Messenger for Peace

It really didn't matter what the lady spoke about; the platform was 'Roots and Shoots', but having been founded by her, it still hasn't grown to such an extent that it can ignore the cachet that comes from being a 'Program of the Jane Goodall Institute'.

Of course there was talk about the chimpanzees, the ones that Dr. Jane Goodall, D.B.E., studied and lived with during the 1960s and the 70s. It was thrilling to have her speak in Chennai, to encourage everyone to get involved with some effort - any effort - to make the world we leave behind an environmentally safer one than what it is today. Having a local showpiece - the Olive Ridleys nesting in Chennai - made sure that anyone inspired after her talk yesterday could kick into action right way!

Laid-back house

As with most things old and stately, this house - Mithila - on TTK Road would also be easy to miss, but for the sudden contrast it makes with its neighbours. Where all the other buildings along the road try to get as close to the road as possible, this one stands back, allowing a sweep of driveway to get to the house. Walking down the driveway, one gets a chance to admire the different trees that have been planted all around the house, creating a feeling of it being more jungle lodge than house.

It is a house, of course, one that has been well maintained by Mrs & Mr Nagoji Rao. The high ceilings, topped off with the Madras Terrace - something that I had not seen for long years - helped to keep the heat off one's back. At first look, the house appears symmetrical, but it is not entirely so. Of course, the verandahs on the sides have now been covered with grilles and are therefore quite different from the one in front. But it is the corner rooms that are fascinating; two of them are heptagons and the other two are hexagons, something that is not recognizable until one is actually inside those rooms.

The house was built in 1931 by T Ramachandra Rao, who was a descendent of one of the oldest Maharashtrian families to have settled in Madras. Ramachandra Rao was a successful businessman, and was also very much into public life. It is certainly not a coincidence that the Maharastra Nivas in Chennai is just a couple of doors away from Mithila!

Terrible lizard

Sir Richard Owen searched around for a word to describe the creature whose fossils he had found and chose to make a portmanteau of the Greek words deinos (fearful) and sauros (lizard). He probably didn't realize that the word would go on to become a cover-all for an entire set of creatures that came and went over a span of 65 million years. Today, kids under 10 will reel off the names of at least 20 individual species of that era without once thinking of them as dinosaurs - but that's the only way adults seem to be capable of describing them.

It is heartening to see that the Children's Museum in Chennai does not pander to adults, but gives the Tyrannosaurus its proper name on their website. This fibreglass model was installed, along with that of a Stegosaurus, about 25 years ago and has been quite popular with the visitors; in fact, there is a museum at Palayamkottai which has replicated it for its display. Even allowing for a liberal interpretation of what the Tyrannosaurus might have looked like, the eyes make it out to be more fearful than fear-inducing; the colours have been changed over the last generation. I seem to remember both animals being ruddy-brown when they made their first appearance, rather than the green-and-cream scheme they've been bestowed with now.

Interestingly, Greek mythology also describes Deino as a gray witch, who shared one tooth and one eye with her two sisters. This dino does not have to do things like that, at any rate!

Sports day

'tis the season to be sporty!

Sun's not too cruel, most of the acads are done, the exams are just that couple of days away - so, have fun on school sports day!!

Fairgrounds

As kids, it was an outing that we looked forward to with a mixture of excitement and horror. The trade fair (The All India Tourism and Trade Fair) was the place where one could gorge on panjumuttai without the grown-ups pouring cold water all over it, where their barriers to buying bubble blowers or camphor-fired boats were waiting to be smashed down, where one could walk around aimlessly for a few hours watching all the glories of 'India is my country'. That was the excitement part of it.

The horror came in several forms; the dread of being separated from the group and becoming an easy target for one-eyed kidnappers - well, that's how all the movies showed them, whenever the kid was to be napped from a fairground: the revulsion on seeing pictures of careless jaywalkers smashed to pulp on the posters urging everyone to use pedestrian crossings: the pickled embryos of chicken, sheep and such other beasts that the Animal Husbandry department threatened us with, year after year.

Things haven't changed too much, but the fair has become an 'Industrial Fair' and is more gaudy than it used to be. There is no horror now, however, for it is all 'fun' and 'joy' all around. A few embryos are still floating, but are 'presented scientifically'. The cotton candy still wisps in the breeze; but the breeze brings the real-world stench of the Cooum and the Buckingham Canal - they can't do much about that traumatic reality!

