Amidst the hustle and bustle of the 'Town', this building seems to be slightly out of place. The last remaining structure of what was once a large complex of buildings, it celebrated its sesquicentennial a couple of months ago. The origin of the insititution it houses (used to house, rather) can be traced back to 1836, when Rev. George James Laurie and Rev Matthew Bowie, the Chaplains of the Church of Scotland in Madras, requested headquarters for a missionary to run the St Andrews School which they had started a year or so earlier. And thus it was that the Rev. John Anderson came to Madras; in 1837, he opened the General Assembly's School in Armenian Street, with the core group of 59 pupils moving from the St Andrews School. It was to be the first of many schools founded by this Scotsman, whose love for education seems to have been greater than his love for the gospel.The school grew; in 1877 it was re-christened as "Madras Christian College". College House, College Chapel, College Hall - buildings joined the College itself and, difficult as it is to imagine now, George Town became an important centre for higher education. It was only in 1919 that the Senatus Committee recommended the College's move, upon which it relocated right across the city, to Tambaram, where it continues to function today. Sometime in between (Mr. Muthiah puts it as being after 1895), the College Chapel and College Hall were switched; the latter, which was called Anderson Hall in memory of the college's founder, became Anderson Church. That holy association has probably saved this building from the fate that befell its companions; though it is listed as a heritage building by INTACH, there is no guarantee that such listing will save it from demolition. A better protection, however, is provided by an active congregation, which travels from various parts of the city to this building!
Close to six o'clock on a Saturday evening and the traffic around Panagal Park is just building up. Surprisingly, even though the day had been hot, the air was not dusty at all - and given the volume of traffic, the quantity of exhaust fumes was - dare I say it? - negligible.Most likely that it had nothing to do with the vehicles - the trees providing so much of greenery are probably acting as buffers for the dust and the smoke, too!
A peaceful sight - the unhurried fruit seller catching up on the news while waiting for early morning customers.
Early last week, the city saw signs like this one being painted on certain roads. These are indeed common enough signs during the election time, but this year, they seemed to have 'doubled' - during the earlier elections, the signs had said '100 m' only, but this time, they had gone all the way up to 200 m. With about 700 million people across the country being eligible to vote in the just-concluded parliamentary elections, the process of the vote is indeed quite complex - in some sense, it is the pinnacle of organization, with almost every eventuality being considered. One such eventuality is the possibility of 'last metre influence'; therefore, political parties are not allowed to have their voter helpdesks, or any posters, handbills or any other promotional material within the specified distance from a polling booth. Yet, there seems to have been some gaps. Although the Election Commission of India was clear that the sanitized zone extended up to 200m, the Tamil Nadu Government was still advising the police about a 100m zone!
John Doveton lent his name to a school in Purasaiwalkam over 150 years ago and in the years since, his name has been used for things much more than the school itself; it has gone on to represent the whole area around the school. It has been mangled in more ways than one - a set of Anglo-Indians were fond of pronouncing it 'Duff-ton' rather than the 'Dough-ton' and that became so popular that I am pleasantly surprised to see the Doveton spelling being used, without having been altered to match the phonetic effect.One example is this cafe, right under the flyover. Maybe it is a bad example, because it has been there for over 35 years, serving as a hangout for the late-hippie generation and then going on to what it is today. Doveton Cafe is a good place to step into for a cup of coffee and then sit down to ramble on about world affairs (and those of your college-mates', too) without having to worry about how fast the meter is running!
With the 'new' airport at Bengaluru being almost a two hour drive from the city centre, the number of people choosing to drive up, rather than fly, to Chennai would certainly have gone up. If you are one of those, you would be glad to see this toll booth because that's the last one on NH4 before you enter Chennai.Unlike the one on the ECR (was that the first ever toll road in Chennai?), this one is managed by the National Highways Authority of India. The NH4 has always been a very significant road (not only because it connects Chennai to Poonamallee) for it is the road link to Bangalore and beyond that, all the way to Mumbai. Even though I wasn't driving in all the way from Bangalore (I had gone only to Sriperumbudur), I was still glad to see this sign - it is back to the city!
