Pass me the card

We have seen cheaters at card games, but not like this. Bridging the real and the make-believe, the 3D gallery at the VGP Amusement Complex makes for an interesting half-hour or so of viewing. All the works here - mostly paintings, but there are a few other installations, as well - are fashioned as trompe l'oeils. Paintings that seem to be more than what they are have been around for quite a few centuries, but they continue to intrigue and amaze us. 

The trick at this gallery is to make sure you become part of the exhibits. Without the real life interaction, they are quite bland. But almost always there is a crowd milling around; even if you are not amused by the pictures, the reaction of visiting children will certainly leave you with a smile. 

Every picture tricks the eye, to twist something that René Magritte might have said. And it is interesting that the Magritte Museum is itself something of a trompe l'oeil!

Royal board

This must have been one of the original signs erected when a part of Madras was renamed Raja Annamalaipuram, after the passing away of the first Raja of Chettinad. That title was given to him by the British, in 1929, in addition to the knighthood that was awarded to him six years earlier.

In gazette notification announcing his knighthood, he is addressed as "Diwan Bahadur Sathappa Chettiar Ramanathan Chettiar Muthiah Chettiar Annamalai Chettiar Avargal, Banker, Madras". Even de-duping the Chettiars in that leaves a lot of letters to be written; replacing the "Diwan Bahadur" with "Raja" helped, but even then, it would have been quite a task to find a board indicating the name of this locality had anyone insisted on the full title! 

Dedicated service

Quick, who was the first woman sheriff of Madras? For all I know, she may have been the only woman sheriff of Chennai ever. That is Padma Vibhushan Mary Clubwala Jadhav, one of the city's most revered social workers and an early member of the Guild of Service, which is arguably the country's oldest voluntary service organization. She was born in Ooty in 1909 and died in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1975. The years in between were mostly spent in Madras, where she became the moving spirit and the visible face of the Guild of Service. 

By the time of India's independence, the Guild of Service was an organisation of formidable repute: Rajendra Prasad, India's first President also became the Guild's Patron-in-Chief; over the years, that almost became an ex-officio position. As she tried to move social work from being "time-pass" into a structured, systematic activity. As much as the Guild opened up areas such as refugee rehabilitation, care for the destitute, foundling homes and such like, Mary Clubwala Jadhav also emphasised the need for a feeder system. That was how the Madras School of Social Work came to be established. 

Recognition came regularly; in 1935 she was appointed Honorary Presidency Magistrate for Madras, responsible for the Juvenile Court, a position that she held for the rest of her life, being re-appointed 15 times. In 1946, the Government of Madras nominated her to the Legislative Council, which they did again in 1952 and in 1954. In 1956, she was appointed the Sheriff of Madras, thereby becoming the first woman Sheriff of the city, to go with the honour of having been the first woman to be Honorary Presidency Magistrate. When she received that position, in 1935, she was but 26 years old. But that should not be surprising; though the Guild of Service was founded by Mrs Waller (the wife of Bishop Waller), it is said that Mary "joined hands with her" in starting it. The Guild dates its origin to 1923; it is unlikely that a 14-year old could be instrumental in its inception. Even so, given her dedication to the Guild, it is no wonder that she went on to receive the MBE from the British; the Padma Vibhushan came much later, in 1975, the same year that she passed away - still in service!

Forlorn museum

When one think of museums in Chennai, the first one to come to mind has to be the Government Museum at Egmore, with its fabled bronze gallery. And then, you might recall that there is a museum within Fort St George. If you are a fan of the railways, then you would probably put the Rail Museum at the top of your list. And you may somewhere, in the back of your mind, imagine that there might be some specialised museums, such as those for Ramanujan, or Vivekananda. 

A museum for the Public Works Department may not even make your list. But there is one such, inside the PWD Estate in Chepauk. It is a library-and-museum rolled into one, and commemorates the 150th anniversary of the PWD. That dates the museum to 2008, for it was in 1858 that Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General, consolidated various departments into a single PWD in each of the Presidencies. In Madras, it meant the coming together of three major departments: the Maramath department (works relating to irrigation, buildings, waterways, smaller roads and bridges), the Trunk Roads department and the Engineering department. The remit of the Madras Presidency's PWD spread over Tamil Nadu, Malabar, Andhra and into today's Odisha.

