Top cop the first

A couple of days ago, I was wondering about the first Indian to be the mayor of ChennaiMadras. By some coincidence, I came across this photo of the first Indian to have become the Commissioner of Police of Madras. Both those appointments were from roughly the same time-frame; T. Vijayaraghavacharya served as mayor of Madras in 1916, while the first Indian top-cop of the city took charge in 1919. 

Pasupuleti Parankusam Naidu was born in 1867. When he was 20, he joined the service of the Government of Madras as a clerk in the Water-works Department. But it appears that the young Parankusam was fascinated by the police force, and after three years of dealing with waterworks, he goes off and joins the police. Even if it was at probably the lowest level of the cadre, he was now an officer - a 4th Grade Inspector of Police. Over the next twenty years, he appears to have served with distinction (though I've not been able to access any official records), and in 1911, we see him as the Deputy Commissioner of Police. 

And then, the wait seems to have gone on for a while. Parankusam Naidu's next promotion was in 1919, when he broke the white-plaster ceiling to be the first Indian Commissioner of the city's police force. The Dewan Bahadur title came later, most probably after he retired from service. When that was, or what Parankusam Naidu did subsequently seems to be a mystery even the Chennai Police might shy away from!

 

Dedicated service

Quick, who was the first woman sheriff of Madras? For all I know, she may have been the only woman sheriff of Chennai ever. That is Padma Vibhushan Mary Clubwala Jadhav, one of the city's most revered social workers and an early member of the Guild of Service, which is arguably the country's oldest voluntary service organization. She was born in Ooty in 1909 and died in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1975. The years in between were mostly spent in Madras, where she became the moving spirit and the visible face of the Guild of Service. 

By the time of India's independence, the Guild of Service was an organisation of formidable repute: Rajendra Prasad, India's first President also became the Guild's Patron-in-Chief; over the years, that almost became an ex-officio position. As she tried to move social work from being "time-pass" into a structured, systematic activity. As much as the Guild opened up areas such as refugee rehabilitation, care for the destitute, foundling homes and such like, Mary Clubwala Jadhav also emphasised the need for a feeder system. That was how the Madras School of Social Work came to be established. 

Recognition came regularly; in 1935 she was appointed Honorary Presidency Magistrate for Madras, responsible for the Juvenile Court, a position that she held for the rest of her life, being re-appointed 15 times. In 1946, the Government of Madras nominated her to the Legislative Council, which they did again in 1952 and in 1954. In 1956, she was appointed the Sheriff of Madras, thereby becoming the first woman Sheriff of the city, to go with the honour of having been the first woman to be Honorary Presidency Magistrate. When she received that position, in 1935, she was but 26 years old. But that should not be surprising; though the Guild of Service was founded by Mrs Waller (the wife of Bishop Waller), it is said that Mary "joined hands with her" in starting it. The Guild dates its origin to 1923; it is unlikely that a 14-year old could be instrumental in its inception. Even so, given her dedication to the Guild, it is no wonder that she went on to receive the MBE from the British; the Padma Vibhushan came much later, in 1975, the same year that she passed away - still in service!

Planter man

The slopes of the hills at Vagamon, in Kerala's Idukki district, were favoured by the British for cultivating tea. Among the several estates there was the Pasuparai Estate, covering a bit over 300 hectares. In 1925, these estates were bought from the British by Alfred Vedam Thomas, who took it as a challenge to prove that an Indian could be as good a planter as any of the Britishers. He must have been good at his work, for the company he founded, AV Thomas & Company has grown to be a diversified group today, with interests in varied sectors.

When young Thomas bought the plantation, it was part of the Madras Presidency and it was natural for the company to be headquartered at the city. Over time, the majority of AVT Group's plantation operations have moved to Kerala; the Group also runs factories for food ingredients and natural extracts in Kochi. The corporate office continues to be in Chennai, making this one of the few 'Malayalee' business groups in the city. 

This bust of AV Thomas is inside a conference hall in the corporate office. 124 years after his birth on this day, he continues to oversee the businesses that carry on in his name!

