Coming back in the evening from Louvre, I was thinking about the magnificent palaces that we had in India. A nation or rather a civilisation state with a continuous recorded history of more than 10000 years and we are so apathetic to our own legacy. Or are we not? May be the blame lies on the current GOI that never allowed the sentiments of cultural nationalism to proper of take birth. For the CONgress party was a confused lot immediately after partition. They never had the guts to accept that Islam was at fault for the partition and British became a poor excuse to blame. They never had the foresight to see that if not contained the situation will again come when the land will be parcelled out. Only Baba Saheb Ambedkar had that foresight and insisted on complete transfer of populations . Nehru with his mediocre academics & intelligence was one Fabian idiot. Our heritage has a confusion wherein we call the Mughals as Indians who treated our pans nothing more than an occupied land to convert and loot.
Hindus with only India as their revered land became a strange mix of self loathing & west/Muslim culture loving populace. Rest were goaded into a strange kind of secularism and mind it only Hindus have to prove that they are secularist n order to be good Indians. Muslims can be good muslims and same with X'tians.
Why I am writing this ? Well because next day I took the trip to Varsaillas palace. It's out of Paris and used to be the seat of French kings. They moved the courts here in 1600's and stayed here. The transformation from a hunting lodge to a full fledged palace took some 200 years. It's a sight to behold as I got down from the RER((C) and walked towards the palace. I was stunned at the beauty of it. Splendid as a word can't describe the opulence. Beautiful courtyards and gardens , flowers blooming . I moved inside, stood in the que, paid €15 , all the while mesmerised with the beauty. The good things about the commune is that e Wi-Fi is free , courtesy Orange. ASI please note.
I walked into one room after another, everything has been preserved the way it was. The whole history of the palace cn be seen on celluloid in various rooms. There are beautiful paintings and the every room had a purpose. The paintings on the roof in Hercules room and scores of other rooms are so colourful that it depresses you to think of what we have done back home. There is awar room with a beautiful black heart hanging from the ceiling t the north side and at the Fag end there is a peace room too, with a beautiful red heart hanging. In between the most notable is the battle honours room with history and aintings traced o from 1000AD.
Every regent and every mayor of Paris is provided a place and there is a beautiful Roal Chapel too and the row of French kings are all lined up in sculptures along the way. My respect for the French as nationalists and patrons of arts and culture went up many fold. Also in my heart I was very sad to accept that, we , Indians were the richest nation on this face of earth till 1850 . When this palace was being built by Louis XIV (1650's) we had had idiotic Mughals busy killing looting and proselytising Hindus. Adding injury to the insult, GOI calls them great emperor and also shamelessly calls Maharana Pratap as great who was fighting these marauders.
With deep sense of sorrow at the lost history, I took the RER(C) back to Pasteur and then changed Asian to nation and then to Robespierre . French I envy you for the hard work you are doing. Despite being avowed secularists as state, you have preserved the cultural heritage & X'tian past with pride and continue to do so. Our government on the other hand doesn't allow us to even repair the temples lest the beards get angry. Off course we are secular, I though would call Sickular.
Will the new generation of French citizens( Majority immigrants) value this heritage , preserve it for posterity? French have answered this by strict adherence to rule of law but they are headed for trouble as the scourge of enbloc voting by the ROPers reared it's ugly head in France as well to defeat Sarkozy. Europeis at cross roads and so is India.
Hindus with only India as their revered land became a strange mix of self loathing & west/Muslim culture loving populace. Rest were goaded into a strange kind of secularism and mind it only Hindus have to prove that they are secularist n order to be good Indians. Muslims can be good muslims and same with X'tians.
Why I am writing this ? Well because next day I took the trip to Varsaillas palace. It's out of Paris and used to be the seat of French kings. They moved the courts here in 1600's and stayed here. The transformation from a hunting lodge to a full fledged palace took some 200 years. It's a sight to behold as I got down from the RER((C) and walked towards the palace. I was stunned at the beauty of it. Splendid as a word can't describe the opulence. Beautiful courtyards and gardens , flowers blooming . I moved inside, stood in the que, paid €15 , all the while mesmerised with the beauty. The good things about the commune is that e Wi-Fi is free , courtesy Orange. ASI please note.
I walked into one room after another, everything has been preserved the way it was. The whole history of the palace cn be seen on celluloid in various rooms. There are beautiful paintings and the every room had a purpose. The paintings on the roof in Hercules room and scores of other rooms are so colourful that it depresses you to think of what we have done back home. There is awar room with a beautiful black heart hanging from the ceiling t the north side and at the Fag end there is a peace room too, with a beautiful red heart hanging. In between the most notable is the battle honours room with history and aintings traced o from 1000AD.
Every regent and every mayor of Paris is provided a place and there is a beautiful Roal Chapel too and the row of French kings are all lined up in sculptures along the way. My respect for the French as nationalists and patrons of arts and culture went up many fold. Also in my heart I was very sad to accept that, we , Indians were the richest nation on this face of earth till 1850 . When this palace was being built by Louis XIV (1650's) we had had idiotic Mughals busy killing looting and proselytising Hindus. Adding injury to the insult, GOI calls them great emperor and also shamelessly calls Maharana Pratap as great who was fighting these marauders.
With deep sense of sorrow at the lost history, I took the RER(C) back to Pasteur and then changed Asian to nation and then to Robespierre . French I envy you for the hard work you are doing. Despite being avowed secularists as state, you have preserved the cultural heritage & X'tian past with pride and continue to do so. Our government on the other hand doesn't allow us to even repair the temples lest the beards get angry. Off course we are secular, I though would call Sickular.
Will the new generation of French citizens( Majority immigrants) value this heritage , preserve it for posterity? French have answered this by strict adherence to rule of law but they are headed for trouble as the scourge of enbloc voting by the ROPers reared it's ugly head in France as well to defeat Sarkozy. Europeis at cross roads and so is India.
No comments:
Post a Comment