On Erabalu Chetty Street, life is all about trading. If it means taking up a part of the road to transact the business of life, so be it. It doesn't look like much, but those steel strips being weighed are really heavy - you could sense it when they were being lifted on to the scale and later, when they were taken off. I did not get to see the reading, but I'm sure they represented a significant number for the traders taking the weight in the picture.Significant enough for them to not bother about the lady trying to walk past or the school kid who is hurrying back home. And if I had to hop over the strips to go my way, it is no skin off their back!
As a shopping hotspot, Purasawalkam does not quite have the draw that T.Nagar has, but it can hold its own against almost any other locality for retail shopping. But a few decades ago, Purasai was the place to go to for almost anything; and it was especially favoured for clothing and textiles. Some of the early clothing 'store brands' of Madras were from this area. Glimpses of old glory can still be seen today - clothing stores line both sides along a stretch of Purasawalkam High Road. In the early 1920s, this building - Venkatarathnam Mahal - would have been one of the many that housed several families. Carrying out their trading activities, these families would have used the ground floor more for their business, with the upper floor being the more private, family quarters. Today, hemmed in by its newer neighbours, it attempts to cover all its shortcomings by the catchy signages and displays at the street level. Upstairs is another story, though!
It was 1957 and the 'Asian Flu' had begun to spread out from China, where it had originated. Memories of the Spanish Flu of 1918 were quite fresh; when a second wave of the Asian Flu began in 1958, it caused general panic in the regions it struck. Madras was not immune to it and hundreds in the city fell ill and the doctors had a field day, trying out all kinds of concoctions on suffering patients. Each of them had his own presciption, in all probably mixed up by a loyal 'compounder', jealously guarded and claiming greater efficacy than that of competitors. It is not surprising that all these doctors raised a hue and cry when, in an interview to a popular weekly, Dr. Guruswamy Mudaliar suggested that the tablet 'Elkosin' was probably the best cure for the raging 'flu. They claimed that Dr. Guruswamy had violated medical ethics by naming a specific brand.Their alarm was well-founded. Dr. Guruswamy had made his reputation by keeping his mouth shut, listening to his patients, relying on 'percussion diagnosis' even where it was not traditionally used. Though well off, he was modest and frugal; and yet, Dr. Guruswamy would never treat anyone, no matter how poor, without a fee, because he was convinced that if anything was free, it was without value. His brilliance in medicine meant that he could not be denied a full professorship at the Madras Medical College - and so he became the first Indian to hold the post of Professor of Medicine, in the early 1920s. This was the man who had been interviewed during the 'flu epidemic and had voiced his opinion on the mode of treatment. According to him, the service of humanity overruled the ethics of the profession in this situation. Dr Guruswamy died that same year, 78 years old and still capable of rattling the 'modern' doctors of his time. When a bridge was built near where he lived in Kilpauk, there was only name that could be given to it - a name that it continues to bear today!
There was a time when a hugh area in Madras was completely given over to the horses belonging to the Nawabs of Arcot. There were stables there, but those were only to lock the horses into - with the weather being pretty dry most of the time, the horses were often let loose inside the garden, without much fear of their catching a cold or anything. That garden of horses (ghoda-bagh) went on to become the Kodambakkam of modern times.These stables in the picture do not threaten to go that way, mainly because there seem to be several takers for the services offered by these horses. Of course there is the regular baraat performance, needing the bridegroom to come in on a horse; then there are several themed parties needing the horses and carts to create just the right ambience - whatever it may be. You may have seen them, all spruced up, heading out for an evening's engagement very early in the day. In case you were wondering where these are coming from, look no more, for here's your answer!
There is a pretty big church in Lettangs Road (or should it be L'etang's Road? Or Letang's Road? Or what?) called Jehovah Shammah. It may be the reason why several buildings on that road have it written on their walls, "Beware of God". Just in case you do not remember, Jehovah Shammah means 'The Lord is There'.Whoever parked the car right under the sign must be someone completely convinced that the Lord is everwhere, so it doesn't matter. Alternately, it could be an atheist; stretching that logic, it could be an atheist who does not believe in a God that one does not have to fear, or 'beware of', because "... the God I don't believe in is a good God, a merciful God..."*!
