Protected building

You might think that, being the headquarters building of the Tamil Nadu Police, this long, low, white building is a well-protected one. In a way, however, you would be mistaken. Had it not been for some heritage lovers, this building would have been demolished sometime around 1993. In what was probably a first for Madras, the High Court came down on the side of conservationists led by INTACH, and stayed the demolition. Subsequently, the building was renovated and in 1998, was back to being used as the headquarters of the state's police force and the office of its Director General - and the south end of the Marina continued to have the same skyline as it had had since 1839.

It was in that year the Freemasons had begun using this building, constructed at a cost of Rs.25,000/- as their Masonic Lodge. Known as the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity, the lodge used these premises for their activities until 1856, when for some reason, the Masons moved out of this building. It seems to have lain unused until 1865, when W. Robinson, the first Inspector General of the Madras Police rented the building for use as his headquarters. The Masons were probably not particularly attached to this building, for they sold it off to the government in 1874, for Rs.20,000/-. Since then, the building has been used almost continuously by the policemen (and women - how can we forget that it is less than a month since the state got its first - and the country's second - woman DGP in Letika Saran, IPS!).

Currently, more office space is being constructed as an adjunct to this building - hopefully, all this activity points to a long innings for this classic building on the Marina!

Story listener

This temple to Hanuman is one that's not terribly old. Not that it is a spring chicken, but it's age does not run into multiple centuries, or even one, for that matter. It was constructed some time between 1930 and 1950 and was probably intended to cater to the traders and workers who frequented the nearby Thaneer Thurai market. It is said that the idol of Veera Anjaneya, the presiding deity of this temple was placed in such a way that when viewed from the street, it seems to be on its way to the market. Whether that was really the intention, or is it just chance that set the idol in that direction is a matter of conjecture, rather than fact.

In its early days, it must have been quite a popular temple. It was to this temple that Rajaji brought the manuscript of his interpretation of the Ramayana after he finished it, circa 1956. Between reading the manuscript and listening to discourses on the Ramayana from the nearby Sanskrit college, this Hanuman would have had his fill of Sri Rama's story!

Traditional, version 2.0

The Mylai Sri Karpagambal Mess is back in action after having been completely knocked down and re-built. It will take a while - quite a while - for this building to get that worn-out, we're-too-busy-to-think-about-painting-this look that its predecessor had. But inside, not too much seems to have changed. As it used to be, there are packets of various kinds at the entrance, and the serving staff seem to have stepped right out from the old building into the new. Just that with a little more light, we're able to see them more clearly than we're used to.

The Karpagambal Mess has always been one of those places which you could not be indifferent about. There are people who don't mind waiting for (what must seem like) hours to get a table, who make the pilgrimage to Mylapore only to eat at one of its tables. Then there are others who cannot stand the very mention of the name. The latter group, in most of the cases, comprises individuals who went in there with sky-high expectations about the Mess' much talked about adai-avial and badam-halwa ("melts in the mouth"). They did not anticipate having to deal with slow service and less than squeaky clean tables - so every little slip has been magnified and vilified quite disproportionately. With such strong, polarised views, it is rather difficult to take a middle-of-the-road approach to eating here.

As for me, I have no complaints about the times I've been here - in its earlier avatar or now. But then, I'd not be the first in a group to suggest we have a bite here, either!

No game on the sands

It is not clear who was inconvenienced by kids - and several adults, too - playing cricket on the sands of the Marina. Apparently many of the walkers were, as were people who had parked their vehicles right next to the sands of the beach. So it was one fine day, a couple of months ago, that the cops began to chase away anyone found with a cricket bat in his hands on the Marina Beach. Many of the regular beach-cricketers were upset and staged protests; by one count, there were about 2,000 poeple protesting against the police action.

To no avail. The ban on cricket stays, and boards like this one, in English and in Tamizh, make sure the message is understood by anyone who wants to put bat to ball on the sands!

One for the birds

Last weekend at the Pallikaranai Marsh; this was one of the quieter spots, with not too many birds around. Just a few egrets, a few pond herons, a couple of pelicans swimming in the water and two purple moorhens - or purple swamphens, if you want to call them that.

It would take a bit of looking to spot the moorhens in the picture, though!*


*They are at the edge of the water hyacinths, to the left of the pelicans....

Worship is work

If you haven't been to the Kapaleeshwarar temple for a few years, you will be surprised to see how this establishment has grown - literally. What I remember as being a ground-and-first floor agraharam-kind of shop is now a three storeyed modern building. That's reflective of how Giri Trading Agency has itself grown, especially in the past decade or so. Considering they have been in Chennai for just about thirty-four years now, their growth has been quietly phenomenal.

The organisation is itself older, going back to the 1950s. But it began in Bombay, not in Madras, though it did have very strong Madras roots from the day it was born - or even before. Like many others of his generation, TVS Giri Iyer had moved from Madras to Bombay, looking for work. One day, he wanted to gift a friend's son a sandhya vandanam book for the boy's sacred thread ceremony. Not finding any such publication catering to the Madrasi's need for specific religious texts and puja material, Giri Iyer sensed a business opportunity. On his next visit to Madras, he bought several such books and started selling them at the Matunga railway station. It was certainly not roses all the way, but believing that he was on to a good thing, he had all his nine children help him with the business. The boys were based in Madras to source the material and transport them to Bombay, while the girls handled the sales and distribution there. In 1976, they opened a 200-square foot showroom right at the entrance to the Kapaleeshwarar temple.