That's the limit

If you remember, the site of today's Dare House was, in 1758, the site from where Comte de Lally shelled Fort St George with his cannons. Today, it is not possible to see the Fort from there; but 250 years ago the only structures between the cannons and the Fort were the dwellings of the first 'Blacks Town' that had come up outside the north wall of the Fort. The cannons therefore had a pretty clear view of the Fort and pounded it with their fire. It is likely that the British were unable to retaliate - the Fort's guns, having to fire through the embrasures would have sent the cannonballs just over the houses of the Town, maybe even hitting some of the taller structures. That would have put them at a considerable disadvantage against the field cannons of the French, which could carve a parabola over the Town and into the Fort.

At least that seems to be the reason why the British decided to clear the area around the immediate vicinity of the Fort; it was now a major prize and had to be made unassailable. So, an esplanade was created, extending up to the point(s?) where de Lally's cannons were based (Sure, they did not account for technological advances...) and the new Blacks Town was created beyond those limits. A survey in 1772 fixed the boundaries of the esplanade by raising six obelisks, each rising about 20 feet high.

Only one remains; maintained by the Murugappa Group, it is painted in the same colour scheme as Dare House is; that is one reason why the passer-by will miss the inscription on the granite slab at its base, saying "Boundary of the Esplande, 1st January 1773"!

(click on picture to enlarge - the inscription can then be seen)

Keep the fires burning

This is a real throwback - mainly because I haven't seen such a thing in Madras even when I was a child. LPG has become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to remember what it was like in the days before it was so easily available. Memory goes back to several kinds of stoves that used kerosene as fuel; it was fun to muck around with cleaning the wicks, draining out the dregs of kerosene and getting the stove ready for another day's cooking. Many of them were like the ones shown on this site; they were refined, keeping safety and efficiency in mind, to look something like the ones here.

Still, all those memories are of kerosene stoves only; wood stoves and Madras do not appear together and it was with a snooty look that we kids would look at the wood stoves in the kitchens when we went back to our villages for the holidays. City kids, not knowing that wood-fired stoves would one day become something that was accessible only to very few, that wood-fired cuisine was more haute than not.

Here's this kitchen in a house - no, a 'pile', as Wodehouse might say - where wood is a must to cook the day's meal. Scant consolation that there is an LPG stove; the cook told us that it was used to get something ready for sight-seers like us!

High Price!

Someone remarked a few years ago that the only advertisements on Malayalam TV channels were for umbrellas, wedding sarees and gold jewellery. Since then, a few other categories have been added, but gold seems to be ruling the roost even today. Tamil Nadu has several other advertisers, but even then, advertisements for gold jewellery are common enough to be noticed. For those with upward economic aspirations, gold is a significant measure of their having arrived - to the extent that McKinsey Global Institute titled their recent report on consumerism in India as 'The Bird of Gold', recalling a description used by traders in the first millenium CE.

Today, it looks like only those who are at the top of the pile can think gold once again; prices have touched a 10-year high and are expected to break the $1000 / ounce barrier soon. The grouchy investment scenario does not offer too many alternates to the metal and jewellers are probably having a good time.

This 10-storey showroom of Joy Alukkas in Chennai was inaugurated barely a year ago; touted as the largest exclusive gold jewellery showroom in Asia, it is symbolic of the firm's plans to become the leading gold jeweller in the world by the end of the decade!

Road to riches

Theoretically, at least two, if not actually three sedans, can go abreast on this street, though the last time such tricks were tried must have been quite a few decades ago. These days, the wise man does not bring his car into Thambu Chetty Street, or any of the other business passages adjacent to it. With no pavements, everyone on foot is right on the road itself. On either side, is a mix of commercial- and residential-use buildings; the ground floor is given over to the shop, showroom or warehouse and the upper floors are used by the family and possibly some living quarters for those working in the shops.

Thambu Chetty was one of Beri Thimappa's aides; over time, he grew to become a Chief Merchant of Madras. It is likely that he would have lived in this street, or at least very close by. This area, north of Fort St George, was called Blacks Town and was settled by the native traders who had come to this part of the world, drawn by the newly created 'factory'. Much later, in the early 20th century, it was renamed George Town, to commemorate the visit of King George V. With its proximity to the harbour and to the industrial belt of North Chennai, George Town has been a hub for all kinds of businesses; many prominent industrial firms had their first offices along one of these streets and several retain them, if only for sentimental reasons.

