Wraparound

Last month, there was a minor furore when the Emirate of Sharjah banned lungis in public places. The lungi is a comfortable garment, one that is still worn daily by millions, even though its popularity has fallen a bit in recent times. In its heydey, the lungi was not mere casual, lolling-around-the-house-wear. Though in the land of its birth, the lungi remained at the bottom of the sartorial scale, it was a prized posession in the countries it was exported to. With its strong, check-patterns in bold colours, it provided that extra spiff to the starched white shirts worn over it. Malaya, Ceylon, Siam - places where the lungi morphed into the sarong, were countries that the garment was introduced by the Dutch or the Portugese.

Many of these countries referred to the lungi as 'Palayakat'. One school of thought is that the word is a corruption of Pazhaverkadu (now called Pulicat), north of Chennai, where the Dutch had their fortress before the British presence on the Coromandel coast. These simple rectangles of cloth were probably the central players of a brand-building (okay, category-building) exercise a couple of centuries ago. The British varied the dimensions of these rectangles, or converted them into running lengths, and popularised them as 'Madras Checks' in its colonies, including the ones in America. Palayakat is a forgotten term now - certainly in Chennai, where lungi still holds sway, but companies behind the popular old brands still use the term: like Sangu-mark lungi-gal, which is a brand of The Madras Palayakat Company.

There could be another story of origin for the word, however. It could have originated from 'palasar-e-kattu', 'palasar' being the manner of tying the veshti, urging the users of the humble lungi to wear it like its more formal counterpart!

By the yard?

Though it has been referred to as 'metre coffee' many a time, I don't think I've ever asked for it by that name; indeed, I don't think any Chennaiite would think of it as such, for the term has almost always been dropped by visitors to this city. In specialty restaurants across India, some waiters serve South Indian coffee with a flourish, pouring it from one tumbler to another in such a way that the hot liquid falls a height equal to the waiter's armspans - well, that's close to a metre and surely an apt description.

Not that a visitor to Chennai would be disappointed if he asks for coffee at the roadside stall. The vendor would pour all liquids in the same fashion, raising one vessel as far as his arm can stretch. Maybe the distance travelled cools down the milk, but then, what is the point, if it is going to go back into the boiling pot, anyway!

Read this, please

Born as Kuppuswamy Iyer at Pattamadai, he went on to study medicine, which he practiced in Malaya as the head of an 'Estate Hospital' there. Struck with a feeling there was more to helping people than just curing illnesses, Kuppuswamy gave up his position and travelled to Rishikesh. By the time he was 40, Kuppuswamy had been Swami Sivananda for nearly 4 years. After a further decade of travelling around India as a wandering monk, Swami Sivananda established the Divine Life Society on the banks of the Ganga at Rishikesh. Since its founding in 1936, the Divine Life Society has grown both within and outside India.

On the occasion of his birth centenary in 1987, Madras city named a road after him, turning Adams Road into Swami Sivananda Salai. A statue of the saint was set up at the eastern end of the road, just where it joins Kamaraj Salai. Somehow, the statue seems to be of a roadside bookseller, pressing his wares on the passer-by. True, Swami Sivananda wrote close to 300 books, but he is to be remembered for much more than that.

At the western end of Swami Sivananda Salai, there was (is it there still?) a statue of Lord Ampthill, who was Governor of Madras between 1901 and 1906. I'm not sure if it was planned that way, or if it is just coincidence; one of Kuppuswamy's first forays into the public eye was in 1901, when, as a 14-year old, he sang a song to welcome the newly appointed Governor of Madras at the Kumarapuram railway station!

I'm back, on the monthly Theme Day for the City Daily Photo community. To see photos of statues from cities around the world, check this link out!

Rare, very rare

Can't think of too many 'theme' restaurants in Chennai; Sparky's Diner may be one only because there is no other diner, there are (were?) a couple of movie-themed restaurants a while ago, but the list more or less ends there.

And yes, there was (is?) the Rainforest in Adayar where the sounds of thunder and rain were supposedly more exciting than the food. The Cave, which opened about 6 months ago on Mount Road seems to be from the same folks who came up with Rainforest. Themed as a pre-Stone Age eatery, it certainly let's you know that right at the entrance - the gorilla and assorted monkeys sharing cliff-space with what's meant to be a stone age man. It seems to be that they've got the food part better this time around.

