tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294625242024-03-16T14:52:47.952-04:00Maddy's RamblingsThoughts,opinions and musings of a restless nomadMaddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.comBlogger493125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-34803843997758518182024-02-14T23:24:00.000-05:002024-02-14T23:24:00.766-05:00Rare Earths and TravancoreA New Assessment
Some years ago, I had covered this subject, dwelling mainly
on the connections between Travancore, Britain, Sir CP, and the new administration
at Delhi, trying to complete the accession of all the princely states. It was
not complete and lacked study of certain angles, and so, I am revisiting the
study to add more asides to it after reading a recent Wall Street Journal (Dec
Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-19179065937475021052024-01-15T15:22:00.003-05:002024-01-15T15:25:03.563-05:00Mexico City – A metropolis full of surprisesOur recent visit, and of course, a little bit on
India-Mexico relations.
This trip had been in the making for quite some time, we had
planned to go some years ago and had to abort after COVID restrictions forced
us to cancel it. But we made it last month and it was no doubt, a fascinating
week in a teeming, colorful city, steeped in history. So much different from
the seaside resort of Los CabosMaddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-34150074590255306822023-12-02T11:14:00.001-05:002023-12-02T11:14:29.844-05:00Russell, Menon & KumarBertrand Russell and India
It was a siege of sorts. We were tucked away in our hostel
rooms due to a ruckus between the locals and the students and for a week or so,
we were stuck in our hostel, with no classes. It all started with somebody assaulting
somebody and many other bodies joining the fracas, like most thallu
cases. The college ground to a halt, doors were boarded, and the Regional
Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-27383228364272420102023-11-04T16:39:00.000-04:002023-11-04T16:39:17.646-04:00Vyazhavattom - The 12-year cycle in Kerala The Duodecennial concept of Malabar
Most youngsters from the present generation would hardly
have come across these terms or their significance in their studies, though
they may have heard it from elders. In the past, however, it was quite important
and was implemented across diverse areas, such as determining the completion of
a sovereign’s rule or even the duration of a legal contract Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-28580493067716391162023-10-15T11:12:00.000-04:002023-10-15T11:12:12.416-04:00Guruvayur – A peep into its historyMost people have only a vague concept of the temple’s
history. I thought it would be a good idea to provide a brief overview based on
the perusal of historic records, primarily the many papers and books authored
by an early Malabar chronicler, KV Krishna Ayyar. Some years ago, I had written
about the involvement of the Dutch and Hydrose Kutty Moplah, in the temple’s
history. This will overlap andMaddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-7874589560180751662023-08-29T16:56:00.002-04:002023-08-30T19:56:35.653-04:00Kurt Tank – The legendary test pilot and aircraft designer And the Marut HF 24 project at Bangalore
Prof. Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Kurt Waldemar Tank was not only a brilliant
German engineer and designer of many successful aircraft that flew in the
Second World War but was also a competent test pilot. Responsible for the
designs of the Fw 190 fighter, the Ta 152 fighter interceptor, and the Fw 200 long-distance
Condor, Kurt led the design department at Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-46212732194094199342023-07-31T12:40:00.000-04:002023-07-31T12:40:17.152-04:00Col. Manakampat Kesavan Unni Nayar (1911-50)A Revered War Correspondent
This young daredevil from Parli, near Ottapalam, charmed men
and women alike, hobnobbed with royalty, prime ministers, presidents, Nobel
prize winners, and generals, was articulate and not only spoke well, but was also
a popular writer, a journalist, and a news reporter before ending up with the
Indian army. A dapper and handsome, young man, he was liked by everybody Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-44924664311216867422023-06-24T08:39:00.006-04:002023-06-24T17:50:04.653-04:00M Sivaram – The Consummate JournalistSE Asia’s roving newshound
News used to be reported from the source with engaging text by
journalists, and the challenges they faced and the risks they took are fodder
for so many thrilling tales. These days, however, distant back offices help
complete news bits with little personal involvement, and pretty soon we will
see AI engines churn them out instead. Perhaps it is time to take you back 80Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-84325528502316348512023-06-07T12:53:00.002-04:002023-06-25T07:57:57.244-04:00Conceição – Our new book The Sad Story of the Conceição – Published by the
Chagos Conservation Trust (CCT)
Sometimes I wonder at the surprising turns that life takes.
