The Manhattan skyline, from Governor’s Island.

This past week, I’ve been in New York City.

Somewhat surreptitiously, I’ll admit.

I only told a handful of people I was there. And I (deliberately) failed to meet a whole bunch of people I used to know.  I didn’t even do a (customary) Facebook post of my time there.

Part of the reason for this elusiveness was that I was (partly) there for work and so there wasn’t enough time for a comprehensive hey and hello.

But the other part of the reason was because I just didn’t feel enough of a connection anymore to most of the people I knew in the city when we were living there. It didn’t help that most people I knew in the city weren’t my friends per se but friends through my partner.

It was strange to be back in New York City. Particularly on my own.  I had never been in the city without my/a partner – bizarrely enough New York City has been the (sometime) home of everyone I have ever been romantically linked with – and this experience of taking in the city on my own was completely new to me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The Empire State Building.

This was also the first time I have been back since we moved away in late 2012.  I note that in my bio on Dream Of A City, I still refer to New York as one of the three cities I call home, even though I haven’t actually been anywhere near it in more than three years! (As a comparison, I’ve been back to London at least twice a year in the last four years…)

The city itself has changed tremendously.  There were bits that I remembered fondly – The Met being one of these bits. It is quite simply the most amazing museum in the world, hands down.  And I spent a good THREE days in its cavernous galleries and halls.  The Met is my oldest and best friend, in NYC. That remains the same and will always be so, wherever I live.  I missed the Met and wish I were there every day.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – quite easily my FAVOURITE place on Earth.

View of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, from the Met’s Roof Garden.

But elsewhere, so much had changed.

The city had become more congested. Things had become more expensive. And – this sounds strangely shallow – but the everyday gorgeousness of the city: the aspiring models and actors who plied the streets and served you in restaurants, each of them drop-dead gorgeous and with an attitude to boot, seemed to have vanished. Service was and still is so-so in New York, but at least you had a fabulous view.  

It didn’t help also that Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where we had lived during our time there, had gentrified to something beyond recognition. And somewhere else completely unfamiliar to me – Bushwick! – had become the new Williamsburg, so to speak. 

Bushwick – the new Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I spent time with some very old friends and family, which was a treat since most of my friends in New York had been my partner’s friends and colleagues.  These were MY friends and family through and through – ALL MINE!! – though strangely enough, they had only, coincidentally, moved to the city after we had moved away; and so it was quite impossible to talk about the city in any meaningful way since our experiences were separated by time.

I also caught up with some goods friends who still lived the city, of course – but only three of them (you know who you are!) – and they were crucial links to my own history with NYC; reminding me of the fond memories I had of the city, despite the fact that my entire time in the city had been fraught with uncertainty.

So I find myself asking this very strange question: how is it that, despite my very strong links to New York City at multiple levels, I feel like it has become somewhat removed and alien to me?  In other words, how is it that a city I once called Home, no longer feels like Home?

Large tracts of it are certainly familiar to me still, particularly since I did two major photography projects in the city – 100 Ways To See A Street and Manhattan in 12 Streets. Projects which ensured that even today, I am deeply familiar with many landmarks in Manhattan (at least).

I found myself instinctively gravitating towards places I loved – the Met, certainly, but also Barnes & Noble on Union Square, the High Line and the Meatpacking District.  In particular, the High Line proved to be a rather emotional experience for me, since when I first moved to New York in 2010, only the first section of the Line had opened to the public, and I was overjoyed to find out that pretty much the entire park is now open!  Including the brand new Whitney Museum.  Hoorah!

The High Line, Manhattan.

But otherwise, I felt rather emotionally distanced from the city.  As though I had no stake in it whatsoever – which wasn’t true at a visceral level. But was certainly what I felt during the short week and a bit that I was there.

It has simply been too long since I last visited. And New York City – being halfway across the globe from Singapore – is just too far away to visit frequently.

So I’m afraid I have to retire references to NYC as home from my bio, and until I once again physically live there (which might happen again, one never knows), it will just be another (great) city to visit.

Goodbye New York, in the meantime.  I’ll be back, but it’ll be as a tourist.

Untitled – the brand new restaurant, at the brand new Whitney Museum at the Meatpacking District.

The Shanghai Bund.

I have found that when one is at a turning point – floating in that uncertain space between what has come and what will be – the best consolation, indeed the best panacea, is travel. Particularly if it is travel not just for travel’s sake (which, in itself is an immense pleasure), but travel for the purpose of re-visiting family and old friends.

This is what I did last week, when I returned to Shanghai after a two year absence, to pay a visit to my brother, and his family – to MY family, as it were – and old friends still living in Shanghai. Of course, I have been on this THEME of Travel and Family for a whole month now, having just returned from New York City a mere four days before heading to Shanghai; and I am due to return to London by the end of the month.

So incessant and restless travel will be, I think, de jure for the year; until such point as I decide what I am going to do next.

But back to Shanghai for a moment.

The French Concession, Shanghai.

I have always loved the city. Despite its penchant for increasingly hideous, skyscraping concoctions of glass, steel and concrete, there is a certain intimacy to Shanghai that still remains in all its ground-level nooks and crannies – in the orderly blocks of art deco and neoclassical edifices just off the Shanghai Bund, in the many verdant streets in the French Concession, in my favourite restaurant in the city (which serves delicate Shanghainese and Jiangnan cuisine), in the endlessly enveloping galleries of the Shanghai Museum, and in the lilting tones of the Shanghainese dialect.

But what makes the city even more endearing for me – and why I have considered it Home, of sorts – is my family, specifically my brother and sis-in-law, and their two lovely kids (my niece and nephew!). And even as I have been somewhat drifting along in a daze of uncertainty and indecision, being near THEM, feeling welcome and at Home with them, and partaking of that positive energy that suffuses family that loves each other, has been profoundly rewarding.

Shanghainese meal with my brother, sis-in-law and the kids at the excellent Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐, Jingan Kerry Centre.

I have discovered things in myself that I never thought possible.

I have found myself far more patient than I ever thought I could be, having spent afternoons at my brother’s place, simply reading my book, or sitting with my niece and nephew as they in turn, patiently entertained me with their toys and their stories for hours.

I have found myself strangely awed and moved by them – by my niece and nephew. Fascinated by how intelligent and how curious they are, even though so young (one is barely two years of age and the other almost four). And how they have so much to express and to communicate, even though they don’t yet have the vocabulary to do so. I so much want to hear what they have to say about the world, about their everyday lives, about what they think about the sky or rainbows or flowers or all the very simple things that surround them in their everyday lives.

And I have been surprised at how capable I am of receiving unconditional love and to give love in return, unstintingly, unconditionally, and without reserve.  (And how happy that makes me!!)

Family (and old friends – I mustn’t forget old friends too) have afforded Shanghai a warm, orange-gold glow that never goes away, even as the sky overhead is continually gray and overcast, and one is never sure if that is just morning mist or industrial smog.

This warm, orange-gold glow is everywhere (I am) in the city and the reason why I will return again. More frequently this time.

Goodbye Shanghai and I’ll see you again very soon!

The astonishing, fully animated interactive installation of a Sung Dynasty masterpiece of Chinese painting – Along the River During the Qingming Festival 清明上河图, at the Shanghai Art Palace 上海艺术宫. The original painting, a priceless National Treasure, is held in the vaults of the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, Beijing.

Art installation at the ginormous Jingan Kerry Centre shopping mall 静安加利中心, in the Jingan Temple District, a.k.a. my (brother’s) hood in Shanghai.

Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator (“the All-Powerful”), in the Monreale Cathedral, commissioned in 1174 by King William II of Sicily.

Long before Dream Of A City and my fascination with port cities in Asia, I had been enamoured of the art and the architecture of the Middle East, particularly of the cities that sat at the intersections of Islamic and Byzantine/Christian culture, and those of Iran.

I travelled rather extensively in the early to mid 2000s to Middle Eastern cities – to Istanbul/Constantinople, to the cities of Al-Andalus (Cordoba, Seville, Granada), to Cairo and Beirut and to Shiraz and Isfahan. But I never made it to two cities that for the longest time have captured my imagination – Damascus, in Syria; and Palermo in Sicily.

This past week, I have at last had the chance to visit the second of these cities, specifically to marvel at the wonderfully hybrid Norman-Sicilian, or Arab-Norman-Byzantine culture that emerged in the city during a brief 100-year period (1105 – 1194) when Palermo (and Sicily) was ruled by Norman Kings of the house of Hauteville.

Palazzo dei Normani, or the Norman Palace of Palermo, built upon the 9th century Arab al-qasr (or castle), and dating from the early 1100s. The central structure is what remains of the original Norman palace, built in 1130.

Sicily itself has had a marvellously complex history that involves waves of conquests by foreign armies. Between the 7^th to the 9^th centuries A.D., the island was a province of the Byzantine Empire, ruled from Constantinople. By the end of the 800s, Sicily had fallen to the Aghlabid emirs of Tunisia, who remained on the island till the Norman Conquest in the early 1100s.

Instead of doing away with Arab culture that had rooted itself in the island, Roger I and his son Roger II, awed by the splendour and sophistication of the Arabic and Byzantine arts and architecture on the island, decided to basically, assimilate. Imposing Christianity nominally as the state religion in the island, the Norman Kings nevertheless promulgated religious tolerance and ruled over a surprisingly multi-ethnic, multi-religious population of Arab Muslims, Jews, Byzantine Greeks, Italians and French (Normans).

The mix of these various cultures – particularly the Arab, Byzantine and Christian Norman cultures – resulted in the development of a unique, hybrid visual and architectural style known as the Norman-Sicilian.  And Palermo – the capital of Sicily – became one of the greatest cities in the world in the mid-1100s, drawing traders, merchants, intellectuals, artists and artisans from all over the Arab and Byzantine worlds to its shores.

[By contrast, Norman England, taken by William the Conqueror in 1072, was a cold, drab and poor place for much of the 1100s.]

Close-up of mosaics in the Zisa Castle, begun by William I in the 1150s and finished by William II. This was the King’s country palace, in the midst of a vast hunting ground.

This cosmopolitan world of Norman Palermo is featured in Tariq Ali’s brilliant novel, A Sultan in Palermo, which recounts the interaction between the namesake Sultan – Roger (Ruggiero) II – and Muhammad Al-Idrisi, Moroccan-Muslim adventurer and cartographer, who was commissioned by Roger to create one of the earliest maps of the world in 1154.

In the meantime, a glimpse of this world can still be had today in the dozen or so monuments of Norman Sicily that still stand in today’s Palermo. In particular, nine of these monuments are collectively grouped and inscribed as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalu and Monreale.

Palermo Cathedral, built in 1185 under the reign of William II is a wonder of cultural syncretism, with successive layers of architecture – Byzantine, Norman, Baroque, Catalan-Gothic – grafted onto one singular form. It also hosts the tombs of the Norman Kings, including that of Roger II.

These monuments are distinguished by their Arab-Norman-Byzantine architectural style, incorporating elements of Arab culture – such as the use of repeating, geometric motifs, “Moorish” arches and muqarnas ceiling vaults – as well as Byzantine Culture – in the exterior domes and floor plans of the churches, as well as in the shimmering gold mosaics accomplished by artisans from Constantinople – into an ostensibly Mediaeval, Norman-French vernacular.

The two most splendid examples of this form of architecture have to be the Palatine Chapel in the Palace of the Normans and the Cathedral of Monreale, with the tiny church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (or La Martorana) coming in third.  All three churches have their walls and ceilings covered with millions of shimmering mosaics. In particular, the Cathedral of Monreale boasts the largest extant Byzantine mosaic cycle anywhere in the world.

Stepping into these places, one is immediately placed in awe of the stupendous mosaics that cover every single inch of the churches’ upper walls, and are simply mindboggling in their complexity (and in their age – their being almost 1000 years old). One is also transported back to the dream of a city that Palermo was in 1150 A.D., under the reign of Sultan Ruggiero II, of the house of Hauteville.

The Norman Palace and Palatine Chapel

The Palatine Chapel was completed in 1132 by King Roger II. Built into the structure of the Norman Palace, the Chapel is known for its spectacular set of Byzantine-style mosaics.