Old world

It is one of the remnants of a time when hotels were supposed to be a "home away from home". Charming, with many of the minor niggles that every home has - paint flaking off from a part of the wall, a drip that can be stopped only by gagging it with a dishcloth, or those ketchup stains on the carpet from that awesome party, which no amount of scrubbing can get rid of. Such things may have been cute a couple of generations ago; unfortunately, Madras Hotel Ashoka is still stuck in that calendar. 

There are a couple of things from that age which are worth staying at this hotel for. One of course is the chance that you get one of the better rooms, with space enough to host a ball. The feeling of space is heightened by the property - the lawns not actually manicured, but kind of spiffed up and the trees channeling the breeze into your room.

And the restaurant. That's something that no one can complain about, not even travellers who might have spotted something that shouldn't have been in their rooms. Madras Hotel Ashoka has positioned the entry to the property in such a way that it is Abhinandan, the restaurant that you are taken directly to. In a way that is okay, for the majority of visitors seem to be Chennai-ites going over for a quick bite or a leisurely lunch!

Merry Christmas

That's the spire of the Egmore Wesley Church - in 2015, it will celebrate its 110th anniversary. The stylized six-pointed star on its steeple could refer to any of several symbols associated with such stars. For today, however, we shall think of it as the Star of Bethlehem, shall we?

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Four-in-one

In the annexe to the Art Gallery at Chennai, there are a few paintings of the British Governors of Madras. They are not arranged in any particular order and there are four of them put together in one corner of the first floor. 

Here they are, from left to right: Field Marshal George Hay, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale (1842-48), Lord Harris (1854-59), Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier and 1st Baron Ettrick (1866-72) and Robert Bourke, 1st Baron Connemara (1886-90). 

What happened to those who held office in between these gentlemen's regimes? Some of them have their paintings hung at the Fort Museum - and there are probably others whose tenures were eminently forgettable - maybe their paintings have been turned away to face the wall somewhere! 

Animal Farm

It was the last performance of "Animal Farm", performed by the Madras Players and the Stray Factory, at the Museum Theatre today. Had great seats (for a change) and so had a good time watching the performance!

Stoned

Chennai has been seeing non-stop rains since Friday; of course the streets are all flooded and the schools have been closed - and it looks like the rain will continue into the next couple of days as well. 

It was probably worse 20 million years ago in this part of the world. During the Mio-Pilocene age, there were severe floods - and probably some volcanic explosions as well. The forests south of modern-day Chennai were washed away and many of the trees ended up around Thiruvakkarai, about 175km away from Chennai. Over the eons, the trees were fossilised and turned to stone. Roughly 200 such fossilised tree-trunks can be seen today at the National Fossil Wood Park in Thiruvakkarai.

One of the chunks was brought over to Madras and placed on display at the Museum. It remains there, open to nature - I guess if it has been weathered over 20 million years, a couple of centuries more or less would not matter. This display, along with the skeleton of a whale, is the first memory I have of the museum's exhibits. Next time you are there, do look out for this - it is quite easy to miss!

The other leg

The focal point of the bronze gallery at the Chennai Government Museum is the Natesha at the far end of the ground floor. But that is not the only statue of Siva as the dancer. One half of the first floor of the bronze gallery is given over to a display of about a dozen Nataraja idols. Despite all the irritants in getting a proper view of them, this is something that everyone should have on their must-see list. 

The Natarajas range in antiquity from sprightly 500-year olds to more solemn 1100-year olds. They have been collected mostly from Madurai and Thanjavur; with one or two from Nagapattinam, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallore. They are wonderful examples of Chozha bronzes, prized by collectors the world over. There are several more such, which continue to be present in their temples and shrines, being used as objects of worship even today. The ones in the museum were recovered from their hiding places; they were hidden from rapacious invaders and very often forgotten for centuries before turning up on a farmer's ploughshare. 

They are much sought after by "collectors" the world over and have attracted unscrupulous middlemen, who think nothing of bribing, threatening or browbeating temple-guards in remote villages and spiriting away similar idols across the world. One of the most notorious of such antique smugglers, Subhash Kapoor (who is now in the Puzhal prison, facing trial) had managed to get several of them out, over several years, selling them not just to secretive or unscrupulous collectors, but bizarrely, even to the National Gallery of Australia. That last one is now on its way back, but many of the others would remain out of reach. The returning Nataraja is 900 years old and is in the regular posture, with its left leg raised. It is reportedly worth $5.6 million. Imagine what this one, from the 9th century CE, in a rare posture of raising the right leg, would be worth - at least now, go take a look at it!

