The city's Sarai

Abdul Hakim was a reasonably wealthy businessman in Visharam, a town about 150 km west of Madras. He had inherited a successful hides and skins business from his father; bursting with ideas, he must have travelled to Madras many a time to do business with the leather buyers who came to George Town from Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay and the Punjab, not to mention the British, who were there for trading, anyway. The hides and skins business continued to be successful and Abdul Hakim, now with the suffix of Saheb, moved into public life through several charitable acts, largely directed towards education in his native Visharam. The Melvisharam Muslim Educational Society that he founded in 1918 continues to be active, most recently in setting up the C. Adbul Hakeem College of Engineering at Technology.

Influenced in some small way by his contemporary Rajah Sir Ramasamy Mudaliar, Hakim Saheb turned his attention to the traveller to Chennai and built a rest house near the Central Station, quite close to the Choultry built by the Rajah. So it was that bands of travellers to Madras in 1920 now had one more excellent facility to put up their feet and relax. Named after Hakim Saheb's father, Siddique Sarai has separate quarters for men and women, as well as a mosque for the men. The projecting balconies with their sloped shade keep the sunlight out and the traveller cool.

Unlike the choultry, the Sarai has been in continuous use since it was opened and is a shade better maintained than its neighbour!

Complex entrance

Here's one more rajagopuram; unlike the one pictured on this blog earlier, this gopuram is as old as the temple and not a later addition. Also, this is the entrance not just to one temple, but an entire complex, with at least 10 sannithis (sanctums), a goshala (dairy) and lots of space, both open and covered, for devotees to sit awhile. There is also a garden with 27 nakshatra lingams - according to lore, the 27 stars of the Hindu lunar calendar have worshipped at this temple at some time or the other.

It does appear to be a temple beyond time; the stones on the outer wall appear to be sagging from the weight of the ages, but most of the complex is reasonably well preserved. Inscriptions on the temple pillars date it back to the time of the early Chola kings, about 1500 years ago. Looking at it from the bustle of present day Chennai, or even British Madras, Tiruvottiyur appears a rather odd location for such a large and prestigious temple. The Thyagarajar temple (or more completely, the Thyagaraja Swamy udanurai Vadivudaiamman temple) is therefore a very visible reminder of the existence of a thriving town - one among several that have now been embraced by Greater Chennai - long before the British arrived.

Middle school

The Corporation of Chennai runs free schools for children from extremely poor families. Though these schools lack facilities considered rudimentary by those from the more privileged sections, that must not be held against them. Students in such schools come from a mileu where a healthy child not going to work is seen as a loss of revenue - the incentive for parents to pull children, especially boys, out of school is very high. As for the girls, education was seen as a burden: for, according to them, no man would like an educated wife.

With all those factors against them, the Corporation Schools continue to function reasonably well. They get through the basic syllabus and give their students a feel of the opportunities available. At the high school exams, students from these schools have been registering a 'pass-percentage' of over 90% consistently over the past 5 years.

This school - and others like it - together have over 142,000 students in them. When the Corporation began its schools department in 1912, there were 40 schools under their wing. Today, the Education Department oversees 360 schools, including a Urdu High School and a Telugu one!

Sporting arena

Home - rather, office address - to almost all sports associations in the state, the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is the best venue in Chennai for track & field events or football matches. It would be a great experience to watch an exciting match or soak in the thrill of serious running and jumping when the stands are full. But the capacity has rarely been tested, mainly because neither athletics nor football arouses serious passions in a Chennaite. Sure, Nallusamy Annavi first came onto the national scene at Madras about 20 years ago with his record setting high-jump effort, but he never considered himself a Madrasi and the fever his record created died out pretty quickly.

As for football, the stadium is rated for international games, but memory strains to recall a decent international football match here. There have been matches of the South Asian games and suchlike, but none that featured high-powered international stars - and there are few local stars in the game.

No wonder then that the stands appear deserted almost all the time. A few hundred spectators watching a league football match or a state-level athletics meet will hardly serve to fill the 40,000 seats in this stadium!

