Chinese dentistry

Walking along Evening Bazaar Road, you might not be taken aback at this sign. After all, Madras has always attracted visitors and quite a few of them have made this city their own. But now you start looking at these signs more closely. You find that Thou and Jennifer are not the only Sens in the game; Christopher is a short distance away. More competition comes in the form of Dr. Peter Chen, whose name when written in Tamizh, is the same as 'Sen'. There is also Dr.Hubert Gerard Hu's Chin Shyn Dental Clinic, with a board dating its origins back to 1933, beating out Drs. Sen & Sen, who started off more than a decade later. But Dr. Thousen's trump card is that he has certification from Beijing, which probably makes him a more authentic Chinese than the others. 

And that is how it should be. Dr.Shieh Thousen will turn 74 this year, and he is the senior-most of the eight Chinese-origin dentists in the area, all of them tracing their roots back to Hubei province, but having grown up in Madras. Dr. Shieh Thousen and his brother (also a dentist, also on the same road) fled Hubei with their father Dr. Say Maw Seng and a few others, fearing communist persecution in pre-WWII China. They landed in Madras via Burma and gravitated towards George Town. Although they weren't registered as dentists then, their treatment worked well for both the locals as well as those passing by. They settled down and grew roots. Dr. Shieh Thousen and his brother went to school, and dental college, in Madras. Their children have also followed that route; Doveton Corrie, Don Bosco, Saveetha, Meenakshi Ammal are the names dropped. 

The fourth generation is now in the business; but then, many of the original families have already moved out of Chennai, both within India and outside, to USA, Australia, Canada or the UK. Others have become 'more integrated', marrying locally and becoming fans of SuperStar or SPB, celebrating Deepavali with gusto. But they apparently still gather together for the Chinese New Year, even if none of them has any memory of celebrating it in Hubei! 

Another LIC building

If this tweet is true (and there is no reason it shouldn't be), there is little change in the Bombay Mutual Building over the past 60 years. The colours are slightly different and it has lost the words identifying it, even though you can spot traces of where they were. The building is a great example of the Art Deco aesthetic of mid-20th century Madras. 

The 'original' occupant of that space, sometime from the 1850s, was the Madras Christian College, which built the Anderson Hall as part of its presence in 'town'. When the college shifted to Tambaram, they seem to have sold, or pledged the Hall to the Travancore & Quilon National Bank in 1937, which at the time was the fourth largest bank in the country. In what should be story for another day, the T&QNB was brought down by a run on the bank, which was allegedly orchestrated by CP Ramaswamy Iyer, the then Diwan of Travancore. For our limited purposes here, this resulted in the Government of Madras auctioning off the Anderson Hall to the Bombay Mutual Insurance Company in 1938. 

After a few years, the BMIC decided it would build a fresh structure here. J.R. Davis, of the architectural firm Prynne, Abbot and Davis, who had designed the facade of the Connemara, as well as the Dare House, provided the design for this building as well. The construction was by Coromandel Engineering and the building was inaugurated by the Governor of Madras in 1955. Within a year, BMIC had been merged into the LIC of India, who are the current owners of this building; hopefully they will preserve it much better than they have done with the Bharat Insurance Building on Mount Road!

One way to enter

Some of the street names in the city sound downright ridiculous. Why would there be a Lake View Road in West Mambalam, or a Tank Bund Road in Nungambakkam, when there is no sight of any waterbody from either of these streets? Ah, you will say, but there was one, once. And you are correct. The Long Tank was filled in during the early years of the 20th century. In fact, some remnants of it existed until the 1960s (if not into the 1970s), so that is somewhat recent memory. 

But what about taxes on walls or gates for elephants? The story of the wall is quite easily told. Madras - which in the latter half of the 18th century meant the expanse to the north and a bit to the west of Fort St George - was coveted by forces who actively hassled the British, chief of who were the French, and Tipu Sultan of Mysore. To provide a measure of protection to the city, the British decided to build a wall around the city. The northern sector went off well enough, but the Company's plan to levy a tax on the citizens to pay for the western stretch ran into opposition and so the wall remained unfinished on that side. 

It is all very well to build a wall to try and keep people out, but there will always be a need to get in, too. Madras had such needs at seven places; one such, along the western wall, was called Elephant Gate. It is tempting to assume that this was a grand entrance through which caparisoned pachyderms lumbered in procession into the city, walking down the Elephant Gate Road; and that was what I had done. But Love's "Vestiges of Old Madras" indicates that this gate led to an Elephant Garden - now, what could that have been for?

