In Agra’s Roman Catholic Cemetery lies a ‘Red Taj’ built for a Dutchman by his wife

The Taj Mahal has unnecessarily become a standard for all tombs in India. Each monument is unique, yet the comparisons continue. The tomb of Shahnawaz Khan, son of Abdur Rahim Khan-e-Khanan, in Burhanpur is called the ‘Black Taj Mahal’. The tomb of Ibrahim Adil Shah II in Bijapur is called the ‘Taj Mahal of the Deccan’. And I discovered recently, much to my horror, that the exquisite tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula in Agra, also made of marble, is called the ‘Baby Taj’!

So, when I was informed of a ‘Red Taj Mahal’ in Agra, I was curious, not because of the comparison, but because it is located in the Roman Catholic Cemetery and was built for a Dutchman, Colonel John William Hessing, by his wife Anne. This seemed like an interesting reversal of the story that we are familiar with, and when I went there, I discovered that it was.

Comparisons with the Taj

Hessing was born in Utrecht, Holland, in 1739, and came to India as a 24-year-old. He served under the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas, and was later given the command of the first two battalions of the newly raised Scindia army. After the death of Maharaja Mahadaji Scindia, he continued to serve under Maharaja Daulat Rao Scindia. When he could no longer actively serve due to ill-health, Hessing was made the Commandant of Agra Fort by Scindia. He died in 1803, and was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Nehru Nagar, Agra.

I entered the wooden gate of the premises with excitement as I had seen the red dome from afar. To the right of the entrance was a red sandstone tomb. Of course, it is not like the Taj Mahal, but as it is domed, has vaulted doorways, was built in the Mughal style, and is in Agra, the comparisons are inevitable. It has four slender minarets, attached to the main tomb, its cupolas crowned by pinnacles. The dome with its inverted lotus and finial rises from the centre. There are octagonal chabutras attached to the platform on all four corners. There is a fine carved panel running along the edge on the top and around the drum of the dome. Marble plaques at the main entrance have inscriptions in Persian.

As is the case with all Mughal tombs, the actual grave is underneath. There are many other graves in the corridor outside the crypt. Hessing’s monument, said to have been built at a cost of one lakh rupees, is the most prominent. According to Mathura: A District Memoir by F.S. Growse, a French traveller named Victor Jacquemont, who visited Agra in 1829-1830, had said that the Taj, though pretty, was hardly elegant and that the only pure specimen of oriental architecture was the tomb of John Hessing in the Catholic Cemetery. There is no doubt that he was talking of the time when the Taj Mahal had fallen into disrepair. It was mainly due to the efforts of Lord Curzon at the turn of the 20th century that the Taj acquired its current splendour, but I agree with Growse that Jacquemont views are “warped”. Hessing’s tomb is definitely elegant, but it cannot be compared to the Taj Mahal even on the Taj’s worst day.

Fanny Parkes in her journal Begum, Thugs and White Mughals, edited by William Dalrymple, describes the Hessing tomb as “a beautiful mausoleum” which is “well worth a visit”. It was built by a “native architect, by the name Lateef, in imitation of the ancient Mohammedan tombs”. She writes: “The tomb is beautiful, very beautiful and in excellent taste.” Lateef was apparently an expert parchinkar who used to inlay marble with precious stones as well as draw pictures of the Taj Mahal and other monuments in Agra. Parkes bought a few of them.

In the cemetery

The cemetery is well kept, green, and peaceful. Not many people know of it, so I found no visitors there. The caretakers were cooperative and took me around. The cemetery was originally built for the Armenian Christians who came during the reign of Emperor Akbar. The oldest grave belongs to John Mildenhall, an Englishman who died in 1614.

As I wandered around the cemetery, what struck me was the amalgamation of cultures. There was a grave with Allah and the cross carved on it. Many graves had Latin, English and Persian inscriptions on them. A small chapel had petitions to god by the faithful tied to its door, and window screens similar to what we see in dargahs.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Opinion / by Rana Safvi / September 02nd, 2018

The oldest grave here dates back to 1810

Robert Robinson, 56, lives in a graveyard, in a one-room structure, with little walking space left between his bed and fridge. In white pants that have yellowed a bit, Robinson meets me at the gate but is reluctant to let me in.

“You need to get permission,” he says, but eventually opens the gate for me and even walks me through the cemetery. The recent ‘thunderstorms’ have uprooted dozens of trees and they lie supine on the graves. The air is thick with the fragrance of seasonal flowers, the ground infested with snakes. There is so much goat and nilgai dropping, it is difficult to walk.

I am at the vast, 200-year-old St. John’s Cemetery in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, where dotted within the foliage are thousands of graves, of which nine are of British casualties in the 1857 uprising. Robinson is the caretaker here. On one side of the cemetery are the graves of the British, on the other side are those of Indians. The graves are an amalgam of Mughal and colonial architecture, many with domes. In some, the inscriptions are still startlingly clear, as are the motifs and sculptures.

“Look there, by the yellow tomb. That’s the oldest grave here — dates back to 1810,” says Robinson. He then points to the grave of Colonel John Finnis, the first British officer killed in 1857 on May 10, the first day of the uprising. His gravestone reads: ‘Colonel Finnis, who fell while endeavouring to quell the mutiny in the 20th regiment, May 10, 1857, 53 years.’

Vincent Trecar, 48, was killed on the same day, as was John Henry George Taylor, the 57-year-old captain. Both their graves are here.

‘Captain of the 20th regiment who was killed by his own men on the 10th of May 1857, 35 years, with his wife Louisa Sophia aged 30 years, who was barbarously murdered the same night while trying to make her escape with her three infants from her burning house to the European Line,’ reads the gravestone of Donald Macdonald.

There is a tall memorial gravestone with more than 100 names of European soldiers carved on it — soldiers who died between 1888 and 1905, during their service in India.

I ask Robinson if the families of these officers ever visit these graves. He hands me a visitor’s register where I see no entries in the last three months. “Who has time these days?” he asks.

Amit Pathak, a Meerut-based historian, a radiologist, and author of 1857: A Living History, who conducts tours of the 1857 uprising-related sites in the city, has a particular attachment to St. John’s Cemetery.

Entire villages were burnt down by the British army in and around Meerut. Of the 50 British army personnel killed during the mayhem here at that time, 32 were buried at the cemetery, says Pathak. “But we could trace only nine graves, those that were cemented. The rest were made of mud and lost with the time.” Graves of British men who died in 1857 can be found in Delhi and Lucknow as well.

The historian recounts the particularly tragic story of Louisa Sophia, the wife of Donald Macdonald, a British officer who was killed. “She was at home when one of her servants helped her escape by covering her in a burkha along with other women of his family. But while escaping from the backdoor, they were caught. She was asked to identify herself, and when she said “Hum hain” (It is I) in Hindi, she was gunned down.”

Her English accent had given her away.

The writer is a U.P.-based crime and political journalist with a penchant for human-interest stories.

source:http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Ishita Mishra / May 26th, 2018