Considering that extent, it is surprising that the PWD has been able to fit in 150 years of its history into this rather small, hexagonal building; maybe they haven't been able to get all that organized enough, which may be the reason why this library-museum is almost unknown. There is little indication of the museum hours; that bundled up figure at the top of the steps may be able to guide us, but for the moment, it is unconcerned with our presence!

Unexpected boating

If you happen to talk about old Madras to someone who was around during the 1960s and 1970s, they would most probably have a story to tell about how they went boating in the Cooum in those days. Heck, I would spin a tale too, about how I used to see the boathouses along the river, with boats tied up, waiting for a good bunch of people to gather before being taken out for a spin. But somehow, I haven't had, or heard, of any boats on the Adyar river.

It has been a very long time since a boat has been seen on any of Chennai's waterways. Looking out from one of the office buildings in MRC Nagar, overlooking the northward curve of the Adyar river, I noticed what seemed to be a right regular ferry service. On the eastern bank, a spit of land almost fords the river. But it still leaves the river too broad (and likely too deep) to walk across, while also being too narrow to contemplate a kind of permanent connecting structure.

The ferry service - more like a skiff, with a couple of planks thrown together and supported by a crossbeam - can handle only 2 or 3 passengers at a time. But hey, the crossing can be done in less than a minute, and so there not going to be many complaints from those waiting!

Not a ghost

The Vaishnavaite tradition of south India recognises twelve azhwars as being the foremost of Vishnu's devotees. The earliest of them are believed to have lived in the fourth millennium BCE. The azhwars expressed their devotion mainly through poetry; because most of their verses gained popularity during the Bhakti movements of the 7th and 8th centure CE, it is easier to defend the proposition that they lived during that time and not, as legend would have it, almost 5,000 years earlier.

Because there were only twelve azhwars, it is slightly easier to memorise their names, especially when there are sixythree nayanmars on the Shaivite side of the divide. Even so, in trying to mug up those azhwar names, there was a hurdle; not that they were difficult to remember, but the names would bring to mind other, frightening associations. The second and third azhwars were Bhoodathazhwar and Peyyazhwar, both names being synonymous with ghosts and so were accorded even more respect, and at a different level.

Through all that, the idea of the azhwars were remote, that they were not only temporally but also spatially in a different zone. It was something of a shock to see this gate, leading to a shrine, in the busy Arundale Street in Mylapore. The sign on it says "The site of Peyyazhwar's avatar", indicating his birthplace. But the approach and the shrine, appearing to be largely ignored, indicate Peyyazhwar's presence here in a rather ghostly fashion!

Mutual benefit

We have seen a couple of institutions similar to The Triplicane Permanent Fund Limited earlier - in Mylapore and in Purasawalkam. Those are much older; in fact, the TPFL is still in its 'nervous nineties', having been set up only in 1926. It is not even the oldest in Triplicane; that place would probably go to the SMSO Permanent Nidhi Ltd, which is in its 136th year. And that is much bigger in terms of its book size as well.

The TPFL is a very modest institution - its business volume would have been less than Rs.100 crores in the last year. Though it has only six branches, they are well distributed across the city; and hopefully, they would cover all the existing members of the fund. Intra-city migration would have seen a large number of Triplicane-ites moving to other parts of Chennai, but will continue to remain members of this mutual-benefit society.

And that is also the reason why this firm, despite being headquartered in Triplicane, does not have anyone from that locality in its management team!

The Eater's Digest - 11

It has been quite a few posts since the last Eater's Digest came up - and because there was a craving for beef last evening, this one had to be today's post. A generation ago, Kalpaka on TTK Road was the place to go for beef - especially the Syrian Beef Fry, as it used to be called. Funnily enough, that name never evoked any association with the middle east, but the very mention called to mind the flavours of Kerala. That's where the Kalpaka Beef Fry was born, from the Syrian Christian kitchens of that state.

Kalpaka was of course a Malayali kitchen. That meant Kerala porottas and aapams for sure, with a bunch of dishes that you could find in pretty much any restaurant. But what was impossible to replicate was the peppery-coconutty combination of the gravies, which has been the signature taste of the Malabar coast. And in the 1990s it was possible on occasion to smuggle in some nice Old Monk to go with the food; the tradition of Malayalees being able to hold their drink was never contradicted at Kalpaka. 

These days, you cannot get the Syrian Beef Fry at Kalpaka. The price of political correctness, possibly, has led to the dish appearing as Kalpaka Beef Fry. Must go back to try it, so reassure myself that 20-odd years cannot change the taste of that signature dish from the Suriani kitchens. If you would like to try that for yourself, this may be a good place to start!

