Bandar"s very own Taaz?
In the early years of the nineteenth century ( at about 1790 's and 1819) a british major general called Peters was staying in Machilipatnam on service....Not much information could be gathered on how old he was or where from he hailed or his family"s antecedents...Only that he worked as a major general in the british army.. ....It was said he fell in love with a daughter of one of his subordinates called Robinson...The beauty who stole his heart was Arabella....and she too reciprocated his feelings..
But for some unknown reasons, -whatever -, it seems her father objected to this marriage and even the clergy opposed and refused to conduct the wedding without the consent of the father....One is at a loss here to understand his reasons...They might have belonged to different sects...Might be the father simply did not like the suitor....There might have been many other differences ..Who knows?....
But that did not seem to have deterred the lovers for long...Arabella defied her father and started living with Peters openly ...This is indeed quite surprising because it was unthinkable in those times even for the english society. ( we , indians, mistake them for an abandoned race, but the fact is living together sans wedlock is still a hot debate in the western world and still is not condoned upon...)It was said she waited in vain for the day when her father would give his consent and they could be united in a proper church ceremony...
But alas, ..that was not to be....She took ill (some say,..out of despair)..and died one day....in her lover"s arms.... And the church refused a decent burial for her in the church grounds, as in it"s opinion she was a woman who lived in sin.. A distraught Peters got the body embalmed with chemicals and egyptian herbal oils , and preserved her in his own house in a glass case...He was said to have arranged for a wooden pigeon to be nailed to rhe wall, by handling of which, the glass case opened out of the wall, before which he sat and said to have pined for days together...,,..He spent 18,000 Rs --in those days a fortune...not even within his means---and personally built a church over the mobile tomb in defiance of the clergy.. he erected an engraved slab stone describing Arabella as a very dear friend....Ofcource, the church did not recognise it as a sanctified place...
Peters was later transferred to Madras and as he left the place , he handed over the building to the East India Company for safe keeping...But he himself did not survive for long...Some say it could be because of the disappointment...He lost his life at Madras in 1819...Might be the church felt guilty,for ..in the same year it agreed to sanctify the building as a proper church and started daily services in it..Peters was commemorated in Madras by naming a park and road after his name...
This building is in the suburbs of Bandar and called St mary"s church ,...one of the oldest churches in this part of the country....Once a mishap occurred when a old caretaker accidentally handled the wooden pigeon on the wall and Arabella"s glass case sprang up from it....The poor old fellow was said to have died instantly in fright...so, the collector ordered it to be closed permanently...later many other english men and women got buried in this enclosure and even a small school of sorts for the english children was also said to have been convened in the premises....Some say it could be the first school in south india....
That is the story of Bandar"s taazmahal....Reiterates the fact that one need not be a king to erect monuments for the loved ones...Personally i do feel sorry for the major who was thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones,found the love of his life only to be cheated out of his happiness after a short while, and i could understand the depth of his unfortunate love for the girl who braved the society to be with him....I can understand his desire for building a monument for her...But to keep staring at the dead body?......Too macabre,if you ask me..:)
ref;Machilipatna charithra
But for some unknown reasons, -whatever -, it seems her father objected to this marriage and even the clergy opposed and refused to conduct the wedding without the consent of the father....One is at a loss here to understand his reasons...They might have belonged to different sects...Might be the father simply did not like the suitor....There might have been many other differences ..Who knows?....
But that did not seem to have deterred the lovers for long...Arabella defied her father and started living with Peters openly ...This is indeed quite surprising because it was unthinkable in those times even for the english society. ( we , indians, mistake them for an abandoned race, but the fact is living together sans wedlock is still a hot debate in the western world and still is not condoned upon...)It was said she waited in vain for the day when her father would give his consent and they could be united in a proper church ceremony...
But alas, ..that was not to be....She took ill (some say,..out of despair)..and died one day....in her lover"s arms.... And the church refused a decent burial for her in the church grounds, as in it"s opinion she was a woman who lived in sin.. A distraught Peters got the body embalmed with chemicals and egyptian herbal oils , and preserved her in his own house in a glass case...He was said to have arranged for a wooden pigeon to be nailed to rhe wall, by handling of which, the glass case opened out of the wall, before which he sat and said to have pined for days together...,,..He spent 18,000 Rs --in those days a fortune...not even within his means---and personally built a church over the mobile tomb in defiance of the clergy.. he erected an engraved slab stone describing Arabella as a very dear friend....Ofcource, the church did not recognise it as a sanctified place...
Peters was later transferred to Madras and as he left the place , he handed over the building to the East India Company for safe keeping...But he himself did not survive for long...Some say it could be because of the disappointment...He lost his life at Madras in 1819...Might be the church felt guilty,for ..in the same year it agreed to sanctify the building as a proper church and started daily services in it..Peters was commemorated in Madras by naming a park and road after his name...
This building is in the suburbs of Bandar and called St mary"s church ,...one of the oldest churches in this part of the country....Once a mishap occurred when a old caretaker accidentally handled the wooden pigeon on the wall and Arabella"s glass case sprang up from it....The poor old fellow was said to have died instantly in fright...so, the collector ordered it to be closed permanently...later many other english men and women got buried in this enclosure and even a small school of sorts for the english children was also said to have been convened in the premises....Some say it could be the first school in south india....
That is the story of Bandar"s taazmahal....Reiterates the fact that one need not be a king to erect monuments for the loved ones...Personally i do feel sorry for the major who was thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones,found the love of his life only to be cheated out of his happiness after a short while, and i could understand the depth of his unfortunate love for the girl who braved the society to be with him....I can understand his desire for building a monument for her...But to keep staring at the dead body?......Too macabre,if you ask me..:)
ref;Machilipatna charithra
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