There's frentic activity going on at the point where Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai meets Kamaraj Salai. Seeing the boards of the Chennai Metro there, the first thought was that the metro line would be running along the beachline.
But no. There is some part of the (proposed) yellow line that would run close to the beach for a very short stretch. That is near the existing suburban station of Chennai Beach, and it turns west quite soon. And that has no direct connection with the work going on here. What is happening here is going to be a terminus of the orange line. From this, the Lighthouse terminus, the orange line would run all the way to Poonamallee Bypass. That is quite a distance, cutting through the city in a east-west line.
It will take a few years, but don't forget you saw this place before the metro station came up here!
They say it is an experiment, but we know how that is going to go. On Sunday, the voice of Kavitha Murugesan, piped through the public address system for the last time at the Chennai Central. I did not realise it at the time I was making the post two days ago, but quietness is now a theme at this station. It is the first time in the country that a railway station has stopped announcements about the arrivals and departures of trains.
With most people already figuring out the information about platforms, arrival and departure times through apps on their phones, the voiceover information had become irrelevant over the years. Chennai has just got ahead of all the other railway stations in doing away with that relevance. Maybe the General Manager of the Southern Railway decided that this station should behave more like an airport.
And so Kavitha Murugesan, the lecturer / dubbing artiste from Erode, whose voice was the one guiding travellers to their platforms, matching them with the trains they are meant to take, will no longer be heard here!
I doubt if that is the phrase you would use to describe the vicinity of the Chennai Central railway station. With more than a plentitude of letters in its official name: Puratchi Thalaivar Dr Dr. M.G. Ramachandran Central Railway Station, it only follows that even the vicinity would be crowded with people and vehicles jostling to get into or away from a major gateway to the city.
This must have been a synchroised lull in the arrival and departure of all forms of transport. No editing has been done on this picture, it is the way the scene was. For a few seconds, at least, the spot around Chennai Central was as peaceful as a desert island!
The stage is set for an evening of music. It is not often one gets to listen to an eclectic mix of Meera's bhajans, baul singers, a kora performer from The Gambia, devrishes from Turkey and qawwali singers all on one evening. It made sense to get in early and grab the best seats in the house for this performance a couple of weeks ago.
The 'house' for performances of Ruhaniyat, an annual multi-city music festival, is more often than not an open space rather than an auditorium. The acoustics tend to get a little messy due to that, but the slow darkness enveloping the stage adds to the mysticism of the event. Sounds of nature - parakeets getting back home at twilight - mix with the music. After the first couple of times that aircraft passing overhead distracted us, that buzz disappeared. Ruhaniyat was quite a performance indeed.
When the organisers started this of this festival in 2001, they were apparently told that it would not be well received in Chennai, probably because of the stereotyped image of the city's fascination for Margazhi season. Thankfully, they were not dissuaded and Ruhaniyat has now become a part of Chennai's annual music calendar; an extension of the Margazhi season, or maybe a counterpoint to it, to savour both better. For me, it was nice to see a programme conceptualised by Banyan Tree Events being held under the rain trees of the Madras Race Club!
It is not just armies, but travellers too, who march on their stomachs. There was a time when the choices of food when taking a train out of Chennai Central would be: a) goop from vendor A or b) goop from vendor B.
I believe goop has disappeared now. And the options have increased. Adyar Ananda Bhavan will itself give you a decent choice of food, and with the biriyani joint above it, one would not want for choice of non-vegetarian fare, either.
What's your favourite food on a train journey?
Does the statue look familiar? To most of us, it might, even though we might not have heard about the man himself. Though he was born in St Thomas Mount, in 1883, his name referred to another part of Madras; Mylai Chinna Thambi Pillai Rajah (MC Rajah) was quite a way away from the Mylapore that is part of his name. He studied at the Wesley School and at the Madras Christian College, before starting off as a teacher in 1906. Keenly aware of the way in which the Dalits had been segregated and oppressed, he was vociferous in his demands for their empowerment. Recognising his work, the Government of Madras chose him for the Provincial Legislative Council in 1919, as their nominee to represent the Adi Dravidars. Early in the term, Rajah convinced the British to remove the terms "parayan" and "panchaman", substituting them with Adi Dravider.