Rust and ruin

These gateposts mark what was once upon a time an entrance to the palace of the Maharaja of Cochin. While the post on the right shows the Maharaja's ownership with the words "The Cochin House", the one on the left bears a plaque saying "Tullock's Gardens". They would have been put up when the Maharaja bought the property from Tullock, whoever he was.

The property was itself part of a much larger expanse, that of Dr. James Anderson. Over time, it seems to have been acquired by someone named Halliburton, for a map in 1822 marks it as such. A few years later, in 1837, another map names it Tullock's Gardens, or, as  Henry Davidson Love, writing about this, says ,"Tulloch's Gardens". Was it a printer's devil in Love's work (for the gatepost very clearly shows the 'k' in the name)? Or, was it a stonecutter's devil, with the mason mishearing the last letter?

Whatever that be, little evidence of Tullock or the Maharaja remains today. A small part has been given to the Asan Memorial Association. Kerala Tourism has set up a hotel in one corner of the property. However, most of the Maharaja's property is today used for housing policemen, with those quarters having been constructed many decades ago. They are not all rust, but certainly given an appearance of being a ruin - or getting there very soon!

Rust and ruin around the world can be very aesthetic, if photographed by the CDP bloggers. Go over here and check it out for yourselves!

Nucleus of a garden

This house and grounds have not changed since the time I first saw them as a school-kid, over 30 years ago. But in the 220 years or so since Dr. James Anderson built his house, the property has undergone several changes - and a lot of shrinkage. Dr. Anderson landed up in Madras in 1761, having completed his MD from Edinburgh, looking for a fortune in the territory of Fort St George. It took him a few years to be appointed as the Company's Assistant Surgeon at the Fort; that was in 1765 and over the next couple of decades, he rose to become the Physician General at Fort St George.

Dr. Anderson was keenly interested in botany. He set up the first botanical gardens in India, a 2-acre plot in Saidapet. That was not merely a hobby; the garden, more specifically called a nopalry, was intended to rear cochineal insects, whose secretions of carminic acid were the basic ingredient for carmine dye (used today in lipsticks and food colouring). These insects are native to South America, which meant that Spain controlled much of the carmine market; a situation unacceptable to the East India Company, which is why Dr. Anderson's nopalry was funded by them. The nopal cacti (g. Opuntia) are the cochineals' preferred hosts and with the nopalry, the East India Company was (probably) able to break the Spanish monopoly. 

With that, Dr. Anderson was as close to royalty within the East India Company. It was therefore no surprise that he was given a 110-acre grant of land in Nungambakkam. That grant covered the land between the Nungambakkam edge of the long tank - what today is Pycroft's Gardens - and extended all the way to the banks of the Cooum. (I am being a bit fanciful here, as I haven't really looked at any map from those years!). It was in these gardens, that Dr. Anderson built his second botanical garden - this time to grow mulberry bushes and silkworms. This was not as successful as the nopalry had been. Very early in the 19th century, Edward Clive (the 2nd Baron Clive) then Governor of Madras, had all the mulberry and silkworms packed off to Mysore - a move that over time led to Mysore being the home of sericulture research in India.

After Dr. Anderson's death in 1809, Anderson's Gardens was fragmented and acquired by various Company notables. This house, named after the man, on the road named after him, became part of the estates of the State Bank of India. Today, it lies in poor condition, used as dumping ground for the bank's furniture. A sad state of affairs for this house - to be overrun by worms and insects other than the ones its original owner grew!

For other school-kids who passed that way with me: No. Cochineal insects had nothing to with Cochin House being just a couple of hundred metres away.

Further light

The Government Museum in Chennai has a very eclectic collection of artefacts. From the crocodile that was found in the Cooum to a schoolboy's toy bus claiming to be a model of the MTC buses, the collection has something in it for everyone.

The pride of the museum, however, has to be its bronze gallery. Even if it is only they who say it, no one would dare to counter their claim that the museum has the largest collection of such antique metal under one roof. The gallery is home to over 1,500 pieces, the huge majority of them representing Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Roughly a hundred of the pieces are Jain and Buddhist; the remainder are a bewildering mix of periods, schools and sources. Having been the Presidency Museum, it was the place where any kind of uncommon object was sent out to from anywhere in the Presidency. 