Crossing the street

It is rather difficult to believe that the humble pedestrian crossing turns 60 this year, having first been introduced at a thousand sites in Britain in 1949. It was done on an experimental basis, arising from the 1949 UN Conference on Road and Motor Traffic, during a 'Pedestrian Crossing Week'. In 1951, the pattern and the colours of the pedestrian crossing were formalised as the familiar alternating black and white stripes - within no time, they were being called 'zebra crossing'.

Once the zoological reference had been made, Britain seemed to wade into it time and again when naming their pedestrian signs. Apart from the zebra, there is the Pelican (Pedestrian Light Controlled) crossing, the Puffin (Pedestrian User Friendly Intelligent) crossing and the Toucan (Two-can) crossing - and then there is the Pegasus crossing, found near race courses. For more explanations of these crossings, click here.

Chennai doesn't have any animal crossing, other than the omnipresent zebra. This zebra moults, so it's coat has to be re-painted every once in a while. And here are a couple of policemen at it, early in the morning before the traffic starts to pick up. In 2007, the then Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) submitted before the Madras High Court that the city has 310 zebra crossings. That would take some painting, for sure!

And all along, one thought it was only the chicken that crossed the road!

Tangy stuff

What would south Indian cuisine be without this fruit? There would have been no sambar, rasam or puliyodarai without this tangy fruit to give them their distinctive flavour. It is a challenge to eat this fruit by itself, straight from the tree - not too many people would do it because the flavour is sharp and if you haven't ever tasted it, will wake you up double quick!

Almost every part of this tree can be used; the leaves and flowers are used in several dishes. The fruit, of course is the most commonly used part - eaten raw, pounded into a pulp with sugar added to it, stored in earthen pots and brought out a little at a time to add heft to the stock for sambar or rasam - a few years ago, small globules of these, sweetened with sugar, almost became a competitive advantage for one of the airlines, forcing everyone else in the skies to serve the same sweets.

For all that, this is not a native Indian tree. It came to India from Africa, but that move happened a very long time ago. Even the name - which has its roots in the Arabic phrase for 'date of Hind'- has a double dose of India in it. With a name like Tamarindus indica, it would be pointless trying to prove its foreign origins!

Heritage building

Arvind Adiga, author of 'The White Tiger', the Man Booker Prize winner for 2008, has strong ties to Chennai. To put it another way, Arvind's great-grandfather, Dr. U.Rama Rau was a man who contributed significantly to the development of Madras. Among the many things that Dr. Rama Rau did was to nurture the Music Academy, be a co-founder of the Indian Medical Association, establish the south Indian arms of the Red Cross and the St John's Ambulance Association, edit medical journals such as the Antiseptic and Health, all without neglecting the practice of medicine from his clinic on Thambu Chetty Street in George Town.

On a recent walk down the street, I was looking for some evidence of Dr. Rama Rau's descendents, many of who are still medical practitioners in Chennai. The closest I could get was this building: Sudharsana Building, dating from the early 20th century, housing Dr. U.Venkata Rao's clinic. It is as likely to be someone entirely unconnected with Dr. Rama Rau as not. But the combination of a heritage building (the picture of Krishna reminding one that Dr. Rau also had a pharmacy called Sri Krishnan Brothers) and the names of the doctors practicing there tilt the balance towards this being the same premises - 323, Thambu Chetty Street, George Town, Madras - that Dr. Rama Rau ran his practice from!

Rest a while

Hotel Tamilnadu is a brand owned by the Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC). In most places around the state, Hotel Taminadu properties are recent creations, built by the Corporation itself. It is therefore somewhat curious that the Hotel Tamilnadu in Chennai is housed in a building which is more than a hundred years old. There is no record of the exact date when this building was completed, but it is reasonably estimated as being a late 19th century edifice - sometime around the 1880s. The TTDC took over this building a few years ago and has taken some care to clean up the facade and give it a lick of paint; thanks to that, one is inclined to forgive them the tacky 'Hotel Tamilnadu' sign that's up there.

