WYSIWY don't get

At the end of the lobby of the Taj Club House, this sign, discreet yet clear, will be of great help to someone who is searching for rest. The sign shows a female figure to the left and a male figure to the right. 

If you are that someone, be warned. You cannot rest yet. If you trust the sign implicitly and rush ahead, you will be headed the wrong way - the hotel has flipped the rooms on you!

Nothing on the right is left

Moving from the white-on-blue lettering that seems to have been the favourite of signboard makers over a couple of centuries into this rather jazzy red-on-yellow scheme must have been the decision of a very brave man. Or someone so secure in the permanency of the business to not bother with such trivialities as signboard colours. Such a signboard, made around 50 years ago - that's a guess, and yours might be better than mine - still advertises the supplies provided by the Office Equipment Company, of Armenian Street, Madras.

Although I have not myself seen the offices of this company, I am fairly sure it continues to exist. It must be somewhere upstairs in one of those buildings on Armenian Street, trying to stay relevant for the office supplies and 'requisites' of the day. 

Considering that no one below the age of 40 has conceivably never seen a cyclostyle machine, it would be fair to say that as a business, nothing on the right of this sign is left, these days!

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!

If the sea don't get you, we will

The beaches of Chennai are inviting. Very. Long stretches of sand, and the waves seem to be coming in quite calmly, almost boringly. It is very tempting to go out and ride the waves back in, which is what many people seem to do. (Going against the advice of the Outdoor Swimming Society, and other experts, who say that one should never swim with one's back to the sea). 

But the city's beaches are quite dangerous. There have been quite a number of fatalities, and an equal, if not greater, number of rescues. The most famous (or best memorialised) tragi-heroic act was off Elliot's Beach at Besant Nagar, but there are probably many more which happen off the Marina, considering the greater volume of people who throng there. 

The city police frown on any attempt to "take bath" in the sea. Well you can try and argue that you weren't bathing, but you were trying to swim. But they will still prosecute you anyway!

Old sign

There was a time when people had to be reminded about where they were. This sign must have come up during one of those times. And it still remains there even today, unchanged over all those years - except for a bit of rust around all the edges. 

Just in case they plan to take the sign down, I would like to have part of it. Please?

Growing city

This signboard, just past the Guindy railway station, was put in place not very long ago - maybe in the past couple of years. With the Chennai Metro track running over it, it is now just another commonplace sign showing directions to some of the further corners of Chennai. But in an earlier avatar, the signboard here was much more significant. On the side we are facing, it was a "Thank you for visiting" message, while the other side was its counterpart, the welcome to the city. In those days, this sign marked the limit of the Corporation of Chennai.

It was in early 2010 that the Corporation flexed itself and gobbled up quite a few of the local bodies - municipalities, panchayats and town panchayats - from the neighbouring districts of Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram. With that expansion, the area under the Corporation of Chennai more than doubled, going from 174sqkm to 426sqkm. 

The earlier "Welcome / Thank You" sign should have now shifted about 30km further down this road - although the Corporation hasn't got around to putting one such up, I guess!

Magic staffing

Ever wondered where to turn to when you are short of staff? If this sign is to be believed, it is just a matter of mumbling the correct incantations. I guess when you are really in a tight spot, any kind of magic is welcome!

Self-goal?

Believe it or not, there is actually a law which is supposed to penalize those who 'disfigure' public places with 'advertisements' or 'objectionable advertisements'. The Chennai Metro has been trying to keep its pillars clean by scraping off the posters and cleaning any graffiti that appears on them. 

Wonder if this warning would fall under the purview of the Act it refers to!

Who was that?

The first thought that this must be a contracted version of Ravana Iyer; but Ravanan is not a very common name. And the only other instance that I have come across the contraction of "ier" is in the name of Veena Kuppier. 

But more interesting for me is the way in which the Tamizh form of the name is written. The third letter is written in a way that is quite different from what the modern script prescribes, which is for it to be written thus -  "ணை". Now, this change in the script happened in 1978, which gives us another of those old white on blue boards!

Level crossing?

On a rainy day, seeing the spelling on this sign makes one wonder if a train is going to pass this way!

Coloured board

This printer advertises scanning and colour 'xerox' (that's the word for photocopy) in its more modern display. But what catches the eye is the old enamel-on-blue board of the business.

And to top it, the board talks about 'Madras', not Chennai!

Mixed languages

The meaning remains the same, but the way it is written indicates a mix-up between the Portuguese and English versions of the road's name!

Direction

The white-on-blue signboards are not only on shops. This one directs visitors (of course it can't be for the residents) to the housing complex within the Regional Meteorological Centre, Nungambakkam.

It is certainly not the oldest meteorological observatory in the country - but it has been around for long enough for this sign to be considered of recent vintage!