Small shop, big deity

According to mythology, Lord Parasurama had to behead his mother on his father's command. Though she was brought back to life immediately after that, the severed head gave rise to the iconography of the representation of Shakti as Renuka. 

In keeping with that tradition, the temple of Renuka Parameshwari depicts the main deity as only the head. There is however, the full-bodied version as well, and also the icons of Kasi Visalakshi along with her consort. 

This temple does not go back very far in history; most accounts talk of it as being just a couple of centuries old. During that period, it has acquired a name that it is more commonly known by - Chinnakadai Mariamman - that I was surprised to find it has more formal name!

Temple of the tortoise

The shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala, in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, has had its share of misfortunes. One such was a deliberate act of desecration and arson in 1950, that left the stone idol severely damaged. A new panchaloha idol was wrought, and before its consecration, it was taken to several parts of the country. During its perambulations, the idol was brought to this temple on Armenian Street - from where, for one reason or another, it could not be taken out for three days. To recall this incident, a shrine to Ayyappa was added within this temple complex, which has Lord Siva as the main deity. 

The temple - the Kachhaleeswarar temple - was constructed in the 1720s, funded by the dubash Kalavai Chetty, who was a devotee of Siva in the form of Kachhabeswarar, the one worshipped by a tortoise. According to mythology, the tortoise was Lord Vishnu, who had assumed that form during the churning of the ocean of milk. The tortoise also forms one of Siva's five seats in this temple; on account of having these five seats, the deity is also referred to as Pancha Vaahana Sivan. 

In ancient times, there was a federation of castes based on their 'handedness'; those engaged in agriculture and related fields were referred to as the 'right-hand castes', while the metal workers and weavers formed the numerically lesser 'left-hand castes'. These divisions continued into the early 20th century; but in Kalavai Chetty's time, it was common for Madras to be wracked by clashes between these castes. And Kalavai Chetty was himself accused of engineering these clashes; but he is today remembered for this temple, rather than for the divisions he attempted!

What's in a name?

You have to be a dubashi to figure out what's awkward with this street's name. Leading off from NSC Bose Road, across the road from the High Court complex, it is quite possible that it could lead to some kind of barracks. No awkwardness, for sure, if you know only English. If you know only Tamizh, you wouldn't be too worried about sign saying "Baker Theru". After all, there are quite a few streets in the city whose Tamizh names sound quite different from their English versions. The big question in this case, however, is about which version is correct. Is it Baker, or Barracks? Or was there a Baker in the Barracks?

Chennai's early history has a few candidates for the 'Baker' in this street; Henry Davidson Love's "Vestiges of Old Madras 1640-1800" lists eleven Bakers in its index. Of those, six are merely name entries, and two are related to one of the more storied Bakers. The first of the remaining three was also the first on another list - in 1652, Aaron Baker took over as the first President of Fort St George - an early attempt at creating a Madras Presidency. The second, Charles Baker, is listed as a 'Civil Servant', with some mention of "his pursuits". But it is the third one who is the likeliest candidate to be the eponym for this street.

That man was Captain George Baker, whose first visit to Madras seems to have been as the captain of the sloop Cuddalore, arriving in the city in 1756. For some reason, this Baker seems to have had a run of stop-gap appointments: his captaincy of the sloop seems to have been because of a heavy death toll at Negrais, Burma and the sloop sailed out of Madras with a new captain (John Howes). Baker seems to have been within a whisker's breadth of being appointed as the Ambassador to the King of Burma before his return from Negrais. The listing of Chennai's mayors lists a Captain George Baker for less than a year (1765-1765) and then again as an interim bearer of the office in 1773. But the reason for his being memorialized in the city is better explained by Sriram here!

Famous merchant

The whole concept of Madras, as you may know, came into being due to the supposed availability of fabrics in the hinterland, which a 'factory' in Madras could exploit. Having started off on this flawed premise, it was necessary to ensure that the city did supply cloth of various kinds. Therefore, it does not seem surprising at all that a Gujarati comes to Madras to set up a business styled as "Benares, Kollegal, Madura Cloth & Musk Merchants". Mani Sunker Davay set up this business in 18... and brought his son into it later. Today, it is run by his descendants, possibly in the same location that the founder conducted his business. For that reason alone, it deserves to be famous.

