Nice place

If it is Chintadripet, it must be all bustle and action. That is the impression people would have about one of the most active sections of Chennai city. But going down a lane in the area, one is surprised by the quiet surroundings. The buildings are all old-world, appearing to be well past their diamond jubilees at least. Large trees, even if they are not so old, provide a lot of green cover not only to the buildings, but to the pedestrians as well.

In the midst of such surroundings, this house - that is what it seemed to be, at first look - does not appear to be out of place. It is only when you see the sign there that you are shaken out of your reverie. Anti-Vice Squad? Here? In such peaceful surroundings? Yes, this is where the Anti-Vice Squad of the Chennai City Police is housed. 

Maybe it should be in the past tense. After the inauguration of a new office for the Chennai Commissionerate, this Squad might have also shifted there. It might be good for them to continue in these surroundings, however; faced with the stench of vice in the course of their work, the police(wo)men could feel refreshed working in such a pleasant neighbourhood!

Main gate

It is not really the main gate, but for most of the workers of Simpson & Co Ltd, these are the gates through which they would enter their workplace. The firm is over 150 years old, having been established sometime in the 1840s. Arnold Wright, writing in 1914 about businesses in Madras, claims the year to be 1840 itself. After 170 years, that is a minor quibble, but more interesting is what Wright says about the range of its products. The firm was set up by A.F. Simpson, a Scotsman who came to Madras to ply his trade as a wheelwright. He expanded into harnesses, saddles, boots - all those things that riders may need - and then into coaches also. In a short span of 5 years, Simpson was able to make a name for his products in Madras city and moved from his initial premises on Poonamallee High Road to Mount Road. 

The products were of quite high quality and Simpson reached out to a clientele beyond Madras. The way he chose to get there was through London; it was, even in the 19th century, a preferred vacation spot for rich and famous Indians. Displaying (and advertising) his coaches at industrial exhibitions in London, he canvassed orders from his target demographic right there and supplied them from his works on Mount Road.

By the early 20th century, Simpson had passed on and the firm was being run by George Underhill Cuddon, who had joined the firm as a clerk in 1891. In 1914, the products, as described by Wright, included "carriages, motor-cars, or billiard-tables". However, sometime in the middle of the 20th century, Simpson & Co Ltd had become more specialized, as a manufacturer of diesel engines for various applications. In the 1980s, they attempted a joint venture with Ford to assemble trucks (or LCVs) but that was not successful. They continue to stick with the engines - and they look set to be doing it for another 170 years and more!

One, or many?

Spread over about 1.5 acres, this specimen of Ficus benghalensis is one of the largest in the country and maybe the oldest one as well. The Great Banyan of Kolkata and the Thimmamma Marrimanu at Anantapur cover a much greater area than this one, but it is very likely that this tree is much older than either of them. The Adyar aalamaram (Adyar banyan), as it is called, is supposedly over 450 years old, which if true would make it about 200 years older than the other giants. 

This tree is part of Huddleston Gardens, the seat of the Theosophical Society in Chennai. If it was to have a street address, it would be listed as Schwarz Avenue. That is because the avenue runs along the southern border of the tree's extent. On the other sides, there are no roads, just more vegetation. A fence marks the boundary; the banyan of course does not respect such confines and its branches have already arched over the road and put down aerial roots.

The main trunk of the tree was brought down by storm winds during a cyclone in 1989. Some effort was made to revive the trunk, but it was futile. The main trunk is gone, but the tree continues to live on. But that has prompted some to opine that the Adyar aalamaram cannot be considered a tree anymore, but should be a 'tree system'. Clearly, they are missing the woods for a tree!

Broken soldier

I will give you a clue. This is supposed to be a Roman soldier. At some point, he was flogging someone or dragging something along. And this is on a hillock close to the Marmalong bridge. 

Give up? Okay, I shall tell you now. It is - or was - part of a tableau in the precincts of the Little Mount Church in Saidapet. There is nothing else near it, so it must have been discarded. Or did he just desert the ranks?