I prefer my meat very well done, though!

Lone star

Just across the Binny headquarters on Erabalu Chetty Street is this "Star House", the Zonal Office of the Bank of India. The current holder of that title is the fourth to be so named - the other three of course died out long before this one was started.

The star logo of the bank was redesigned in 2006 to mark the centenary year of the bank. And thanks to that, this building has a crown that can be seen from quite a distance away!

Assemble here!

If you were in Chennai last Saturday - the 13th - you could not have missed the inauguration of the new Legislative Assembly and Secretariat building complex. After 53 years, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly met again within the Government - now named the Omandurar - Estate, having spent those years meeting at Fort St George.

It is the first Legislative Assembly in the country to be awarded the LEED-Gold Certification; that's not the highest level of 'Green-ness' for buildings. But it missed (or rather, opted to not go for) the LEED-Platinum certification for 2 reasons: using an air-cooled system for CO2 monitoring, which consumes more energy than a water-cooled system and having bright facade lights, keeping in mind security and aesthetic concerns.

But even then they can switch off the lights in the daytime can't they!

The 'Old Pagoda'

There is apprently a reference to this temple going back to 1652, but I have not been able to find that. However, James Talboys Wheeler, in his 'Madras in the Olden Time: 1702 - 1727' refers to a document "signed by President Baker, Agent Greenhill and Mr. Gurney dated in the year 1652", concerning the settlement of a dispute between the Right-Hand- and Left-Hand-Castes in the area north of Fort St George. That document names this temple as "Malley Carjun's old Pagoda", the use of the adjective supporting the claim that the temple is more than 500 years old.

Legends of the temple founding date it to between 800 and 1000 years ago: the discovery of a Siva lingam in the midst of a jasmine (malli) garden - apparently this area was thick with them - led to the construction of this temple. Today, the area is thick with various business establishments; many with tiny, one room offices, keeping the wheels of commerce moving through from the port to the city and beyond. In the midst of all that hubbub, the Mallikeswarar temple on Linghi Chetty Street is an oasis of serenity. In the past few years, the rajagopuram, built by a devotee in 1923 has been renovated and the teakwood temple car has also been restored; in 2008, the car went out on its festival run, after a gap of 58 years.

But if it is the 'Mallikeswarar' temple, how did it get corrupted as "Mally Carjun's Pagoda"? That's a riddle which will have to wait for another day!

Navroj mubarak!

Today is the day of the vernal equinox; and a day when Parsis celebrate Navroj (or Navroze), their New Year. A very happy Navroj to Chennai's small population of Parsis (between 200 to 300 of them).

I'm sure they'll be celebrating this Navroj with more than the usual celebrations, for 2 reasons: firstly, because this is the first one after the UNESCO included Navroj on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009 and secondly, closer home in Chennai, this year marks the centenary of the Jal Phiroj Clubwala Dar-e-Meher (the Fire Temple) of Chennai.

Here's a detail from that temple: Faravahar, a symbol reminding us that the purpose of life is to live in such a way that the soul progresses towards union with the supreme divinity!

Where are they?

The first ever World House Sparrow Day celebrated today seeks to put the spotlight on the plight of these little chappies, mainly because it is assumed they are in no danger of dying out. They were all over Chennai, once upon a time. Today, they are to be seen only in a few localities, places where urban development, in a sense, has remained where it was about a generation ago - like Linghi Chetty Street, where today's picture was taken.

The fall of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) has been attributed to several factors, from modern buildings not having the eaves preferred as nesting sites by the sparrows, to microwave radiation from cell-phone towers. Some of them seem reasonable but some border the consipiracy-theory category. This is not just a Chennai-only phenomenon, but really a global concern; as yet, the IUCN does not regard the P. domesticus as being a 'vulnerable' species, though they acknowledge that the population trend is declining. Researchers too are hard pressed to come up with an explanation that covers all the facts, especially when many still believe that the house sparrows continue to be as common as it was during their childhood - even if they can't remember having seen them near their apartment.

One reason, from a Chennai newspaper a few years ago: "With diminishing tolerance among the younger generation, sparrows are denied entry into houses to nest and breed. People even enlist expert opinion on how best to get rid of nesting sparrows." Well, they did create a lot of noise and a bit of mess in our house during my childhood, but I'd rather take that than have these little birds go extinct!

