Coolers

Last week, this would have been a super-tempting poster, but with that little bit of rain brining temperatures down, the desire for such thirst-quenchers is likely to have cooled off!

Talk to me

I don't remember what kind of a shop this is, but it is wonderful how a small space has been converted into a niche business. I will hazard a guess that this is some kind of an apothecary's shop. It looks as if the man would climb over his 'work-desk' after he opens the business of a morning, always taking care to leave his footwear outside. 

Once he gets inside, he makes sure he puts out that small metal stool - an invitation for his customers to take the weight off their feet while they talk to him about their ailments. Maybe physical, maybe just the need to unburden themselves. 

I hope they go back with some panacea for their illness. This may not be a financially thriving business, but in helping people cope, it must be an absolutely necessary one!

Name connect

This is the gatepost of a Chennai residence. The name has remained unchanged since it was built in 1919. 

Question is: which person makes a connect between this gatepost and Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar who was born on this day in 1891?

ɐᴉpuI ⅎo uoᴉʇnʇᴉʇsuoϽ ǝɥʇ ⅎo ǝǝʇʇᴉɯɯoϽ ƃuᴉʇⅎɐɹᗡ ǝɥʇ ⅎo sɹǝqɯǝɯ ǝɹǝʍ ɥʇoꓭ .ʍɐʅ uɐᴉpuI puɐ suoᴉʇnʇᴉʇsuoɔ s╻pʅɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ⅎo ǝƃpǝʅʍouʞ pǝʅǝʅʅɐɹɐdun uɐ pɐɥ oɥʍ ǝuoǝɯos sɐ ɹɐʞpǝqɯ∀ .ɹᗡ ʎq pǝpɹɐƃǝɹ sɐʍ ʻǝɹǝɥ pǝʌᴉʅ oɥʍ ʻɹǝʎI ʎɯɐʍsɐuɥsᴉɹꓘ ᴉpɐʅʅ∀

Small and white

I don't know enough to recognize which Jain sect has established which temple, but I will hazard a guess that both the Shwetambars and the Digambars would have their shrines in white. This one at the corner of Mathala Narayanan Street in Mylapore, however, declares itself to be a Shwetambar temple. 

Vasupujya Swami was the 12th of the Tirthankaras. The 24th, Mahavira lived in the 6th century CE, so Vasupujya could have been the reigning tirthankara of the 2nd or 3rd century CE. 

Once again, if you thought Mylapore was only for maamas and maamis, here is more proof of the multi-religious makeup of the place!

 

Walled garden

A house in Mylapore. Even if it looks quite compact from the outside, it is expansive enough to have a garden inside. Would have loved to find out more, but it isn't polite to peep into houses, so just this one photo will have to do!

 

Quiet mosque

When we think about Mylapore, the first images that come to mind are of the traditional maamas  and maamis, along with the temples they visit. We should not forget however that Mylapore has a history of its own, having been known to the Ptolemic world as Millarpha or Meliapore. Therefore it should not be a surprise to learn that Mylapore has within it places of worship belonging to faiths other than Hinduism.

One such is the Jumma Masjid on Kutchery Road, which predates even the much better known Big Mosque of Triplicane. The latter is a late-18th century creation, while the former has been in use since at least 1699, almost a century earlier. Even though some of the walls, and the dome of the mosque has been damaged due to water seepage - and general passage of the years, one assumes, the mosque itself continues to be a hub of action for the area. 

And it would well be a hub these days, as we are well into the month of Ramadan. This photo was taken on a Sunday a few years ago, so it does not give you any sense of the hubbub around this place today!

Diamonds are for... rent

India is the second largest jewellery consumer in the world. I daresay Chennai contributes a lot to that ranking. And it is said that a huge reason for buying gold is the Great Indian Wedding, no matter what state it is in, or what the faith of the bride and groom is. Apart from being guarded and handed down from generation to generation, gold jewellery is also made to order for the bride-to-be. That was somehow a key feature of the wedding, that there would be a lot of gold on the bride. (And a bit on the groom as well, maybe!)

It is therefore unimaginable that jewellery could be rented for a couple of days, to deck up the bride on her wedding day and having it brought back to the store for a fraction of the cost that an individual needs to spend. But here it is, in living colour. 

The Old Prabhu Jewellers of Mylapore established their business in 1978. They were operating out of this address for a very long time. I haven't been in the vicinity of this business for a couple of years, but I think it still remains at this place. As is de rigueur these days, they conduct their business on the internet, and here is where you can find them! 

Valentine foundation

115 years ago, an act of love by the Maharanee of Rewa, was set in stone in Mylapore. Although it was actually founded almost half-a-century earlier, in 1869 by the Maharaja of Vizianagaram, the school was probably going through a tough period in the early part of the 20th century. Or maybe it was just that they wanted to expand the school and make the founder anonymous. Maybe it was just to formalise an arrangement that was started in 1869. 