Dance bars

All those air-conditioning units sticking out from this building seem to corroborate the claim on the board; yes, see, we indeed have air-conditioning, can't you see us all hanging out together at the A/C Bar? Although there are about 3,000 bars attached to the TASMAC outlets across the state, there are only about 600 of them that are air-conditioned. So that is certainly an attraction for patrons to visit this bar. 

But there was a time when no additional words was necessary for patrons to know what "PALS" had to offer. There were few places in the city where one could go to watch cabaret dances. Hotels such as Oceanic or Savera were at the high-end of this scale, but there were others as well, those which did not advertise their shows. Therefore, it was left to the school-boy's (or even college-goer's) imagination to visualise the dances at Pals, or Hotel Arun - the most popular names of that sector.

Today, there are no dance bars in Chennai. Oceanic's buildings have been pulled down. Savera shows no trace of ever having had dances on the premises. Hotel Arun has been built over by the Ampa Skywalk. Other bars have all had their names replaced with TASMAC authorised serial numbers. Maybe even this one does not have a name to it, for the TASMAC board just says 834. But the sign above it certainly recalls a part of Madras that has sadly disappeared, and Chennai has never ever known!

Thrice-born

It is New Year's Day and I'm going to break with the tradition of posting the 'Photo of the Year'* today; I'm going further, to talk about someone who was not merely a dwijan by heritage, but a trijan (if there is such a term), by having had two re-births his career, one that defined his life. That career was born in 1904-5 when a boy of nine performed at a Srikrishna Temple in Palakkad. As the boy grew to adolescence, the voice that had captivated his listeners must have broken in a way that threatened his singing career; there is little detail on how he got past that setback and was re-born into his singing life. Maybe that was how he developed a resonant voice, so striking that he was on occasion referred to as "bronze-voiced". 

More serious was the second occasion. That bronze voice, now belonging to a seasoned and respected singer, was in full flow at a concert; at the end, its owner realised that he had lost it. And he then had to endure six months of suspense, during which period various remedies were tried; finally, the voice came back - thanks to the intervention of Sri Guruvayoorappan, his favourite deity. That was his third life, the one in which every paisa that he made from his concerts went directly to the Srikrishna Temple at Guruvayoor. It is beyond today's imagination to think of performing the Udayasthamana Puja there (bookings are no longer being taken because the current list runs for about forty years or something) even once, but he was able to do it sixty-one times. 

Much of his recognition came from Madras; it was here, from this house on (then) Palace Road, Santhome, that he taught his disciples. Many of them are famous in their own right - P. Leela, the Jaya-Vijaya twins, TV Gopalakrishnan and KJ Yesudas. It was from the thinnai of this house that their careers began. The house itself was given to him by TG Krishna Iyer, a friend who had composed 155 kritis, collectively known as Lalitha Dasar Krithigal. In October of 1974, he went back to perform at Poozhikunnu Srikrishna Temple at Ottapalam, where he had, 70 years ago, had his debut. After that performance, he just slipped off his mortal coils while performing his sandhyavandanam - going the way he always wished to. Srikrishna was kind to him; and why wouldn't he be, for Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar was as close to a saint as any mortal can ever aspire to be!

*The community of City Daily Photographers celebrates Theme Day every month. Go over to this site to see the best pictures from around the world!

Lobby at leisure

This appears to be the verandah of a summer house, waiting quietly for its inhabitants to saunter through it for lunch in one of the more shaded areas. Not for it the hustle and bustle of people running around in search of - well, whatever it is that they would run in search of. It invites you to sit down, relax and exchange stories about what is going on around the world, and your opinion on those goings-on.

That is what actually goes on behind those heavy wooden doors. There are a few clues out there for you to guess where this is. The picture above the doors: on the left, the original holy cow, Kamadhenu, representing auspiciousness. On the right, the elephant, indicating strength and power. In between the two, grass (for new growth), the lotus (purity and independence), the Indian subcontinent (harking back to the pre-Independence days) and the sun, a source of vital energy. In the centre, the conch reminding everyone that this organisation carries the voice of the people, and is the announcer of vital news.

