Unexpected boating

If you happen to talk about old Madras to someone who was around during the 1960s and 1970s, they would most probably have a story to tell about how they went boating in the Cooum in those days. Heck, I would spin a tale too, about how I used to see the boathouses along the river, with boats tied up, waiting for a good bunch of people to gather before being taken out for a spin. But somehow, I haven't had, or heard, of any boats on the Adyar river.

It has been a very long time since a boat has been seen on any of Chennai's waterways. Looking out from one of the office buildings in MRC Nagar, overlooking the northward curve of the Adyar river, I noticed what seemed to be a right regular ferry service. On the eastern bank, a spit of land almost fords the river. But it still leaves the river too broad (and likely too deep) to walk across, while also being too narrow to contemplate a kind of permanent connecting structure.

The ferry service - more like a skiff, with a couple of planks thrown together and supported by a crossbeam - can handle only 2 or 3 passengers at a time. But hey, the crossing can be done in less than a minute, and so there not going to be many complaints from those waiting!

Keeping time

This post has been in the making for about a year. Knowing that the centenary celebrations  of the Women's Christian College were going to be this year, I had hoped to time this post with the kick-off of those festivities. But 7/7, the date on which the college was founded in 1915, came and went and the blog remained un-updated. And then it had to wait until the next symmetric date came along, didn't it? 

The WCC was established by Eleanor McDougall, who came to India in 1915. There does not appear to have been any reason for her to come to Madras other than to se up a college for women. The plans for the college must have been very much in place; McDougall was possibly the final piece in the jigsaw of setting it up. Within a week the college had its motto ("Lighted to Lighten"), its crest, (with sunflowers, a lit lamp and the motto) and its song. Of these, only the song appears to have been changed in the last century, the rest continuing to be the identity of the college. 

The missing part, in July 1915, was a campus. The college conducted its classes at rented premises for the first year. But even before the anniversary, on July 5, 1916, the college moved to Doveton House, on the banks of the Cooum, where it has remained since. Eleanor McDougall's work is remembered in this clock tower, donated by her brother Charles in 1937, when she was in her final year as the Principal. It stands right outside the Doveton House; having marked time over the past seven decades, it can be forgiven for being a couple of hours ahead of what the time is!

Cleaning guard

Going merely by this picture, there is not much to guard around here, but for the flotsam deposited on the banks of the Cooum by the high tide. This building is however the Regional Headquarters (East) of the Indian Coast Guard, a force that is the fourth arm of the country's defence. Tasked with protecting the seas between 5 and 30 nautical miles from the coastline, the Coast Guard does it through their 1,200 officers and over 5,000 personnel, based at 42 stations around the coast.

The RHQ at Chennai is not the largest; its jurisdiction starts from just a little bit on the west coast - the village of Poovar in Kerala to Ichchapuram in Andhra Pradesh. It is handled by two District Headquarters and six Stations, with air support being provided by the base at Chennai and an Air Enclave at Visakhapatnam.

In spite of all that, one wishes the Coast Guard would do something about the junk that is piled up. Not just because of the calls for Swachh Bharat, but also because one of the stated responsibilities of the force is "To preserve & protect the marine environment and control marine pollution"!

Daily cleaning

Every day, the tide comes in. And every day, the tide goes out. Each flow of the tide moves a lot of sand and silt. The motion of the sea waters off the Chennai coastline causes the sand to gather along the Marina, having been pulled away from further north. 

Of course it is a problem if the sand blocks up the mouth of the Cooum. There is a permanent effort to keep the sandbars away from the path of the river waters. A couple of dozers and a backhoe-loader-digger are stationed at the northern end of the Marina beach to ensure they carry out the clearing operations in time.

They can't stay there when the tide comes in. Every evening, like some beasts from an industrial age, they go away to roost, moving up above the tide line and then returning to their foraging grounds in the morning!

Nearer river

A city needs rivers to survive and to thrive, and today's Chennai has the Adyar, the Cooum, the Otteri nullah and the Buckingham Canal. The last named is a man-made creation, but more of that elsewhere. In 1639, when Francis Day and his boss Andrew Cogan were negotiating with the Nayak of Poonamallee for a lease-hold on the beach, they used the Cooum as the southern boundary of the area they wanted. On the east, the Bay of Bengal limited their territory. The northern end was not so well defined - there probably was an existing settlement which couldn't be encroached upon. To the west, there was a river, one that is not often remembered today.

