Here is a nicely presented website on Calcutta - something our leader John as well as Molly and many others might like to see: http://cityofpalaces.tripod.com/ By the way, did you know that at one time during the Company Rule, Calcutta was disparagingly known as The Ditch? Here is the reason: the nickname was derived from the term ''Mahratta Ditch''. While searching my Hobson-Jobson for something, I came across the entry for ''Mahratta Ditch'' in Calcutta - a defensive moat built in 1742, which almost corresponded with the Cicular Road of the later era. The natives had sought and obtained the Company's permission to construct this ditch at their own expense, so that they could protect themselves from Mahratta looters. The name itself is a dubious testimony to the awe and dread created among the hapless Bengali baboos of Kolkaataa by the then almighty army of the Mahratta (Maratha) kings of NAGPUR - Nagpore. Yes, for ten years in a row, the Bhonsala kings of Nagpur (related to the Bhonsalas of Poona) had let loose a reign of terror on the eastern and south-eastern portion of the land between Nagpur in central India and Calcutta. Every year powerful bands of their armed warriors rode up to Calcutta, and like a cat among the pigeons killed hundreds of the locals, and looted, ransacked, stripped their lands bare. The Nagpur gangs had become so strong that the Bengalis had even stopped to offer any token resistance. The ''Mahratta Ditch'' was but a feeble attempt to keep them at bay - if possible. (Kind of a last-ditch attempt?) Those Maratha marauders were called 'Baar-geers or bargees'' and EVEN TODAY rural mothers in Orissa and Bengal invoke their name to quieten a particularly fractious child. ''Keep quiet or the bargees would come and take you away'', they say. Today, of course, the Marathas are no longer a force to reckon with in federal politics. Even in Nagpur, nobody remembers those dark deeds of their ancestors. Young children don't know that our city was once the seat of a mighty kingdom. Sic transit gloria mundi, eh? See also http://cityofpalaces.tripod.com/history.htm and http://cityofpalaces.tripod.com/history2.htm ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

Dear Listers, The Mahratta Ditch is the Lower Circular Road, now called Acharya Jagadish Chandra Basu Marg or AJC Basu Marg. One of my forebears, Bhaskar Ram Kolhatkar, aka Bhaskar Pandit as he was a Brahmin, was the chief lieutenant of Raghuji Bhosle in the affairs of Bengal in the 1740's. He went into Bengal several times to collect the chauth and the sardedshmukhi (one fourth and one tenth parts of the revenues respectively) for which the Marathas had received sanads from the Mughal emperor in Delhi. Of course, the Mughal emperors themselves had become weak by then and their nominal subordinates in far-off provinces would avoid doing what they were asked to do by the master in Delhi. The collection could be effected only through use of strong arm methods, which made the Marathas extremely unpopular among the Bengali population. Aliverdi Khan invited Bhaskar Ram for a meeting to negotiate over the Maratha demands. Bhaskar Ram with 11 assistants went to the appointed place. After the entered the tent, Aliverdi Khan had the ropes cut and Bhaskar Ram and his associates were cut down to the last man. This happened in 1744. This incident has been made the subject of poems and romances in Bengali literature. There was a play on the Bengali stage in 1923 in which Bhaskar Pandit was cast as a noble and resolute but tragic hero - no doubt reflective of the Hindu-Muslim division of the society that had become a part of the life in India by that time. Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, March 16, 2008.