Surati Experience - Day 3, Part 2

Jan 29 2013

We knew that the Dutch and Armenian cemeteries were near the English cemetery but the locals were unaware of the difference and so we were always pointed to the English cemetery. We decided to get off the Auto-rickshaw and started exploring on our feet.

Surat is one of the main centers in India for cotton spinning for a very long time but the old factories disappeared along with their machinery.   According to Dr. X, you could hear the manual spinning of cotton anywhere you went in Surat but not so much these days. So when he heard the noise again, he was excited to check it out. We followed the noise and reached a small factory:

Rooms of British-era machinery. See the distortion of the photo? I took this photo at 18mm.

Small-scale industry is vital to Indian economy. I am not sure for how long this factory will last. Nevertheless, the flag captures the Indian spirit.

A worker. Work safety is non-existent. With so many moving parts at fast speed, risk of injury was high even for a visitor like me.

This man's job was to take each thread, insert it to a hole and make the yarn. All manual. I can't even to imagine the patience he must have.

 After this short detour, we moved on to explore and after asking various people for direction, we entered a cemetery but it turned out to be a recent one. Disappointed but determined, we finally found it with a help of a local. It was just one cemetery that had both Armenian and Dutch tombs. The Armenian tombs were much older than the English or Dutch (probably from late 1500's or early 1600's). Here are some photos:

Entrance to the cemetery but we came from the back. The photo was taken in a hurry as were running out of time.

Armenian inscriptions. We could not dicipher. Please contact me if you can read Armenian.

Armenian. The tomb stones were stuck to the ground (unlike the usual straight-up ones)

Looking up. This one was dated mid 1600's. The painting was still in tact. This really-fancy mausoleum suggests that it was for a high-ranking officer in the Dutch East India Company.

There was a hole on the floor in one of the mausoleum. It was so dark that I could not see any staircase but the camera flash came in handy. The stair case lead to a basement room. Real freaky.

Look at that wood work.

It takes you back in time and I wonder if some of these Mausoleum took longer than the dead's lifetime to build.

The far ones on the right and center show a clear Indo-Islamic style.

Next, we were off to search an old fort in Surat on Tapti river. This fort was a very important one for the Marathas, the Mughals, and the European invaders.