Another distinctive Arab-Norman form in the Palatine Chapel is its muqarnas ceiling. Muqarnas مقرنص, or ‘honeycomb’ vaults, are an Arab-Persian form of architecture. Look closely and you’ll observe that every surface of the muqarnas is also highly ornamented.

Alongside the many key Biblical scenes depicted in exquisite detail in the Chapel are paradisiacal scenes of birds and flowers.

These paradisiacal scenes set in shimmering mosaic reach their apogee in Roger’s Hall – the oldest chamber in the Norman Palace. This is the only extant set of Byzantine mosaics to depict a secular scene – in style, the mosaics draw from an older Persian aesthetic, though they depict more “contemporary” Norman themes of hunting and heraldry.

The Churches of San Cataldo, Santa Maria d’Ammiraglio (St Mary of the Admiral, a.k.a. La Martorana) and San Giovanni degli Eremiti (St John of the Hermits)

Mosaic ceiling in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (St Mary of the Admiral), also known as La Martorana. The church dates from 1143 and is named after its founder, who was the admiral and prime minister to Roger II of Sicily.

Trees and starry night – mosaic walls in La Martorana.

Byzantine mosaic of King Roger II being crowned by Jesus Christ. This is found just past the entrance of La Martorana. © Matthias Süßen / CC-BY-SA-2.5

The Arab-Norman bell-tower of La Martorana, which used to be topped by a dome. Note the distinctive arches.

Right beside La Martorana is the Church of San Cataldo, established in 1160. It is a cross-cultural mix of Arab domes, a Byzantine-style cubic form and a Latin-Christian liturgy.

The interior of San Cataldo is simple, demonstrating a Byzantine fondness for a cubic plan and a mediaeval austerity.

The Church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti (St John of the Hermits) was established in 1136 by Benedictine monks, over a mosque that had earlier on been a Byzantine church. Like the San Cataldo, it presents Arab-style domes on a Norman-Byzantine base structure. Its interior is ruined.

View of the Norman Palace from the Gardens of the Church of St John of the Hermits. At bottom can be seen the church’s Benedictine cloisters.

The Zisa and Steri Castles

Facade of the Zisa castle, built in the 1150s as a summer Palace for William I.

The Zisa castle has the best extant examples of traditional arab-style muqarnas vaulting, even if many of these are restored. This is the spectacular main niche of the castle.

More examples of muqarnas vaulting in the upper floors of the Zisa Castle.

The Steri Castle, or Palazzo Chiaramonte, is not one of the Arab-Norman monuments of Palermo. It was built much later, in the early 1300s by a Sicilian noble family. That said, it also presents elements of Arab-Norman (or rather, Sicilian) architecture.

This is most obvious in the Steri Castle’s window niches, with their Arabic arches and focus on geometric shapes.

It is also evident in the ceiling of the Grand Hall, with their elaborate ornamentation and geometric shapes.

The Cathedral of Monreale

Exterior of Monreale Cathedral, which was built between 1174 and 1182 by William II. It was the last great Byzantine-style church of the Arab-Norman Hauteville dynasty. It sits int he outskirts of Palermo, in the village of Monreale.

The apse of Monreale Cathedral displays an exuberant Arab-Norman-Byzantine style with its interlacing arches and its elaborately inlaid exterior.

But it is what lies within Monreale Cathedral that blows the mind – for here lies the largest extant tract of Byzantine mosaic anywhere in the world. Artists – “foreign talent” – from Constantinople had been brought to Palermo and commissioned by William II to create this masterpiece of mosaic work; and they accomplished this in no more than 4 years.  

Close-up of the mosaic series in the santuary, with Christ Pantocrator and saints. 

Close-up of the Virgin and Child, in the sanctuary.

King William II – the last King of the Hauteville Dynasty, offering the Monreale Cathedral to the Virgin. © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Muqarnas-inspired vaulting in the sanctuary.

View of the nave, every inch covered with mosaics depicting scenes from the Bible.

Side view of the nave, with depictions from the Bible.

The cloisters of Monreale Cathedral, with the entrance tower to the right. The cloisters were completed in the late 1100s.

Close-up of the arches in the cloisters, again presenting an Arab-Norman style with their distinctive arches and geometric designs. No two pillars in the cloisters are alike; also, no two capitals are alike, each of them depicting scenes from chivalric and biblical scenes.

And finally… another view of Christ Pantocrator (“the All-Powerful”) at Monreale Cathedral, concluding this tour of Arab-Norman-Byzantine Palermo.

Timeless view from a balcony of the Tate Modern – St Paul’s Cathedral, the Millenium Bridge and the River Thames

A few posts ago, I wrote of my restlessness and my desire to wander; and my deep yearning for faraway places, for family and old friends. In the last three months or so, I have been doing exactly what I said I needed to do – wander restlessly, visiting old places and new, and spending time with friends and family.

At the time I wrote also of a hard choice I had to make – a metaphorical, and perhaps also, admittedly to some degree, literal, choice between remaining where I was, or dropping everything and taking flight. Part of my wandering these last few months was so that I may gain sufficient wisdom and inspiration to make that choice.

Last week, my journey took me finally to London, another city I used to call home, and the city that has, for me at least, most represented CHANGE and NEW BEGINNINGS. Not least because of its dynamism and its energy. But more importantly because each time I have found myself emotionally and professionally at a fork in the road, needing to make a hard choice, I have inadvertently found myself physically here, in this City on the Thames.

But this time, London itself had beaten me to the game of choice, so it seems.

Busy, bustling Leicester Square (and a fabulous new play about couples, infidelity and new beginnings, deliciously titled, The Truth).

For starters, there was Brexit. I arrived in London some two days after the fateful LEAVE vote, disappearing almost immediately for two weeks to Kent, Palermo and Brighton, before returning to London to witness the S#@$, so to speak, hitting the Fan.

As the bumbling, hypocritical fools who had campaigned for the LEAVE vote resigned en masse, one after another; as it became clear that many of those who had voted to LEAVE had not fully understood what they were voting for, nor the implications of their vote; and as the Scots, who had voted REMAIN, cried foul and began clamouring for another Independence Referendum, threatening the very fabric of the United Kingdom itself, London (who, incidentally, had voted to REMAIN) seemed to sink under the weight of a post-natal, post-apocalyptic depression.

The general atmosphere of dourness was uplifted, only barely, by the eleventh hour appointment of Ms Theresa May of the Tory Party as Prime Minister. Ms May is only the second lady PM to ever be appointed in the history of the UK, the first being the late Margaret Thatcher. The day she took office at 10 Downing Street, one daily took to commenting on how her husband “stole the show” as First Man with his “sexy navy suit” and black brogues, satirically weighing in on the media’s gender-bias.

Louise Bourgeois at the Artists Rooms, Tate Modern.

Brexit wasn’t the only “new beginning”, so to speak, in London that week.

It so happened that an aunt of mine – who had lived in London for more than 25 years – had also cast her own LEAVE vote, of sorts, deciding to leave London and move her life back to Singapore. And so we spent a final afternoon together at the Tate Modern – one of our favourite places to hang out in – lunching, lingering in the galleries, generally reminiscing the good times we had had in the city, and saying somewhat misty-eyed goodbyes to each other.

True, there was something a little disingenuous about our mutual goodbyes, particularly since we would be seeing each other again in less than three months, and possibly with far greater frequency than we had done when I was living in Singapore and she in London. But something had definitely changed. Something had ended. Never again would we have tea, do silly, boozy lunches or take to the museums together in London.

To us both, this represented the passing of an era. And we were saying goodbye not to each other, but to the city that had been the backdrop to so much good fun and fond memories.

Because without my aunt there, the city was no longer the same. And she knew that.  We toasted the passing of time.  And also a new beginning for both of us.

The Shard and Tower Bridge in the distance.

Which brings me back to the point about change and hard choices. Just before I left for London, I was given to understand by a stroke of fate that the options I had had to choose between earlier on, were no longer the same ones. Out of the blue, another path had revealed itself and the hard choice I had to make was no longer quite so straightforward.

I already knew by the time I got to London, that I would vote for CHANGE, like the UK and my aunt had. I knew that there was no possibility of my returning back to the very same place I had been all this time. As of the end of this month, I would have spent four full years in Singapore, and as my track record reveals, I have not stayed so long in any one place in the last decade at least.

I sense a new beginning taking shape. Quite an unconventional one – for me, at least – and for the moment, completely amorphous and unclear; but a new beginning all the same.

In the meantime, goodbye London! I will see you again when all the world, and me in it, would have changed irrevocably.  Hopefully for the best.

Contemplating a new beginning – the brand new Switch House, a new wing of the Tate Modern.

The Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.

So I suppose it’s time to spill the beans.

On 1 September, I will take the helm as the Director of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. It is a magnificent museum, and I am privileged and excited to be taking on the job after my predecessor (who played a pivotal role in the museum’s development – thank you!). THAT was the major change I was hinting at in the last post about London, Brexit and change.

In the following weeks, I will be doing the requisite press and media interviews where I share with the public, what my vision and plans are for the museum as its new director. And I’m looking forward to doing that.

But ahead of the press, I felt I owed it to myself and to Dream Of A City to share some early musings – not a sneak preview, but a sneak preview of the sneak preview – here first.

[And this is the only time I will allow a confluence between the personal-professional and the work-professional.]

Entrance to the Riverfront Wing, Asian Civilisations Museum

Since I AM a writer, I believe that clarity of vision stems from clarity of terms.  Specifically, the terms “Asian”, “Civilisations” and “Museum”, which form the museum’s very name.

And so the question I will attempt to address here is this:  What do “Asian”, “Civilisations” and “Museum” mean in the context of the world we live in today, and in the context of my own specific interests and personal journey?

In other words: what will I mean when I use these terms “Asian”, “Civilisations” and “Museum”?

This has bearing on the nature of the museum itself.

ASIAN

What is “Asian”?  And how is it different than “Asia”?

Curiously, while the museum’s name is “ASIAN” Civilisations Museum, its tagline professes it simultaneously to be “Singapore’s Museum of ASIA”.

But these aren’t the same things, exactly.

ASIA is a continent; a landmass. It implies geography, regions, boundaries, and a whole lot of “not”s, i.e. Asia is Not-Europe and Not-America and Not-Africa. To my mind, it is a limiting kind of parameter.

ASIAN, however, is a state of being. One talks about Asian-ness, without consideration about geography. It is a term that relates to people and to ways of thinking and forms of creative expression. There is Asian-ness in Asia for sure, but also in Europe, America and Africa.

So is ACM a Museum of Asia, or a Museum of the Asian? It has certainly been the former. I am inclined towards it being the latter.

If only because this allows me to further my own interest in the interstices between the great world civilisations; to temporarily look past landmass for the periphery – places once seen as unimportant in the minds of the grand civilisations of Asia by dint of them being at the edge of imperial consciousness.

Places like those cosmopolitan port cities of Asia’s coasts, like those historically turbulent, palimpsest-like desert crossroads and like those centres of diaspora communities (Asian diasporas worldwide and other diasporas in Asia) – where the great world civilisations intersect and either succeed or fail to accommodate each other.

I believe that in a world that is becoming increasingly xenophobic and intolerant, it is even more important for a museum such as ACM to emphasise that civilisations have never existed in monolithic, hermetically-sealed boxes. Instead, cultures, religions/faiths and peoples have always mutually influenced, informed and enriched each other.

The interstices between civilisations are becoming more important and relevant than the civilisations themselves.

[This is a view I share with my predecessor, and one which, I believe, ultimately got me the job.]

CIVILISATIONS

This brings me to “civilisations”.

Being a sociologist, I find the word problematic on two levels: the first being that it connotes a distance between art/culture and everyday life; high art versus low culture. And the second being the inherent, lingering neo-colonial after-tones. The European colonial powers believed, after all, that they were bringing the “light of civilisation” to the barbarian hordes in the rest of the world.

As originally used, “civilisations” is a rather more divisive than inclusive term.

So how we do we turn this on its head?

