We live in a less than ideal world, but it is clear from old travel accounts that places like Kerala have made immense social progress.
Panikkar’s writing is a refreshing and welcome change for those used to condescending travelogues from his western contemporaries.
The recruiters would look for physically strong workers who were already employed in Singapore and lure them to Dutch-held territories with offers of better pay and working conditions.
The Tokyo Boys or the INA Cadets were a group of 45 young men selected by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to join the Indian National Army and go for advanced training to Japan. Image courtesy: tanvisrivastava.com
Burton Swinny, one of the two suspects in the murder of Buckingham Stephens, a 35-year-old dentist, was given special privileges in lock up until he tried to make a daring escape.
One can only hope that political and geopolitical games become outdated and the world works as one to solve the most pressing needs of humanity. Until then, a naturalised citizen will always have to prove something to the new country.
Residents of Anchuthengu must surely have been amused at the site of the Americans who were dumped in their fishing village.
George managed to write over 50 books and edited 15 others. He continued to research, translate and write well into his 80s.
Now referred to as the lifeline of the state’s economy, the Shoranur-Cochin railway line was the brainchild of Rama Varma XV.
Although Vilasini became a pathbreaker in a male-dominated society, the scandal involving her husband came in the way of what could have been a promising political career.
The demigod, who is a part of Malabar’s celebrated folklore, received a great degree of negative publicity. An anonymous journalist writing for the now-defunct Madras Weekly Mail in 1896 made the demigod out to be a demon.
Colonel Heber Drury seemed to have mixed feelings about the city, highlighting what he liked but also being unsparingly critical on some aspects.