi Operators' Association charged us INR 320 for a pre-booked Ambassador ride.

I am giving you all the information so that you can make your preparations before travelling to Rajasthan. One note of caution though - do not board the Delhi-Jaisalmer Express unless you have got an A.C. booking - what we did not have! Otherwise, it will take the air out of your lungs once the train will begin chugging into the areas around Jaisalmer through dense clouds of dust and sand!

Our real adventure began when our IndiGo Flight 6E-208 touched the runway of Jaipur International Airport, Sanganer, a little over 8 miles from the heart of Jaipur. It was five-minutes-to-five in the late afternoon, Christmas Eve, 2009, and we did not particularly enjoy the 2-hour-and-15-minute non-stop flight from Kolkata. We came out of the second terminal and the first thing I noticed was that there was no transmission-signal on my Nokia N-72 handset, with a B.S.N.L.-Excel S.I.M. card inside! It was the same for my Vodafone connection, fitted to Motorola C-140. Sreeparna was also perplexed. It took a little over three to four minutes for us to get the transmission-signals back. Thereafter, we reached for prepaid taxis outside the airport.

Here, please allow me to break my narrative and warn you about one thing - I booked my flights and hotels through Arzoo.com. Countless others, I fancy, will prefer sites like MakeMyTrip.com, and so on. But be sure to confirm from the hotels about your reservations before reaching there. We were for a nasty surprise when, some days before our journey, I rang up the receptionist of Hotel Bani Park Palace only to learn that they had no reservations for us! What followed was a series of frantic phone calls to Arzoo.com's Mumbai office at (022) 67134444. My travel agent, Mr. Rupakartha Majumder of Mohini Tea House {Moktarpara Road, Balurghat (Mobile: 094749 52932)}, directed me to the main booking agent, Mr. Ranjan Biswas of Computer Zone {North Stationpara,Fulia Colony, Post Office: Fulia - 741 402, District: Nadia, Phone: (03473) 235371, Mobile: 097325 41482}, who continued assuring me that everything would be all right! I was inconsolable unless Arzoo.com let me know that everything had been put in order!

The Jaipur Airport-taxi driver, I fancied a septuagenarian, was a good soul, who obviously took pity on us, watching me twitching my neck every now and then in anxiety lest something should go wrong. We were supposed to catch the Jaipur-Jaisalmer train near midnight, and therefore, it was necessary that we temporarily lodged somewhere. The old taxi-driver took us to Hotel Mother India, smiling to see me watching him and the hotel receptionist with unabashed suspicion! I soon realised my mistake. Ignoring his protestations, I tipped him, and went to the third floor to take rest! Mother India serves you food on order, and for the first time, myself and Sreeparna, after we had conveyed about journey-experiences in details to our respective parents, busied ourselves with real Rajasthani khana, concluding with sour curd. We immediately noticed that food is quite costly in the state. They charged us INR 240 for what seemed to us a very frugal early-evening meal! Little did we know then that two breads each would be the main source of carbohydrate for us until two in the afternoon next day!

We went to the railway station by rickshaw around 10:30 p.m. It was really cold - we did not think that Rajasthan could be that chilly - and as we approached midnight, the activities around the station lessened to almost naught!

The accompanying photograph of the almost-deserted station was taken by me just at midnight. We were half covered with light quilts - shaking in chill but satisfied that the railway charts had shown that the R.A.C.-ticket we had been bearing had been changed to a Confirmed status.

Delhi-Jaisalmer Express inched in around 12:30 a.m. We had been running frantically, our luggage slowing us, as we were not sure to which platform was it going to enter. There was a dangerous crowd in the sleeper compartments - and we were mystified where our goddamned S-4 could be! It was detected, written in chalk! But no sooner had I pushed my way in, cursing and fighting, than the train began to move! Sreeparna was outside on the platform! It was a miracle, aided by gods and goddesses, that the train came to a halt, and my wife jumped in, her suitcases in hand! We recovered our berths after bombarding the cosily-seated but obviously-infuriated commuters! A Marwari family-head offered me a berth next to Sreeparna, in exchange of mine, which, apparently, was in midst of his family members'! Nothing exceptional occurred on the way, except for the fact that I shouted at the top of my lungs to two standing passengers who, around 03:00 a.m., had busied themselves discussing their pre-marital love-life and post-marital woes just near my head!