I accept, for a start, that at face value, MINUS the connotations, “civilisation” is an everything and all-encompassing type of word, referring simply to the entire historic and lived experience of a particular culture or peoples. This is inclusive of art, performance, architecture, ritual, but also political, economic, social (court and community) organisation.

Which means that what the museum is at present doing – collecting and displaying spectacular pieces of art and ethnologically significant artefacts – is merely one piece of the bigger picture.

It’s an EXTREMELY important piece; in fact, THE MOST IMPORTANT. Don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe in this fundamental role of the museum (see section below on MUSEUM).

But I would love to do more to explore the interstices (this word again!) between ART and other aspects of “Civilisation”.  Perhaps even take things a step further and explore the definition of “collecting” and “display” itself. [I got this idea of redefining “collecting” from a colleague – you know who you are!]

I would very much like, for example, to explore more deeply, and in a take-to-the-streets kind of way, the relationship between art and architecture (acknowledging that I’ve been, these last five years, walking through the streets of Asia’s port cities as an obsessive, intrepid street photographer).

I would also like to explore what “collecting” and “display” mean in the context of Asian intangible heritage such as music, performance, ritual and food. And conversely, to find ways to “animate” the living objects in our collection – kerises, shadow puppets, sireh sets, etc. This is where tapping the wisdom of community would add a level of depth and humanity.

I would, furthermore, like to explore exhibitions, books, programmes, talks and interventions that bridge domains, say… design, technology & ceramics, or textiles, court & community, or the art & history of food, or contemporary art installations inspired by monuments & antiquities…and so on; that turn traditional domains and categories on their heads.

I’m betting that it is within the space of the interstice that we will find content that is new and groundbreaking and that would have the museum appear to be current, cutting-edge, cool and accessible at the same time.

And I will go one step further to suggest that it is critical the museum be, first and foremost, current, cutting-edge, cool and accessible to our local visitors, i.e. Singaporeans and other residents on these shores. Because being here, they have the potential to be the museum’s most loyal and staunchest supporters. And because they too are hungry for new and groundbreaking experiences.

The good news is that I believe Singapore, being an old-new, traditional-advanced, interstice-like, cosmopolitan, port city sort of place, has all the ingredients – the art, history, architecture, food, audiences, patrons and experts  whether academic or vernacular – for us to embark on exploring the interstices, of both the Asian and Civilisational varieties, right here, if we want to.

And in so doing, we will also learn more  about this unique condition of being Singaporean – a subject that fascinates me and many fellow Singaporeans of my generation.

[AND, I must add, I am so lucky, so grateful and so happy to have board members, patrons, donors, collectors, expert advisers, academics, funders, docents, volunteers, supporters and a team of museum professionals who love the museum as much as I do and are as passionate about it as I am! Because one can only trust love and passion.]

MUSEUM

So I’m left with the most important term of the three…

Root word: Muse, of the classical, Grecian variety; a mouseion being a temple dedicated to the Muses, i.e. a space set apart for study and contemplation of the arts.

I find I am quite conservative on this front. I rather like the classical definition of a museum. In fact, I feel we have strayed a little too far from what museums ought to be doing…

For example, I am personally a little suspicious of the trend towards the so-called “digital experience” in the museum, mostly because the focus is always wrongly on carriage rather than content. Time, effort and $ spent on developing new infrastructure would be better off directed towards great collections and great content, in my view.

I stand firmly by first principles: content – tangible, physical, visceral content – is key.

By this I mean great art that makes your heart leap or gives you goosebumps when you encounter it because it is so beautiful or so significant or so impossibly old and well-preserved. Exhibitions, publications and talks that linger in your mind because they have changed your view of the world or of everyday life. Stories told of art, history and people that wrench or inspire or impart joy.

I want visitors to step into the museum and experience epiphany, or minimally a strong emotional reaction.

To elicit emotions and epiphany – the “So what?” and the “Why?” needs to be articulated for everything that we have and in everything that we do.

Why is this work of art in the museum? Why are you doing this exhibition? Why should this be of interest to me, the visitor?  Why is all of this important? 

Answering the questions of “so what?” and “why?” are extremely critical, because in answering these, we clarify who we are and what we stand for, and help our visitors understand who they are and what they stand for.

Let me illustrate.

Why are you spending time and effort writing this post? 

Because it explains who I am, what the museum I helm will stand for, and why it is absolutely important that you, the reader and the visitor, come visit.

Why is ACM important?

Because ACM explores the state of being Asian; what being Asian means. Because it presents heartbreakingly beautiful and historically significant art and artefacts. Because it stands for all that is new, groundbreaking and exciting in the space of presenting art and antiquities. Because it is against intolerance and xenophobia and strives to remind the world that its peoples, faiths and cultures have never existed in silos. And because in coming to ACM, you will learn something about yourself as an Asian and as a Singaporean (if that is who you are).

Welcome to Asian Civilisations Museum.

Allow me to be your host and your guide.

Sunset at Asian Civilisations Museum.

A most spectacular view of the Singapore skyline, from the terrace of the Asian Civilisations Museum.

Incidentally, the beans had already been spilt about a month ago…see the link below: http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/kennie-ting-appointed-as-new-director-of-the-asian-civilisations-museum

The facade of the ACM, with brand new banners featuring our bright red brand identity.

So it’s been one month since I took on my new position as the Director of the Asian Civilisations Museum. Well, a month and a half, to be precise.

The support, encouragement and general well-wishes have been so overwhelming. The knowledge I’ve gained and lessons I’ve learned from everyone whom I’ve met so far – board members, donors and lenders, collectors, docents and my own museum team – have been absolutely life-affirming.

What a wondrous, complex creature a museum is!

In a mere month of having to juggle so many imperatives – academic, curatorial, education, community, business, lifestyle, philanthropy, corporate – I can already see myself in a little caterpillar-cocoon, transforming into something else that I wasn’t before; something much fuller and more complex of form.

I have been told, good-naturedly, by many of the persons I’ve met, how “I’m just a baby!” Partly because of how new I am and also because of how young I am.

I see that as a very positive thing. Because being a baby, I come to the museum sans baggage; clean slate; eager for the museum (and I) to engage, to reconnect, to learn, to be inspired; and eventually to also decide who we are and who we are not.

Because also, being a baby means I can have a little fun in the course of doing all that I need to do. Because that means I need not tread in the footsteps of my predecessors – I am free, as all babies are, to find my own way, keeping in mind always, the privilege of having had the frontier opened up for me, so to speak, by all those who have come before.

I am acutely aware that I am inheriting a magnificent institution that has had built into its foundations the love, the sweat and the passion of many.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

And this being my muah gek 滿月, or one month anniversary, I thank you all again, upfront, for watching over me as this baby makes his unsteady (and ungainly) way towards THE first step.

In the meantime, two projects are imminent…

PORT CITIES – MULTICULTURAL EMPORIUMS OF ASIA, 1500 – 1900, from 4 November 2016 – 19 February 2017 at the Asian Civilisations Museum. [Image: Stadhuis, Batavia (Jakarta), built in 1710]

THE GRAND TOUR III – PORTS AND PALACES OF THE SUBCONTINENT here on Dream Of A City, from October 2016 onwards. [Image: Victoria Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata), finished in 1921.]

Night. View of ACM from the across the River.

The opening of Port Cities: Multicultural Emporiums of Asia, 1500 – 1900 at the Asian Civilisations Museum was tremendously successful, with more than 300 guests attending and having a whale of a time. Thank you very much everyone who was there!!

This is the very first exhibition I have opened as Director of ACM and I thought I’d share here on Dream Of A City, my first ever welcome address, on port cities in Asia (how apt!). The speech contains seeds of thinking about (Asian and Singaporean) IDENTITY, that have always guided me in the process of conceptualising and writing my books past and forthcoming; and that will perhaps also guide how the Museum’s own curatorial perspective will evolve.

WELCOME SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF PORT CITIES: MULTICULTURAL EMPORIUMS OF ASIA, 1500 – 1900, at the ASIAN CIVILISATIONS MUSEUM, 3 NOVEMBER 2016, 7 P.M.  

KENNIE TING, Director of ASIAN CIVILISATIONS MUSEUM 

“Your Excellencies, the ambassadors who are here with us this evening; Permanent Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth, Ms Yeoh Chee Yan; Members of the National Heritage Board Board of Directors and the Asian Civilisations Museum Advisory Board, distinguished guests, colleagues and friends… good evening and welcome to the opening of Port Cities, Multicultural Emporiums of Asia, 1500 – 1900.  

My name is Kennie.  I am the new Director of the Museum and today I’m almost exactly two months old on the job. I am deeply privileged and moved to be opening this exhibition in such wonderful company. 

For the longest time, I have been fascinated, or obsessed rather, with port cities in Asia. And this obsession has literally taken me to the streets of more than 30 Asian port cities in the last 5 years, where I have been doggedly and insanely – some would say – photographing as much of the historic architecture and streetscapes as I can before they disappear. Alongside my job at the National Heritage Board, I have been researching, reading up on and writing about the history and heritage of each and every one of these cities, and how these cities are linked to each other by global routes of trade and travel. 

I was driven to take on this crazy project by a singular question – why am I who I am?  Why is Singapore – and why am I – so strange?  Why do I speak English, even though I’m ostensibly Chinese? Why is it that I have this deep, inexplicable craving for sambal and Muthu’s fish head curry and I pepper my sentences with curious words like baju and senang and teruk.   

I am delighted, and still a little surprised, that my journey of discovery has led me here to ACM, where – in a stroke of fate – the first exhibition I am opening as Director is one on Port Cities, and this exhibition aims precisely to explore the kinds of conundrums-masquerading-as-questions I have been asking myself. 

Port Cities is a tremendously significant exhibition for the Asian Civilisations Museum as well as for Singapore. Firstly, because it explores and presents the very specific and unique history, heritage and material culture of cosmopolitan, multicultural port cities in Asia, which Singapore has always been, and I hope, will always be. Before Singapore, there was a long line of historic Asian port cities in the vein of Singapore – cities that would have looked very familiar to us today – I refer to the likes of Batavia (today’s Jakarta), Manila, Malacca, Canton, Nagasaki, Calcutta and Bombay – these global and highly globalized, “east-meets-west” and “east-meets-east” kinds of places grounded in trade, commerce and the coming together of peoples from all over the world.

We have tended to search for the roots of Singaporean heritage in the space of the Grand Asian Civilisations – the South Asian, the East Asian, the Southeast Asian, the West Asian – and we do indeed find clues to our roots there, but not the full picture. What this exhibition proposes, and what I firmly believe, is that it is in the more-recent-nearly-forgotten space of Asian Port Cities, where there is no purely South Asian or East Asian or Southeast Asian or West Asian or even European; but instead a rich, heady, intoxicating, brew of cultures, that we find that reassuring trace and presence of ourselves in the past.

In other words, it is in rojak, that we find the essence of Singapore.  

The exhibition is also significant because the concept and the curatorial narrative of the exhibition originated in ACM, and it is the first exhibition anywhere in the world that adopts a pan-Asian approach in presenting on the subject of Port Cities in Asia. The process of putting together the exhibition has been remarkably complex, having taken almost 3 years from conceptualisation to fruition. We have loaned more than 180 artefacts from 22 lending institutions and private collectors across 7 countries. Interestingly some of the institutions we have loaned from are not museums at all, but places of worship, and many of the objects from these places of worship have never left the building, let alone their country of origin.

Alongside these pieces, we have also placed artefacts from our National Collections – the collections of the National Museum of Singapore, of ACM, of course, of the National Archives and the National Library. And this is to suggest to our visitors – Look! We too have spectacular and historically significant artefacts here in our museums and archives and libraries in Singapore; artefacts able to hold their own amongst their counterparts from the rest of the world. 

For this exhibition to have taken place at all, I have to thank our many partner museums and institutions, lenders, donors and supporters, some of whom are here with us today. First our lenders: from Singapore, I would like to thank the family of Mr Ahmad Mohamed Ibrahim; Mr and Mrs Lee Kip Lee; and Mr Ashwin Muthiah, from the Saigon Chettiar’s Temple Trust Pte Ltd. From Belgium, many thanks to Mr Jan Veenendahl. From Japan, Hiromichi Kondou-san and Nobuyasu Kimura-san, who are temple elders of the Manpuku-ji in Kyoto; and Matsura Osamu-san from the Matsura Historical Museum in Hirado. From Indonesia: Dr Ibu Ekowati, attending on behalf of Museum Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta. From the Philippines, Mr & Mrs Juan Claudio Laya, of the Family of Mr Jaime C. Laya. 