Doesn't really take much to get faith started, does it? It's like holding your car key with your left hand and then moving it to your right - or the other way around, if it pleases you. Do it often enough and it will be a ritual that, when you miss it, leaves you feeling vaguely uneasy. It is what makes the Bodyguard Muniswaran the place to go to for new vehicles.Here's one more, sprouting under a peepul tree on the extension of Flagstaff Road. Someone cares enough about this Nandi to smear turmeric and vermillion on the treetrunk around it. From the looks of it, a few people have already begun to regard this Nandi as a fulfiller of wishes; notice the coloured ribbons tied around the roots of the tree (top of picture)? Those must be the reminders of favours sought. A few more years of this and then a structure will start coming up around it, regular pujas will be performed, donations will be accepted, the works. Then, the legend of the temple will have to be created, with stories of how prayers to this idol were miraculously fulfilled.... in fact, I'm tempted to come up with a story or two myself!
Coming up from the southern districts into Chennai city, the NH45 rises up in a bridge just before getting into Porur. That bridge divides the Porur lake into two unequal parts, with the smaller part, shown in the picture on the left. Spread over 300 acres, the lake today is less than half of what it was about half-a-century ago. The 800 acres covered by the lake provided the water to irrigate about the same area of farmland. As the city spread out, the farms went away and the lake began to dry out, too, leaving the field clear for illegal encroachments.Those encroachments came in the hundreds; as always, the ones who came in later were the innocents, lured by the prospect of having a small piece of land that they could call their own. As always, they were the ones who suffered the most when the government finally woke up and went on a massive eviction drive to clear up the lake bed, in November 2006. Since then, there has been a better effort to protect the remaining part of the lake, so that it continues to be a major source of water for the city's population.There is much that remains to be done, for the deal was to clean up the lake, de-silt it and improve the storage works, once the eviction was complete. In the two years since, there does not seem to have been any change in the lake's storage capacity; as against the promised 60 million cubic feet, it still remains at around 25 mcft!
The heat has been quite merciless. Chennai is cooled somewhat by its sea-breeze; on record, the sea-breeze begins anytime between 11.30 am and 1.00 pm; I suspect that's the time it crosses from the water on to land, for it is only around 2 o'clock in the afternoon that one begins to feel any effect of the breeze. Until then, things are in a general state of stupor, made worse if one is required to hop into and out of airconditioned spaces.The stupor extends to the medians drawn on the NH4; the heat is enough to melt the tar and the highway yellow flows with it, creating an effect that can be matched only by an inebriated road painter!
Chennai is home to several automobile companies; firms like those of the Amalgamations Group, the TVS Group, the Hinduja Group and the CK Birla Group had created a rich and diversified eco-system of automobile and auto component manufacturers in and around Chennai. Many of those firms were established long ago and have been part of the Chennai's industrial map for a long while now. A fresh impetus to Chennai's automobile manufacturing prowess came about in the mid 1990s, with the setting up of passenger vehicle units by Ford and Hyundai.Though Ford was the earlier of the two (I believe so - there is not much separating the two, in any case), it was Hyundai that caught the imagination. The first model that rolled out of the plant at Irungattukottai was a huge success and Hyundai was off, blazing the tracks - they currently have the capacity to roll out about 400,000 vehicles a year, while Ford tops out at about half that.Over the past few months, workers at the Hyundai plant had been agitating, demanding some concessions from the management; things came to a head towards the end of April, when a strike was called. Thankfully, it has not been allowed to prolong and the factory is back in action today, after an agreeement to this effect was reached on Friday. The picture shows a car, probably with some of the managers, entering the factory on Saturday afternoon - maybe they were getting ready to crank up the lines on Monday morning!