Hello, strangers

Three boys, posing for the camera in front of what was once the Crown Theatre on Mint Street.

I know little else about them - unlike my friend Ram, who runs the other daily photo blog on Chennai (and who runs a once-a-week post on 'People'), I take very few pictures of people that I normally have no idea who they are!

No more dynasties

As early as 1947, the Government of Madras entered the business of providing bus services, introducing a fleet of 30 buses in Madras city. In the early 1950s, the government imposed its monopoly on the city's bus services. The takeover of private bus services in the rest of the state was pursued more vigourously in the late 1960s: the policy of "progressive nationalisation", as it was called, first resulted in the long-distance services becoming state-owned in 1967. In 1972, four more corporations were formed, to run bus services in four cities of the state.

They were named very aptly: the three dynasties which reigned during the golden age of the region gave their names to the transport corporations of their former capitals - Pandyan for Madurai, Cheran for Coimbatore and Chozhan for Thanjavur. Though a lesser dynasty, the Pallavas were renowned enough for their name to be bestowed upon Madras' service; and so, in 1972, the Pallavan Transport Corporation was formed, as a company, rather than a government department. For almost 20 years, these four - and the Thiruvalluvar Transport Corporation, handling long distance services - were the only companies providing transport services. In the late 1980s, however, politicians began splitting these corporations and naming them after lesser lights. A spate of such renaming in the 1990s saw the state having 19 such. The last straw was when the Virudhunagar Division of the Pandyan Transport Corporation was spun off as 'Veeran Sundaralingam Transport Corporation' in 1997 - mobs aggrieved that their idol (whoever that was) was overlooked in favour of Sundaralingam burnt the buses with his name - a spree that went on for quite a few days, until the government decided that enough was enough.

So now, the state has 7 Corporations: the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) which handles Chennai, the State Express Transport Corporation which handles long-distance services and 5 variants of the Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation (Villupuram, Kumbakonam, Madurai, Salem and Coimbatore). For many Chennai residents, the buses of the city are still PTC - for Pallavan Transport Corporation, even though that connection remains only in the name of the MTC's headquarters - Pallavan Illam, seen in this photo!

The second lighthouse

If you think the column in the foreground is a completely un-functional piece of work, you would probably be right. The major functional element of this column used to be what was on top of it; 120 feet above the ground was housed the arrangement of Argand Lamps and reflectors, supplied by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, flashing signals to the traffic on the Madras Roads.


Much taller than its predecessor on top of the Fort Museum, this Doric column lighthouse was designed by Capt J.E.Smith. It took about 6 years to build it and it became fully operational in 1844, although it was in intermittent use as early as 1841. The column was placed in the Esplanade, outside the walls of Fort St George. A photograph taken circa 1855 shows the lighthouse with its crown; a crown that was given up to the city's third lighthouse in 1894!

Breaking the pattern

The otherwise regular pattern of buildings along Mount Road is broken by this facade opposite the LIC building. Must say the building is rather photogenic, it certainly looks better in the picture than it does in reality - does startle you for a moment when you see it suddenly!

Patron saint

In the early 18th century, a few families of Durgarayapatnam heard about the wonderful opportunities for boatmen who were ready to risk the surf at Madras and handle the ship to shore traffic for the traders. And so they came, to stay in the shadow of the new Fort St George, bringing in cargo and crew from the Madras Roads to the fort. Over the next few years, many of them turned to fishing, while other families joined them. By the 1740s, these seafaring people had thrown in their lot so much with the British that when the French took over Fort St George in 1746, the Chepauk community moved to Fort St David (at Cuddalore) with the British and then helped the British navy in their quest to re-possess Madras.

Fort St George's gratitude had a good memory; when changes were made in the way goods were delivered on the Madras shore, the fishermen - and other 'boat-people' had to move. To compensate for the move, Fort St George granted them about 45 acres of land further north of the fort. The fisherfolk moved there in 1799, built a church for St. Peter, their patron saint. In 1824, they decided that their church was to be re-built - the revised version was consecrated in 1829.

With the new church came disputes over ownership. It was only in 1867 that the Madras High Court handed it over to a board of trustees set up by ecclesiastical authorities. Since then, the church has been developed - the structure seen here is not so old, but the church itself has been around in some form or the other since 1799 - giving name to the area: Royapuram, for Rayappar, the Tamizh name for Peter!