The kind of cloth that they trade in includes garments designed for ceremonial occasions - veshtis, angavastrams and the like. Benares is of course famous for its silks; Kollegal is well known for its gold-laced cloth, besides its silk weaving. The Gazetteer of South India, sometime in the 1880s, notes that "...some of the silk cloths made here cost as much as Rs.300 each, or even more, according to the gold and silver embroidery...". Madura - with its famous art of making lacework in gold and silver, for the borders of turbans and other cloths. That Mani Sunker traded in such cloth shows off the nature of his clientele. Even today, he is the preferred supplier to famous singers - Sanjay Subrahmanyan being one who swears by Mani Sunker Davay for all his concert wardrobes.

But the most intriguing feature of this board, for me, is its break with 'tradition'. There are many who still refer to this city as 'Madras', refusing to acknowledge its 1996 renaming to Chennai. They all forget the fact that even before 1996, it was very common, if not the standard practice, to use 'Madras' in English versions and 'Chennai' in Tamizh. However, this signboard not only shows the word "Madras" in Tamizh, but has spelt it using a script that was replaced sometime in the 1970s!

Temple benefactors

Going along Mint Street, one will come across several temples; it would be very difficult to see any that is grander than the Chennai Arulmigu Ekambareswarar Temple. As with several of the old temples of the city, this one is also claimed to be more than 500 years old; an intermediate period, which is difficult to confirm or deny. What is possible to confirm is that this temple was in existence in the early 18th century, being important enough to feature in the earliest map of the city, dating circa 1710. 

The more believable version of this temple's origin dates it to the 1680s, when Alangatha Pillai (more about him here), one of the dubashes employed by the East India Company makes a generous contribution to build a temple to his favourite deity, Ekambareswarar. The temple was built close to Fort St George, Alangatha Pillai's workplace. In those days, that part of the world was inhabited by washers and so, it was on Washers Street that Alangatha Pillai's temple came up.

In an earlier post about Alangatha Pillai, I had assumed it was his likeness that was sculpted on the pillar just inside the entrance. Turns out that is of a different gentleman, though, like Alangatha Pillai, he too was a benefactor of the temple. And where is it rather difficult to find any reference to Alangatha Pillai in the temple itself, this person's name is written in large letters on the stone canopy in front of the gopuram - Va Mu Appukutty Chettiar!

All together, now!

In 1958, the Tamil Nadu government got into the business of supplying milk to the citizens of the state, and in 1965 it took control of all the milk producers' co-operatives across the state.  It was much later that it took on a more 'corporate' form, with the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Milk Producers' Federation Limited being formally registered in August 1981. Since then, the TNCMPFL has been marketing its products under the Aavin brand. While it started off with processed milk, today, the brand covers a range of milk products, many of which have been sold through small outlets across the city (and state). 

Aavin has been on a spree of modernisation over the past few months. Old parlours are being refurbished and jazzed up. Play-areas, air-conditioning and brightly lit parlours seem to be the new normal, as Aavin tries to catch up market share in categories like ice-cream, flavoured milk and sweets. In the process, it is also changing a few of the bunks which were the main points of sale for these products. Happened to catch one such bunk in transition - which, by the way, is the 'Theme of the Day' for the city photobloggers today*.

No idea why this Aavin booth had to be moved from wherever it was, but looks like it just needs a few people to transfer it to wherever it has to go to!

*If you would like to see how this theme is interpreted around the world, go here

Deceptive

The advertisement bill catches the eye first. A patch of fluorescent colour on a drab wall in Errabalu Chetty Street, just where it meets Armenian Street. The bill advertises many things, each of which seem to mock the edifice it is pasted on. 

The locked door was certainly new, once. It may well have led into a 3-bedroom house. It is not difficult to imagine a 3-bedroom house with a balcony. There are several early 20th century houses nearby, with balconies overlooking the street. This could have been just one other such.

But really, the brick wall behind the door and the window pane makes a mockery of the door itself. And a ghastly breach of security, one panel of the door has been broken up, providing easy access to the brick wall behind!

Merchant prince

As you walk down Bunder street, you get to see this building, with the fresh coat of paint on its ground floor contrasting with the grey of the first floor. Maybe they have completed painting the entire building in the couple of months since this picture was taken. That would be a pity; the fluting of the straight columns and the arches would be lost, methinks, in the bright colour. The painter has also highlighted the name of the building's first occupant. Adam Hajee Mohomed Sait came to Madras in the first decade of the 20th century, moving here from Cochin on the west coast. Cochin of course was not his 'native place'; he was at best he was second generation there, for he was part of a clan that continues to be known as the Cutchi (or Kutchi) Memons, originally from the Kutch region of Gujarat. 