This photograph was taken by me when I woke up early next morning, and Sreeparna was still sleeping! We were then somewhere between Raika Bagh and Marwar Mathanya. We were fully awake between Phalodi and Ramdevra. There were spots of sand all around, and the shapes and sizes of the trees lining up the railway tracks were changing fast. I was beginning to guess if that was what Jaisalmer would look like. We were low on food, and the train was showing no sign of stopping. I was afraid of getting down the train and losing my compartment, for Delhi-Jaisalmer Express was really a long one!

We reached Pokran around 10:20 a.m. I was straining my neck, after I had got down and brought in supplies of tea, cakes, packets of chips, and so on, to see as much of the 'historic town' as possible. It was here in 1998 that nuclear devices were tested underground.

I could not, however, see much. The areas were protected by barb-wire, and hundreds of military men in fatigues were moving around. Nevertheless, I took some photographs, one of which you can see uploaded here, and, after the train left, I concentrated on watching how the vegetation was changing rapidly. Camels could be seen eating from shrubs and there was sand all around. The 'scenery' did not change much until we chugged in Jaisalmer around 01:00 p.m., much later than the time we were expected. The Jaisalmer Station-photograph in the beginning of this blog was taken shortly after we had landed. A vehicle from Hotel Golden City was waiting for us at the railway station, and off we went.

I must admit, again, that though I was thrilled at the amenities offered by Hotel Golden City, the behaviour of the owner and his attendants did not go down well with me. I remained mum, though. It was a new state and I did not want to antagonise people. Myself and Sreeparna were trying to decide when we should visit the Golden Fort next day when the owner called me out and offered me a desert safari at the rate of INR 3850 for two. The package, which was supposed to be offered by M/s. Time Travel (Beside B.P. Tank, Jaisalmer - 345 001, Rajasthan, Phone: 02992-251664, 254565, 255276, E-Mail: timetravelindia@hotmail.com, Website: http://www.timetravel.fslife.co.uk), included round trips for two to Hotel Golden City's desert camp, camel ride, and meals. However, when a dilapidated-looking blackish Mahindra Scorpio finally came to pick us up, it was around 04: 45 p.m. and I had lost much of my interest in watching the desert. Sreeparna was unputdownable though, and did not mind my sullen looks as a number of kalakars boarded our M.U.V. on the way. As far as I remember, one of them was Buta Khan, attached to Hotel Golden City's desert camp, and another was his nephew. One of the two dancers was Ms. Santosh, the other I have forgotten. I did not have the least idea that this motley crowd of entertainers would enthrall us for the rest of the memorable evening.

After a considerable period of journey, during which the 'caretaker' Munna Bhai spoke to these gullible people about partition, borders, and going near to the Pakistani part of the border and watching the soldiers there (which we soon discovered to be falsities), we were finally on the desert. An uncertain red glow spread all around as the sun was about to go down. Our young camel was named "Biloo" and I found in his face a concentrated expression of hatred of mankind and lethargy at moving around on hot sand. However, when we two boarded on him, I began to feel a bit of Rajput myself, imagining marauders rushing across the desert to me and myself ready to confront them with my camera! The sunset was splendid, mesmerising! You would never want to return to civilisation...not in a jiffy! I madly shot away scenes and our camel-owner, who later charged us INR 50 as 'tips', helped to shoot our photograph on his "Biloo".

After the 'safari', we went to the hotel's makeshift desert-camp only to see that lights had already been lit and a small and open 'fireplace' ignited. Mr. Khan and his associates were producing the Rajasthani tunes on their musical instruments, and the song "Kesariya baalam ... ayo rey ... padharo mare desh!", a traditional Rajput welcome-song, caught my fancy! It was followed a couple of hours of songs and dances during which Ms. Santosh and her female companion demonstrated us incredible antics and dancing stunts.