The River Elambore was closer to the 'factory' established by the British East India Company. But over the years, it has lost its identity and, in the early 19th century, it became a part of the Buckingham Canal - and in today's maps, it is described as a loop of the Cooum rather than a river by itself.

This picture was taken along the Flagstaff Road, and it shows the river flowing in from the west, forming the northern border of the Island Grounds.

Old boathouse

The campus of the Women's Christian College in Nungambakkam sits on the southern bank of the Cooum. In days past, some of the colleges in the city had the practice of inter-collegiate classes. It is said that students from the Queen Mary's College, on the Marina, would come over to the WCC for some practical classes.

Even during the mid-50s, this practice of mixed classes continued. And it was not only from the QMC that students came; students of the Presidency College, also on the Marina, had a few classes jointly with the WCC students. The classrooms alternated each week, so the students would have got know both campuses fairly well. 

The easiest mode for students from both Presidency and QMC to come to the WCC campus was by boat. Even though the QMC was a bit of a way away from the river, that was apparently the favoured mode of transport. Presidency College, being closer to the river, would have had an easier time, even if they had to go against the flow to reach the WCC. At the WCC itself, there seems to have been a boathouse for the students to shelter in. It has been a long time since boats moved on the Cooum. It is therefore a wonder that the boathouse, unused for a long time, continues to remain standing inside the WCC campus!

Pass-through

At the north-eastern end of Napier Bridge is this obelisk, which, until a few days ago, was a mystery to me. It has a masonry base - and the entire structure is brick and mortar itself. The base has no indication of what it is for; as if to tease the curious passerby, there is a rectangular indentation in the base which makes it appear as if there was an intent to have a plaque there, but that the idea has been dropped and no one has bothered to fill up the space, or to finish up the rest of the column itself.

The structure seems to date back a long way. An early picture of the bridge, said to have been taken in the 1890s, shows the obelisk at its end. When I posted a picture of it a few years ago, I had tried to get the column in its entirety. It was only a few days ago that I realised I had missed the most important aspect of this structure. The thin metal rod topping the masonry.

The Napier Bridge - named for Francis Napier, the 10th Lord Napier, who was Governor of Madras between 1866 and 1872. It was during his tenure that this bridge, to connect Fort St George with the sandy strip of beach to its south, was built. At that time, there was no concrete to build a bridge with; the strongest material for such purposes was iron, and that was what was used to make a sturdy bridge. Although its concrete replacement came over 70 years ago, the Napier Bridge is still referred to as Iron Bridge. In the days when the bridge lived up to its name, the biggest threat it faced was from lightning strikes during the monsoons. That could only be removed by having a much taller attractor of electric current - and hey, presto, the mystery of the obelisk has been solved!

Second bridge

In the earliest days of the city of Madras - essentially the Fort St George - the main exit from the city would probably have been through the Walajah gate, heading out west to the seat of the Nayaks at  Poonamallee. There would have been less reason to go south; the twin rivers in that direction would have made it even less attractive. But by the early 18th century, the journey to the Mount was a reason for the residents of the Fort to cross two rivers. Bridges were required. The Elambore River was probably the easier to ford; there is a record from 1714 about a "Water-Gate Bridge" between the Fort and the Island. The second bridge, over the Cooum took another two years to be built.

Called the Triplicane Bridge, it appears to have been a rather ill-fated bridge. In 1721, it was damaged by floods. Though it was repaired, repeated floods brought it down. As if nature wasn't enough, la Bourdonnais also brought it down. Between man and nature, the bridge kept falling down and rising up, until the new century came up. In 1805, a new bridge was built. The earlier one(s) never had any formal name(s) - Triplicane Bridge and Island Bridge were variously used, with startling originality. 

The same originality continued into the new century, with the new bridge. Or maybe it was just superstition or sentimentality, for the bridge was named after the patron saint of England. Not just that. It was called the New St George's Bridge, for, in the intervening period, the Water-Gate Bridge had been replaced by St George's Bridge about fifty years earlier. That name continued to be in use for well over a hundred and fifty years. It was only in the late 70s that it was renamed after EVK Ramasamy Naicker, and it is by his name that it continues to be known today - Periyar Bridge!

Cooum Kong

That's the only way to describe this creature depicted on the roof of a temple by the Cooum. For all its incongruity, it looks humanoid enough to scare away some intruders!

