By Dr.K. Javeed Nayeem
As most of us perhaps know ‘A bridge too Far’ was the title of an epic war movie from the seventies about the Second World War, based on a book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan. The story revolves around a strategic bridge at Arnhem in the Netherlands which the Allies try to secure, before air-dropping their troops there, behind German lines. Since I had read the book, which I still have with me, I was very eager to see the movie when it was released in the year 1977. But when it came to Mysore I was myself far away at Gulbarga, preparing for my own personal battle of facing the second MBBS examination which to me was no less than the Second World War itself!
I say this because of all the subjects I had to study in medical college, the toughest for me was Pharmacology which was a part of the second year package. While most of my friends and seniors used to perhaps rightly say that it was one of the easier subjects to pass, I used to disagree with them simply because memorising anything other than poetry, was nothing short of anathema to me.
And, Pharmacology was all about memorising the names of hundreds of drugs and their side effects which seemed like an endless and futile exercise to my poetry loving soul. But thankfully I secured a first class in pharmacology, much to my own relief and the relief of my very anxious parents!
But I did get to see the movie about the distant bridge I was longing to see, only much later, at one of its re-runs. But the bridge I’m talking about here today is one that is much nearer home. And, my writing about it today is also a sort of a re-run because I have written about it once, a few years ago in this very same column, which some of you may recall.
The bridge of my article today is the Lushington Bridge which after bearing the annual onslaught of the Cauvery floodwaters for exactly two full centuries was in the news two years ago for succumbing to the ravages of time. The bridge sometimes called the Wellesley Bridge by most people who know of its existence spans the Cauvery River connecting the large island of Shivasamudram close to a spot called Madhyaranga with the mainland at Satthegala village of Kollegal Taluk.
It is named after S. R. Lushington, the then Governor of Madras in whose domain the area lay at that time. The exact date of the original construction of this bridge is not known but what is on record is the fact that it was almost rebuilt on the foundations of a much older structure of the pre Tipu Sultan era by Ramaswamy Mudaliar, then an officer under the Mysore administration. A copy of a letter dated July 23, 1833, published in an account entitled ‘Narrative of a Journey to the Falls of the Cauvery’ by Lt. H. Jarvis, records this fact. And, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society which I have read endorses this on page 1834 of its volume IX. This entry says that Ramaswami even submitted a 187 inches long wooden model, which was in a scale of 10 feet to an inch, of his 1870 foot long bridge which Lushington himself carried to England and presented to the society.
A really quaint thing to do but very sadly, a continuation of this record in the journal also says that due to a lack of space the society was unable to exhibit this beautiful model among its permanent exhibits! What a shame! Lushington who was a junior commissioner until 1831 later became the Governor of the Madras Presidency. Very interestingly the bridge which he had named after his superior, Lord Richard Colley Wellesley was then renamed after him by the British administration! That explains why the bridge is still known by two names. Thankfully, for all his efforts and his great zeal to serve the needs of the local inhabitants Ramaswami was rewarded by the new Governor General who was familiar with his abilities and sincerity, with a large Jagir or endowment comprising many villages and extensive stretches of land, the revenue from which he and his descendents were entitled to receive permanently.
But I’ll be writing about this very interesting and amazing turn of events in a subsequent article as it is going to be a very long story in itself which is no less interesting!
Now let me take you back by just two years instead of two centuries to our bridge. A forty feet long span of the Lushington Bridge was washed away by the flood waters of the Cauvery during the monsoon of 1918 which was considered a great loss because of the significance of this historic structure. While people of the State lamented this loss, surprisingly the State Government quickly stepped in like a medieval knight in shining armour, coming to the rescue of a maiden in distress and announced that it would get the bridge repaired immediately. It also announced a substantial grant for this purpose and immediately released an initial sum of rupees 95 lakhs.
The Government also stated that officials of the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage would get the restoration done under its supervision by stone masons from Bagalkot and not just the damaged portion but the entire stretch of the bridge would be repaired to preserve it as a heritage monument. This was welcomed as very good news by heritage buffs like me. Since the bridge was built with very roughly hewn stone pillars, buttressed at their bases on the rocky bed of the river and connected on the top by horizontal stone slabs I thought that the restoration work too would be done keeping this construction method in mind.
But last week when I happened to visit the place with my family to view the waterfalls in their full monsoon glory I was aghast to see how thoughtlessly the bridge restoration is being done. Presumably machine cut stone pillars with perfectly smooth sides which look just like cast concrete pillars have been set up. And, I will not be surprised if a similar treatment is meted out to the connecting spans that are going to be laid on top of them very soon. The restoration work looks like a sharp slap on the face of the ancient bridge and will stand out like a sore thumb indicating how incompetent our so called experts can be.
I am of the opinion that if ordinary, village bred and village trained stone masons had been entrusted with this work, without any expert interference, they would have done a great job of copying and incorporating the original design of the bridge into their restoration work. Heritage conscious citizens should immediately step in and prevail upon the State Government to ensure that the present type of restoration work is stopped immediately before it irreparably mars the beauty and grandeur of a bygone era with its shoddy repair work.
If our authorities and experts cannot do a good and befitting job now with all our technical know how it is certainly better to leave the broken bridge untouched as a standing testimony to the abilities of the unlettered and humble construction workers and a farsighted Jagirdar from our glorious past!
e-mail: kjnmysore@rediffmail.com
This post was published on August 21, 2020 6:05 pm