Afterwards, we had hearty meals with traditional Rajasthani khana, served in the buffet system, and myself and Sreeparna returned to our hotel deep in the night, around 12:00 a.m. On the way, our Scorpio had stopped for over 20 minutes at a deserted spot, and we two were sitting in the M.U.V., shaking in cold and apprehension, until Munna bhai returned after ushering Ms. Santosh and her companions to their own houses. When we woke up in the next morning, we were relaxed enough for another big day, as my photograph before our room makes it obvious:

We started for a walking-tour to the Jaisalmer Fort around 09:00 a.m. Built on the Trikuta Hills, the yellow-sand-stone fort, founded in A.D. 1156 by the Rajput ruler, Rawal Jaiswal, is one of the larger forts of the world!

It was grievously attacked and 'mutilated' twice - in the 13th century by Ala-ud-din Khilji and in 1541 by the Mughal emperor, Humayun. Sadly, postmodern tourists remember Jaisalmer and its famous 'quila' (that is, fort) not because of the self-sacrifices of the valorous Rajputs but because of the 1974 Feluda-film, "Sonar Kella", by Satyajit Ray. In 2010-11, approximately a quarter of Jaisalmer's population lives in the fort.

Among the attractions of the Jaisalmer Fort are its four massive gateways, a Jain temple, a Laxminath temple, a number of havelis and above all, the Raaj Mahal - the house of the royals. At one of the gates, we met the officious Giriraj Harsh, an experienced tourist guide, who could speak in four languages - Rajasthani, Hindi, Italian, and English, and quite conscious about his brahminical background. His office is at the shop, Souvenir de Rajasthan (Inside 1st Fort Gate, Jaisalmer), and to contact him, one could dial 094147 62036 or (02992) 254344 (E-Mail: rajharsh99@yahoo.co.in). He charged us INR 250 for a guided tour of the fort, which, sadly for us, ended rather abruptly.

To be honest, I could not bring myself to appreciate the Golden Fort! It had been changed into a sprawling business centre, with the fort-rooms converted into luxurious hotels. Mr. Harsh was showing us the rooms for the royals, but I was thinking of going back to hotel. It was hard to see and withstand the commercialisation of history! Everywhere were we expected to offer money , and even when we were going to enter the Jain Temple, I was really concerned about the fact that they charged INR 70 per single still-picture camera. The interior of the temple, built in the 'Dilwara'-style around 12th century, was, however, brilliant, and we were wholly satisfied. The temple remains open until 12 noon every day for visitors.

Returning, we purchased some small gift-items for our parents and relatives, including a film-roll, sandstone utensils, shawls, decorated Rajasthani handbags, camera-and-binoculars'-bags, cycle-key-rings, and leather-sandals, totalling INR 3430. We were rather disappointed later that the leather-bags, apparently made from skin improperly tanned, quickly got spoiled.