That decision coincided with a rise in the demand cycle for religious items - and the nature of the items also began to diversify. Apart from the books, devotional music casettes began to rise in popularity. In the early 1980s, they began a separate division to cater to the music business. From that time on, there has been no looking back; with increasing global mobility, the demand for pre-packaged puja items and quasi-traditional merchandise like bharatanatyam costumes began to come in from around the world. Today, many of Giri Iyer's grandchildren are active in running the various businesses, through their showrooms as well as their online portal (where you can even download a religious ringtone for your mobile phone!). All those businesses add up to an annual turnover of around Rs.20 crores - all of which has grown from the Rs.300 worth of books that Giri Iyer took with him to Bombay!

An old chapel

In the early days of its occupation of Madras, the British East India Company was nervous about admitting British missionaries into their possessions. This was because they were worried about having to deal with maverick British traders entering the region pretending to be missionaries, but with the goal of breaking the Company's monopoly over the India-Britain trades. Believing they would have a free hand to punish imposters of other nationalities, they allowed French (Roman Catholic) and German (Protestant) missionaries to go about preaching to the natives.

That's how Benjamin Schultze, a German Lutheran, became the first Protestant missionary in Madras. Though he had come to Tranquebar (Tharangambady) in 1719, it was only in July 1726 that he arrived at Madras and began work in the 'Black Town' area outside Fort St George. Needing more space, he requested his employer, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) to buy up a garden house, where the Chennai Central Station stands today. That garden house was, in 1719, the subject of a petition by Antonio de Carvalho da Silva who claimed that it was bequeathed to her by her grandfather, Joao Pereira de Faria (John Pereira). The whole area around it was called John Pereira's Gardens, so there seemed to be some merit to her claim. Fort St George however, took a stand that their agent, Mr. Foxcroft, had in 1671 let the area to John Pereira to farm for 31 years and it belonged to them, even if they hadn't repossessed the place. Finally, the Council directed that John Pereira's Gardens be leased out for 11 years. Though the gardens had within them a tiled house and a sort of chapel near it, the property did not find too many takers, as it had fallen into disuse and had become a refuge for gamblers, who used the space for cock-fighting.

Probably the SPCK got it cheap at the end of that 11-year lease period. But they too did not take any interest in developing the property, most likely because it was outside the walls of the Fort and directly in the line of Hyder Ali's maurading armies. Even the building of a wall did not make the Garden any more desirable; the SPCK too seemed to have forgotten that they owned this property. It was only in 1826 that Rev. J.Ridsdale began to take an interest in this space and began work to construct a chapel - the older "...small Tyl'd house with a sort of Chappell..." having been destroyed during one of the many skirmishes of the previous century. The Trinity Chapel opened its doors to the public in 1831 - Rev. Ridsdale seems to have died soon after. Somewhere in all the furore, it is said, the chapel was never formally consecrated. No matter; for after all these years, it doesn't really need to be consecrated, does it?!

Eating-room

It looks like a hole in the wall, but like many establishments on NSC Bose Road, it probably opens up a lot once you get inside. Even then, this eatery is normally chock-full during lunch hours on weekdays, for it is widely regarded as a value-for-money joint, especially by those from north India. The lunch menu is standardised and quite workmanlike - roti, rice, dal and vegetables - so one does not have to waste time choosing from a menu. The portions are unlimited, which is just what the bachelors need - a midday meal that fills them up well into the next day.

Somehow, nobody seems to have told them that there is no Bombay any more; there is a bunch of people who do not like that word being used these days. Surely they wouldn't say a word against this 'eating room'!

Different, with similarities

It is said of us that we don't value history when it is all around us; like the villagers near the site of Harappa who did not realize the historic significance of the bricks from their village which were used as ballast by British railway engineers, many of us remain unaware of the history around us, just because it has always been around us. Add to it a tradition of transmitting information verbally rather than through any records and it becomes difficult to separate fact from legend.

The Madhava Perumal temple in Mylapore is steeped in legend. Depending on who you listen to, the temple goes back to the days of Vyasa - the 8th century BCE - or around 800 years, according to records available with the temple authorities. The four-pillared mandapam in front of the temple, which is a feature of Pallava temple construction, supports the latter estimate. For its age, the temple is quite well maintained, though not as crowded as one would expect given its antiquity and imbued holiness. In that aspect, it falls behind the Kapaleeshwarar temple, which is also of roughly similar stature.

Though the deities at the two temples are starkly different (Siva as Kapaleeswarar and Vishnu as Madhava Perumal), both of them have the same tree - the punnai (Calophyllum inophyllum) as the sthala vriksham (sacred tree)!

A newer vintage

It does look really old, but my guess is that it hasn't yet crossed the century mark. From what I understand, mixed-use buildings - with shops at the ground level and living quarters above - in Madras of the late 19th century and the early 20th century were fashioned slightly differently. Not from a functional point of view, much of that did not change until probably the early 1980s. If the straight line of the tiles in front is broken by a gable-like structure, that (to me, in my limited understanding) is indicative of a turn-of-the-20th-century house. Sometimes, those houses would have more than one such gable, but even a single gable is a give-away.

A house like this one is probably at least a generation later. The later part of the 1920s was when it became fashionable to have images of gods and godesses built into the facade (Gandhi Peak being a great example). This building does not have the soaring vision of the Gandhi Peak, but it does find space for the Lord Krishna flanked by Lakshmi and Saraswati. The cherub is probably to emphasize that it is not a religious building, but a fashionable one, rather.

Guess it has to wait a bit for that century, still!

Expensive pause

The first automated parking meters in Chennai came up sometime in October last year. Four of them were installed in Mylapore's North Mada Street, where parking has traditionally been quite haphazard. They haven't done away with the parking attendent completely, however. The idea with these meters is to pay the money for the duration you intend parking and leave that ticket on your vehicle's dashboard. The parking attendent's job is to make sure that all parked vehicles show off a valid ticket on their dashboards.

