You get what you see

If this picture makes you drool, you are a true Madrasi. Even though it is nothing more than boiled peanuts and a few strips of semi-ripe mangoes, the memories that a Madrasi associates with the thenga-manga-pattani-sundal are far too numerous to mention.

Unlike the earlier jhal-mudi seller, this vendor is slightly more traditional. Only that he is at Eliots Beach and not at the Marina, the birthplace of the sundal. And no, you won't be successful at getting a true Madrasi to think that sundal could have been thought of anyplace else!

Collectors' item

The forecourt is on similar lines to that of the Casino, but this one pre-dates the Casino by quite a few years. Unlike the Casino, the 'Electric Theatre', built by Reginald Eyre and Warwick Major had a very short run; it screened its first silent film in 1913 and fell silent for the last time in 1915. It is said that its drapes were in blue and red, tricked out with silver stars. Major and Eyre did not pay too much attention to the social aspects of going to the movies; the foyer was very narrow, with almost the entire building being used up as the screening hall. It appears this plan left very little space for the patrons to mingle and critique the film.

That alone may not have been the cause for the 'Electric Theatre' to close shop. Maybe the name did not lend itself to a feeling of joy - and that must have been sharply accentuated when 'Gaiety' opened in 1914, just behind the Electric Theatre. Major and Eyre did try to make up - was it they who pioneered the concept of differential pricing, for they created 5 classes of seating, including one for women in the purdah, sheltered from the others. Well, the division could more likely have been to reflect the society's caste system at that time, so that might have been a gambit to recover from an early error of mingled seats. But you can't fault them for bringing in the best caterer in Madras at the time - that's right, the Hotel d'Angelis - to run an open air bar and cafe in the garden besides the building.

None of it seemed to help the partners keep the business going. In 1915, they sold the building to the Government, to be developed as the Mount Road Main Post Office. Luckily, the Post Office has retained the building in its original shape and style - and you can even go in to get a double dose of history, looking at the old postage stamps and then looking up to see if you can spot the place where the electric lamp used for projection, which gave the theatre its name, was placed!

Summer showers...

...are back!

Sharp, concentrated but thankfully very brief, these showers are a by-product of the South West monsoon. They bring down the temperature, hold up everyone on the streets; if you're wise you will not leave the strorefront you're holed up in. Chennai residents will know these showers last only a few minutes so it is worth waiting it out rather than get drenched and look foolish for the rest of the day.

There're still a couple of months to go before Chennai's monsoon sets in, but any Chennai resident will be glad to have showers of this kind every day - the heat is still ruling at fairly high levels!

Old fashioned

Early morning, by the side of a road just outside Chennai. Farmers here continue to use these tools - the hoe and the ploughshare - for their small landholdings. The oxen were taking a break from the ploughing, grazing nearby.

The city will catch up with them very soon. Too soon.

Quite amusing

New Delhi is often touted as having had the first amusement park - Appu Ghar - in the country, but Chennai can stake a reasonably valid claim to that fame, too. I shall keep the story of VGP's Golden Beach for another day, but it did give rise to many other such amusement parks in the city. Several of them have gone under, but there are still about three or four which continue to draw in the crowds.

Queen's Land (in whatever way it is spelt, they're themselves not sure of it) is a fairly recent entrant, having opened only in 2004. It has a great first mover advantage in location, being on the NH4 - most of the others are on the East Coast Road. One can see the cable cars from the road a short while before seeing the park's signboard; it is quite tempting to stop the vehicle and get on to a couple of rides - though I don't think too many people do that. Planned visits are more the norm than not.

I've never been to this park, but I have been rather amused by their website, which says "...it is a place really worth spending your valuable time with. Every one will accept the fact being the valuable money that is being spent by our valuable visitors had fetched more value."

Russian Century

For a bunch of kids who grew up in the Madras of the '70s and early '80s, New Century Book House was a place where one could get some excellent books. The only condition was that one should not be too choosy about the author or the characters, for almost all the books at NCBH were translations of Russian works. I should say 'Soviet' works, for those were the days when India's 'non-alignment' meant a special friendship with the USSR: the books from the Soviet lands must have been heavily subsidized, for none of them cost more than Rs.10. Even in those days, it was quite a bargain.

And so there was a huge collection built up. 'Tales from the North Sea', Tolstoy's 'Stories for Children', 'The Fire Bird' - these are some of the books that I can see on my shelf even today, as I write this. There were others, very many that are packed away in cartons because they have become dog-eared over several years of being read by different generations. Names such as Vanya, Kostya, Shurik, Lyka and Nyura became very familiar from all the stories they appeared in. But it was not all 'story-books'; Vygodsky's 'Mathematical Handbook' was a completely different perspective from what the schools taught us. Ya. Perelman's 'Mathematics can be Fun' is still captivating enough for my son to pore over.

