And in the 1870s, it terrified the British Raj more than any sepoy rebellion. Rex Vijayan (1827-1885) is a ghost in the archives. No photographs exist. Only a single oil portrait, now lost, showed a gaunt man with one blind eye, wearing a Savile Row suit and a sacred thread over it. By the 1860s, he controlled the overland rice trade from Burma to Madras. But after his only daughter was denied admission to a Madras presidency school because of her “low caste complexion,” Vijayan did something extraordinary.
9:00 PM: Recite French verb conjugations until sleep takes me. In my dream, I am a district collector. I refuse to salute a white man. I wake up smiling.” By 1879, the Raj had had enough. The Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, demanded an inspection. Vijayan allowed it on one condition: the inspector must pass the college’s entrance exam. rex vijayan scholarship college 1870s
3:00 PM: English Literature. We read from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest.’ But Mr. Vijayan (who visits unannounced) crosses out ‘Caliban’ and writes ‘The British Resident.’ No one laughs. No one ever laughs. And in the 1870s, it terrified the British