Universal wish

As soon as you get inside the Theosophical Society's grounds, you get to see this sign. Can't help wondering if Earth has to fade away for peace to prevail!

Blue board store

Here we have another of the 'blue boards' that were the last word in store signage several decades ago. It is not an enamel board, and it has other colours than just white letters on a blue background. That's probably some of the concession to modernity that Shri Nataraja Stores made when they opened for business. The board has been around for a while; the city's English name is still being used on this one.

There is still a lot of tradition around the board, as befitting an old shop in Triplicane. The mango leaves adorning the board is not something that you would find in the modern trade. And yet, they are not so traditional to have the store opened at the crack of dawn!

Cover-up?

That is what it seems to be; this road sign on Radhakrishnan Salai has been given a coat of paint that dulls, but does not entirely hide, the words underneath.

No idea why it should be this way. Do you have any guesses?

Takeaway store

That is the theme for the month, but what is a store if it is not to take things away from? This one in West Mambalam doesn't stop with the usual coconut biscuits, murukku and peanut candy, but lets you know that it offers food for thought as well.

Though, with that spelling, one would be taking a big chance on what is going to be actually taken here!

First of the month, it is the Theme Day again. Head over to the collection of theme day pictures from CDP bloggers around the world!

Mixed message

On noticing this sign, one is reminded of a post that has been circulating for a while, claiming that if the first and last letters are correct, the jumbling up of other letters does not  make it difficult for us to understand what is being said. 

The urban dictionary has a word to describe it: typoglycemia (and a wikipedia entry as well). But even that contrived word does not describe what has happened with the sign here. Even if you cannot read Tamizh, you would have been able to figure out that the last two characters replace the 'tre' (or the 'ter', if you prefer); they are the Tamizh letters which are phonetically congruent. 

Maybe the painter realized that he had run out of space and had to make do with one character less - how would you label this kind of a 'spelling'!

Misleading?

At first glance, it seemed to be a medical practitioner's signboard. But that was quickly clarified, thanks to the very clear fullstop between the 'D' and the 'R'. And if any doubt lingered, it was wiped away with the intuitive understanding that there is no consulting doctor who advertises as 'Bros'. 

I'm always fascinated by the enamel-on-blue boards - or those approximating that effect. The Raanka Brothers possibly started their business a little too late for the enamels, but blue and white was likely the height of fashion in 1942, which was when the business was set up. Starting out as a wholesaler of silver vessels, Raanka moved into silver jewellery; it is customary that, despite (or because of) India's fascination with gold, it is never used to make anklets. Silver was therefore the metal of choice for such ornamentation and the silversmiths were the supply point. It is the third generation that runs D.R.Raanka Bros these days, but some of the old traditions die hard - including the description of anklets as 'leg chains'. 

Another of those old habits would be the city's name. Even today, the board refers to 'Madras' and not 'Chennai'. Would that mislead an ordinary person who relies on this board as a geo-locator? Hardly. But what was completely out of place was the address on this board; I had to look all around to make sure that we had not wandered off from Arunachala Street in Chintadripet!

National smoke

In the crush of modern day George Town, it is easy to forget that these areas were at one time considered outside the city; that is, when the 'city' was Fort St George. Even later, during the 20th century as well, it was accepted that north of the Fort was the rough and ready industrial Madras, while the genteel folk drift southward. Not that it was really true in those days - north Madras was the go-to place for Carnatic music as well as other performing arts - and it is probably less so today. 

So, it was a surprise to see this sign proclaiming a factory making beedis in the middle of this commercial/residential district, at the end of Coral Merchant Street. Undoubtedly the factory has been shut for a long while, but going by the neon tubing on the signboard, it must have once been a prosperous business. I cannot remember hearing about Spade Clover Beedis; my memory stops with Dinesh and Mangalore Ganesh Beedis. My father tells me that he has heard of the "தா-னா பா-னா பீடி" (TP Beedis) of North Madras, but Spade Clover was a new one on him as well.

Spade Clover was owned by Khan Sahib Mohammed Oomer Sahib; when he died intestate in 1942, his widow Luthfunnissa Begum and Noorullah, his son by an earlier wife, agreed that the business be run jointly while the property suit was being settled. Spade Clover did make beedis in that fashion until November 1946, when Noorullah bought out the other heirs and became the sole owner. There seems to have been some fracas over the taxation of the income from the business during those years and that is the last I have been able to find of the Spade Clover Beedi Factory. The neon lights however show that the business must have been conducted well into the 80s at least, if not beyond that. Maybe my father and I made an error in thinking about North Madras beedis; according to one advertisement (click here), the Spade Clover Beedi was a "National Smoke", which was "of the people, by the people, for the people"!