Chennai Super Kings!

Oh, well, it is just a photo-of-a-photo. The photo was on the wall at the office of ShowSpace, who were managing Chennai Super Kings. It is a picture that dates back almost two years, to the first season of IPL, but hey, I'm off to watch today's match, so enjoy the colours here - if you aren't at the stadium already!

Local bank

Ever since I learnt that the man's first job was with this firm, I couldn't pass this building without thinking about Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. One reason could be that it was definitely more English looking than its neighbours, being in the Edwardian style rather than the Indo-Saracenic which is more common along Rajaji Salai. The effect is heightened by the gleaming white exteriors, contrasting with the red-brick of its neighbours, especially the Chennai GPO and the State Bank of India buildings.

Though the building was completed in 1923, HSBC got its hands on it only in 1959, as part of the takeover of the Mercantile Bank of India, which had its offices here. The site itself has an older provenance, having been the offices of 'The Mail', one of the earliest daily newspapers of Madras!

Where elephants dared?

Once called 'Anaikara Konan Street', the name was shortened after references to caste were removed from public names. Because it is close to the Elephant Gate, it is easy to figure this as having been the place where the mahouts gathered.

But then again, it might have been anything else - street names sometimes lack logic, you see!

Escaping the heat?

Chennai is moving towards its 'hotter' season and folks are already getting tired out, thinking of ways to beat the heat this year. Such thoughts are undoubtedly a common thread we have with the city's yesteryear residents. One such must have had this building as the ultimate answer to the Madras summer - in rather grand style, it is named 'Summer House'.

Coming up just before Zam Bazar, on Bharathi Salai (Pycrofts Road), there is not much else around to indicate who the house belongs (belonged) to or why it was thought of as merely a seasonal residence!

Break journey

Looking at the time this picture was taken - 0833 hrs - I assumed that the Chennai Central was experiencing that slight lull when the first rush of the morning's work has given way to thought about that cup of coffee.

However, there is no real break worth its name for more than 15 minutes at Chennai Central; trains are either coming or going at all hours of the day, except between 2345 when the last trains for the day leave (the Ahilyanagari Express, Raptisagar Express and the Korba-Thiruvananthapuram Express) and 0215 when the first trains (Chandigarh-Chennai Express and Dehra Dun - Chennai Express) arrive.

The lack of crowds at this time was probably a freak phenomenon; like one of those ghost traffic-jams, a ghost break-in-the-journey!

Peeking in, peeking out

Kids at the entrance of the Thirusoolanathar-Tirupurasundari temple, trying to find out what is happening with all the photography. In the distance, one of the peaks of the Pallavaram hills.

Curtain raiser

It is the newest of the city's concert spaces, but it is more than a just a stage. With a grand semi-circular frontage, Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall offers a great venue for performances. Within two years of being open to the public, it has become the venue of choice for not only concerts, but for art exhibitions and any kind of performance in general.

The superb acoustics of the hall are complemented by the excellent equipment. Comfy seats let you enjoy the performance without having to twist and turn for that correct positioning. And there is adequate space for parking - the advantage of being able to use the space of the Lady Andal School after hours.

And though I haven't had a chance to see one such yet, the hall has a provision for providing 'surtitles' - projected on the stage, above the performance space - to enable translations of plays into another language, should it be required!

Lonesome George

Under the pretext of easing traffic flow around the new Assembly complex being constructed on Mount Road, the magnificent statue of King Edward VII which was there has been carted away. Even more mindlessly, and shamefully, the statue of King George V near the War Memorial was also hacked off - both father and son are now covered in sackcloth and dumped somewhere on the grounds of the Government Museum. Sad.

The argument that the statues were reminders of the dark period of imperialism may have been valid at some time, but both Eddie and George had become part of the city's landscape over the years. If nothing else, the statues were much easier on the eye than several others that had come up at various street corners.

Now, the only statue of King George V that remains is the one on NSC Bose Road. Presumably, it has been left standing because it was put up by public demand and sponsored by Govindadoss Chatoorbhoojadoss, who was Sheriff of Madras in 1914 when this statue was unveiled. Today it stands alone - but keeping a watchful eye on all the vehicles around!