* Catch 22, of course, which lets us not believe in just the kind of God we don't want to believe in!
Leading out of the northwestern gate of Fort St George is a long road; now a part of NH4, this must have been the most critical road in the early days of the Fort. It runs fair distance through the city and gets out through its western suburbs, heading out to the seat of the Nayaks, the governors of this region, administering the territory on behalf of their rulers. It was from these Nayaks that the grant of land where Fort St George would be built was obtained. More than a decade later, Nawab Mohammed Ali, who had seized control of all these areas from the Raja of Chandragiri, granted the British that town, the administrative headquarters of the Raja. The road runs a reasonably straight course for most of its 23-km long distance to Poonamallee; but there are some kinks that cannot be straightned out. Like this one, at the junction of Poonamallee High Road and Raja Muthiah Road. Though it looks like it was taken from the middle of the road, it ws done standing on the pavement of Poonamallee High Road. And yes, on a clear day, you can see right up to the walls of the railway track near the Fort station from here... looking down the road from the other side with the sun at your back, you could probably see a long way, maybe all the way down to Poonamallee!
It is generally accepted that Madras came into being on August 22, 1639, when Day and Cogan accepted a grant of land from the Nayaks of Poonamallee. Yet, there are many who bristle at the idea that this great city was a child of foreign parents. They point to the rock-cut caves and stone-age relics of Pallavaram, to the temples at Tiruvottiyur and even to the 'Portugee' settlement at San Thomé - a town that Arab traders of the 10th century CE knew as 'Betumah' - as evidence of thriving habitations long before 1639. Those objections have some level of validity, but it took the British East India Company's efforts to stitch together all of these, and several other villages, to craft the Madras that has evolved into the Chennai of today. Since those efforts began with Day and Cogan, they deserve a place of honour in the city's history. Unfortunately, there is no record of any memorial to either of the two, or their dubash, Beri Thimappa; an omission that has often been lamented by several of the city's heritage enthusiasts. The name of this building is therefore rather intriguing. Actually, I missed it at the first look, because the signboard saying 'Madras Centenary Telugu Baptist Church' was what caught my eye and I took the picture of the church building. It was only later that I began to ascribe different meanings to the words 'The Day Memorial' on the building.Could this actually be a forgotten memorial to the city's founder? Or is it commemorative of the founding day? Another trip to Vepery is definitely called for!
A little over six months after the traffic police shut down one side of Cenotaph Road, construction of the flyover was inaugurated. During that time, the Metrowater folks dug up the road to re-lay their water and sewage pipes, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has shifted some of the power cables and Chennai Telephones has restrung their phone lines. In the meantime, a couple of landowners went to court challenging a notification acquiring their land. That last bit can be a complete dampener - some projects had been delayed for years together while the courts sorted out why who did what to whom. In this case the challenge seems to be only against the procedures adopted, so chances of work being affected are not very high. For the moment, Cenotaph Road and the Chamiers Road junction look like badlands. The pilings on the Cenotaph Road side have been completed and ones on Turnbulls Road will begin soon. The pile driver moved across last week - it should have started its work out there a couple of days ago. Work seems to be moving ahead quite rapidly - this one might actually beat the target date for its completion, courts willing!
Religion is obviously big in India, as it is the world over. Almost every Hindu ritual involves fire, the purifying agent, at least in the form of lamps if not a larger homa kundam. Mostly, such rituals are carried out with mantrams, the chanting of sacred verses. In some systems of worship, stylized representations of the divine powers are drawn using powders of turmeric (ah, that's the yellow connection!), vermillion and other colours.But the 'yellow' touch does not end there. The lamps shine golden, the flames reflecting off their ridged stems; the oil used to fuel the lamps is golden too, a few shades darker than the bronze of the lamps. The light falling on the flowers highlights the yellows among them; as the ritual concludes, you get slices of bananas, still in their yellow skins. And finally, the deep yellow of the sandalwood paste stays smeared on the forehead long after the lamps die out!
