In the beginning

Over the past few years, a group of disparate people have been coming together to celebrate the founding of Chennai. The Madras Day, as it is called, began in 2004 and this year, it has grown to be more The Madras Week rather than just a day. One of the first events of this year's Madras Day celebrations was a walk inside the Fort St George - that gave me the chance to go into the Fort, something that I last did more than 20 years ago. (Was so excited about it that I got the timings confused and landed up at the Fort at 6.30 am for the 8.00 am walk!)

In a sense, Fort St George is where it all began: the first capital of the British Empire, the founding of the city that would become Chennai Madras, the Boston Tea Party, the funding of Yale University.... with all such thoughts, the group gathered at the parking lot opposite the Fort. Dr S.Suresh, a consultant for INTACH (among other organizations), who led the walk, very quickly put to rest many of the 'where it all began' notions. As he reminded us, Mylapore finds mention in works going back over 2000 years; discovery of Roman coins on the Marina Beach indicates trade links in the 1st century BC. The constituent settlements of present-day Chennai were ruled by the Cholas, Pallavas and other dynasties; the British integrated all these settlements into one administrative unit. Still, the building of Fort St George did begin something new - and that is what we should keep in perspective when we think of Chennai's history.

In the photo, Dr. Suresh is seen holding up a coin from the period when Chennai was first occupied by the Cholas. As the 50-odd people on this walk passed this coin around, trying to take photos showing the inscriptions on it clearly, I am sure Dr. Suresh had his heart in his mouth!

The landmark event

There is a story about how James Daly, a theatre owner in Dublin went around one night scrawling the word 'Quiz?' on several walls of the city. By the next day, many people had seen this word and understood that it indicated some kind of test of knowledge; thus did Daly win on a bet that he could, overnight, introduce a new word into English! I'm not sure if this story is entirely true; if it were proven to be false, one reason could be that Daly scrawled the word not on the walls of Dublin, but on those of Madras.

Where else can you hope to find over 2000 people gathering on a holiday afternoon to do nothing other than answer 40 questions (ranging from "Other than India, which two countries celebrate their Independence Day on August 15?" to "What would you find right on top of the Wimbledon Men's Singles Trophy?"). A large majority of them do it despite knowing that to be one of the 8 teams qualifying for the finals typically needs a score upwards of 30. That's the charm of the Landmark Quiz: they make you believe that you are only 2 points away from qualifying for the finals and then leave you knowing just that little more than when you started the quiz, though you would have ended scoring only 13 points! And therefore you come back the next year, because you know that if it is August 15, it must be the Landmark Quiz in Chennai.

This is the 15th consecutive year of the Quiz; in that time it has grown to be India's largest open quiz, attracting teams from nearby cities. It has also moved and includes a Bangalore and a Pune edition too, with the top teams from these cities fighting it out in the National Finals (begun this year). Of course, that was won by a team from Chennai, who had qualified after travelling to Bangalore and winning the quiz there - with such a record, how can any other city claim to be the quiz capital of India?

Happy Independence Day!

Until 2001, Independence Day was one of the two days on which citizens of India could display the National Flag. It is only over the past 7 years that people have had the right to fly the flag where they liked to (complying with the Flag Code, however). Still, the National Flag is predominantly seen only on top of government buildings.

Even with the advantage of being placed on top of a building, very few flags can fly taller than this one; located inside the Fort St George, this is the tallest free-standing flagpole in India. At a height of 150 ft, the flag is constantly buffeted by the sea-winds - that's why it needs so many stays, to ensure it does not get blown over. I haven't been able to find any reliable information as to when it was first raised, but all indications are that the Union Jack was first raised on it in the late 17th century. The entire flag pole was made of teak and remained usable until 1994, when it was replaced with metal.

As Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu hoists the flag here today, let me also wish everyone around a very happy Independence Day!

Freedom poet

During the 19th century, British power moved away from Madras and was concentrated at Delhi. Most of the agitations against British rule happened closer to that city, though many movements were pan-Indian in scope. In the Madras Presidency, there were quite a few leaders who not only exercised influence at a national level but were also key figures in organizing local resistance. One such was Subramania Bharati. A precocious poet, he went on to be a path-breaker and an inspiration for modernizing Tamil literature.

He had the opportunity to travel around much of the country before he turned 20. His thinking broadened by his travels, Bharati railed against not just the British, but against various social inequities as well. A feminist ahead of his times, he ridiculed practices that did not allow women to participate more fully in matters of economics and politics. Bharati wrote not only for the older audience, but through his 'Songs for Toddlers', attempted to sensitise children at a very early age. Apart from his writings, he was also a vigourous supporter of various enterprises that thumbed their noses at the British and had to flee to Pondicherry, which was under French rule. Though he was later imprisoned for a short spell, Bharati was keen to stay out of jail to ensure that the various newspapers and magazines he published were uninterrupted, going so far as to swear off all political activities.

This statue of his, on the Marina, is quite close to where he spent the last few years of his life. He died before he turned 40, penniless and friendless - mainly because he was seen as having succumbed to British pressure!

Free to study

Last week, I was invited to a rather unusual ceremony - distribution of schoolbags and footwear to about 720 children studying in several schools run by the Corporation of Chennai. Managed by the Education Department of the Corporation, these schools typically cater to the very-very-low-income segment, which means that keeping these children in the schools is itself a challenge. Despite not having to pay tuition fees, the children will have to incur expenses for other school supplies; sometimes, even a small sum of Rs.30/- (€ 0.48 or $ 0.71) for a geometry box is beyond their means.

Now, these 720 children are further special: all of them are former child workers, who had been working at various establishments - roadside eateries, slaughterhouses or other unregulated industrial and commercial ventures - before being rehabilitated and admitted to the schools under the National Child Labour Projects. Many of their families are hard-hit by the loss of income the child used to generate, so some of these children continue to work outside school hours. Therefore, mainstreaming them also involves providing them incentives to stay in school; in this case, an NGO was able to raise funds from a multinational to procure schoolbags and footwear for these children (you can see some of those bags at the left of the photo, in the 3rd row).

