Page 272 - Kolaj Sharodiya Review Edition

I of course, wasn’t successful in finding any café walking around, leave alone a café, I didn’t even find a shack where I could drink tea! I decided to chuck
that bit of the plan and headed out to the Maritime Museum located very close to the Bungalow. (Everything is at a walking distance, as the place is really
small, and most of these buildings of ‘importance’ are located nearer to the Fort). The Maritime Museum was unlike any museum that I have ever been
to, it was run by a family, who reside in the premises, and clearly, they didn’t have too many visitors (I checked the register at the entry). It gives an
understanding of the history of Denmark and India and the negotiations in order to establish this colony. The museum has a collection of all that washed up
the shore across times, these ranged from a massive boat, to sea shells, to betel nut crackers, to whale and dolphin skeletons, to wooden dolls, etc.
However, one does see the lack of funding for such locally run museums. Most of these artefacts are stored in jars which earlier housed candies and biscuits.
However, one does note the upkeep of the museum, everything is meticulously labeled and well arranged.

I headed to the Danish Fort after this. A quick glance at the turquoise waters, did stall my steps for a bit, but I did manage to get to the Fort soon. As
mentioned earlier the fort was established in 1620. A small plank in marble confirms the date as one enters.

The replica of the agreement between Ove Gjedde (the Governor of Denmark) and Raghunath Nayak (the Thanjavur King) is on display in the museum
as are other artefacts, arms and ammunitions, canons, pottery, Danish tableware, the skeleton of a massive whale which has washed up on the shore, etc.
There are two levels to the fort, the ground level was used for storage and as a prison, while the admirals lived on the second level. The fort has large halls,
high ceilings, and columns. Tranquebar was mainly a port town, which mainly exported cotton. The museum was very crowded and hence I headed
back to the Bungalow in a while, the heat and humidity were unbearable as well. I had on my agenda a visit to the Zieganbalg House in the afternoon
(it hasset timings for visitors). I decided to hang out in the balcony for a bit before a quick nap post lunch. With a slight cloud cover, the colors of the sea
were every possible shade of blue, azure, turquoise, teal, cerulean. I have always been very particular about shades of colours. My friends at the University
of Hyderabad would get very annoyed with this, and I liked annoying them. I also remember them gifting me an Asian Paints shade card at some point
in life!

Walking around town, I figured Bartholomaus Zieganbalg was a very important person with regard to Tranquebar. So, I headed out to the Zieganbalg
House to find more about him and his contribution to the life of Tranquebar. This house is where the reverend stayed till 1719. INTACH Pondicherry is
responsible for the upkeep of the house, and there are a bunch of really helpful and enthusiastic people who run this establishment. I should definitely
mention Vinoth, who took me around this house and told me stories about the place, the Halle-Tranquebar Project, etc. Zieganbalg of course was sent in
with the idea of propagation of religion, as did many of the other colonialists.