This building has always been a rest-house; look closely at the black band below the sign and you'll notice it says "Rajah Sir Ramasamy Mudeliar Choultry", in Tamizh, English and Telugu. In colonial India, especially south India, choultries were free rest-houses, where travellers could stop overnight. With rail travel booming in popularity in the late 19th century, there was a need for such a rest-house close to Madras Central and the philanthropist Raja Sir Ramasamy stepped in to fill the need. Raja Sir Ramasamy was a self-made man, having to fend for himself (and probably his family, too) when his father was declared insolvent soon after moving to Madras from Pondicherry. Ramasamy started off as a dubash (interpreter) for an export-import company and must have done very well, for he had several titles - Rao Saheb, the CIE, the first Indian to be Sheriff of Madras (after 157 Britishers), the knighthood in 1887 and then the title of Raja for all the work he had done. With such a string of titles, it is pretty clear that he was no ordinary dubash, but a fine human being. There are many other charitable insititutions he founded - but I'll hold on to those for a separate post, sometime later.

This building itself is rather quaint; one enters through a thinnai to a series of rooms arranged around small courtyards; there were six such series, one of which was reserved for the Raja and his family. The other five were open to general public on the basis of their religion and caste: one for Mudaliars, Naidus and Pillais, one for Brahmins, one for Chettiars and Marwadis, one for Mohammedans and finally, one for native Christians and Eurasians. Hotel Tamilnadu makes no such distinctions, of course, even if some of the rooms are out of bounds!

Old and new

A locomotive in front of the Tambaram EMU workshop. Not sure how old this one is, but it is certainly not as old as the workshop itself, for it was installed there only in 2006, to mark the platinum jubilee of the workshop.

"Ancient Platinum", indeed!

Cut the clutter

It took me a long time to understand that 'mess' had another meaning than just a clutter. Until that knowledge took the charm away, it was fun to imagine a building where army officers would drop their stiff, disciplined, spit 'n' polish image and start mucking around. As a kid, everytime I saw this sign at St Thomas Mount, it took me to an image of officers behaving in the most un-gentlemanlike fashion.

In fact, even after learning that 'mess' could also describe a dish, or a place where meals are served to a specifc group, it was difficult to wipe away the earlier image. It was merely modified to one where the officers were being extremely clumsy about eating their food!

This was one of the two signs which fascinated me as a child; the other one is here

Music hall

That's not really a fitting description of this building currently. But when it was opened in 1953, it was meant to be the premier hall for music concerts. The Music Academy was more a wandering minstrel rather than a court musician in those days, the inauguration of its permanent home almost a decade away. In the meantime, Raja Muthiah Chettiar was consolidating the musical legacy of his father, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar; a legacy that was based on bringing Tamizh music to the level of the Carnatic stage. The Raja was passionate about it, and had even started a college for Tamizh music as far back as 1929.

In 1943, he founded the Tamil Isai Sangam; given that his house was farther to the south, it might today seem somewhat surprising that the 62-year old Raja chose to base his Sangam in the Esplanade area. But in those days, there were still enough lovers of classical music in George Town and further north. Plus, the concentration of Carnatic music fans in the south of the city might have prompted the Raja to get as far away from them as possible. In 1953, when this building was inaugurated, it became the headquarters of the Tamil Isai Sangam.

Raja Annamalai Mandram, as this builiding was named, is but one of the several reminders of the enormous influence of a giant of Madras. It is a pity this building does not get its share of public mindspace as a temple of music!