We could hardly wait for our next destination - Jaipur. We had heard so much about the city of which I have had already a glimpse, and I must confess, I wanted to see the place for production of the famous "Jaipur Foot" which had given the ace-dancer Sudha Chandran the power to charm world with her moves. We started from Jaisalmer by 14060 Jaisalmer-Delhi Express at afternoon, and it was around 05:00 a.m. on the next morning - 27 December 2009 - that we alighted, yawning furiously and in a perceptibly bad mood. We could have quarreled at the slightest pretext. Having had taken up temporary lodging at Hotel Mother India (Fateh Singh Market, Near Railway Station, Jaipur) again, I quickly got a shave, and later, myself and Sreeparna hired an auto-rickshaw for INR 50 and went to the hotel-room we had booked: Hotel Bani Park Palace. For such smalltime and lengthy movements in Jaipur, you can also contact (though we had not) Jaipur Tour Point, P. No. 605, Jaimahal Palace, Behind Santosh Nagar, Ajmer Road, Hasanpurs-C, Jaipur, mobile number(s): 090013 93914 (Mr. Kishor, according to the visiting-card they thurst in our hands while we were tightly-packed in the auto-rickshaw), and 093512 04588, 097998 66534 (Mr. Rafik). One kilometre away from Jaipur Railway Station and two kilometres from Jaipur Central Bus-stand, Hotel Bani Park Palace is a budget heritage hotel, restored from a hundred-year-old bungalow. We got accommodation on the top-floor. The hotel also maintains a beautiful vegetarian restaurant - Restaurant Niharika, with the phone number (0141) 2204188 - and we were pleased to visit it as often as we liked. The food served there seemed to be moderately-priced. To give you an idea - referring to the food-stuff myself and Sreeparna had there on 27 and 28 December 2009 - they charged us INR 10 for a cup of milk-mixed tea. A plate full of vegetable pakodas cost INR 40. A plate of butter-toast INR 25; a plate of motor paneer INR 55; a plate full of vegetable fried-rice INR 55; a piece of handmade bread INR 8; a plate of palang paneer INR 65, and so on. The restaurant maintained a hoonkah there, and we were dreaming of having a puff or two on it. We rested for the whole day, venturing out at night to Sinhal Trades, a departmental store (Phone: 0141-2200569) on Kabir Marg, in the vicinity of our hotel, to purchase a red-coloured travelling-bag for INR 120. We also feasted on potato chips and non-chilled soft drinks.

28 December 2009 was our touring-day for Jaipur. We hired a green-yellow-coloured autorickshaw (registration number R.J.-14/ P.B.-2244) from near out hotel, and Mr. Yousuf Khan, a benevolent and helpful soul, was destined to take us against a payment of INR 640 all around the capital-city of Rajasthan, founded in the eastern part of the state in November 1727 by King Sawai Jai Singh II (1688-1743), who began his rule as a Mughal-collaborator but later expanded his kingdom annexing lands from them. Wikipedia has a fine entry on the ruler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_Singh_II). The city has an area of approximately 200 square kilometres, and is inhabited by (in early-2012) approximately 3.2 million people.

As we were gradually leaving the new part of the town and entering, after crossing a huge decorated gate

into what Mr. Khan identified as the 'old' and 'pink' part, we could notice Muharram 'tazia'-s being readied to be taken out. Mr. Khan accelerated. We watched the surroundings - buildings and even business establishments had to be compulsorily painted in pink colour.

The December-day was flooding in sunlight, and we were in the height of elation. We raced towards Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum or City Palace and formally began our tour of Jaipur spots, after paying an entrance fee of INR 20 per head. For each of our two still-photography-cameras, the museum authority charged us INR 25. The City Palace was the seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur, the head of the Kachwaha Rajput clan, and was built between A.D. 1729 and A.D. 1732.

We liked the City Palace. To be precise, we were mesmerised by it.

There are two entrances to the palace for commoners - the Virendra Pol and the Udai Pol - while the Tripolia Gate is reserved for members of the Jaipur royal family. We entered the area through Virendra Pol and visited the Mubarak Mahal, built with a combination of Rajput, Mughal, and European architectural styles. The Mahal houses a museum, and a fine repository of variety of textiles. One may wonder at the sizes of the dresses worn by King Sawai Madhosingh I, the ruler of Jaipur between 1751 and 1768, who weighed around two hundred and fifty kilograms and had one hundred and eight wives.

One would also like to visit the Chandra Mahal, in the western section of the City Palace Complex. It is a seven-storeyed-building, with specific names for each floor: the Sukh Niwas, the Ranga Mandir, the Pitam Niwas, the Chabi Niwas, the Shri Niwas, and the Mukut Mahal. Visitors can only visit the displays on the ground floor. There a museum is located, which displays carpets and manuscripts belonging to the royal family. A marvellous Peacock Gate welcomes you to the Mahal. We heard that in this palace, King Sawai Ishwari Singh (period of rule: 1743-50), son of King Sawai Jai Singh II, committed suicide through a self-inflicted snake-bite as the Marathas advanced threateningly towards his kingdom. His twenty-one wives also committed the act of self-immolation (the 'Jauhar' or 'Sati') soon after this. The City Palace Jaipur website (http://msmsmuseum.com/frmCmsPage.aspx?ID=4) offers an excellent account of the Jaipur rulers.