I would like to thank the following partners who have offered us invaluable help in the exhibition: the Ayala Museum in Manila; Ryosuke Nishigori-san and Etsuko Iwanaga-san, who are the Director and Chief Curator respectively of the Fukuoka Art Museum; The Japanese Association and the Japan Creative Centre. I would also like to thank our sponsors, the Port Authority of Singapore, the Japan Foundation and the Singapore Cruise Centre.

Finally, my special thanks go to one very important person – and this is our Guest Curator, Mr Peter Lee, whom many of you will know as a local researcher and expert in Peranakan and Cross-cultural Art. As guest curator, he played an instrumental role, alongside ACM curators Mr Clement Onn and Ms Naomi Ang, and my predecessor (much-missed) Dr Alan Chong, in conceptualising, orchestrating and completing this exhibition. In my brief two months working with Peter I have learnt much, including how to organise complex ideas about networks and cross-boundary movements of peoples and goods into compact, compelling and easily-understood stories. And how important it is to always introduce a strong element of people and everyday life, warts and all, in exhibitions that we do.

In a moment, I shall invite Peter onstage to actually talk about the exhibition rather than around the exhibition, like what I’m doing. But before I do, I’d like to express my deep gratitude to and huge vote of confidence for the ACM team of curators, programmers, editors, collections managers, operations professionals, marketing professionals and fundraisers, who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to put this exhibition together. Thank you very much for your passion and professionalism and for welcoming me so readily into the museum as one of your own. I look forward to our journey together.  A round of applause please for Peter and the ACM team – it really does take a village to put on an exhibition!

I am also very pleased to declare that we are simultaneously launching the exhibition catalogue this evening. So if you like what you see in the gallery, do please pick up a copy of the catalogue which is retailing tonight at a minimum suggested donation of $40.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attention and I do hope you enjoy the opening.   

Peter, may I now invite you to say a few words.”

PORT CITIES: MULTICULTURAL EMPORIUMS OF ASIA, 1500 – 1900 is on at the Asian Civilisations Museum from 4 November 2016 to 19 February 2017. Do please pay it a visit. 

The Grand Tour III – Port and Princely Cities of the Subcontinent

It’s been 14 months since I concluded the second leg of The Grand Tour here on Dream Of A City. And since it is becoming increasingly clear that I’m not going to be able to secure a contract just yet for Part II on Treaty Ports and Imperial Cities of East Asia (on account of the recent museum job as well as contracts for four other books!!), I thought I might as well continue with the journeying.

So here goes…

This is the third and final leg of my Grand Tour East of Suez.

In 1498, Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer extraordinaire, landed on the coast of Calicut, in Malabar. From hence began the 400 year dalliance between the European powers and the Indian Subcontinent, that saw the Portuguese, and then the Dutch, the French, the Danish and the British carve out dominions for themselves.

The Portuguese established their Estado da Índia, or the “State of India” in 1505, with its capital first in Cochin and from 1511, in Goa. Goa would remain Portuguese for a staggering 450 years till 1961, when it was annexed by the new Indian Republic.

Merchants of the Dutch East India Company, or V.O.C. arrived in 1605 and established trading settlements along various coastal regions – Bengal, the Coromandel Coast, the Malabar Coast, Ceylon and Gujarat. Their most important cities were Cochin, on the Malabar Coast, Pulicat, on the Malabar Coast, and Colombo, in Ceylon. they would remain till 1825, when their presence was removed from the Subcontinent forever by the British.

In a similar fashion, the Danes arrived in India and established a fort and trading settlement in 1620 at Tranquebar (today’s Tharangambadi) on the Coromandel Coast. Their Fort Dansborg still remains even today, but the Danes themselves lost their settlement to the Brits in 1845.

The French established their presence at Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast, in 1673. By the mid-1700s they had eked out a rather substantial piece of territory on the Coast, but lost most of it to the British soon after, except for a handful of non-contiguous enclaves, ruled from the principal enclave of Pondicherry. Pondicherry and the other enclaves were returned to India in 1947.

Which leaves the British…

In 1608, merchants of the Honourable East India Company arrived in the port of Surat in Gujarat, and proceeded to establish their first trading settlement on Indian soil. This was swiftly followed by the establishment of a larger Fort and trading settlement in Madras (1639) on the Coromandel Coast, Bombay (1668) on the Malabar Coast and Calcutta (1690) in Bengal.

In 1772, Calcutta became the headquarters of the East India Company and the de facto capital of the British Indian state – a position it would relinquish to Delhi only in 1911. Dominions East of India, notably the Straits Settlements of Penang, Malacca and Singapore were governed directly from Calcutta.

Company Rule ended in 1858 and the vast dominions of the East India Company came under the direct rule of the British Crown. Thus was the British Raj established. Sovereignty of the Raj extended to almost all of present-day India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, save for Portuguese Goa and French Pondicherry.

At its peak at the turn of the 19th century, the capital of the Raj was moved to Delhi – the historic seat of the Moghul Emperor, located at the edge of the desert region of Rajasthan with its palaces and Moghul gardens situated in fabled, princely cities: Agra, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur, Lahore…

1947 saw what-was-then-British-India free itself from the yoke of colonialism, and in doing so, undergo a painful Partition into the independent nations of India and Pakistan (which further split into Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971). Burma had earlier split from India in 1937, and Ceylon had been a separate Crown Colony from 1795.

In the course of the next year and a half, I will explore and relive the epic history of the Subcontinent from 1500 till 1950, wandering the streets and historic centres of more than a dozen port and princely cities in a bid to uncover what remains of this history today.

Naturally, part of my efforts to uncover the past will involve sojourning in the grand hotels and palaces that featured prominently in the social circles and histories of each and every one of these cities. I am still fascinated by the history of travel and hospitality, after all!

Our travel itinerary shall take us west along the coast of the Subcontinent, rounding the island of Sri Lanka and north towards Rajasthan. The cities we cover include:

1. Calcutta (Kolkata) and the Grand Hotel
2. Benares (Varanasi) and the Nadessar Palace
3. Madras (Chennai) and the Connemara Hotel
   
4. Pondicherry (Puducherry) and Hôtel de L’Orient
5. Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) and Bungalow on the Beach
6. Colombo and Galle Face Hotel
   
7. Cochin (Kochi), the Bolghatty Palace and Le Colonial
8. Goa and the Mandovi Hotel, Panjim
9. Bombay (Mumbai) and The Taj Mahal Palace
10. Delhi, Maiden’s Hotel and the Imperial Hotel
11. Agra and the Grand Imperial Hotel
12. Jaipur and Rambagh Palace
13. Jodhpur and Umaid Bhawan Palace
14. Udaipur and The Lake Palace; and finally
15. Lahore and Faletti’s Hotel.

Join me, fellow wanderer, on my Grand Tour of the Port and Princely Cities of the Subcontinent!

First stop: Calcutta.

Map of the British Indian Empire in 1909. From the Imperial Gazetteer of India. By the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, J.G. Bartholomew & Sons. [Public Domain.]

Victoria Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata), finished in 1921.

Calcutta (Kolkata) is the first stop on my third segment of the Grand Tour of the East. The capital of the province of West Bengal, and the cultural capital of Bengalis worldwide, it is a worthy first stop, and quite possibly my favourite city of all on the Grand Tour.

Calcutta was the headquarters of the East India Company from 1772, and thereafter, capital of the British Raj from 1793 till 1911, and it is fabulously old world, oozing imperial splendour and decadence with its majestic, monumental, though sadly crumbling buildings everywhere you look. At the same time, it is also a city of extremes, with abject poverty existing side by side with fabulous wealth. It provides a picture of Old India – with its streets heaving with life and with people, air perfumed with rich smells and odours; where locals play cricket on the Maidan at mid-day even though it is sweltering hot.

Sunset along the Hooghly River.

Esplanade Row East.

The city was established in 1690, when the merchants of the English East India Company, led by one John Charnock, dropped anchor at a fishing village on the banks of the Hooghly River. By 1712, the EIC had completed building Fort William – which still forms the heart of the city today. Around the Fort, they would built the city proper.

Mausoleum for Jon Charnock, erected 1695 in the grounds of St John’ Church.

The city then and today was divided into two segregated areas: White Town, which was for the British (and other Europeans), and was centred around Dalhousie Square and Chowringhee Street; and Black Town, which was where the local Bengalis, rich and poor, resided. Both were self-contained settlements, in that they held residences, places of worship and commercial establishments.

The most spectacular sight in Calcutta is in White Town – these are the monumental buildings in and around Dalhousie Square, known as the Benoy-Badal-Dinesh, or B.B.D. Bagh today, after three Bengali independence fighters. This was the heart of the Empire. Here you will find mind-blowing Victorian and Edwardian-era buildings such as the Writer’s Building, the General Post Office (or G.P.O.) Building, the High Court Building and the headquarters of the Eastern Railway. Not far away sits that most stupendous of monuments to the British Raj – the Victoria Memorial.

Panorama of Writer’s Building, which functions as Calcutta’s Secretariat. First built in 1777, but with numerous extensions in the course of its history.

The General Post Office or G.P.O. (1868).

The former Government House, built in 1803, is today’s Residence of the Governor of West Bengal.

Luxury apartments along Park Street – the city’s Champs Elysees.

Black Town is not without its own sights, being still home to spectacular villas and residences owned by the zamindars, or wealthy Bengali landowners; those proud and old families who had sold away Calcutta to the British in the first place. Black town is also home to Jorasanko, the private residence of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal’s poet laureate supreme.

Crumbling glory…apartments in Blacktown.

In between White and Black Town lies a “Grey Town” of sorts; a grey area where communities who weren’t either european or bengali, sunk roots. This is Bowbazar, and it is home to the city’s Chinatown, Arab/Muslim and Jewish Quarters, Parsi, Greek Orthodox, Portuguese-Eurasian and Anglo-Indian communities.

Chinatown, in Bowbazar.

Nakhoda Masjid, or the Red Mosque (1926).

Elsewhere, in the suburbs of Calcutta, one finds its most important Hindu temples. The Kalighat, dedicated to the worship of the Hindu goddess Kali is one of them – just around the corner sits the Nirmal Hriday, famed for Mother Theresa. For here was where she had her shelter for the sick, destitute and dying. Farther afield, one finds the Dakshineshwar Temple, a surreal vision of a Temple, also dedicated to Kali and sitting on its own ghat by the Hooghly River.

The stunning, surreal Dakshineshwar Temple (this version built in 1855).

Nirmal Hriday, where Mother Theresa worked in her lifetime.

Calcutta was particularly special for me as a Singaporean because from 1830 to 1867, Singapore and the Straits Settlements were ruled as part of the Bengal Presidency, the headquarters of which was at Calcutta. Being two major port cities in the British Empire, Singapore and Calcutta have many surprising similarities, not just in terms of the urban design and colonial architecture – colonial urban planning and architecture in early Singapore took Calcutta as reference – but also in that both cities are melting pots.

For a Singaporean, Calcutta will feel strangely familiar, and is thus an apt introduction to India.

Interior of the Indian Museum on Chowringhee. Note the whalebone.

Downtown Calcutta.

As a last point to note: it is important to remember that Calcutta is still extremely poor. The streets will be full of beggars (and child beggars), touts, and impromptu roadside stalls selling everything you can possibly imagine; the city is polluted and the roads are terribly congested with traffic. But look past the immediate squalour and you will be charmed by the majesty and history that is everywhere around you, in the buildings and the streetnames and the food.

Poverty is everywhere around you. It is important to be compassionate.

Ubiquitous yellow cab before the Great Eastern Hotel.

Esplanade MEtro Station.

