I was just walking through some documents I had saved over the years, when it struck me that there has been very little new research work or relook into the history of the hill states. One particular format has been the examination of oral ballads, very few of which seem to be available in popular culture today. However, that was certainly not the case in the British era, when much field work seems to have been done by scholars of Europe on the subject, as they panned across the state of the Lahore kingdom and their adjunct territories. Sirmour was a Small Princely state along the Yamuna river's course While their purpose may have been malevolent in nature, many interesting insights got captured over the course of their work, and replication or improvement on the same seems to be rather scarce, especially in the context of what the European scholars used to call the "Punjab Hill States". One such case was on Sirmour, where very little information can be found in the publi...
Painting of Mola Ram showing a girl approaching a black buck and playing a sitar (Courtesy: Victoria and Albert Museum Collection Just a few days ago I was going through a fascinating book written by Mukandi Lal about the Garhwal school of Pahari painting. Though the school, which took off in Raja Prithipat Shah’s reign around 1658, the school became associated with one man and his family - the legendary Mola Ram. Mola Ram was born in 1743, and went on to live for a whole 90 years. He was essentially a painter as part of the family profession that was goldsmith ( Sunar ) by caste, and was based out of Srinagar, which used to be the capital of Garhwal state till Tehri (which now lies submerged) came up due to a malevolent move by the British East India Company. Mola Ram stands out as a painter as per art historians as he managed to create his own signature style that took elements of the Kangra school of art and brought in interesting layers to the art form from other school...