| | This paper is an account of the services of the Church of England Zenana Mission Society in
Trivandrum during the period 1864 to 1964 based on two documents, The Land of the
Conch Shell by Augusta M Blandford, the founder of the mission at Trivandrum and an
unpublished document prepared by another missionary D Taylor, who joined the mission in
1964. The two narratives tell the story of a school, built brick by brick and, together form a
corpus that gives valuable insights into the making of colonial modernity in a small
principality in the south of India. Much can be gained by looking at individuals of minor
import, like Blandford and Taylor, whose writings provide valuable archival material for
learning interventions in the field of religion in the project of Orientalism. This kind of
enquiry, termed "microhistory" is an important component of "new history"
and has proved to be of immense value to feminist studies.
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