Burning down the house

Stories are legion of wedding celebrations that got out of hand. During the celebrations of the nuptials of Princess Jayalakshmi Ammani in 1897, a fire broke out and destroyed the wooden Palace in Mysore. Palaces on the site had a rather chequered history – the first was destroyed by lightning in 1638, the second was demolished by Tipu Sultan – him again – in 1793 and the third was completed in 1803. The current palace, completed in 1912 and designed by the British architect, Lord Henry Irwin, is the fourth to have stood on the site.

It is a truly remarkable structure, consisting of three storeys made of finest granite, pink marble complete with a five-storey tower which is 145 feet tall. Architecturally it is a melange of Indian, Indo-Islamic, neo-classical and Gothic styles, known as Indo-Sarcenic. The interiors are stunning with embellished, finely chiselled doors and beautifully incised mahogany ceilings. It is quite easy to see why the Maharaja ran out of money and had to sell his jewels.

Facing the Chamundi Hills it is intended to be a symbol of the Maharaja’s devotion to the goddess Chamundi. The splendour of the palace is enhanced by a large, beautiful and, for India, an unusually well-maintained garden. There are three gates to the palace, the south gate reserved for the use of the hoi polloi. Even the rather conservatively curated museum had spectacular costumes and artefacts that took the breath away.

How many summer palaces do you need?

Well, we visited two that belonged to Tipu Sultan. It wasn’t that he was greedy, it was more a reflection of the fact that his fortunes waxed and waned during his run-ins with the Brits and so he had to keep moving around.

The first was in Bangalore and, to be honest, not too much of it survives and what has is in a fairly run-down state. Nonetheless it was possible to get a sense of what it would have been like, with beautiful floral motifs just about visible on the walls and ceilings. The palace is made of teak and is a profusion of pillars, arches and balconies. There is a museum showing some exhibits relating to Tipu, including his crown and sketches of his throne which was coated with gold sheets and bejewelled with emeralds. Tipu vowed never to sit on it until the British had been driven out of the country. The Brits melted it down and sold it off!

Tipu’s military headquarters were situated on an island in the river Kaveri, about ten miles from Mysore, called Srirangapatna. It is here that one can see the impressive remains of his second summer palace, Dariya Daulat palace, which is approached through an impressive gateway and a beautiful, still well maintained garden known as Daria Daulat Bagh.

The palace, constructed in 1784, is built mainly out of teak wood in an Indo-Sarcenic style, rectangular in shape and raised on a platform. Along the exterior of the building are wooden pillars marking off corridors and inside the staircases leading up to the upper floor are hidden. All the available space on the walls and ceilings are sumptuously decorated with colourful frescoes, some of which represent the victory of Tipu and Hyder Ali over the Brits at Pollilur in 1780. To even things up, on display is Sir Robert Ker Porter’s dramatic painting, Storming of Srirangapattanam. Both show the brutality of the conflict and seem quite out of keeping with the peacefulness and the architectural grace of the building.

You can’t have one without the other, I guess.