The pièce de résistance of the bronze gallery is this figure of Siva performing his cosmic dance. All the other pieces in the gallery are enclosed in glass cases. The beautiful Ardhanarisvara image, set on a revolving base, grabs your attention as soon as you enter. There are several others that hold you spellbound. But taking a picture is a challenge, thanks to be intervening layers of glass and the reflections therefrom. The idol of Siva, set on a raised stage at the far end of the gallery, has its special background. With no glass covering it, visitors can marvel at this wonderful figure from the 12th century CE; and no, it is not called the Nataraja, or "King of the Dance". Given the intense feelings it brings out in anyone who passes by, it seems more meaningful to call him what is a greater title - Natesha, the "God of the Dance"!

What about the spelling?

This is a restaurant that my father remembers from a long, long time ago. Maybe it is not the same restaurant, because he sets it as being on Mount Road, close to the LIC Building and this  Kwality Restaurant is on Montieth Road. The memory comes from the way its name is spelt, so the location is not so important.

About four decades ago, he had popped across from his place of work for a chai and probably a smoke as well. The restaurant was not crowded and he saw someone a few tables away. He looked familiar, but it took a while for dad to place him. And when he did, he rushed across to shake hands with Sir Vidia - then just plain Mr. Naipaul.

After chatting a bit about "A House for Mr. Biswas", "A Flag on the Island" and "In a Free State", dad ventured to ask him about the food. He is still wondering about Mr. Naipaul's reply:  "As good as the spelling"!

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. 

Eye temple

What does it take to become an 'institution'? A sense of purpose, for starters. And the stick-to-it-iveness to ensure that the zeal does not falter. For Sankara Nethralaya, the first was clear: to bring world class eye care to India. Since 1978, they have been doing just that, and along the way, they have been bestowed with several awards: 'Best Eye Hospital in India', 'Business Superbrand', 'Social Enterprise of the Year', 'Best Managed Charitable Organization' are some of them. 

Is there a contradiction? A 'business superbrand' from a 'charitable organization'? The efficiency with which Sankara Nethralaya is run is vastly different from the majority of charity organizations. True, they are backed by some of the biggest names in India, but that backing has been hard earned and well deserved. Sankara Nethralaya sees about 500,000 patients every year and performs about 40,000 surgeries. Patients come from all over India, as well as from neighbouring countries. In fact, this hospital has had to set up an exclusive, dedicated information centre at the Chennai Central Railway Station, because there are quite a number of people who just get on to a train and come to Chennai, knowing that the Nethralaya would not turn them away merely because they did not think about making an appointment. 

Over the years, the charitable organization has also become reputed for its academic excellence, offering Fellowship programmes in a few opthalmic super-specializations. It has also expanded beyond this campus in Chennai. Apart from a couple of other satellite centres in Chennai, Sankara Nethralaya is now present in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Rameswaram and Tirupathi. The CU Shah Eye Bank, set up in 1979, is a pioneer in driving eye donations across the country (here's the link, if you wish to sign up!). With so much happening at this institution, it truly lives up to its 'Nethralaya' - 'Temple of the Eye' - name!

Here and there

This is a hotel caught in some kind of a time warp. The property itself was developed by R. Velayuthan, whose claim to fame was that he was married to KR Vijaya, a popular actress of the 1970s. Velayuthan invested his wife's earnings into building this hotel, which opened in the late 1970s. Riding on the crest of her popularity, Hotel Sudarshan, as it was then called, became quite a popular hangout, more so with the 'filmi' crowds visiting Chennai.

As with several similar ventures, the promoters were unable to sustain the business and within a decade, Hotel Sudarshan was in the doldrums. Velayuthan managed to find a buyer, the Narangs, who brought it into the fold of their Ambassador brand in 1986. The Narangs for some reason don't seem to be paying as much attention to this property as they should, banking on a regular clientele to support them.

And that clientele does. Not just because the rooms here are far larger than most others in the city. Not just because the service is a little more personalized than that at other hotels. But more so because, as this site for a wedding a couple of weeks ago says, there is an association with things past, an association that will probably take a couple of generations to change!