USSR has been gone a long time now and the 'special friendship' has moved shores. The NCBH too does not stock those Soviet titles any more. I hope they are doing well, but they have moved across the road from where their rather roomy bookshop used to be, to a slightly hole-in-the-wall location - the only bright thing appears to be their signboard!

Another one rises

A few weeks ago, the smooth surface of the Jawaharlal Nehru Road was broken up and this barricade came around it. That is the first visible indication of the Chennai Metro project having begun in earnest. Expected to take six years to complete, the project is estimated at over USD 3 billion.

Though they say the first phase - from Teynampet to the airport - will be operational by 2011, there is no sign of any work having begun at either of those ends!

Chennai's finest

It has been almost three years since Chennai's police force was gifted these prowl cars by Hyundai Motors. Until then, the standard vehicle for the police was the Willys Jeep, or something similar. But somehow, the abiding image of cops seems to be one associated with red-white-blue lights, a low sedan with snazzy decals screeching up to the scene of action and the Chennai Metropolitan Police was nowhere in the picture on this one. In fact, with the introduction of these sedans in 2006, the CMP reportedly became the first police department in the country to use sedans.

One hundred of these were provided to the city's police force; 72 were given to the law-and-order wing, 25 to the traffic police and the rest were retained for the chief minister's convoy. They were supposed to be driven by officers of the rank of at least sub-inspector - but I suspect that the novelty having worn off, the sub-inspectors would rather have someone else drive the car these days while they call out the warnings on their hailers!

Unfit for occupation

Seen on a building on Walajah Road. Yes, it looked pretty bad, and it didn't seem like there were any occupants. But some boards were there, so not sure if they were tenants refusing to vacate, or just those who left in so much of a hurry as to not take their boards with them.

Or is the threat of imminent demolition just a trick to get those tenants out?

Catenary

Oh yes, I just have to show off that word - it means "the curve assumed by a cord of uniform density and cross section that is perfectly flexible but not capable of being stretched and that hangs freely from two fixed points". Apparently, the definition for that kind of a curve has also been adapted to describe the Overhead Line Equipment (OHLE) that is used to power trains running on electricity - as the ones on Chennai's suburban lines are.

This is a stretch of the railway tracks just across the road from the airport; it is a rather straight stretch, which is fairly common on the Tambaram - Beach line. The catenaries are hung out from points on the crossbar; the whole arrangement looked like a series of goal posts - was tempted to show them all receeding into the distance, fitting inside each other, but it didn't seem like a good idea to stand in between the tracks trying to get a 'perfect picture', so I just settled for this one.

There was something I noticed then, something that continues to intrigue me: what are those rolls of - wire mesh? I mean the green things tucked inside the crossbar, on its left. It can be seen in every one of the crossbars. Does anyone have any idea what that is for?

Corsican Messina connection

If one were to turn left into Mount Road from Walajah Road, the angle of the junction will bring to view this it-might-have-been-grand-once-upon-a-time kind of building. The location of the building, at the dog-leg where Blackers Road turns off from Mount Road, may not seem to be a great one today, but in the late 19th century, it would certainly catch the eye of anyone going down to St Thomas' Mount from the Fort.

But Giacomo d'Angeli wasn't thinking about location or anything like that when he came to Madras from his native Corsica Messina in 1880. All he wanted was a place to set up his catering service, "Maison Francaise". It was a most likely a novelty intially, a Corsican Messinan 'Mess Contractor' providing catering services under the supervision of a French chef. Business was good enough for d'Angeli to stick to it for over twenty years; he then got a lucky break when Lord Ampthill, governor of Madras from 1900 to 1906 insisted that all his parties would be exclusively catered to by d'Angeli. That break set Giacomo on the road to prosperity; in 1906, he opened the Hotel d'Angeli's in this triangle-shaped building, with its east windows and the first floor verandah looking out on to Mount Road. In time, Hotel d'Angeli's became the place to be in; many innovations were brought to Madras by good old Giacomo - elevators, running hot water, electric fans, cold storage, billiard rooms - all these luxuries brought in patrons by the droves, even after Giacomo sold out the business to the Bosottos sometime in the 1920s 1930.

The Bosottos themselves got out of the hotel business in the 1940s and since then, Hotel d'Angeli's began to go downhill, until it was converted into an office complex - without any major changes - in the late 1960s. Today, a large Bata showroom occupies the ground floor, where the lobby and tea-room used to be. The rest of the building is little cared for and seems to have turned away with a vengeance from its days of glamour.

There does not seem to be any record of what Giacomo d'Angeli did after selling his hotel; he would have been around sixty at that time and no one seems to have any idea of where he went after the Bosottos took over his hotel. But search for "d'Angeli" on Google today and you will find a host of catering-related results in the first page, ranging from Naples, FL, USA to Singapore. Maybe there is something more to the d'Angeli name, after all!



