Eight elephants

This wall, with bas-reliefs of truncated-tusked elephants, is an enduring image of the Theosophical Society's headquarters at Adyar. The elephant seems to be a recurring theme with the TS, at least of late. In their newsletter of December 2015, the TS takes inspiration from the elephant to be "strong and patient at the same time", for the elephant is thoughtful and relies on its patience to accomplish what it needs. That the elephant is long-lived, and a herd animal is a bonus, probably meant to invoke the legacy of the Theosophists. 

It is interesting that when the TS decided to launch its fund-raising drive, for the renovation of the buildings within the headquarters, they named the main renovation site "The Elephants". If you would like to contribute to the cause, you need to head over here!

Mutual benefit

We have seen a couple of institutions similar to The Triplicane Permanent Fund Limited earlier - in Mylapore and in Purasawalkam. Those are much older; in fact, the TPFL is still in its 'nervous nineties', having been set up only in 1926. It is not even the oldest in Triplicane; that place would probably go to the SMSO Permanent Nidhi Ltd, which is in its 136th year. And that is much bigger in terms of its book size as well.

The TPFL is a very modest institution - its business volume would have been less than Rs.100 crores in the last year. Though it has only six branches, they are well distributed across the city; and hopefully, they would cover all the existing members of the fund. Intra-city migration would have seen a large number of Triplicane-ites moving to other parts of Chennai, but will continue to remain members of this mutual-benefit society.

And that is also the reason why this firm, despite being headquartered in Triplicane, does not have anyone from that locality in its management team!

Institution built

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, engineering had started growing as a professional discipline. India's industrialization needed engineers and by the 1910s, they had also recognized the need to form a professional association. Under the leadership of Sir Thomas Holland, the Director of the Geological Survey of India, the Institution of Engineers (India) was established in 1920, and registered in Madras. In 1935, the IEI was granted a royal charter by King George V.

The headquarters of the Institution of Engineers (India) has been moved to Kolkata. The office of the IEI in Chennai works out of this uniquely designed building on Swami Sivananda Salai. It must have been built during a time when membership of the IEI had a certain cachet. These days, with the advent of private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, the importance of the IEI appears to have lessened - and the campus here is quite deserted!

Long form

As a child, it was fascinating to see stenographers at work. Especially after having seen one of their 'notebooks' one day. Shorthand seemed as close to cryptography that a child could get to. Yet, it wasn't cryptic at all, it merely needed a few months of instruction to be able to both code and decode the system devised by Sir Isaac Pitman. That instruction could be obtained from several 'Commercial Institutes', as they were called in the 1970s and 1980s. Besides Pitman's shorthand, they would teach typewriting (the touch system, where qwerty had its confusion ironed out) and accountancy (entering the same transaction twice over, so as to leave people like me confused about debits and credits). They were all over the place in those days, especially in places where large groups of government employees lived.  

The first such Commercial Institute in Madras was set up in Chintadripet. Not that I have been able to find any backing to support that statement. I am only relying on the information provided by Padmanabhan to The Hindu a few years ago. Padmanabhan is the grandson of P. Srikantaiyer, founder of The Shorthand School, which according to him was the second such institute in Madras. It was begun near Chintadripet, so it may well have been the second in Chintadripet, rather than in all Madras. But then, the need for typists, as well as for stenographers, was most felt at Fort St George; to that extent, the entire supply of the city would have been from these two institutes at/near Chintadripet.

Whatever that may have been, there seems to be no trace of that first institute. The Shorthand School moved to its current location on Kutchery Road in Mylapore in 1933. In 2009, the School celebrated its centenary. It continues to attract a fair number of people interested in learning shorthand, hoping to parlay those skills into a job at some lawyer's chambers. And then there are several who come in to learn typing; with qwerty still being the standard keyboard layout, learning to type is one way to be able to use the computer faster!

