Paper picture?

Well, this doesn't have any specific connect to Madras, or to Chennai, but the sign was intriguing. I thought I knew a fair bit about the brands connected with photography, but 'Forte' was a new one on me. Judging from the font and the nature of the sign, I assumed the brand is something that probably died out in the 1960/70s and Mount Photo continues to display this sign because they are too lazy to take it down.

But no! Forte started life as the Hungarian subsidiary of Kodak, way back in 1922 and continued to show signs of life into the 21st century. But as a manufacturer of speciality photo paper - large format black & white seems to have been their flagship product - in a rapidly digitizing age, they probably could not find enough aficiandos to keep themselves afloat; the British Journal of Photography reported the demise of Forte in their January 2007 newsletter. (Forte's website is also defunct, now).

Still, there are a few stockists who continue to supply the last bits of Forte paper to those exacting photographers who will use no other - like this one in Canada, for instance. Could it be that Mount Photo is also one of those rarity distributors?

PS: While digging for information about Forte, I came across this interesting clip on 'How Film is Made' - worth a look, if you have about 20 minutes to spare.

Colourless beings

The bhootaganas (Siva's attendants) are normally found at the corner walls of Siva's temples - the old ones, especially. Mostly, they are little cared for and they sit, with the grime and dust of the ages wearing away their beings, like this one at the Tiruvottiyur Thyagarajar temple.

Rarely does one find a colourful gana, like this one here!

Towering exams!

So, you have got into the power transmission business - or the mobile telephony business - or into some business where you have a need to install several towers to ensure your services reach your customers. How can you be sure that your towers will last the distance? Have no fear, because Chennai can give you an answer to that.

It was strange to see what looked like a construction crane standing on one of the hillsides at Thirusoolam. Despite its recent popularity, Thirusoolam is not a choice spot for constructing a high-rise; for one, the airport is too close by to allow any high rise to come up on these hills. So what were these cranes doing up here?

But you, the power transmitter - or mobile telephony provider - know that the crane is only part of the equipment available at the Tower Testing and Research Station (TTRS). Falling under the Structural Engineering Centre, the TTRS at Thirusoolam is a versatile outfit. Apart from simulations for testing pre-specified towers, the TTRS also carries out full-scale prototype testing for tower manufacturers (and users) and can handle almost all kinds of towers, for a variety of load conditions. The crane is of course used to set up the test equipmnet!

Simpson to Nano

There doesn't seem to be any authentic information about how this building came to be called by its present name - Gove Building. The man behind its origins was George Underhill Cuddon, who upon arriving in India in 1891, joined service with Simpson & Co. as an assistant. Quite rapidly, Cuddon grew to become the manager of the business and then on to partner, before becoming the sole proprietor. It was he who set out the plans for this building in 1914 and though he died before it was completed in 1916, his plans were more or less faithfully adhered to. A book about commerce in southern India, published around 1920, describes this building as 'ornate'; in the decades since, it has only appeared to be more so. That book also talks about the building being of 'green and white stone'; most likely that the granite frontage was streaked with green, which has probably been dulled over the years.

At first glance it seems to be a hotch-potch - granite on the ground floor, brick on the first; a square tower with a pyramidal roof at the northern end, but an octagonal (almost circular) one at the southern end. But all of that is deliberate, apparently very much in keeping with Cuddon's vision - which also included 18-foot plate glass windows in front, special door, shutters and sun-blinds imported from England and Italian marble floors.

Also in line with Cuddon's vision, it continued to house one of the best automobile showrooms in the city, that of Simpson's, until 1943, when it changed hands. Thiruvengadasamy Mudaliar acquired it for the showroom of his dealership, VST Motors; through the years, the building has been lovingly and carefully maintained. Even if you are walking in to look at the newest car, you cannot but feel a sense of reverence for the history of this magnificent showroom, which still remains faithful to the vision of George Cuddon!