Yes, this is one of the lobbies in Kasturi Buildings, the home of "The Hindu". In case all those clues were not enough for you to have guessed it, there are portraits of two of the former Managing Directors of Kasturi & Sons: Narasimhan and Kasturi. Maybe it is difficult to be footloose and fancy-free under their stern gaze. In any case, "The Hindu" is not known for its frivolity or frothy reporting - and we are so much the better for it!

Model school?

In 1742, Johann Philipp Fabricius, a German missionary, arrived in Madras from Tranquebar. Fabricius was the head of the Danish Tranquebar Mission, a Lutheran congregation and he moved to Madras to provide for the Lutherans of Vepery. It was this man who managed to obtain a printing press - which was seized from de Lally's Pondicherry in 1761 - from Governor Pigot after assuring him that the government's printing requirements would be given a higher priority than the Mission's.

Fabricius contributed significantly to the Mission in Madras. He translated a German version of the Bible into Tamizh, besides a Tamizh-English lexicon. For all those contributions, his name was bestowed, in 1898, upon the Lutheran Mission Middle School that had been set up in 1849. From then on called the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Fabricius School, it arguably most famous alumnus is R.K. Narayan, who joined it as a 6-year old in 1912. 

Narayan does not seem to have had much fun in this school, though. In his book Swami and Friends, Narayan has the boy-hero attending the Albert Mission School at Malgudi. Swami, however, gets to do things that Narayan would not have dared to: questioning the Scripture Master's scoffing of Hindu deities, or throwing the Headmaster's cane out of the window when it was threatening to come down for a couple of the juiciest. But let us not forget that Swami was a 10-year old doing all this, while Narayan had to deal with such instances much earlier in his life!

Everyone's posing

Just because this seemed too good to pass up, on the sidewalk of the Marina.

They should have given the photographer a pair of shades, as well!

That way!

Early morning on the Marina.

Kannagi seems to be directing the sun on where to shine. According to legend, she set the whole city of Madurai on fire when her husband was falsely accused, and punished, in a case of having cheated the queen of her anklet. 

That was eons ago. This statue of Kannagi is much more recent, and Chennai is not Madurai, anyway. But is Kannagi the reason why December continues to be so warm? 

Long drive in

When I was taking this photograph, I did not realize that these gates hid a long driveway into Bedford House. Most of that driveway is hidden by the trees that grow on the grounds, but I can tell you that on your way out, you will find half the route different from what you saw on the way in. Considering that it is owned by a branch of an illustrious family of industrialists and bankers, it should not be surprising that this house is set in a large patch of land, or that there is no way we can  see any part of the house from these gates.

The Bedford House has been with the M.Ct. family for just over a century, now. It was in 1915 that M Ct Muthiah Chettiar, who had moved to Madras from the family seat at Kanadukathan, bought this place. There seems to be no indication why the sellers, Mercantile Bank of India, wanted this property off their hands. 

They may have to wait a long while for that to happen! 

Temple of the tortoise

The shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala, in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, has had its share of misfortunes. One such was a deliberate act of desecration and arson in 1950, that left the stone idol severely damaged. A new panchaloha idol was wrought, and before its consecration, it was taken to several parts of the country. During its perambulations, the idol was brought to this temple on Armenian Street - from where, for one reason or another, it could not be taken out for three days. To recall this incident, a shrine to Ayyappa was added within this temple complex, which has Lord Siva as the main deity. 

The temple - the Kachhaleeswarar temple - was constructed in the 1720s, funded by the dubash Kalavai Chetty, who was a devotee of Siva in the form of Kachhabeswarar, the one worshipped by a tortoise. According to mythology, the tortoise was Lord Vishnu, who had assumed that form during the churning of the ocean of milk. The tortoise also forms one of Siva's five seats in this temple; on account of having these five seats, the deity is also referred to as Pancha Vaahana Sivan. 

In ancient times, there was a federation of castes based on their 'handedness'; those engaged in agriculture and related fields were referred to as the 'right-hand castes', while the metal workers and weavers formed the numerically lesser 'left-hand castes'. These divisions continued into the early 20th century; but in Kalavai Chetty's time, it was common for Madras to be wracked by clashes between these castes. And Kalavai Chetty was himself accused of engineering these clashes; but he is today remembered for this temple, rather than for the divisions he attempted!

Merry Christmas

The Wesley Church on Whites Road survived Cyclone Vardah with little damage to the main building. But outside, almost all the trees along its walls have been uprooted; the wall along Westcott Road has given away completely. 