Theoretically, it is meant to tighten up cash collections and reduce the risk of parking attendants losing - or being robbed of - the fee they collect through the day. The Corporation hasn't yet released any results of how things have changed in the three months this system has been in operation at Mylapore, T.Nagar and Taramani, but I'm guessing they will not be in a hurry to rip these out and go back to the attendant-only system, which was being run by the Tamil Nadu Ex-servicemen Corporation (TEXCO). The firm supplying these parking meters is getting ready to install them at a dozen more locations.

One aspect that has gone almost unnoticed is that the parking fee has, from one perspective, gone up six-fold: earlier, TEXCO's authorised rate was Rs.5 for a maximum of six hours. It has now become Rs.5 for every hour - and you can park in one slot for only 3 hours at a stretch!

Eclipse in a box

Not wanting to be bothered with 'special sunglasses' to view the eclipse today, we just used a shoebox as a pinhole camera to watch the shadow of the moon cross the sun's face. And it did give us a rather good view of the eclipse's progress, though we had to keep moving the shoebox constantly to make sure it caught the sun's rays.

The astronomers of the Madras Presidency, during the 19th century, were considerably better equipped. They had state-of-the-art equipment at their command, for the British knew that accurate astronomical observations would directly help in better navigation - and also for better understanding the geography of the subcontinent which was now under their control. As part of these observations, the astronomers would also study the solar eclipses. It was only the later half of the 1800s that these observations laid the foundation for solar physics, a hitherto unknown branch of science.

More specifically, it was the total eclipse of Augst 18, 1868 which set off the spark for the new science. In a display of scientific cooperation, the team from the Madras Observatory was joined by an addtional team of British astronomers, as well as a team of their French counterparts, to study that eclipse. Observing the event from different locations in and around Madras, the teams found their spectrometers displaying a bright yellow line, which could not be explained away as sodium. It was based on these observations that Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer deduced the existence of Helium, leading to both of them being jointly credited as having discovered that element - though it is almost forgotten that it was the Madras Observatory which set it up for them*.

Our observations from the shoebox did give us a lot of fun; no new elements were discovered in the process, however!

* Though Janssen made his readings at Guntur and Lockyer at Vijaydurg, all the arrangements for observing this eclipse - and subsequent ones - were made by the Madras Observatory, which was the leading, if not the only, astronomical observatory in India at that time.

Tall grass and stems

Over the past week, teeth have been strengthened thanks to a daily routine of tearing into the stalks of the tall grasses belonging to the genus Saccharum. No, it is not some new-fangled vegetarianism ritual, but just that it is Pongal time and sugarcanes have been coming in to the city markets.

The street side shops today had another non-regular item, besides the sugarcane stalks. You can make them out in the photo, just beyond the sugarcane display. Those are the turmeric rhizomes, still attached to the plant. Today, both the plant and its rhizome are put to use. Tradition has it that the mud-pot which is to be used for boiling the milk-rice mixture must be smeared with turmeric paste; sometimes a plant is tied to the pot after the cooking is done. The leaves of the turmeric plant are used to place some of the offerings.

Sugarcane sales this year have been dull in Chennai: some reports say that the city's demand has dropped by as much as 30% over last year. Maybe the ongoing uproar over sugar prices has something to do with that!

Of pins and irons

Somewhere between the full-fledged, automated dry-cleaners and the mobile iron-man on your street lies the group of laundry/iron-ers (?) called 'pinmen'. Here's one of them on R.K.Mutt Road.

I haven't been able to figure out why they should be called so, but 'pinmen' seems to be a common term in these parts. Any ideas?

Solid housing

In front of Singaravelar Maligai, the office of the Chennai Collectorate, is this incongruous structure. The arrowhead-tipped bars blocking its entryways reinforce the first impression of this being a cage of some kind, though what it could have held within it escapes the first level of deduction.

It is in fact a specially constructed cupola, designed to house the 14.5-foot high statue of Lord Conwallis. It was built in 1925, in front of Bentinck's Building, which was the then home of the Madras Collectorate. The statue, in its cupola, had pride of place right in front of the building. But it was a very short stay there for the statue; exposure to the salty sea-air was corroding it and so it had to be taken away to the Connemara Library. The cupola continued to remain there, even as Bentinck's Building was left to rot and later demolished to make way for the 'modern' office of the Collectorate.

It is anybody's guess how long it will be allowed to stand - maybe it will take that strangler fig growing on it to bring it down!

From Headquarters to Main Branch

It is said of this building that it bears some similarity of forms with the Mughal buildings of Fatehpur Sikri. That should not be a surprise because the architects of the Indo-Saracenic era borrowed heavily - and in quite a motley fashion - from various building forms across India. In the case of this building, it should be even less surprising because its initial plans were drawn up by Col. Samuel Jacob, who was at that time the Chief Engineer of the then state of Jaipur.

It was built in 1896 as the headquarters of the Bank of Madras, which was one of the three Presidency Banks (the others being those of Bengal and Bombay) at that time. Befitting the stature of the bank, this building cost Rs.300,000, with the contract being executed by Namberumal Chetty. Col. Samuel Jacob's initial designs were modified by Henry Irwin, buthe north Indian influences were allowed to remain. Much of the woodwork and the stained glass in its windows date from the early 1900s. When the State Bank of India was formed in 1955, this building was designated the SBI's Madras Presidency headquarters. Since then, it had become the 'Local Head Office' and today, is just the 'Chennai Main Branch', a title that it continues to hold more out of courtesy!