It is ridiculously expensive to even think about the possibility of such things now, but there was a time when one man owned a stretch of property from today's Abhiramapuram down to the Boat Club area, right up to the Adayar river. 108 acres he had, did John de Monte, a Portugese businessman who had come to ply his trade in the French controlled, originally Portugese, settlement of San Thome. His businesses flourished and he was for a time the junior partner in the firm of Arbuthnot, de Monte & Co - a firm that was one of the pre-eminent businesses in British India before the collapse of Arbuthnot in the early 20th century. His son having died in an ill-fated sea voyage at a young age, and his mentally ill wife also having passed away, John de Monte bequeathed most of his money to various individuals and charities. But he desired that none of his lands be sold, preferring instead that the houses be maintained by the executors of his will, to be let out for 'Pious and Charitable uses'. This clause was managed by the Bishop of San Thome; over time, the Archbishop of Madras-Mylapore has come to be the owner/operator of these lands and buildings. Sometime over the past 15 years, the Archbishop has let the maintenance of the buildings slide. They were last occupied by executives belong to the Easun Group of companies; since they vacated, the houses haven't been let out and the whole of de Monte Colony had taken on an eerie aspect.Suddenly, these signs have sprouted in front of all those empty shells in de Monte Colony. As anyone can figure out, the only reason for them to have sprung up now is the one that's sought to be negated in the last line of the signs - surely the properties must be up for sale, now!
The guards manning the toll booth on NH4, just before Sriperumbudur, have nothing much around to be distracted by. So, when the kulfi-seller walks by, pushing his cycle, they jump at the chance of picking up some, to cool down in the pre-noon heat. They do seem to be enjoying themselves, don't they?Seconds after I took this picture, a wide body truck, not judging the width of the toll lanes properly, came by and smashed into a divider - that must have got these gentlement jumping out of their reverie!
I am not sure if I've ever travelled on the Metropolitan Transport Corporation in Chennai until a couple of weeks ago. Of course I've travelled in the city's buses, but as far as I can recall, it happened in the days when they were called 'Pallavan', rather than the current, bland moniker. In fact, it seemed to be a rather odd thing, in the early '70s: the transport authority of the state capital was named after a lesser dynasty than those of the smaller cities of Madurai (Pandyan), Coimbatore (Cheran) and Thanjavur (Chozhan). At least the blandness of the current name has put a stop to the rampant splitting and re-naming of transport authorities across the state, for a dozen years, now.My Pallavan memories are still the green buses, with two seats on either side of the central aisle, with metal brackets on them providing handgrips for those standing; handgrips made shiny by the sweat from countless palms, leaving behind a sour smell on your hands for long after you let go of the bus. Today's coaches are bright and plasticky, the handgrips more hygienic probably, but less memorable, surely. The seating plan is still the same, but I found a familiar sign missing from its usual place. So I turn to the conductor, and asked him where the seats reserved for the women were. Very brusquely, he pointed to all those on the left of the bus and then glanced at the side of the roof on the left. The he did a double-take, took a quick look a the last, full, row of seats and turned grinning to me, saying, "Inge thaan saar adhu" (This is where it is, sir). Certainly reassuring to learn that the old habit of keeping all the seats on the left for womenfolk hasn't died, even if there is no sign saying so!
It stands in a quiet corner of Purasaiwalkam, near the Jeremiah Park. With its front door opening out to the park, there was nothing else for it but to name this hotel "The Park View Inn"!
In the early stages of the city, housing units were built as approximations of what people were used to in their villages: single storey, walls common to two houses, tiled roof, a thinnai in front, the atrium-like centre courtyard... these were the design elements considered important by the 'natives'. The British, though, liked to have their gardens, didn't care too much for the tiles, had multiple levels in their houses, adapted the thinnai as a verandah... and that template was mimicked by even those Indians who made their fortune working with the Company.Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, the uppper middle class (was there such a demographic then?) probably tried to combine both worlds - that was probably the period when the single-storeyed row-houses added an additional floor, gave it a balcony and simulated the verandah, though at an elevated level. The house below seems to have gone a step further by pushing that design into the idea of a garden-house, coming up with a very nice adaptation. Though it looks like it could do with a coat of paint, the photograph does not do it justice - it is really nice and quaint, taking Dr. Alagappa Road back to the days when it was Ormes Road.But look at the flats behind - the very latest stage in the evolution of residences, they still retain vestiges of the tiled roofs of the days past! 