Whatever the reason may have been, this foundation stone is 115 years old today. I don't think they would have celebrated Valentine's Day in those times (nor did they seek out cows to hug on this day, I don't think so). 

But gifts of love of this kind should be more than welcome even today!

Why's the twist?

On Musiri Subramaniam Road, just before you turn off to Vivekananda College on your left, you should open a keen eye to your right. That way, you will spot this rather non-descript shop at the corner where you would turn to get to the Luz Church. The shop is a throwback to the 70s and 80s, run by two gruffly-friendly brothers who seem to have been there forever. In recent times, they have a younger helper and post-covid, they seem to have spruced up the signage with a fresh coat, even if the shop itself remains as it has always been. 

Speaking to the young man, I learnt that the shop has a formal name: "Lakshmi Cool Bar". GoogleMaps tries to be more helpful by adding that it is also called "Mani kadai" (Mani's shop). Neither of those names feature in this board, according to which the shop is "Oliver Twist"!

Apparently, the younger of the two brothers was a voracious reader in his youth, and Charles Dickens was a favourite author. He was therefore insistent on getting a Dickensian connection to the store's name. The sharp turn in the road is the inspiration for the 'Twist'. But can you guess why 'Oliver'? Ah, yes, that's correct: before it was given its current name, the road was called Oliver Road! 

Festival returns

The Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival got back after a 2-year break and yesterday was the last day of this edition. 

Having been away from Chennai over the weekend, I do not have any photos of this year's festival to offer. You should be able to find quite a few of those here, eventually. 

What I have for you is a picture from the festival a few years ago; this year's kolam competition was (as usual, I guess) restricted to 75 participants. The whole of North Mada Street would have been given over to these traditional designs - only pulli kolams are allowed!

The shop that never moved

For at least 45 years, the address 4-6/181, Kutchery Road had only one occupant, one so famous that no one needed the address to find it. It was the fixed point on the Kutchery Road compass, the only true north that one needed to navigate that road.

The Dabba Chetty Shop started its business with a slightly different spelling, as you can make out from the photo. It was spelt 'Dubba', then, and it didn't start off with the country (herbal) medicines that it later became synonymous with. Krishnaswamy Chetty tried his hand at selling hardware and assorted equipment, when he set up the shop in 1885. But he seems to have very quickly pivoted to purveying herbal medicines, including concoctions made of his own research. It is not very clear if the existence of such an outlet spurred Chetty's Iyer namesake to start his Ayurveda dispensary a little further along Kutchery Road, or if it was the dispensary that helped Chetty's shop gain prominence. In any event, from about 1905 onwards, this was the go-to place for 'delivery lehiyam' (post-natal medicines) and Deepavali lehiyams (to offset the heaviness of over-indulging in festival sweets). Krishnaswamy Chetty used to store the various powders and other ingredients in tin boxes, neatly stacked over each other; that led to the store's colloquial name, which in a stroke of genius, was adopted as its brand.

Krishnaswamy Chetty, Rajamannar Chetty and then Kanniah Chetty; the shop passed from grandfather to grandson, and then, in the 1970s to Kanniah's son Koonala Badrinath, who runs the shop with his wife Shobana. He had no intention of moving from here; in fact, in the many years since this picture was taken (2016), he had put up an awning over the signboard and modernised the space a bit for customers to be able to walk in. But two weeks ago, on Christmas eve, a notice was pasted on the shutter, saying the shop has moved to No. 9, North Mada Street. Just a little distance away, of course, but there is no saying if it would be able to move back. That is entirely in the way the Chennai Metro comes up on Kutchery Road!

Lionsgate

Going east on Kutchery Road, you might be surprised by a pair of lions sitting atop gate posts. They may have appeared regal at some time, but now they are crowded out by overgrown peepul shrubs, to the extent that the name on the gate post is part obscured. If you get close, you can make out that the name of the manse is Farhat Bagh. 

The twin of this gate post carries the name of its owner: V. Ramadas. It also announces his qualifications: B.A., B.L. If that does not convince you, he has added his professional title: Vakil. That title broadly applies to any lawyer, but Vemavarapu Ramdas Pantulu was a specialist in realty and land rights. He also dabbled in politics, and was one of the featured speakers at the 'First Andhra Conference' in 1913. In the Second Conference the next year, the Farhat Bagh vakil seconded a resolution to carve out the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency into a separate province. In that he foreshadowed the Madras Manade movement; he seems to have faded out of politics after that, but reappears as a leading light of the cooperative movement, holding office as President of Indian Co-operative Banks Association between 1927 and 1944. In 1935, he also became the Founding Editor of the Indian Cooperative Review. 

He had given over his library and a "...part of home in Mylapore..." to the Institute of Co-operative Research and Service to continue his work. Whether that home was Farhat Bagh, or some other, is a question I am unable to answer right now. There were no signs to indicate any cooperation happening there; but maybe it is just that I cannot recognize those signs!

