La Martiniere College, Lucknow
My Lucknow article is now up at Gonomad-
If my writing sounds rushed to you, so was my tour. The guide would literally run from one structure to another and so would some of us.We tried to form a breakaway group walking at a more leisurely pace but then we gave up that strategy quickly inside the labyrinth; we did not wish to be left behind inside those dark alleys.
nice writeup mridula … will need it if i head to lucknow anytime 🙂 thnx
Congrats ! Congrats ! Congrats !
Read your write-up on Gonomad – very well written. However, there is a minor typo – “the Imambara is also grand. It is said to be built around 1783, commissioned by the ruler Asad-Ud-Daulah in the time of severe famine.” Nawab’s name was Asaf-Ud-Daula. Asaf-Ud-Daula moved Awadh’s capital from Faizabad to Lucknow. There is a famous saying in old Lucknow – Jisko na de maula, usko de Asaf-Ud-Daula. I read it somewhere that he was gay.
Thanks Sandeep.Thank you Hobo.Thanks for the correction Atul, I will ask Steve to change it. And thanks for all the information too.
Very nice snap and beautiful architecture.
hmmm I think thse guided tours are just like that.. Though I have been to Lucknow many times I have never enough time to feel the so called mizaaz of the city
Thank you Rajesh.Manish I have been going to Lucknow since childhood but could see it as a tourist for the first time now.
La Martiniere College looks like it requires to be white-washed.Perhaps the guide could’ve traded the time spent shopping with a longer while spent at the monuments…:)
Sidhu, the white wash requirement may be more because of my camera handling than the state of the college. The guide did what many in the group wanted to do!
Very well written, Mridula. I also had a chance to spend a part of my professional life in Kanpur which required frequent travels to my regional office, then located in Bansmandi, Lucknow and I love that city from the window shopping at Hazratganj to the lovely Kebabas and rabri at the Chowk.
I would like to add something to what Atul has written- There was a famine during the stated period and just so that people were not given money/food without work, The Nawab used to make a set of people build the Imambara in the morning and another set of people, in the evening to demolish what was built by the former. This went on for the duration of the famine, thus giving people a source of livelihood in difficult times that’s why the saying “Jisko na de maulah usko de Asaf Ud Daullah”