The walls will be built again. The trees will be re-planted, and will grow big and strong again. But right now, these are minor inconveniences that worshippers will have had to suffer today. And there will be many of them coming here today. Faith will not be buffeted by a cyclone or two, not when it has survived for 2016 years - merry Christmas, everybody!

Lining up early

Stepped out of the house at 5:00am today; it is the 89th anniversary of the Music Academy and a few of us were going on a tour of the Academy's many locations before it acquired its own premises - that's the iconic TT Krishnamachari Auditorium on Cathedral Road. That tour had to start from the TTK auditorium and when we got there, we found there was a crowd of about a hundred people waiting. 

Many of them had formed some kind of a line, the chairs lined up from the ticket windows to the entrance doors, and beyond. The rest, about 20, were standing in a group a little apart. We quickly figured out where to go, we were to stand with the group. The rest of the crowd, sitting in line, were waiting for the ticket windows to open so they could try and get tickets for the kacheri of the day. And that was going to be Sanjay Subrahmanyan (we have spoken about him before here and here), the Academy's Sangeeta Kalanidhi of 2015-16.

Of course the line would have gotten longer. Not for the music-loving Chennaiite the long queues formed because of demonetisation. We would rather wait in line for a kacheri ticket, and not be perturbed in the least because we were way behind in the line, and tickets were sold out before we were even close to having our chance. Anyway, the good thing was that there was some 'Academy' coffee being handed out to those waiting for tickets - and I managed to snuck some of that!

Lemon on a stalk

Have you ever wondered how many different kinds of fauna share the city with you? No, I don't mean those "animal types" on the road - there is only one animal that can display road-rage, anyway. I am talking about other life-forms, and if you are a Chennaiite pondering that question, try this book by Preston Ahimaz - you fill find many more than you thought likely.

And if you are more specific about the kind of life-forms, you will surely be able to find specific books about them. R. Bhanumathi, has written a series of handbooks - on butterflies, dragonflies, birds, etc.,  It is in Tamizh and I am sure it would have opened up a world of wonder for a few of the thousands of Chennai's children who do not read English.

But somehow, I felt confident enough about this lovely butterfly that I did not have to refer to either book to figure out this is a lemon pansy (precis lemonias)!

Mane space

Let us pretend that you were walking along the northern pavement of Sir Thyagaraya Road, Pondy Bazaar, on a busy afternoon. Naturally, you can't see the signs of the shops because they are right overhead. You look at the displays. And then you suddenly find this little shop door with a couple of stools put out in the front. No glass frontage, no mannequins on display. An old timer sits on one of the stools, contentedly looking on at life passing by. The wooden doorframe, set back from  the street, has the word "Kerala" written above it. Peeking inside, you are greeted with a row of empty chairs, display racks and shelves, for all the world looking like a reading room of sorts.

Welcome to the oldest salon in Chennai. It has been 76 years since Sankunni Nair hung up his shingle in Madras. Kerala Hairdressers is now managed by Sankunni's grandson Sandeep. It does not have the slick design or the chirpy conversation of a newgen coiffeur. You are considered a regular only if your first visit to this establishment was as a kid hanging on to his dad's hand - or if you bring your son over for his haircut. It is that kind of a place, where time stops to swap stories of the city, where the English and Tamizh newspapers provide the stage for the clientele to dissect the news for its relevance - and irrelevance - to the patrons.

Don't get fooled into thinking you can just walk in here anytime you feel the need to have your tresses trimmed. It just so happened to be a lazy weekday afternoon. If you have to come in on a weekend, or after office hours, you had better be prepared to wait and enrich the buzz of conversation with your observations. Else, it will be a long, lonely wait for you!

Under the flagpole

This building, on a street off TTK Road, is quite unremarkable but for the contrast it provides to its more modern neighbours. But it is also unique in being probably the only house in the neighbourhood that has a flagpole in the front yard. And under that thulasi plant near the flagpole is something that makes this building one of the very few, not just in Chennai but across India, hallowed grounds of independent India.

The building houses the "Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam", that name paying homage to the "two fathers" of Ambujammal, the lady after whom the street is named. Her biological father was S. Srinivasa Iyengar, a highly respected lawyer who in 1920 returned his CIE and resigned his position as Law Member on the Governor's Executive Council in the wake of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Though Srinivasa Iyengar left the Congress owing to his differences with Mohandas Gandhi, he did not in any way thwart his daughter, fired by the vision of the Mahatma, following him ardently, or oppose her claim that Gandhiji was her foster father.

