New England Roots, Indian Fruits 

Boston has been my home for the last 2 years and I've learnt a lot about America during my time here. One of my favorite pastimes is making a note of all the historical connections between India and America and in this post, I'm going to try to jot down a few I can remember.

Gandhiji's many independence movements are the stuff of history books every Indian kid is familiar with. Civil disobedience, Quit India... A fact omitted from the textbooks is the inspiration behind civil disobedience. The name comes from a work by Henry David Thoreau who practiced his civil disobedience near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau was an early practitioner of the environment-friendliness movement and decided to live off the land taking as little as possible from Mother Nature or the government. He built a cottage near Walden pond in Concord to stay away from other residents of Concord. Unfortunately the tax collector thought he owed Uncle Sam money and Thoreau protested by refusing to pay taxes. Gandhiji, the disciple clearly outdid the master Thoreau in this instance... Thoreau's civil disobedience seems like a storm in a teacup when compared to Gandhiji's campaigns. I find this an interesting connection given that later in American history Martin Luther King drew inspiration for the Civil Rights movement from Gandhiji.

Thoreau's cabin near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts

A British Raj character one reads about prominently in textbooks is Lord Cornwallis, appointed the Governer-General of India by the East India Company in 1786. Lord Cornwallis was also involved in the Anglo-Mysore wars between the British and Tipu Sultan. Turns out Lord Cornwallis in a past life was also one of the major players in the American War of Independence and was the general who surrendered to the American-French forces after a defeat in the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Clearly Cornwallis's failures in America didn't disqualify him from the top job in British India. All the same I'm happy to report that there are Indian connections to the American Revolution besides the tea at the Boston tea party.

 Lord Cornwallis surrenders after the Battle of Yorktown

Where would you say Mowgli was conjured? The Jungle Books are books one would instantly associate with the jungles of India. Even the names of the characters like Bagheera, Kaa and Mowgli have an Indian ring to them. I was surprised to find out that Kipling wrote them when he stayed at his mansion "Naulakha" in Brattleboro, Vermont about 3 hours north of Boston. The Times reported this one last year and notes that one of my favorite authors, Arthur Conan Doyle visited Kipling in Vermont. 

Kipling's Naulakha mansion in Vermont