After putting up this post, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Giacomo d'Angeli's great grandson, Jefferies Evans had read it and had pointed out a couple of errors. I have been guilty of not correctling them until now - that's the explanation for the strikethroughs!

Flower.

What kind? I have no idea. Just thought they looked good, when I saw them at Neelankarai, just off the East Coast Road. The plant was rather unkempt; but the flowers lift up your spirit with their sheer freshness - what more can you ask for on a hot day, under the blazing sun at Neelankarai!

Interior, day.

Well, it is not exactly the setting for a play, but it just gives you a sense of what the Museum Theatre looks like inside. It is quite a steep drop from the doors to the stage, giving you a sense of being in an amphitheatre of olden days. A big difference is that the hall is not really semi-circular, but more a deep horseshoe. It was built more for vocal expositions than for theatrics, which is probably why it was okay to have seats at 90-degree angle to the stage. In today's times, someone in that seat would miss out on almost every expression the actors convey, so there are always two wedges of empty seats along the sides.

The 'pit' is not really as well defined as the one in the Music Academy; in fact, it is non-existent, if I'm right. Now that I think about it, I realize I have no idea where the production crew, which would normally be in the pit, sits in this theatre. The space in front of the stage is filled with seats, almost up to the footlights. There are about a hundred seats there and those are the pricey ones; if you've opted for a cheaper ticket, the best thing to do is to rush in when the doors open and take your place somewhere just behind a railing which separates the 'front-benchers' from the rest.

For this event, there were no tickets - it was a quiz competition and everyone was trying hard to get into the front, so as to not miss a single pixel of the questions being projected - and during the break, one member of each team seems to have stayed behind to guard the hard-earned seating!

Beachside Drive-in

If this photo had been taken a few hours later, it would have been full of people. But at noon, there is really no reason for anyone to be crowding at the gates of Chennai's only drive-in theatre, considering that the first show is seven hours away. With the city's expansion, what was once a difficult-to-reach destination is now close enough for people to actually go and watch a movie out there. Despite that, Prarthana doesn't seem to be getting the bigger movies, having to make do with second-rung films or ones that are on their second wind.

It has been quite a while since I've been to a movie here, but memories of doing so are quite pleasant - except for the scramble to get into the gates. That's a test of patience and it takes a lot to curb roadrage when you see someone cut in front of you after you've crawled for about 20 minutes to cover the last half-kilometre to the gates. Inside, there is enough space; though I don't remember the actual capacity, I'm sure there's enough space for at least 75 cars - that's quite a lot of people, not including the 100 or so who, having come on their two wheelers, can sit at the back.

The complex also has a regular theatre - Aradhana. That's something I didn't know until very recently - haven't heard of anyone going all the way to Prarthana and then deciding not to do the drive-in bit!

Tower garage

It is about 90 feet tall, squarish and stands all by itself a little away from the gopuram of the Kapaleeshwarar temple. And no, it does not have any ramps leading up to it, so it cannot be a multi-level car park, can it?

It is actually the parking spot for a single vehicle. A single vehicle which is used once - or maybe twice - a year. That vehicle is the chariot, the ther which is used to take the main deity in a procession around the temple on the important festival days. This is a common enough practice in many of Tamil Nadu's temples - and the chariots are mostly parked in a thatched shed, close to the temple gates.

At the Kapaleeshwarar temple, the chariot itself has become a venerated item over the years; that is probably the reason why it has been locked up in its own garage, where it can stay away from the eyes - and the hands - of devotees, emerging grandly on the day when it has to show itself off in all its glory!

Haircut, anyone?

Chennai does have its fair share of high end hair stylists, but the city obviously has enough population to keep a large number of 'hair dressing saloons' in business. Many of these saloons have upgraded themselves - they're air-conditioned, have a variety of scissors (that's big deal, considering most of them used to have just a blunt shear to hack at my schoolboy hair) and offer you full-service; hair colouring to pedicure with all kinds of beautification in between.

I'm old enough to have seen - yet, young enough to have not used :) - the itinerant barbers stropping their razors under trees by the roadsides of suburban Madras. They too, offered full service, with a 'head-massage' rounding off the shave and a haircut that most customers desired. Now, here's a shop that stays true to its roadside heritage - there is no door, just 3 walls blocking off a space by the pavement. The plastic chairs for waiting customers are on the pavement itself, as is the asbestos sunshade over them. All you have to do is to step off the pavement, and plonk right into the barber's chair!

Menagerie City - 7

These were common sights once upon a time, even in the centre of the city. Cattle would meander through Mount Road, making their way back home from wherever it was they went to graze. But over the past couple of decades, the few bovines that can be seen are the bullocks used as a cheap option for transporting material - typically construction material like bricks, timber, or cement.

The farm hasn't left the city completely yet. This picture was taken less than a couple of kilometres from the entrance to Chennai's international airport. Of course it is in a direction away from the city - into Thirusoolam hill, but it still shows glimpses of the rustic city - how is that for an oxymoron - that Chennai once was!