Counting bars

The last inmate walked out of the door a couple of years ago, towards the end of 2006. Well, he may not have walked out, but would have been taken out in a vehicle, being moved to his new home at Puzhal. Since then, the Central Prison at Park Town had been lying empty, waiting for the wreckers. Until a few days ago, when the DGP (Prisons) decided that the gates would be open for public to visit the prison compound and take a look at the prison blocks. The public, of course, came in their thousands. For the vast majority of these visitors, the only image of a jail was a little room in the movie, where the convict with the heart of gold, when being released would tell the warder, "Aiyya, naan poyittuvaren": to which the official would reply, "'Poyittuvaren'nu sollatheppa, 'poren'nu sollu"*. Reality was ghastly - the less said about it, the better.

Built over a 11-acre space in the middle of the city, the Chennai Central Prison was built in 1837. It replaced an older debtors' jail which was itself close to the 'Blacks Town', and was used for almost a century. The prison blocks reflect the thought of those days, the cells stern and unforgiving, the walls high enough to deter climbers and yet not so high as to cut off all view of the free world outside. Later, with the suburban trains passing just outside the western wall of the prison, inmates would be reminded every now and then of the rush of the world outside. The Chennai Central Prison was not the largest in the state, for it was originally intended as a transit remand camp, where convicts would be housed for a few days on their way to one of the larger jails: pre-Independence, it was a holding point en route to Kala Pani in the Andamans. Later, it became a stopping point by itself.

The new complex at Puzhal, covering Central Prisons I & II, has a capacity of accommodating 2500 prisoners; that's double the capacity that the Chennai Central Prison had. But spread over 212 acres, the Puzhal complex would surely have no sight of freedom for the inmates looking out through its bars!

* Transliterated, the dialogue is "Sir, I will go and come", with the jailor replying "Don't say you'll 'go-and-come', just say you're 'going'".... a line that has become hackneyed over decades of use! See more pictures of the Chennai Central Prison complex here.

Bigtop backyard

The circus is not what it used to be. The government banned lions and tigers from performing in travelling circuses a few years ago and that was one of the last nails in a coffin that seems to be waiting for the final one. The ban no doubt helped hundreds of the big cats to be rescued from a life where they were caricatures of their natural self; at the same time, it brought down even those companies where the animals were being treated with care. Today's circuses do not offer much by way of wildlife, depending on human skills to keep the audience enthralled.

And there are still many who are in awe of the performers. Acrobats and gymnasts in their glittering costumes, the dare-devil motorcycle riders defying gravity and motion-sickness as they spin around inside a globe, the clowns trying hard to be funny: there is still an audience that takes them all in. In Chennai, that audience knows where to go when a circus is in town. Shows have always been at the South India Athletics Association ground, no matter which company is putting it up. Once the cirucus comes to Chennai, it takes a while for it to go back; with high cost of transport for the human and animal performancers, and the set up costs at a new location, the circus stays on in a city for at least three months.

The picture here is the backyard of the Gemini Circus, currently on at the SIAA grounds in Chennai. One of the old-time companies - Gemini had its first performance on Independence Day in 1951 - it still struggles to find ways to meet costs, while competing with movies, TV and the X-boxes. Away from the crowds, the glitter is gone, just the dull grey remains!

The land of the King

Of course India claims the game for its own, because it has evolved from the ancient game of chaturang or shatranj, both of which even sound similar to 'chess', as the game is known now. Chaturang ('four arms' or 'four divisions') is reputedly the more ancient game, known so because it simulates the four sections of the armies of yore - elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry. During the 6th and 7th centuries, chaturang spread to Persia, where it became more formalised. Some of the common terms used today were adapted from the Persian descriptions (e.g., 'Checkmate', being derived from 'Shah mat', meaning 'the king is dead'), as the game spread from Persia to Europe, where the rules of modern game were crafted.

Tamil Nadu, and Chennai, can lay claim to having fostered India's current high profile in the world of chess. Though chess in India is most commonly associated with Viswanathan Anand (read his piece in 'Time'), India's first Grandmaster, the game's popularity was earlier nurtured by Manuel Aaron, the first ever International Master from India, and the first chess player to be honoured with the Arjuna Award for Chess. Aaron moved to Tamil Nadu from Burma (then a British colony), where he had most probably leant his basics; Anand whetted his appetitie for chess as a seven-year old in the Philippines. Thanks to Aaron's efforts and Anand's fame, Tamil Nadu has been a force in the national chess scene - and the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association has several tournaments conducted under its banner throughout the year - almost one every fortnight, on an average.

