THIS textile town on Nagpur-Hyderabad highway betrays a grave example of irony, literally. The man who made history by mapping thousands of kilometers of Indian surface 182 years ago has virtually no place in the geography of the town where he succumbed to malaria in 1823.A sprawling slum completely dwarfs his forlorn tomb, swallowing up the last approach. There are no plaques, no boards even outside the structure. The tower on the grave, survivor of many onslaughts over the years, is for the local population just a kala patthar.Few know, and fewer care, that here lies buried Colonel William Lambton, surveyor-general of India from 1799 till his death, and the man who mapped India.Obsessed with detailing the Kanyakumari-Kashmir arc of the Indian sub-continent, Lambton was about 2,500 km done when he died in Hinganghat. The Survey of India built him a memorial, but the sanctity soon became victim to time and the ever-increasing crush of the population.Over the past 18 years, huts have come up in close vicinity of the Christian cemetery, where the grave is located. Today, the tomb stands beseiged from all sides by what is known as the Sant Chokhoba Ward. Chappals and all kinds of scrap can be seen lying all over, with little thought spared for upkeep.Says SoI’s Superintending Surveyor at Nagpur N S Sikarwar: ‘‘We discovered the site seven or eight years ago with the help of Church authorities. We then took possession and about two years ago we fortified it by building a compound wall.’’Alas, no one kept the local residents in the loop. ‘‘For the past few years, we’ve seen many people—including some white men and women—come here. But we don’t know what the pillar is about,’’ says a slum-dweller.Noted British historian John Keah, who was in Nagpur recently for a lecture on Indian history, also visited the spot and referred to Lambton in his speech.But the sudden popularity of the structure among VIPs hasn’t deterred the anti-social elements, who use the place for playing cards and other much more nefarious activities.‘‘Now we have requested one P T Samuel, a retired engineer of Hinganghat Municipal Council (HMC), and the local police to keep watch and prevent the structure from being defiled,’’ Sikarwar says.The HMC, however, is till in the dark. ‘‘We don’t much know about it,’’ says Chief Officer K N Mhaske. ‘‘The CPWD had done some work there. But the surrounding land is owned by the government and has been allotted to the slum-dwellers.’’Asked if the HMC would like to play its part to protect the monument as the city’s proud heritage, Mhaske replies, ‘‘We have no such plan, no such directions. But now that you have suggested it, we can think about it.’’The casual promise, of course, can’t be taken as a line etched in stone. But the memorial certainly deserves better than relegation as a kala patthar.