It was a humbling experience to watch these children as they waited for the others to arrive. Some were silent, but the majority were excited and cheerful as they tried to catch my eye and get a photo taken. As we lead up to our Independence Day, I'm glad to have had a small part to play in getting these children free to study!

Disagreeing with Gandhi

Where the Mahatma was ever for turning the other cheek, this man is reported to have said, "If someone slaps you on one cheek, you should slap both of his". With Gandhiji being unchallenged as the strategist for the Indian National Congress (INC), Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's tenure as the President of that organization was marked by several disagreements between him and Gandhiji. Their differences were so marked that Gandhiji actively campaigned against Bose's election for a second term; however, there were quite a few in the INC who felt invigorated by Bose's call for violent resistance to the British rule, which ensured his re-election.

It was a master-stroke of Gandhiji's that forced Bose to resign, not only as President, but from membership of the INC itself. Forming his own party, the All India Forward Bloc, Bose pushed forward his own vision of an independent India. As World War II loomed, Netaji, who had already served about a dozen prison sentences, was put under house arrest; the British rightly thought that he would try to take advantage of the political instability in Britain to mount a violent campaign for Indian independence. But the Netaji escaped and siding with the Axis powers, began to harass the British. Rallying the Indian National Army with his cry, "Give me blood, and I promise you freedom", he marched up through Burma to the North-East of India before the surrender of the Japanese cut off his supply lines. His final flight, from Rangoon to Tokyo, reportedly disappeared over Taipei: sixty-three years and at least 3 Commissions of Inquiry appointed by the Government of India have not left us any wiser as to how and where the Netaji died. While his choice of friends is questionable, there is no denying Netaji's commitment to democratic ideals, or his patriotism. So much so that a cry he popularised - "Jai Hind" ("Victory to India") - is commonly used even today.

Madras had had little role to play in Netaji's life; but his name lives on in a road on which the Madras High Court, as well as several major commercial establishments (including Dare House) stand. And of course, there are several southerners in the 40 - 60 age group who answer to the typically Bengali surname of 'Bose'!

A French connection

As we head towards Independence Day (August 15), it is worth thinking about what might have been, had the French not traded away Madras for Cape Breton (Nova Scotia, Canada) at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Under Bertrand Francois LaBourdonnais, the French had captured Fort St. George in 1746 and had razed sections of the 'Black Town' outside the Fort. But the French diplomats thought Cape Breton to be a more lucrative prize and returned Madras to the British. The French military did not share this view and for the next decade, there were many efforts to take back the Fort (including comte de Lally's shelling from Parry's Corner). It was not until de Lally was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at the great plains of Vandavasi (the Battle of Wandiwash, as it is called) that the French gave up their plans for Madras and concentrated on Pondicherry and their other, smaller possessions in India.

Their interest in India continues in various forms, of which the most public is the Alliance Française, whose purpose is to spread French language and culture around the world. In Chennai, the Alliance Française of Madras was founded in 1953 and offers many services to achieve its purpose. One of the most efficient ways, the language courses, cover over 3000 students a year. The courses range from the 75-hour crash course to the 700-hour course that prepares you for the Diplôme de Langue examination. It's main centre, on College Road, not only houses the language classes, but also an amphitheatre, an auditorium, a small cafe, and a library / information centre.

If things had turned out differently 260 years ago, it probably would be the British Council that is housed in this quiet building, trying to teach English in a predominantly French speaking Chennai!

Bringing down the curtains

'The Hindu', Chennai's venerable newspaper, has been bringing an annual week-long theatre festival to the city for four years now. Normally the plays are all in English, but this year's opening was a Korean adaptation of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (with English surtitles), probably in acknowledgement of Chennai's large population of Korean expats. The other new feature this year was a play produced by the Fest, in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, which premiered on August 3.

Apart from the plays - which included productions from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and New York - the festival had a symposium on English Theatre in India, as well as a workshop on running a theatre company. Today is the last day of the festival; owing to a variety of reasons, I have not been able to watch even a single performance this year.

I therefore had to be content with going to the Sir Venkatsubba Rao Concert Hall to take pictures of these off-stage props!

Gods' own houses

With over 33 crore (that's 330 million) Gods, Hinduism has by convention, carved them up either geographically or by function - or even by just convenience of the worshipper. 'Bodyguard Muniswaran' for example, mainly blesses new vehicles. The goddess Mumba, while not very well known in many parts of India, has given her name to the city that was earlier Bombay. And each family typically has its own deity - but that doesn't tie each member down to just that one. Well, you get the picture.

There are 'Gods on every street corner'. The street corner Gods have a fairly local jurisdiction, drawing worshippers only from the nearby houses. Then there are temples like the one in this picture; neither deity in this Ayyappan - Guruvayoorappan temple at Mahalingapuram is 'original', but represent the major Gods of the neighbouring state of Kerala - Ayyappan and Guruvayoorappan. As the capital of the Presidency, Madras was a magnet for people from regions that are in Kerala or in Andhra Pradesh today. The people stayed on and contributed their native architectural styles to the city's landscape.

In Chennai alone, Ayyappan has at least four large temples dedicated to him, while Guruvayoorappan has at least two. That's certainly a lot of devotees!

Spelling challenge

It has taken about 17 years to complete Chennai's Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) up to Velachery, its originally planned endpoint. The initial ideas were very grand; Chennai's MRTS would rival Singapore's similarly named system of urban transport; the system would be an integrated network with hubs where commuters could switch between rail and road; the rail coaches would be sleek - the dreams were many. Somewhere along the way though, the road diverged and MRTS became rail-alone. Still, one of the 'benefits' of the slow pace of work was that the design of each station could improve on that of the previous one.

So, this station, where the MRTS begins to run parallel to the Old Mahabalipuram Road* (OMR) looks much sleeker than the ones built earlier. Thanks to the aluminium cladding, which complements the sleekness of the OMR and covers up for the fairly unaesthetic concrete blocks that were built first. The advertising panels at the station entrances also add to the with-it quotient.