Old and new

Raheja Towers is less than a decade old - though it is on Mount Road, the facade was not very visible from the road, so it was almost as if it was staying aloof from the rest of the businesses on Mount Road.

Not any longer. The old shops and buildings which had blocked the passer-by's view of the glass-fronted building are being pulled down. Now I understand what someone told me a few years ago - "Do they think they are the BMW Headquarters or something?" Not a patch on it, of course!

Bargain books

Time was, if you wanted to get some foreign magazines, you headed out to the pavements of Mount Road. Between the twenty or so pavement bookshops, you could be sure of getting an armful of the ones you wanted. Somehow, I believe that there was little piracy in those days and the books that were sold at these shops were always second-hand originals.

These days, though, there are more pirated books than second-hand ones. Everyone seems to want 'new' books - little do they realize that there is a great deal of romance in much-thumbed books, even in the ones where the previous owner has been careful enough not to make any markings or even dog-ears. All the glossy pirated books displayed has taken away the charm of shopping at the pavement. And one no longer wants to sneak a peek inside those magazines, anyway!

Big man little man

An old photo, taken when work on the Kathipara grade separator was still going on; didn't notice the person behind Nehru's statue earlier - somehow it seems to underline how towering JN's presence had been. The statue itself was quite an eye-catcher at the roundabout. But now, the Big Man is stuck somewhere amidst the whorls of the flyover and nobody notices it these days... or do you?

White, black and red

No matter how many sleek cars come out, the Ambassador seems to have a completely impregnable niche as the car of choice for all officialdom in the country. Though Hindustan Motors has a manufacturing facility in Chennai, the Ambassador is built at their plant in Uttarpara, West Bengal. The first ever car to be mass-manufactured in India, the Ambassador was originally based on the Morris Oxford, but has had a few changes (that's right, just a few) in its design since the first Ambassador rolled out in 1948.

I am sure in much of the country's hinterland, the white Ambassador continues to be an enduring symbol of the government; and even within that, there would be categories, I guess - white Ambassador with pitch-dark windows would indicate a senior official, while one that includes a red beacon would probably be the pinnacle of babu-dom. On the streets of Chennai though, this is just another car, trying to use the extra fittings to get past the traffic faster!

In feet or metres?

Alright; I'm cheating, here. I would like to take part in the 'Theme Day', being celebrated all over the world by the CDP community, but I didn't bother to check on what the Theme for June 1 was, until last evening. By then, it was too late to find something that would stick very closely to the theme, so I decided to interpret it my way.

From atop Thirusoolam hill, one can see a few lakes formed by water collecting in the craters where granite has been quarried away. Many of these lakes are shallow, but there are a few which are really deep. Looking from the top of the hill at one such lake - I was told it is one of the deeper ones - I was thinking about the difference in height between the bottom of the lake and the top of the hill; though there is no official record, I would estimate it as being around 150 to 200 metres. Now, that is a fair distance - somewhere between 500 and 650 feet!

Getting to work

Until about 5 years ago, Sriperumbudur was a sleepy little town on the way to Bangalore, just outside Chennai. Since then, it has been transformed into a major electronics / telecom manufacturing hub, thanks to Nokia, probably the world's largest phone manufacturer. The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) anchored by Nokia and housing its component suppliers also, provides employment for over 12,000 people. Many of them come from villages over 50 km away from Sriperumbudur, but the buses run by the companies in the SEZ make sure that they arrive on time.

Shift-change time is therefore high traffic time, naturally; here are the early arrivals, coming in for the afternoon shift - they are only the vanguard, maybe just about a tenth of the total workforce that would come in for this shift!

Bunker below ground

Once upon a time, there was a Round Tana at the junction of Wallajah Road and Mount Road. Or at least, the old timers say there was one; this photograph shows a domed structure which could well have been the round tana, because it is right at the same junction. You have to really be an old timer to remember seeing that structure, because it was pulled down sometime in the early 1940s. Though I am hard pressed to imagine what the connection was, the cause of its demolition was Japan entering World War II - maybe it was so distinctive that its absence would make target marking very difficult for the Japanese aircraft?

