Miṣanarigaḷu - The FIRANGI Phantoms -2

1897 | 1900

Dancing Girls

Dancing Girls, Bangalore, 1900

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb,
Mysore South India 7 August 1901.

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Wesleyan Mission Girls’ Boarding School, Bangalore, 1901

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb, Mysore South India 7 August 1901 

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Excerpts from- Seeing like the Missionary: An Iconography of Education in Mysore, 1840–1920

Article by Janaki Nayar

The DPI chose to rely on the decision of the London Mission in its entirety,

by quoting:

We have made it our unvarying rule not to receive dancing girls, as we believe their presence injurious both in lowering the moral tone of the schools and also in prejudicing respectable Hindus against them. At the same time, we find it most difficult to exclude them, as teachers and peons can get these girls more easily than others, and indeed are probably pressed by interested parties to receive them.

The government’s decision to keep the Devadasi children out of girls’ schools Prevailed. Neither the missionaries nor the government officials recognized the ironies of this foundational ‘brain drain’. Only within the realm of the aesthetic could the Devadasi now stage her return.

The principal educational missions in Mysore in the nineteenth century were the Wesleyan Methodist Missionaries Society and the LMS. School-building activities in the Kannada-speaking region began as early as 1812, the LMS establishing their presence in Belgaum, Bellary, Bangalore and Mysore and the Wesleyans working in Bangalore, Mysore and Gubbe. In 1840, two missionary wives, Mrs Sewell and Mrs Rice, started a school for ‘Hindu’ girls in Bangalore, the first in Mysore state.

Older Students of the Siddhi Katte School Run by the Wesleyans

Source: Lamb’s photo album, Box 624 C, Edith A. Lamb, Mysore South India 7 August 1901.

© The Methodist Church/TMCP.

Mitralaya Girls High School

Artist: Anil Kumar

Mitralaya, the first boarding school for girls and also the first Kannada and English medium school in Bangalore started by missionary Benjamin Rice and his wife Jane Rice, back in 1842.

In 1840, the wife of Rev James Sewell, with the help of Benjamin and Jane Rice, started the first Kannada day-school for girls in the Pete area. Two years later, Jane herself started the first Kannada boarding school for local girls. “It was called the London Mission Girls Boarding School and was located close to the Yelahanka Gate of the fort, which is near the Mysore Bank Circle today ,“ said Prasad. The school was moved to its current location on Mission Road and was renamed Mitralaya Girls High School after independence. It is now managed by the Church of South India Trust Association.

Few ghost stories around this school:

While girls played hopscotch and running and catching on the compound of this school, ghosts too seemed to be having their bit of fun amongst the students. One day while Rani was looking for her friends during a game of hide and seek during lunch break, she thought she spotted someone behind the big tamarind tree near the classrooms. On walking stealthily to catch her friend, she saw not the friend but a cat playing tricks with her. Rani stared at the cat wide eyed as it changed its avatar from cat to a bird then to a frog and before it could take the avatar of the principal, Rani sprinted away to call all her friends and show them what she had found. They believe that these strange events happen because the School is built on a cemetery and the souls of the dead come alive as ghosts at night.

Mills and Boons

 
Artist: Archana Hande

In the cantonment area there are many girls hostels within the missionary complex. Girls who stayed in the hostel had an independent life but were looked after by the missionary nuns. Many books were exchanged with these girls and nuns – like mills and boons.

Across two roads was Hutchins road, where a very well known library made its home. The mind and heart of young girls would travel across the street to this library to borrow the collection of “Mills and Boon.” It was a treat to the inquisitiveness these hostelites held in and they would devour pages of these books while reading under lamps late at night and giggling away while flipping through the coloured pages Mills and Boons offered. The young nuns often borrowed these books to read and had mixed emotions but who could stop a girls from having some fun!

Victoria Hospital

Victoria Hospital, Bangalore – Wiele's Studio

The century-old premier Medical Institutions of India was laid on 22nd June 1897 to help patients during the plague, by her highness Kempananjammani Avaru, the then maharani regent of Mysore. It commemorated the completion of 60 years of the reign of Queen Victoria in India and Lord Curzon, the then viceroy of India formally inaugurated it on 8th December 1900. It started as a health care centre with 140 beds.

It is one of the haunted places today, as we hear few ghost stories:

It was just another night. The dark clouds were looming all over and apart from the cries of pain from the patient ward, there was a strange eeriness through the corridors of Victoria hospital. One of the patients got up and screeched looking out of the window. A white ghostly figure was crawling through the thick branches of the tree on the hospital compound wall. The nurses ran to the patient only to find food missing from the ward and the patients intact in their beds.

The ghost still visits this century old hospital near the city market. He is probably the fun hungry kind most people have come to believe now

When the Goddesses come to meet the masses.

Photographer: Clare Arni, Design by Shree Tej

Mother Mary's descends in her chariot pulled by her devotees in Shivajinagar, this is a secular festival that emerges from the oldest church in Bangalore at Blackpalli (Shivajinagar), of Kannika Matha Koil (1658)- the Temple of the Virgin Mother which was upgraded by the Pope as the St. Mary's Basilica. This locality and the dense Commercial streets with their mosques and temples call out to the customers and devotees alike. During the busy Christmas time, small cribs of Baby Jesus in the manger are sold to decorate homes that have a decorated Christmas tree that is clothed in white surgical cotton to remind us of the white Christmas, back home.

 

Martin Henry Postcard Collection, Bengaluru.

Date and place unknown.Muthyalamma temple has a chariot festival

Artist: Archana Hande,  Maryamma, Ulsoor

From the bylanes of Shivajinagar, the multicolored gopuram of Muthyalamma temple has a chariot festival that comes onto Sepping road and brings people from far and near. One among the many primordial 'Devis' of Bengaluru, guardians to the devotees, these formidable and bloodthirsty goddesses are armed with tridents, swords and fearful eyes that destroy all forms of evil, especially the diseases like smallpox, the deadly plague and now the Corona. The Goddesses have to be celebrated and given offerings of animal sacrifice, lemons, neem leaves, curd, salt and peppercorns and devotees appease her by piercing the bodies and walking on smouldering coals. Men and transgender evoke the goddesses by transforming themselves into divine humans, smeared in turmeric and clothed in bitter antiseptic neem leaves and healing lemons. The Goddesses Muthyalamma and her many sisters take to the streets to greet the devotees in elaborate chariots to meet them. It is here that faith heals the sick and answers your 101 prayers for every need and greed.