Lease of life

The media have been all agog over a heart transplant operation performed in this hospital a couple of days ago. While the coordination between the hospitals involved and the Chennai City Traffic Police was indeed commendable, not much attention has yet been given to the framework that enabled it to come about. In the 20 years since the Transplantation of Human Organs (THO) Act, 1994 was passed, Tamil Nadu has led the country by many a mile in reaping the benefits of this Act. In 2012, over 40% of the donors (and the harvested organs) were from Tamil Nadu, giving it a donation rate of 1.15/million population (Punjab with 0.43 and Kerala with 0.36 were the nearest)

Chennai, of course, has been in the vanguard of this movement. In 1999, five hospitals in the city came together to create the Indian Network for Organ Sharing, under the MOHAN Foundation. The experience with this project was encouraging and the state government came into it in 2008, setting a clear process to support such sharing - the Cadaver Transplant Programme, which has become the point of reference for other states to implement similar programmes. 

Fortis Malar, pictured here, was where the transplant was carried out on Monday evening. But there are other hospitals, both private and government-run, that have carried out similar procedures as a matter of routine. The newsworthiness of Monday's transplant was the traffic management, to ensure that the heart was moved here from the donor hospital in double-quick time. But let us also take a moment to cheer the progress achieved in making such transplants routine!

Crown gopuram

Within the premises of the Ayodhya Mandapam in West Mambalam, there is a sanctum maintained by Sri Rama Samajam. And rising above that is this gopuram, quite clearly different from the others that one comes across in Chennai.

This is supposedly a replication of the crown of Sri Rama. And there is one other structure in Chennai that is topped by such a replica. Any idea which it is?

Cornerstone of church

Embedded into the side wall of the Emmanuel Methodist Church is this plaque, declaring that the corner stone was laid on 17th December 1878. The normal visitor would miss it, for it is not along a regular path. The security guard on duty however insisted that it had to be seen and so it was.

What the stone - acknowledged elsewhere by the church as its foundation stone - does not say is the story of how the church started off as a gleam in the eye of William Taylor. Taylor had arrived in India in 1870, after having toured a great number of countries over the previous seven years. He did not come to Madras with the intent of starting a Methodist Church. But he sensed that his approach as an Evangelist was not enough to overcome the lethargy of the local clergy and so decided to set up the Episcopal Church. Such energy was not unusual for Taylor. He had definite views on how churches in Asia and Africa should become self-sustaining and must be treated on par with the churches of the USA. This attitude put him in conflict with the Methodist mission board, who would rather have those recognized as missions, rather than churches. 

The church was renovated at the turn of the millennium. Though originally planned as minor repairs to the roofing, the effort grew to a complete renovation, replacing the original wooden trusses and expanding the seating capacity. It was probably at this time that The corner stone was actually moved around the corner!

Old, but clean

On the crest of this building, there are the letters OMC and a number that seems to be 1929. If they are clues to the history of this building, they are certainly very obtuse ones. The building itself is very regular, appearing to be a square as you come to it from the south and then, suddenly, shows off a hexagonal corner. By itself, that is not unusual. Several constructions from the early part of the 20th century had such corner rooms - Mithila on TTK Road is one that comes to mind. 

But this one is a mystery. There does not seem to be any reference to it in the public domain and I haven't been able to find anyone who has stories to tell about it. For as long as I can remember, it has housed a branch of the Garment Cleaners. And that is probably the proprietor looking out from the first floor window. Strangely, that is the only window that has bars across it.

Any leads to the history of this building are welcome!

Garden house

In the mid 1800-s, the start of the Great Choultry Plain was marked by a large garden, next to St George's Cathedral, belonging to the Madras Horticultural Society. This society was established in 1835 and may quite possibly have been inspired by the one that was established in Calcutta in 1820. Dr Robert Wight, the Scottish botanist who was the driving force behind the Society was certainly a man who got around. The Calcutta Monthly Journal for 1836 describes Dr Wight sending a dissertation on Joomlah Hill Rice to the Secretary of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India; that Journal also describes the General Meeting of the Madras Agricultural and Horticultural Society on October 8, 1836.

Strangely, the Calcutta institution did not take the Madras Society in its fold. There does not seem to be any one reason for this, but it could be due to the Governors of these cities trying to be one-up over the other. The Governor of Madras was the chief patron of the Society and he was probably loath to hand over control to his Calcutta counterpart. The 22-acre space given to the Society was probably well used by Dr Wight to conduct his experiments as well as to document the specimens that were collected from all over south India. Helping him in the documentation were 'native artists' Rungiah and Govindoo. Much of their work was shipped to England. The Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh has the works of Dr Wight and his artists in their collection.

