I was on my way to Mysore from Bangalore. I had read about Tipu Sultan and Seringapatnam in history. Now called Srirangapatna and located around 120 km from Bangalore city , this river island on Cauvery that was once the capital of Sher-e-Mysore, the legendary Tipu Sultan takes you back into history. There stand the ruins of a fort from where the Tiger of Mysore ruled and fought three valiant wars against the British. A website dedicated to Tipu says ‘Every stone in Srirangpatna speaks of its great sultan – the Tiger of Mysore’. This place was chosen as the capital of Mysore by Hyder Ali, the father of Tipu after he seized power from the Wodeyar dynasty.
We took a left turn off the Banglore-Mysore highway to visit the Dariya Daulat Bagh, the summer palace of Tipu. It has been converted into a museum and you need to pay gate fees to enter the complex. Photography is allowed in the garden but prohibited inside the palace. The palace is a beautiful piece of sculpture made of teak wood in Indo-Saracenic style. It was built in 1784. The walls are completely covered in beautiful paintings many of which depicts Tipu’s war against the British rulers. Look at the photo which I took somehow by avoiding the guards. There are few historical artifacts in display there. However most of the valuables have been plundered by the firangis after the death of Tipu and they are getting sold off at Sotebey’s. 64 of Tipu’s artifacts were sold for £1.23 million in a Sept. 2003 auction. Vijay Mallya spent £500000 of his fortune to bring back many of the artefacts back home. To know more about this auction read on this news link Auction of Tipu’s artifacts .
We took a left turn off the Banglore-Mysore highway to visit the Dariya Daulat Bagh, the summer palace of Tipu. It has been converted into a museum and you need to pay gate fees to enter the complex. Photography is allowed in the garden but prohibited inside the palace. The palace is a beautiful piece of sculpture made of teak wood in Indo-Saracenic style. It was built in 1784. The walls are completely covered in beautiful paintings many of which depicts Tipu’s war against the British rulers. Look at the photo which I took somehow by avoiding the guards. There are few historical artifacts in display there. However most of the valuables have been plundered by the firangis after the death of Tipu and they are getting sold off at Sotebey’s. 64 of Tipu’s artifacts were sold for £1.23 million in a Sept. 2003 auction. Vijay Mallya spent £500000 of his fortune to bring back many of the artefacts back home. To know more about this auction read on this news link Auction of Tipu’s artifacts .
Thereafter we crossed the main road to visit the fort which is located on the right hand side of the Bangalore-Mysore highway. People lives inside the fort area and so it hardly looked like a protected monument. Most part of the walls of the fort were destroyed in the fourth Mysore war in 1799. All the historical monuments like the Sri Ranganatha Swamy temple, the Jumma Masjid are scattered around the ruins of the fort. However the place where Tipu’s bullet ridden body was found is now protected with fencing. I had seen a report in the net showing children playing cricket using the tombstone as stumps indicating how neglected it was. Fortunately this is now fenced.
Tipu actually lived and ruled like a Tiger. He had to fight all through his reign. His maxim was that "it was far better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years". However, betrayed by one of his own men, who did not open the gate of the castle to let the injured Tipu in, he was killed by the British army under Lord Wellesley here on May 4, 1799. Tipu proved to be the biggest thorn for the British in the south. With his death, the British smoothly took control of entire south. It is said that Wellesley declared the defeat and death of Tipu as “Ladies and gentlemen, I drink to the corpse of India”.
It takes about an hour to visit these memorabilia in Srirangpatna. It was a nice feeling to be able to visit this place that has so much importance in our fight for freedom. We then continued our journey to Mysore.
To know more about Tipu, you may try this link Tipu Sultan .