Art centre

In the 1960s, when K.C.S. Panicker started what came to be known as the 'Madras Movement', he also recognized that the artists of the Movement needed to be able to sustain themselves without having to sacrifice the leisure to pursue their art. And so was born, in 1966, the Cholamandalam Artists' Village. It was indeed a village, where the inhabitants turned out art products, which were then marketed to provide them a livelihood. Over the years, the Village has thrived; it is one of the very few artists' communes across the world that has remained successful across generations.  

In 2009, the Village inaugurated its showpiece to the world. The Cholamandalam Centre for Contemporary Art displays several works by the vanguard of the Madras Movement. The redbrick building houses paintings and sculptures; and there are many more sculptures and installations in the grounds as well. In fact, some of them have blended right in with the environment that you are surprised at what turns up. (Remember the sleeping cat? And one installation, being under a Ficus, has the ariel roots finding pathways through its grooves, now)

More about the Madras Movement later. The ban on taking pictures of the displays inside means that one has to find other ways to show what is there. But hey, if you are up early today, go for a drive on the East Coast Road. And on the way back, stop at the Centre - they open at 10am, so you can also stop here on your way to brunch along the ECR. So now, you have no excuses left for staying away from here!

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!

Different system

India has had a rich tradition of medicinal thought and action. Apart from home grown systems of medicine, the land had little problem in allowing new methods to come in and be practiced along side the older ones. Some of them have grown so big as to threaten the continued existence of the so called traditional systems of medicine.

One such system is Unani. The word originally meant 'Greek' and probably referred to Hippocrates. Though based on his principles, the system evolved quite differently from the 'Western' systems and, as far as I know, is making a spirited last stand in India. One of the reasons for its continued survival must surely be the efforts of the Government of India to prop it up, along with a few other systems. Under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there is a department named AYUSH - that's an acronym for Ayurvada, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy - which funds several research institutes across the country. 

Research in Unani medicine falls under the CCRUM - the Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine. The CCRUM runs over 25 institutions, covering the spectrum of research to drug development. Most of the research is carried out through the seven Regional Research Institutes - of which one is in Chennai. Located on West Mada Church Road in Royapuram, this one seems to taking its research real easy - or maybe it is just that it was a Sunday!

Curable!

Though I am be ready to bet on it (yet), this building marks the location where the Cancer Institute (WIA) began service from. The font used to write its name gives away its age, even if the building construction itself could be anytime between 1950 and 1970. Other sources tell us that it is true, the Cancer Institue was established in 1954 in a small hut and it moved into this building in 1955. It is probably the only institute that the WIA (Women's Indian Associaiton) manages; a wise move to not take up any other cause. Considering that the Cancer Institute screens over 125,000 persons every year, the WIA will have its hands full managing the processes and the standard of care provided by the CI (WIA).

Today this is not the only building; in a long stretch which seems to be the backbone of Gandhi Nagar in Adyar there are at least 3 other buildings of the Institute. The fifth one, which was inaugurated in 1977, is on Sardar Patel Road itself, a little way away from this 9-acre campus. When it was inaugurated, this institute was the second dedicated centre in India for treating cancer - the first was the ICRC at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai - but it has been a pioneer in many other ways. The Institute has played a key role in securing several changes to help treatment and prevention of cancer - duty exemptions, travel concessions, recognition of Oncology as a specialty and many other far-reaching initiatives. Most of all, according to this article in The Lancet, the Institute has built capacity for cancer control in the country.

And for all that, the Institute is run on the lines of a not-for-profit; of the 423 beds it has, almost 300 are free; even among 'outpatients', almost two-thirds of them are treated for free. Such dedication has been instrumental in the survival rate among cancer patients going up!