Roadside fire

Like many of the others on the Old Mahabalipuram Road (now called Rajiv Gandhi Salai), this installation too, does not have any description. This, however, is one of the easier ones to figure out; most of the descriptions - none official, though - call it 'The Flame'.

At the time of its installation, about 3 or 4 years ago, the roadside was rather barren; the white, orange and yellow of 'The Flame' kind of blended with the red-brown dirt of the roadside. But now, with the verge having become quite green, the colours of 'The Flame' sparkle against the green; with a couple of plants having grown tall enough to partially screen it, 'The Flame' plays peek-a-boo with its colours, allowing you to fully see them only from an angle on the road (of course, you can choose to park a bit of a way away and walk down to the patch around it).

Just goes to show that even a little roadside fire can grow on you!

Above the bunker

It was once the place to hang out, the round tana along the Mount Road. It was really a hub, from where one could change directions if one was so adventurous as to stray off the straight road from the Fort to the Mount. You could head off towards Chindadripet or choose to go to Triplicane - the latter, a settlement that goes back quite a few hundred years and the former a colony created by the early British settlers.

But in those early days of Madras, you didn't hang out at this junction. It was only after the round tana came - providing a little shelter and a drink of water for the footsore traveller - that people began to stop at this place. Later, after the round tana had been pulled down - to confuse the Japanese air raiders - a large parking circle was created in the centre (you can see it in this photo) and that was when the Madras round tana became the meeting spot for the hip crowd.

Today, it is a busy junction - and will become busier once the new secretariat complex is built at the north-eastern corner; maybe at that time, the first pedestrian subway of Madras (a former air-raid bunker), just under the road here, will see much more traffic than it does these days!

Guarded entrance

What is it about Chennai's museums that get them to display armament outside? True, Chennai does have some kinds of martial traditions, but those do not really define the city. In fact, the armed forces would be fairly low on most people's list when they think about Chennai. And yet, the two major museums in the city are fronted by cannons (or mortars, if you insist).

You might remember one of those cannons outside the Government Museum - and here we have a couple of guns, on either side of the main door to the Fort Museum. There are a couple of other field guns, too, on the verandah. All these were apparently seized from his army after Tipu Sultan was defeated at Srirangapatnam in 1799 - and since Madras was the headquarters in those days, the spoils were brought back - and have remained here since!

House-bus?

It is not often you get to see decorative edges on a bus roof, and that's what catches the eye at first. Then, you realize that the entire scheme seems to indicate one of those old houses with a verandah spaced with arches - certainly an unusual design for bus windows!

Car care-free

One of the wisest investments I made when living in the USA was to become a member of the Automobile Association - the $60 that I spent for the annual membership more than paid for itself when I had to have my car jumpstarted (twice), when I was locked out of my car and needed help, with all the maps that I picked up and with the discounts at some of the theme parks. I don't think I had so many benefits when I was a member of the Automobile Association of Southern India (AASI) during the mid 1990s - the only one I remember was a discount on the insurance premium.

But I am sure there are quite a few benefits on offer, besides the insurance premium discount (which still continues), for there is no reason otherwise for the AASI to have almost 25,000 active members. Headquartered in Chennai, the AASI has 12 branches, covering all the four southern states. It was the second such association to be formed in India when it was established in 1911. The first, at Calcutta, had started 7 years earlier - difficult to believe that there were enough cars to form an association in 1904!

Though membership is economical enough, there don't seem to be enough people queuing up to enroll - with about 500,000 cars running in Chennai city alone, the 25,000 membership figure seems to be rather miniscule!

Unheard of road?

The nationalistic (parochial?) fervour of the 1970s saw several roads being renamed. In many cases, the old names continue to be used, with the younger generations still being able to associate the old name with the new one. The older names will die out, surely, but some are sticking on for much longer than others.

One name that seems to have vanished completely is that of Brodie Road - now known as Ramakrishna Mutt Road. It was this sign that reminded me of where Brodie's Road had disappeared to - funnily enough, I haven't heard even any of the old-timers calling it by this name, ever!

What the Dickens!

It has been there for a long, long time, but somehow I haven't found myself being able to walk in through those doors. Maybe it was because the first time I noticed it was way back, over 20 years ago, just after I had read Charles Dickens' "Old Curiosity Shop" for the first time. If you remember, that was a rather poignant tale; and I had all those associations in my mind.

Good to see that the shop still survives, and doing well, by all accounts. Must get over my childhood prejudices and go in there someday soon!

Grand Alliance

In 1901, V.Kuppuswamy Iyer was probably buzzing with ideas about what he wanted to do; that's one explanation for the description of the firm he founded - The Alliance Company. As you can see, the sign (well, you may need to click on it for a larger picture) says, "Publishers, Booksellers, Etc". Today, we don't know what else Kuppuswamy Iyer had in mind, but the firm has been thriving in the first two parts of its description. Considering that they publish only Tamizh titles, it is really an amazing feat, to have kept it going for well over a century, now.