Ambujammal established the Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam in homage to both her fathers. That was the platform for her to throw herself into social work, continuing her contributions from the mid 1920s right into the 1960s, as the Chairperson of the State Social Welfare Board from 1961 to 1964. The Nilayam was the place where Gandhiji's followers in Madras would meet and decide ways to further his programmes in the city and the state. Whenever Gandhiji would go on a fast, there would be prayer sessions conducted at the Nilayam. Such a profound connection with the man ended with his assassination in 1948. But wait, the connection continues. You see, a portion of the Mahatma's ashes was brought here and interred under the thulasi plant you see. No wonder then, this is a place of pilgrimage even today for anyone claiming to be a Gandhian!

Shipping line

It is highly unlikely that anyone reading this would get to travel in a train on this line. No, that's not meant as a challenge, for this is not a line meant to carry passenger traffic. It runs inside the Port of Chennai and is meant to carry freight. And that's rather unique, because there are very few railway lines that are operated outside the control of the Indian Railways, and this is one of them. 

Besides railway lines, but the Port of Chennai also has a Terminal Shunting Yard within it. The lines run for 41km within the harbour; there are designated sidings for specific kinds of cargo - apart from those for general dry bulk cargo and a dedicated sidings for container traffic. The tracks run for a few kilometres outside the harbour area as well - without that connect, how could goods ever get out of the port!

What's in a name?

You have to be a dubashi to figure out what's awkward with this street's name. Leading off from NSC Bose Road, across the road from the High Court complex, it is quite possible that it could lead to some kind of barracks. No awkwardness, for sure, if you know only English. If you know only Tamizh, you wouldn't be too worried about sign saying "Baker Theru". After all, there are quite a few streets in the city whose Tamizh names sound quite different from their English versions. The big question in this case, however, is about which version is correct. Is it Baker, or Barracks? Or was there a Baker in the Barracks?

Chennai's early history has a few candidates for the 'Baker' in this street; Henry Davidson Love's "Vestiges of Old Madras 1640-1800" lists eleven Bakers in its index. Of those, six are merely name entries, and two are related to one of the more storied Bakers. The first of the remaining three was also the first on another list - in 1652, Aaron Baker took over as the first President of Fort St George - an early attempt at creating a Madras Presidency. The second, Charles Baker, is listed as a 'Civil Servant', with some mention of "his pursuits". But it is the third one who is the likeliest candidate to be the eponym for this street.

That man was Captain George Baker, whose first visit to Madras seems to have been as the captain of the sloop Cuddalore, arriving in the city in 1756. For some reason, this Baker seems to have had a run of stop-gap appointments: his captaincy of the sloop seems to have been because of a heavy death toll at Negrais, Burma and the sloop sailed out of Madras with a new captain (John Howes). Baker seems to have been within a whisker's breadth of being appointed as the Ambassador to the King of Burma before his return from Negrais. The listing of Chennai's mayors lists a Captain George Baker for less than a year (1765-1765) and then again as an interim bearer of the office in 1773. But the reason for his being memorialized in the city is better explained by Sriram here!

Off cue?

Wikipedia tells us that games played on a cloth covered table, using a cue stick to strike smooth balls, have been around since the 15th century CE, under the generic term 'billiards'. They evolved from outdoor games like croquet and bowls, and have diversified into a wide range that includes billiards, snooker, pool and several variations of each of these. Given that timeline, cue sports gained popularity in Madras fairly late. The following it his is neither very vocal nor very visible - but with my limited experience, that could be true of cue sports in most places in India. 

Considering that Madras was the host to the first ever All India Amateur Billiards Tournament (in 1904), it is reasonable to expect the game to be a little more popular here than elsewhere in the country. However, for some reason, it is not so. I cannot recall any international - or national - billiards champion from Chennai. The same holds true for snooker; and that is even more galling, because that game is supposed to have originated in India. According to the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India, it was created in Ooty - and therefore in the Madras Presidency - in the year 1881. While that claim is contested, with the rival version having Jabalpur as the town and 1875 as the date, we shall in this case accept the version put out by BSFI. 

The Tamil Nadu Billiards & Snooker Association, makes no such claim, however. Having been formed in 1981, a century after the birth of snooker, the TNBSA is more concerned with "controlling and guiding the game in the state", than with weighing in on historical claims. I am not sure what level of control they exercised during the early 1990s: there was a mini-boom in the game in the city, with snooker parlours being set up across the city and, for a brief while, being the to-be-seen-in places. Whatever they did, or did not, one wishes they would soon find themselves a better office space than in this nondescript building on Avvai Shanmugham Salai! 