When Cathedral Road was built, the Society's gardens were divided; the part on the south side was comparatively neglected and in 1962 was handed over to Krishna Rao, a restauranteur, who created the first drive-in restaurant in India. The title to the gardens were in dispute for a very long time; finally, sometime in 2008, the courts ruled in favour of the Government, which has now full control of the Agri-Horticultural Society. The drive-in closed in 2008 and was developed into the Semmozhi Poonga. The part on the north side of Cathedral Road continues to be a woodland, with a nursery and this building having the Society's offices (?) inside. But the composition of the Society itself seems to be a mystery - all that is known is that it is run by the state government!

Playtime

It took R. (Kalki) Krishnamurthy nearly three-and-a-half years to write it. It originally appeared as a serial in Kalki, the magazine that Krishnamurthy was the editor of. The first instalment was published in November 1950; with that, the popularity of the magazine went up. Readers waited eagerly for the next issue and the print run of the magazine needed to be increased, going on to touch 75,000 soon. Family members scrapped with each other to be the first to read the weekly and over about 200 weeks, the story of Arulmozhivarman, later Raja Raja Chozhan. Mixing fact and imagination, Ponniyin Selvan was a masterpiece, establishing historic fiction as a genre in Tamizh.

To celebrate the golden jubilee of the work, Magic Lantern came up with a stage adaptation of the epic. It had a hugely successful run, but it was limited - by design. For Magic Lantern, it was an ambitious production and one they carried off successfully. It was therefore only natural that when SS International Live wanted to create a landmark event, they turned to Ponniyin Selvan, and of course, to Magic Lantern.

It was an enthralling drama. Compressing 2,400 pages of the work into a near-4-hour show is not easy and there were enough in the audience feeling bad that many incidents had been left out. But for someone who has not yet read the work (yes, English translations are available), it was a grand introduction to a story so much part of the popular lore that it is treated as history itself!

Overcooled

The summer has been scorching, alright. It might sound trivial to crib about Chennai's temperatures when Delhi has seen record-breaking temperatures, coupled with power outages. At least Chennai has 24-hour electricity (okay, 23 hours and 13 minutes). 

The temptation to get a cold one is very much there during the mornings. But it is quite rare to get chilled beer at the TASMAC shops. In any case, by the time one gets back home, the cold has disappeared. So, in the bid to get to the stuff sooner, a couple of bottles were placed in the freezer. And then, were forgotten about, until the evening.

Thankfully, they did not explode inside the freezer. (Do they ever? Even reading this experiment does not give me an answer). But there is no way I am going to open them when the beer is one solid, frozen mass. Stuck the bottles in a pan of water to get them to thaw, before junking them. And now, I have to wait a while until I get to watch a "cold bottle of beer perspiring on a hot summer day"!

Dispensing health

This is the building where, in 1905, V. Krishnaswami Iyer founded the Venkataramana Ayurveda Dispensary. The name was probably a part-tribute to his father, Venkatarama Iyer, who was a munsif in the Thanjavur district. Krishnaswami grew up there and it was only after he completed his schooling that he came to Madras. He studied at Presidency College (where, unable to follow the British accent of his lecturers, he found it far more entertaining to spend his time on the Marina) and then at the Madras Law College. 

Though he seems to have been academically rather average, he used his keen intelligence and quick wit to build a reputation as a lawyer. He earned quite well, too and was a benefactor to several institutions in the city, even setting up a few himself.

The Ayurveda Dispensary - which was also to serve as a teaching institution - was one of the beneficiaries of Krishnaswami Iyer's generosity. He set aside this building and then endowed the institution with a corpus of Rs.20,000. The dispensary continues to occupy the same space. Some parts of the dispensary / college are elsewhere, but close by. For Krishnaswami Iyer, this was one of the many things that he picked up, did something about and moved on!

Bridge the gap

Once, about a dozen years ago, this bridge made the list of spookiest places in Chennai. Surely you would be spooked too, if you suddenly came upon a bit of concrete stretched over 3 pillars. It was not built in that manner, but for several - maybe 25 or more - years now, it has remained that way, after the original construction was washed away.

The bridge was intended to help fisherfolk have a short-cut between the fishing villages of Srinivasapuram to the north and Olcottkuppam to the south. It is a narrow path, barely enough to take a stout two-wheeler in any one direction at a time. Maybe that was more than enough in the late '60s. 