Teaching trade unionism

Considering that Madras was born of a desire for cheap 'cloathe', it should not be a surprise that the first ever trade union in India was the Madras Textile Labour Union, formed in 1918. Within a very short time, the trade union movement gained popularity and several unions were formed, both in Madras and in other Presidency towns. In 1923, Madras was the venue for the country's first ever May Day Rally, presided over by Comrade Singaravelar, one of the pioneers of the labour movement. There were some firebrand union leaders who came out of Madras, including a certain R.Venkataraman, who went on to become a Union Minister and later the President of India.

The ardour cooled off in the late 1970s, after a rather violent strike by the Simpson and Group Company in 1971. Militant labour went west and the recent history of militant Indian trade unionism is more about Datta Samant and Rajan Nair in Bombay and Pune. Madras became a more peaceable industrial zone, though there were several instances of localised violence. For the past couple of decades, though, there haven't been any really bad spells of industrial unrest.

Is it possible that this institute, set up by the State Bank of India Officers' Association to offer programs on 'Trade Union Effectiveness' has something to do with the more aware union activists in this part of the country?

Happy birthday, TS!

The gates to the venerable Theosophical Society are quite easy to miss, unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Set on the banks of the Adayar, the Theosophical Society (TS, as it is known to those in the know) sprawls over 270 acres, hugging the river until it runs into the Bay of Bengal. While the gates are rather inconspicuous, the roving eyes of land sharks have not missed the grounds of the TS. There have been attempts in the past to push the Society to give up part of its land for 'development'; attempts that have been rebuffed time and again.

TS is old; not just that the spark of the movement was lit in the early 1870s in Vermont, USA: not just that it has been 133 years to the day today since it was founded in New York or that it has been over a century since this site, earlier the garden house of Huddlestone, was established as the World Headquarters of the Society. More worryingly, it is the feeling that the TS is increasingly irrelevant these days, when organized religion is making a vociferous comeback. The Society's goal of Universal Brotherhood and striving for that Truth which is higher than any religion does not appear to be galvanizing the youth or even attracting them to the Society. That's not a happy situation for the Society or these huge gardens that house their Headquarters.

Even as I write this, I am aware that I have little knowledge about the membership, or even what the TS does and how well it is doing it. So, my worry may be unfounded, after all - and on this birthday of the TS, I sure hope it is; so, here's wishing the Theosophical Society, Adyar several more centuries of working for Universal Brotherhood!

Investment Option

The names are meant to inspire trust. Surely, when you see names that have words like 'Benefit', 'Nidhi' (meaning treasure) or 'Permanent' in them, you feel a warmth, imagining these venerable organizations working hard to make sure your money grows. The premise behind all these organizations is simple enough; the trust that folks you see every day, who live in the same locality, will not indulge in trapeze acts with the money you've given them. You believe they will invest it prudently and will share their profits with you. Someone once said there were about 200 such organizations in Chennai; some of the more high profile among them, like the Royapettah Benefit Fund and the Alwarpet Benefit Fund strayed from the straight and narrow and went belly-up about 10 years ago.

Since then, the surviving Nidhis have been very low profile. It is partly due to some fairly severe restrictions imposed on them by the government, which hampered their ability to leverage funds and also forced them to provision for overdue loans much the same way that banks had to, while restricting their operations to only specific areas within the city. With such difficult conditions imposed on them, it is a wonder that the entire business model did not collapse.

The Mylapore Hindu Permanent Fund has been in the nidhi business for over 130 years now. With so much of chaos facing its larger cousins, these organizations must be feeling glad that they've been under so much of regulation for the last few years that there is almost no chance of them failing!

Going around in circles

The British Council in Chennai has this nice backdrop in the library. They don't take it too kindly to folks pointing cameras inside so I've had to be content with this photo, taken when there was the ceremony of distributing certificates to children who'd completed the 'Big Wild Read' programme.

The British Council Library (BCL) in Chennai has been around for quite a while. I always get to it feeling that it is one of 'my places' - after all, I've been going there since the early '70s: but once inside, the BCL seems to tell me that it expects me to be more regular in coming there. And so the promise is made, to spend more time in the BCL. Until the next excuse comes up!