The station, following the norm, is named for the area in which it is located. And yet again there seems to have been a deviation from concept to commissioning. The area around it is Kasturba Nagar, named for Mahatma Gandhi's wife. But quite strangely, her name has been mangled and has come out differently in all three languages written here!



*I guess I should start referring to it by its new name of Rajiv Gandhi Salai - but I still call this city 'Madras' sometimes!

Protecting ideas

In some sense, India of the past worked on something like the 'open source' concept; there is no single person who can be credited with inventing chess, or the concept of the 'zero', both of which are generally accepted as having originated in this country. Intellectual Property (IP) was therefore one more of those quaint concepts that the British brought to India. The first legislation to protect such property was enacted as Act VI of 1856 and granted inventors some exclusivity for a 14-year period. In the nineteenth century itself, legislators brought out 4 different Acts, protecting inventions and designs and trying to ensure that inventors got some economic gains out of their work. During the twentieth century, the laws covering IP were periodically re-written, and were mostly ignored. Even the most significant legislation in this area, the Indian Copyright Act of 1957, probably lay gathering dust.

The 1990s changed all that; the Copyright Act became the shield of choice for software companies as they sought to protect their work from being pirated. India's membership of the WTO in 1995 brought with it more seriousness about protecting IP - and also a lot of hue and cry about having to protect turmeric-based home remedies and basmati rice. With all of that, the CGPDTM - Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks - took on a more market-friendly brand of 'Intellectual Property India' and began to set up its exclusive offices in various cities. This building in Guindy houses the Chennai branches of the Patents Office and the Trade Marks Registry. It also has the only office of the Geographical Indications Registry in the country.

Apart from all of this, Chennai and IP protection in India are very closely linked. The oldest firm of IP lawyers in India, DePenning & DePenning, is headquartered in Guindy, Chennai. It was born in 1856, soon after its founder, George Alfred DePenning, was awarded India Patent No.1 for his 'Efficient Punkah Pulling Machine'!

Poet with a sword?

To Ilango Adigal goes the credit for Silappadhikaram (Story of the Anklet), a rare epic that is rooted in the life of a commoner, rather than that of kings or Gods. And while the key plot points may themselves be rather mundane (even for the 2nd century CE, a husband's extra-marital relationship was not a shocker by itself), Ilango Adigal's genius lay in the grandeur of the epic. The story traversed all three - Chola, Pandya and Chera - kingdoms that spread over what is modern day Tamil Nadu; the narration integrates some of the best examples of prose, poetry and drama in Tamil literature and the characters he created are even today regarded as personifications of specific virtues - or vices.

The story itself is simple: Kovalan, a merchant in the Chola kingdom, repents at having ignored his wife Kannagi for Madhavi, a dancer. Kannagi forgives her husband and they move to Madurai, the capital of the Pandya kingdom, hoping to make a fresh start. When Kovalan tries to sell Kannagi's anklet to raise capital, the jeweller sees an opportunity to keep the queen's anklet given to him; so he tells the Pandya king that he has captured a thief who tried to steal it. Ignoring the due process of justice, the king orders Kovalan executed; and he is. With all this happening on the very day they reached Madurai, Kannagi is furious. She proves her husband's innocence and lambasts the king, who, mortified at his error, falls dead. Kannagi's unappeased wrath sets the whole of Madurai on fire; her anger cooled, she goes to the Chera kingdom, where, broken-spirited, she dies and is deified as the epitome of purity.

This statue on the Marina brings out the poet in Ilango Adigal by the palm-leaf manuscript in his left hand. The discarded crown and the sword on his right are reminders of his royal lineage. His appearance shows him to be the Buddhist monk that he eventually became. Inspite of abdicating all claims to the throne, this man has left behind a legacy that would be the envy of many kings!

Getting theatrical

There were - and still are - very few professional theatre people in Chennai. For quite a few in the vernacular theatre circuit, it is a hobby; for others, it is a step to the screen, big or small. Tamil cinema has been fed by stage actors for about 60 of its 75 years - it is only over the past decade that its dependence on the stage has reduced. Also, very few of the actors, once they have a toehold in the movies, come back to the stage. With all that, the lure of the Tamil stage has been diminishing.

As for English theatre, it was always seen as elitist; although the Madras Players, through more than 50 years of their existence have produced several Indian works (translated into English, of course), English theatre is restricted to a small group of fans. The Players, being mainly non-professional theatre folk, have had only a few shows of each of their 200-odd productions. Other groups - Masquerade, Boardwalkers, Little Theatre, Stagefright - have had short lives, or largely hibernating ones.

About 5 years ago, a couple of graduates from MICA decided that Chennai offers the greatest market potential for high quality entertainment providers. Going off the beaten path of advertising / market-research jobs, they set up their event management company here. In the space of 5 years, their company, Evam Entertainment, has captured the imagination of the city with some remarkable marketing efforts. Some of the things Evam has done has brought theatre closer to the people: for example, a public announcement, like the one in the picture, for theatre workshop registrations was unheard of a few years ago. But now, it gives me a chance to go and try out my dramatic skills - and having done so, chances are that I'll go to watch Evam's productions for at least a couple of years, even if I'm booted out of the workshop!

A 'killer' tree

In a fair world, people should feel the same about this photo as they would when shown a picture of a python or a boa constricting its prey. The snake, however, works within our definition of 'real-time'; the strike, the stangulation, the wide opening of jaws and the swallowing of the hapless prey can all happen before our eyes without us getting much older.

This tree works on a similar principle, but it is in no particular hurry. It's life probably began when a seed fell on the canopy of the palmyra. Over the course of a few days, the seed germinated, feeding on the detritus on which it fell. As it grew older, it began growing larger roots, looking for more food than the palm could provide; in a few months, the roots touched the ground. With a source of nourishment found, the tree began to grow bigger: more roots, more branches. In a few years, the palmyra finds itself being wrapped inside a maze of roots. Without meaning to, this tree's roots will crush the palm in... maybe a decade from now. It will take some really time-lapsed photography to show it happening in 'real-time' - and then we would dismiss it as a B-grade movie.