He may have done several things in his life, but for Madras, Julian James Cotton's memory lives on in his work 'List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras', a work that he published circa 1910. He had the weight of a huge legacy that he had to live up to; as seen on his tombstone, the three generations of Cottons before him had made their name and fortune in the services of the John Company. His great-grandfather, Sir Joseph Cotton, was a Director of the East India Company and his grandfather John went on to become Chairman of the Company. Sir Henry Cotton, his father, was a governor of Assam and, being a votary of India's right to self-rule, became president of the Indian National Congress. Julian James does not seem to have inherited any of that derring-do. The thirty-four years he spent in the Indian Civil Service appear to have been without any deed worthy of a mention in the dispatches. Maybe his father's dalliance with the Indian independence movement cost Julian James his knighthood and also prospects of his career advancement. He seems to have spent all his time in and around Madras; joining the service in Madras in 1893, he remained there till his rather sudden death in 1927.Julian James' son, however, inherited his ancestors' drive - born in Madras, Sir John Richard Cotton moved to England after his father's death, only to come back a few years later, after winning the Sword for Military History at Sandhurst, where he was also a Prize Cadet and King's India Cadet. With Sir John's death in 2002, five generations of the Cottons' serving the British soverign in Inda came to an end!
The earliest veterinarians to qualify in India had their training on the banks of the Adayar, because that's where the Farm School was located. That school went on to become the Agricultural College and in 1876, the College, deciding that veterinary science needed its own specialised course, began offering a 2-year diploma course in that faculty. Madras once again led the field, in the sense of creating the specialty, but it took the city 27 years to upgrade that scheme of instruction to a proper college, with a 3-year course leading to the diploma. In the meantime, the veterinary colleges at Lahore, Bombay and Calcutta had gone ahead with their diploma programmes. When scouting around for a suitable location for the college, Veterinary Major WD Gunn, the Superintendent of the Veterinary Department, was offered use of hospital donated by the Raja Venugopal Kishan Bahadur to them, by the SPCA. Under the terms of their agreement, that hospital could be used as a teaching hospital, but there was to be no change in its name - an arrangement that continues to this day. Major Gunn requested for and was allowed use of Dobbin Hall, a little way across the road from the RVKB Hospital for Animals, as the premises of the Madras Veterinary College. Thus, the Madras Veterinary College enrolled its first batch of 20 students in 1903. The early start that the institution had was not entirely in vain. In 1930, a Royal Commission recommended that one of the veterinary colleges in India be upgraded and allowed to offer a degree in veterinary science, rather than just a diploma. For three years, a government Commission went around inspecting the all the colleges in the country before awarding that honour to the Madras Veterinary College. But it was only in 1936, when 50 students were admitted to the degree programme, that the Madras Veterinary College become the first in the country to award degrees in veterinary medicine - see, you just can't keep that first away!
Though I am be ready to bet on it (yet), this building marks the location where the Cancer Institute (WIA) began service from. The font used to write its name gives away its age, even if the building construction itself could be anytime between 1950 and 1970. Other sources tell us that it is true, the Cancer Institue was established in 1954 in a small hut and it moved into this building in 1955. It is probably the only institute that the WIA (Women's Indian Associaiton) manages; a wise move to not take up any other cause. Considering that the Cancer Institute screens over 125,000 persons every year, the WIA will have its hands full managing the processes and the standard of care provided by the CI (WIA).Today this is not the only building; in a long stretch which seems to be the backbone of Gandhi Nagar in Adyar there are at least 3 other buildings of the Institute. The fifth one, which was inaugurated in 1977, is on Sardar Patel Road itself, a little way away from this 9-acre campus. When it was inaugurated, this institute was the second dedicated centre in India for treating cancer - the first was the ICRC at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai - but it has been a pioneer in many other ways. The Institute has played a key role in securing several changes to help treatment and prevention of cancer - duty exemptions, travel concessions, recognition of Oncology as a specialty and many other far-reaching initiatives. Most of all, according to this article in The Lancet, the Institute has built capacity for cancer control in the country.And for all that, the Institute is run on the lines of a not-for-profit; of the 423 beds it has, almost 300 are free; even among 'outpatients', almost two-thirds of them are treated for free. Such dedication has been instrumental in the survival rate among cancer patients going up!