But then again, maybe it was not. When the bridge was washed away, circa 1977, there was no effort made to replace it. The fisherfolk also did not raise a demand for it, I guess, for it is difficult to imagine such a demand being ignored for so long. These days it remains a favourite spot to watch the sunrise, a quiet place to sit and chat of an evening and most of all, a gap-tooth in the Adyar estuary as the river goes out to the Bay of Bengal!

The Eater's Digest - 10

"If you are late, we can't guarantee seats, sir", said the manager when we called ahead to book a table. The restaurant has been generating a lot of buzz in recent weeks and it also happened to be on the way back from work. We had seen the crowds outside and knew that the manager was not putting up airs; we made sure we were well ahead of time.

The outside looks quite like a film set, the way we know jails should look like. Grey facade, with a door that is completely plain except for the iron bands breaking it into large square panels. A barred peephole lets you look inside; the light that comes out reminds you of oily naked incandescent bulbs that do more to emphasize the darkness than provide any light. Forbidding. But we have reservations and we go inside. Much of the restaurant is like any other, tables, seats, lots of noise and light. But we had a request, we needed a cell.

Turns out we had to specify that when booking, but since we were a small group, an empty cell was easily found. We had to wait a little while the 'prisoner' set the table. The 'jailer' was quite attentive and we got to sit quite soon. There! We were at Kaidi Kitchen (Convicts' Kitchen) - a concept that has reached Chennai from Kolkata, where it is headquartered. Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese... and Mongolian. We played it safe and the food did not disappoint. But more than the food, it was the ambience we went for - and that was quite paisa vasool, thanks to kaidi # 108 who served us in cell J2!

Junction

So which way would you like to go today? At the Sheraton Park junction, only a few of the options are listed out. 

And the hotel is not one of them!

From bars to bazaars

Sometime since December last year, the gates at Puzhal Central Prison have seen a spike in the number of people milling around there. No, there was no rise in crime (or conviction) rates; it was just that a new store had opened inside the prison, with a counter to the outside world as well. That was the first outlet of the "Freedom Prison Bazaar". In the past six months, two other outlets have opened up, one at the CMDA Office in Egmore and this one, the newest, just ahead of the Saidapet Metropolitan Magistrates' Courts. 

This one came up three months ago and it stocks the entire range of 'Prison Products'. Tamil Nadu has 9 central prisons, three of which are in Chennai - Puzhal 1 and 2  and the Women's Prison, all in the Puzhal Campus. From soap making to music, there is a lot on offer for them to study. And recently, investments have been made in setting up a bakery (Puzhal), power looms (Coimbatore) and handmade paper units (all prisons). These are in addition to the facilities already available for shoemaking (Vellore), garments (Coimbatore) and soaps and detergents (Trichy) 

Traditionally, these products were used inside the prisons and probably within the Prison Department itself. Since last year, they have been made available to the public and the response seems to have been good enough for the department to consider expansion into the High Court and DMS complexes in the next few months. The profits from these stores would be distributed as a fifth each to the prisoners who worked to produce these, to the Prison Staff Welfare Fund and to the Government Account. The remaining 40% would be ploughed back to the 'business' through the Tamil Nadu Prison Department Manufacture of Goods Fund. So go ahead, give a helping hand to rehabilitate the prisoners!

Festival time

In the month of Thai (Jan-Feb), the Kapaleeswarar temple gets decked up for the theppam (float) festival. Spread over three days, the festival sees the main deities being taken around the temple tank in a float that is constructed to resemble a temple sanctum and is decorated with colours and bright lights. The float holds about 30-50 people, including the priests who perform the pujas and recite the thevarams and the vedas.

On the first day, it is the duo of Kapaleeswarar and Karpagambal who are taken around the tank. The float goes around five times on the first day. No motors, or propulsion systems; devotees walking along the sides of the tank pull the theppam. It is a privilege and there are more than enough people waiting for their turn to help. On the second day and third day, it is Singaravelar who is taken around, seven times on day two and nine times on the final day. The last day coincides with the full moon day of Thai, which was the day when Murugan received the vel (spear) from his mother Parvathi, giving him the name Singaravelar.

The temple and its environs are also brightly lit. Thai is festival time, kicking off with Pongal and going on to several others. The next time you get a chance, get to the temple for this festival. Mylapore goes into an orbit of its own; the city seems so far away! 