A different view

The road along the Cooum just after the Napier Bridge leads to the establishments of the Coast Guard, the Navy - the INS Adyar - and the CISF. Also along the road are residential quarters for officers of the Chennai Port. With so many government establishments along the way, signs and barriers - not to mention the odd security guard as well - make one nervous about pulling out a camera anywhere on that stretch.

But the view from the end of the road gives you a fair approximation of what the Madras coast must have looked like in olden days. The sandy beach runs south for a fair distance. The buildings of the University of Madras, government offices along the coast, the TV tower and the multi-super-speciality hospital in the distance... that's quite an unusual view if you are not a resident of the naval quarters.

The Cooum was still - as it is most of the time - and therefore looking deceptively calm. It was reflective of the lazy Sunday morning that it was!

Side gate

By the 1970s, the only college on College Road was the Women's Christian College. So it was natural for me to assume that the road was named after that institution. However, the road was named so much before 1915, which was when the WCC was founded. Even a century before that, this area housed the College of Fort St George. That was started in 1812, with the singular purpose of teaching the Fort's clerks the languages of south India. 

That college was important enough for the Governor of Madras to visit it regularly. Although it sounds rather improbable today, His Excellency could choose to reach the college either by road, or, in a more leisurely fashion, by boat. Yes, the Cooum (to the right of this picture) runs by the college. A clear, silver stream, with the shade of the trees on its banks - who would not like to cruise on such a river! 

To receive the Governor, any old gate would not do. And so this arched entry for the Governor's carriage. It certainly adds a touch of class to this part of the road even today, despite some uninspired restoration effort. Only that there is no more a college that is inside these premises - this gateway takes you to the Directorate of Public Instruction and the offices of the Tamil Nadu Textbook Society. Not really the stuff for a governor to pay attention to. And with the median blocking a direct entrance through the arch, one would have to be satisfied with ducking in by a quick turn into the gate!

5 Roads and a bridge

One of the bridges across the Cooum. This one connects Pantheon Road to Moores Road; taken from the College Road bank of the Cooum, the picture shows the new building of the Radisson Blu hotel on Ethiraj Salai. Of course, the hotel wasn't there in the late '70s, which was when I first went on this bridge. There used to be a boat-house, with boats in it, on the Greames Road bank of the river. 

The boat house is still there, very much worse for the wear. The boats, of course, have long gone. 

Auto rebirth

Chennai's auto rickshaws are constantly taking a bad rap, that almost nobody pays any attention to one aspect I believe they are way ahead in. Granted, my data is sketchy, at best. But from what I have seen, these vehicles are maintained quite well; one would not feel repulsed at say, dirt or rust or any such inconvenience inside an auto rickshaw. I have not heard anyone complain about this either, so I believe I am justified in generalising. 

A walk along the West Cooum River Road in Chintadripet would help you swallow that generalised premise. On any day, there would be anywhere between 200 and 300 auto rickshaws along the river side. The shops there specialise in getting the vehicles ready for their 'FC': the Fitness Certificate from the RTO that has to be revalidated at least once in 2 years. Some shops do only frames; others do the engines. There are shops dedicated to decals. Paint jobs. Electricals. In short here is the place to come to if you would like your auto rickshaw to take on a new life.

There are quite likely different ways of taking on 'new life' and I am sure these shops will create such new identities as well. With Pudupet - the hub of stolen motorcycles - just across the river, it is difficult to keep such ideas away. But no, we shall start the week on a positive note - and here's wishing your auto ride today is pleasant!

A bridge too far

From a conference room on Swami Sivananda Salai - that was Adam's Road, once upon a time - it is a beautiful view of the Chennai shoreline, even if its view to the south is blocked by various buildings. And as with any view of the sea, this one is also so very peaceful and unchanging that it is easy to stand gazing at it and forget time passing by.

Luckily there are a couple of distractions: the Napier Bridge, with its six bows strung across the Cooum, the sandbar blocking the river's mouth as it empties into the Bay of Bengal, the shacks in the foreground, put up to house the labourers working at the new Assembly complex - there is enough to yank the eye away from the ships on the Madras Roads.

Even then, the windows of the conference room had a band of opaque glass running through the bottom quarter. Else, nobody in the room would pay too much attention to what is going on inside - it is far more inviting to pay attention to the outdoors!