That gave him a further boost as a champion of the Dalits. In 1928, when the first national association for the Dalits - the All India Depressed Classes Association - was formed, Rajah was invited to be its first President, with a certain Bhimrao as the Vice President. Rajah had initially (in 1930) supported the idea of a separate electorate for the Dalits; but in what was probably a strategic blunder, he went ahead and forged and agreement with the Hindu Mahasabha, to have the Dalits be represented on the basis of a joint electorate, with province-wise seat reservation for the Dalits. Maybe it was too early for this idea, but it paved the way for the Poona Pact between Ambedkar and Gandhi, which was along similar lines. There was a time when Rajah was the national leader of the Dalits; but somewhere along the way the British sidelined him, nominating Rettamalai Srinivasan along with Ambedkar as the Dalit representatives to the Round Table Conferences in 1930-31. Rajah continued to be an active champion of the depressed classes until his death in 1943. Rettamalai Srinivasan passed away in 1945. And then the field was clear for Ambedkar to be the sole champion of the Dalits.
This building at the Nandanam-Saidapet border was set up in 1944 by one of Rajah's followers, as a hostel for Adi Dravida students coming to study in Chennai. Over the years, its hospitality had been abused to an extent that, in 2019, a clean-up of the facility found that there were 80 non-student residents - and 13 of them had criminal cases against them. That clean-up has put this hostel back on track to providing much needed support for the underprivileged students from the depressed classes trying to make their mark in life!
At six o'clock in the morning, not too many people wanting to take a bus. The shelter at the Saidapet bus stand is a big one and has quite a few bays. But it looks like there is still a lot of time for the crowd to build up!
Despite being one of, if not the oldest extant language in the world, Tamizh has been finding acceptance as a 'musical' language only in the past few decades. Despite evidence going back to the 6th-8th century CE indicating a very robust Tamizh music heritage from Silapathikaram, Divyaprabhandam and similar works, even as staunch a Tamizh poet as Bharatiyar wrote of "Sundara Telunginil paatisathu" (composing songs in melodious Telugu). So it is not a surprise that the classical music scene of the 1930s Madras was made up of overwhelmingly Telugu compositions, with Tamizh songs being relegated to the tukkada (sundries) section.
Some prominent folks of Madras (and other cities) decided to do something about this. They coalesced the call for pure Tamizh music by setting up the Tamil Isai Sangam in 1943. Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar had convened the first Tamil Isai conference in Chidambaram in 1941, and backed efforts for similar conferences in other cities as well. Others who joined him in setting up the Sangam were RK Shunmukham Chettiar, Rao Bahadur VS Thyagaraja Mudaliar of Tiruvarur, Dewan Bahadur CS Ruthnasabapathy Mudaliar of Coimbatore and others from other cities of the Madras Presidency.
The world of classical music was split; there were singers who were ambivalent about it, such as Musiri and Semmangudi; Kalki Krishnamurthy wrote in favour; TT Krishnamachari Iyengar and TL Venkatarama Iyer backed the Music Academy and Telugu compositions. It was the support of the ladies: singers like DK Pattammal, MS Subbulakshmi and KB Sundarambal supported Tamizh. Over time, the vociferous arguments died down and today, it is perfectly okay for Sanjay Subrahmanyan to do an exclusive "Tamizhum Naanum" event; and when he performs at the Raja Annamalai Mandram, these doors will need to be far larger to allow the audience to go through!