Birthplace of 'Ob-Gyn'

INTACH's guide on Madras' architecture says the buildings are "Laid out in the shape of the female pelvis". Several sorties overhead on Google Maps does not show me any resemblance - no wonder I did not become an architect. There is however another story, of one of the early chiefs describing the building's layout in anatomical terms. Those flights of fancy are understandable, for the Government Hospital for Women and Children, (at first known as Lying-in Hospital) was the first specialised maternity hospital in India (and probably in Asia) and its early superintendents were doubtless eager to link that speciality with everything in sight.

Today, the hospital clocks around 18,000 births every year, but in its first year, it barely reached the three-figure mark. That was in 1844, when the hospital was situated nearer the River Cooum than it currently is. It was only in 1882 that the present buildings were occupied - thanks to the efforts of Sir Arthur Mudge Branfoot, KCIE, who was then a Surgeon of the Madras Medical Service. In 1921, the teaching block came up, named after Maj. Gen. G.G. Giffard, who had presided over the hospital's expansion between 1905 and 1917.

The hospital was also the birthplace of the Obstetric and Gynaecological Society of Southern India - and, in 1936 played host to the first ever national Ob-Gyn Congress, held at the Museum Theatre, just next door. With such an impressive heritage, it should be no surprise that the hospital boasts of a 120% bed-occupancy rate even today!

Missing the 'I'

A few years ago, some additions were made to the Chennai Egmore station, on its western side. They were the latest in a series of additions that were made to the buildings of this station, which traces its origins to more than a century ago. In those days - the station was opened in 1908 - it is said to have cost Rs.17 lakh to build and between Henry Irwin (the designer) and Samynada Pillai (the builder), they managed to work in some Dravidian elements into the structure. The original lobby and porch on the eastern side thus set a pattern which was not broken in the later additions to the buildings, in the 1930s as well as in the 1980s.



The newest addition, on the western side also remains largely true to the original style of construction. But if you've ever glanced up at the bas-relief crest on the eastern side, you'll notice a difference here. On the western side, the builders have strayed just a little bit. While they have retained the elephant motif of the eastern face - that was probably part of the logo of the South Indian Railway - but they have been unfaithful to the letters. The 'I', which is present in the older version (though painted over to merge with the background, now) is missing here.



Maybe that's the way it should be - future generations can argue about how the S.I.R. became the S.R. - and that's a story for another post!

The mall that wasn't

For an old timer - a Madrasi - if I dare say it, of my generation, there was only one mall to hang out in during school years. Spencer's was for the oldies and was too forbidding to even contemplate 'hanging out'. So it was this place; by the standards of today's malls, Fountain Plaza would be declared a danger zone and contemporary mall designers would not hesitate to lay into anyone who insists on calling Fountain Plaza a 'mall'. However, nothing they say or do can deny Fountain Plaza (FP)'s place in Chennai's shopping history. It was the place to go for those who were too pretentious - or too far away - to visit Ranganathan Street for its bargains. FP had three long rows, with shops on either side, all of them opening out into an open air eatery: food court, if you will. While the first two rows were given over to rather reasonably sized outlets, the 'side street' was far narrower and the shops resembled rat-holes more than sales counters.

FP had its own charm. Madras has always been accused, rather unfairly, of being a city where no one understands Hindi. Anyone who has shopped at FP will not bear witness for such claims. That was one of the places in Chennai where Tamizh seemed to be a foreign language; and so it was exotic, to shop for north Indian fashions, gaze at the Hindi movie posters and video casettes and finally treat oneself to a 'chaat item' at Ajnabee. If you were not the shopping type, you could just walk into Jimmy's and clunk down 50p coin after 50p coin trying to outlast the Space Invaders, win at Race Car or any other such arcade game as took your fancy. In short, it was Ranganathan Street in Hindi, with a dash of the US of A thrown in at random.

On a recent Sunday, FP seemed a ghost of what it was a generation ago. Most shops had changed - and worse, were closed on Sunday. The eatery was empty. A couple of cars rolled into the parking lot, and rolled out again, bemused drivers trying to find a place that they passed by twenty years ago!

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!