Speaking Archaeologically™

Down Chawri Bazar roads, into the Bulbulikhana one goes, if they want to find this place. There are scant bulbuls here now, but a regular bustle of people, on by-lanes which grow ever thin as you proceed down them.    A gate next to a tea shop announces, Razia Sultana ki majar , (The Grave of Razia Sultana), but there is none to be found! Good old uncles direct you to even darker alleys, with workshops, sewage, and cramped buildings rising five floors high. A bustle existed there, the sights and smells of fruits, tea, tyres, meat, rickshaws, which are slowly replaced by sewage, machinery, and stagnant water.  This continues till you break away from all that, and arrive at a small mosque, with an ASI stone to give it its name - Sultan Razia’s Tomb. One of the rulers of the newly established Delhi Sultanate, reigning from 1236-40 CE, Razia has been termed the first female monarch of the subcontinent. Constant infighting among her nobles, some of which refused to accept her...

St Nicholas' Church, a little country church with a lot of history. It's wonderful how, even after all these days, I can still feel the beauty and peace that enveloped me when I first went to St Nicholas' at Alton. From an archaeologist like me, who aims to highlight the lesser known sites most of which are places of worship, this sort of romantic expression is both new and unusual but, it is what it is! "In vain have I struggled.  It will not do so." Yes, I'm quoting Pride and Prejudice on Speaking Archaeologically and no, I haven't lost my mind! I'm being deliberate...a little too deliberate, because this Church and the Chawton House and the little cottage, are all inextricably linked to Jane Austen,  who revised all her famous major works, ( Pride and Prejudice included) in Chawton! My excitement to see this place, was therefore, twice than it would have been in the normal circumstances. The chancel of the church, the only original part...

You'd think one won't be covering a Temple when one's first cousin is  getting   married !  Wrong! In the heart of my heart, I always knew that I took an off from supervising SAV India for this wedding, only because it was being held 10 minutes away from the Ancient Temple of Baijnath. You'd think a ten hour long drive on a topsy-turvy road, that included meandering our way through many village roads would be enough to exhaust anyone! The Baijnath Temple, Kangra,Himachal Pradesh, North India Oh, so wrong, again! There we were, in a hotel overlooking Binwa River, appropriately named Hotel Binwa View, and while my family was busy reuniting for the wedding, congratulating the groom, trying dresses on and discussing the events, but more importantly, resting, yours truly spent the better half of the night, talking to the man at the concierge, to the devout Aunt, to the encyclopaediac Uncle, gathering information on the site, which I was determined to visit t...