These paths are always choc-a-block; there are no windows to shop at, unlike retail shopping spots like T.Nagar. Every pedestrian is intent of getting somewhere, and quickly, keen to make that one deal which will propel them out of these streets!

As with the first of every month, today is 'Theme Day' for City Daily Photo Bloggers; view the various interpretations of the theme 'Paths and Passages': Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Indo-German effort

In the fervour of the post-independence era, each of the 5 (at that time) IITs was set up with help from a different soverign nation. It so happened that Madras got the benefit of West Germany's bounty. As a result, here's a road sign that acknowledges the linkage.

Stretching it a bit, I'm willing to bet that Chennai is the only city in India that has so many streets named after foreign cities / localities: Delhi might have its share of personalities, but Chennai, I'm sure is ahead by a long shot - everyone knows Ho Chi Minh of the Delhi Marg, but who remembers the Orme in Orme's Road of Madras?

Bonn, of course, is different. Within the gates of the IIT Madras, going down Bonn Avenue has a charm that can't be replicated anywhere else!

Spotlight on Gandhi

Okay, so today is one of the days when this statue is dusted, washed, garlanded and generally decked out for people to come by and pay their respects. Maybe it was not a good idea to declare the day of the Mahatma's assassination as Martyrs' Day; the entire focus remains on the leader alone and memories of all the other freedom fighters, especially the thousands of nameless and faceless patriots, are pushed to the margins. On this day, almost everyone vies to demonstrate their faith in the Mahatma, and at prime time, too. There are the fringe elements, who would use the attention to either denounce the Man, or to publicise their pet cause. The police have wisely declared that any kind of gathering around the statue for more than a few minutes is prohibited and on days like this there is a small posse sitting in the shade of the statue to make sure there is no mischief afoot.

The statue itself was one of the earliest on the Marina, if not the first. Created by the versatile Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury, it depicts Gandhi marching to Dandi to begin the Salt Satyagraha. The wide Marina in the background provides a calm counterpoint to the purposeful stride of this statue; surely, one of the more common images of Gandhi, say, spinning his charka calmly would have blended with the serenity of the beach and might even have been lost in it. The stride to the north is again symbolic; he is aiming for Fort St George, the fount of British rule in India. Even in bronze, he seems to be charging to throw them off again.

Maybe it was a good idea to declare January 30 as Martyrs' Day, after all. Any day so chosen would have been some lesser light's birthday; and then that bunch of supporters would have played up his contributions. Gandhiji can afford to share the limelight on this day - if only people would allow him to!

Theatre time

It is a rather strange amalgam that can be found within the grounds of the Government Museum Complex at Egmore. Of course, there is good reason to place the Art Gallery and the Museum together. But why would anyone want to throw a library into the mix? And having done that, to further spice it up by having a theatre included? Surely, there are good answers to these; in the meantime, we will take another look at a building that despite not being the first theatre in Chennai, is the city's premier stage today.

The Museum Theatre was inaugurated in 1896, but has its roots in the late 18th century Public Assembly Rooms which were functioning on the same site as far back as 1789. Theatrical entertainment in those days were on the lines of Greek plays; tragedies, possibly not unlike the family tear-jerker TV soaps of today. By 1830, however, the Rooms were hardly used and the Government stepped in to purchase them, in order to house the Collector's cutcherry (no, it has nothing to do with dicing fruit, but indicates a concert!). With a few additions, that building grew into the Museum Theatre of today.

Watching a play here is quite an experience. Firstly, one needs to get in quickly or risk being condemned to the side - wing - seats from where the stage can be viewed only at a 70-degree angle. Of course, the option of buying pricier tickets and taking one's place in the rectangle just in front of the stage is always open. Another reason for leaping and charging into the theatre (apart from one's interest in drama) is that the seats are not numbered, so it is first-come-first-served. The acoustics are excellent and the stage is well proportioned and provided for; it is said that the roof over the stage has grooves through which cannonballs were rolled to simulate the effect of thunder - that must have shaken the audience in their seats! Together with the ambience, one will leave with the senses sated.

The experience does not end there, if one was watching the last show of the day. As the audience comes out, it notices that the lights all over the museum complex are switched off; the museum security has locked the complex down for the night and it is now an eerie challenge to get to the vehicle and find that solitary gate through which the outside world can be accessed!