Half-a-dozen names

Founded in 1869 by the Maharaja of Vizianagaram and funded by Sir P.S.Sivaswami Ayyar sometime in 1918, this school has gone through five names and is currently on its sixth. It is quite likely this name would not be changed and the school will continue to be known by its current name - Lady Sivaswami Ayyar Girls' Higher Secondary School.

Some say that Sir Sivaswami Ayyar sold his house to finance this school; there doesn't seem to be any direct link between the one and the other. However, it does appear that the money he bequeathed to this school came, at least in part, from the proceeds of selling his bungalow, Sudharma, to the Amalgamations group.

The names this school has carried over the last 140 years reflect its benefactors - the Maharaja of Vizianagaram initially and then, the name of the Society which has been in charge of running this school - The National Boys' and Girls' Education Society, Mylapore. It is only after Sir Sivaswami Ayyar's death in 1946 that the school was named after his wife - a name that has now lasted for 64 years with just a minor change!

They get their man!

This is truly an image from another era; maybe even forty years ago, the sight of policemen on horseback would have been enough to deter a miscreant in the mob. Their vantage point, looking over the heads and shoulders of people in a crowd, would have helped them spot suspicious characters from a distance; a policeman on foot, or even from a prowl car, would not have had that advantage which comes from sitting tall in the saddle.

There is no predicting how much longer we can get to see the Mounted branch of the Chennai Metropolitan Police in action. Even as far back as 1860, the Police Commission Report stated that the "mounted bodies are exceedingly expensive" and that they were "more lawless" and "less amenable to control" than foot constabulary. Though that report also conceded that a mounted force is useful, for instance, to "check large Organized bodies of lawless marauders", it argued that the existing "Establishments of Horse Police.....be placed on the lowest scale in regard to numbers". The police force of Bombay disbanded their Mounted Branch in the 1930s (though they're thinking of bringing them back, now); the Delhi Mounted Police, on the other hand, was set up in the 1930s. With a sanctioned strength of 95 mounts, they could have been the leaders, but they have only 62 horses on the street and thus fall behind Kolkata Mounted Police, which has 67 - and a history going back to the 1840s. Chennai can probably run Kolkata close in the history, but is far behind in horses - Chennai's force has only about 32 currently. The good thing is, that number has been holding steady for some years now, while Coimbatore and Trichy have had their mounted branches being eroded completely within the past 3 years - and Madurai is barely holding on, with just 4 mounts.

It may be archaic, but these policemen on horses seem to mean business far more than constables sitting an chatting in one of the prowl cars!

Forgotten escape

Although the Japanese did not make too many serious efforts to attack Madras during World War II, the threat of air-raids was real enough for the city fathers to change the landscape and create an underground shelter. The Japanese did make an attempt, however. Some say that it was only a training run by a Mitsubishi Zero (or a Rufe, the Zero's seaplane version) which dropped a bomb near the Fort St George and then never came back.

Not much is known of the bombing; unlike the half-hour blitz by the S.M.S.Emden in 1914, which added the word emden (or emenden, if you like), meaning 'fearsome' to the Tamizh lexicon, the Japanese bombing seems to have been too mild to be remembered. Indeed, memories of the threat seem to have eclipsed the fact of its having happened. The official website of Chennai district lists it as a 'historical event', though with the rather dry entry, "1943 Japanese Fighter Plane dropped bombs on City and disappeared". A more tangible memory of that bombing is displayed in the Fort Museum - a fragment of the bomb itself, mounted on a brass plaque alongside a similar fragment from its 'illustrious' predecessor.

Another memory, though a tangential one, is the film 'Andha Naal' - the main character ('Sivaji' Ganesan), a traitor leaking secrets to the Japanese during World War II, being murdered on the night the Japanese bombed Madras!

English chapel

This building, in the grounds of St George's School on Poonamallee High Road, was built between 1883-5 as the house of prayer for the girls who were housed in what was the Female Orphans Asylum. Mr. Muthiah, that venerable chronicler of Chennai that was Madras, calls it "a little church that is straight out of a picture postcard scene of rural English chapel".

That it certainly is, the 'Englishness' highlighted by the use of the Celtic cross; it is probably a nod to the fact that the Asylum had its origins in a charity school of the Church of England. The fish-scale tiles on the roof are also a style that is not very commonly seen in these parts - one other building that has it is also on Poonamallee High Road!