The prince, a monk

Here is the plaque, as I had promised yesterday. The name 'Bodhidharman' would be familiar to movie fans, through the movie "7ஆம் அறிவு" (Seventh Sense).  The stories about Bodhidharman are many and there is not enough place for them here. Suffice to say that one of the younger sons of a Pallava king, figuring that he wasn't excited by politics or palace intrigues, went away and became a Buddhist monk. His appearance was not that of a conventional bhikshu, for he is described as being bearded, ill-tempered and widely wild-eyed. 

The last, some say, was because Bodhidharman, in a bid to ensure that he did not doze off while meditating, sliced his eyelids away. At the spot where those lids fell grew a bush, and that was the first tea bush, according to legend. Other legends have it that it was this dhyana - that does sound like zen - master who brought the practice of Zen Buddhism, established the Shaolin Temple and in general did so much that practically anything can be traced back to him.

it was quite an unusual choice of a monk that the Theosophical Society has made for its Buddhist temple. Out there, Bodhidharman is around, even if he is not in the main temple itself!

Zen feeling

Until a couple of weeks ago, if someone had asked me about Buddhist temples in Chennai, I would have told you that I had heard of one in Egmore, though I have never been there. But on a Saturday afternoon walk at Besant Nagar I found a second temple, with a small pond in front of it. Maybe it is not correct to call it a temple, for it does not appear to have any space for meditation inside. The Theosophical Society's grounds, where this is located, has a few such monuments: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian and of course, Buddhist.

The pond - a tank, actually - in front of this shrine is a cement bordered rectangle, topped off with granite slabs. It is surprisingly cool even in the afternoon, so no wonder that quite a few visitors had parked themselves on it. Not much of the water is to be seen, because the surface is tessellated with lotus leaves, with the flowers popping up between them. Behind the shrine is a large grove of coconut palms, planted in right regular fashion.

It would have been nice to just sit beside the tank until the sun went down. But a plaque at a corner of the grounds drew me to it. What did that say? Ah, well, you will have to wait until tomorrow's post for that!

Entry barred?

Four times has the tomb of St Thomas been opened, say the records. The fourth time was in 1729, and one of the prominent citizens of Madras, Coja Petrus Uscan, was present at this opening. It was on this occasion that he and other Armenians of Madras donated funds for setting up a chapel in the San Thome area, near the tomb of St Thomas. The original inscription can be seen even today, embedded high up on the building at its southern end. Another inscription, also on the building, shows that the Augustians helped in refurbishing the chapel in 1740.

Today, the chapel is part of the premises of the San Thome Matriculation Higher Secondary School. The Montfort Brothers, who run the school, had taken over the maintenance of the chapel in 1954. Over the years, the chapel's orientation seems to have gone through a 180º turn. The view in the picture is from the southern end, which is where the entrance originally was. With the chapel's eastern wall being right on the road and a building crowding its western flank, one enters this building through the school's grounds - the northern side - these days.

When you look at it as you come up on Santhome High Road, you can't help feeling that it is impossible to enter this chapel. Three centuries ago, it was possibly quite difficult for the Armenian merchants to get a toe-hold into what was predominantly the Portuguese town of San Thome. And that must be why they named their chapel, marking it "In Memory of the Armenian Nation", after St Rita - the patron saint of impossible causes!

Headache relief

Desodharaka Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao Pantulu has made an appearance in this blog earlier, via the park bearing his name. His appearance on earth was a long time ago; he was born in 1867 and after his schooling in Machilipatnam, he moved to Madras for his higher studies. After completing his degree from the Madras Christian College, Nageswara Rao ventured into some kind of business. That was not very successful, because the next few years saw him in Calcutta and then in Bombay, where he was working in some office.

It was in Bombay that Nageswara Rao formulated a balm to relieve headaches. It is said that he worked as an apothecary while in Calcutta; maybe he did and the skill he acquired there helped him to both concoct the balm and to sell it to headache stricken sufferers. He named it after Amrit, the legendary nectar of immortality. Amrutanjan soon became the balm of choice in Bombay, but for some reason that I have not been able to figure out, Nageswara Rao brought the business to Madras. It may have been because of his growing association with the movement to create an Andhra state distinct from the Madras Presidency. Whatever the reason was, the production base of Amrutanjan moved near his home in Mylapore, on Luz Church Road.

