Agartala Notes

I returned from Agartala yesterday. The one-day trip for work was my maiden visit to the state. The sheer distance and the fact that one has to cross the Bangladeshi airspace made the journey quite fascinating. Added to that was the trivia that the aircraft that flew me out had just completed a Delhi-Baku-Delhi-Agartala sprint. Air travel is an underrated marvel of the times we live in.

In addition to the Communist connection between Tripura and Kerala, the greenery that meets the eye while landing in Agartala also reminded me of the lushness of Kerala. Agartala is clean, laid back and radiated a sense of calm and orderliness. Cycle rickshaws were present but not as densely as expected.

Since I had an hour before my flight, I made a quick dash to the Tripura State Museum. The museum is housed in the Ujjayanta Palace – the seat of the erstwhile royal family, the Manikyas. The palace was destroyed in the 1897 Assam earthquake and then rebuilt in a Indo-Gothic style in 1901. Tagore was a frequent visitor and was also the one who christened the place. Some online digging around informed me that Tagore was well-connected to the royal family and a few of his works, notable Rajarshi and the drama Mukut were based on the royal family. (I don’t know enough of Tagore’s works to comment more.)

More than 60% of the population have their roots in present day Bangladesh. The museum had a dedicated gallery to the ’71 Liberation War. Tripura hosted close to 1.5 million refugees and was also a critical headquarters of the Bangladesh Liberation Army. Another geographic discovery I made was that Dhaka is just 120 km away from Agartala. The demographic shifts that occurred in Tripura were long lasting. This Indian Express piece has a deep analysis of Tripura’s role during the War.

(The museum had a special category of entry fee for Bangladeshi nationals – in addition to the ‘foreign’ category. In borderlands, such forms of accommodation and co-existence are always unique and provide a very different perspective from the usual shrillness that accompanies the narrative in the national media.)

And ofcourse, the hotel where I stayed had hilsa in their menu.