Alliance was caught up - maybe even thought up - in the fervour of the independence movement of the early 20th century. The Indian National Congress' annual conferences were always covered by The Alliance Company through special editions. When they released the Tamizh translations of Netaji's books "Youth's Dream" and "Straight Path", the British government banned them and that probably added to the firm's credibility. To celebrate their first 40 years, the firm brought out an anthology of short stories - 40 of them - under the title "Kadhai Kovai", in 1942; in the same vein, they brought out another anthology to celebrate their centenary - 100 stories by 100 writers, this time.

For all that, their best selling book is one named "Indhumadha Ubakkiyaanam", a collection of stories from Hindu mythology, aimed at providing moral instruction for children. According to the firm, this title, compiled by A.Krishnaswami, has been continuously in print since 1908 - indeed, it is the first name in the list of titles on the firm's (absolutely to-the-point) website!

Off the rails

As a child, it was difficult for me to understand the concept of a railway office being in a place where there are no rail tracks at all. I refused to believe that this building housed a booking office of the Southern Railway, despite the large sign that said so. Even though this was a convenient option to book tickets from, I don't remember my father ever using it; in the days before computers, these 'city booking offices' would only have a limited quota of tickets they could sell - and to where we wanted to go, the quota would only be one-and-a-quarter or some such meaningless number.

I'm not sure when this office shut down, but it seems to bear out my childhood theory that you can't have a railway office too far away from the tracks!

Butterfly. Sure.

At first glance, I thought it was a moth, for it had that slightly fuzzy look that I have always associated with moths. But I quickly learnt it was a butterfly - a Peacock Pansy (Junonia almana) to be precise.

It was totally concentrating on soaking up the early morning sun, I guess, because it did not mind me standing over it to take pictures. Guess I just got lucky!

Paper picture?

Well, this doesn't have any specific connect to Madras, or to Chennai, but the sign was intriguing. I thought I knew a fair bit about the brands connected with photography, but 'Forte' was a new one on me. Judging from the font and the nature of the sign, I assumed the brand is something that probably died out in the 1960/70s and Mount Photo continues to display this sign because they are too lazy to take it down.

But no! Forte started life as the Hungarian subsidiary of Kodak, way back in 1922 and continued to show signs of life into the 21st century. But as a manufacturer of speciality photo paper - large format black & white seems to have been their flagship product - in a rapidly digitizing age, they probably could not find enough aficiandos to keep themselves afloat; the British Journal of Photography reported the demise of Forte in their January 2007 newsletter. (Forte's website is also defunct, now).

Still, there are a few stockists who continue to supply the last bits of Forte paper to those exacting photographers who will use no other - like this one in Canada, for instance. Could it be that Mount Photo is also one of those rarity distributors?

PS: While digging for information about Forte, I came across this interesting clip on 'How Film is Made' - worth a look, if you have about 20 minutes to spare.

Colourless beings

The bhootaganas (Siva's attendants) are normally found at the corner walls of Siva's temples - the old ones, especially. Mostly, they are little cared for and they sit, with the grime and dust of the ages wearing away their beings, like this one at the Tiruvottiyur Thyagarajar temple.

Rarely does one find a colourful gana, like this one here!

Towering exams!

So, you have got into the power transmission business - or the mobile telephony business - or into some business where you have a need to install several towers to ensure your services reach your customers. How can you be sure that your towers will last the distance? Have no fear, because Chennai can give you an answer to that.

It was strange to see what looked like a construction crane standing on one of the hillsides at Thirusoolam. Despite its recent popularity, Thirusoolam is not a choice spot for constructing a high-rise; for one, the airport is too close by to allow any high rise to come up on these hills. So what were these cranes doing up here?

But you, the power transmitter - or mobile telephony provider - know that the crane is only part of the equipment available at the Tower Testing and Research Station (TTRS). Falling under the Structural Engineering Centre, the TTRS at Thirusoolam is a versatile outfit. Apart from simulations for testing pre-specified towers, the TTRS also carries out full-scale prototype testing for tower manufacturers (and users) and can handle almost all kinds of towers, for a variety of load conditions. The crane is of course used to set up the test equipmnet!

Simpson to Nano

There doesn't seem to be any authentic information about how this building came to be called by its present name - Gove Building. The man behind its origins was George Underhill Cuddon, who upon arriving in India in 1891, joined service with Simpson & Co. as an assistant. Quite rapidly, Cuddon grew to become the manager of the business and then on to partner, before becoming the sole proprietor. It was he who set out the plans for this building in 1914 and though he died before it was completed in 1916, his plans were more or less faithfully adhered to. A book about commerce in southern India, published around 1920, describes this building as 'ornate'; in the decades since, it has only appeared to be more so. That book also talks about the building being of 'green and white stone'; most likely that the granite frontage was streaked with green, which has probably been dulled over the years.

