Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

21

Meanders of Destiny

"Befall them in future." Future ?

Well, as more than a couple of centuries has passed since those times and those deeds, history gives us a few answers. And provides us with a few meanders of destiny reserved for some of the above actors.

Saint-Paul's Church. After leaving in 1748, the English regrouped themselves, and returned to the attack. On 16 January 1761, British troop entered the town. Lord Pigot, then governor of Madras, gave three months' time to the inhabitants to clear out. Then it was a 'Guy Fawkes Day.' Everything was blown up, but everything French. The white town with its fortifications, its fort, Dupleix's palace, convents, public buildings ... and churches. Including St-Paul's Church which in its turn was razed to the ground. Lord Pigot walked among the rubble, to check that his orders were carried out.

When in 1769 the French wanted to rebuild Pondicherry's fortifications, the Chief Engineer, for economic reasons, ordered the workers to carve blocks out of old walls for using these as new foundations. Well, he had reckoned without the Indian

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method of building which could withstand centuries. It proved to be more costly labour wise ... and the loss of an extraordinary number of broken tools.¹

Ananda Ranga Pillai. Son of a well-to-do merchant, Tiruven-gadam Pillai and Lakshmiammal, he was born around 1708. After the death of his mother when he was about the age of eight, his father went to Pondicherry along with him and his younger brother, the junior Tiruvengadam. It was the insistent call by his wife's brother, Nanyappa, that decided Tiruvengadam to quit his village near Madras, and move to Pondicherry. This is the same Nanyappa, a rich merchant, a man as good as he was rich, you could not find one better, all Pondicherry loved him. All did I say? Well, not quite. The exceptions were the Jesuits. These Jesuit Fathers were determined to have his skin. When Hebert returned as Governor with the promise to do every single bidding by the Jesuits, he brought all sorts of trumped up charges against Nanyappa. As prosecutor and judge the Governor easily imprisoned him and confiscated his considerable properties. If Jesuit priests were there, could torture be far away? Nanyappa, after great torture, was left to die in prison, all help denied. He died in August 1717.² Many years

¹Les Indes Florissanles, an anthology by Guy Deleury, p. 418. All the facts presented here are gleaned from this book, unless otherwise mentioned.

²Revue Historique 1955. Yvonne Gaebele recounts in detail the whole horrible episode.

When recently I reviewed the above text, written two or three years ago, it was Durga Puja. Durga, as you know, comes each year to destroy one Asura. An ardent prayer rose in me, imploring her. "Mother, annihilate all the cruel forces. Never, ever, may any act of cruelty occur in this world."

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later Ananda Ranga Pillai became the Company's Dubash in his turn. He died in January 1761 during the British siege and before the English entered the town.

Society of Jesus. This order of priests, the Jesuits, was founded in 1534 in Paris by Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and others, to defend the Roman Catholic Church and propagate its faith. Its members' duties are to preach, to educate, and to hear confession. The pro-Church politics of Louis XV was opposed by the Parliament of Paris, which obtained the Society's dissolution in 1762 in France. Yielding to pressure, Pope Clement XIV issued a decree in 1773 abolishing the order. In 1814 Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus.¹

Gaston Coeurdoux. He lived in Pondicherry and Karikal from 1731 to 1779 when he died. During his lifetime he practised industrial espionage. He was in the habit of converting textile dyers. So much so that the unsuspecting dyers disclosed to him their secret of the art of dying textiles. Now, the European manufacturers had been trying for long to copy the beauty of Indian textiles, but had never succeeded. This Jesuit priest, a 'Reverend Father,' treacherously revealed the Indian dyers' secret to the Europeans. Why only dyeing. All sorts of Indian technology were objects of curiosity to the Europeans. How Indians extracted juice from sugar cane. How they built their houses ... The engineering skill of those who built the Agra bridge over the Yamuna river far surpassed a bridge built at

¹ An interesting definition from the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of the adjective "Jesuitical": (2.) Having character ascribed to Jesuits; dissembling, practising equivocation or mental reservation of truth.

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Tours over the Loire. In fact, the Frenchmen who stayed in India for some time never failed to be amazed by the excellence of Indian craft. "Some even thought it was the best in the world," writes Guy Deleury. Some Frenchmen even went so far as to think that "the extraordinary refinement of technique had become possible due to the Indian system of castes because of the hereditary transmission." Europeans had always coveted Indian textiles. Sangam poems speak of cotton cloth as thin as the slough of the snake or a cloud of steam. Anyway, the weaving of complex patterns on cotton and silk was widely known. But now they were astonished at the deep and detailed knowledge of the producers of silk and wool. The silk producers knew what to feed and when to feed the silkworms; the Kashmiri shepherds knew the whys and wherefores of different grades of their sheep's wool. And did they admire the delicate skill of the muslin weaver! You bet. The French praised the skill and grit of Indian labourers who repaired their damaged ships. And, do you know what! These foreigners to our shores were taken aback to find a hospital for animals! Much to the disgust of Christian clergy scornful of the feeling of fellowship Indians had with all of God's creatures.

As for Coeurdoux, being the confessor to Begum Jeanne, his influence on her is best left to the imagination of the reader.

