Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, Puri, 26 March 2023
“Are you ready? We have to go”, my son said. I was astonished. We had reached the historical city of Mysore the previous night at 10 p.m. My brother-like friend, Uday Narayan Singh, had booked the room in his guest house. He was Director of Central Institute of Indian Languages. Our aim was to visit the historical places. But I never expected that my son will get ready so early in the morning to see the historical places.
“Where to go?”, I asked. “To the movie hall”, he calmly replied.Then he said, “Do you know, Aamir Khan’s Ghazni is running in the nearby movie hall? I have arranged tickets for both of us.”
‘This is the present generation in which knowledge has lost to information’, I said to myself and moved with him. We saw the film and then had lunch. Thereafter, we left for Mysore Palace.
But the great Mysore Palace could not impress my son. He had the same problem in Vrindavan Garden too. He found both the places full of artificial beauty. “Let’s go back to our guest house”, he pleaded. We came back.
Next day we had planned to go to see Srirangapatnam, the capital of Tipu Sultan’s kingdom. It was a few kilometers away from Mysore. The morning started with Uday Narayan Singh and breakfast at his place. His wife was a Bengali lady. Uday Narayan ji writes in Hindi, may be in Maithili and Bengali too. His knowledge of English is also superb. He offered me to be associated with National Translation Mission and also with a Dictionary Project. Alas, Prof. Bipan Chandra, the great historian and the then Chairman of NBT did not allow deputation to any NBT officer and in the process killed our careers.
We reached Srirangapatnam. We had the option of hiring an auto rickshaw, a manual rickshaw or a ‘Tanga’ (a horse-driven cart). My son opted for the indigenous mode of transport – the ‘Tanga’. We went to all the places there, including Tipu’s Palace.
We were at Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon. Colonel Bailey was the General of Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan was possibly the first Indian king who trained his army with help from overseas experts. History knows how Tipu bravely fought and died on the battlefield. Britishers captured our country through shrewdness and not by valour.
Colonel Bailey was a great trainer and war strategist. The Frenchman used to tie the Britishers and dump them in the dungeon and fill it with water so that they will die due to lack of oxygen.
On our way back to Mysore my son showed his happiness. “This place looks natural, especially Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon”, he said!!