The city is perfectly safe to walk around – in fact walking is the only way you can take in the spectacular monuments around Dalhousie Square  (the Old Town) and Bowbazar.  The sidewalks are completely occupied by street stall and hordes of people, so do what everybody else does: walk on the street, with an eye on the cars around you.

Where possible, I took the Calcutta Metro, which is safe, runs largely on time and is remarkably cheap (5 to 10 rupees per journey depending on the distance – this is about 10 to 20 Singaporean cents!).  A ten minute ride on the subway could take half an hour to forty-five minutes by taxi because of the terrible traffic.

In the next month or so, I will take you on a walking tour of the city of Calcutta, right here on Dream Of A City.

Rickshaw puller along College Street.

Traffic along Chowringhee Road.

Esplanade Mansions was built in 1910 for Jewish magnate, David Joseph Ezra. It is an Art Nouveau building situated across from Government House.

View of Writer’s Building from across Dalhousie Square and the Tank.

Calcutta’s former European Town is a large, sprawling, highly-planned city that occupies much of the southern reaches of Central Kolkata today. At its heart is Fort William, the fortified, walled settlement that the English East India Company established here, along the banks of the Hooghly River in 1696 – just like Fort St George in Madras, which they established earlier in 1644, and Fort George in Bombay, which they would establish in 1769.

The tour of European Town, or “White Town”, as it was colloquially referred to, is broken into two segments. In this segment, we tour the area around the former Dalhousie Square, today known as BBD Bagh.

This was the European Town’s civic and commercial hub, playing host to Calcutta’s most impressive, monumental civic buildings, as well as the headquarters of its major banks and trading houses.

At the centre of this precinct is Dalhousie Square itself, which held and still holds The Tank – an artificially created fresh water reservoir, dug in the 1700s, that, being fed by a natural spring, used to provide the colonial population with its fresh water and fish up until the late 1800s.

It was dug in the absolute middle of the city and still sits there today, albeit no longer providing potable water nor fish to the city’s residents. It is today called Lal Dighi and is assiduously fenced off, except on special occasions when Dalhousie Square itself is opened up as a park to the public.

This walk has two parts: a) the Civic Centre south and around Dalhousie Square and b) the Financial District North of Dalhousie Square.

Civic Centre

We begin our walk at the High Court building near the junction of Strand Road (which sits on the Hooghly waterfront) and Esplanade Row West. From there, we head East towards Government House, turning left to head north up Government Place West towards Dalhousie Square. We take in the monuments along the South, East and North of the Square before diving into the Financial and Commercial District proper.

The surreal and imposing High Court Building, built in 1872 in a Gothic style.

Just down the street along Esplanade Row West is Town Hall, built in 1813 in a Doric style.

Government House, completed in 1803 in a Palladian style, was initiated by former Governor-General Lord Wellesley. It was purportedly based on the plan of Kedleston Hall in the UK. Upon its completion, it caused a scandal because of how opulent and expensive it was and because this was ostensibly the residence of a Civil Servant.

Along Government Place West sits the very ornate, Victorian former Treasury Building, built in 1884. It is today the Offices of the Accountant General of West Bengal.

St John’s Church, completed in 1787, is the oldest extant church building in Calcutta. Its design closely followed that of the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The church grounds play host to Job Charnock’s Mausoleum, as well as a replica of the memorial to the Black Hole incident.

The interior of the Church is simple, but well-maintained, and offers respite from the busy Calcutta streets.

The Governor’s Staff Quarters are a range of Palladian-style buildings that flank Government Place West and were built in 1908.

8 Government Place North presents a rather interesting Anglo-Indian architectural form with verandahs supported on cast iron posts, and wooden jalis stretched across these posts.

At the southeastern corner of Dalhousie Square sits the former Central Telegraph Office with its distinctive tower. It was completed in 1876.

Diagonally across the street from it, also at the southeastern corner of Dalhousie Square, sits the former Offices of the Currency Department, built in 1868 with distinctive Venetian style buildings.

Heading along the south flank of Dalhousie Square, one finds the Standard Life Assurance Company building, completed in 1895.

Here is a view again of the Standard Life Assurance Company building, designed in a Victorian style.

Further down and at the south-western corner of Dalhousie Square, sits the offices of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Corporation, recalling the HSBC headquarters in Shanghai. It was built in 1928 in an Art Deco style.

A small detour along Hare Street takes one to the Small Causes Court, built in 1874 in a Neo-classical style.

Mercalfe Hall was named in the honour of a former Governor-General Lord Metcalfe. It was completed in 1844 in a Neo-classical style closely modelled after the Temple of the Winds in Athens. It used to house the Agri-Horticultural Society and the Public Library, and sits on the junction of Hare Street and Strand Road.

Back on the south-western corner of Dalhousie Square sits McLeod House, built in 1917 in a Neoclassical style.

Beside it, the wonderfully elaborate edifice of the Royal Insurance Company building, completed in 1902 in an Edwardian style.

Next along the western flank of Dalhousie Square sits perhaps the most distinctive building in Calcutta – the General Post Office Building, with its huge Neoclassical dome was completed in 1868.

Occupying the entire northern flank of Dalhousie Square is the Writer’s Building, which housed the Government Secretariat. It was built in 1776 and has had numerous extensions made to it in the course of the 19th century.

On the northeastern corner sits St Andrew’s Kirk, built to serve the city’s Scottish congregation. It was completed in 1818 in a Palladian style.

The Financial District

At St Andrew’s Kirk we double back along Lyon’s Range into the Financial District proper, which sits along the central artery of Netaji Subhas Road, previously known as Clive Road. We head north along the same artery, and admire the various monumental pieces of commercial architecture along both sides of the street, ending our tour at the imposing, modernist Capital Bank of India building.

Along Lyon’s Range sits the Turner-Morrison Building, completed in 1925 in a Neoclassical style.

The Calcutta Stock Exchange, built in 1928, sits beside it.

Back on Clive Street are the headquarters of the Eastern Railway, built in 1879.

Across the street sits the Allahabad Bank, built in 1896.

…and the Indo-Saracenic style Chartered Bank Building, built in 1908.

The Royal Exchange comes next. It was built in 1917 and houses the Bengal Chamber of Commerce.

The offices of Bawmer, Lawrie & Co Pte Ltd, built in 1909.

Clive Street intersection with the North British & Mercantile Insurance Co Ltd building (early 1900s) to the left, and 14, Netaji Subhas Road (early 1900s) to the right. At centre is the Capital Bank of India Building.

References:

• Calcutta Built Heritage Today. Compiled and edited by Nilina Deb Lal, and published by INTACH Calcutta Regional Chapter, 2006.
• Calcutta’s Edifice – The Building of a Great City. By Brian Pal Bach, and published by Rupa & Co., 2006.

A final glimpse at the Royal Insurance Company building, along Dalhousie Square.

The impossibly over-the-top Victoria Memorial sits at the Southern End of the Maidan.

The second part of my virtual tour of European, or “White” Town, Calcutta, has the armchair traveller exploring the two most fashionable thoroughfares in Calcutta – Chowringhee Road (today’s Jawaharlal Nehru Road), which was the centre of the city’s cultural and entertainment scene; and Park Street, which, then and today, is still the most exclusive residential address in downtown Calcutta.

Our tour takes us south along the eastern flank of the Maidan – a vast open field that is home to various recreational sports such as cricket, football and hockey. The equivalent of the Esplanade (or Padang) in Singapore, but much, much larger, the Maidan is the green lung of the city, fronting the Hooghly River waterfront on its Eastern end, and providing a view of the Calcutta skyline on its Western flank. To the north sits Government House and a few other monuments; to the south, the opulent Victoria Memorial, which caps off our visit in White Town.

Chowringhee Road

We start our tour at the legendary Great Eastern Hotel on Hemanta Basu Sarani, formerly Old Court House Street. Heading down Meredith Street on the right side of the Hotel, we walk past The Times of India and reach Bentinck Street. Turn right down Bentinck Street and soon it becomes Chowringhee – home to many of the city’s major cultural and hotel establishments.

The Great Eastern Hotel began operations in 1840, and is perhaps the oldest hotel establishment in Calcutta; and gave the Grand Hotel on Chowringhee a run for its money in its time. It took its present name in 1866.

The Times of India Building, completed in the early 1900s, with its distinctive twin domes.

Tipu Sultan’s Shahi Mosque signals the start of Chowringhee Road proper. It was erected by his son Prince Ghulam Muhammed in 1842 in an eclectic Indo-Saracenic style.

Around the corner sits Sacred Heart Church, serving the city’s Catholic congregation. It was completed in 1834

The Art Deco Metro Cinema (1932) was once perhaps the most fashionable spot in the city. Today, it has fallen into disuse.

The imposing Metropolitan Building (1900s) sits at a huge traffic intersection at the northwest corner of the Maidan.

Across from it, on the Maidan, is the Ochterlony Monument, known today as the Shahid Minar. It was erected in 1828 to commemorate Sir David Ochterlony. It was also designed in an eclectic Indo-Saracenic style.

The vast Maidan is the green lung of the city and is home to many of the city’s sporting and recreation clubs – cricket, hockey, equestrian and football.

The Municipal Corporation of Calcutta was built in 1905 and sits just off Chowringhee Road, around the corner from the Oberoi Grand

A stone’s throw away is the Sir Stuart Hogg Market, or New Market. This is Calcutta’s main market, built in 1874.

The Grand Hotel (today’s Oberoi Grand Hotel) is the undisputed grande dame of Calcutta, playing host to royalty, celebrities and high society then and today. It was opened in the early 1900s by Armenian, Arathoon Stephens.

Nearby sits another quaint old dame of Calcutta’s hospitality scene – the Fairlawn Hotel on Sudder Street. Housed in a 200-year old building, it was the centre of the social scene in the mid 1900s.

Back on Chowringhee, we come to the Bible Society Building, built in the early 1900s.

Beside it sits the Young Men’s Christian Association, or YMCA, built in 1902.

The venerable Indian Museum comes next. This institution, established in 1875, was one of the great encyclopaedic museums in its time – alongside the British Museum in London and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Somewhere in its cavernous halls and stores sit the lost fragments of the Singapore Stone.

The Geological Survey of India occupies the former premises of the United Services Club (also known as the Military Club), built in 1905.

Chowringhee Mansions (1907) is a majestic residential apartment block on Chowringhee.

Virginia House was built in 1928.

The second of the imposing residential building on Chowringhee is the Kanak Buildings, originally the Army and Navy Cooperative store, built in 1901.

The Bishop’s House (before 1844).

Chowringhee Road is also home to a couple of Modernist buildings erected in the ’70s. One of them is Chatterjee International.

…and the other is the Tata Steel Skyscraper.

Park Street

Double-back on Chowringhee Road until we come back to the junction of Chowringhee and Park Street. Park Street was and still is the most fashionable and exclusive address in downtown Calcutta, home to many clubs, restaurants and cafes – amongst which the historic Fleury’s cafe. Here one also finds the greatest concentration of former luxury apartments in the city.

Midway down Park Street, we find another kind of abode – the South Park Street Cemetery, a peaceful but also somewhat creepy Victorian-era Christian cemetery housing the remains of English colonials in the early days of the colony.

The Royal Asiatic Society sits at the junction of Park Street and Chowringhee. 

Queen’s Mansion is the most important landmark on Park Street

Just beside it is another turn of the century luxury apartment block…

…where one finds the legendary tearoom Flurys, founded in 1927. It serves European style pastries, cakes and chocolates and is still an extremely popular joint for fashionable Calcutta-ites.

The Park Hotel is yet another luxury hotel around Chowringhee.

Park Mansions (1910).

The South Park Street Cemetery was opened in 1767. By 1790, it was full and shut down. Just goes to show how the Europeans in the city in the early years were dropping like flies.

The cemetery itself is a wonderful piece of English Gothic scenery right smack in Calcutta. It offers wonderful (albeit a little creepy) respite from the crowds on busy Park Street. Well worth a visit.

Around Victoria Memorial

At the south end of Chowringhee and the Maidan sits the stupendous, surreal Victoria Memorial,and a few other (smaller) sites of interest. We first pay a visit to these other sites before ending our tour at the expansive grounds of the Victoria Memorial.

