The Precious Antidote

The Mughals used jade vessels!

Jade is a gemstone that is mostly green in color but can also be purple, black, yellow, white, blue, red, pink, grey, orange or brown in color too. The Mughals and other monarchs were always afraid that somebody would poison them. So, they used jade vessels as they believed that jade changes color if the food it contains is poisoned. There is no evidence that this true, but we know that the Mughals believed in it. I found this information in Subhadra Sen Gupta’s book, Let’s Go Time Travelling: Life in India through the Ages.

A lawyer working in British colonial Indian court once came to work in casual clothes! 

The standard uniform of a lawyer is a black suit, white shirt, and dress shoes (those pointy and shiny black shoes that you yourself may be wearing or the one’s that your dad wears to work). This kind of attire doesn’t suit every climate, so, one lawyer working in British India once wore a more weather-friendly attire consisting of a cotton vest (bunion), khaki shorts and slippers!

 

There were 562 Indian kingdoms in British India!

When the British colonized India in the 19^th century they found out that they weren’t the only ones who wanted to take control of India. India had many kingdoms, big and small like the Maratha Empire, Oudh, Travancore, Punjab, Hyderabad etc. Many of these kingdoms were later conquered by the British and annexed to their colonies. Most of the kingdoms resisted the British, but as the British had better weapons and well-trained soldiers, so they were able to defeat the Indian kingdoms. But some of the kingdoms were small and knew they couldn’t resist the British, so, they gave in without a fight. The British then promised them that would be independent but would have a British official and garrison stationed in their kingdoms. These kingdoms were called the Indian Principalities by the British and did you know that there were 562 such kingdoms?!