Mohomed Sait surely moved to Madras to strike out for himself; he started off dealing in tobacco and other commodities and over time his company, Adam Hajee Mohomed Sait & Sons became agents for Kerala Soap Institute, Lipton, Nestle, Parry's confectionery and Britannia biscuits. With business doing well, he bought himself some property in the heart of the city's business district - George Town - and went from strength to strength. Though Cutchi Memons had been in Madras for close to a century by the time of Mohomed Sait's arrival (by some accounts, the first Cutchi Memons had arrived in 1815 and by 1880, the Corporation of Madras had even allocated a separate area for Cutchi Memon cemetery), he was the first of his clan to be accorded the title of "Khan Bahadur" by the British. He also went on to serve as President of the South Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheriff of Madras and also as the Reserve Bank's Director for the Madras Province. 

Although none of his successors seem to have carried on his tradition of public service, the business continues to be run by his family; they have probably moved their residences out of George Town, but the business is headquartered in Bunder Street, in Mohomed Buildings, which was first opened in 1924!

Bombay in Madras

In the 19th century, when India was still a part of the British Empire, native - Indian - lives were considered 'sub-standard' by life insurance companies. The first insurance company in India, Oriental Life Insurance Company, established in 1818, was almost exclusively meant for European lives. With a lot of pressure being brought to bear on them, Oriental and the other insurance companies which started later began to insure Indians. But, no matter what their standing in society, Indians had to pay far higher premiums for their insurance. 

The Bombay Mutual Life Assurance Society was set up in 1870 to combat this prejudice. In that sense, it was the first Indian insurance company. They did not distinguish between native and European lives and therefore managed to carve out a significant market share - apart from prudence, patriotism seemed to have played a major role in helping Bombay Mutual establish itself. In 1953 - the last year for which I have been able to find data for - Bombay Mutual had generated Rs.43,287,250/- worth of new business, with an average sum assured of Rs.2,571.

In 1956, the insurance business was nationalised. By then, Bombay Mutual had already established its presence in Madras, with its headquarters in George Town. Built in the Art Deco style, the building had come up on land that it had acquired from the Madras Christian College, which had by then moved to Tambaram. After insurance nationalisation, the building passed on to the Life Insurance Corporation. Together with its neighbours on NSC Bose Road, the Bombay Mutual Building blends well with its neighbours, showing off the Art Deco heritage of Chennai!

Early buying?

The festival season is upon us. And very soon, we will have to think about shopping for Deepavali fireworks. Here's an idea. Head out to Bunder Street in George Town, that place where everything can be found and try to strike a deal with the wholesale traders. 

Nagoor Crackers may not be the only cracker in town, so make sure you do your research well!

Gone bananas

The name on this building belongs to the second generation of a family that has been in the plantain business for so long - over a century - that the third generation of the family, which runs the business today, is proud of being known as "Vazhaipazhakkarargal" - the banana people. The first generation was the patriarch who started it all. That was Ragavalu Naidu, who began as a gumastha to a Somu Naicker, who was in the plantain trade in George Town in the mid-nineteenth century. 

Ragavalu Naidu's sons, Govindaswamy Naidu and Kanniah Naidu followed him into the trade. The latter was born in 1895, married, had children and then lost his first wife in 1918, and then his second wife in 1926. He married again and his third wife was luckier, living with him well into a ripe old age. However, the business wasn't so lucky. Debts mounted and the firm of Ragavalu Naidu and Sons had to sell their properties and finally the business itself. The elder brother's sons appear to have had no interest in reviving their plantain trade, but Kanniah Naidu was keen to re-start and seems to have done so with his sons. 

Walking down Bunder Street these days, one does not usually have luxury of gazing up and around. But the stalks of the banana flanking the firm's name caught the eyes. The story of the business came from a very quick (and cursory) search on the Internet. I might be wrong, for the search results talk about M.R.Kanniah; but we shouldn't let the facts come in the way of a good story, right?!

Morning paper

Early morning, on Broadway, the newspaper bundles have arrived. The bundles need to be unpacked and re-packaged into smaller units for distribution locally. 

There were about 20 such individuals carrying out the task - that's quite a distribution challenge!

Old building

With the nationalization of the life insurance business, the LIC of India became a monopoly. With that also came the assets of several of the life insurance companies that were doing business in India - almost 250 of them. 

