British Raj

Tipu Sultan: Image & Distance

A new book and exhibition on the controversial ruler separate the monarch from the myth ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. A few years ago, Delhi Art Gallery acquired a seminal work, “The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultan”, painted in England after the death in 1799 of the Tiger of …

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A Bird’s-Eye View of the Raj

Science and whimsy mix in Delhi Art Gallery’s exhibition of Company paintings. ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. For Major-General Thomas Hardwicke, it wasn’t enough to employ an artist to paint the birds he came across in India. The naturalist and British East India Company officer also ‘employed a shikari to shoot …

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Review: The Biscuit

Lizzie Collingham traces the journey of the biscuit from sustenance to sweet treats ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. This summer, when migrant workers streamed out of India’s locked down cities, one of the recurrent images of their long walks to their home villages was of packets of biscuits: sometimes all they …

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I ❤️ Civil Lines

The civilised life in Delhi. ♦ When I came to Delhi for an exchange semester at St Stephens College, I was housed with several other students in a posh apartment complex site built on the site of an old bungalow in Civil Lines. Though I spent only eight months there, I grew to love the …

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Graveyard of the Raj

Secret Delhi: Coronation Durbar Park ♦ North of Old Delhi, in a now-desolate field, lies an incredible historical junkyard. Coronation Durbar Park — named for the sumptuous durbars of 1877 and 1903, and for playing host to the coronation of King George V as Emperor of India in 1911 — is a dusty slice of …

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