The final bend

That's what it is, the River Cooum turing due east as it heads out to the Bay of Bengal, marking the end of its 65-km run. During the past few days, there has been some renewed interest in the project to beautify Cooum, what with the Deputy Chief Minister reiterating the government's committment to not only beautify, but also restore the river to its glory days.

In those glory days, boating was quite common on the Cooum. Although there have been no boats for quite a long while now, skeletons of the boat houses are still around - you can see one on the right, just over the wall. It is rather surprising to see them standing even today!

River mouth

At its northern end, just after the MGR and the Anna Memorials, the mouth of the Cooum marks the 'public' limit of the Marina Beach. Not that the public flock to see the river meeting the Bay of Bengal. It is rather dull, but that is only to be expected. The Cooum, at the end of its 65 km run, is weighed down by all the muck that has been poured into it (mostly along its last 16 km within Chennai city) and is barely moving along, more sludge than water.

For maybe just a couple of days in the year, the waters of the Cooum would be racing to the Bay of Bengal. That happens when (and if) the storm water drains do their job during the monsoons. There are 16 canals which collect the runoff from those drains and pour it into the Cooum (and to the other waterways of Chennai - the Adayar River and the Otteri Nullah), en route to the Bay of Bengal. Works well in theory; but with Chennai being quite a flat city, any blockage of the drains will cause the city to flood up.

One of the largest potential blockage points has been the silting - and sedimenting - of the Cooum's mouth. Though it is sometimes cleared up during the monsoon by the sea, most of the time, the waves deposit sediments which clog up the mouth. October is normally the month when the authorities clear up the mouth - and other passages. Let's hope they do it well enough for us to have a flood-less monsoon!

The house by the river

By some quirk of history, the Southern Command of the Indian Army is headquartered at Pune, in Maharashtra. Apart from the four southern states, Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat (!!) also come under the Southern Command. It is not only the largest Command geographically, but also the 'senior-most'; the latter arising from the fact that Surat (in Gujarat), the site of the East India Company's first 'factory' in India, falls under this Command.

The two Area Headquarters under the Southern Command are at Mumbai and Chennai. Needless to say, the one at Chennai covers the four southern states - in army shorthand, it is ATNK & K Area. The ranking officer becomes the General Officer Commanding in Chief for the Area HQ. Of course, the GOC-in-C has a very nicely appointed house to live in; across the road is a sign that could well have become gibberish to the civilian had they insisted on putting in the 'GOC-in-C' bit also - it would have read "ATNK & K Area GOC-in-C, Flagstaff House"

That the Flagstaff House is on the banks of the Cooum is certainly a disadvantage, but one that can easily be borne by Maj. Gen. EJ Kochekkan, the current occupant. A lifelong armyman, he's certainly not going to be put off, no matter how many mosquitoes try to raid his residence!


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Boating on the river

Close to its source, it is associated with godliness; two temples to Lord Shiva, going back to the 10th century CE, were built to take advantage of the clear waters of this river. From there the river travels about 65 km in its search for the sea and has had the ill-luck of choosing a path that takes it through the city of Chennai. Entering the city close to Koyambedu, the Cooum which until then followed a reasonably straight course, twists and bends, almost trying to go out of the city; the city goes with it, though - Arumbakkam, Anna Nagar, Aminjikarai, Nungambakkam, Chetpet, Egmore, Chindadripet, Park Town - all of them coming up along the Cooum's course for various reasons.

Until about 25-30 years ago, Cooum was pleasant; the tourism department maintained boat houses at various points along the river and they were actually used. Even then, some warning noises were being made. A study in 1975 showed that the number of fish species in the river had dropped to less than half, from 49 in the early fifties, to 21. But nobody cared and the city of Madras continued to pour its filth, sewage and industrial effluents into the Cooum, believing she'd be able to bear all of it and more. Over the past decades, she has given up and is today a stagnant cesspool, an embarrassing reminder of the Chennai-ite's unconcern and a potential health-hazard to anyone who ventures too close to it.

There is hope, however. If you want your voice to be heard in support of reviving the Cooum, please speak up at 'Cooum Subbasin Restoration & Management'; this website is expected to provide updates on the progress of the latest World Bank funded 'IAMWARM' project, specific to the revival of the Cooum. I hope that we will once again see the boat house in this photo filled with people, very soon!