We were dropped off at a very conventional Hyatt hotel. Nothing wrong with it but nothing very interesting either. We were met by a representative of the company dealing with our travel arrangements. He was very friendly. Sat us down. Took our passports to the check-in desk. Checked us in. Brought our passports back and said goodbye. This sort of thing happened a lot in India. It sometimes feels like they have an excess of people looking for something to do. In this case, it also took three porters to bring two cases up to our room. Two did the carrying and the other one just sort of organised things and explained our room to us. “Here is the bed. There is the bathroom”. In a way, it is all very nice and friendly but of course everyone is expecting a tip and it gets up my nose at times.
Nice morning I had an excellent masala cheese omelette with a dosa. This put me in a good mood for being dragged round some tourist sites. First stop was the La Martinière College, an elite educational institution established in 1845 by Major-General Claude Martin of the East India Company. Yes, he was French. Essentially, it was a vanity project. Martin was interred in a specially prepared vault in the basement of the house. Historian William Dalrymple described it as “The East India Company’s answer to the Taj Mahal”. The school is distinguished by being the only school in the world to have been awarded royal battle honours for its role in the defence of Lucknow and the Lucknow residency during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Next stop was the British Residency. The Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The flashpoint for the 1857 uprising is often associated with the introduction of the 1853 Enfield rifle-musket into the Bengal Army. These rifles used paper cartridges that were pre-greased to allow smooth loading. A soldier tore open the cartridge, traditionally with his teeth, before pouring the powder down the barrel. Rumours began circulating among the Indian soldiers, that the grease was derived from cow tallow, offensive to Hindus, and pig lard, offensive to Muslims. This caused deep alarm. Biting the cartridge became a violation of religious practice. The Rebellion was also called First War of Indian Independence. These things often depend on whose side you favour. The British Residency was the focus of the siege of Lucknow from June 1857 until the city was abandoned after the second relief in November. Many stories emerged from the incident including tales of bravery and the greatest number of Victoria Crosses ever awarded in a single day. What we could see of it were a series of old buildings in various states of disrepair and peppered with bullet and cannon shot damage.
We went down to the river. Here they dye material and make clothing for weddings and other ceremonies. Diane was strangely interested in this. The final stage is washing. This starts in a plastic lined hole in the riverbank and ends with rinsing and beating the fabric in the river water. How something so clean looking can come out of such a filthy river is slightly beyond me. A big area next to the river is reserved for hundreds of cloths lines where the fabric and clothing dry. The people that do all the washing live in a slum just behind this.
Our guide took us to a large shopping area. We began the tour with a view from the rooftops. I found this rather interesting and amused myself by trying to take videos of the traffic on a roundabout. In just a few minutes you could spot just about every rule of the road being broken here. The great thing is that nobody seems to mind. They just smile and get on with it.
Back down in the crowded streets we saw the next stages in the clothing processes. Chowk, the city’s oldest market, is famous for its Chikan Embroidery (white on white) workshops. Wooden blocks are used to mark a pattern onto the material. The patterns are ancient. Some are handed down within a single family. Many of the wooden blocks are similarly ancient. Up to 500 years old we were told. After the pattern is marked with ink the material goes to the next shop where it is embroidered by hand. The process continues. Many shops all along the street which together form a production line. The street is like a big factory. It is messy, crowded, disorganised and noisy but nonetheless it works and has been working for generations.
After this we visited an area making perfumes. Came dangerously close to slipping into a carpet shop there. Diane was assured that not only could they make Channel No5 but that this was genuine product, much better and fantastic value for money. The only problem was that the proffered oil did not smell too nice. In another area people mostly appeared to be threading flowers to make necklaces and other arrangements. Our energy levels were dropping. There were several buildings with interesting architecture but their stories went in one ear and out of the other. Rather, I ended up wondering how anyone ever made any sense of all the wires and cables strung above the road. We passed another market for second hand clothing. By market, I mean a lot of people sitting on the side of the road. Finally we returned to the haven of our hotel. I was feeling much more appreciative of the cool, quiet and reassuringly dull hotel by then.