At first glance it seems to be a hotch-potch - granite on the ground floor, brick on the first; a square tower with a pyramidal roof at the northern end, but an octagonal (almost circular) one at the southern end. But all of that is deliberate, apparently very much in keeping with Cuddon's vision - which also included 18-foot plate glass windows in front, special door, shutters and sun-blinds imported from England and Italian marble floors.

Also in line with Cuddon's vision, it continued to house one of the best automobile showrooms in the city, that of Simpson's, until 1943, when it changed hands. Thiruvengadasamy Mudaliar acquired it for the showroom of his dealership, VST Motors; through the years, the building has been lovingly and carefully maintained. Even if you are walking in to look at the newest car, you cannot but feel a sense of reverence for the history of this magnificent showroom, which still remains faithful to the vision of George Cuddon!

Old and new

Raheja Towers is less than a decade old - though it is on Mount Road, the facade was not very visible from the road, so it was almost as if it was staying aloof from the rest of the businesses on Mount Road.

Not any longer. The old shops and buildings which had blocked the passer-by's view of the glass-fronted building are being pulled down. Now I understand what someone told me a few years ago - "Do they think they are the BMW Headquarters or something?" Not a patch on it, of course!

Bargain books

Time was, if you wanted to get some foreign magazines, you headed out to the pavements of Mount Road. Between the twenty or so pavement bookshops, you could be sure of getting an armful of the ones you wanted. Somehow, I believe that there was little piracy in those days and the books that were sold at these shops were always second-hand originals.

These days, though, there are more pirated books than second-hand ones. Everyone seems to want 'new' books - little do they realize that there is a great deal of romance in much-thumbed books, even in the ones where the previous owner has been careful enough not to make any markings or even dog-ears. All the glossy pirated books displayed has taken away the charm of shopping at the pavement. And one no longer wants to sneak a peek inside those magazines, anyway!

Big man little man

An old photo, taken when work on the Kathipara grade separator was still going on; didn't notice the person behind Nehru's statue earlier - somehow it seems to underline how towering JN's presence had been. The statue itself was quite an eye-catcher at the roundabout. But now, the Big Man is stuck somewhere amidst the whorls of the flyover and nobody notices it these days... or do you?

White, black and red

No matter how many sleek cars come out, the Ambassador seems to have a completely impregnable niche as the car of choice for all officialdom in the country. Though Hindustan Motors has a manufacturing facility in Chennai, the Ambassador is built at their plant in Uttarpara, West Bengal. The first ever car to be mass-manufactured in India, the Ambassador was originally based on the Morris Oxford, but has had a few changes (that's right, just a few) in its design since the first Ambassador rolled out in 1948.

I am sure in much of the country's hinterland, the white Ambassador continues to be an enduring symbol of the government; and even within that, there would be categories, I guess - white Ambassador with pitch-dark windows would indicate a senior official, while one that includes a red beacon would probably be the pinnacle of babu-dom. On the streets of Chennai though, this is just another car, trying to use the extra fittings to get past the traffic faster!

In feet or metres?

Alright; I'm cheating, here. I would like to take part in the 'Theme Day', being celebrated all over the world by the CDP community, but I didn't bother to check on what the Theme for June 1 was, until last evening. By then, it was too late to find something that would stick very closely to the theme, so I decided to interpret it my way.

From atop Thirusoolam hill, one can see a few lakes formed by water collecting in the craters where granite has been quarried away. Many of these lakes are shallow, but there are a few which are really deep. Looking from the top of the hill at one such lake - I was told it is one of the deeper ones - I was thinking about the difference in height between the bottom of the lake and the top of the hill; though there is no official record, I would estimate it as being around 150 to 200 metres. Now, that is a fair distance - somewhere between 500 and 650 feet!

Getting to work

Until about 5 years ago, Sriperumbudur was a sleepy little town on the way to Bangalore, just outside Chennai. Since then, it has been transformed into a major electronics / telecom manufacturing hub, thanks to Nokia, probably the world's largest phone manufacturer. The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) anchored by Nokia and housing its component suppliers also, provides employment for over 12,000 people. Many of them come from villages over 50 km away from Sriperumbudur, but the buses run by the companies in the SEZ make sure that they arrive on time.

Shift-change time is therefore high traffic time, naturally; here are the early arrivals, coming in for the afternoon shift - they are only the vanguard, maybe just about a tenth of the total workforce that would come in for this shift!

Bunker below ground

Once upon a time, there was a Round Tana at the junction of Wallajah Road and Mount Road. Or at least, the old timers say there was one; this photograph shows a domed structure which could well have been the round tana, because it is right at the same junction. You have to really be an old timer to remember seeing that structure, because it was pulled down sometime in the early 1940s. Though I am hard pressed to imagine what the connection was, the cause of its demolition was Japan entering World War II - maybe it was so distinctive that its absence would make target marking very difficult for the Japanese aircraft?

