A Dutch Road Trip in Golconda

Description

This film traces the elaborate description that the seventeenth-century Dutchman Daniel Havart has left us of the road between Masulipatnam and Hyderabad, presently in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Havart described the various temples, mosques and other landmarks along the road, and many of those are still to be found. He also described the lives of some Dutchmen who lived in the village of Nagulvancha halfway along the road. In the process of making the documentary Kruijtzer and Padgaonkar discovered discovered the graves of two of these Dutch Nagulvancha-dwellers. One was the colourful character Nicolaas Faber, who was very closely involved with the villagers and Hindu culture. Havart himself was more inclined towards the Muslim culture of cosmopolitan Hyderabad and a lover of Persian poetry. All of which goes to show that prejudices were many in those days but certainly much more complex than the simple opposition between Europeans and non-Europeans through which many scholars are inclined to see the period

Credits A Dutch Road Trip in Golconda

Delhi: Orange Cat Productions, 2009

Editing: Nikhil Padgaonkar

Script: Gijs Kruijtzer

Consultant: Robert Simpkins