We next visited the Diwan-i-Khas, the private audience hall of the rulers of Jaipur.

It is located between the Art Gallery of the palace-complex and the armoury, where numerous iron and brass cannons are put on display, and where myself and Sreeparna took different snapshots. Two one-and-a-half-metre silver urn-like-containers - the 'Gangajelies' - adorn the Diwan-i-Khas.

We found a decorated Christmas tree still standing between the urn-like-containers. We also found some miniature models of the whole city of Jaipur. We stood before a large portrait of King Sawai Jai Singh II and took photographs, and ditto before displays of bows and arrows and guns displayed in wall-hanging glass-almirahs.

After appreciating the large number of royal carriages on display at a near-by 'garage', we moved, next, to Diwan-i-Aam or Sabha Niwas, the 'Hall of Public Audience'. I had, in 2005, seen the interiors of the Coochbehar Palace, the residence of Maharani Gayatri Devi (1919-2009), the third Maharani of Jaipur between 1939 and 1970. The Coochbehar Palace's 'durbar hall' is nothing compared to this Sabha Niwas, still looking as if the king is going to arrive at any moment to begin his counsel. Photography inside the Sabha Niwas being strictly prohibited, I am uploading here a photograph of the same from internet.

We went straight to the Jantar Mantar from City Palace. Built by King Jai Singh between 1727 and 1734, the Jantar Mantar is actually a collection of architectural astronomical instruments. This Jaipur Observatory consists of fourteen geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, and tracking locations of different stars. The Samrat Yantra, the largest instrument in the observatory, is actually a 90-feet-high sundial. Virendra Sharma has had, in 1995, published an informative book, Sawai Jai Singh and his Astronomy, which focuses on the construction and operation of the Jantar Mantar. Coming out from the observatory in a hurry, we raced towards a Rajasthani Shopping Mall, named Rajasthan Traditional Designing Corporation (40-A, Gupta Garden, Ground Floor, Amer Road, Behind Brahampuri Police Station, Jaipur - 302 002, Phone: 0141-2672042). One of the owners 'reportedly' had a Bengalee 'bhabi' (sister-in-law), and he could even speak in broken-Bengali. We purchased from his shop some Kota sarees, tops, some small clothing items, and a few mementos, paying a total bill of INR 2100. We, however, later discovered that the Kota sarees were not up-to-the-mark, and the wearers perspired profusely.

Our next destination was the Man Sagar Lake

, 4 kilometres north of Jaipur on National Highway 8, where we wanted to see the Jal Mahal ('Water Palace')

. It lies between Jaipur and the historic city of Amber. The lake has an water-area of 300 acres and at its deepest point, it is 15 feet deep. The Aravalli hills lie in the north of the lake. The Jal Mahal Palace combines Rajput and Mughal styles of architecture. Built in red sandstone, it is a five-storied-building out of which four floors remain under water when the lake is full, and the top floor is exposed.

Opposite to the lake, at Gaitore, several cenotaphs have had been erected over cremation platforms of some of the Kachwaha rulers of Jaipur: Jai Singh II, Pratap Singh, and Madho Singh II among them.

We did not see the Nahargarh Fort on the Aravalli hills. Now in ruins, it was built in 1734 by King Sawai Jai Singh II. It served as a hunting-residence for the Jaipur kings. We rather allowed Mr. Khan to take us towards Amer Fort, often pronounced as 'Amber Fort', 11 kilometres away from Jaipur.

The road to Amer was picturesque, to say the least,

and we even saw an elephant coming down the hilly road, its 'driver' apparently lying on its back in deep slumber.