The factory has remained there since; one can imagine the whiff of the balm being prepared wafting on the sea breeze down Luz Church Road. That pain balm continues to be the mainstay of Amrutanjan Healthcare Ltd, even though the company has branched off into other products. The gate in the picture leads to the head office of the firm; though the factory is also listed as being at this location, most of the production has moved to a new location outside the city. 

The Wikipedia page has it that Nageswara Rao started off distributing Amrutanjan free at music concerts. If that is true, it doesn't speak well of Bombay's concerts in the late 19th century, does it!

Grand old man

Today, the political movement that he was one of the co-founders of is in abject misery after its performance in the recent national elections. But that is no reason to think any less of Subbaiyar Subramania Iyer, a man of many parts, who was the Vice President of the Theosophical Society during the period 1907-11. The reason to mention that part of his life first is because this statue can be found in the Theosophical Society's grounds at Adyar. There was a later falling out with the Society, to the extent that some of his followers went ahead with a Triplicane offshoot. But that cannot take away the work that Sir Mani Iyer did for the TS.

The 'Sir' was indeed a knighthood, granted for his public services, which began at his birthplace, Madurai, as a government clerk, going on to become the Vice Chairman of the Municipality. Mani Iyer moved to Madras in the 1880s, by which time he had become a lawyer and was soon appointed as Public Prosecutor - the first native to be offered the position. In the meantime, he also helped in founding the Indian National Congress in 1885. Keenly interested in the cause of education, he was also a Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras; that institution chose him to be the first recipient of an honorary doctorate, when it bestowed the Doctor of Law degree on him in 1908. 

Mani Iyer probably followed the tradition of vanaprastham, going into retreat, for a picture showing him in 'later life' does not carry the turban or the flowing gowns. The statue depicts him at the peak of public life, as a lawyer, an educationist and a theosophist. Interestingly, the statue of Subramania Iyer in the Senate House of the University of Madras shows him in exactly the same manner, quill in one hand, a finger marking the page of a book and the left foot half-raised; the only difference is that it is in contrast to this one, being entirely black!

Bridge and bridge

The Line 1 of the Chennai Metro is the longer of the initial two lines, but just a little nose. At about 23 km, it is a kilometre longer than its counterpart. It also has more underground stations, ten of them to Line 2's nine. All those 10 underground stations are in the initial stretch of the Line, up to the Saidapet station. Leaving Saidapet, the train begins its ascent, to climb over the Adyar river and go all the way to the airport.

That's the pale stalk - with a gap - you can see to the right of the Maraimalai Adigalar Bridge in the picture. In a way, it will be one more bridge over the Adyar. But it can't rival its neighbour, the one built by Coja Petrus Uscan in 1726!

What street?

There are only two ways to answer that question about what street this is. One is to know your Chennai absolutely inside out, for this street is not on any map. (Even the streets of Fort St George were marked on maps, but this is surely not). The other way is to make sure you follow this blog, for a similar scene has featured here.

Anyway, I am going out in a hurry, for I have to get to a different 'street': Montieth, for an alumni gathering!

Not all there

The entrance to the in-patients sections of the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) at Kilpauk is rather forbidding, being flanked by two rather high walls and guarded by a gate with spikes sticking out on the top. In contrast, the out-patient services wing seems to almost invite you inside. The gates are wide open, the walls are just about waist-high and there are no security guards or "Visiting Hours" boards up there. 

The out-patient block is relatively new, having come up in 1971. But the IMH itself is over 200 years old, by the official reckoning. IMH's website traces its beginning to an asylum that was caring for 20 patients sometime in 1794. Situated in Purasawakkam, it was under the charge of the East India Company and the asylum was placed under the charge of Valentine Connolly, the company surgeon. As with many other such 'charges' handed over to officers of the East India Company, this was another way to make money. Connolly, when the time came for him to move to England, sold the practice, buildings and all (even though they were not his, but merely leased for 20 years) to Maurice Fitzgerald. Dr. Fitzgerald, in his turn, made money by selling the asylum to Dr. J. Dalton. Dr. Dalton went about enhancing the value of his purchase. He rebuilt some of the premises and expanded them to accommodate over 50 patients. But he probably got too greedy, for when he was looking to flog the place - which, by then, had come to be known as "Dalton's Mad Hospital" - the government medical board took it over. But it continued to be run more as private enterprise than as a state service, until 1860s. 

