Dr MS Valiathan, founder of the Sri Chitra Institute in Trivandrum, passed away today. A wonderful man, he had many stories to tell. One he told me was on how the institute obtained an iconic old palace as its headquarters. A small thread.

Satelmond Palace belonged to Senior Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who ruled Travancore 1924-31. She built the place in the 1910s and ruled the state from here in the 1920s. Her children and grandchildren were raised in this house.

Had an amazing day yesterday, hopping from one temple to another around Kozhikode with @sruthinlal, tracing their distinct histories (and stories), the transformations of their gods and legends, and simply staring in awe at some of these shrines. We began at Puthur early in the morning. It is said that this is the temple where Vasco da Gama and his crew bowed to Bhagavathi, under the impression it was a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The image of the goddess looked exactly to me like the women we see in old Kerala murals.

Malik Ambar's is one of the most fascinating stories from the early modern Deccan, and he was a clear hero to the first Maratha Chhatrapati, Shivaji, whose court poet pays homage to Ambar in the Sivabharata (1670s).

https://twitter.com/tunkuv/status/1565937668566839296

Ambar began life as Chapu in Ethiopia, from where he was enslaved and taken to Baghad. In the 1570s, as a young man he landed in the Deccan which had a large number of African military slaves.

This unsigned painting doesn't look like a Ravi Varma to me. Lacks his finish from that period. More likely a work by his sister Mangala Bayi or one of his students (whose works are often assumed to be by Ravi Varma because they belong to the same era). thehindu.com/news/national/… The right side work is a Ravi Varma from the late 1880s. Way superior to the picture in the article: softness, the flow of fabric, etc. The subject also looks somewhat wooden in the painting on the left.

At the Shri Bhavani Museum in Aundh, near Satara. It houses a remarkable collection, originally established in 1938 by Bhawanrao "Balasaheb" Pant Pratinidhi, the rajah of Aundh (also famous for giving his little state a 'Gandhian constitution'). (@sidin wrote about the constitutional experiment some years ago.)
lifestyle.livemint.com/news/talking-p…

@advsanjoy @amir19621962 A bit tired of this "breast tax=tax on upper garments" claim. First image is Cochin rani less than 100 years ago; second is a Brahmin family. People were topless in Kerala, across castes. @advsanjoy @amir19621962 Avarna communities were sometimes charged a poll tax called Talappanam (head tax). In some places to differentiate between men and women, it was called head tax and breast tax. Beyond the name it had nothing to do with breasts or their covering.

The man in this painting (from the amazing Kerala Museum, Kochi) is Visakham Tirunal of Travancore (1837-85) and one of the several maharajahs I cover in ‘False Allies’. On this part botanist, part industrialist, part planter, part writer nineteenth-century prince, a thread. To begin with, he is dressed in everyday attire in the painting, though in the colonial era this was exoticised as ‘temple dress’. On formal occasions, the man would appear as in the photo below, in what we might call business attire.

See the painting at artsandculture.google.com/partner/kerala…

In my book 'False Allies' I use Ravi Varma as a means to tell the history of the Indian princely states. But some interesting (hushed up) personal details around the artist also emerged in the course of research, including, weirdly, a murder featuring a jackfruit--and this lady. The lady in the picture above is Mahaprabha of Mavelikara, the artist's mother in law, who died in the 1890s. In family circles she has a reputation as a formidable person; she appears in this photo with Ravi Varma's daughter.

This interesting person is Uthram Tirunal of Travancore, who reigned between 1846 and 1860. I begin my book 'False Allies' with his story simply because of how arresting a character he is. A short thread. Born in 1814, he early on formed a fascination for the West and the gifts of European modernity, all while staying devoted to the orthodox Hindu credentials of his dynasty.

Writing in the 1870s, Tukoji Rao Holkar II of Indore declared that India had been 'a vast heap of stones' till the British put each piece 'in the right place''. On the face of it this was slavish language, and yet.. in internal correspondence, Raj officials described Holkar as a man of 'notorious' disloyalty who 'in every possible manner' gave them 'persistent opposition'. Some of this stemmed from his air of grandeur: a newspaper wrote of how he 'swagger(ed)' about..

Ram Singh II (1833-80) of Jaipur gets only a page in #FalseAllies but what a shrewd little person he was. Generally discussed these days for his love of photography (which included taking naughty pictures), what we don't discuss enough is how shrewd a political figure he was.. Early in his career, he made use of the British to cut to size certain overpowerful nobles (who had armies and their own territorial units) and assert his own authority over Jaipur. He also strategically decided where to allow 'progress' and where he would rather not..

This man with the fancy moustache is Krishnaraja Wadiyar III (1794-1868) of Mysore. His story, as related in my new book #FalseAllies, encapsulates the complicated internal politics of a princely state, where the British & ruler were not the only factors.. Parked on the throne at 5, his govt was first run by an able minister called Purniah. But when the rajah grew up, Purniah hesitated to let him rule, calling him a 'foolish child'. Krishnaraja's first challenge, then, was to rid himself of the minister..

This glum looking man is Ayilyam Tirunal, maharajah of Travancore (1860-80). In my new book #FalseAllies I make the case for looking more seriously at the Indian princely states and their histories during the Raj. Ayilyam Tirunal, for example, was no meek ally of the British.. ..nor did he spend his time counting jewels & riding elephants. He was, on the contrary, a *political* figure capable of creatively fighting the pressures of colonialism. He knew, for eg, that bad financial management would invite British interference; so..