Life, in couplets

Inside every bus in Chennai - maybe throughout the state itself - is painted one of Tiruvalluvar's couplets. Having said that, it must also be added quickly that there is still some confusion over who this man was. The largely accepted version is that he lived in the 1st century BC, approximately 30 years before the birth of Christ. It is likely that he was born in or near Mylapore, but moved to the city of Madurai because the Pandian kings were great patrons of the fine arts, and a poet could not but be thrilled by the jocund company he was sure to find there. It is possible that his move to Madurai was occasioned by the need to give his magnum opus a much wider audience.

And the Kural (Voice) that he wrote has been the defining work of Tiruvalluvar; over time, the prefix Thiru, denoting sanctity, has been added to the work. It is as close as the predominantly atheist political partymen of Tamilnadu can get to the word of God; indeed, Thirukkural has been variously called 'Poiyyamozhi' (the word that does not lie) and Deiva Nool (God's book). Valluvar wrote about almost every aspect of the human condition, breaking it up into Aram (virtue), Porul (wealth) and Inbam (pleasure). With 10 couplets in each chapter, Tiruvalluvar gives over 38 chapters to Aram, 70 to Porul and 25 to Inbam. With 1330 couplets, it is quite easy to find a kural to describe any situation a person would find himself in, even today. And so the Thirukkural is used extensively; the couplets have been quoted in every opening and budget speech of the Tamilnadu Legislative Assembly and whenever the Union Finance Minister has been from Tamil Nadu, during the Union Budget also. Valluvar's birth year is also considered the start of the current era in the Tamzh calenders.

With so much riding on him, it is not surprising that he has been given a bigger, exclusive memorial space in Chennai, away from the hustle and bustle of the Marina!

Justice leader

Any talk about non-Brahmin movements in south India would usually place EV Ramasamy as being at the forefront of the movement. Periyar, as EVR was known, was certainly a tall leader of the non-Brahmin (and later, Dravidian) movement, but in the politics of eroding Brahmin domination, Sir Pitty Theagaraya Chetty was a generation ahead of him. The South Indian Liberal Federation was founded by Sir Theagaraya and Dr. T.M.Nair in 1917 as a body to actively promote the representation of non-Brahmins in civic and political bodies of the time. The Federation brought out a newspaper titled 'Justice', with Dr. Nair as its editor, and thus came to be known as the 'Justice Party'. Dr. Nair continued to serve as the editor until he died in 1919, involving himself in editorial and advocacy matters, leaving Sir Theagaraya Chetty to look after the organizational and political affairs.

Sir Theagaraya thus became the first President of the Justice Party, a post he held until his death in 1925. He had entered politics quite early, and served as a member of the Corporation of Madras from 1882 until 1923. As the head of the Justice Party, he led it to a thumping victory in the Presidency elections of 1920. When invited to form the government, he listened to an inner voice which told him that he was too old and his health too frail for him to be an effective Chief Minister. In any case, he was at that time the non-official President of the Corporation of Madras, the first person to hold this post. Through all this, his struggle was aimed at bringing down Brahmin domination, rather than that of the British. He must have been a staunch supporter of Britain's continued rule of India, for he was one of those awarded the title 'Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India'.

This statue, in front of Ripon Building, does not show the 'Star of India' unlike another statue of Sir Theagaraya Chetty. But then, the latter is inside the Panagal Park, bang in the middle of the locality that is named after him!

The mall that wasn't

For an old timer - a Madrasi - if I dare say it, of my generation, there was only one mall to hang out in during school years. Spencer's was for the oldies and was too forbidding to even contemplate 'hanging out'. So it was this place; by the standards of today's malls, Fountain Plaza would be declared a danger zone and contemporary mall designers would not hesitate to lay into anyone who insists on calling Fountain Plaza a 'mall'. However, nothing they say or do can deny Fountain Plaza (FP)'s place in Chennai's shopping history. It was the place to go for those who were too pretentious - or too far away - to visit Ranganathan Street for its bargains. FP had three long rows, with shops on either side, all of them opening out into an open air eatery: food court, if you will. While the first two rows were given over to rather reasonably sized outlets, the 'side street' was far narrower and the shops resembled rat-holes more than sales counters.