The State Bank of India's branch office on Mount Road is a magnificent building, probably a century old and looking as stately as its name suggests.But within Chennai, it is relegated to the status of a poor cousin. The bank's office on Rajaji Salai is a more splendid structure, even older and more historic. Maybe out of a desire to not give credit to many of its buildings, the bank also does not promote this as a heritage building or anything of the sort. It is only when one steps back on Mount Road and looks at this frontage does the beauty of the structure show itself. 
Sometimes, you just can't beat water as a quencher of thirst. Chennai Metrowater has spruced up the polyethylene storage tanks which can be found by the roadside at several places. Normally these tanks are used to store water in areas which do not have piped water supply. This one, in front of Fort St George, however seems to be one that is meant for passers-by to slake their thirst.With agni nakshatram ('fire-star') having started today, passers-by sure need it!
Temple tanks are meant to be representations of pure and holy waters. The calm of the early morning water is wonderfully soothing and lets you reflect on the higher powers, even if it is only for a brief while before some other devotees jostle you, looking for their own space in the vastness of creation. Normally, the balance of the 'pure'-ness is maintained within the ecosystem of the tank; the fish and the water-plants strike an equilibrium by cleaning up the waste washed off from the rituals that use the water of the tank. The fish also get their main food from the devotees or from some of the temple staff, who make sure they don't have to always scavenge for their livelihood.Like with all other finely balanced ecosystems, it doesn't take much to throw this one too off its steady state. Sometime in April, the Panguni festival saw the throng of devotees grow multifold. In their fervour to do good, they apparently threw in a lot of food into the tank; food that the fish could not finish off and so remained, rotting at the bottom for a couple of weeks, apparently. And then the fish began to die. Fisherman brought in by the temple authorities to clean the tank reportedly "...fished out more than 60,000 dead fish in a single day..."A few days later, a faint stench stays in the air. Apart from that, the system seems to have returned to normal - the fish are back to rippling the surface, hoping that someone will feed them the right food!
Originally begun as a shed making toy ballons, the Madras Rubber Factory has grown into one of the country's biggest producers of automobile tyres. Along the way, they found a new identity for themselves, created a logo and got into a clutch of other activities, many of them centered around cricket. The 'MRF Man' was created sometime in the '70s, to counter the myth that south India (the 'Madrasi') cannot make the heavy duty tyres required by the trucks. Thus came a visual association with MRF and the strength of its tyres.It has been successul for sure - MRF's place among the leaders of industry in India is assured!
The Metropolitan Transport Corporation may operate the city's bus services, but if you want to catch one, you'll have to take shade at the mercy of the Corporation of Chennai. At the last count, there were approximately 1,200 bus shelters across the city. Many of them are in an advanced state of disrepair, the cement seats crumbling, as the are pillars. Others are designed rather poorly, that is not possible for them to be used as waiting spaces.A couple of years ago, the Corporation of Chennai embarked on an ambitious project of upgraing the bus shelters. The idea was to form some kine of Public-Private-Partnership where a large enough proportion of the revenue goes back to the partner who has enhanced the look of the bus shelter. About 350 such shelters were identified; the modified design included cc tv, decent seats, a backlit panel, plus information panels showing the expcted time of the next bus and many other things which are essential for the commuters to know. The initial plan was to convert 350 of the existing shelters; it has been almost four years now, but it doesn't look like 350 bus stops have been upgraded. The one in the picture certainly has been. Being right ouside the Secretariat of Tamil Nadu, it was probably one of the earliest to be upgraded. It appears that it is being used very sparingly; nobody wants to be the focus of attention from the ministers who look across to this bus shelter as their vehicle leaves the gate of the Fort!