I was researching for material to add meat to the article that I was preparing
on Deigo Garcia and chanced upon a site related to the Chagos Archipelago,
where I found an old copy of ‘Chagos News’. In there, I did not find much on
Diego Garcia as Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-68821549973190733892023-06-01T14:16:00.000-04:002023-06-01T14:16:19.533-04:00The Ceylon MalayaleesTravails of the Kochiyan…
It is difficult to quantify the waves of migrations between
Kerala and Ceylon – Sri Lanka over time, and the lines are quite blurred, but
then again, there was a time when the relations between Malayalees and the Sinhalese
in Ceylon, became intensely turbulent. Though there is a great similarity in
vegetation, thought, customs, and looks, as well as a similarity in Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-47698809687200477892023-05-01T10:01:00.002-04:002023-05-02T19:48:41.670-04:00The HarmoniumAnd its checkered history in India
It would surprise many readers that this musical instrument,
so common to the music scene today, had such a troubled past. Born in France
and further modified to meet Indian requirements at Calcutta, to be mass
produced and sold in in the thousands, this humble hand powered instrument had
a difficult history, to say the least. So many people have tried hard to Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-21493896476008999432023-04-21T10:55:00.003-04:002023-06-01T09:06:27.449-04:00White and Whitefield An Anglo Indian Colony in BangaloreThe story of Whitefield in Bangalore starts with DS White, a
resident of Madras, who held the welfare of the marginalized Anglo Indians or
Eurasians, wallowing in the twilight period of the British rule in India, close
to his heart. A few villages or colonies were created as a home for some of the
pioneers, based on a utopian model and after a ‘hunky dory’Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-61539506355718736922023-03-21T16:43:00.001-04:002023-03-21T18:37:50.863-04:00The Heart of MontroseMadurai’s peculiar connection to Scotland, Logarithms,
Colin Mackenzie, and a hero’s heart
Madurai has a great cultural history, and for a long time
was Tamil Nadu’s cultural capital, and the ‘Toonga Nagaram, the city that never
slept’. It was one of those cities which endured so many rulers and changes,
notably by the Kalabhras, the Pandyas, the Cholas, the Tughlaq Sultanate, the Vijayanagar
Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-67575283446858490452023-02-27T15:43:00.000-05:002023-02-27T15:43:11.350-05:00Chat GPT – An interesting demonstrationNewspapers, websites, podcasts, radio news, and TV programs
are talking about the pros and cons of Chat GPT. I had just a cursory idea about
the whole thing and when my younger son Arun visited us recently, my wife asked
him what it was all about. After some prodding, he got on to the site and
proceeded with a demonstration of how it works. Below is exactly what
transpired, I have not made a Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-63896064285561510362023-02-09T16:24:00.002-05:002023-02-09T16:29:06.230-05:00Surus and DaliDali’s elephants
Surus the war elephant, as some of you may know, belonged to
a much older time frame, and its connection to the artist Salvadore Dali, who
was born centuries later is quite interesting, to say the least. Some years
ago, many news reports were published about the gifting of an elephant to Dali
by Air India in return for the little giveaway sculpture designed by Dali. This
articleMaddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-81327925483773022562023-01-07T12:21:00.005-05:002023-01-08T10:13:14.594-05:00Bolgatty or BastionThe attack at the British Residency – Cochin Dec 29,
1808
As we read in the lengthy article that I wrote some years
ago on Velu Thampi Dalawa’s reign in Travancore, and his revolt against the
British EIC, leading to his death, there is a mention of the attack by the
Travancore Nair’s on the residence of the first British resident for Travancore
& Cochin, Colin Macaulay. We will get into the Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-37440195417508194112022-12-26T14:59:00.003-05:002022-12-26T15:02:25.505-05:00Musical pillars in South Indian templesEarly rock music – Music
from Stones
Strange, the uninitiated would think, reading the title, for
it is neither about rock music as we know it today, nor about the rolling
stones, but about music from stones, a field called Lithophony, and its early
applications in South India, characterized by the many musical pillars, staircases,