The strangler figs (this one is Ficus bengalensis, if I'm right), though, do not mean to kill. They don't seek out living things for their seeds to fall on. You've probably seen some of them growing in a tiny crack of a building - or the well known images of the temples in Indonesia and Cambodia being crushed. This one though is probably a few centuries away from any building, standing as it does in a rather wild patch of scrub jungle behind - way behind - the Chennai airport!

For your information

Yesterday, the traffic routing through Chamiers Road, Cenotaph Road and Mount Road was shuffled around a bit. This, they say, is the first step to building a flyover / grade separator (??!)at the entrance to Turnbulls Road. The flyover itself something that has been spoken about for a long time; initially planned on Chamiers Road, it has now been turned around 90-degrees and will take off from Cenotaph Road to land on Turnbulls Road.

So, since last morning, both the 'C' Roads have been swarming with policemen. Basically, traffic is now one-way on both of them; The good thing - for me - is the opening of a right turn from Chamiers Road on to Cenotaph Road; while the latter is one-way towards Mount Road, the former runs in the other direction. Normally when a change like this is made, all of it is explained to each motorist, but there was a difference yesterday. Most of the policemen had these pink leaflets with them - despite the numerous mis-spellings, this is a good attempt by the Chennai City Traffic Police to document the changes it implements. I believe it is the first time that something like this is being done.

The leaflet came in handy to convince a policeman that while I could not make a right turn from my street on to Cenotaph Road, there's nothing stopping me turning left into my street!

Superstar

It is a few hours before the first screening of a new film at Baby Albert. There are policemen - and policewomen - in uniform and in mufti around the gates of the cinema hall. The OB vans of national news channels are parked inside. As I get out of my car, I'm offered tickets for the movie - at about 15 times the box office rate. I walk around taking some photos and an Assistant Commissioner of Police grins at me: he is a fan too, and I think he must have pulled some strings to be posted in charge of operations here on Aug 1.

In about 2 hours from now, the fans would be out in full strength. Before the movie begins, many of them would clamber on top of the 70-foot cutout of the hero and pour litres of milk over it, garland it, light camphor around it and do everything they can to let the world know that they are looking forward to this movie being a success. That's a decade-old practice whenever The Superstar's movies are released. In recent days, they have also begun holding blood donation camps, distributing free food and suchlike things to balance the mania with some meaning.

And all of that did happen yesterday for this movie, not just in Chennai, but in Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi, too. After all there's only one Superstar in India!

From floor to ceiling

The first of every month is marked as 'Theme Day' by the City Daily Photo bloggers. The moment the theme for August 2008 was announced, I knew I was going to post about this store on Pondy Bazaar, one of the shopping hot-spots of Chennai.

Even though I have walked into this store several times, I am always amazed by the sheer variety of shapes and sizes of cooking - and storing - vessels that they have on display. You step off the pavement, right into the store and this is the sight that greets you, from floor to ceiling along three walls. In the middle, there are narrow aisles for walking through, and from the ceiling hang various kinds of vessels that have handles. Somewhere just overhead, there is just a small gap, where the stalactites and the stalagmites haven't met - yet.

It seems to me that this is the way it must always have been, from the time Rathna Stores (Firm) opened for business more than 50 years ago. There would have been some change in the alloys: from the traditional cast iron and copper vessels through to aluminium - hindalium, especially - to the stainless steel and carbon steel vessels that are in vogue currently. The Firm has grown to provide you with everything that you would need for the house, including a whole lot of non-metal stuff.

I can't believe that I missed registering for the 'Theme Day'! I knew the theme, I was sure what I was going to post about, but - I just didn't register to participate. That leaves me without the list of the 183 blogs that are participating, so you'll just have to click here to see their thumbnails - or you can just guess the theme for this month!

Security fencing

Security in Chennai has always been pretty low key. Most of the time, it involves documentating entry and exit of vehicles and people into office, commercial or residential spaces. Surveillance is by guards patrolling specific areas or by slowing down traffic to peer inside cars. Remote monitoring is unheard of, for the most part. Some traffic intersections have cameras, but the general belief is that they are incapable of taking pictures anymore. Radar guns - again, street wisdom is that one such gun is shared by all the police stations in the city. You get the idea here; security relies less on technology and more on personnel. (Or on low technology, like glass shards on walls).

It is therefore surprising to find a sign saying 'Electrified Fence', especially on the outskirts of Chennai - at the Livestock Research Centre in Kattupakkam. Upon asking around, one is told that the fence is basically meant to prevent animals from entering the area; the voltage is just enough to jolt the animals a little bit, there is no permanent damage. Over a period of time, the local animals have learnt to respect the fence and so the power is switched off for the most part; it is used only very rarely, when there are some obvious security threats across the city or when there is a high-profile visitor to the Centre.

I remember that one of the software companies, being an early mover on the OMR had built a similar fence years ago, for the same reasons - keeping out animals!

Remember the fallen

Chennai, or even Madras, is not a city with a martial heritage. Defining battles have been fought close to Madras, but the city itself has never been overrun by invaders. Even during the tussle between the French and the British - the siege of Madras - the key objective seems to have been to take the Fort; not much of action beyond. Surprisingly though, Madras is the only Indian city to have been shelled in the First World War (will come back later with that story). The average Madrasi has been far removed from military invasions, Mughal to Japanese; even the present day 'incursions' affect him only peripherally.

But Madras has its share of heroes through the ages. This circular marble structure, with a 'victory' pillar in the centre was built sometime after the First World War, to celebrate the defeat of the Central Powers. After World War II, the purpose was modified to honour those from the Madras Presidency who had fallen in action. The inscriptions in Tamil - வெற்றி - reads 'Victory', with the dates of the First and Second World Wars, also in the same script.

