Friday, January 20, 2006

Nagercoil

Wow, came across this beautifully written "article" about Nagercoil, my native town on Wikipedia. It seems to be very comprehensive, touching on all important aspects of the town, including history, geography, language, culture etc. I found it interesting to read. Even though it has all the information that I am aware of, it still made it an interesting read. Hats off to you dude, whoever has written it..

You can check out the page here......

One funny, but true fact about our town has been the incredibly large amounts of clinics and hospitals that you can see all over the place. I remember, counting a large number on one single road. In the Wikipedia article, it has been beautifully put...."It seems like there is a medical practitioner in every corner of the street.".

Another aspect that the article touches upon is the fact that Nagercoil, even Kanyakumari district has been overlooked in many administrative aspects by the government. Also, touching upon the fact that there is a lot of potential in this beautiful town and its surroundings. We have also discussed this before where we thought that there is a lot of potential for Eco-Tourism. I would even say that there is a chance of the IT industry, atleast a small call center industry. Don't laugh, it has already been done and running well at the moment.

Another fact that I came across is that my district receives the second highest amount of rainfall in all Tamilnadu, after the Nilgiris. And that there are more than 200 species of marine fish. Another bit of history that I came across is about the "Battle of Colachel", when a small force of Dutch marines under the leadership of a Flemish commander, Captain Eustace De Lannoy (also spelt D'lennoy) were sent to Travancore to secure a trading post from the Raja. It is recorded history that the Dutch lost the battle and that Captain Eustace De Lannoy was released, later he proved his trust and mettle to the king and was eventually made the Commander of the entire Travancore Forces. De Lenoy taught the use of gun powder and modern arms to his forces and modernised the Travancore Army on European lines ; raised the regiments, built forts and established defences at key places (some forts like Udayagiri and Vattakottai near Nagercoil were built under his guidance). Captain De Lenoy was a skilled military strategist and won many battles for Marthanda Varma. Travancore grew in size and strength. (Captain De Lenoy and his military contribution to the old Travancore state has been undermined in the Indian history text-books). Captain De Lenoy is buried in a small chapel inside Udayagiri Fort, near Nagercoil.

And about the Eco-Tourism part, who knows, we may manage to do this at a later date when we decide to retire to this laid back piece of land.

2 comments:

  1. whoever that bugger is..he has done a damn good job man...awesome...lets start adding to that information...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes it is a wonderful article. Not much of research work is undertaken on the history and architecture of the district.

    ReplyDelete

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