prashantacmet
New member
Physical description of ranjeet singh , too ugly to match with a common jatt.
"He was exactly like old mouse, with gray whiskers and one eye." "In person he was short and mean-looking and had he not distinguished himself by his great talents he would be passed by without being thought worthy of observation. Without exaggeration must call him the most ugly and unprepossessing man I saw throughout Punjab. His left eye, which is quite closed, disfigures less than the other but form so many dark pits in his grayish brown skin, his short straight nose is swollen at the tip; his skinny lips are stretched tight over his teeth which are still good; his grizzled beard, very thin on cheeks and upper lip, meets under the chin in matted confusion, and his head which is sunk very much on his broad shoulders, is too large for his height, and does not seem to move easily. He has thick muscular neck, thin arms and legs, the left foot and left arm dropping, and small well informed hands. The nervous irritation of his mind is shown by the continual pressure on one's finger. His costumes always contributes to increase his ugliness, being in winter the color of gamboge from the pagri down to his very socks and slippers. When he seats himself in common English chair with his feet drawn under him, the position is one particularly unfavorable to him; but soon as he mounts his horse and with his black shield on his back puts him on his mettle, the whole form seems animated by the spirit within, and assumes a certain grace of which nobody could believe it susceptible"(by Eden Emily, upto the country p.320, and by Hugel Baron, Travels in Kashmir and the country of the Sikhs p. 380).
"He had a large and indeed an unusual share of the weakness and vices which grew up, like all weeds, in human nature, and his moral being seemed, at superficial glance, as dwarfed and distorted as his physical envelope. He was selfish, false and avaricious; grossly superstitious, shamelessly and openly drunken and debauched. In the respectable virtues he had no part; but in their default he was still great with him, as with the most illustrious leaders of men, from Ceaser and Alexander to Napolean, intellectual strength not allied to maral rectitude. He was great because he possessed in an extraordinary degree the qualities without which the highest success cannot be attained, and the absence of the commonplace virtues which belong to the average citizen neither diminished nor affected in any way the distinction of character. He was born ruler. Men obeyed him with instinct and because they had no power to disobey". (Griffen Lepel, Ranjit Singh p.91)
"He was exactly like old mouse, with gray whiskers and one eye." "In person he was short and mean-looking and had he not distinguished himself by his great talents he would be passed by without being thought worthy of observation. Without exaggeration must call him the most ugly and unprepossessing man I saw throughout Punjab. His left eye, which is quite closed, disfigures less than the other but form so many dark pits in his grayish brown skin, his short straight nose is swollen at the tip; his skinny lips are stretched tight over his teeth which are still good; his grizzled beard, very thin on cheeks and upper lip, meets under the chin in matted confusion, and his head which is sunk very much on his broad shoulders, is too large for his height, and does not seem to move easily. He has thick muscular neck, thin arms and legs, the left foot and left arm dropping, and small well informed hands. The nervous irritation of his mind is shown by the continual pressure on one's finger. His costumes always contributes to increase his ugliness, being in winter the color of gamboge from the pagri down to his very socks and slippers. When he seats himself in common English chair with his feet drawn under him, the position is one particularly unfavorable to him; but soon as he mounts his horse and with his black shield on his back puts him on his mettle, the whole form seems animated by the spirit within, and assumes a certain grace of which nobody could believe it susceptible"(by Eden Emily, upto the country p.320, and by Hugel Baron, Travels in Kashmir and the country of the Sikhs p. 380).
"He had a large and indeed an unusual share of the weakness and vices which grew up, like all weeds, in human nature, and his moral being seemed, at superficial glance, as dwarfed and distorted as his physical envelope. He was selfish, false and avaricious; grossly superstitious, shamelessly and openly drunken and debauched. In the respectable virtues he had no part; but in their default he was still great with him, as with the most illustrious leaders of men, from Ceaser and Alexander to Napolean, intellectual strength not allied to maral rectitude. He was great because he possessed in an extraordinary degree the qualities without which the highest success cannot be attained, and the absence of the commonplace virtues which belong to the average citizen neither diminished nor affected in any way the distinction of character. He was born ruler. Men obeyed him with instinct and because they had no power to disobey". (Griffen Lepel, Ranjit Singh p.91)
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