The practice continued after Independence; the 1962 Chinese Aggression and the 1965 Indo-Pak War also find mention on the monument. I couldn't spot any of the subsequent wars - but that could also have been because I was in a hurry to get back to my car, which was haphazardly parked near a gate of the Port of Chennai!

Sparkling bright

What with all the bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad over the past few days, taking photographs in public seems to be a rather adventurous pastime. In Chennai too, police have been placed on the alert. Thankfully, that does not seem to have hampered the regular activities of the city; things seem to be going on just fine.

Including the afternoon showers. A couple of sharp spells last afternoon cooled down the city without seriously inconveniencing anyone. The dark clouds put the raintrees to sleep earlier than usual, so when the sun came back at around 6 o'clock in the evening, it had a little more space to shine through on to a damp Eldams Road.

Wish things could stay this way, without threats of bombings or retaliations!

A bit of France?

Having posted a few pictures taken from the top of this building (the docks, Esplanade and the High Court), it is time that I revealed the building itself. So here is a shot of Dare House, the corporate headquarters of the Murugappa Group, one of India's oldest and most respected business houses. There was a time 250 years ago, when the French under Thomas Artur, comte de Lally, apparently camped at this site. That was during the siege of Madras in 1758, when the site was used as a base to mount cannon attacks on Fort St. George. But that's not the reason why the location is named 'Parry's Corner'. And it is not a corrupted spelling of the French capital city, either.

The story of Thomas Parry and his businesses, most notably in partenership with John William Dare, and how those businesses came to the family of Dewan Bahadur AM Murugappa Chettiar is far too rich and fascinating to be contained in this post - so I'm not even going to try. While Thomas Parry's name lives on in the name of one of the companies of the Murugappa Group, his partner is remembered in this building.

But all this history does not stop several people from referring to the junction of NSC Bose Road and Rajaji Salai as 'Paris Corner' - or sometimes even insisting that it is 'Paree Corner'!

Is fragrant frangipani?

Was walking down Lloyds Road - as a part of one of Nizhal's Tree Walks, more about them some other day - when I saw this frangipani tree, thick with flowers. And along with some childhood memories, unanswered questions came back. The memories are of two kinds: being lured to the plant by the sharp scent of its flowers, picking the fresh ones, punching a small hole in each petal to fold them back over the stem of the flower and ending up with a yellow-and-white ornament. Of course, as a kid rushing to make more signet-rings than the others, plucking the flowers was an essential part of the routine. But in the villages, there was always frustration at children playing with these flowers. A belief that the scent of these flowers attract the spirits - and snakes - during dusk meant that we were all frisked thoroughly for our ornaments before we were let back inside the house.

The name of the plant was also intriguing; it sounded so very Indian with the 'pani' ending (that ending denotes 'bearer' in many Indian languages), but it also sounded delightfully foreign, when you twist your tongue over the 'frangi' bit... and knowing that it was an imported plant added to its charm. Of course it had its local names, too - so many of them, in fact, that I do not remember even one!

But searching for a connect between the etymological roots of 'frangipani' and 'fragrant' has got me nowhere. I guess I should be happy to just walk under the plant, enjoy its fragrance and be thankful that it is there!

Here comes the train

Chennai's suburban rail network has always been a watered down version of its Mumbai counterpart. The latter carries almost half of the city's population every day; even with Chennai's significantly lower population, less than a third of them use the suburban trains. For a long while, Bombay and Madras were the only 2 cities in the country that could boast of a vibrant suburban train system. Delhi's was largely unused and Calcutta clung on to its trams.

Then Calcutta went for its Metro and Delhi bested it with a world-class system of their own. Chennai's trains continued to run; a new line was added, the older ones were upgraded - all incremental changes, nothing that was front-page stuff. The old lines: Central - Tiruttani, Central - Gummidipoondi/Sulurpet, Beach - Tambaram, were among the oldest tracks laid down in the country. While the first two run out to the northern suburbs, the Beach-Tambaram line goes through the city for the most part and connects up its southern reaches.

Here's one of those trains coming up to Beach: it has just left the Park station and now has to turn left, to skirt the western edge of the Fort St. George complex, heading towards the Fort station, its last halt before the Beach terminus. The bit of water at the bottom left of the picture is a part of the Cooum river; looking at its shrivelled and polluted state today, it is hard to believe that this was once a natural moat for Fort St. George!

Two epics and a long life

I don't know about others of my vintage, but the first time I read the Ramayanam and the Mahabharatam, it was in English. Maybe some of the charm of the epics was lost in the reading; but having had to listen to grandmothers reciting them in the vernacular, a verse a day (or so it seemed) one was impatient to find out What Happened, rather than listen to discourses on How To Behave. And Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) was the man who helped me in that quest. He translated both those great works into English, keeping the essence of each canto but going off on his own interpretation of how they defined / prescribed correct behaviour.

But that was only to be expected from one who was Gandhiji's sammandhi*; this man, the only native Governer-General that India had. After India became a Republic, he was a minister in the Union Cabinet for a short while, but then came to Madras in 1952 to become the Chief Minister of the (then) Madras state. He was by all accounts a man with several bees in his bonnet. Prohibition, Kulathozhil kalvi (schooling for half-day and learning the family trade during the other half), Hindi as a compulsory language - all of these, imposed by him, were seen by the people of Tamil Nadu as an extension of Northern hegemony and repression of the lower classes. And so, his Chief Ministership was short-lived; he resigned in 1954 and went into a tailspin of sorts; the second half of his life was a story of petty rivalries and pot-shots; certainly not lived in a manner befitting one of the earliest recipients of the Bharat Ratna.

This statue of Rajaji stands half-way along the long road that bears his name. But it is tucked away to a side, just like an old relative whose glory days are cherished by the family, but is today too embarassing to be included in a gathering of the clan!


*Rajaji's daughter was married to the Mahatma's son; that's a rather complicated way of saying they were sammandhis!