In a gesture that really seemed to cock a snook at the threat, the city built an air-raid shelter right under the spot where the round tana had been. In all likelihood it was never used, for the Japanese did not make any serious effort to attack Madras. After the war, the cavernous shelters were put to use as public conveniences for a while. It must have been really convenient for the public, too, for the Round Tana of those days was a favoured hangout - most cinemas were nearby and so was Jafar's, that famed ice-cream & soda shop of those days. Sometime in the 1960s, though, the crowds began to thin out, more cinemas opened further south on Mount Road and Jafar's faded away.

With so much of underground space available, the city put it to good use by clearing out the public conveniences and allowing their approaches to connect up with one another - and lo, the first pedestrian subway in the city was in place!

A little shop

For the Madrasi Paan connoisseurs, there are only a couple of places for that ultimate, ideal, paan. Of course, each of them has his or her own favourites, but if any of them has passed on the paan from this shop on Nungambakkam High Road, s/he cannot claim to be a true lover of the leaf. Did I say Madrasi? Mistake. This shop is pretty well known across India, to anyone who has visited Chennai and has felt the urge for an after-dinner refresher - the host would know that, with this shop, he can't go wrong!

Early evening, the homebound office goer chomps on a bit of luxury; the cops ignore the two-wheelers that are parked while the riders select their favourites from the menu. Later in the evening, the two-wheelers would be replaced by four-wheelers, including the Audis, the BMWs and the Mercedes - the lure of an after-dinner paan from Calcutta Pan Shop is too strong for anyone to resist!

Fit for a viceroy

No one knows for sure what prompted Alavandan Chetty to choose the name he did for his furniture emporium on Wallajah Road. The explanation most commonly offered is that he named it in honour of the then Viceroy of India who was visiting Madras when the shop was opened. Somehow, there seems to be a confusion in the dates; though George Nathaniel Curzon, the 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, was indeed a Viceroy of India, he took that office only on January 6, 1899. His appointment, announced in August 1898, caused a sensation, for he was the youngest ever to be the Queen's representative in India. Alavandan Chetty must have chosen to ride on the popularity of the name, rather than dedicate his business to the man, when he opened Curzons in 1898.

Both Alavandan Chetty and his son, Seshachalam, who took over the business later, were clear that their furniture would be the finest they could make. And they turned out the best of home and office furniture, keeping in tune with the latest developments globally. Even within its reputation for high quality furniture, Curzons made a speciality of library pieces, for which they turned to Dr. S.R.Ranganathan, who guided the early design of this specialised furniture.

Like many other business of that era, Curzon & Co floundered after Seshachalam - 'Curzon Chettiar' to many - passed away in 1969. Though it somehow chugged past its centenary year, it is not the force it was; competition has hobbled it badly. With the Viceroys long gone, it seems that no one has time for viceregal furniture any more!

A bit of Arabia

Although date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) have been known in Tamilnadu for centuries, their cultivation has never been seriously attempted. With the other palms - coconut (Cocos nucifera) and palmyra (Borassus flabellifer, the state tree of Tamilnadu) - having taken root, the space for a third kind of palm is rather limited, I guess. So, although the tree is well known, it is more often used as an ornament, rather than a cash crop.

Even as an ornamental plant, date palms are not really common in Chennai's public places. One of the few places (if not the only one) in the city where date palms can be seen is at the point where Greams Road meets Mount Road. It could possibly be that the grand mosque at Thousand Lights, which is just across the road from this junction, influenced the planting of the date palms here. Whatever the reason be, it is nice to see a change in the greenery!

Gambling place?

Well, you could hardly associate watching a movie at Casino with gambling of any kind. It was kind of taken for granted that if Casino is playing the movie, it would be completely paisa vasool (value for money). Of course, many of the movies used to be the Hollywood blockbusters - and it was thrilling to watch them at Casino.

But now, the hall can just about get by. There's hardly any parking for cars - the theatre was built in the days when Madras had a total of four-and-a-quarter automobiles or something, when the space in front of the cinema was good enough for them to come sweeping up and pick up those genteel folks who had finished watching a good motion picture. Sadly, it seems no one with a car goes to watch a movie at Casino any more!

Crossing the junction

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon traffic, when people were either recovering from the shock of Chennai Super Kings' defeat on Saturday, or were getting ready for the IPL finals last evening.

Mount Road is deserted - or at least a close approximation; traffic is thin and in the heat of the afternoon, people are in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Except that solitary cyclist, who doesn't seem to care about signals!