Many of those companies had long histories. Among the oldest was the Oriental Life Insurance Company of Calcutta, which had been started in Calcutta in 1818. With its nationalisation, their buildings were also taken over by the LIC. That's how this lovely building, at the corner of Armenian Street and Errabalu Chetty Street came to have that sign in front, looking quite out of place with the rest of the facade. 

It is often held up as an example of Art Deco in Madras; of course it is from that period, the 1920s, but somehow I think the architect / builder slipped in some Jaipuri-Jaina touches as well. The jalli of the uppermost balcony is, in my mind a giveaway - what do you think?

Wakeup time

Early morning on NSC Bose Road. One of those rare occasions when this road appears peaceful. Usually it is a cataract of humans, vehicles and a few animals as well. What with the Madras High Court on one side and Chennai's serious trading locality of George Town on the other, this road can't be anything but busy. Okay, it was a Sunday, and the traders of George Town were probably having a lie-in!

Witness point

It was in front of this branch of Karnataka Bank, on Thambu Chetty Street, in the early 1980s, that Kanaka the flower-seller would set up her trade in the evenings. Even though the business hours of the branch would have been long over, the flower trade was brisk. Not only the bank staff, as they left for the day, but the various other folks going down Thambu Chetty street would stop and pick up a mozham or five. Like all smart street vendors, Kanaka knew everyone working in the neighbouring offices, their work habits and routines. 

She was therefore a bit surprised when, at about 9 pm on May 20, 1983, she saw Laxmi Raj Shetty, a new and relatively junior employee at the bank (he had joined as a trainee clerk in October 1982 and was confirmed in April 1983) come out alone, lock up the branch and go away. She was even more surprised when she saw him come back after a short while, carrying a suitcase. In to the bank he went, and came out after about half an hour, carrying a couple of bags, the suitcase and a briefcase. Stacking all these on the steps of the bank, he went out to flag an auto, loaded up the luggage into it and went away into the night, ignoring Kanaka's questions about "periya ayya" (senior person). 

The next morning, periya ayya - Gnanasambandam, the bank manager - was found dead in the washroom. Kanaka became a crucial witness in the prosecution of Laxmi Raj Shetty. He was found guilty of murdering Gnanasambandam and robbing about Rs.14 lakhs. The First Additional Sessions Court sentenced him to death, but a High Court bench reduced that to life imprisonment. Not much is known of Laxmi Raj Shetty's life since, but old timers of George Town still recall details of the 'Karnataka Bank Murder Case' as it came to be known!

If you would like more of the details, you can go through the full story here!

Cafe Irani

While Madras did have its share of Parsis and Zoroastrians, they were certainly not as numerous as those of Bombay. Yet, there were enough of them around for these kind of cafes to be recognized as a distinct niche - the Irani cafe. 

They were probably the first 'chain' of cafes. The red-on-white lettering, with nothing else on it but 'Irani', was used by all such cafes. I remember just a few of these in Chennai. There were a couple on Mount Road, one near the Thousand Lights mosque and another near the Wallajah Road junction. There was one on General Patters Road. And then this one Thambu Chetty Street, George Town.

Though I remember them from school / college days, I can't for the life of me think about what unique cuisine they had. I don't think I've ever had dhansak or bun-maska at these places. But there is a faint whiff of those mutton samosas - small ones, deep fried.... or am I just dreaming? Does anyone remember what their favourite was at these joints?

Triple-7

Much before Double-Seven came up as a cola brand, long before Maggi's 'instant' noodles flooded the market, there was a firm in Madras that had been there and done that. Maybe even gone a step further.

Sree Ganesh Ram Foods came into being in 1954. It was an offshoot of Hotel Sri Rama Bhavan, started in 1936 by an Iyer-duo: RSN and RSG. Maybe 7 was their 'lucky number' and they went at it thrice over, putting the 777 brand on the pickles and masalas they packed. Food processing technology being what it was in those days, there were not too many branded products in the market. SGR Foods, with their 777 brand went into products other than pickles. One such product lines was the food mixes, which they branded 'Dhideer' (that's Tamizh for 'instant'). That brand was a cult hit - everything became 'Dhideer', even if it had nothing to do with SGR Foods. 

Today, SGR Foods churns out roughly 2,000 tonnes of processed foods, spanning eight categories and nearly 150 variants. Not all of them go under the SGR brands; it appears that private label contracts are booming. SGR Foods is looking to raise funds to triple(!) their production capacity. Why wouldn't you invest?!