Skip to main content

Featured Post

Temples of Kashi - The Tilbhandeshwar Temple

The city of Kashi is filled with temples, big and small, old and new. There are temples at every corner, and you never know where you will stumble upon a small shrine. There are idols beneath what remains of trees (there are hardly any trees any more within the core area of the city), there are saffron covered forms resembling deities which seem attached to walls, an especially incongruous sight when the idol itself appears to be old, while the wall is evidently new…. And there are surprisingly large temples rising from what appear to be a bunch of houses. The city is sometimes colloquially said to be as old as time, and some of the shrines and temples are said to date back to times unknown, at least the deity itself, if not the structure. Not much remains of the ancient structures anyway. The city has seen more than its fair share of good and bad times. It has seen the heights of grandeur, and the lows brought about by destruction. The city that exists today has grown so haphaza...
Post a Comment

Fort Kochi - Part 10 : Maritime Museum

“Maritime Museum” announced a board. “It is closed today” said our auto driver, and we reluctantly turned the other way. The next morning, however, before heading out of Fort Kochi, we decided it was time to try the museum once again. “There is nothing much to see” lamented our driver of the day, but we insisted, and, in the pouring rain, arrived at INS Dronacharya, which is home to the Southern Naval Command (SNC) Maritime Museum. 




INS Dronacharya is the Gunnery school of the Indian Navy, and the museum is located in two magazines used for storage of ammunition by the British during World War II. The grounds are used to display artifacts too huge to fit inside. I wonder, though how they manage to maintain them with the kind of weather Kochi has. It poured cats and dogs while we were there, and it was summer, not even monsoon!




Inside, the walls are lined with paintings, maps and replicas of documents detailing the birth of the Indian Navy and its transformation over the centuries.



Our attention was captured by this plaque, explaining the Indian Navy’s motto, and its origin….



Take a closer look at this replica of Rajaji’s letter, suggesting the same…



Meanwhile, Samhith had found something more of interest to him – a section devoted to the maritime history of the region, depicted through murals and figurines.


A whole wall is dedicated to the Kunjali Marakkars, the admirals to the Zamorins of Calicut.



The murals depicting the evolution of Kochi as a port, and fort, reminded me of Bassein Fort, also a Portuguese stronghold, and I ruminated on the similarities between them.



The murals aren’t works of art, but they do depict the history in an attractive manner, and especially help in engaging kids!



Another section focuses on naval history of India before the Europeans arrived here. There are maps of ancient ports and trade routes in Southern India, as well as maps of important forts along the western coast.




Across the museum are timelines of the evolution of the Indian Navy – extremely interesting, but for the fact that it does not include the seafaring ventures of the Indus Valley Civilization or the Chola Navy, and other such pre-Colonial naval milestones (which find mention in some sections of the museum, and could easily have been included).



The museum is a treasure trove of information of India’s glorious naval history – a must visit if you are in Fort Kochi!



Information:
  • Location: The Maritime Museum is located quite near the beach, at INS Dronacharya. There are plenty of boards directing you here.

  • Timings: The Museum is closed on Mondays and Public Holidays. On all other days, it is open from 09:30 AM to 12:30 PM, and again from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM.



Labels:
Location: SNC Maritime Museum, K.J. Herschel Rd, Veli, Fort Kochi, Cochin, Kerala 682001, India

Comments

  1. P.N. SubramanianSeptember 15, 2014 at 1:26 PM

    Unfortunately it was my own younger brother who spoke the Auto Drivers words to me. Next time I will overrule him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarSeptember 17, 2014 at 9:26 AM

      Usually, PNS, when someone says there is nothing to see, there is something interesting that no one has noticed!!! you should certainly go visit the museum on your next visit. Would love to see what you notice there!

      Delete
  2. RajeshSeptember 17, 2014 at 10:22 AM

    I had been to Fort Kochi several times. Never knew of this place before.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment for me so that I will know you have been here....

Popular posts from this blog

Gokarna Part II – The Five Lingams

We continued our Gokarna trip by visiting four other Shiva temples in the vicinity, all connected to the same story of Gokarna. The story of Gokarna mentions the Mahabaleshwara Lingam as the one brought from Kailas by Ravana, and kept at this place on the ground by Ganesha. (See my earlier post- Gokarna – Pilgrimage and Pleasure). However, the story does not end here. It is believed that, in his anger, Ravana flung aside the materials which covered the lingam- the casket, its lid, the string around the lingam, and the cloth covering it. All these items became lingams as soon as they touched the ground. These four lingams, along with the main Mahabaleshwara lingam are collectively called the ‘ Panchalingams’ . These are: Mahabaleshwara – the main lingam Sajjeshwar – the casket carrying the lingam. This temple is about 35 Kms from Karwar, and is a 2 hour drive from Gokarna. Dhareshwar – the string covering the lingam. This temple is on NH17, about 45 Kms south of Gokarna. Gunavanteshw...
10 comments
Read more

Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
2 comments
Read more

Review of Executive Lounges at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS)

During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport.  That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’...
2 comments
Read more