In 1867, the Madras Presidency sanctioned construction of the Madras Lunatic Asylum. The site identified was Locock's Garden, in what is Kilpauk today. Construction took four years and on May 15, 1871, the Madras Lunatic Asylum started functioning in its new premises, with 145 patients. Since then, it has grown - and assumed various names, in keeping with the sensibilities of the periods - to its current position as a medical institute of significance. Attached to the Madras Medical College, the IMH offers Post-Graduate courses in Psychiatry, and cares for about 1800 patients, making it the second largest such facility in the country. There was a time, in the 1980s, when "Kilpauk case" referred to the target's feeble mind; I haven't heard the phrase for a long while!

Name list

No, this is not a list of police medal holders or anything of that sort. The photo is of Sivaji Ganesan - of course you know that... from Thangapadhakkam, isn't it? - and he is looking over the list of individuals and firms who were key in constructing Shanthi Theatre. It is not just the technical designers and engineers, but also lists out the 'Plaster Decorators' and the plumbers. 

Wonder how many of them are still in the business!

Auto rank

Well, nice to know that transport is available at the gates. Outside the Apollo Clinic on Cenotaph Road, taken from a couple of floors above...

Grounded club

Towards the northern end of the Chennai airport complex, a little beyond the old terminal, there is a small board marking the presence of a club that was a pioneer, even though it has gone to seed in recent times. The board says "Madras Flying Club". The first time the board went up was in 1930, after a bunch of flying enthusiasts received a subsidy from the government of India to set up a flying club.

The Madras Flying Club (MFC) became functional in July 1930, even though the subsidy was available to them in March/April that year. The delay was to ensure that a qualified instructor, as well as an engineer, were in place before flying classes began. Quite appropriately, the first pilot instructor of this club was Flt Lt Hawker, with Hulcop as his first engineer. Even after their arrival, the then governor of Madras, Sir George Frederick Stanley, waited for another month before formally inaugurating the club, as its first 'Patron'. Lady Beatrix Stanley may have had some difficult moments pronouncing the names of the first 2 aircraft of the club as she christened them: "Garuda" and "Pushpaka". Over the years, the MFC had a stellar record, until it started losing its way in the new millenium. 

In January 2012, the only instructor of the MFC retired after he turned 65; since then, the Club has not been able to attract anyone to come on board and take charge. They also have had run-ins with the regulatory authorities, and with all that, activities at the club have come to a standstill. The Airports Authority of India, probably vexed with all the inactivity, has served notice to the MFC to vacate the space it is blocking currently. Hopefully, the one of the first flying clubs in the country will not come crashing, but will find fresh wind beneath their wings soon!

Remembering typewriters

"The Corporation has made a mess of numbers in these parts. Just look for the signs", said Yamuna, in response to my request for directions to her house. We were going there in the evening, because we had missed the earlier editions of "Cheruvannur Diaries Typewriter Tales" at the more 'formal' performance spaces. In a way, it was good that we did, because this show was more intimate, with just about 20 people in the audience. And so Paul Mathew, the army-man turned theatre persona, peppered his audience with questions, inviting them to be part of the show as well.

Produced by Perch, and directed by Rajiv Krishnan, the performance was all about Paul's experiences as a typewriter salesman in Kerala, circa 1985. Not having seen Paul's performances for a long time, it was good to see him in this setting. We had a good time, the audience and the performer and it was a solid one-and-a-half-hours well spent on a Sunday afternoon.

And now, hoping that there can be more such opportunities!

It's all a blur

This picture feels the way my thinking is, right now: all of a blur. It has been a long and tiring day, and this picture reflects the absolute dizziness all around. 

Anyway, I hope you folks have a more colourful evening than usual!

Convenient?

Mr. Arun Sundar Thayalan, an IAS Officer of the 2008 batch, was transferred from Madurai to Chennai in December 2013 and took charge as Regional Deputy Commissioner (Central) of the Corporation of Chennai. One of his pet projects has been to reduce people pissing in the open. The earlier toilets, of the pay-and-use variety, were brick and mortar structures, with someone sitting in front of them to levy the toll charges. That model works reasonably well in the residential parts of the city. In other parts, however, even where traffic is heavy, the viability of such toilets seems to have been a problem.

Mr. Thayalan's solution was something that looks like the port-a-loo, but is a lot more stable. Several of them have been installed in different parts of the city (mainly the Central zone, I guess). This one is across the road - Whites Road, that is - from Express Avenue. Can't fault the positioning, for this is one place where people pause to relieve themselves. With this dual toilet booth in place, one hopes that it being used as it is meant to be!

