Arcot Summary

What took me to Arcot, the city of Nawabs, was the photograph of a rock-cut temple at the Vellore Museum. It was a beautiful sight, though, not at par with Ajanta and Elephanta but definitely a miniature Bagh. Flanked by a carpet of green grass it seemed to represent the romantic version of the ancient spiritual way life.

Finding the cave temple was going to be difficult. First, the caption hardly gave any idea about its exact location and second, I didn’t understand Tamil. The problem compounded infinitesimally as my stay for over a week had made me realize, that the inhabitants were prone to lose their temper when one was unable to understand their replies to your queries. “Pon, pon!” they would blurt out. It meant, ‘leave at once!’

Bordering

One of them is a bearded Muslim, who, as it is the case with rest of the population at Arcot, speaks a language that sounds like a mixture of crude Hyderabadi (of Hyderabad) and Tamil. The interaction, as it proceeds haltingly, has more to do with gestures than words.

Present in sizeable number Muslims of Arcot are locally called ‘Turkan,’ said to be Persian mercenaries settled by Tipu Sultan. But they could as well have predated him and might have been part of the Malik Kafur’s Northern Army which made inroads, perhaps for the first time in history, deep south during the reign of Alauddin Khilji in Delhi in the 14th century. The two men were extremely helpful but had no clue about the temple. Rather, they keenly speak about the ruins of the Raja’s Palace and Arcot Gate near

Sharif, the auto driver, makes his first halt at Arcot Gate. Unknowingly, I had stumbled upon a little known historical facet. Arcot had played a big role in the English conquest of India and, it was here, after the Battle for Arcot that the British established their supremacy over other Europeans powers, especially French, their main rival. Further, it also led to the rise of Robert Clive, a young clerk in the East India Company, who later became instrumental in the conquest of Bengal and ended his career as Governor of the province and retired a wealthy man. The conquest of Bengal and its immense wealth helped the English eliminate every other European rivals and established British rule in the