FP had its own charm. Madras has always been accused, rather unfairly, of being a city where no one understands Hindi. Anyone who has shopped at FP will not bear witness for such claims. That was one of the places in Chennai where Tamizh seemed to be a foreign language; and so it was exotic, to shop for north Indian fashions, gaze at the Hindi movie posters and video casettes and finally treat oneself to a 'chaat item' at Ajnabee. If you were not the shopping type, you could just walk into Jimmy's and clunk down 50p coin after 50p coin trying to outlast the Space Invaders, win at Race Car or any other such arcade game as took your fancy. In short, it was Ranganathan Street in Hindi, with a dash of the US of A thrown in at random.

On a recent Sunday, FP seemed a ghost of what it was a generation ago. Most shops had changed - and worse, were closed on Sunday. The eatery was empty. A couple of cars rolled into the parking lot, and rolled out again, bemused drivers trying to find a place that they passed by twenty years ago!

Quieter music

After all the energetic music of yesterday, a quieter music for today. The organ at St Mary's Church, in Fort St George. More explanations will be filled in later!

Spent the whole day taking part in the Chennai Bird Race 2009; therefore this post is being written in pieces! What follows was written a while after posting the photo!

The church was completed in 1680, and it got its first organ seven years later. I am not sure if it is 'early' or 'late' for a church to get an organ seven years after its opening, but it was more by accident than by design that St. Mary's came by its first organ. In 1687, Curtana, an East Indiaman under Capt. Anthony Weltden was lying in the Madras Roads, in all likelihood on the way to the port of Mergui in Siam to deliver a message from King James II, ordering all Englishmen in the Siamese service to leave at once, ahead of military action against Siam. The Curtana must have had in its cargo a chuch organ, which was of little use in the martial mission it was undertaking. Capt. Walden offered to sell it to the Fort Council for 70 pagodas; the Council, recognizing that the organ was worth much more, decided to buy it for St. Mary's Church. It was a good bargain, for the instrument was well used - and probably well loved by the congregation, too, for the French took it away with them to Pondicherry after they occupied Fort St George in 1746 and Sir Eyre Coote went to the trouble of bringing it back to Madras in 1761 after defeating the French at Vandavasi.

It appears that St Mary's did not have an organ in the interim. The Curtana's organ was probably badly damaged during its transits to and from Pondicherry, so there was much back and forth between Madras and England on the matter of procuring a new organ, paying for the cost of the organ and for its shipping - the churchwardens were willing to pay the £300 price for the organ, but wanted the government to arrange for free passage for an organist to come to Madras. It is assumed that the government let this request remain in limbo and thus there was no organ playing in Madras for a long while. It was in 1859 that the church got its next organ, donated by Sir Adam Hay, in memory of his son, Capt. John Hay. Towards the end of the 19th century, the church commissioned William Hill & Son, of London to build an organ; and so, in 1894 the first organ, made exclusively for it was installed at St. Mary's.

That one has now lasted for 114 years; it has obviously had several restorations, the most recent one was by Cristopher Gray, completed in 2007. It is said that when Dr. Richard Marlow, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge played at the re-inauguration of the organ in 2007, St. Mary's Church was packed like never before!

Energetic music

Even with an extremely limited knowledge about music and its forms, I would still argue that a definition of folk music must be something approximating a spontaneous harmony of related noises which would be completely jarring by themselves. I like that, because it is broad enough to include any set of noises that makes sense (even if only to a few people) and by forewarning the listener to the possibility of discordant notes, forces her to appreciate harmony when it occurs. Most of all, it is the invitation it holds out to anyone who is willing to join in, which brings out the true folksiness. No compositions, not too much of practice, no set-pieces, the rythyms unfold in some swarm-intelligence-like fashion, each performer taking his cue from the next, twisting and turning, volume and tempo changing with the mood of the performers, or more likely the enthusiasm of the audience.

Paraiyattam is one of the oldest form of music/dance out of Tamil Nadu; spontanity is a given; the original instrument, the parai was very basic; a bit of cowhide stretched over a circular wooden frame. Supposedly, only neem wood is to be used in its making and the frame shouldn't have more than three pieces. Two wooden sticks, one short and thick, the other - preferably of bamboo - long and thin are used to beat on the parai, which is normally hung over the shoulder. It may have originated as a noise-making mechanism used by village night-watchmen to scare wild animals away from fields; but over the centuries the instrument has evolved even while the music remains pretty much the same.

If it is during festival times, even the folks of the city would be tempted to join in to the drum beats - as seen from this picture of a paraiyattam street performance during the Chennai Sangamam!

