The red brick walls, darkened and aged, rise into the blue sky. They are broken in parts, with gaping holes in the middle; bricks lie strewn around near foot of the walls. Many of the walls are encircled and even constricted by thick roots of trees growing through and between. Some seem to have succumbed to this stranglehold. The roof of the building is missing and sunlight filters down through the leaves and branches. An eerie atmosphere prevails. It meditates in silence, as a contrast to the song of the distant sea. Sometimes bits of conversation suddenly intrude, breaking its contemplation, or the horn of a passing boat pierces the air. It’s only then that the mind is shaken out of the surreal atmosphere that has settled for decades around Ross Island, just a few minutes by boat across the sea from Port Blair, Andamans.
The island, visible across from Port Blair’s Aberdeen jetty, is a timeless testimony to its colonial past. Stepping off the boat on to the island and wandering around the ruined buildings inevitably brings to mind the Angkor temple complex ruins in Cambodia,where the thick roots and ancient trees grow encompassing stone walls. Settled once in the mid 18th century and subsequently abandoned, Ross Island was re-settled and turned into a penal colony soon after the first war of independence in 1857. A severe quake in 1941 and the Japanese capture of the islands in 1942 resulted in people fleeing the island; the abandonment was complete soon after the end of World War II. Today, it is like a ghost town, without any inhabitants, save for the relics of British and Japanese occupation. The ruins make the place seem haunted.
Ross Island is not big, but wandering around the debris of the times past takes a couple of hours. Buildings that have given up the ghost include the chief commissioner’s house, the government house, a church, the remains of an old house with a ballroom, a hospital without patients or doctors, a bakery without bread or cakes, a press, barracks, an abandoned market, a water treatment plant,a cemetery and some other structures without signposts.
Many of these were probably too huge to be removed and transported out. Almost at one of the island is a tiny museum managed by the Indian Navy which displays numerous records from the time when the island was the administrative headquarters of the British. Parts of the place are home to thick forests and foliage, which have gradually expanded and claimed the buildings, while coconut plantations take up a different section of Ross Island.
Less than a half hour’s boat ride away is the rather ominous sounding Viper Island. It forms a dark extension to the Indian Independence story that started at Ross Island. Viper Island is a scenic place, with thick greenery, tall trees and patches of grasslands that makes it look idyllic, though overgrown. But amid all this squats a partially ruined two-storey red-brick building which served as a prison. Set up as an ancillary to Cellular Jail, the British are supposed to have sent the more stubborn and audacious prisoners from India here, especially many freedom fighters. They were subjected to harsh torture, including solitary confinement, and suffered at whipping stands. They would be chained together at night leading to the origin of the epithet Viper Jail Chain Gang. Now its grim glory is just a dark memory. The walls are dilapidated but a flight of stairs to the upper floor leads visitors to an ominous structure—the gallows where the prisoners of Viper Jail were hanged. But nature has its quirks: at dusk, the chirruping of birds which have built nests in the ruins are at odds with the general solemn mood that cloaks the building.
Together Ross Island and Viper Island are a half day trip, close to Port Blair. Both are ghost towns, frozen in time, and yet, they manage to transport visitors to a significant part of India’s history. It is a rare visitor who isn’t deluged by somber thoughts and reflections as the outlines of the two islands fade away in the frothy wake of the boat returning home.
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