GARRISON CEMETRY SRIRANGAPATTANA

 Srirangapattana called as Seringapattan was an important garrison of the East India Company with many things good and bad happenning at this place.Since 1800ad the Srirangapattana garrison was a key part of the administrative apparatus with even control over Malabar..some of the courts functioned from here though it remained less important post 1812 with the growth of the city of bangalore as a major Cantonment.

In most Garrisons the English East-India company hosted a Garrison cemetry.There is one in Srirangappatana too..today near the check-post and adjacent to a school  on the banks of the river Cauvery where more than three hundred tombstones exist and this cemetery is said to be active from 1800ad to 1860ad.It is some one acre of land with tombs very close to each other and bears the names of most victims but many of the names and the inscriptions un-clear.The wife and daughter of Capt.Scott who was the military commandant here in the early 1800ad is one of the earliest tombs.The wife and daughter of Capt.Scott must have fallen for Malaria.They say Capt.Scott went missing after this incident and is supposed to have rode his horse at full speed into the Cauvery river and merged into it.This story is a subject matter for another isolated  discussion.

Anyone reading this from around the world can personally identify themselves with the people buried here could shed more light and stories of these English men and women who have become a part of the Indian soil ..being possibly born in some far off place and destined to slumber in this part of the world under the aegis of the Cauvery river in this place called Srirangapattana.

THE BANGALORE-MYSORE EXPRESS HIGHWAY

It is heartening to note that a new expressway has taken shape between Bangalore and Mysore cutting travel time by around an hour.

In its recent history the road was a single lane corridor and with time accidents were rife forcing the Government to make a bifurcated set-up with seperate tracts for to and fro vehicles and even this seemed inadequate.

The basic growth of this road can be traced to the events of the late 18th century and early 19th century. In the late 18th century this road was used to transport military logistics and in the early 19th century with the discovery of Ooty this road system needed more progress and development. The Madras regiment that was part of the English contingent in the fourth Mysore war was transported from the present Ulsoor lake of Bangalore to Srirangapattana through this stretch of road and rivers were crossed at vantage points through make-shift bridges.

The basic problem that has to be overcome are the many rivulets on the route and a major discontinuity created by the Cauvery river. Later the Wodeyars of Mysore with English engineering personnel went about building bridges across all the water bodies and making transport smooth.Travel during this era was through horse drawn carriages and large bullock carts.With the advent of motor cars and growth of service stations during the early 20th century the scheme of things changed drastically.