Stage presence

The Tamizh month of Margazhi (Dec 16 - Jan 14, roughly) sees a buzz of activity in all the concert / performance halls across Chennai. The true impact of the 'music season' in Chennai is quite immeasureable: older Chennaiites around the world plan their holidays to coincide with as much of the 'season' as they can pack in; newspapers have daily supplements devoted to the concerts and the performers.

Every year, despite all my intentions of attending 'quite a few' performances, I end up going to none. But not this year. A friend was singing at the Sivakami Pethachi Auditorium and I made sure I was there. I understand he was on stage after a very long hiatus, but his singing did not reveal that - well done, Raj!

Unichrome reptile

It shouldn't take very long to spot the reptile in this photo. The little bit of time taken is also only because the chameleon has taken on the colour which predominates in its surroundings. But when you have six such creatures on a tree remaining almost motionless, it does take you quite a while to find them all.

The Indian Chameleon (Chameleo zeylanicus) is quite common in south India and Sri Lanka. There are very few species of the chameleon which can change a wide enough variety of colours as to blend with the background; this one restricts its spectrum mainly to green and brown. In the scrub jungle habitats around Chennai, those colours are good enough for it to remain unnoticed by a huge majority.

The power of the colouration can be seen in this exhibit at the Snake Park, Guindy. When the leaves dry up, the chameleons adopt their green-brown band and merge with the leaves, so that even then, it remains a challenge to spot all six of them in this enclosure. In fact, I was sure that there were only five until someone pointed out all six to me!

Restored glory

This magnificent building on the Marina has been a familiar sight for so long that one forgot what it was originally meant for. It was in 1864 that a competition was announced for designing two buildings connected with higher education in the city. The first was for the Madras Presidency College, which had been functioning since 1840 and the other was for a building to house the administrative offices and a large examination hall. It was a grand vision, for the University Board, which had been established in 1840 had, in the first quarter-century of its existence, done little to justify such dreams. A preparatory school was set up in 1840, a high school in 1841, an elementary school a while later and in 1853, a collegiate department was created - which in 1855 was renamed the Presidency College. The University of Madras itself was incorporated only on September 5, 1857. Here they were, less than a decade later, asking for huge buildings to be raised.

The competition attracted entrants from all over India and possibly from England, too. The prize-winning designs were submitted by Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who was then barely 25 years old, with less than a year's practice as an architect in Calcutta. Winning the prize brought Chisholm to Madras - which then became his base. The Presidency College buildings were constructed first and it was only in 1874 that the work on the building to house offices / examination hall was begun. The hall was large enough to seat 1600 students for their examinations. Under the hall was an equally large cellar, intended to be used as the storage vaults. In keeping with the grandness of the vision, the materials for construction were also the best; the bricks were from Commonwealth Brickworks, Kerala and marble for the floor from Italy. The intricate detailing on the domes and the supporting columns survive to this day.

That survival was made possible by a sustained project to restore this grand building in time for the sesquicentenary of the University of Madras in 2007. The budget of Rs.6 crore for the renovation was met in part by a long list of individual contributors who pitched in with amounts ranging from Rs.11 (!!) and Rs.25 to Rs.25 lakhs. Thanks to all of them, the domes of the Senate House continue to reflect the glory of the University's history!

Another with a name

As far as I have been able to figure out, there are only two flyovers in the city which have been named for someone. No prizes for guessing the first one - it was the first flyover in the city. Most people however continue to refer to it by the name of the locality where it is at - Gemini. That practice continued with the new flyovers which came up, whether it was on Peters Road, or at IIT. I am not sure if the officials thought of any other names for those flyovers, but none have been christened, officially. For some reason, this flyover, which opened about a year ago, was treated differently. It was named. There is only one reason why they named it what they did.

Over 40 years ago, in January 1969, a statue of 'Kalaivanar' N.S.Krishnan was unveiled at this junction and ruled over it from a traffic island at the centre. It was the last public function attended by Aringar Anna, the then Chief Minister - and a mentor, at least in their minds, to several present-day politicians in the state. Kalaivanar himself is also a much revered personage; such a combination bestowed the statue with a great deal of emotional value. The construction of the flyover meant the statue had to be removed. It was brought back though it is now to a side of G.N.Chetty Road, under the flyover. If that wasn't enough to soothe the statue's sentiments, the flyover was also named after N.S.Krishnan - it is called 'Kalaivanar Mempaalam' (Kalaivanar bridge/flyover) - thus becoming the second named flyover in the city.

There are rumours of the flyover on Cenotaph Road being named after Moopanar, but there has not been any announcement of that yet. If you still haven't figured out the name of the first one, it is simple enough. The one at Gemini is called 'Anna Mempaalam'. Well, you can try to argue that it is just an extension of Anna Salai on which it is located, but that wouldn't get you too far!

Schooling generations

Big Street in Triplicane is not broad enough for one to step back and get a complete picture of this three-storeyed redbrick building. The few trees growing in such a way as to cover the facade add to the difficulty of getting a good picture, so this one will have to do. That's okay, for in the case of this building, pictures cannot tell the story, because the story goes back to the middle of the 19th century. Where in the middle is not known exactly; the roots could well have been a little-occupied pundit trying to get the neighbourhood boys to learn the basics of reading and writing, or even just teaching them to chant shlokas. Make that two pundits: one teaching in Tamizh and the other in Telugu. Maybe that's how we find ourselves, in the early 1850s, hearing about two schools in Triplicane - the Dravida Patasala and the Hindu Andhra Dravida Balura Patasala. Both of them merged in 1860 and the new school was named the Triplicane Andhra Dravida Balura Patasala, where both Tamizh and Telugu competed with each other for pride of place.