What first caught the eye was the proclamation on the pedestal: "A National Leader...". Usually such bombastic terms are used for local politicians, so it was a surprise seeing these words for a statue inside the YMCA campus at Nandanam. But a quick search shows that Puthenpurayil Mathew Joseph is indeed a national leader for his work in the field of physical education, and he was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1967.
It seems to have been quite by chance that he got into that field. It was not that Joseph needed to be told about the benefits of exercise and sports; he was very much into it, even as a young chemist in Madras' leather industry of the 1920s. His daily sport and exercise routine at the George Town YMCA was what caught the attention of Harry Crowe Buck, who had founded the YMCA College of Physical Education in 1920. Buck persuaded the young Joseph that there was a future in sports and had him complete his course at the College. Joseph then went to Madurai as the Physical Education Director of the American College there. Buck encouraged Joseph to study further, and helped him receive a scholarship to study at Springfield College, Mass., USA where he met James Naismith (the 'inventor' of basketball).
Coming back to India in the early 1930s, James joined Buck to teach at the YMCA-CPE, but moved out to become the first Principal of the Government College of Physical Education at Bombay. As India became independent, James, now back in Madras as the Principal of the YMCA-CPE, was tapped to be part of the drafting committee for the National Plan for Physical Education. Part of that plan was to set up institutions to train instructors and coaches; and in 1957, James left Chennai again, to go to Gwalior as the first Principal of the Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education, and stayed on there till his retirement in 1967. His love for sport and fitness must have been instrumental in his having a long life; he passed away in 1999, when he was 95 years old (I must get back to that strange coincidence of the dates!). The one person who beat him at that was his wife, who passed away in 2013, when she was 105!
In 1884, the Malappuram Special Police was raised as a special paramilitary force to deal with social unrest in the (north) Malabar region. After successfully quelling a gang of fanatics, the force was made permanent in 1897. By 1921 the force had a sanctioned strength of 6 British Officers, 8 Subedars, 16 Jamadars, 60 Havildars and 600 Constables, making up six companies. By then, the Malappuram Special Police had been successful in blunting the guerrilla tactics of the Moplah rebels not only in Malappuram, but also in other parts of Malabar where the Moplah Rebellion had spread. The force was now renamed the Malabar Special Police (MSP); in 1922, a sizeable part of the MSP was moved to Madras, to deal with uprisings in that part of the Presidency.
And that was how Jamadar TP Kumaran Nair, who had joined the MSP circa 1924, came to be in Madras in 1931, when news of Bhagat Singh's execution reached the city. There were protests all around India and in Madras, a large gathering, exclusively of women, began their protest on the Marina Beach, singing Vande Mataram and waving black flags as well as the forbidden 'national flag'. This was the kind of situation the MSP was famed for breaking up. Jamadar Kumaran Nair was tasked with lathicharging the protestors. As he marched his platoon close to them, he was struck with a sudden and stark realisation that beating unarmed, peaceful protesters, and women at that, was not what he had joined the MSP for. He refused to carry out his 'duty' and the British officer on the spot had him arrested and carted away, to be sacked from the force later.
So begins the book "Swaraj Spy". Written by Kumaran Nair's grand-nephew Vijay Balan, it is not truly fiction, but a reconstruction of how Kumaran Nair went on to become part of the Indian National Army, to be an instructor at a secret espionage school set up by them. Sadly, Kumaran Nair's story is of sacrifice. Having heard Vijay Balan talk about the book at an event last evening at the CP Arts Centre, I am looking forward to reading the story - one that promises to be a grand lesson in history, as well!
Vijay Balan is the bearded gentleman in the picture. Talking to him is Pradeep Chakravarthy, who we have met earlier on this blog.
That's what the inside of a cinema hall looks like after the movie when everyone - well, almost everyone - has left.
This was in the early days of the PVR Heritage RSL, the PVR Playhouse, on the ECR. It opened sometime in 2021, possibly after the first wave of Covid was past. It looked like the PVR Playhouse is the only business in the whole building. There were indications that other outlets would be opening there soon, but then, it did not seem like a multiplex in a mall; it was more like the screens are the only reason why anyone would come in, and all other outlets would depend on these crowds.