Waiting to wash

Somehow, I've never felt a need to take my car to someplace just to have it washed by a machine. And I haven't known anyone in Chennai who has actually done something like that. I am sure there would be folks who have; but unlike for the Loch Ness monster or the Sasquatch, we don't even have grainy photographs showing folks swerving their vehicles furtively into this MRF Tyredrome on Cathedral Road. And the more or less dry floor does not support the theory that Automatic Car Washes are Minting Money in Chennai. MRF can probably afford to run this along; it is rumoured that they charge Rs.200 a go; for that money, you have machines cleaning the inside and washing the outside while you get to wait in the lounge. And anyway, this is just a talking point for MRF, they're into other, bigger things. (Yes, they're the same guys who advertise on the outdoor thermometer of an earlier post).

If they'd at least let people sit in the car while it is washed, it might have been interesting for kids to see it from the inside. But for the kind of money that they (are rumoured to) charge, I can have someone come in every day for a month to wash my vehicle - he might even agree to wash the undercarriage, something that urban legend says this MRF Tyredrome does not do!


Would love to hear if you - or anyone you know - has used this. Any stories?

Citizens' Run

My first thought on seeing so many people wearing black t-shirts with an 'X' marked on them was, "Oh, another protest march!". Blame it on the political climate in India over the past weekend when everyone seemed to be protesting against everything. But then I kicked myself for not remembering that the 'X' was Roman; it was the 10th year of the Chennai Citizens' Run. I just caught the vanguard of the Run; schoolchildren wearing the t-shirts over their school uniforms and still seeming cool. The celebrities were probably waiting for the sun to go down a bit further before beginning their Run - that makes sense; the early runners can wait in the cool evening to see their heroes, more non-runners will be on the beach and might contribute to the causes supported by the Run. Even though it has been a low key affair since it began in 1996, the Citizens' Run has helped garner support for over 40 Chennai NGOs.

When one thinks about it, Chennai has quite a few runners, though not so many large scale events; apart from this Run, the Chennai Marathon is probably the only other well-publicised running event. However, there are those niche events by smaller groups like the Chennai Runners who had their ECR Run on Sunday (these folks need a daily dose of endorphins: they run at least 5 km every day except Mondays), or the Hash House Harriers - they have both Chennai and Madras versions (well, they do run, even if you think they are more focussed on what happens after the run).

So the next time you see a bunch of people in t-shirts running towards you, don't panic. Move to a side, wave them along, and if you want to be extra careful, hide that bottle of beer!

Taking fresh guard

For me, it is Sunil Gavaskar who began the practice of asking the umpire for a fresh guard when he reached his century. That's probably factually incorrect; it is something that almost any batsman will do, every once in a while during an innings. But since Gavaskar scored more test centuries than any batsman before him, he had more opportunities to do it in the public eye. In a sense, today's post follows this habit; having reached a hundred, I looked for a fresh start - without having to do away with all the previous posts!

And that's where this milestone helps. Considering its significance, there should be some kind of monument around it. It stands quite forlorn, without anything to indicate it's significance. And it's location, almost at the apex of the railway overbridge on Muthuswamy Road is not a convenient one to build any kind of elaborate marker. Apparently, it is the norm for highway engineers to locate the 'zero point' of a road at a place where there is no possibility of overlapping roads; for them, the zero point of a road is just a technical indication. This milestone is considered the zero point for the three National Highways in Chennai; though only NH45 (to Trichi) is marked, NH4 and NH5 (to Bangalore and Kolkata respectively) also begin here.

From a historic perspective, the zero point of Madras was within the walls of Fort St George; and convention then was to measure distances from the gates of the Fort. I have not had an opportunity to go inside the Fort for a long time. Maybe the next time I do, I should look to see if there is any memory of the 'Zero Point', which was once the centre of Madras!

A tall one

It is not very easy to decide which photo should be posted for a milestone. The decision about the first photo of this blog was fairly easy, plus I had a decently long time to think about it. The decision about the 50th photo was taken out of my hands - it was June theme day and there was just one photo that could go up. Even then, I did not start thinking about the 100th photo; it is only during the past week that the thought that this has to be a significant photo kept nagging away....

And so, this building. In some of my earlier posts, I have mentioned how a shot of this building was enough to establish that the hero had arrived in Madras - whether the movie was in Tamil, Malayalam or maybe even Telugu. It remains (I think) the tallest building in Chennai. The construction of this building was begun in 1953 - the design inspired by the United Nations Headquarters in New York - by M.Ct.M.Chidambaram Chettiar, who dreamt of it showcasing United India Insurance, Indian Overseas Bank and Travancore Rayons, three of his big business ventures. Chidambaram Chettiar died in 1954; his dream for this building died a couple of years later, when the property, belonging to United India Insurance, was taken over by the government when insurance was nationalised in 1956.

Having always seen this building from Mount Road, I did not think I could ever have a different view of it. What I did not realize was that the property has now been extended all the way back to General Patters Road; it is not easy, as you drive up GP Road to figure out how the 'Golden Jubilee Gateway' takes you to Mount Road - it is only when you go a little beyond that you get to see the building itself and then it becomes clear. When I got this view of the LIC Building, I knew that it would make the 100th post - the building where both my parents spent a significant part of their working lives!

Not in session

In most commonwealth countries, the lowest level of the justice system is the Magistrates Court. Most of the cases that come up here are of the type where the presence of a judge is necessary to carry out the bureaucratic processes that are a large chunk of legal proceedings - remand of suspects, swearing of affidavits, issue of warrants - all those little bits of paper that add up to the might of the law.

Chennai has 26 Metropolitan Magistrates; 24 of them operate out of fixed offices and 2 are 'Mobile Courts' - a large van that travels around within the Court's jurisdiction, taking justice to the people. Between them, they cover all the police stations in the city, though it might take quite a while to figure out how exactly they are connected - if you have the patience to do it. This building in Saidapet houses 7 of the 26 Magistrates (the biggest chunk is with Egmore which has 12 and George Town takes up the remaining 5; both Mobile Courts are attached to Egmore)

At 8 am, the buildings are shut and sleepy. As the time for the courts to begin their day approaches, the pavements wil be filled with all kinds of touts, lawyers, police constables, small time criminals hoping to either advance or retard the wheels of justice. I don't think it is a fun place to be unless you have a good idea how to work the system - or if you're just there to take pictures!