Monk's college

"When you go for your interview, make sure you wear vibuthi"; "Don't wear jeans and flashy shoes if they call you for an interview"; "Best thing is to go in a veshti and half-sleeve shirt". These were bits of gratuitous advice thrown when one was preparing to apply for admission to the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College. That was the kind of stories being spread about one of the older colleges in Chennai. 

When it was inaugurated in 1946 - actually, it was inaugurated twice: the first time by Kailashanandaji Maharaj, then president of the Ramakrishna Mission did the vedic ceremony on June 21, and later, on July 1, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan did the more formal inauguration - the college was run by public spirited citizens. But their zeal was shared by the teachers and students: to kick off a college with four undergraduate programmes and yet have 20 teachers and 339 students on day one is a significant feat. 

The college has since then grown into an institution of stature; its alumni have distinguished themselves in several fields. However, the first connect seems predominantly to chartered accountancy - and the institution seems to still have the branding of samiyar college!

Peninsular feeling

Somehow, Nimmo Street, a quiet back-street that runs parallel to Santhome Main Road, has always seemed very Iberian to me. I have not been able to pin down why. Is it because it is close to the old Portuguese quarters, or is it because the houses appear so clean washed and white? Maybe the trees and the plants in the gardens along this street give it an air of being cool all the time, without squeezing the sun and its light completely out of of the frame. 

Probably it is because there is a school teaching Spanish somewhere along this street.  Or maybe, it is just that Ms Inez Lebo, the Honorary Consul for Spain, lives on this street, with the consulate operating from her residence?

Take-off

Had got out of all the frequent flyer programmes nearly ten years ago. But in the past two weeks, I have been at the Chennai airport on 8 days. This picture was taken yesterday, after having reached the airport 75 minutes ahead of the departure time. The queues have gotten longer - and Monday mornings are always a bad time to travel out, with people being more grumpy than usual.

Is the increase in passenger traffic because of the second runway at the airport having gone operational? That runway - after having been delayed time and again - was to have been opened sometime last week. That is what I thought, but it does not seem to be reflecting in the flight schedules yet. In the meantime, we continue to take off along the old path!

Sunflowers

Okay, I will admit it. I am just trying to make sure I post something today. 

Enjoy the sunflowers!

Long form

As a child, it was fascinating to see stenographers at work. Especially after having seen one of their 'notebooks' one day. Shorthand seemed as close to cryptography that a child could get to. Yet, it wasn't cryptic at all, it merely needed a few months of instruction to be able to both code and decode the system devised by Sir Isaac Pitman. That instruction could be obtained from several 'Commercial Institutes', as they were called in the 1970s and 1980s. Besides Pitman's shorthand, they would teach typewriting (the touch system, where qwerty had its confusion ironed out) and accountancy (entering the same transaction twice over, so as to leave people like me confused about debits and credits). They were all over the place in those days, especially in places where large groups of government employees lived.  

The first such Commercial Institute in Madras was set up in Chintadripet. Not that I have been able to find any backing to support that statement. I am only relying on the information provided by Padmanabhan to The Hindu a few years ago. Padmanabhan is the grandson of P. Srikantaiyer, founder of The Shorthand School, which according to him was the second such institute in Madras. It was begun near Chintadripet, so it may well have been the second in Chintadripet, rather than in all Madras. But then, the need for typists, as well as for stenographers, was most felt at Fort St George; to that extent, the entire supply of the city would have been from these two institutes at/near Chintadripet.

Whatever that may have been, there seems to be no trace of that first institute. The Shorthand School moved to its current location on Kutchery Road in Mylapore in 1933. In 2009, the School celebrated its centenary. It continues to attract a fair number of people interested in learning shorthand, hoping to parlay those skills into a job at some lawyer's chambers. And then there are several who come in to learn typing; with qwerty still being the standard keyboard layout, learning to type is one way to be able to use the computer faster!

Claim to name

It has been Chennai for as long as it has been Madras. There are several legends as to the origin of the city's name and they are too detailed to go into here. One of the more robust claims is that the name 'Madras' originated from the family name "Madeiros". The Madeiros were a prominent Portuguese family in San Thome - and later in Fort St George itself - and they were known as the Madra Family by the locals. 

In any case, if Madras were actually named after this family, it is good that the city has been renamed Chennai. What do you think?!