But then, none of those other outlets were open. The 10 screens are on the first floor, and one had to walk past a whole host of "Coming Soon" boards - and no, those were not for the movies, but for the food court and the play areas. The movie we went for did not have much of a crowd, so it was easy to take this picture after the show ended. I hope we won't have this luxury the next time around there!
Interest in the Chozha dynasty was trending a couple of months ago, thanks to the release of Ponniyin Selvan, and it will once again see a spike in a couple of months when the second part of that movie releases. But Chozhas have (obviously) captivated the imaginations of folks from this part of the land for generations. One such, who has been held up as the epitome of impartial, unbiased administration of justice is Manu Needhi Chozhan, whose statue can be seen at the entrance of the High Court of Madras.
"Manu Needhi" is the title given to him because of his impartiality in applying the law; his name was Ellala Chozhan - translating loosely as the "ruler of the borders". That is because his domain was present-day Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, where he ruled for about 40 years between 204 BCE and 164 BCE, finding for himself a place in the Mahavamsa, the 'Great Chronicle' of Sri Lanka's history.
His sense of justice was so fine honed that he had his son punished for running over a calf to death. It is said that the calf's mother came to Ellalan's court, 'asking' for justice, and upon finding that it was his son's chariot that caused the death, Ellalan ruled that the prince be executed by running a chariot over him. That might be too high a bar to maintain, but at least the legend should help everyone seeing this statue remember that justice should be blind!
The Tomistoma schlegelii or the false gharial is native to Malaya and Indonesia, where its habitats have been under threat due to spread of oil palm plantations and clandestine gold prospecting. It is estimated that there are less than 10,000 of these animals in the wild, which places it in the 'Vulnerable' category of the IUCN's Red List.
If you are in Chennai, you don't have to go out to Indonesia to see a Tomistoma. A short drive, to the Madras Crocodile Bank is all that it takes. It was earlier believed that this was similar to the gharial because of its thin snout; but closer observation showed that, unlike the gharial's evenly slender snout, the Tomistoma's broadens at the end, placing it closer to the true crocodiles than the gharials. That was further strengthened by recent findings that the Tomistoma's diet comprises more variety than just fish, which is the only food for the gharial.
Notice anything odd about this animal? Yes, you're correct, it doesn't have a tail. No, not because that is how it has evolved, but because this female got into a fight a few years ago and lost her tail. She seems to have learnt to live without it - possibly because it is much easier to do without a tail in captivity than in the wild!
They say India is a land of contradictions, and this picture kind of captures it. It is the entrance to a market in Saidapet. The sign says the market, or at least the land it is on, belongs to the Devasthanam of the Karaneeswarar Temple nearby.
It is quite possible that in a particular manifestation, Mahadeva might have liked some fish, but I haven't quite heard of the deity of Saidapet being fond of it. So that could not have been the reason for this market to be entirely given over to fishes - there must be some better explanation there, one that clears the seeming (to me, at least) contradiction!
It was unreasonably exciting to be back at an open quiz after... well, quite a while. The Republic Day quiz began in 2002 as something of a counterbalance to the Landmark Quiz, which has morphed into something else, I think.
And the Quiz did not disappoint. Great questions, great participation, a celebration of the trivial and the esoteric. The school kids - there were quite a lot of them participating - were all enthusiastic to the extent that the Quizmaster had to shush them up every now and then, for fear that they'd give away the answers to the teams on stage.
Came away feeling that it is time to get back into the quizzing groove. Soon, soon!
A grey heron, seemingly lonely, at Sholinganallur.
But don't get taken in by the loneliness. There is quite a lof of bird life at this place, and I'm sure it will be packed with the participants of the Chennai Bird Race on Saturday.
For now, let us just enjoy this picture from last year!