In a gesture that really seemed to cock a snook at the threat, the city built an air-raid shelter right under the spot where the round tana had been. In all likelihood it was never used, for the Japanese did not make any serious effort to attack Madras. After the war, the cavernous shelters were put to use as public conveniences for a while. It must have been really convenient for the public, too, for the Round Tana of those days was a favoured hangout - most cinemas were nearby and so was Jafar's, that famed ice-cream & soda shop of those days. Sometime in the 1960s, though, the crowds began to thin out, more cinemas opened further south on Mount Road and Jafar's faded away.

With so much of underground space available, the city put it to good use by clearing out the public conveniences and allowing their approaches to connect up with one another - and lo, the first pedestrian subway in the city was in place!

A little shop

For the Madrasi Paan connoisseurs, there are only a couple of places for that ultimate, ideal, paan. Of course, each of them has his or her own favourites, but if any of them has passed on the paan from this shop on Nungambakkam High Road, s/he cannot claim to be a true lover of the leaf. Did I say Madrasi? Mistake. This shop is pretty well known across India, to anyone who has visited Chennai and has felt the urge for an after-dinner refresher - the host would know that, with this shop, he can't go wrong!

Early evening, the homebound office goer chomps on a bit of luxury; the cops ignore the two-wheelers that are parked while the riders select their favourites from the menu. Later in the evening, the two-wheelers would be replaced by four-wheelers, including the Audis, the BMWs and the Mercedes - the lure of an after-dinner paan from Calcutta Pan Shop is too strong for anyone to resist!

Fit for a viceroy

No one knows for sure what prompted Alavandan Chetty to choose the name he did for his furniture emporium on Wallajah Road. The explanation most commonly offered is that he named it in honour of the then Viceroy of India who was visiting Madras when the shop was opened. Somehow, there seems to be a confusion in the dates; though George Nathaniel Curzon, the 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, was indeed a Viceroy of India, he took that office only on January 6, 1899. His appointment, announced in August 1898, caused a sensation, for he was the youngest ever to be the Queen's representative in India. Alavandan Chetty must have chosen to ride on the popularity of the name, rather than dedicate his business to the man, when he opened Curzons in 1898.

Both Alavandan Chetty and his son, Seshachalam, who took over the business later, were clear that their furniture would be the finest they could make. And they turned out the best of home and office furniture, keeping in tune with the latest developments globally. Even within its reputation for high quality furniture, Curzons made a speciality of library pieces, for which they turned to Dr. S.R.Ranganathan, who guided the early design of this specialised furniture.

Like many other business of that era, Curzon & Co floundered after Seshachalam - 'Curzon Chettiar' to many - passed away in 1969. Though it somehow chugged past its centenary year, it is not the force it was; competition has hobbled it badly. With the Viceroys long gone, it seems that no one has time for viceregal furniture any more!

A bit of Arabia

Although date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) have been known in Tamilnadu for centuries, their cultivation has never been seriously attempted. With the other palms - coconut (Cocos nucifera) and palmyra (Borassus flabellifer, the state tree of Tamilnadu) - having taken root, the space for a third kind of palm is rather limited, I guess. So, although the tree is well known, it is more often used as an ornament, rather than a cash crop.

Even as an ornamental plant, date palms are not really common in Chennai's public places. One of the few places (if not the only one) in the city where date palms can be seen is at the point where Greams Road meets Mount Road. It could possibly be that the grand mosque at Thousand Lights, which is just across the road from this junction, influenced the planting of the date palms here. Whatever the reason be, it is nice to see a change in the greenery!

Gambling place?