The Victoria Memorial was a project conceived by Lord Curzon to commemorate the late Queen Victoria, Empress of India. The interior of the building tells the story of British Imperial Rule in India and the life story of Queen Victoria (the latter presented as a series of Byzantine-style mosaics presenting the Queen as a Byzantine Empress). The building resembles a cross between a country estate and the Taj Mahal, and was the British Raj’s self-conscious way of pronouncing itself the rightful successor to the Moghuls. It was opened to the public in 1921.

Surprisingly, the Memorial has been wonderfully preserved, and houses a delightful museum of arts and artefacts from the colonial era. Its large, verdant and really rather quiet grounds deserve a half a day visit, if only to contemplate the grandeur and the folly of the entire British Imperial effort in India.

The Nizam’s Palace was formerly known as Galstaun Park, after a wealthy Armenian businessman. It gained its present name because the property was eventually sold to the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was built in the early 1900s and houses Government offices today.

Just down the road is the Calcutta Club, founded in 1907. Then and now, it is one of the most exclusive club in the city.

St Paul’s Cathedral was built in 1847 in a Gothic style.

And finally, the Victoria Memorial – this is the view towards the southside of the Memorial, along its carefully manicured lawns. 

Victoria, Empress of India, on the grounds of the Memorial named in her memory.

A closer look at Victoria Imperatrix.

And finally…a view across one of the large water tanks towards the Victoria Memorial, where it becomes clear just how much the Memorial resembled the Taj Mahal, and just how full of hubris the entire British colonial effort was.

Bow Barracks sits at the very heart of Bowbazar.

Calcutta in its heyday was divided into two main districts – White Town, which was where the British and other Europeans lived their lives and did their business, and Black Town, which was where the local Bengalis resided. Some of these Bengalis became very wealthy indeed from the busy international trade that Calcutta did as a global city in its time – indeed, the second most important city in the British Empire, after London. And it was in Black Town that these babus – as they were called – erected their fabulous villas and mansions.

In between White Town and Black Town, a kind of “grey area” emerged; a district in which everyone who was neither British nor Bengali were housed. Here in the area generally known as Bowbazar, one found Calcutta’s Chinatown, Muslim and Jewish Quarters, as well as communities of Buddhists, Parsis, Ismailis, Portuguese-Eurasians and Anglo-Indians. Here one finds the kind of cosmopolitan, multi-cultural human, cultural ad religious landscape that was typical of many other major Asian port cities, including Singapore.

Bowbazar

Bowbazar is Calcutta’s “precinct of harmony” – with all the world’s grand religions concentrated here in a tiny precinct squashed between White and Black Towns.At the heart of Bowbazar is Bow Barracks – a small cluster of three-storey, red brick turn-of-the-19th century apartment buildings that used to house soldiers, but today, house some 100 or so Anglo-Indian families, all of whom are Christian.

Another place of note is the area around Tiretta Bazaar and Sun Yat Sen Street, which constitute Calcutta’s Chinatown. This is one of two Chinatowns in Calcutta, the other being in Tangra, a little further out the city. Calcutta has the largest Chinese community in India, with more than 2000 families still living in the city. Many of the families are Hakka in origin, and have contributed to the city what is today considered a typical Calcutta dish – Hakka Fried Noodles.

The best way to take in Bowbazar is with Calcutta Walks, a walking tour company specialising in heritage walks of the city with extremely knowledgeable guides. It’s best to take in Bowbazar with one of these guides as they can literally open doors into some of the places of worship along the tour.

The Bengal Buddhist Association (1892), on Buddhist Temple Street.

L. Madeira & Co – Portuguese-Eurasian undertakers on Bow Street.

Manackjee Rustomjee Parsis Dharamsala, or Guest House.

Bow Barracks, with its distinctive red brick walls and green french windows.

A view through the central spine of Bow Barracks.

Zoroastrian/Parsi Fire Temple on Metcalfe Street (1912).

Just across from it on Metcalfe Street sits an Ismaili Khanaqah of the Aga Khan, established in 1917.

Nearby is a Jain Temple.

Parsi Church Street is entirely commercial today but there must have been a Parsi Fire Temple here. Interestingly, Parsi and Chinese places of worship were referred to as churches.

Chinese residence near Tiretta Bazaar.

Sea Ip Church – a Chinese Temple in the heart of Calcutta’s Chinatown, serving the city’s Hakka community.

Sun Yat Sen Street – the Chinese community here originated as leather workers.

Nakhoda Masjid (1926), also known as the Red Mosque, is Calcutta’s main mosque.

Alternate view of the Red Mosque, built in a Moghul style.

Muslim Guest Houses in the vicinity of the Nakhoda Masjid.

Beth El Synagogue, built in 1886, is one of three synagogues in the Bowbazar area.

Neveh Shalom Synagogue on Canning Street was established in 1825 but this building was built in 1911.

Maghen David Synagogue was built by Jewish magnate Elias David Ezra in 1884. The Ezra family is associated with a few other monuments in the city, including Esplanade Mansions and Chowringhee Mansions.

The exquisite interior of Maghen David Synagogue.

The Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary, or the Portuguese Church, on Canning Street. This is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in the city, built in 1799.

The Armenian Holy Church of Nazareth is the oldest Christian church in Calcutta, first established in 1690, though this present church dates from 1724. Armenian presence in Calcutta predated that of the British.

The oldest Christian gravestone in the Church, and quite possibly in the city is dedicated to one Rezabeebeh, who was buried here in 1630.

We end our wander through Bowbazar at Armenian Street, which is a bustling marketplace.

Black Town (a.k.a. North Kolkata)

From Bowbazar, we head north to the former Black Town – commercial, religious and cultural heart of the local Bengali community. Then as today, the main thoroughfare through Black Town, Rabindra Sarani, presents a scene of daily hustle and bustle.

Secreted here and there behind the main streets in Black Town are the city’s many residential villas and palaces, erected by the many wealthy babus that grew wealthy and opulent from Trade.

We visit two of these villas on this tour – the first is Jorasanko, famed for being the childhood home of Bengali poet laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tagore (and Black Town) had been at the very heart of the Bengal Renaissance – the political, socio-cultural and intellectual awakening of the Bengalis that took place in the course of the 1800s and sparked off a flowering of the arts and sciences.

The second is the so-called Marble Palace – a magnificent palace built in 1835 by Bengali merchant Raja Rajendra Mullick. Members of the family still live in the palace today. The architecture of the palace is eclectic, blending Neo-classical architecture with traditional, Bengali courtyards and adornment. The house is full of Victorian-era antiques and artworks collected by the family.

Residential buildings in Black Town.

Residential buildings in Black Town.

Crumbling glory – residential buildings in Black Town.

Residential buildings in Black Town.

Jorasanko, or Tagore House is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It was built at the turn of the 18th century.

Jorasanko Close-up

Inner courtyard and verandah at Jorasanko.

The Marble Palace was built in 1835 and is immaculately preserved.

We end our tour on the grounds of the Marble Palace. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed inside.

References:

• Calcutta Built Heritage Today. Compiled and edited by Nilina Deb Lal, and published by INTACH Calcutta Regional Chapter, 2006.

For more information on the walking tour of Bowbazar, check out: 

• Calcutta Walks’ website, at http://www.calcuttawalks.com

Prinsep Ghat was built in 1941 in the memory of Anglo-Indian scholar, James Prinsep.

No visit to Calcutta is complete without a day-trip to two of its most important Hindu temples and pilgrimage sites, and without a stroll along the city’s waterfront from Prinsep Ghat to Babughat – perhaps the most Romantic spot in the city to be in.

Kalighat

The Kalighat Temple sits in the suburbs of Calcutta, what is today’s South Kolkata. A metro ride will take you to within ten minutes walk of the temple. There has been a temple here dedicated to Kali since the 15th century, even though the present temple itself dates from the early 1800s.

The word “ghat” means a jetty or landing stage, and Kalighat is essentially a jetty on the banks of the Hooghly River dedicated to the worship of Kali. The worship of Kali is all-important in Calcutta, with some arguing that the name “Calcutta” itself probably derived from Kali.

For hundreds of years, pilgrims have been coming here to Kalighat to worship at the Kalighat Temple Complex and to bathe at the Hooghly River, on the steps of the ghat. The Kalighat also gives its name to a genre of hybrid-style figural painting known as Kalighat painting, which developed in the 1800s in the vicinity of the temple, and was known for its depiction of Hindu gods, goddesses and demons.

Near the Kalighat temple sits another extremely important landmark in Calcutta – the Nirmal Hriday, better known as Mother Theresa’s Home For the Sick and Dying Destitutes. Saint Mother Theresa opened this hospice in 1952 and remained in Calcutta till her death  in 1997.

Kalighat Temple exterior.

Interior of Kalighat.

The area around Kalighat also plays host to rather stately apartment buildings, as well as the famous Nirmal Hriday (right), also known as Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute.

Dakshineshwar

Further out from the city sits another important Kali Temple and site of pilgrimage. This is the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, rising like a surreal vision from its own ghat on the Hooghly River, in the suburbs of Dakshineshwar. The temple was built in 1855 and has nine spires in its main building – apparently a traditional Bengali style of architecture.

To get there, a short journey by car is needed. The journey will take you past the majestic Howrah Bridge and Howrah Railway station.

Howrah Junction Railway Station is the oldest and largest railway station in India, built in 1854, at the height of Calcutta’s eminence as the second city of the British Empire.

Pilgrims arriving at Dakshineshwar Kali Temple.

Close-up of the surreal, beautiful and extremely mesmerising Dakshineshwar Temple, with its Bengali-style 9 spires.

Worshippers washing at the Dakshineshwar Ghat.

Prinsep Ghat to Babughat

Finish the day with a late afternoon stroll along the Hooghly waterfront, from stately Prinsep Ghat to Babughat. A delightful, and well-maintained esplanade, or boardwalk has been built here, allowing for a rather pleasant and quiet stroll. Many of the city’s denizens certainly agree, with families and dating couples appearing en masse to sit on the esplanade’s many benches and watch the sun setting on the horizon.

Near the end of the walk at Babughat, one comes across one of the few ghats still used for cremations in Calcutta. The sight of a body burning can be disturbing for some, but be respectful and avert your eyes if you do not wish to see it. Please also do not take photographs.

Another view of Prinsep Ghat, being set up for a concert. Just behind it is the 2nd Hooghly Bridge (Vidyasagar Setu).

2nd Hooghly Bridge at Sunset

The lovely, rather restful boardwalk along the Hooghly waterfront from Prinsep Ghat to Babughat.

Boat-people on the water.

Final view of the Hooghly Waterfront.

A backward glance at Dakshineshwar Kali Temple.

View of Dashashahwamedh Ghat from the Ganges River.

Benares is old.

Older than the other cities on this Grand Tour. Older than most cities…

It rises, like a mirage, on the west bank of the mighty Ganges River. It is a port city, but of souls first and foremost. The beating heart of Hindu civilisation, the city draws thousands of pilgrims each year, who come here to bathe in the sacred waters, or to die and be cremated on the ghats.

Pilgrims at the Holy River.

Pilgrim at the River. 

Crumbling majesty.

Benares is the British transliteration of Varanasi, meaning “between the rivers Varana and Asi”. The Hindus also call the city by another name: Kashi, or “luminous city”.

The city is best known for those ghats, or “landing banks”, of which there exist some 80 or so along the same curving stretch of waterfront. The most famous of these ghats are probably the cremation ghats – such as Marnikarnika Ghat – where the bodies of those who have passed are taken to be placed on wooden pyres and burnt. Then there is Dashashwamedh Ghat, known for its expansive view, and for it playing host to the Ganga aarti, or the nightly ritual prayer to the Goddess Ganga.

Marnikarnika Ghat, where the fires of the cremation pyres burn.

Ganga aarti, Dashashmewadh Ghat.

There are many other ghats of course, such as the Chet Singh Ghat and the Man Singh Ghat, the Darbhanga Ghat and the Karnataka State Ghat, and we will visit each of these in turn, in the weeks to come.

Chet Singh Ghat.

Palace on Darbhanga Ghat.