Shri Seetharama Rao firmly believed in the saying "we are what we eat". It was his endeavor therefore to move away from the more traditional choultry and sarai into hotels. His plank was to have hotels with a difference and the one he chose was to emphasize that this hotel would be completely vegetarian. In the 1920s, it was a novel concept, but Seetharama's bet that people wold love to have 'home food' without having to cook it was more or less spot on and so Hotel Dasaprakash became one of the happening hotspots of Madras in the '20s and '30s. It was not just those times. Hotel Dasaprakash was active well into the first few years of this millennium, even though it had stopped being the favourite watering hole for the kind of people it used to attract in its early years - and even a while later. One can imagine the Freddie Threepwood kind of gentleman cutting up the rugs somewhere in this Art Deco building during the swinging sixties, but sometime after that, Hotel Dasaprakash became one more of those haunts for salesmen travelling on a budget, needing to keep up the appearances. There are quite a few cars parked inside the gates. But the gates themselves have been shut for almost two years now, as the owners of the property try to make up thier minds about whose offer to accept for the building. There is little chance of Hotel Dasaprakash getting back to its glory days, for the new generation seems to have cashed in on the popularity of the brand - Hotel Dasaprakash has a property in Ooty and is also part of Bangalore's history - with the Dasaprakash restaurant in Santa Clara, California, USA. Maybe one day the brand will come back to its place of birth!
Not many people have been successful at combining the hard life of a police officer with the sensitivity of an author and playwright. Throw in the fact that one of his most famous works is an interpretation of Harischandra and the contrast between the two personas becomes that much sharper. It is therefore a significant credit to Diwan Bahadur Saravana Bhavanandam Pillai that he is remembered (although only just about) equally for his policing prowess as well as his literary legacy.Bhavanandam Pillai was one of the first Indians to rise through the ranks to become the Assistant Commissioner of Police in Madras. He was also keenly interested in the history of the Tamizh language and set up the Bhavanandam Academy Trust to help scholars research into that history. Newton House on Jeremiah Road, where he lived, is now home to the library of the Academy and also serves as its head office.
In the days when corporations weren't shells, there was a Shell that was a corporation. In India, however, it was only a brand, one that was the face of Asiatic Petroleum, a company that was formed to market petro-products in the British territories of Asia. That company was itself jointly owned by Shell, Royal Dutch and the Rothschilds and came into being to counter John D.Rockefeller's behemoth, Standard Oil, from extending its stranglehold into Asia. The company tied up with Burmah Oil Company, which was drilling the stuff out of the ground and getting it refined and then distributing the distillate. By some logic, the new entity, for 'end-to-end' of oil, was named Burmah-Shell. That was in 1928, and some forty years later, the Burmah-Shell company decided to do a bit of public service and funded the setting up of a Children's Traffic Park, on Poonamallee High Road. Given that location, it was always 'on-the-way' for me, never a destination to be savoured. Looking at it from a passing vehicle, the traffic park seemed to be a nice idea that needed to be tried across the city. Unfortunately, even this park has not been used regularly or with the sense of discipline. In all my years in the city, I haven't come across a single person who learnt his / her driving skills from this traffic park - I wonder where those alumni are! 
There is probably no photographic record or plans of 'Somerford', a garden house that stood at what is today Nos. 1 & 2, Greenways Road. Even without them, it is not difficult to imagine that 'Somerford' would have looked completely different from this building. Having bought that house sometime in the early 20th century, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar commissioned an Italian architect to modify it; the resulting interpretation of a Baroque design stands to this day, imposing its majesty upon visitors, coming in to marvel at the Chettinad Palace. Visitors are allowed; one can walk in and be shown around a portion of the ground floor that is open to public view, unless there is some special function or festivity on that day. And there is quite a bit to marvel at, from the intricately detailed wooden ceiling in the common reception area, to the photographs of celebrities, politicians and royalty who have visited this palace, to the 300+ trophies won by racehorses belonging to MAM Ramaswami, Annamalai Chettiar's grandson. This photograph may not be very impressive; but think - this is only part of the palace, one that stands on 70 acres of land on the banks of the Adayar. From any part of the grounds, you would not be able to see this structure in its entireity; but a more panoramic photo can be seen here, thanks to PlaneMad!