Narrow outlook

Yes. That is truly how Kutchery Lane opens into the North Mada Street of the Kapaleeswarar Temple. But as one gets out from this narrowest of lanes, all it takes to get into the temple is to cross the street. That small gopuram is over a door to the temple's administrative office. That door does not open for you or me, it is quite possibly an entrance for only the most privileged of the temple's staff and/or devotees.

For a long while, that was the entrance through with the temple's designated devadasi, would enter the temple. She was an integral part of the temple's rituals, and was accorded a high status in the temple's hierarchy. But over the years, the position of the devadasi was stigmatised, and there were likely enough people within the temple administration who were politicking to cut the devadasis down to size.

It was not just at this temple; all over the Madras Presidency and across India, the desire to abolish the devadasi system led to the passage of legislation such as the Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act in 1947. With that law in their hands, the puritan faction of the temple administrators walked out through the office door, into the Kutchery Lane, to the ex-officio residence of the last of Kapaleeswar devadasis and unceremoniously threw her out into the street. And so ended a tradition, one that gave much of today's Bharatanatyam dance, in obscurity and penury. Would it have been any different had the passage been much broader?

Peacock dance

Dusk falls at the Kapaleeswarar Temple. The temple gopuram is outlined with lights, which is not unusual. But what is unusual is the stage in front, and the dancers. 

We are back at the Mylapore Festival and on the last day of the festival, we caught a version of the mayilattam; the dance of the peacocks, the birds the place is named after!

Royal board

This must have been one of the original signs erected when a part of Madras was renamed Raja Annamalaipuram, after the passing away of the first Raja of Chettinad. That title was given to him by the British, in 1929, in addition to the knighthood that was awarded to him six years earlier.

In gazette notification announcing his knighthood, he is addressed as "Diwan Bahadur Sathappa Chettiar Ramanathan Chettiar Muthiah Chettiar Annamalai Chettiar Avargal, Banker, Madras". Even de-duping the Chettiars in that leaves a lot of letters to be written; replacing the "Diwan Bahadur" with "Raja" helped, but even then, it would have been quite a task to find a board indicating the name of this locality had anyone insisted on the full title! 

Not a ghost

The Vaishnavaite tradition of south India recognises twelve azhwars as being the foremost of Vishnu's devotees. The earliest of them are believed to have lived in the fourth millennium BCE. The azhwars expressed their devotion mainly through poetry; because most of their verses gained popularity during the Bhakti movements of the 7th and 8th centure CE, it is easier to defend the proposition that they lived during that time and not, as legend would have it, almost 5,000 years earlier.

Because there were only twelve azhwars, it is slightly easier to memorise their names, especially when there are sixythree nayanmars on the Shaivite side of the divide. Even so, in trying to mug up those azhwar names, there was a hurdle; not that they were difficult to remember, but the names would bring to mind other, frightening associations. The second and third azhwars were Bhoodathazhwar and Peyyazhwar, both names being synonymous with ghosts and so were accorded even more respect, and at a different level.

Through all that, the idea of the azhwars were remote, that they were not only temporally but also spatially in a different zone. It was something of a shock to see this gate, leading to a shrine, in the busy Arundale Street in Mylapore. The sign on it says "The site of Peyyazhwar's avatar", indicating his birthplace. But the approach and the shrine, appearing to be largely ignored, indicate Peyyazhwar's presence here in a rather ghostly fashion!

Early design

Of course, there are still many parts of Chennai where you can get to see people like her. But make sure you get there early in the morning!

Amendment connection

It seems to be a convoluted connection, but it seems so fascinating that I had to get it in here. This unpretentious signboard caught my attention only because of its white-on-blue combination. But finding out about The Law Weekly side-tracked me into the background to the First Amendment to India's Constitution. 

The story is essentially this: the Province of Madras, had been at the vanguard of community-based reservations, since passing what has come to be known as the 'First Communal G.O. (G.O.#613, Sep 16, 1921)' in 1921. That Government Order was the basis on which a girl named Champakam Dorairajan was denied admission to a medical college. Claiming that she had been discriminated based on her caste, Champakam took the issue to the Supreme Court, and a full bench agreed that the Communal G.O. was unconstitutional. 

What does that have to do with this board? Well, V.C. Srikumar, the current editor of the journal, who is also the grandson of its founder, was one of the lawyers in the case of 'Champakam Dorairajan vs The State of Madras'!

Fest-eve

The last weekend of the Mylapore Festival for this year. The square in front of the Kapaleeshwarar Temple was quite packed with people waiting to listen to the nadaswaram performance. This was only a small part of the over 50 thousand people who passed through the Mylapore Festival. 

Are you planning to be there next year?

Artists and subject

One of the attractions at the Mylapore Festival was the chance to get your portrait sketched. That's normal. There were a few artists who would also make a caricature. All of them had enough patrons; there was a queue waiting to have their portraits - or caricatures - drawn. And then, in the midst of all those artists, was a circle of artists who were doing something that seemed quite odd. All of them were focussed on sketching just one person - what is it that they were doing? Or, who was he?