idols and stone blowing instruments found in certain temples. Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-87828684028792602012022-12-02T15:15:00.003-05:002022-12-02T15:15:56.010-05:00A Sojourn in Morocco Off the beaten track
It did not take much effort to plan this trip once we had
set our minds to it, and we were lucky to find a travel company that then worked
with their Moroccan counterpart to provide a decent package. Pretty soon, we
were on an Air Canada flight across the Atlantic and headed to the Western
fringes of the African continent where a Moorish adventure beckoned. It sure
turned Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-17874639796968079832022-11-11T09:11:00.000-05:002022-11-11T09:11:06.198-05:00The Swaraj Spy – A Novel by Vijay BalanAfter more than a decade of concerted effort, Vijay Balan’s studies
have culminated in a novel depicting his grand uncle’s life and times, published
by Harper Collins as ‘The Swaraj Spy’ under the historic fiction genre. Without
a doubt, Vijay’s painstaking research is evident from the meticulous unraveling
of Nair’s life. The writing style is languid and easy, and the reader will soon
find Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-27908912251702465372022-10-26T14:17:00.009-04:002022-10-27T07:19:22.435-04:00Orlando MazzottaThe phantom
in Quaroni’s opera
In March 1941, Subhas Chandra Bose slipped out of Kabul, holding
the passport of an Italian named Orlando Mazzotta, headed for Moscow, leaving
behind the real Italian, in Afghanistan. I had previously covered the tale of Bose’s flight out of British India, and his travels through Russia, Italy, and
eventually to Berlin in Germany. At the end of that Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-74998127711843734372022-09-26T14:57:00.004-04:002022-09-26T17:56:50.067-04:00Menon and the Coorg WarAnd the tragedy which befell the Chikka Deva RajendraThe house imprisonment of Karunakara Menon was a major cause that precipitated the invasion and acquisition of Coorg by the British, a sad tale in itself. An event which is said to have weighed upon the conscience of Menon, until the end of his life, this resulted in the British acquiring the rich Coorg highlands, the banishment of the Raja to Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-25292434297703961132022-09-09T13:45:00.003-04:002023-02-09T16:25:40.921-05:00The Taj and the ElephantStrange, you will mutter, reading the title. Well, I had
been wondering about elephants in Istanbul after I had finished the research on
the embassy of Tipu Sultan to the Rum in 1787. In that large effort, four
elephants were sent along as gifts to the Ottoman Sultan, accompanied by a wasteful
700-person retinue. Continuing on with that story, I chanced on the marvelous
book (The Architect's Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-40797574238201231262022-08-21T11:32:00.001-04:002022-08-21T11:32:05.004-04:00The Seventh fleet and the 1971 Indo-Pak warTask force 74 in the Indian Ocean
The arrival of the US Seventh fleet in the Indian Ocean caused much apprehension in an already volatile Indo – East Pakistan war zone, in the middle of Dec 1971. India had just staved off a Pakistani attack on its western borders and was crushing Pakistani army forces at its Eastern flanks, off Calcutta. It was at this juncture that the mighty 7th fleet, headed Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-37391948448780934262022-07-24T09:53:00.003-04:002022-07-26T07:38:15.389-04:00The Travancore National and Quilon Bank debacle The crash of the Travancore National and Quilon bank and the
involvement of Sir CP in the affair is known to many old-timers. Those who had
thrown their lot with the Matthen’s and Mammen’s side of the story laid the
blame squarely on Sir CP, opining that it was his vendetta against the
Christian lobby. CP’s supporters, on the other hand, blamed Matthen, the
Christian lobby, and the bank’s Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29462524.post-18562470739955447802022-06-18T07:42:00.001-04:002022-06-18T07:43:18.593-04:00Mangala Bai, an accomplished artist The Kochu Chothi Tirunal Amma Tampuran of Travancore
(1866-1953)
When we dwell on Kerala painters, we tend to focus on Ravi
Varma, and indeed he was accomplished and over time, very popular. However, others
around him tend to get mentioned only in passing, like Raja Varma, his brother,
and traveling companion. Raja Varma was also very good at his work and often
completed his brother’s work or Maddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18163804773843409980noreply@blogger.com2