For a long, long time, I had assumed that there was only one entry point into the Port of Madras. Far from being the only gate, it is one of the minor gates, the one through which children on a school trip, going to see ships berthed in the docks, were allowed.Almost at the southern tip of the Port, this gate is probably the most visible one to the common Chennai-ite. I'm willing to take a bet that any city resident who is not required to visit the port for his or her livelihood will tell us that this is the 'main' entrance to the Port - all the others are well hidden, I guess!
There are several sweet shops in Chennai, each one of them trying to create its own brand of what are intrinsically unbrandable sweets. Some of them have been successful, maybe too much so, that many today believe that mysurpa and mysore pak are the same thing. That story has its beginnings in Coimbatore, not Chennai, so I'll let it pass and stick to a more 'local' sweet shop.In 1982, G.Natarajan was at some kind of crossroads in life. The oil-press he started near his village had failed. A retailing venture in Madras was probably way ahead of its time and it took off only his wife's jewels, all 300 sovereigns of them. A more recent transport business had been successful enough for him to buy back the oil-press. The industrial canteen he was running at Manali seemed to be a good bet. So good, in fact, that he took a leap of faith and bought the house at 24, II Main Road in Adayar's Gandhi Nagar area and started making and selling the generic snacks, traditionally made by the old ladies of the house - the sweet mysore pak and laddoo as well as the crunchy, savoury 'mixture'. Today, Grand Sweets and Snacks has resisted the urge to expand, beyond their outlet in Anna Nagar. Staying in Adayar, their range today runs into over 250 items, including ready-mixes for vathakuzhambu and puliyodharai. There certainly was no looking back for Natarajan. He must have bought back all of his wife's jewels and then some; crowds like these, jostling at the counter for his wonderful sweets and snacks, played a part in his receiving a post-humous award in 2002 for being that year's highest income-tax payer in the region!
As had happened with many other Britons of his era, William Henry Cavendish, the Lord Bentinck, also found his first stint as a government servant in India ending with some degree of mess. Taking charge as Governor of Madras in 1803, he muddled along until 1806, when he brought out a 'dress code' for Indian soldiers. This code, which forbade Hindoos from displaying religious marks on their foreheads and required Mohammedans to shave off their beards led to the Vellore Mutiny of 1806; a single day on July 10 during which over 500 soldiers - 200 British and then, in retaliation, about 400 Indian - were killed. That was enough for Lord Bentinck to be called back home, in 1807. It took him a couple of decades to return, this time as Governor-General of Bengal. Given the mandate to turn around the losses incurred by the East India Company, he stuck to it closely and was reasonably successful. Taking over as Governor-General of India in 1833, Lord Bentinck put his full weight behind Thomas Macaulay's 1835 Minute on Indian Education. He capped the subsidies being provided to schools which taught in any language other than English. To be fair, he also encouraged new schools promoting western education to come up, speeding up the spread of English as the link language across the sub-continent.Lord Bentinck is also credited with putting an end to the practice of sati, where a widow is cremated at her husbands pyre. In some ways, this gave him the aura of a social reformer with a special interest in women's rights and he played up this image by advocating that girls should also be educated. With that image fresh in their minds, the founders of this school named it after the Lord Bentinck - and that name has remained unchanged since 1837!
Very nice, isn't it? 'Hotel Bindu' is not easy to find. It primarily serves the armymen based in Fort St George - and I am not sure if it is still in business, it does look as though the door hasn't been opened for a long while.The hotel has walls that are at least a couple of feet thick, especially the wall opposite this door. They have to be, because the hotel is set in the outer walls of Fort St George! 
