Thread by @gauravsabnis

I miss the old Subnis Wada in Indore. It was a bit like Winterfell meets Belvedere Castle. As a kid, running around exploring it during the vacations was so much fun. Then came the mid-90s and the family sold it to a developer. Now an ugly shopping complex stands there.

https://twitter.com/vagabong42/status/1451503179296772097

I don't care that a shopping complex stands there. That's how the world works. My dad's generation moved out of Indore to growing urban centers like Bombay, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, and some abroad. The wada had to be sold.

I just hate how ugly the complex is.

I lived mainly in highway construction site temporary apartments or then urban apartments, to this day. So the seemingly infinite passages and stairways and storage rooms and trees and backlanes of the old Subnis Wada are memories from 30 years ago that are still vivid.

We could only visit during vacations. Indore isn't the easiest of places to get to by train directly from most of peninsular India, which is the result of an old feud I'll do a thread on one day. So when we visited, we visited for a while. I can still feel the cold stone steps.

The place was quite decrepit. Great grandpa, the last of the Rai Ratans, died relatively young at 58. His kids did pretty okay. We never grew up poor. But we also didn't have (at least then) the familial wealth you'd expect from your family having such a huge head start.

So while that wada was cool and charming and fascinating to explore, it was also a reminder of what had once been. Rather than what could be. 90s brought economic growth, especially in retail. The wada was in prime location. Hardly any family remained in Indore. It was sold.

I wish all least one of the 7 brothers from my grandfather's generation (the family had a lot of Satte Pe Satta jokes) had had the money to preserve and renovate that wada. Maybe turn it into a public museum plus library. But none had it. They had families to raise elsewhere.

When I think back to those old store rooms and dusty cupboards and all the books and magazines and gazettes and photographs and letters and and and.... I am pretty sure it was sold as junk by the weight. And used to serve pohey in sarafa.

Coming to America, a culture that obsessively documents, protects, and displays its history made me realize how much history was and is still at our fingertips in India to preserve.

For example these 1500-2000 year old caves are strewn all over western Maharashtra, in the thriving Bombay-Pune-Nashik economic and population hub. There are these carvings. No signs or any info translating most of them! I was so frustrated!!

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1210798125847236609?t=q_gXgxUAY7SDCny-LNT3hQ&s=19

There is sooooooo much ancient stuff within a cab drive from anywhere in Bombay, Pune, Nashik. And so much ancient graffiti and/or advertising and/or art carved there. But there is almost nothing, no one to tell you anything! Would cost a lot less than a giant statue.

Like this. WTF? Someone climbed all the way up there to carve this. What is it? A donor or sponsor name (common in Buddhist rock caves)? A poem? A dirty joke? Some dude professing his love? There is an astonishing absence of info at the most iconic historic sites in India.

Which seems all the more stark visiting from a country where if you stand in one place long enough, they will put up an information plaque next to you with details about your ancestry. US turns the tiniest bits of history into loving public legacies. India ignores the biggest.

Peak US love of history I saw was on the east river promenade near where I live. Part of the river had been dredged to build this promenade a decade or so ago. In that dredging, a lot of bodies were found. A bronze sculpture on the wall shows what was dug up, with these notes!

Just fifteen or so years ago, people here felt moved enough by those nameless faceless bodies dumped in the east river over the city's violent past (& present) to say, hey, this is a nice jogging promenade but let's also have a keepsake of these dredged people. I love NYC!

For example, this street near my place is called Dvorak place. Made me wonder, is this named after the guy who designed the other non-QWERTY keyboard?
Nope, a quick search and nearby plaque reveals it is named for Czech composer Antonin Dvorak who once lived on this street.

Most people in NYC won't care to look up this history, but the great thing is that those who want to, will find it. Randomest little history spots and signs all over NYC delight the history nerd in me. And I'm told London is a whole other level of random history keeping.

Is it too much to ask that THE most historic and archaeological sites in India have at least as much signage and information as the randomest service plaza on the NY Thruway?