Initially patronised by families who were loath to send their children to the Englishman's schools, the Patasala found itself in dire straits towards the end of the 1860s. It is said that in 1869, enrolment was down to 48 students and the school was in debt for 80 rupees. It was then that the governing body brought in M.A. Singarachariar, who was the Head Cashier of the Bank of Madras, to take over as the Secretary-Treasurer of the School. Singarachariar carried out that assignment in style and in the process, established the primacy of English as the language of the school. In keeping with that changed focus, the school was renamed as The Triplicane Anglo-Vernacular High School in 1873. And by the 1890s, school funds were ample enough for the leading contractor of the era, Namberumal Chetty to be engaged for constructing this building, which was inaugurated in 1897. In 1898, the school changed its name to The Hindu High School.

A minor change was made in the name in 1978 and the school has since been called The Hindu Higher Secondary School. The roster of its alumni is impressive - media moguls, police officers, high court judges, governors, civil servants, movie stars, cricketers. One of the more famous alumni reportedly brought his wife to the school sometime in the 1980s to show her the marks register of 1924-25. She hadn't believed him when he claimed to have scored a centum in maths in his school finals, so he had to prove it to her. That alumnus was Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 - the school reportedly maintains the marks register of his time even today!

Brand value

Even without the 'de', this lodging place would have attraced the crowd it normally does. But just to make sure that any French tourist coming by feels completely at home, the name has been expanded as "Hotel de Kerala".

If you look closely, you'll also see the "Kerala Hairdresser" in the picture. Granted that the neighbouring state is one of the top must-visit tourist destinations, that still doesn't explain why the brand is flogged so much!

Three-card trick

Through most of the '70s, even well into the '80s, it was not uncommon to find cows and buffalos being led from street to street by the local milkman. Milk was fresh, straight from the udders and you could feel the warmth spread through the vessel as the milkman poured out your requirement. It was a leap, not merely of faith, but of several degrees of temperature, when Aavin began regular supply of milk through the city sometime in the '70s. Chilled bottles with candy-stripe tinfoil caps would be delivered at a milk booth, twice a day; folks from the neighbouring streets would have to come to the booth and pick-up their quota. Once you made a decision on how much milk you needed every day and how you wanted it split between the morning and the afternoon deliveries, you had to live with that decision for the rest of your life - or that is how it seemed to be.

Milk bottles gave way to half- and one-litre sachets; more choices came by. Toned, double-toned and low-fat varieties were added. More automatic vending machines sprung up. The gathering of housewives and servants at the milk booth of an afternoon gave way to aggregators picking up volumes on behalf of their customers; the new age milkmen, supplying sachets at your door, for a fee. With the state loosening its monopoly on milk in the late '90s, private dairies increased the choices available. Through it all, Aavin's milk-card remained a prize; with a discount of close to 15% being given to a card-holder, it made sense to buy a card. In the past, being allowed to buy one was the result of reams of documents and several 'inspections' and 'verifications'. You had to trade off the guarantee of supply (which the milkman was naturally very bad at) against the flexibility of your need (which Aavin seemed to consider an act of treason). And then the deal was "no card, no milk". But with Aavin simplifying the procedures significantly, the 15% discount looks very inviting. Even after the milkman's fee, you have something left over.

The dates for buying / renewing milk cards vary from locality to locality. Yesterday was our turn; our milkman came up and told us that there were new cards available at our booth, all we had to do was go there with proof of residence and we'd get our cards. And so, here I am, three years after having moved into my current flat, with the first set of my milk-cards!

You understand, don't you?

My friend Ram, over at the other Chennai Daily Photo blog would be pleased with this one. It may not win the grammar prize in its class, but it gets the message across very effectively!

A word a day

When India became a republic in 1950, the Constitution of India did not mention anything about a national language. It was an issue that had many of the members of the Constituent Assembly take strong positions; ultimately the Munshi-Ayyangar formula paved the way for Hindi to be declared as the 'Official Language' with English as an associate Official Language for a period of fifteen years. The idea was to use that period to help all non-Hindi speakers learn the language and acquire some degree of expertise with it. The first Official Languages Commission's report recommended a step-by-step to eventually replace English and establish Hindi as the only Official Language, if not as the 'National Language'. However, violent reactions against the report led to Jawaharlal Nehru declaring that English could continue as the associate, additional Official Language for as long as the non-Hindi speaking people wanted it.

In 1963, the Official Languages Act was passed. Under that act, and its subsequent amendments, India continues to have both Hindi and English as the Official Languages of the Union - and any of the 21 other languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution can also be used to transact the business of the Union. In offices of the central government and almost all central public-sector units, it is Hindi which is being taught in various ways to those who are non-native speakers of the language. One such measure is the 'Word-a-Day'; it has been around for nearly 20 years now. The day's Hindi word is displayed at several places within the office and is expected to be used in conversation during the day.

And what's the word I chanced to see a few weeks ago? One that has been the casualty in disagreements about the national / official language!

Times change

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.

So much has changed in the last decade and most of it has been for the better, I'm sure. As we move into the next decade, here's wishing that, ten years hence, we can conclusively say that the world has become more peaceful, healthier and just that tad cooler than what it is today.

A big change in the city of Chennai, just to the right of the clock tower (though not seen) in the picture is the almost-ready Express Avenue, a large mall which is set to open soon. Express Estates, which could justifiably claim to be the nursery of every sporting club in the city will only be a faint memory. But times change and we change with them. Including clock towers; this one at Royapettah sports different colours from what it had a couple of years ago!

