City, both ancient and modern
A. SRIVATHSAN
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At one time the capital of the Travancore kingdom, Thiruvananthapuram takes its name from the Ananthapadmanabhaswamy temple.
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Photo: S. Gopakumar
The Kowdiar Palace: The residence of the members of the royal family.
Is this sweet baby, the bright crescent moon or the charming flower of lotus”, begins the most famous lullaby Omanathinkal Kidavo in Malayalam. The child so nurtured would eventually be one of the greatest music composers inIndia. Legend has it that this 19th century song was composed by Iraiymman Thampi to help Swati Thirunal, heir to Travancore court, to sleep. It was a fitting beginning for a composer who has about 400 songs to his credit. The En
glish verses of the Omanathinkal Kidavo is from Fox Strangeways translation
Capital city
Thiruvananthapuram or Trivandrum, as it was known, was the capital of the Travancore kingdom. The city takes its name from the Ananthapadmanabhaswamy temple around which the fort and palaces were built. The town is ancient and mentioned in poems and inscriptions datable to 9th and 12th century A.D, The modern town as we see it now emerged only from the 19th century. It was during this time Swati Thirunal and his Diwan Subbarao built institutions like schools, observatory and colleges. Legal and land reforms were also introduced.
When independence was declared Trivandrum was not keen in joining the newly formed nation. The Diwan C.P.Ramsamy Iyer wanted Travancore to be an independent state. But this proposal was met with violent protests and the Diwan had to resign. Thiruvananthapuram finally joined India and in 1949 became the capital of the Trivandrum-Kochi State. In 1956, when the new Kerala state was formed, it continued to be the capital.
Apart from the many temples and religious structures, the city is home to some of the important colonial period architecture such as the Napier Museum, Kanakakkunnu palace and secretariat building. The fort area is an important historic precinct and has been recently taken up for conservation.
The Indian space programme began in Thiruvananthapuram. In 1962, the Indian Committee for Space Research set up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in the outskirts of the city. The location was chosen because it was in the southern tip and close to the earth’s magnetic equator.
Royal master painter
Raja Ravi Varma was an entirely self taught master painter. When his royal mentors requested Ramaswami Naicker, the court painter of Travancore and the British painter Theodore Jensen to teach him, they were not keen. Jensen at the most allowed Ravi Varma to watch him paint. But nothing deterred Ravi Varma. He closely studied many European paintings and evolved a style of his own. His route to fame came through the accolades he won at the Madras and Vienna exhibitions in the 19th century. Ravi Varma set up an oleograph printing press in Bombay and printed the many mythological images he had painted. The first picture from his press was the “Birth of Sakunthala”. He later sold the press to his German associates and returned to Kerala. He died in 1906.
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