Hill temple

Reaching the Thirusoolanathar Tirupurasundari temple in the Pallavaram hills, the first thought that comes to mind is - what was it that led Kulothunga Chozhan II to build this temple here almost a thousand years ago? The settlements around the temple are very obviously end of 20th century - and I remember that in the '70s and through most of the '80s only hermits would clamber up the hills to live in the scrub there. There were historic settlements from the Pallava period, but none on this particular hill, near this temple.

Legend has it, however, that this hill was particularly favoured by the Lord Brahma for his worship of the Lord Shiva, because it was surrounded by four other hills. It was this legend which prompted Kulothunga Chozhan II to raise this temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, in his manifestation as Tirusoolanathar (Tirusoolam = Trishul = Trident), accompanied by his consort, Tirupurasundari (the beautiful one). The sanctum sanctorum of this temple is rounded at the rear, a feature that is not very usual in temples of Tamilnadu. Other features that Kulothungan would find unusual are the icons on the roof - all of them are modern, somehow jarring the senses, even if they were without the vivid colouring - and the tiled steps and floor at the entrance - something that has been done without any thought of harmonizing with the rest of the structure....

Even though it is Tirusoolanathar there, the name of the town does not derive from the deity, improbable as it may sound. A churam is a kind of valley, a barren place in between rocky hills; having been made holy, this area amidst the four hills came to be called as Tiruchuram and over time has become identified more with the deity than with the natural formation!

Multiscreen opening

When it opened, thirty-seven years ago, it was one of the first public cinema theatres on Arcot Road. AVM's Rajeshwari was more of a preview theatre in those days, and Kamala Theatre filled the gap between Liberty Theatre and the studios at Vadapalani. With a capacity of almost a thousand seats, it was one of the better halls to watch a movie in; being at the edge of the movie industry's hub, there was also a chance of getting to see a star, too. The lobbies and the stairways used to be lined with all the industry bigwigs who had visited Kamala Theatre - actually, not just the bigwigs, there were photos of just about anyone. None of them had any signs, so it was a fun game to try and identify all the lesser lights of the industry, each time we went to see a movie there.

Filling a thousand seats, show after show is a huge challenge these days, and the hall is doing what it can to meet the challenge now. Even then, they are going with just one additional screen - with their plans of adding about 600 seats, the challenge of filling seats does not seem to have got any easier. Let us hope they continue to grace their walls with bits and pieces of Tamizh cinema history; that might yet prod me to go watch one (or two) more movies there!

Shore to hill

The Thirusoolam hill is one of the ancient mountains near Chennai, a part of the Pallavaram hills. It is not a place where one would expect to see anything nautical; but Chennai continues to throw up these quirky surprises. Not only was there a Port Trust Officers' Colony atop the hill (the Tamizh sign says 'Harbour Colony'), but there was also a 'Harbour Road' that leaves one completely disconcerted for a moment!

Of time gone by

An old-world scene, from the street around Kapaleeshwarar temple, Mylapore. But for the SUV and the bikes, it would have been the same a century ago, too. Maybe it will remain the same a century hence!

Lasting faith

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the 'Town', this building seems to be slightly out of place. The last remaining structure of what was once a large complex of buildings, it celebrated its sesquicentennial a couple of months ago. The origin of the insititution it houses (used to house, rather) can be traced back to 1836, when Rev. George James Laurie and Rev Matthew Bowie, the Chaplains of the Church of Scotland in Madras, requested headquarters for a missionary to run the St Andrews School which they had started a year or so earlier. And thus it was that the Rev. John Anderson came to Madras; in 1837, he opened the General Assembly's School in Armenian Street, with the core group of 59 pupils moving from the St Andrews School. It was to be the first of many schools founded by this Scotsman, whose love for education seems to have been greater than his love for the gospel.

The school grew; in 1877 it was re-christened as "Madras Christian College". College House, College Chapel, College Hall - buildings joined the College itself and, difficult as it is to imagine now, George Town became an important centre for higher education. It was only in 1919 that the Senatus Committee recommended the College's move, upon which it relocated right across the city, to Tambaram, where it continues to function today. Sometime in between (Mr. Muthiah puts it as being after 1895), the College Chapel and College Hall were switched; the latter, which was called Anderson Hall in memory of the college's founder, became Anderson Church.

That holy association has probably saved this building from the fate that befell its companions; though it is listed as a heritage building by INTACH, there is no guarantee that such listing will save it from demolition. A better protection, however, is provided by an active congregation, which travels from various parts of the city to this building!

Evening scene

Close to six o'clock on a Saturday evening and the traffic around Panagal Park is just building up. Surprisingly, even though the day had been hot, the air was not dusty at all - and given the volume of traffic, the quantity of exhaust fumes was - dare I say it? - negligible.

Most likely that it had nothing to do with the vehicles - the trees providing so much of greenery are probably acting as buffers for the dust and the smoke, too!

Colourful fruits

A peaceful sight - the unhurried fruit seller catching up on the news while waiting for early morning customers.