State Guest House at the Karnataka State Ghat.

Graffiti at Prabhu Ghat.

Guesthouse and riverboat.

A pall of age and antiquity hangs over the many temples, palaces and other structures on the ghats. But the city itself dates only from the 18th century, built primarily by the Maratha and Bhumihar Kings of Varanasi. Much of the city, particularly its Hindu temples, were razed to the ground by the armies of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1656. The Emperor erected mosques in their place; one of these – the spectacular Alamgir Mosque still dominates the skyline at Panchganga Ghat.

Sweeping view of the facades along the ghats.

Alamgir Mosque, built by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century. It stands at Panchganga Ghat.

And then there were the British, who came and were awestruck by the spectacle and the pageantry along the banks of the holy river. They wisely chose to steer clear, building their own cantonment and administrative settlement  – complete with Christian churches and Indo-Saracenic style administration buildings – west of the Holy City.  The British city still stands today, and exists in stark contrast to the city of the Hindus.

The Great Hall of Benares Sanskrit College, established by the British in 1791. This hall is in classic Indo-Saracenic style, merging the Gothic with local architectural elements.

In this second installment of The Grand Tour Part III, I go in search for the sublime, exploring the ghats and the alleyways of holy Varanasi, occasionally taking to the streets of Benares Cantonment.

Above all things, flowing its ageless, timeless way through the city, there is always the River. Holy Ganga, mother of all rivers, witness to the ever-turning cycle of life and of history.

Tourist craft and a panoramic view of the ghats.

The River at dawn.

The River at dawn.

The River at night.

Another view of Dashashmewadh Ghat at dusk, as tourists arrive for the nightly Ganga aarti.

Assi Ghat means “eightieth ghat”. It is a popular hang out spot for locals and is marked by the five-spired Panchameshvara Temple and a large peepul tree that also doubles up as a Hindu shrine.

The main event in the sacred city of Benares, are its supposedly 87 ghats, which the grand tourist can take in from end to end in a single, three hour walk, or an hour-long boat-ride on the Ganges River.

I divide our leisurely wander through the Ghats of Benares into two segments. Here, we go from Assi Ghat, the southern-most ghat, and the most natural place to begin one’s wandering, to Dashashmewadh Ghat, which is perhaps the most famous ghat of all, and certainly the most photographed.

“Ghat” simply means steps that lead down to the water, and given that the ghats run in a continuous line, it is often not possible to distinguish one ghat from the other, except where there is a sign.

What is fascinating to me, aside from the wonderful architecture of the buildings, is the sight of people praying, bathing, playing, chatting, shopping and generally living their everyday lives in and around these buildings and on those steps.

Assi Ghat is home to a former Sikh Gurudhwara that is apparently a private home today.

Just north of Assi Ghat stand two spectacular buildings, probably both former palaces. The one to the left stands on Ganga Mahal Ghat. The one to the right is Riva Kothi, a former palace of the King of Riva, and it stands on Riva Ghat.

Reewa Ghat

Tulsi Ghat with its lovely balcony is home to a Hanuman Temple.

Tulsi ghat is named after the Tulsidas monastery, which stands here, beside yet another sprawling peepul tree. Tulsidas was a famous mystical poet on par with Kabir.

The next ghat plays host to sewage and water towers built by the British in the 1800s, when they arrived in Benares (Varanasi).

Chet Singh Ghat is probably my favorite ghat. It is wonderfully atmospheric, with its red palace named after the Maharaja Chet Singh of Benares. Check out the spectacular chhatris.

Bhadaini and Janki Ghats.

Shivala Ghat is home to Suryauday Haveli, a wonderful heritage hotel property that I stayed at for part of the time I was in Benares (Varanasi).

This Ghat and its prominent white building wasn’t marked out, but I believe it is the Anandamayi Ghat; and the building, the Anandamayi Ma ashram for girls.

Jain Ghat, is, as its name suggests, home to a Jain Temple, seen here with the golden shikara, or spire.

Vijayanagaran Ghat is home to a delightful confection of a palace or villa.

Right beside it is the un-missable Kedar Temple, built in a Southern Indian architectural style and dedicated to Shiva.

This building on Karnataka State Ghat was built by former Mysore state (today’s Karnataka State). It is built in an eclectic Indo-Saracenic style and operates as a guesthouse today.

A splendidly quirky assortment of houses stacked on top of each other on NArada Ghat.

Raja Ghat was built by a Marathi King Gajirao Balaji.

Pandey Ghat was fascinating to me for its Japanese hostel or guesthouse.

Digpatiya Ghat, with its splendid palace complex, built by the King of Digpatiya in 1830. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to take in the entirely palace

Chousat Ghat, or “64th Ghat”.

Darbhangha Ghat is home to another magnificent palace, built by the king of Darbhanga in 1915.

Munshi Ghat sits right beside Darbhanga Ghat and is a great place to be at to see the coming and going of boats and people.

Ahilyabai Ghat comes just before Dashashmewadh, and is a very frequently photographed ghat because of the bustle and the colour.

Dashashmewadh Ghat is the beating heart of the Ghats of Benares, pulsing with life. The busiest and most popular ghat of all, it sits in direct contrast with Marnikarnika Ghat. It also plays host to the nightly ganga aarti ritual.

A straight-on view onto Dashashmewadh Ghat, showing just how expansive, beautiful and bustling it is.

…and finally, a glance backwards from whence we came.

References

• Banaras – Walks through India’s Sacred City by Nandini Majumdar (This is a FABULOUS book.)
• Banaras – City of Light by Diana L. Eck

Continuing with another view of bustling Dashashmewadh Ghat.

Part Two of this wander through the legendary ghats of Benares takes in Dashashmewadh Ghat to Panchganga (“five river”) Ghat.  Beyond Panchganga, I venture no further, nor would the river boats take me onwards.

There are three major ghats here worth noting.

The first is Man Mandir Ghat, with its palace, built in 1585 by the Raja of Amber, Sawai Man Singh. On the palace sits an astronomical observatory, built in 1710 by Sawai Jai Singh II (a descendant of Man Singh), and better known for building the city of Jaipur (“Jai’s City”) in today’s Rajasthan. This observatory, known as Jantar Mantar, is one of three important observatories Jai Singh II built. The other two Jantar Mantars sit in Delhi and Jaipur, respectively (and they will feature later on in this Grand Tour).

The second major ghat is Marnikarnika Ghat – this is where many of India’s Hindus come to die and be cremated. Some 1000 bodies are apparently cremated here each year. The cremation pyres here burn night and day, and it is a sight both gruesome and humbling. The ghat itself is one of the oldest ghats to be built in stone, in 1302.  It is pretty much impossible to venture near the ghat – the best view may be had from the respectful vantage point of the river.

Finally, the third and finally ghat of note is Panchganga Ghat, built in 1580 by a minister of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. The ghat extends up into the sky in a spectacular fashion, culminating in the majestic Alamgiri Mosque, built in 1673 by Akbar’s great-grandson, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Once adorned with two towering minarets, one of the two collapsed in the early 1900s, and the other was demolished in order that the mosque would maintain its symmetry. The mosque is a reminder that for centuries now, Benares hasn’t just been a Hindu city, but is also home to a sizeable Muslim community.

Dr Rajendra Prasad Ghat

The elaborate Ganga Aarti takes place each evening at Dasashmewadh and Rajendra Prasad Ghats, undertaken by Brahmin priests.

Man Mandir Ghat is home to the Man Mandir Palace, built by Sawai Man Singh in 1585. To the right, can be seen the Jantar Mantar, built by his descendant, Jai Singh II in 1710.

Interior of the Man Mandir Palace, with its elaborate Rajput-style architecture.

The Jantar Mantar Astronomical Observatory, built by Sawai Jai Singh II in 1710. It’s siblings sit in New Delhi and just beside the City Palace in Jaipur.

View of Dashashmewadh and Rajendra Prasad Ghats from the Jantar Mantar.

Possibly Tripurabhairavi Ghat.

Close-up of the blood-red apartments on Tripurabhairavi Ghat, showing the elaborate latticed balcony.

Possibly Mir Ghat…

Possibly Phuta Ghat, with twin chhatris.

Lalita Ghat and Nepali Ghat, with its historical Nepali Temple.

Jalashayi Ghat.

Marnikarnika Ghat is the heart of this section of the ghats. This is the largest cremation ghat in Benares with more than 1000 bodies cremated here a year.

Close-up of Marnikarnika Ghat, with cremation pure burning. This is the closest one can get to the ghat as you will not be allowed to pass on foot.

Tarakeshwara Temple, on Marnikarnika Ghat.

The half-submerged Kashi Karvat Temple on MArnikarnika Ghat.

Scindia Ghat.

Sankatha Ghat.

Ganga Mahal Ghat features a lovely palace.

Just next door is Bhonsale Ghat, built by the Maratha kings in the early 1800s. This palace recalls Chet Singh Palace in Part One of the walk.

Naya Ghat with its hotel and Peshwa’s Shree Ganesh Mandir.

Ram Ghat and Jatar Ghat.

View of Lakshmanbala Ghat and Panchganga Ghat, in the distance. Alamgiri Mosque is visible at centre.

Close-up of Alamgiri Mosque, built in 1673 by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. It is one of two important mosques in Benares, the second one being the Gyan Vyapi Mosque (which is almost impossible to photograph).

And finally, a view of Panchganga Ghat, which concludes our walking tour of the ghats of Benares (Varanasi).

References

• Banaras – Walks through India’s Sacred City by Nandini Majumdar (This is a FABULOUS book.)
• Banaras – City of Light by Diana L. Eck

Sanskrit College is the oldest college in Benares, established in 1791. This entrance gateway was a gift from the Babu DFO Narayan Singh in 1849, and is a wonder of Indo-Saracenic architecture.

Further inland from the river, beyond the ghats, lie two different parts of Benares. The first is its sprawling, bustling old town; the second, lying even further afield, is the Cantonment, built by the British when they too, found their way here in the 1800s.

This gallery provides a glimpse into the hustle and bustle, and the eclectic architecture of the old town west of Shivala Ghat; as well as some of the major monuments that still remain in Benares Cantonment, particularly along Mall Road and Nadessar Road.

Unfortunately, of the buildings remain unnamed and unlabelled.

Old Town Varanasi

Commercial structures in the Old Town.

Art Deco in the Old Town – fusing elements of local and European architecture.

Shophouse architecture, reminiscent of shophouses in Southern China and Southeast Asia.

Beautiful Mughal-style building with arches and latticed balconies. The Arabic script marks this out as a Muslim establishment.

Another magnificent though crumbling building in a Mughal style.

Shophouse with beautiful latticed balconies.

Another example of a shophouse style commercial building.

A third example of a shophouse building with protruding balconies in a Mughal style.

Spectacular entrance gateway to a residential villa.

Just across from it is a stately home.

A street of once-stately residences

Close-up of one of these residences.

Judging from the small minaret to the right, this was probably formerly a mosque.

Beautiful but desolate white and blue residential structure.

The New Hotel Broadway is a European-style hotel in the Old Town.

Benares Cantonment

Varanasi Cantt Railway Station was opened in 1872.

The former Hotel de Paris, off Mall Road is now disused and empty.

Just across from the Hotel de Paris stands a magnificent church, now disused and its grounds overgrown. You can just about see the church spire and a bit of the foundations here.

The Clarks was one of the more reputable historic hotels in Benares. It stands on Mall Road.

Methodist Church.

St Mary’s Catholic Church.

Nadessar Road plays host to a row of commercial buildings, including the Allahabad Bank building.

Shophouse style commercial building on Nadessar Road.

Another Shophouse style commercial building on Nadessar Road.

And finally…a backward glimpse and the wonderfully Gothic Sanskrit College Entrance Hall.

Nadesar Palace – this is the back facade, boasting a large porticoed balcony on the second floor. In the foreground are the swimming pool and the polo grounds.

Nadesar Palace is a dream of a boutique hotel. First built by the East India Company in the late 1700s, it was then taken over by the Maharajah Prabhu Narain Singh of the Royal House of Benares from 1889, and the property has belonged to the royal family ever since.