Easy rider

It is not all that easy being a cycle-rickshawman these days. There are restrictions on these vehicles entering the main roads, so their trips are confined to the side streets. There was a time when they were all over the place, but from a high of 3.5% of total trips made (in 1992), their share has dropped down to 0.3% of total trips, in 2005. The drop has not just been in percentage terms, but in absolute numbers as well - from 35 lakh person-trips in 1992, to about 30,000 person-trips in 2005.

That's only to be expected, in the face of competition from autorickshaws and the growing two-wheeler population. Yet, there is still some hope for these vehicles. The II Draft Master Plan for Chennai specifically talks about using them as a viable para-transit option and specifically about encouraging cycle-rickshaws to operate between residential areas and transit routes. It may be an easy ride for the commuter then!

Pink-yellow-green-blue

Happy Holi!

It is not a 'local' festival, but that doesn't stop people in Chennai from celebrating Holi; in fact, the celebrations began early! Because Holi this year fell on a Monday, the fun part began during the week-end itself. After the first round of colours - gulal smeared, coloured water sprayed with pichkaris - it was difficult to figure out who was who (and in the case of the kids, who was whose!)

In north India, Holi marks the killing of the demoness Holika; alternately, it is the celebration of spring's arrival at Vrindavan. For some reason, south India does not have an analogous festival - the spring festivals of the region are rather more prosaic. But that hasn't stopped folks from going around spraying colours or using the occasion to have more than a few swigs of bhang, a cold milk-shake laced with a herbal extract (?!).

And in true traditional style, the colours of the afternoon gave way to some excellent bhang - given its potency, I'm glad that I had just the right quantity of the stuff!

Empty station

On the Beach - Tambaram suburban train line, there are some 'important' stations and others which are not so. Chetpet is not one of the important ones - to me it had always seemed to be a station which was placed more to break the monotony of the stretch between Nungambakkam and Egmore than to serve any commercial or even public interest.

Even so, Chetpet station is normally not so empty; it is just that, close to noontime on Sunday, there are just a few people on the platform - and fewer in the train!

Last light?

Heard that work on renovating the Victoria Public Hall has begun. Look forward to the first meetings there soon - wonder if the coloured glass panes will remain in place!

The old, the new

For a long while, I wasn't sure why this building - at the junction of Flowers Road and Dr. Alagappa Road (Ormes Road) - had caught my eye. Looking back at the few pictures I had taken of this, there didn't seem to be anything special about this building: like many others in the vicinity, this seemed to be another building with shops at the street level and residential spaces in the floors above.

Now I think I've figured it out. This building goes back to the 1930s; unlike many of its contemporaries, this one does not present itself in its original form today. A lot of the flourishes have been replaced by more recent construction - take the fascia under the eaves on the first floor, for instance. The houses of the '30s typically had carved wooden ones, (like this one), but here, it seems to have been replaced by a more functional wooden plank. The verandah has been protected by bars taking up space between the original wooden columns. The tiles are newer, and have flattened the gables - I imagine there must have been a couple of them initially.

And most of all, the construction on the second floor seems to be completely modern. Even though this building does not have the stately look of an old construction, it seems to be in better shape as a habitation right now!

A decade of the festival

The Mylapore Festival can justifiably claim to have inspired at least two other public celebrations, the Madras Day/Week and the Chennai Sangamam. The former is, of course, coordinated by the folks at the Mylapore Times, the same people who run the Mylapore Festival also.

While the newer events are run on a much wider scale, the Mylapore Festival retains the charm of a neighbourhood mela. As the website says, it has grown from being a kolam contest to a 30-event, 4-day festival - and yet, retains the spirit of a small village fête, where everyone knows everyone else!

The man, the brand

Tucked away in a side street off Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Salai, this memorial to India's first movie-hero-turned-state-Chief-Minister seems to be an effort to downplay MGR's prominence. But then, it is not a state sponsored memorial, which is on the Marina; this one is maintained by the MGR Memorial Charitable Trust, and is more a storehouse of memories of the man who had a tremendous run of over 5 decades in public life, the first four more as a movie star than a politician and the last, as the state's Chief Minister. Sadly, visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. The official photographer inside will take your picture at certain pre-set locations.