New dawn rising

The sun rises over the Bay of Bengal, as seen from the Marina beach. May the New Year bring a lot of light, cheer, joy and prosperity to everyone, everywhere - have a great 2010, folks!

The main devotee?

One of the occupational hazards of being a 'dubash' (from 'dvi' = 'two' and 'basha' = 'language') with the East India Company was having your name twisted around and being anglicized beyond local recognition. Resilient people they were, the dubashes took it all in their stride, comfortably straddling two worlds separated not just by language, but also by customs and cultures.

One such dubash was Alangatha Pillai, who was prominent enough to be one of the first 12 aldermen of the Corporation of Madras - he was named in the Charter itself. Apart from being a dubash, Alangatha Pillai, or Allingall as he was referred to by the British, was also the chief merchant of the British East India Company in Madras, coming to that position in 1680. Even in the days before he became the chief merchant, Alangatha Pillai had built up a good deal of coin with his dubash skills. Like many good folk, Alangatha Pillai deployed some of his earnings to religion. While he was likely generous in his donations to several temples, it is believed that Alangatha Pillai was specially fond of Ekambareswarar, the deity at Kanchipuram. He was a regular visitor to that shrine until the governor (was it Streynsham Master?) put it to him that if he were to build a temple near the Fort, a great deal of travel could be avoided*. Putting that idea to work, Alangatha Pillai had the Ekambareswarar temple built on what was then the Washers' Street.

However, there are other versions which claim that the temple has been in existence for over 500 years now, dating it to a time before the British. In which case, Alangatha Pillai probably financed the temple's renovation, endowing it richly from his personal fortune. Because of his munificence, the temple was marked in the official records as "Allingall's Pagoda"; that name did not catch on and the temple continues to be known as 'Chennai Arulmigu Ekambareswarar Temple'. There is, just as soon as one steps inside the temple, this carving on one of the pillars, showing a devotee. It is believed this represents Alangatha Pillai, the chief devotee at one time!

* A similar story is said about the Varadaraja Perumal temple at Kaladipet, but that'll have to wait for another post!

Where's the bike?

That's a Rajdoot Yamaha RX-100, if I'm right. An old model - this bike is probably being overhauled ('overoiled') to be as good as almost-new!

Gateway to history

The calm of this stately gateway is a stark contrast to the bustle at the neighbouring Zam Bazar. There was a time when shehnai artistes would sit in the shade of the gateway, their music lifting the spirits of evening shoppers. Those days are long gone, but music still remains a passion for the residents inside this complex, the Amir Mahal.

At their head is the current Amir-e-Arcot, HH Mohammad Abdul Ali, who is the eighth Prince of Arcot. The first Prince, HH Azim Jah Bahadur, was granted the title in 1868 by Queen Victoria. That was to compensate, in some measure, for the vast properties seized by the British after the last Nawab of Carnatic, Ghulam Muhammad Ghouse Khan, died heirless in 1855. Out of the chaos surrounding the British governement enforcing the 'Doctrine of Lapse', Ghulam Muhammad Ghouse's uncle, who had served as his regent, was created the first Prince of Arcot. Part of that deal was that the family would move from Khalsa (or was it Kalas?) Mahal, where the Nawab's family continued to stay even after it had been taken over in 1859.

Amir Mahal was over 70 years old even at that time and needed a fair amount of renovation. The Royapettah Police Court, which was then functioning in the premises was moved out, and several repairs and modifications made to the buildings before the formal investiture of the title "Prince of Arcot" was made on April 12, 1871. The first Prince, though, never lived at the Amir Mahal - he requested that he be allowed to continue living at Shadi Mahal and so the first occupant was Sir Zahir ud-Daula, who succeeded to the title after his father's death in 1874!

Shore landing

In 1834, Thomas Babington Macaulay set off from Falmouth, and reached Madras on June 10 that year. Writing to his sister Margaret*, he says: "I do not know whether you ever heard of the surf at Madras. It breaks on the beach with such fury that no ship's boat can venture through it. The only conveyance in which people can land with safety is a road boat made and guided by the natives. It is a large, clumsy barge-like looking thing, made of rough planks stitched together, and so elastic that it readily yields to the pressure of the waves. A boat of this sort was sent off for us, and a dozen half-naked blacks, howling all the way the most dissonant song that you ever heard, rowed us with great skill to the shore...."

The boat which Macaulay writes about would most likely have been the 'masula boat', but even in those times, catamarans (from 'kattu-maram', meaning 'logs tied together') such as the ones in the photo would have been very much in use. Though motor boats and mechanized trawlers are preferred by many fisherfolk today, those who operate on a smaller scale continue to use these catamarans - of course you can see these boat bringing in the catch of the morning, a commonplace sight every day.

It is not easy to imagine what Macaulay meant when he writes about the fury of the surf at Madras; the hundreds who come to the Marina would imagine it is a different Madras. A different Madras indeed it was five years ago, when the tsunami of 2004 hit the city, taking with it over a hundred lives. The surf was indeed furious that morning - let's hope it does not happen again!

* The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, ed. by Thomas Pinney, vol. 3 (January 1834-August 1841). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976,

Resident's road

Like many of Madras' roads, Boag Road was also named after a senior civil servant who had his official residence there. It is likely that it was the only house on the road, when it came up sometime in the early part of the 20th century. In any case, the road leading up to Sir George Townsend Boag's house came to be called Boag Road, and continued to be called that until almost at the end of the 20th century.