The Palace was used as a guesthouse – in 1906, George V and Queen Mary stayed in the palace when they were touring India as Prince and Princess of Wales respectively. In the 2000s, the Taj Group took over the management of the palace, and after an extensive restoration, re-opened it as the Taj Nadesar Palace.

Arriving at the gates to Nadesar Palace – note the coat of arms of the Royal House of Benares.

This is the front side of the palace, with a large porte-cochere and another large porticoed balcony on the second floor.

Chairs on the second floor balcony at the back of the palace.

The second floor balcony at the front of the palace.

View of the grounds and the white marble pavilion.

The property boasts only 4 rooms and 6 suites, each of them with high ceilings typical of colonial properties, four-poster beds and clawfoot baths in the bathrooms. Every room comes with personal butler service.

The palace itself is a splendid piece of Neo-classical architecture, with a large porte-cochere out front, and a magnificent porticoed balcony out back. Antiques and works of art fill the guest rooms and public spaces of the palace, such that stepping into the building, is like stepping back in time to the days of the British Raj.

My room…

The bathroom…

The ground floor sitting room.

The ground floor dining room.

The palace at night. Dinner is served every evening at the ground floor patio.

The palace sits in its own extensive grounds, a tour of which may be had in the Maharajah’s former horse carriage, driven, incidentally, by a grandson of the Maharajah’s former horse carriage driver.

On the horse carriage tour of the property, we pass by plots of cultivated land, which I am told is where many of the vegetables served in the kitchen are grown.  That probably explains why everything served by the kitchen was absolutely delicious.

The Maharajah’s former horse carriage.

On the grounds of the palace.

The marble pavilion.

Simple, but simply scrumptious breakfast.

And then there is the pool, which sits at the foot of the Palace’s back facade, and affords a view of the grounds. I spent one late afternoon luxuriating in its cool waters, watching as the sun set over the trees in the distance, and marvelling at how this tranquil oasis could even exist, just metres away from the hustle and bustle of today’s Varanasi.

The swimming pool.

A final view of the Palace and the swimming pool. With this, we bid Benares goodbye.

NEXT STOP on The Grand Tour III: Madras (Chennai) 

The Indo-Saracenic towers of the Madras High Court, George Town.

Madras (today’s Chennai), is India’s fourth city, after New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. It has a fascinating history and a rich wealth of architectural heritage, but is often looked over for its more glamorous sister-cities.

What is perhaps surprising for those not in the know, was that Madras is older than Bombay and Calcutta. It was established in 1639 by the Messrs Andrew Day and Francis Cogan of the Honourable East India Company, when they successful managed to lease a plot of coastline from the local rulers.

On this small strip of coastline, the EIC would build their first fortified settlement, known then and today as Fort St George.  Madras would grow to become the most important port along India’s South-eastern coast, better known then as the Coromandel Coast, and home also at various points in history to Portuguese, Dutch, Danish and French trading settlements.

Fort St George today, with the Secretariat Building at left, and what remains India’s tallest flagstaff at right.

The steeple of St Mary’s Church, in Fort St George. It is the oldest British-built building that still stands today, having been erected in 1680.

The entire area Madras sat in rightfully belonged to the Nawabs of the Carnatic, the Carnatic being a territory consisting of large tracts of Southern India, including parts of today’s Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.  It is the origin of the Southern, or Carnatic style of Indian Classical music.  The Nawabs were forced by the British to move from their ancestral seat of Arcot to Madras where they had a most splendid palace built on the Marina.  In 1855, the last Nawab died without an heir and the British promptly absorbed the Carnatic into the British Empire.

A glimpse of the Chepauk’s Palace, now government buildings.

Being a major port settlement, Madras grew rapidly in the course of its 360-year history. Initially, Madras referred to the European city within Fort St George. But very soon, the Fort itself ran out of space and the city proper expanded beyond the Fort.  The second oldest part of the City is George Town, which was the erstwhile “black town”, with a multi-cultural and multi-religious population then and today.

In the 1800s, the European City (White Town) expanded westwards to encompass Poonamalee Road, Mount Road and the suburb of Egmore; and southwards along the Marina. These areas still play host to a surprising number and array of monumental civic, educational and commercial buildings from the period. In particular, the most impressive buildings — those of Madras University – stand along the Marina.

The Armenian Church, in George Town.

St Thomas Syrian Orthodox Church, George Town.

Sri Mallikeswarar Temple, George Town.

The former Public Hall or Town Hall, Poonamallee Road.

Public Works Department, along the Marina.

The Senate House, along the Marina, in spectacular Indo-Saracenic style.

Higginbothams – one of the oldest bookstores in Madras, Mount Road.

Rajaji Hall, Mount Road

The Museum Theatre, in the wonderfully Victorian exposed brick style Government Museum Complex, Egmore.

Shiva Nataraja,

Another whalebone here, in the Natural History section of the Government Museum complex, Egmore.

And then there is the very ancient settlements of Santhome and Mylapore, once one and the same settlement.  Santhome is known worldwide for being the home of the Basilica of Santhome, which stands on the supposed tomb of St Thomas, one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus. In fact, the Coromandel Coast saw one of the earliest communities of Christians in India arrive in the 3rd Century, in the wake of St Thomas’ arrival and subsequent death on these shores.

Nestorian Christians from Persia arrived in the 13th century, followed by Portuguese Catholics in the 16th century, and then finally the British in the 18th century.  Each of these Christian communities would demolish the church that stood before and rebuild another far grander in form – the present church dates from 1898 and is in an Anglican High Gothic style. Today’s Chennai, and in particular Santhome, is still home to a healthy community of St Thomas Christians.

Mylapore – Santhome’s twin – also has a similarly illustrious history, having been known in antiquity as the fabulous trading port of the Tamils, from whence it is believed Tamil culture spread to the East Indies (today’s Southeast Asia). The city’s most important Hindu temples still stand here, in particular the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, dedicated to Shiva and Parvathi.

The Basilica of San Thome (St Thomas), Santhome.

Virgin and Child, interior of Basilica of San Thome.

Church on the peak of St Thomas Mount.

The magnificent Kapaleeswarar Temple, Mylapore.

Madras, being the capital of the Tamils (the state of Tamil Nadu), boasts many Hindu temples in a magnificent Dravidian style, characterised by towering gopurams featuring a pantheon of Hindu deities. This is the style of Hindu temples also found in many Southeast Asian cities, including Singapore, where the Tamils and Tamil culture settled.

This Tamil link also explained why I felt surprisingly at home in the city. It was very comforting to have the same Tamil script, Tamil language, Tamil architecture and even food (southern indian curries and paratha) that I grew up with in Singapore here in their place of origin.

Dosa for breakfast. =)

Paratha for breakfast – not quite as fluffy and light as Singapore’s prata, but comforting enough.

In the next couple of posts, the Grand Tour will see us wander the streets of Old Madras.

We end of where we began: Madras Law College, George Town.

Plan of Fort St George and the City of Madras in 1726. The Fort proper sits at bottom left, while George Town (marked out as “Black Town”) sits at bottom centre.

Our first walking tour of Old Madras takes in the two oldest sections of the city, both of which date from the initial founding of the city, some 370 years ago. They constitute Madras’ Old Town and make for a charming, though a little overwhelming visit.

Fort St George

The Secretariat Building dates from 1695, and has been successfully added to in the course of three centuries.

Fort St George, named after the patron saint of the English – he of the dragon – started as a modest trading settlement in 1640 on the Coromandel Coast. It was a fortified settlement, housing European – mostly Portuguese, but also English – merchant families who resided in the city.

The Fort as it stands today dates from 1783, after a French siege and brief occupation between 1746 – 1749 and a second French siege in 1758. In the aftermath of these two attacks, the British would strengthen fortifications and expand the size of the Fort, resulting in what the visitor sees today.

The Fort today is still the seat of the State Government and also the headquarters of the Army. Despite the high security all around, it is definitely possible for tourists to enter and to visit the parts of the Fort still open to the public. One just has to be very upfront and tell the guards what one’s intent is – and he or she would graciously spirit one past the lines of waiting citizens to the Fort Museum (which is the starting point).

Bear in mind, that given most structures in the Fort are occupied by Government and Military, photography is definitely not permitted.

The former Public Exchange, built in 1790, is today’s Fort Museum. It is well worth a visit for its collection of portraits of former Governors of Madras.

St Mary’s Church has the distinction of being the oldest British-built structure in the city, dating from 1680.

The interior of St Mary’s is an oasis of calm and a trove of (

Clive House, also known as Admiralty House, dates from the early 1700s. Formerly a private residence, today it houses the Archaeological Survey of India.

George Town

The Madras Headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was built in 1923, and sits on North Beach Road (today’s Rajaji Salai). It was built in an Edwardian style

Just north of Fort St George sat “Black Town” – so called because it was home to the many local clerks, porters, weavers, interpreters and administrative personnel that worked in the Fort. The old Black Town was a planned city, as the map above shows. Unfortunately, it was razed by the French in the course of their sieges in the 1700s, and completely rebuilt by the British thereafter.

The area was renamed “George Town”, after the visiting Prince George of Wales (the future King George V); and it is Madras’ Old Town proper, bustling with commercial activity and everyday life.

In form and nature, it resembles its cousin, Georgetown in Penang, in that both European and local commercial and banking centres were located here; and the area is also home to a multi-cultural community. A delightful array of Hindu and Jain Temples, Mosques and Christian Churches of many different denominations may be found in the various neighborhoods here.

Our walk takes us down North Beach Road, which is the British commercial and civic heart of the city, and takes in a few other key streets such as Armenian Street (the heart of the Armenian community), Mint Street (where the Gujaratis and settled) and Popham’s Broadway, which, as its name suggests, was the Main Street of George Town.

Next door is the Indo-Saracenic General Post Office, built in 884 and designed by one of Madras’ foremost architects, Robert Chisholm. [My photo does not do it justice in the least!!]

The Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.

The State Bank of India Building, completed at the turn of the 19th century, in an exuberant Indo-Saracenic style. Designed by Henry Irwin. 

Transitioning to NSC Bose Road, we encounter the Madras Law College, built in 1899 and designed by architect, Henry Irwin.

Across from the Law College on NSC Bose Road sits the YMCA, completed in 1900 and designed in a Jaipur/Rajput style.

The Armenian Church, on Armenian Street, was built in 1772

St Mary’s Church is one of the oldest churches in Madras, having been erected by the Capuchins in the late 1600s.

The Binny’s Building, on Armenian Street, is home to one of the oldest commercial companies in the city.

The Shaw Wallace Building.

Sri Mallikeswarar Temple, on Linghi Chetty Street, was built in 1652.

Walnut Willies Building

Moving on to Popham’s Broadway, we come to the Wesleyan Chapel, dating from 1822.

The Masjid e Mamoor sits nearby.

Tucker’s Church dates from the early 1800s.

This spectacular Indo-Saracenic residence on Popham’s Broadway dates from the early 1900s.

Nearby sits another spectacular Indo-Saracenic residence.

Art Deco commecial architecture in the vicinity.

Neo-classical commercial shophouse architecture.

St Francis Xavier’s Church, on Popham’s Broadway, late 18th century.

Adikesava Perumal Temple, dating from 1565.

Tamil Wesley Church, on Popham’s Broadway, mid

Arcot Lutheran Church, Popham’s Broadway, late 1800s.

Centenary Hall, Popham’s Broadway, dating from 1901

Bhagwan Shri Parsvanathji Jain Temple, Mint Street.

Shree S S Jain Sangh Temple, Mint Street.

Kandaswamy Temple, Mint Street, built in the late 1800s.

Commercial shophouse architecture on Mint Street.

Another example of commercial shophouse architecture on Mint Street.

References:

• K. Kalpana and Frank Schiffer, 2003. Madras – The Architectural Heritage. An INTACH Guide. Chennai: INTACH.   This is an EXCELLENT and INDISPENSABLE resource and I couldn’t have done the city without this.  
• S. Muthiah, 2008. Madras Rediscovered. Chennai: Westland Limited.

View of Fort St George, on the Coromandel Coast, in the mid 1700s.