The first thing you see when you enter the drawing room of what used to be MGR's house is the car he used for 10 years - a greenish blue Ambassador, TMX 4777. There is an urban legend that he was sold on the number 4777, because he first became Chief Minister on July 4, 1977. Some years later, when the registration series "MGR" fell due in Maharashtra, he made sure that he bought a car there and had it registered as MGR 4777 - though he never used it much. Other interesting bits that are little known: that he had a lion as a pet - 'Raja' now stands in stuffed glory inside this memorial. He bought the lion for his production "Adimai Penn" - a sequence where he fights the lion impressed Raj Kapoor so much that he wanted tips from MGR when filming a similar sequence for Mera Naam Joker. Though I don't have pictures of either, both car and lion can be seen on the Memorial's website.

In many ways, the house is quite a nice memorial of a man whose political legacy is being claimed by many, even today. After all, it is not everyone who can claim to have won a general election from a hospital bed not just once, but twice: the first time to become an MLA after he was wounded in a fracas in 1967 and the second, all the way from Brooklyn Hospital in New York, in 1984, to be re-elected as the Chief Minister. And if that wasn't enough, a 2008 movie about a taxi carried the number of his car - that's the power of the MGR brand!

New steps

The Marina now has a three-kilometer long uninterrupted footpath - you can walk all the way from the Triumph of Labour statue to the lighthouse without any significant break. Almost at the end of your walk, you'll see the Mahatma striding the other way!

Far-gone?

There must certainly be a phase in every schoolboy's life when he is able to deduce a lot of information from just the registration number of a vehicle. Though I haven't come across any grown-up who continues to have that hobby - or fetish, if you will - I'm sure there would be several enthusiasts who could tell me all about TNJ 3879. The best I can do with it is to date this vehicle as being from between 1968 and 1980, and on that, I would beg for a huge margin of error on the upper bound.

Confidence about the early date stems from the fact that until 1968, the state was called "Madras" rather than "Tamil Nadu" as it is today. Vehicles in the pre-1968 years had their registration numbers starting with M, rather than with T. Ergo, this vehicle is from the post-1968 period.

Make that "this registration is from the post-1968 period"; the vehicle looks much older and somehow it is etched in my mind as a Fargo lorry. The design of those lorries from the 1950s was something like this, so it could very well be from that period - it could possibly have been re-registered much later. By that logic, the TNJ registration is also outdated - so, is this vehicle going for a re-registration, unlike its brother, who lies nearby? That would certainly explain the new paint on it!

Another rest-house

Its appearance is not as imposing as that of the choultry or the sarai which lie to the south of the Chennai Central railway station. Given its location on the eastern side of the station, on Wall Tax Road, it probably served a customer segment less fussy than the ones frequenting its southern neighbours.

It is not much younger than them, though. The choultry was in all likelihood a late 19th century construction, while the sarai came up in the 1920s. This dharmasala is probably a contemporary of the sarai. The similarity to the sarai continues in that the sponsors of this dharmasala were traders - Paramananda Doss and Chotta Doss, who set up their eponymous firm in 1888, trading in cloth from Benares.

Beyond that, there's little that I've been able to find out about the twin Doss-es. Surely their firm continues to survive somewhere in the warren of George Town!

Misidentified - twice over!

Taxonomy is difficult, even for Carl Linnaeus, the father of binomial nomenclature. When confronted with butterflies, the difficulty increases manifold. Butterflies have more complexity than many other animal orders; apart from the sexual dimorphism common to most animals, butterflies also have seasonal morphs and, in some cases, locational morphs also.

In the case of this butterfly, Linnaeus had first thought of it as an African species (remember, the taxonomists of the 18th century depended heavily on travellers' memories about where a specimen was sourced from), describing it as Papilio terpsicore in 1758. In 1775, Johan Christian Fabricius, a Danish entomologist studied a specimen that came to him from Africa and described it as Papilio serena - he was very quickly told that his P. serena was none other than the P. terpsicore described by Linnaeus. In 1793, Fabricius got hold of a specimen from India and believing it to be completely new, classified it as Papilio violae. It was later that all the tangles were sorted out; it was then determined that this butterfly, the Tawny Coster, is one of the exceptions, the other being the Yellow Coster - other members of the family have stayed on in Africa.

This one of course was in Chennai, basking in the sun at the Adayar Poonga!

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!