Victoria Memorial Hall

A new card I wrote today to my lovely friend, she is from Finland. Here is the picture of the postcard.

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 The Victoria Memorial Hall is a memorial building dedicated to Queen Victoria. It was build between 1906 -1921 and inaugurated in 1921 in Calcutta, India. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens. The building was designed by Sir William Emerson and the design reflects both British as well as Mughal architecture.

Victoria Memorial Hall In Calcutta

The Victoria Memorial Hall is now a museum with many memorabilia’s relating British era in India/Calcutta. The museum has several paintings, sculptures, various arts, rare books, many postage stamps of which a few is shown in the public. It has resemblance to the Belfast City Hall of the Northern Ireland.

Belfast City Hall in Northern Ireland

On the apex of the dome there is a black bronze statue of Angel of Victory. “The angel of victory” acts as weathervane and rotates in strong winds. For many years it stopped rotating. It is 16 feet high and weighs about 16 tons.

Check out flickr for some beautiful shots of Angel of victory of Victoria Memorial ,Calcutta.

                                              ~A lonely Butterfly

  

Presidential palace of India

Rastrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the president of India. Here in the Miniature sheet we can see three stamps depicting different views of Presidential house which is located in New Delhi, India. Several Indian architectural designs are present in it. 

Rastrapati Bhavan

There is also presence of European architectural element. It was renamed in 1950 when India became republic. Earlier it was known as “Viceroy’s House”. It houses a beautiful garden on the back.

Jantar Mantar

"Jantar Mantar" , the astronomical observatories was designed by Maharaja Jai Singh II around 1727-1733.King Jai Singh II was very passionate about mathematics and Astronomy. He had studied various works of astronomers when he was in School of astronomy. Jantar Mantar is much bigger astronomical structure, with more complex designs which required lots of measurements. Jantar mantar is constructed with stones and marbels. 

It has lots of statistical instrument to measure time and to ascertain other astronomical events. It is the largest astronomical instrument of the world made with stone.

Jantar Mantar

(“Yantra”/Jantar - means Instrument and “Mantra” /Mantar - means Formula).

There are 18 instruments. The name of the few instruments is -

1.  Samrat Jantra (It is the largest sundial in the world and can tell time accurately of about 2    seconds)

2.  Shasthnasa Jantra

3.  The jai Prakash

4.  Ram Jantra

5. Mishra Jantra  (which measures the shortest and longest day of a year).

Jantar Mantar was renovated in 1901 and was declared the national monument of India later.