Harbouring ambitions

The Chennai Port is 127 years old this year - or so they say. It is one of the quirks of this city that the Port's anniversary does not actually mark the commencement of the day the Port was open for business; rather, it marks the anniversary of a severe storm that completely washed away the first 2 L-shaped breakwaters built to provide a safe harbour. Work on these breakwaters commenced in 1876 and was almost complete when the storm wreaked its havoc in November 1881. Besides the breakwaters, the railway tracks used for transporting construction material, the cranes and some of the other masonry work on the docks was damaged beyond repair. It took about 4 years before work on building a permanent harbour commenced again and it was completed in 1896.

As a counterpoint, the first pier of the Madras Harbour was in operation as early as 1861 - that would make the Chennai Port 20 years older - but storms in 1868 and 1872 damaged it so badly that it became unfit for use. And even before the pier was built, the fishing village of Chennapatnam is reported to have had a rough road out into the sea, serving as a pier, as far back as the 1630s. Be that as it may, until the harbour was ready, ships to Madras would drop anchor about half-a-kilometer out to sea and cargo was transported to land using lighter boats called 'Masulas'.

Today, the Port has specialized docks - it handles about 12% of India's iron ore exports through a dedicated ore handling plant and receives Suezmax category oil tankers to feed the refineries in Chennai - and was also the first in the country to set up a dedicated container terminal facility which is among the top 5% of such terminals worldwide.

Chennai might not have a romantic seafaring tradition - which makes it all the more creditable that it has overcome the disadvantage of not having a natural harbour to hover in the list of the top 3 ports in India, year after year!

That's a warning!

Went a bit further down the dead-end I had written about in an earlier post. No, I wasn't looking for anything specific, it was just that there was no parking space near the building I wanted to go to. There wasn't much to do for it, but park the car further deep into the street. Didn't notice this board first; actually, I did see it, but dismissed it as one of those omni-present signs saying "Do Not Park in Front of the Gates". It was bit later that I realized the sign was - most probably - intended to warn children playing cricket in the street, to not hit the ball into the walls.

Despite what it says, I am sure the person who had this put up on her* gate must have a wry sense of humour. At least, she* seems to be playing along with all those childhood stories. If you remember, the rakshasan/ogre/troll never waits at the near end of the bridge/road/forest: the hero has to go to a point-of-no-return before the ground thunders. Bringing the ball back after hitting it into the grounds of a house is a dull task. Imagine how deliciously exciting it can be if the ball has to be retrieved when you know the house is inhabited by a fire-breathing demoness!* Don't you agree with me that this livens up the game quite a bit?

*There is a Tamil translation of this board, indicating the gender...

Call it what you will

The name 'Abbotsbury' today brings to mind the block of apartments on CP Ramaswamy Road. But there was a time when Abbotsbury was the hall of choice for hosting celebrity weddings. Somewhere along the way, the stars crumbled around it and the owner - one of the founding partners of Tarapore & Co. - willed it to his company on his death. For some reason, Tarapore did not develop the property and it lay vacant until it was gifted away to the Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. The Sai Baba also did not appear to be interested in holding on to it and the place was sold to the Balaji Group, promoted by Magunta Subbarami Reddy, a Member of Parliament, in 1994.

The Balaji Group began construction of what was rumoured to be a "7-Star Hotel", at a time when the category was non-existent. The Oberoi Group, with their experience in running luxury hotels, was to manage the property and so it came to be known as the 'Magunta Oberoi'. However, when Subbarami Reddy was murdered by Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh in December 1995, the Balaji Group lost direction; the Magunta Oberoi project fell through.

Every once in a while, there would be a report that a hospitality major was taking over the property. Over the past dozen years the names that have done the rounds include Intercontinental, Hilton and Hyatt. Now, there are two banners across the gates - one claiming 'Ramani Hotels, Mumbai' to be the owner and the other staking the claim of 'Robust Hotels'. Through all this, the building still stands half-constructed, with its glass paneling facing Mount Road hiding the unplastered bricks at its rear, hoping to someday add 323 rooms to the Chennai hotel market!


PS: The title of this post is in some sense inspired by my fellow Chennai-daily-photo-blogger Ram's post about the same building!

Sea of humanity

Not really, it is more like a small pond.

On our way back from Mamallapuram on Sunday, we had stopped at the Elliots Beach in Besant Nagar. We tried to get off our vehicle close to the spot where I had taken a photograph of 6th Avenue a few weeks ago; but today, there was no place to park and so we drifted down a bit further towards the southern end of 6th Avenue. It didn't get any better, so we just went ahead and jumped on to the sands and walked the short distance to the waterline. As we got closer, I realized that the soft roar was not the sound of waves, but the chants of those getting their feet wet in the waves. It is not usual for people in Chennai to go swimming at these beaches; the bottom apparently drops abruptly after about half-a-kilometre, and the resulting undercurrents can be dangerous. So, there were only a few men who had ventured more than 10m into the water - and they were the ones most excited by the waves tumbling them over.

I saw this as a chance to build up the average number of people-per-photograph. It is also a nod to those like Kris, Ravindran, Ram, Magiceye and Sherry, who found their perceptions of Chennai being shattered by that earlier photograph - folks, there are still some crowds in Chennai!

Shore temple

It is criminal to visit a World Heritage Site without a camera; I got away with it because my cell phone has a decent one! Had gone to Mamallapuram on Sunday, the trip being inspired by friends visiting Chennai. As we walked around the monuments, I realized it was the first time that I was seeing the Shore Temple after the tsunami of December 2004.

