{"id":942,"date":"2017-10-07T12:59:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T12:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/00Working\/wt-magazinehoot2demo\/?p=942"},"modified":"2021-11-14T07:05:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T07:05:43","slug":"how-home-gardens-are-changing-the-way-americans-cook-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/07\/how-home-gardens-are-changing-the-way-americans-cook-food\/","title":{"rendered":"How Lord (Silly) Macaulay met his match in the Nilgiris"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Thomas Babington Macaulay gave us English education and the IPC. But personally he was\u00a0 pompous and\u00a0 self-righteous. M came to Nilgiris in April 1834, carried in a palanquin from Madras, as Law Member when Lord Bentinck \u2013 recuperating in Ooty-\u00a0 took over as Governor General of India after the Company was vested with administrative powers. After his three weeks stay when M was about to return there was an awkward incident. One of his palanquin bearers had picked up an affair with a local lady and the her fellow laborers were preventing him from leaving. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

About the incident, M later claimed in his biography that seeing the commotion\u00a0 he had directed his bearers to take him and the trouble makers to the nearby Commanding Officer\u00a0 at\u00a0 Ooty and that after hearing M\u00a0 the Commander had all the trouble makers arrested\u00a0 forthwith allowing M and his party to continue with their journey. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But unfortunately there\u00a0 was a witness, that too an outspoken India Judge who was often suspended. His account:<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u2018I was proceeding somewhat late on a Sunday morning\u00a0 in the month of April 1834 to the Church (St. Stephens) at Ootacamund, which is situated on the road to Madras, when my attention was attracted by the sight of two palanquins passing the church, surrounded by a mob of men and women, who were endeavoring to arrest\u00a0 the progress of the first palanquin. At the end, the bearers were forced to\u00a0 take another direction and take the palanquins to the office of the commanding officer of\u00a0 the district(old SP\u2019s office in Mount Stuart Hill). Here a gentleman stepped forth from the first palanquin and followed by several persons entered the office. On enquiry, I learned that in the palanquins were Mr. M and his servant. In a short time the gentlemen and those who had followed him came out. He re-entered his palanquin and was borne away on the road to Madras while the mob quietly returned up the hill, the way they had come.\u00a0 I accosted one who appeared to be the leader and asked him what had taken place. He replied, \u2018Tom Macaulay Sahib is a very good gentleman \u2026.he\u00a0 gave 100 rupees\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018On the following morning I met several gentlemen collected at the gate of\u00a0 the government house who were waiting for the Governor General, Lord William Bentinck, to come down to breakfast. The whole story of the 100 rupee affair of the previous day, of which various versions were in circulation, was the subject of their discourse. But everyone agreed not to let the Governor General know about what had happened\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018However, scarcely had the breakfast commenced when his lordship, addressing his secretary said, \u2018Well, so Macaulay is gone\u2019 and added to the surprise of all gathered there, \u2018And pretty exit that was he made\u2026.you think that no one knows anything that is going on, except yourself; pray who tells me everything but Tom, the barber\u2026Tom got 10 rupees for assisting in Macaulay\u2019s exit\u2019\u2026on the whole it was a very silly affair\u2019. From that day, M was styled \u2018Silly Tom\u2019 instead of \u2018Lucky Tom\u2019 in the gossip on the Nilgiri hills\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was the habit of Macaulay that after dinner at the Government House he would very frequently monopolize the conversation for thirty or forty minutes at a stretch with some dry subjects tiresome to many, particularly to those who had spent a long morning in the Governor General\u2019s Council meetings.<\/p>\n

Macaulay finally met his match one day at the hands of a Lady Holland. When M went on a similar annoying conversation after dinner at her house, the clever little woman had a remedy to silence M. As Macaulay continued to ramble, she stopped him with two or three taps on the table and said, \u2018Come M, we have had enough of this\u2019.<\/p>\n

Nilgiri Documentation Centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photogravure of Macaulay by Antoine ClaudeRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions\/1322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilgiridiscoverycentre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}