Well, you could hardly associate watching a movie at Casino with gambling of any kind. It was kind of taken for granted that if Casino is playing the movie, it would be completely paisa vasool (value for money). Of course, many of the movies used to be the Hollywood blockbusters - and it was thrilling to watch them at Casino.

But now, the hall can just about get by. There's hardly any parking for cars - the theatre was built in the days when Madras had a total of four-and-a-quarter automobiles or something, when the space in front of the cinema was good enough for them to come sweeping up and pick up those genteel folks who had finished watching a good motion picture. Sadly, it seems no one with a car goes to watch a movie at Casino any more!

Crossing the junction

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon traffic, when people were either recovering from the shock of Chennai Super Kings' defeat on Saturday, or were getting ready for the IPL finals last evening.

Mount Road is deserted - or at least a close approximation; traffic is thin and in the heat of the afternoon, people are in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Except that solitary cyclist, who doesn't seem to care about signals!

Hill temple

Reaching the Thirusoolanathar Tirupurasundari temple in the Pallavaram hills, the first thought that comes to mind is - what was it that led Kulothunga Chozhan II to build this temple here almost a thousand years ago? The settlements around the temple are very obviously end of 20th century - and I remember that in the '70s and through most of the '80s only hermits would clamber up the hills to live in the scrub there. There were historic settlements from the Pallava period, but none on this particular hill, near this temple.

Legend has it, however, that this hill was particularly favoured by the Lord Brahma for his worship of the Lord Shiva, because it was surrounded by four other hills. It was this legend which prompted Kulothunga Chozhan II to raise this temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, in his manifestation as Tirusoolanathar (Tirusoolam = Trishul = Trident), accompanied by his consort, Tirupurasundari (the beautiful one). The sanctum sanctorum of this temple is rounded at the rear, a feature that is not very usual in temples of Tamilnadu. Other features that Kulothungan would find unusual are the icons on the roof - all of them are modern, somehow jarring the senses, even if they were without the vivid colouring - and the tiled steps and floor at the entrance - something that has been done without any thought of harmonizing with the rest of the structure....

Even though it is Tirusoolanathar there, the name of the town does not derive from the deity, improbable as it may sound. A churam is a kind of valley, a barren place in between rocky hills; having been made holy, this area amidst the four hills came to be called as Tiruchuram and over time has become identified more with the deity than with the natural formation!

Multiscreen opening

When it opened, thirty-seven years ago, it was one of the first public cinema theatres on Arcot Road. AVM's Rajeshwari was more of a preview theatre in those days, and Kamala Theatre filled the gap between Liberty Theatre and the studios at Vadapalani. With a capacity of almost a thousand seats, it was one of the better halls to watch a movie in; being at the edge of the movie industry's hub, there was also a chance of getting to see a star, too. The lobbies and the stairways used to be lined with all the industry bigwigs who had visited Kamala Theatre - actually, not just the bigwigs, there were photos of just about anyone. None of them had any signs, so it was a fun game to try and identify all the lesser lights of the industry, each time we went to see a movie there.

Filling a thousand seats, show after show is a huge challenge these days, and the hall is doing what it can to meet the challenge now. Even then, they are going with just one additional screen - with their plans of adding about 600 seats, the challenge of filling seats does not seem to have got any easier. Let us hope they continue to grace their walls with bits and pieces of Tamizh cinema history; that might yet prod me to go watch one (or two) more movies there!

Shore to hill

The Thirusoolam hill is one of the ancient mountains near Chennai, a part of the Pallavaram hills. It is not a place where one would expect to see anything nautical; but Chennai continues to throw up these quirky surprises. Not only was there a Port Trust Officers' Colony atop the hill (the Tamizh sign says 'Harbour Colony'), but there was also a 'Harbour Road' that leaves one completely disconcerted for a moment!

Of time gone by

An old-world scene, from the street around Kapaleeshwarar temple, Mylapore. But for the SUV and the bikes, it would have been the same a century ago, too. Maybe it will remain the same a century hence!