Click here for a 3 minute clip of the stage performance; click here for a stylized rendering, in a recent hit song!

Bazaar man

Any visitor to Chennai desirous of shopping is well advised to visit Pondy Bazaar, a never-failing stretch that will meet all desires - within reason and budget, of course. And so the visitor ventures into that stretch, to be immersed in the sights, sounds - and smells - of the variety of products available. It is highly unlikely that the hawkers in Pondy Bazaar would be caught short of a customer's requirement. The origins of the name, however, are subject to constant debate. One version avers that Pondy Bazaar is so called because the first shops on Sir Theyagaraja Road were built by Devaraja Mudaliar from Pondicherry.

In 1992, the then Chief Minister of Tamilnadu unveiled a statue at the western end of Sir Theyagaraja Road, to kick off the centenary celebrations of the first Nadar to enter the Madras Legislature. The scion of a planter family from Kodaikkanal, WPA Soundarapandian was only 27 when he was nominated to the Madaras Legislative Council in 1920 by the Justice Party. He was by all accounts a success as a leader of the Nadars, but some schisms within the community saw him losing ground later, as the Nadars switched their alliance to the Congress, rather than stay with the Justice Party, after India's independence.

Along with the unveiling of the statue came the official re-naming of of the shopping area as Soundarapandianar Angadi; a name that has probably caused some curiosity, but hasn't lent itself to widespread usage. If you want stuff in Chennai, you will still have to visit Pondy Bazaar!

Recreation area

I'd said earlier that with the hoardings gone, more of the city's greenery has become visible. Since then I've realized that it is not just the removal of the hoardings, but also some serious, sustained work on the city parks which has kept Chennai's green from fading away. Over the past four years or so, the Corporation of Chennai has been going green with a vengeance. Many, if not all the parks in and around the city have been taken back from the shady citizens who used to be the only users. With several spots of paint, several shrubs, plants and even saplings, these parks have been made much more attractive for the law abiding citizens to frequent.

It's not just in the dormat parks; green borders have been created along the margins of a few city roads, where there was earlier space for dumping garbage. These areas have been cleared of the rubbish and fenced off. It is a pleasant surprise to suddenly come across a patch of green by the road, so one forgives the rather haphazard distribution of such green margins, preferring rather to hope that they will remain there for ages.

Even though the Thiru Vi Ka Park in Shenoy Nagar has not been accorded the status of a 'major park' by the Corporation, it is still large enough for a few badminton games to happen simultaneously!

Relic of The Seven Years' War

As one of the earliest possessions of the British in the Orient, Madras served as a base camp for several military manoeuvres; mainly within the peninsula, but every once in a while, across the seas into Ceylon, Burma, Malaya or even beyond. Once such trans-oceanic adventure happened as a part of the Seven Years' War; though the main cause of the war was Austria's desire to get back Silesia from Prussia, the European powers - especially the British - were quick to figure out that it was as important to establish ascendancy in the colonies as well as on the continent. That belief saw a lot of imporance being attached to theatres in North America and in Asia.

In Asia, almost of the action was centred in India. Battles at Palashi (Plassey, 1757) and Vandavasi (Wandiwash, 1761), were the most significant of these, reducing France's capabilities and establishing the British as the leading power in India. With the victory at Vandavasi still fresh, the British troops were itching for more action and they got it when a fleet under Admiral Samuel Cornish and a 3000-strong land force under Colonel William Draper were ordered to take Manila, in the Philippines, then under Spanish rule. The troops reached Manila after almost two months at sea and yet managed to land unopposed at Manila Bay, within a few kilometres of the city. The Governor of Manila, who was apprently unaware of the course of the war in Europe was taken aback when called upon to surrender; under-estimating the strength of the attacking force he chose to fight with his 2000-strong garrison. Despite the fatigues of the sea-journey, Draper's forces overran Manila within 10 days and the Governor surrendered, offering a payment of £ 4 million as ransom for the city. It is not clear if this amount was ever paid, but Manila remained under British occupation for over a year before being returned to Spain under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years' War.

Draper returned to India, with William Pitt the Elder referring to him as "Manila's gallant conqueror". But Draper felt he had been denied his just rewards from that conquest; his claims made him an object of mockery. Maybe he brought back this cannon - and a few others, today seen at the Government Museum, Chennai - as part of his victory spoils, but maybe they were confiscated from him when he got back to Madras!