IN OLD MYSORE
Published in London Magazine, of October-November, 1972
Fifty years ago the streets of Mysore were not tarred. Tarring is what we used to call it. Words like surfacing and asphalting were not in vogue then. Maybe some Parsis in Bombay knew the words, for everything came to Bombay first, from England; and the Parsis received it first.
The stretch of road from the municipal building to the market sqaure was covered with fine red mud. Red mud is nature’s bounty. A city must be lucky to have it. The Red Road in Calcutta is not red at all. I believe they had to use science to make London’s Mall red.
Basava, the famous wrestler of Koppal on the outskirts of Mysor, filled his arena with red mud. His disciples said it was like wrestling on a Persian carpet.
This stretch of road, about 300 yards, was the domain of three British Viceroys. It was bounded on the east by Curzon Park, on the west by Lansdowne Buildings, and on the north by the Elgin Fountain. It was 100 feet wide. All the main streets of Mysore were that wide. They were named after the Ruler’s forbears and their consorts, and when the names were exhausted, one of the roads was called simply “100-feet road’. That stretch.
Twice a day, at nine in the morning and five in the evening, a municipal servant opened the hydrant on either side alternately and watered it. It was filtered water. The municipal servant was a craftman at his job. No mechanical sprinkler could have watered any surface so perfectly.
Years later the municipality bought a lorry mounted with a water tank and fitted with a sprinkler at the rear. The lorry was driven by Ramiah, the town’s first Brahmin lorry-driver. He was a venturesome man. Lorry-driving was not a calling for Brahmins then. The lorry did not do the watering job half as well as the municipal servant did. It was not Ramiah’s fault; it was the lorry’s.
When the servant finished his job the amount of water he had caused to be sprinkled on this stretch was just right. it watered the red mud evenly, leaving no patches, dry or slushy. He achieved this result by moving the water jet from the hose in a zig-zg manner and by playing at the hose’s nozzle dexterously with his fingers. In the gentle breeze filtered water on red mud threw up a most agreeable smell which, when I began to drink many years later, I discovered was exactly like that of Vat 69.
When a hose-drawn carriage approached, the man lifted the hose at such an angle as to make an arch of water jet and let the carriage pass underneath without any water splashing on it. In a small town with few cars and little traffic it was common for pedestrians to use the road rather than the footpath. When a pedestrian approached, the man at the hose freed an appropriate path from his water play, till he passed. When an important-looking person approached, he curbed his hose altogether. One such was my father.
My father was the picture of the affluent Brahmin. He wore his dhoti in the traditional style, that is, knoted at five place around the waist. Three knots would do to keep it in position but traditionalists would have to have five. It was handwoven, with a prominent border of red silk, and so more expensive than the imported Manchester mull dhoti, No. 1703, which most others wore.
His buttoned-up coat was of white silk and his white turban, as well as the shuffled white cloth hanging from his neck, had gold lace of the appropriate width. He wore the red sandals, curved up in front, commonly worn by the Chitpavan Brahmins of the West Coast. In short, his dress was a combined indicator of caste and class. He carried a sandalwood walking stick or an umbrella, depending on the weather, of course. Not in the English sense though. In India an umbrella is a protection against sun as well as rain. My father’s umbrella was made by Ebrahim Currim, the famous umbrella manufacturer of Bombay.
Past the Elgin Fountain and market square, my father entered the market building by a side entrance and climbed a flight of stairs to a small room upstairs. This was the Merchants’ Association. Downstairs, on either side of the entrance, were shops selling local perfumery and sandalsticks. When you pass an Indian perfumery shop you smell perfume. When you pass a perfumery shop in the west you smell only cardboard cartons. Those huge exposed bottles of perfume in the shop-windows of Paris are my despair. As I am looking at them I am only smelling the fetid atmosphere of the shop. Indian perfumery seems to cater to two sensory perceptions at the same time, sight and smell.
My father was a member of the Merchants’ Association because he was a merchant. He was a rice merchant. Brahmins were not merchants as a caste, nor as a class fifty years ago. But a few ventured into business. Sundaram Iyer, for example, had a big grocery in the same bazaar where my father had his rice shop, and Upadhyaya, a perfumery establishment not far from market square.