The name of this town, about 60km from Chennai, is a tribute to King Narasimhavarma Pallavan's prowess as a wrestler ('Maha Mallan' = great wrestler). This tribute is a recent one, dating from the second half of the 20th century. For hundreds of years after King Narasimhavarman, the town was called Mahabalipuram, and is identified by that name in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. But Mahabalipuram calls to mind a religious myth and the atheistic political climate of the 1960s could not stand such a reference: a more local heritage needed to be honoured. (Some scholars believe that the Pallavas were originally the Pahlavas of Persia, but that's too tenuous a connection, so Mamallapuram satisfies requirements of local heritage).

The shore temple is magnificent, built on bedrock that rises from the sea. It is believed that there were once 6 such others - but the earliest documentation of this is from 1798, when John Goldingham, later to be the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, wrote down the local legends he heard. The tsunami of 2004 provided a tantalising glimpse of what might be: some who were on the beach when the sea withdrew reported sightings of another temple, and a stone lion was uncovered when the sands were washed off from it. The Archeological Survey of India does not have any recent update on its post-tsunami investigations. Until they find - and then manage to relocate to the surface - another temple, the Shore Temple will remain a singular monument!

The Eater's Digest - 3

Vegetarianism used to be quite the norm in Chennai. Even today, there are some landlords who would not let their houses out to folk who eat meat - apart from the belief that meat-eating causes man to absorb animalistic tendencies, they do not like the idea of the kitchen being used as a mini-slaughterhouse. By and large, major taboos around eating meat have faded out and with vegetarianism coming back into 'fashion', it is far easier to resist peer pressure, whether your preference is for the vegetables or the meat - unlike the past, where non-vegetarians would deny such tastes and vegetarians would get defensive about their choices.

Fashionable vegetarianism has opened up more options for dining out. Apart from Saravana Bhavan and its clones, there are a few others that have tried to pick up vegetarian niches; one such is the Sanjeevanam restaurants, which have gone uber-vegetarian, by introducing a lunch menu, where courses are served - and are expected to be eaten - in a particular order. Unlike other thali lunches, where you can eat the dishes on the side in any order you choose (and ask for multiple helpings), the Rajakeeyam lunch regulates what you eat, too. Though at first look, the portions appear small, the restaurant ensures you are well fed by the time you finish your payasam (dessert).

Took this picture of the lunch menu when I had gone there for dinner once. Though dinner is good, I would prefer to go there for lunch, despite the possibility of having to wait a while. There is one peculiarity that many might find irritating; the waiters enforce it as a strong suggestion and I think it is good practice to follow it, but quite a few people ruin their digestion by being irritated at the denial of what is a basic necessity. That's right, Sanjeevanam strongly recommends that, if you are going for the Rajakeeyam lunch, you keep your water glass unfilled until you have finished eating!

Retail sales

There are still a few streets in Chennai that have more houses than flats. It is always a pleasure to go into such a street, because one gets to see sights that are unique today, but were commonplace a couple of decades ago. And when the street is a dead-end, it makes for some added excitement - because you know you don't have the excuse of 'passing through'!

Early last morning, I went into one such street in Abhiramapuram. Okay, the excitement was slightly lower, because I had a good reason to be there. It was nice to see that the practice of washing the space in front of the gates and tracing 'kolams' in them still continues - that's something one can't get to see in front of a flat. And because it had rained a bit during the night, the street had a misty feel to it, the fresh mist that foretells a crisp day.

And then I saw this colourful sight. These tricycles have almost disappeared with the advent of all the big, corporatised retail stores. They are the last link in a chain that has connected farmer to consumer, getting the vegetables from the field to the table within 24 hours more often than not. Unlike the big stores, this chain does not have any fancy infrastructure or management overheads; no storage facilities or refrigerated trucks. It runs on links that fragment the produce at every stage, making sure that there is no need to carry inventory. And it works because there are still many wives and mothers who do not believe in storing vegetables in their freezers - they want them fresh, every day. And these tricyles bring such vegetables right to the gates, dispensing of 250g of tomatoes, a 100g of beans - just enough for a household to be fed that day. And these retail specialists probably know much more about their customers' preferences than any store manager can find out from his databases!

Warm bread

On a few of the afternoons during the last week, parts of Chennai had the 'showers' - an ominous build-up of dark clouds, threatening a deluge to break all records, followed by gusty winds that chase most of the clouds away. Invariably the clouds, being sore losers, dump some of their content in a quick burst and for about 15 minutes, visibility is down to 20 metres, the bike riders and pedestrians rush to the nearest tree or store-front and wait until the clouds finish their showing-off.

Having a car, I'm luckier and keep going my way. One afternoon, it was still dark as I passed this bakery. Not having much of an overhang, it is not a favoured sheltering place for those caught by the rain. That day, the contrast between it's interiors and the dripping, gloomy street was stark; the brightly lit inside was almost beckoning me to enter and pick up some of the fresh muffins that they normally stock every afternoon. It was tempting; they are really good bakers and I like their products - but the raindrops were large enough to deter me from stopping for them. Still, the memory of the smells and warmth inside the bakery kept me company until I reached my destination!

PS: Magiceye, thank you for the 'Araldite & Ford Cortina' - once I got the word 'Duralite' into my head, I couldn't think of any other brand!

The fine print

It is said that Indians speak rapidly. Even so, the consumer boom of the past few years had brought into being a new class of quick speakers - those who speak the fine print. To protect market participants in recently decontrolled insurance markets, the regulators for insurance and for mutual funds imposed quite a bit of mandatory declarations on any advertisement material - "Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation", "Mutual funds are subject to market risks", "Please read offer document carefully before investing" being the most commonly used phrases.

It is funny enough to hear these words running into each other so as to take up less than 1.5 seconds of a 10 second radio ad spot. But the virus spread to other places, too; the neighbourhood grocer started putting in signs saying "Potatoes free (conditions apply)" and spotting the fine print, whether in the written or the spoken form, has become a challenge.

This sign on the wall of the LR Swami building at the intersection of Cenotaph Road and Mount Road seems to be predicting a day when those 3 little whispered words would be followed by four others, said in a much softer tone - and if you are used to picking up what those "Mutual funds blah, blah, blah" announcements mean, you can surely catch on to what 'Terms and Conditions Apply'!