Book wall

The Hindu's "LitForLife 2017" kicked off today at the Sir Mutha Venkata Subba Rao Concert Hall. It was quite a full house today, with Dr. Shashi Tharoor on stage; after his session, a large chunk of the crowd followed him outside, to the author pavilion where he was signing copies of his latest book. 

On the way back after getting the autograph, spotted this book wall. Couldn't help thinking it would have been better with people - kids, especially - standing up close and reading these. And then, we saw that there were spaces at the Hall where you could sit down and read, and in fact, swap books for the day. 

That's nice - look forward to being back there tomorrow!

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!

Model school?

In 1742, Johann Philipp Fabricius, a German missionary, arrived in Madras from Tranquebar. Fabricius was the head of the Danish Tranquebar Mission, a Lutheran congregation and he moved to Madras to provide for the Lutherans of Vepery. It was this man who managed to obtain a printing press - which was seized from de Lally's Pondicherry in 1761 - from Governor Pigot after assuring him that the government's printing requirements would be given a higher priority than the Mission's.

Fabricius contributed significantly to the Mission in Madras. He translated a German version of the Bible into Tamizh, besides a Tamizh-English lexicon. For all those contributions, his name was bestowed, in 1898, upon the Lutheran Mission Middle School that had been set up in 1849. From then on called the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Fabricius School, it arguably most famous alumnus is R.K. Narayan, who joined it as a 6-year old in 1912. 

Narayan does not seem to have had much fun in this school, though. In his book Swami and Friends, Narayan has the boy-hero attending the Albert Mission School at Malgudi. Swami, however, gets to do things that Narayan would not have dared to: questioning the Scripture Master's scoffing of Hindu deities, or throwing the Headmaster's cane out of the window when it was threatening to come down for a couple of the juiciest. But let us not forget that Swami was a 10-year old doing all this, while Narayan had to deal with such instances much earlier in his life!

Weekend book

Reading the review of the book a couple of weeks ago, I knew that I had to have "A Madras Misama" as soon as possible. Not having an India publisher, or distributor, the book had to come in from lands beyond the seas, but thanks to the wonders of Amazon, it got to me on Christmas Day, within a couple of weeks of the order having been placed.

Over the weekend, therefore, I got myself acquainted with Superintendent Chris Le Fanu. It has everything you look for in a mystery - murders, drugs, sex, movies, money - and the setting, of Madras in the 1920s, is incidental. However, that setting has been brought to life; the author, Brian Stoddart, has spent a lot of time in this city and therefore gets it right when it comes to the atmosphere of those times. 

I'm not going to tell you whodunit. But I can tell you it was racing good read on a murky Madras afternoon!

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!

Cenotaph by the side

Coming into the city from the airport, the traveller would pass this cenotaph, standing in a fenced-off piece of land just where the Kathipara flyover starts climbing. It is easy enough to miss; the whitewash neither new nor too old. The cupola not ornate at all, its urn finial hardly discernible by the traveller, who is more concerned about the traffic all around. Even those citizens of Chennai who notice it might pause for a moment to think about how this structure survived when the statue of Jawaharlal had to be shifted to make way for the flyover's construction.

The patch of land belongs to the army and the cenotaph - that's what it is - is of an army man. From a long time ago. Lt Col Sam shed his mortal coils this day 194 years ago. He was a member of the Madras Artillery; my guess is that he was with them since the day that force was raised. Major Peter James Begbie, in his 1852 history of the Madras Artillery, indicates that (then) Lieutenant Sam was one of the nine officers wounded in the Battle of Argaum (eh, what's that?). Elsewhere, he is credited with having suggested the best manner of transporting ordnance across the Indian rivers. Going by the plaque on the cenotaph, he was not just an officer, but a gentleman - his martial exploits may therefore have been limited.

In recent years, this cenotaph's popularity experienced a bump up thanks to Lt Col Sam's descendent. Though I am not certain how they are related, the writer William Dalrymple acknowledges Lt Col Sam Dalrymple, CB, as an ancestor - actually one of the several Dalrymples who seem to have made their fortunes in the empire!

Down. And out.

There were about 50 people in the store. More than half of them were in their tweens or teens. Of the remaining, almost nine-tenths were in their mid thirties, or younger. From the conversations, it seemed that almost everyone had moved into Chennai sometime in the past five years or so. The layout was different, too. That half of the store where books used to be displayed - the 'original' Landmark - was off bounds. There were no books there, anymore. Those left over fitted into six display racks. The toys, VCDs and game cartridges filled up the rest of the space. And the shoppers were busy raiding. 50% off, and that's got the bargain hunters in. 

The old timers were staying away. There was one other shopper who engaged the store manager in conversation. "I was here on the first day you opened, you know", he said. The manager nodded, with a semi-polite half-smile. Of course he wasn't there when it opened. That was a long time ago. The store manager must have been eligible for a half-ticket at Safire when Hemu Ramaiah set up this store. She made sure that once you get down the steps and past the door on the right, you could transport yourself to a different world - or worlds. It didn't feel like half-a-basement at all. One could sit there all day and browse - yes, browse. In the days before Netscape Navigator, Hemu's Landmark would take you all over the wide world. 

Landmark was then a break from the past, but now, a throwback to another era. No bookstore before it tolerated anyone - school and college kids the least of all - flipping through their books. And here was the staff practically shoving a book into your hands and telling you to take your time reading it. It is difficult to believe that for 19 of the 26 years it has been around, the store has been competing against the Internet. The memories of those first seven years were strong enough for many to turn up again and again at the first Landmark store, now spread across the entire basement of Apex Plaza. Indra Nooyi, it is said, used to make it a point to spend a couple of hours here every time she visited Madras/Chennai. She was only one of the many non-residents - Madrasis or otherwise - for whom the Nungambakkam Landmark was the place to visit. And browse. And browse.

