Relief at Lucknow

A month is not long to see much of a big country like India, but at the speed Rach and I are travelling we may not need much more.
Done with Calcutta and travelling swiftly up the Ganges back to Delhi for the festival of Diwahli, we decided to break the journey, relieve it if you will, in Lucknow.
Most will recognise the name as associated with British India and the 1857 Mutiny, known in India as the First War of Independence, so we took ourselves off to the old Residency to do some learning...
In 1856 the British East India Company annexed the region around Lucknow, exascerbating a growing emancipation movement amd unrest about textile imports. One of the decisive sparks to the uprising was the issue of new cartridges to Indian troops, the ends of which had to be bitten off and were rumoured to be coated in fat made from cows or pigs; taboo to both Hindu and Muslim troops. Insensitive handling of this situation led to rebellion and a number of regiments being disarmed while others, such as at Meerut, mutinied and killed their British officers. The rising spread across much of the North of the country, including Delhi.
Upon the outbreak of the rising, the British inhabitants of Lucknow took refuge in the Residency, holding out for 87 days until a force managed to relieve them...only to become besieged as well for a further 2 months! Of the 2994 people initially crammed into the grounds, including some 600 women and children and 700 servants, only 980 survived the ordeal. After the uprising, the East India Company was wrapped up and all operations in the country handed to the Crown.
The Residency at Lucknow has been maintained as it was found after the final relief and the shattered walls and cannon ball marks can still be seen; we spent a good 3 hours wandering the grounds and looking at the small museum. After paying 150 Rs to enter, compared to the Indian rate of 10 Rs, an Englishman cant help wondering, however, whether the nation is still exacting its revenge on us colonialists...