Nothing on the right is left

Moving from the white-on-blue lettering that seems to have been the favourite of signboard makers over a couple of centuries into this rather jazzy red-on-yellow scheme must have been the decision of a very brave man. Or someone so secure in the permanency of the business to not bother with such trivialities as signboard colours. Such a signboard, made around 50 years ago - that's a guess, and yours might be better than mine - still advertises the supplies provided by the Office Equipment Company, of Armenian Street, Madras.

Although I have not myself seen the offices of this company, I am fairly sure it continues to exist. It must be somewhere upstairs in one of those buildings on Armenian Street, trying to stay relevant for the office supplies and 'requisites' of the day. 

Considering that no one below the age of 40 has conceivably never seen a cyclostyle machine, it would be fair to say that as a business, nothing on the right of this sign is left, these days!

Famous merchant

The whole concept of Madras, as you may know, came into being due to the supposed availability of fabrics in the hinterland, which a 'factory' in Madras could exploit. Having started off on this flawed premise, it was necessary to ensure that the city did supply cloth of various kinds. Therefore, it does not seem surprising at all that a Gujarati comes to Madras to set up a business styled as "Benares, Kollegal, Madura Cloth & Musk Merchants". Mani Sunker Davay set up this business in 18... and brought his son into it later. Today, it is run by his descendants, possibly in the same location that the founder conducted his business. For that reason alone, it deserves to be famous.

The kind of cloth that they trade in includes garments designed for ceremonial occasions - veshtis, angavastrams and the like. Benares is of course famous for its silks; Kollegal is well known for its gold-laced cloth, besides its silk weaving. The Gazetteer of South India, sometime in the 1880s, notes that "...some of the silk cloths made here cost as much as Rs.300 each, or even more, according to the gold and silver embroidery...". Madura - with its famous art of making lacework in gold and silver, for the borders of turbans and other cloths. That Mani Sunker traded in such cloth shows off the nature of his clientele. Even today, he is the preferred supplier to famous singers - Sanjay Subrahmanyan being one who swears by Mani Sunker Davay for all his concert wardrobes.

But the most intriguing feature of this board, for me, is its break with 'tradition'. There are many who still refer to this city as 'Madras', refusing to acknowledge its 1996 renaming to Chennai. They all forget the fact that even before 1996, it was very common, if not the standard practice, to use 'Madras' in English versions and 'Chennai' in Tamizh. However, this signboard not only shows the word "Madras" in Tamizh, but has spelt it using a script that was replaced sometime in the 1970s!

Uprooted

If you happened to drive across Chennai yesterday, you would have been surprised at the density of greenery lining the roads. No matter what part of the city you were in, the green roadsides would have been the default sight. It is not as if the city grew green thumbs overnight; all of the green would have been the effect of Cyclone Vardah, the most severe storm to hit Chennai in a generation. That's what they say, but I will go further to say that C. Vardah is the most severe of the past 50 years at least.

The official statistics of the numbers of fallen trees is in 3 digits, but most certainly many more than that have fallen. One estimate says 12,000 trees. There are all kinds of debates about which trees were able to weather the storm better than the others. In general, it seems that the "local" species stood up to the winds, shedding a lot of their leaves, and some branches, while the "exotic" species were more easily brought down in their entirety. 

The jury is still out on that; but being a domestic species was obviously no guarantee that Vardah would be gentle on you. This peepul (Ficus religiosa) tree - I'm told it was over 70 years old - just toppled over, bringing down with it an industrial shed, an electricity post and the power cables running along it. The whole locality has been without power for the past two days. Maybe one of the other trees in the background - the neem (Azadirachta indica) or the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) - would not have caused this extent of damages!

Mountain fort

With Madras becoming the favoured spot of the British in the mid-17th century, towns that were important in an earlier era faded away to being footnotes. One such is Senjee (செஞ்சி, also as Gingee), about 150km from Chennai. Actually, it wasn't much of a town at any time, but a complex fortification built on three hillocks. It is situated close to the intersection of today's NH4 and SH77; that leads me to assume it would have been in a similar position vis-a-vis yesteryears' trade routes. And anyone occupying this would have strategic control of those routes, for sure.