Boag's name did survive for almost fifty years after he left India in the wake of the country's independence. His residence was then taken over by Kysamballi Chengalraya Reddy, the first Chief Minister of Mysore state. K.C. Reddy didn't stay there for very long, for his political ambitions and interests were outside Madras. In 1959, the house was purchased by Sivaji Ganesan, who was by then a very popular movie star. It was probably during the renovation carried out by Sivaji that the building acquired its Art Deco frontage; that renovation took quite a couple of years. When he moved into the house, Sivaji re-named it "Annai Illam" ("Mother's
Abode") - was it because he was also acting in a film of the same name during that time?

In 1995, Sivaji Ganesan was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur; in 1998, South Boag Road (Theyagaraya Road had cut across Boag Road by then) was renamed 'Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Salai'. Though the actor moved on to a higher stage in 2001, the house continues to be occupied by his sons, who consider it a memorial to their father. Surely, Sivaji's name will live on in the road much longer than that of Sir G T Boag!

Look out, above!

The idea was to get disabled-friendly, I guess. A ramp leading to an elevator which goes up to the overhead road crossing will certainly help senior citizens and those on wheel chairs to get across to the other side.

The shutters are still locked up, waiting for a formal inauguration. Would they open to allow everyone in? Or is there someone going to watch over the entrance and open it only for those who "really need" to use the elevator? Does anyone use this crossing at all?

Actually the first person who used the new construction was someone who got on top of it last week and threatened to jump off - luckily the Fire Service personnel got him before he leapt!

Room under the stairs

It was in 1793 that the "citizens of Madras", as represented by the Council in Madras, sent a letter to the President of the Royal Academy in London, expressing a desire to memorialize the military achievements of General Charles, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis. During his tenure as the Governor General of India between 1786 and 1793, Lord Cornwallis defeated Tipu Sultan in the 3rd Anglo-Mysore War. That was the crowning glory of his military career; a career that might have been consigned to the ashes when he surrendered to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau after the siege of Yorktown in 1781. Luckily for him, King George III was favourably disposed to him and instead of being left in the cold, he was sent to India as the Governor General, where he redeemed himself in no small way.

And so the request from the Council at Madras, that the Royal Academy send them a statue executed under the "inspection of the Academy". The Academy assigned the task to Thomas Banks; the final sculpture, 14.5 feet tall, showing Cornwallis in all his lordly mien, standing upon a pedestal reached Madras sometime in 1800. One account has it that the statue was erected in Fort St George, while another says its first home was under a cupola at the junction of Mount Road and (today's) Cenotaph Road. That's a fine point, but the statue did spend time at that junction, which was when Cenotaph Road got its name.

The pedestal shows Tipu Sultan giving up his two sons as hostages, to be held until Tipu was able to pay the multi-million pound indemnity to win them back. Many thought this particular depiction was in poor taste (compounded by poor execution - the work on the base of the statue suffers greatly in comparison with the detailing of his Lordship) and that was probably one reason why the statue was moved to the Fort in 1906, overlooking the Parade Ground. In 1925, it was moved to the gates of Bentinck's Building, the then collectorate of Madras. That location was too close to the sea and the salt air did not agree with his Lordship. In 1928, he was moved to the Connemara Library and then, in 1950, he was moved to the newly purposed Fort Museum - and here, he only has room under the stairs!

Dry market

A while ago, I'd written about the waning-but-still-there desire to buy fresh vegetables as directly as possible from the farm. Seeing this lady at Zam Bazar, I was reminded that it is not just the vegetables, but also meat which is sought fresh. There are several people who do not want to go anywhere near a cold storage, but prefer to get their meat fresh.

It is not like the 'wet markets' of Hong Kong or Singapore, but with no blood being spilled here, it doesn't need to be washed. But you'd better watch out for all the dust!

The final bend

That's what it is, the River Cooum turing due east as it heads out to the Bay of Bengal, marking the end of its 65-km run. During the past few days, there has been some renewed interest in the project to beautify Cooum, what with the Deputy Chief Minister reiterating the government's committment to not only beautify, but also restore the river to its glory days.

In those glory days, boating was quite common on the Cooum. Although there have been no boats for quite a long while now, skeletons of the boat houses are still around - you can see one on the right, just over the wall. It is rather surprising to see them standing even today!

Beam of justice

I don't think there is any other court of justice of which it can be literally said that it cast its beacon of light nearly 35 kilometres around. That honour can only go to the High Court of Judicature at Madras - that is because its tallest minaret, at about 175 feet, was taller than any other structure nearby when the court buildings were opened in 1892. Although I haven't been able to find anything to support it, my guess is that the minaret was designed to play the role of a lighthouse. It holds the record for being Madras' longest serving lighthouse, having been used for about 83 years, from 1894 to 1977.

The first lighthouse at Madras became operational in 1796 and was little more than a lantern with reflectors, housing a dozen coconut-oil burning lamps, placed on top of the Exchange Building (the Fort Museum of today). It was used for almost 50 years, when it was moved to the Esplanade, atop a Doric column built for the specific purpose of serving as a lighthouse. That column, which came into use in 1841, still stands inside the High Court complex, having given up its crown to be housed in the minaret of the Court. The Argand Lamps and reflectors, which began flashing on January 1, 1844, was supplied by Chance Bros., Birmingham and was replaced - rather, improved upon - in 1927 and by all accounts continued to be used until 1977.

So which is Madras' fourth lighthouse? All of you from Chennai would have seen it at the south end of the Marina, but that's subject for another post!

The minaret may not look so tall from this perspective, but an older post shows it standing head and shoulders above its cousins!

Letters, anyone?

