I n an earlier blog titled "Rana Court Photographers" I introduced two of the prolific photographers of their age plying their trade in the Indian Subcontinent based in their renowned studios in India. During the years 1868-71 A.D. Samuel Bourne was most active in Nepal. He was a partner with Charles Shepherd in the largest studio of its day Bourne & Shepherd Studios based at Calcutta. Then during the 1930's there was Richard Gordon Matzene based in Simla who visited Nepal several times to take photographs. There are two more famous studios that have done extensive work in Nepal making portraits, photographing royal hunts, temples, monuments and ethnic tribes of the Himalaya. The very renowned studio of Johnston & Hoffmann was opened at 22 Chowringee Lane in Calcutta in 1882 A.D. by Theodore Julius Hoffmann and Peter Arthur Johnston. This was the second largest enterprise in India after Bourne & Shepherd Studios. Although Johnston died in 1891 Hoffman was acti...

T he weight of responsibility sat heavily on his shoulders after his elder brother's epochal visit to England was finalized. As the next brother in line and Commander-in-Chief of the Army he, Bam Bahadur, would be the officiating prime minister during his brother's long sojourn. When the politics in Nepal got re-calibrated after the Kot Massacre, Jung Bahadur Rana had secured an edict from the new king Surendra Bikram Shah to rule Nepal in perpetuity with the post of prime minister going to the next brother in agnatic succession.  General Bam Bahadur Rana portrait in French Military uniform fashionable at the time Prime Minister Jung Bahadur was extremely grateful that his younger brothers had given him both moral and physical support on that fateful night at the Kot where all their lives were in peril. The family had rushed to the armoury at the midnight summons of Queen Rajya Luxmi Devi. News came that the battalion under General Abhiman Singh Rana Magar was on its way to the...

R epresenting his father as a vakil , an envoy, at Calcutta was a choicest job for Colonel Rana Jung Bahadur Rana. The British Raj was at peace with Nepal after Maharajah Jung Bahadur's assistance during the Indian Mutiny. The grateful Raj had given back to Nepal some of the territories that it had lost during the Anglo-Nepal War of 1814-16 A.D. Jung had received further accolades from the Viceroy in person in Calcutta in 1873 A.D. when he was awarded the recently constituted order to decorate the chivalrous in the Indian Subcontinent - Knight Grand Commander of the Order of Star of India (GCSI). A number of Jung Bahadur's children had accompanied the father including his son Rana Jung, born in 1854 A.D. Rana Jung was indeed fortunate to be left behind there for higher education. He had the perfect mettle for emerging as a new medium to conduct diplomacy at their own terms; fluent in English, a bon vivant  for the ladies to marvel at and for the men to envy. A new type of man w...

Prologue J ung Bahadur was rebuffed by the court of King Surendra Bikram Shah over his proposal to establish matrimonial ties with the royal family of Nepal. Jung wanted to give in marriage his daughters to the Wali 'Ahad (a Persian formulation of the time denoting Crown Prince) Trailokya Bikram Shah and his younger brother Narendra Bikram Shah. Similarly he wanted his two elder boys Jagat and Jeet to marry the royal princesses. The court, smarting over the Kot Massacre and the meteoric rise of Jung Bahadur to power, did not want these ties to yet boost his image and prestige even further. How could a lowly Chhetry cast of the Kunwars without any royal lineage behind them dare suggest this outrage? Jung Bahadur was not bemused by the court shenanigans and worked out a clever ploy to counter the courtiers' obstruction. He would have court historians trace back his ancestry to the Rajputs!                             ...

W e have learnt from our history lessons that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by a Serb nationalist led to the First World War. What was a similar cataclysmic event in Nepal? It was the assassination of Commander-in-Chief Gagan Singh Bhandari, a favourite of Nepalese Queen Rajya Luxmi Devi, that led to the Kot Massacre on the very night of this event. No historian delving in this infamous event has been able to convincingly prove 'whodunit'. Gagan Singh was from the Khawas tribe, a Chettry from the mid-hills of Nepal. The tribe regularly joined the army as soldiers and graduated up the ranks. The Tharu community also have Khawas tribes but Gagan Singh was a Chettry. He was taken on royal palace duty and seems to have subsequently taken responsibility of the treasury upon which his surname changed to Bhandari, the person who is the custodian of the "Bhandar", treasury. It was during this period that he must have pleased t...