Midhun goes to library again !

I had no mood of doing the research work, even though there is a lot to be done, so I decided to go to the India section of the Zimmermann Library. I found the book on the freedom fight of 1857 and started reading it. After sometime I realised that there was somebody else too in the same floor. I wondered who would be here on a Friday night, unless he is as crazy as I am. I enquired and found out that the person was Jaycee Beyale, he was an undergrad in Arts. I was really impressed. What impressed me more was the statement he made 'It is easy to be somewhere else and get in trouble, but I prefer this hard way in the library'. He was reading some book on Navajo women.

Jaycee Beyale : Undergrad Student Arts on a friday night in Library

The book on 1857, war of Independence was by V.D. Sarvarkar. It was good, but I felt it was trying desperately to provoke reactions in people. It might be indeed the purpose and need for it when it was published and hence banned by British. I strongly believe such a book will not provoke any reactions in the public in this age. What is needed was a more subtle book where the feelings should come out naturally and not deliberately drawn by forcing them in words. May be someday I will write it myself. I will try my best for sure.

Pictures from India taken during the British Raj (Colonial India)

I was looking for pictures from India during the British Raj (The Colonial time in India) on the net. There are many 'photographic libraries' of which the best was the Library of Congress : American Memory. British library has a large set of pictures from India during that time but none of them show the harsh reality the way it was.

Then I went to amazon to see if there are books with photographs on India, and fortunately I found few, but they were expensive and then I realised that there exists something called a Library and then made my entry to the Zimmerman Library and then to the Fine Arts Library to find two books and the pictures below are from those.

1. The picture with a building as backdrop is the picture taken from the book 'Traces of India'. From the book : Felice Beato, photographer. The inscription on the secondary support below the image reads : "Interior of Secundra Baug after the slaughter of 2000 rebels by the 93rd Highlanders, The Punjab Regt." Regarding this photograph, Sir George Campbell wrote in his memoirs (1893),"the great pile of the bodies had been decently covered over before the photographer could take them, but he insisited on having them uncovered to be photographed before they were finally disposed of". However, William Howard Russell of The Times recorded seeing many skeletons still lying around in April 1858.
   
2. The second picture with a semi-nude lady was taken from the Book 'India : Pioneering photographers 1850-1900'. This photo disturbed me real bad. I wonder why would a woman pose semi naked at that point of time. If she was a dancing girl why does she not look happy ? Was it the photographers intension to have the lady such a way that it represents she lost in time ? Or is this photograph an example of the exploitation of the Indian women by the britishers ? I just have not been able to come to one solid conclusion about it. So just left it as it is. Some day if something comes up, lets see.
   

Felice Beato's record of Sikandar Bagh, the place where more than 2000 Indian Sepoys were slaughtered on 16th November 1857 by British troops under the command of Sir Colin Campbell

Young Woman from East Bengal (British Library OIOC Photo 124(33)