15 August 2008 In Mhow....

Pandrah Agast Ki Tasveerein.... Images of 15 August

I clicked a few photographs on 15 Aug 2008.
It was an overcast day but the farmers were happy. We have had only 13 inches of rain this year as opposed to 40 inches last year.



Baba Saheb Ambedkar's statue at the town hall was garlanded. He was born in Mhow as his father, a Subedar Major in the Mahar Regiment, was posted in Mhow during the late 19th century. Mhow has been renamed Dr. Ambedkar Nagar a few years ago. Something which hasn't gone down too well with the 'upper castes'. The compulsions of vote bank politics ensured that the state government had no choice...




Flag seller sitting by the side of the road as an Army school bus takes kids back home after attending the I day function at school. Mhow and the Indian Army are synonymous. A Cantonment has existed here since 1818 when the Scotsman John Malcolm led the East India Company troops to a victory over the Holkars who ruled Indore state.



This kid wanted a flag. The flagseller tells me that he is from a village in Depalpur, not far away. He gets good business on 15 Aug and 26 Jan every year so he comes to Mhow along with his family members and sells flags and toys.




The flag seller's mother taking some stock over to her son....




A shy schoolgirl at the middle school of village Gangliya Khedi. The colony where I live with my parents is in this village. The students were given a special treat of puris, aloo subji, laddoos on this day by the school.







The principal and staff pose for a group photograph. It was an overcast day. I have promised copies to each teacher. As the males were fewer in number I told them to sit on the bench. The lady teachers were chivalrous enough to agree...




Back to the bazaar in the evening. This young papaya seller wanted me to click him. "Hamari bhi photo lo na ... " The bazaar was full of people shopping for the festival of Rakhi which was on the 16th.



A flag planted on M.G. Road where the road joining Tin Gali and Hammal Mohalla crosses it.



My blogpost on Republic Day Celebrations at Garrison Ground Mhow

Nature Notes From Mhow

I remember reading an article in an American website about how military garrison towns in Europe and America often end up protecting flora and fauna because these towns are not allowed to 'develop' the way a normal town has to.




Mhow, where I live, is also a paradise of nature. The East India Company was given this town in 1818 after the Holkars who ruled Indore state till 1947 were defeated at the Battle of Mahidpur and the Treaty of Mandsaur was signed. Cantonment laws prohibit any form of building and the civilian population has its complaints about these laws being outdated and relics of the British Raj. The net result of all this is the sheer profusion of flora and fauna.




The English chose their cantonments well. Mhow, Pachchmarhi, Pune, Bangalore, Secunderabad, Wellington were some of the towns chosen in Central, Western and South India as being fit for training institutions. Pune, Bangalore and Secunderabad have changed beyond recognition thanks to the IT revolution and globalisation. But Mhow has still remained the same. The writer Jaisinh Birjepatil whose novel Chinnery's Hotel is set in a fictional Mhow and has been selected by Khushwant Singh as one of the best post Independence (post 1947) pieces of fiction written by an Indian had told me in an email that he chose Mhow because it has hardly changed.



I have spent most of my life in this small town. A few months ago I decided to make use of a modest sum I earned through my weblog at Sulekha and chose to buy a digital camera. This has enabled me to snap hundreds of pictures which have to do with various aspects of life in this small town. This includes the trees, birds and animals I see here. I am posting these as a series of linked blog posts titled Nature Note From Mhow in my Sulekha weblog.

Click here to see these posts and the beauty of the Malwa region of Western Madhya Pradesh.