Jeanne Dupleix. With a great talent for conspiracy, had set up a network of spies, not forgetting to cultivate the Muslim ladies, whose language she spoke. The British feared her. The French knew her to be the power behind Dupleix. For, it was she who planned Dupleix's political moves, generally quite successful. The French king made him a Marquis. Along with

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her unlimited energy, she had an unlimited lust for power, coupled with an avaricious desire for money and jewellery, for pomp and luxury. Privately the Indians despised her and called her chural (she-devil). As for Ananda Ranga Pillai, there was no
love lost between them-in his diary he always termed Jeanne Dupleix as neeli, meaning a plotting and conspiring woman. But Jeanne stood by her husband Dupleix through thick and thin, her loyalty constant and unwavering.

Joseph Francois Dupleix. He succeeded Governor Dumas who was in Pondicherry from 1735 to 1741. During his tenure, Dumas started to build a governor's palace in 1738. The palace was completed in 1752 under Dupleix. Luxury abounded in it. Four marble statues ordered from France; a fountain that sprayed water in the vestibule, an immense hall covered with silver sheets. That was the reception hall-cum-ballroom. Numerous crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling with lighted candles were reflected in the huge mirror that decorated the hall. Quite fit for a Nawab and his Begum, what! In 1751 Dupleix got several pillars, carved like jewels, from a Gingy temple where they had supported the temple's heavy roof; we see them at the pier's entrance. Money flowed. Expenditure mounted. The constant skirmishes with the English were another cause for a big drain in the kitty. The French Company's finances were in a mess. Paris was alarmed. Dupleix was recalled. On 14 October 1754 the Marquis and his Marchioness left in a boat along with their family and servants. They landed at Lorient on 26 June 1755. Dupleix, who had at one time acquired vast tracts of land for France was abandoned by the Versailles Cabinet. When the Seven Years War left the king's coffers empty, Dupleix too was

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ruined. Jeanne died first, and Dupleix followed her to the other world in 1763.

King Louis XV (1710-74). He was the great-grandson of Louis XIV, his successor, and king of France from the age of five. Many were the wars fought during his reign. One of these was the Seven Years War (1756-63), between France, Austria and Russia on the one side, and ranged against them were Prussia of Frederick the Great (1712-86), and Great Britain of George II (1683-1760) and later his grandson, George III (1738-1820). An enfeebled France lost to Britain much of her possessions in America and India where she had considerable holdings.

French enclaves in India. After changing hands several times, Pondicherry was returned to France in 1816 under the treaty of Paris. France retained only five enclaves in India. Pondicherry and Karikal on the Coromandel coast, Mahe in Kerala, Yanam in Andhra Pradesh, and Chandernagore in Bengal.

France. The centuries-old monarchical system of government was overthrown during the French Revolution of 1789-93. Its motto: Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, caught the imagination of the world. The first Republic came into being. In 1791 the French Company's privileges were abolished. On 30 October 1792 the slave trade was prohibited. Then the First Consul, the Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), soon put an end to the Republic by founding the First Empire in 1804. He conquered large parts of Europe, then after several meanders of destiny, was finally defeated at Waterloo, a village in Belgium, on 18 June 1815. Exiled to the island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, he died there six years later. A victim of stomach cancer officially, though arsenic poisoning has often been alleged.

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After several pendulum swings from monarchy to republic to monarchy we come to Napoleon III (1808-73). Nephew of Napoleon I, he was elected president of the Second Republic in 1848. Like his uncle, he too proclaimed himself emperor in 1852. This is the same Emperor whose Empress Eugenie joined the festivities at Alexandria, when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, and its builder Ferdinand de Lesseps invited Mother's grandmother, Mira Ismalun. Remember?

Recently I read a charming story about Napoleon III and how he came to build in Pondicherry a monument to Aayi, a lady of the night.¹ To escape the wrath of Emperor of Vijayanagar, Krishna Deva Raya (reign: 1509-1529), who mistook her house for a temple and prostrated himself in front of it—imagine his rage when he realized his mistake—Aayi demolished her own house and at the site dug a well and built a tank. In gratitude people named it Aayikulam. As the residents of the White Town lived close to the sea, they always suffered from lack of good drinking water. Over the years they had tried all sorts of contrivances to solve the problem but had not succeeded. When Napoleon III reigned he sent an engineer who proved to be competent. After studying the local topography he decided to lay a long canal from Aayikulam to the White Town. The tank was five kilometres west of Pondicherry. Success. The French residents had now enough fresh water to drink. The governor wrote to the Emperor expressing gratitude and saying that the engineer deserved a reward. The Emperor, who was much moved

¹ To enjoy the full story please see A Concise History of Pondicherry, by P. Raja (1987)

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by Aayi's story, replied, "Be grateful to Aayi. She deserves a monument." Thus a monument was built in the middle of the Park, around the new well, by an appreciative Emperor for a public woman. The Park was named Le Jardin du Roi (the king's garden); and after the Second World War, it was renamed by the then Governor Francois Baron, Place Charles de Gaulle. I happened to be passing by and saw Baron with Satprem at his side.
And that, dear reader, brings us right back to the present.

The monument to Aayi in the centre of Pondicherry's Park,

as it was early this century

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