The hillock in the picture is Rajagiri, atop which sits the largest of the Senjee fortifications. There is also a fort at the base of this hillock; one needs to get past that to be able to go up the Rajagiri. Inside the lower fortification are several buildings - a couple of temples, a mosque, a large granary, living quarters for the soldiers and the king (and a huge tank for the elephants to bathe in), a magazine and the "Kalyana Mahal" - no, not necessarily a wedding hall, but that's what you see in the foreground, just inside the fort wall. Kalyana Mahal is a "pleasure pavilion", with a central tank, fountains at all the seven levels, with the open verandahs allowing the breeze to blow in from any side, to be cooled by the fountains.

Though the British apparently called it "Troy of the East", Senjee is still not a significant tourist magnet. That is a shame, really. Maybe the steep trek up the Rajagiri dissuades many from experiencing the fortifications fully. The ASI tries to do its little bits and pieces. But woefully short on budgets, there is only so much they can help with. It is time the citizens contribute - at the very least, by visiting and buying the entrance tickets!

A path ends

The grounds of the Theosophical Society - Adyar, spread over 250 acres, have very few named roads. Actually there are very few proper roads inside the grounds, for that matter; they are named after the founders or early presidents of the TS-A. So that takes care of the nomenclature for six of the paths, the ones that show up on Google Maps. Getting around the TS-A involves many other paths, the ones that are not paved, the ones that do not show up on the maps.

Here is one such path, running west-east, parallel to the Adyar river, along its southern bank. I am guessing it was called the "River Path" much earlier, and that the addition of "Radha Burnier" was as a tribute to her memory, after she passed away in 2013. She was the seventh President of the Theosophical Society, holding that office for 33 years. Doing so, she edged out the Society's first president, Henry Steel Olcott, who was in office for 32 years between 1875 and 1907. 

In the 141 years it has been around, the TS has had only 8 presidents - the current one, Tim Boyd, began his term in 2014. He is just 53 now, and has a good chance of beating Radha Burnier's record. At this rate, it will be few centuries before all the paths and byways of the TS get their names!

Weather report?

Cyclone Vardah is expected to make landfall this evening. It has been looming as a menacing presence in the Bay of Bengal since Thursday last, building up its fury and even practicing its menace over Thailand and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is expected to be the most severe storm in over a generation to hit northern Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the region where it is expected to move over from sea to land. There have been so many instances in the past where such cyclones have veered northwards, sometimes over 90º, to threaten Odisha or even Bangladesh. 

But Cyclone Vardah seems to be charting a straight path. And it is threatening wind speeds of 95kmph+; Chennai is the biggest city in its way, and we are all bracing for impact this afternoon. 

Last evening was the proverbial calm before the storm. The sea at the Marina Beach was a little rougher than usual. The mounted police cantered up and down the beach, ensuring that folks were staying up, away from the water. In the midst of it all was this gentleman, probably trying to re-assure members of his family that Cyclone Vardah is not all that fearsome at is being made out - but then, we shall know the truth of that in a few hours from now!

Another gate, another beyond

In case you missed it, the British were not the first European power to establish its presence in India. They were rather slow off the mark, with the Portuguese and the Dutch definitely getting in ahead of them and the French and Danes running them close in the early stages. The Dutch, for a while, were the masters of the west coast, and had a significant presence in Sri Lanka as well, before shifting their focus to the Dutch East Indies, later to become Indonesia.

Not that the Dutch did not know the Coromandel Coast. Their earliest settlement was at Masulipatnam, in 1605. Within a few years, they had expanded further along the coast to the south. By then, the Portuguese were already well established at Mylapore (San Thome) and also at another ancient seaport further north. That was Pulicat, or Pazhaverkadu, which had been trading with the Arab and the Mediterranean kingdoms for several centuries. In 1610, the Dutch dispossessed the Portuguese and established Fort Geldria in 1613. It was the only fortification of the Dutch in India, protecting not just the trade in cloth, but also the transportation of indentured labour to other colonies of the Dutch.

The Dutch established their cemetery, according to the inscription above its gate, in 1656. The gravestones show dates for at least about a century after that. It was in 1825 that the town was ceded to the British. Not only did the British not invest much in the town, they let the earlier buildings decline. The cemetery was also forgotten, overgrown with vegetation and hidden from passers-by. It was sometime in the 2000s that it was re-discovered, and has since then been rather well cared for!