Francis Buchanan’s Journey

Time Travel with Francis Buchanan

The Crucible of Indian Iron & Steel

Our research on traditional iron and steel smelting began when we visited Channarayanadurga in Tumakuru District, Karnataka, many years ago, while retracing Buchanan’s Journey.  It was a fascinating exploration locating what could have been the very sites that Buchanan had visited.  More significantly, however, it led to a startling “discovery”: the environmental consequences of this activity […]

Two Hundred Years of Solitude

Two Hundred Years of Solitude attempts to capture a small slice of the life of a Goala, Hanumantharayappa. It felt as though life had never really changed since Buchanan had visited Medighesi more than two hundred years ago. https://youtu.be/kH548y4uuMk

Postcards from Midighesi

On 8th August, 1800, Buchanan had visited Medighesi (Buchanan called it ‘Madigheshy’) and its neighbouring villages to inquire into the activities of cattle breeders or Goala.  More than 200 years later, we visited Midighesi to capture Buchanan’s mundane descriptions of landscapes of landscapes and his records of people through photographs.    Read more about it in Live History […]

The Eighth Plague: When Locust Swarms Overran Karnataka

In this article, Lingaraj G. Jayaprakash and Sashi Sivramkrishna draw upon Buchanan’s description of the havoc caused by locusts near Mandya in Karnataka, while describing the recent return of locusts across the Indian subcontinent. Read the article published in the Times of India, Bengaluru.