The more orthodox of my father’s Brahmin friends did not like his being a rice merchant. Rice was the food of life. A Brahmin did not sell this life sustainer. He had two privileges in respect of life. He either begged for it or gifted it, but sell never. The orthodox believe that some curse would visit on my father for trading in rice. He did get diabees, but this had less to do with selling rice than with his eating it.
My father’s business was vertically integrated, in the language of modern capitalism. He grew his own paddy in the village, brought it to town for milling in his own mil, and sold it wholesale in his own shop. His two junior partners were a Vysya and a Sudra. Rather by accident than by design, their shares in the business descended in the same order of the caste hierarchy.
The Merchants’ Association was a sort of a club, and by convention only the head of the firm was a member. In the prevailing laissez-faire in business, its petitions to authority were few and seldom had to go beyond the town’s municipal council. It was, in fact, little more than a reading room. Its high moment came twice a year when it presented a garland of flowers and a bouquet to the Maharaja when he rode in procession that way. This was a privilege enjoyed by a select few which included the local European Club and the Masonic Lodge.
In the reading room of the Merchants’ Association my father settled down to the English language newspapers from Madras and Bombay, and I to Mercantile Guardian from England. I understood nothing of its writing but was attracted to its green cover with the picture of Britannia on it. Perhaps no engraver ever etched a simpler drawing that produced so much reassurance in so many millions in so many lands.
Britannia, solid, remote, imperturbable, mistress of the waves. Trident in hand, she seemed more powerful than Siva, the third of the Hindu trinity, who carried a similar instrument. I passed my eyes idly over the advertisements until it was time to leave. We got home in a horse-drawn carriage. It happened to be the same carriage every evening.
Sabu, its Muslim owner, knew the time we usually emerged from the reading room. As he saw us approaching the carriage stand a few yards away, he politely drew up his carriage for us to board. His pony was always in fine fettle. We were back home by 8 pm, the deadline that all good men of the town had imposed on themselves. Those who habitually got home later were suspect. They, perhaps, played bridge somewhere, consumed alcoholic beverages at the railway station bar, or visited prostitutes.
The two Bs—the British and Brahminism—pervaded life. In a sense the two were interchangeable. The British were the Brahmins among the Europeans of the town. Otto Schmidt, the German conductor of the Maharajs’s private orchestra, and Simonelli, the Italian superintendent of His Highness’s garage, were lower in the caste status to the Rollos, the MacIntoshes and the MacAlpines, who filled the educatioal establishment.
The Maharajs was benign, to the Indian castes and the European castes. But there was no mistaking his recognition that the two Bs were on top. He was an anglophile. He contrived a national anthem for his state in the local language whose musical score very closely resembled God Save the King. He was benign to all Brahmin ecclesiastics, even to those on the West Coast who kept concubines.
The elders at home told me he was a demi-god and I believed them. The transference of this belief to other Maharajs landed me in utter confusion years later when the late Maharajs of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, gave me his visiting card in a Paris cafe. The idea that demigods cary visiting cards like you and me was a shock.
As a old Mysorean, It was so interesting to read this above rticle. To read the names of building and roads where I use to walk, like going to movies at Laxmi and Gayathrie cinema on 100 ft road, The names curzon park, Landsdowne building brings back lot of old memories. I love my city,even today thinking about it, brings tears into my eyes, I live in Quebec,Canada.
Thanks again.
best regards,
Shafi
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I was born and brought up in Mysore. Though I have left Mysore 19 years ago. I wish I will go back to Mysore one day and settle down there as long as I live. It is a beautiful city.
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Great article.
When I came to Mysore in 1962, I vividly remember that the roads in Yadavagiri were not tarred – Red earth, but watered by a truck quite infrequently. On another note, we were the neighbors of the Simonellis in Yadavagiri. By then Mr. Simonelli had retired and used to do a lot of work in his garage. I used to admire his skills in repairing things including his car. He loved his car a lot and as luck would have it, he died driving it! Lucky that he had a friend who took control of the car and brought it to a halt safely. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Mr. Simonelli’s descendants?