The first formal postal services - maybe it is better to call them the Company's first postal services - in Madras were fairly rudimentary, with a dak runner to carry the Bengal mail. Madras got its first Postmaster General only in 1774, which was also the time when the company mail began to carry, for a charge, private letters also. Over the next few years, the public was likely fleeced with erratic charges for their private letters - and they were subsidising the expense incurred by the government, for all letters of Company employees were carried free. Mr. John Philip Burlton, a "junior civilian of eight years' standing" (now, what does that mean?) first wrote to Lord Macartney and then to the acting Governor of Madras, Alexander Davidson, in 1785, with a proposal to "establish a regular Tapall or Dauk upon a Plan similar to that at Bengal". It found favour with the authorities after a few rounds of consultations with civil servants of Bengal.

Meanwhile, Governor Davidson was succeeded by Sir Archibald Campbell - he wanted his private secretary A.M. Campbell to be in charge of the Post Office, with Robert Mitford as his deputy. That was not acceptable to the Company headquarters, since neither were Company employees; they favoured Burlton as the chief of the Post Office. As often happens, a compromise was struck and on June 1, 1786, the General Post Office opened near the Sea Gate of Fort St George with Mr. Richard Legge Willis as its chief. For the next 70 years, the GPO worked within the Fort. It was only in 1856 that it moved out to Garden House, in Popham's Broadway.

Nearly 30 years later, in 1884, it moved to this building on North Beach Road (now Rajaji Salai). The architect was Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who incorporated elements from Travancore, Bijapur and Gujarati architecture to come up with this building, which continues to be Chennai's General Post Office today. Though a fire in 2003 ravaged the rear of this building, the facade still stands as a striking example of Indo-Saracenic architecture!

In Delhi, they call it...

One of the hangovers of the Madras Presidency days is that many people in the northern parts of India consider anything 'south of the Vindhyas' as being "Madrasi". And that was the explanation given to me by the shopkeeper at Dilli Haat when I asked him why this product was called 'Madrasi Saunf': "ye toh south mein log bahut khaate hain" - people in the south eat this a lot!

Who won?

It is quite characterless today, but 'Victory House' is a building that has seen a lot of action going on around it since the late 19th century. It was originally built for Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., a Calcutta firm (here's a picture of their headquarters) which had branches not only in India/Pakistan but also in Ceylon, Burma and the Malay Settlements. It is not known what the building was called when it was built for Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., but one story has it that after the Allied powers prevailed in the First World War, Whiteaway (or equally likely, Laidlaw), in a fit of pride, named the Madras branch 'Victory House'. Though the firm was quite successful in its other locations, it could never overtake the Spencer's of Madras and post-independence, found its clientele further dwindling.

The building was then bought by C.R.Srinivasan of the Swadesamitran for the newspaper's offices - their presses were in Royapettah, but perhaps Srinivasan was carried away by the symbolism: taking over 'Victory House' from its British owners reflecting the success of the newspaper's strident calls for 'self-rule'. Maybe he named it 'Victory House' after he bought it, celebrating that success. In any case, the newspaper itself fell away and was almost bankrupt by the mid-1970s.

It was sometime around then that The Swadesamitran Ltd began asking its tenants to move out of the Victory House, claiming that the century-old structure was unsafe for occupation. One of the tenants, who was paying a monthly rent of Rs.7,000/-, offered to buy the 10-ground property for Rs.20 lakhs. The situation became messy, with Swadesamitran going to court for an eviction and the tenant filing a counter-case arguing that Swadesamitran was backing out on their deal merely to raise the price. While I do not know the details of the arguments, or even the final judgement, it is easy to assume that the tenant won the case. Over the years since, that former tenant - VGP & Co. - has converted the entire building into one huge stockpile of consumer electronics and durables. Victory House has lost its earlier charm (you can see the earlier building in this picture, on the right) and has become one more nondescript structure on Mount Road!

Proof of herit-age

In their earlier avatar, Harrison's Hotel did not find any need to advertise their age. When you turned your vehicle into their tree-shaded front yard, you knew that this was an institution with a lot of years behind it. The low round cane tables with their red-and-white-checked tableclothes, circled by cane chairs, out on the verandah of their bar - or was it the restaurant? - proclaimed the elegance of an era that was long-gone even in during the 1980s. Once there, you were transported to some plantation far away from the city. Sadly, even the cuisine was modelled on the spartan aspect of the plantations, so it was truly a 'throwback' place.

No wonder that it was losing out on its clientele in the beginning of the 21st century. So, away went the front yard, and the two-storied structure. In its place came the swank new boutique hotel - Harrisons. Even now there is some debate about what it was called in its pre-renovation days: was it Harrisons, or Meenam (which is one of the restaurants in the new hotel), Queens or O'Papa? All four names seem to have been in use earlier, but today it is unequivocally Harrisons, with the words 'Since 1885' under it.

There does not seem to be any document going all the way back to the 19th century, though. In the lobby of the Harrisons, there is this framed letter dated March 10, 1914, from the then Governor of Madras, Lord Pentland, appointing "Messrs Harrison & Co., to be Caterers and Confectioners in ordinary to His Excellency...". In the new-age lobby, few people bother to even glance at this relic. Those who do might wonder what this has to do with the current avatar - the cursory caption does not really capture the heritage of the institution!

Waiting to fly

It was said this flyover would be ready in a year's time. It has now been fifteen months since work began on this, the latest Chennai 'high-rise' and it looks good enough to drive on. Problem is, the approach and side roads at both ends of the Cenotaph Road - Turnbulls Road flyover are in a state of complete mess, so it doesn't look like the flyover is going to be put to use just yet.

That's good news for a few of the kids from around the place. They have been using the nice, flat surface of the road as a cricket pitch over the past couple of weekends - at least there's some kind of 'driving' going on there!