The Amer Fort , a blend of Rajput and traditional Hindu styles, was built in 1592 by the Meena king, Alan Singh Chanda, and later occupied and renovated by Jai Singh I (1611-67). The palace of King Man Singh I (period-of-rule: 1589-1614) is also located in the Amer Fort. We did not go to to the interiors of the fort, tired as we were and desperately short of time. We did some photo-shooting at a scenic location just before the fort. We did not visit the Jaigarh Fort, either, though it was located very near the Amer Fort.

It was built in 1726 by King Sawai Jai Singh III to protect the Amer Fort. The Jaigarh Fort is 3 kilometres long and a kilometre wide, and it houses the Jaivana Cannon, the largest cannon of the world. Manufactured in early-18th century, the cannon is 6.15 metres long, and weighs 50 tonnes. It has a range of 35 kilometres, and can still fire 50-kilogram-balls with a 100-kilogram-charge (though it was fired only once). Returning, we had a stop-over at Shila Devi Temple, and thereafter, Mr. Khan took us to a beautiful point by the side of the Man Sagar Lake where we had some more sessions of photography, before going back to Jaipur. We had had long digested our early-day lunch of pulao and raita, which we had for INR 150 (for two heads) from New Khandelwal Pavitra Bhojanalaya, New Ramgarh More, Amer Road, Jaipur - 302 002, an excellent eatery. On the way, we had the famous Jaipur betel leaves. The shopkeeper charged us INR 10 a piece, but never until then had I tasted any betel leaf prepared better than these Jaipuri ones. If you visit Jaipur, please try to have a taste of the Jaipur betel leaves: you will thank my blog then!

We could not stop at Hawa Mahal - the famous 'Palace of the Breeze'.

However, I took several photographs of the Hawa Mahal from Mr. Khan's green vehicle. The palace was built in 1799 by King Sawai Pratap Singh (period-of-rule: 1778-1803), and designed by the famous Rajasthani architect, Mr. Lal Chand Ustad, in the form of the crown of Lord Krishna. Rising five stories, the exteriors of the palace are akin to the honeycomb of the beehive, and its nine-hundred-and-fifty-three small windows are decorated with intricate latticework. Built of pink sandstone, the palace is situated in the heart of Jaipur’s business centre. We went straight to the Albert Hall Museum, and braving dangers of being run-over by the dangerously-speeding vehicles, we went to see the museum, only to find it closed.

Situated amid the garden of Ram Niwas Bagh, it is one of the older museums of Rajasthan, built by a colonialist military-architect, Swinton Jacob, in 1876 for the purpose of greeting the English king, Edward VII, during his visit to India. The museum exhibits a rare collection of ancient objects, including miniature paintings, carpets, metal and wood crafts, toys, dolls, arms and weapons, and an Egyptian mummy belonging to the Ptolemaic Era. The most extraordinary of them is the carpet that depicts the scene of a Persian garden with gushing streams. I must also mention that while strolling all around, we had a glimpse of the Raj Mandir Cinema, arguably one of the larger movie-theatres of the India - built in 1976 and situated on Bhagwan Das Road.

Our time was running out, and Mr. Khan was obviously dismayed that we had failed to see many of the interesting and wonderful spots around Jaipur. He had had been for long marveling at the cheapness of food products in Bengal. He was determined to give us a gift. Going out of his schedule and contract, he took us to Jaipur's Birla Temple at the base of the Moti Dungri Hill.

Dedicated to the deities of Lakshmi and Narayan, the temple of white marble was built in 1988 by the B.M.Birla Foundation. We returned to our Bani Park Palace at five in the evening, and when we boarded the Indigo flight back to Kolkata on the next morning (after paying INR 500 to the Bani Park Palace authorities as airport-dropping charges through the taxi number RJ 14G/0939), we were ready to carry along with us our memories of the trip to Rajasthan as long as we would live. We went straight to my uncle's house at Kamardanga, Howrah-4, to recall our adventure in details.