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Great good article. Brings back memories. I just visited last year to show the mysore, I grew up to my children. with all the modernization, the old beauty has gone. Old buildingd are all ruining with out proper care! Crawford hall, Maharani,s college, Old Statues square etc. Simple cleanliness and civic hygiene has disappeared , It was a sight which brought tears into my eyes.
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…with active citizens’ participation, MYSORE of the yore! can be restored. Politicians will fall in line…
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To: Mr H. VENKATASUBBIAH
Thank you this wonderfully nostalgic story about Mysore. My cousin in Melbourne sent me a complete video clip on the Mysore Palace and i started checking out people i used to know when i was a child in Mysore, where i was born.
Curzon Park, on the west by Lansdowne Buildings, and on the north by the Elgin Fountain brought back more fond memories even though i cannot remember them at all. But my parents mentioned these names.
I grew up on Convent Road, close to the Good Shepherd Convent. My grandfather Dr Thomas D’Sousa was a poor doctor who treated the poor free of charge (FOC, in today’s world). His son, Dr Charles D’Sousa was head of the Department of Patholgy at the Mysore Hospital.
I remember being invited to the Mysore Palace to play in the nursery of Princess Gayatri Devi, HH Jayachamaraj Wadiyar’s eldest daughter. The royal children had a private school headed by Mrs Watsa and assisted by Mrs De Fries.
Your brilliant piece has helped revive some very beautiful memories for me. Thank you.
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Somehow I had missed this excellent article. Very nostalgic indeed. By the by, wonder what was the name of Mr. Venkatasubbaiah’s father?
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FAO Amrit Yegnanarayan. I was born in Mysore in 1947, my parents were Cecilia (Simonelli) Hoffland and Denzil Hoffland. My mother was Luigi Simonelli’s daughter and we lived at Hill View (near the zoo). My family went to Bangalore, the Simonelli family moved to Lalitha Mahal on the road to the Summer Palace in the shadow of Chamundi Hill. I spent many school holidays in Mysore, at both the residences, and my family emigrated to the UK in 1962.
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Chris Hoffland. Can you please email me at amrity@gmail.com?
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Chris Hoffland. Somehow what you have written does not match up. Mrs. Simonelli was Dorothy, their daughters were Mariza, Jenina, Gilda and Christina. Luigi was their only son. Luigi went to the US to study and thence to UK where I think he eventually settled. I think Luigi was your age or may be younger. Thus, it is not clear to me as to how his daughter is your mother. I have lost all contact with them ever since Mr. and Mrs. Simonelli passed away and their children moved out of Mysore. I write all this on this blog with the fond hope that you will respond either in this blog or by email (I have shared mine above).
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Amrit, I am quite overwhelmed that you know so much about the Simonelli family from the Yadavagiri days. You are spot on about everything including that sad day when my father died. What you do not know is that I drove him to the hospital, knowing full well he had died. We had a few neighbours, as I recall, so where did you live? The Luigi Simonelli my cousin Chris Hoffland refers to is our grandfather who was also a Luigi! I am in Mysore now as I write this, doing an emotional journey into the past. It is a beautiful city, some aspects good but sadly everything has to change, so the Mysore we knew as children has mostly gone!
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Luigi, great to get back in contact. I am in the US since 96 Nov. You guys lived in Velapuri A, while we (family of the Lakshmans) lived in Velapuri B – neighbors in the same compound!. I would love to meet you if possible. I am going to be in India in Dec. At any rate, please do email me at amrity@gmail.com. I sincerely hope you do. My regards to all.
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Hi, I’ve stumbled onto your wonderful article today, as the name Simonelli has come up in my husbands family tree. My Husband paternal grandmother colleen, born in Mysore, remarried a man called Tita Simonelli in 1934. I can see you wrote this some time ago, but any information you have could really help us find out what happened to colleen. Many thanks
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I forgot to add Colleens full name is Colleen Wilhelmina Valentine Tate,
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