The first time I bought a set of greeting cards from Landmark, I did not realize that I was taking the first step to losing the bookstore of my college days. Greeting cards were followed by other stationery items. Then came CDs. Toys. Games. Suddenly, books seemed to be an "also there" item. And then the Tatas bought the chain, in 2005. India's best bookstore, born of passion, boosted by the quiz, sustained by the loyalty of its Madras customers (who spread the word about it to their friends in Pune, Bengaluru and other places) had now completely transformed into a 'business'. The staff didn't know their books. (Or even music, or toys, for that matter). But they still let customers visitors browse through the books, and the Nungambakkam store was the best place to do that. 

Now it is gone. When the bargain hunters have cleared it out ("50% off!!" "Everything must go!!!"), I shall also be gone. I did not intend to walk into the store yesterday, but I did. And I picked up a few books, at random. I only had a vague idea of what I was doing, because memories of 26 years obscured the actions of the day. My eyes were moist; I could not look at the girl at the billing counter, who asked me if I had a loyalty card. "I am turning it in today", I thought. I suddenly felt very old. Good bye, Landmark. You've taken my youth with you.

Doctor of letters - almost

It might sound a bit surprising now, but in the late 19th century, it was pretty much the order of things that a young girl in the Bombay Presidency desiring to study a formal course in medicine should come up to Madras to do so. The Madras Medical College had just started admitting female students and Krupabai Khisty's frail health did not allow her to go abroad to study medicine, as she had been advised to by a family friend. And so to Madras she went, in 1878, a frail girl of sixteen. Though her father, Rev Hari Punt Khisty had died when she was very young, he was remembered enough for a fellow missionary, Rev W.T. Satthianadhan, to take her into his house as a boarder. At the end of the first year, Krupabai was rated as a brilliant student, but her health was shot - she had to give up the study of medicine.

It was an extremely trying period for her. Her elder brother Bhasker was also no more and she was in Madras, far away from her family. Luckily, she found a companion for her intellect in the Rev. Satthianadhan's son Samuel, who had recently returned from Cambridge. They got along very well and were married in 1883. She had been writing short pieces to get past her loneliness and Samuel encouraged her to go further. That was how the magazine South India Observer carried her first published article, "A visit to the Todas", under her pen name 'An Indian Lady'. 

It was An Indian Lady who went on to write what is arguably the first English novel written by an Indian woman: Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life, published in 1890. The Story of a Conversion followed in 1891 and her last work Kamala: A Story of Hindu Life came out in 1894. In some ways, she followed a path taken by Toru Dutt, a "pioneer of Indo-Anglican writing"; there is however no reason to believe that Krupabai knew of her, for Toru died in 1877, all of 21 years old; Krupabai was then 5. Krupabai died young, too, in 1894. Had Toru Dutt completed writing Bianca, she would have been the claimant to the title that now seems quite firmly Krupabai's.  It is as such that she is remembered in the memorial tablet erected by her husband, in the church cared for by her father-in-law!

Words and music

There they are on stage, two of Chennai's favourite sons. Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the elder one, is in conversation with T.M. Krishna, a star on the Carnatic music circuit. I can claim to be in the same class as Mr. Gandhi, for he said he knows little about music. (While saying that, he also reminded the audience about MS Subbulakshmi's response when Mahatma Gandhi praised her singing: What does he know about Carnatic music?) As the Mahatma's grandson, Gopalakrishna Gandhi was only being true to his heritage. 

Krishna's heritage, on the other hand, is steeped in the Carnatic music tradition. As one of the younger generation, he has - in my limited understanding - enhanced the tradition by trying to break out of the structures that had become ossified around the art. Of course that has brought him detractors, but it has also endeared him to the younger crowd, even those who might not be able to tell a ragam from a talam. 

What is the singer doing at a lit-fest? Well, primarily because the conversation was around Krishna's latest book, "A Southern Music - The Karnatik Story". Of course it was informative and entertaining - Krishna did a little bit of a lec-dem routine - and the Q&A session was fun. Even though Krishna did address it in a tangential way in the beginning, the question "Why have you narrowed South Indian music to Carnatic music?" did not get a full answer at the end!

City No.26?

The weekend that went by was quite packed. Apart from the Mylapore Festival that I had mentioned a couple of days ago, the weekend also saw the third edition of The Hindu's Lit for Life happening. The festival ended yesterday, but the photo is from Sunday's discussion about what India's Megacities represent to the country's people. Some part of Saturday was given over to the Mylapore Festival, including a wonderful talk on the Devadasis of Madras by Pradeep Chakravarthy (more about that coming up soon elsewhere!). So on Sunday, it had to be the Lit For Life. 

Any thought about the choice having "been made" was a bit premature. The Lit Fest had a few parallel events, and it was difficult having to flip a coin on where to go to. I do think we managed to cover 'all' the good ones... or maybe not.

The other highlight of the weekend was this article in the New York Times, placing Chennai at No.26 on the list of 52 Places to Visit in 2014. There was a lot more that the contributing writer could have written about the city. However, given that the music season is winding down, the Mylapore and literature festivals are done, the Book Fair under way, and hey, Happy Pongal, everyone... there is not much arguing with how she describes Chennai - "A cultural capital"!