At this tournament over the weekend - the Chennai district selection tournament - there were only 3 categories: under-7, under-11 and the senior open. There were about a 150 children taking part in the under-7 & -11 categories put together - and there were several children who were in their early teens, or even less, taking on the seniors in the open category. Talk about catching them young!

Chaos Central

That's what it seems like, doesn't it? The Chennai Central railway station has such a fascinating - and distinctive - forecourt that one can actually spend hours watching the ebb and flow of life at its doorstep.

As I watched this afternoon, the crowd seemed very disciplined; they were waiting for the light to change. It did, to allow the vehicles to make their left turn on to Poonamallee High Road. The crowd, too, chose that exact moment to dash across the road. There are a couple of cops, and a prowl car, too, in this photo (can you spot them?), but what's one man or a car against half-a-hundred determined jaywalkers!

The pillar

Though Anna Nagar was the first properly planned and laid out part of Madras, it was not the city's first attempt at creating a 'colony'. That honour goes to a part of the city that was once a vast guava grove, just beyond the place where the Nawab of Arcot used to stable his horses. The stable doors were bolted after the horses disappeared quite a while ago; the groves stayed on for longer. Sometime in the early sixties, in a fit of national pride, a large clearing was made in the grove and a tall pillar was erected. The pillar was topped off with the Lion Capital from Sarnath - which is the National Emblem of India.

Within a year or so, four roads radiated out from the pillar and they were criss-crossed by others. In a limited way, the area was segregated into housing, commercial and educational sections. Circa 1964, when it was kind of ready for occupation, naming it was easy though it went back all the way to the 3rd century BC. Emperor Ashoka, who ruled over most of today's India in those years, who set up several 'lion capitals' over his empire, also lent his name to the township.

Ashok Nagar shows little signs of its original plans today. The pillar continues to tower over it; and 'Ashok Pillar' continues to be one of Chennai's most recognizable landmarks even today!

Birds of a feather

Islands of Barringtonia at the Vedanthangal sanctuary; and no, the white specks are not Barringtonia flowers or jasmine buds. If you click on the photo, you'll get to see they are all birds and that most of them are made from the same feather. Those are the egrets; somewhere in between them are a few grey herons. It is easy to make them out for they are not only slightly larger, but have grey feathers unlike the all-white egrets.

200 years ago to the day was born a man who looked not only at the feathers but also the beaks of small birds that he saw - and collected - on a voyage to a group of islands as a 22-year old. It took him another 28 years to put together all his thoughts into a coherent theory, one that shook up the world of natural science. It is a nice coincidence and somehow appropriate that the world celebrates both the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his work "The Origin of Species" this year.

Celebrations of the man's birthday in Chennai are muted. There were a few posters around which indicated that the significance of the day has not been entirely missed!

Reverse image

'Just Married' vehicles are not a common sight on Chennai roads. Also, the cars - limos, if you insist on calling decorated sedans that way - hired during weddings usually come with windows covered with sun-control film in several shades darker than what's seen on this car.

So it is very likely this car is a wedding gift, to be parked outside the marriage hall for the guests to marvel at. While the newlyweds would not use it to travel on their honeymoon, it would be the one for their use when they settle into domestic bliss. At least that is how it used to be; a couple of months ago, there was this newspaper article about a 'gift-car-market' having blossomed in north India. That was around the same time this photo was taken... is there such a market coming up in Chennai too?

From Maharashtra to Madras.

It looks like just another temple. If it is a Friday, you'd probably be sure that it is just another of those 'Amman' temples which become animated on Friday afternoons with the womenfolk coming by to offer 'koozhu' to the Goddess who is the main deity here. Add those crowds to the packed mass of bodies that is Thambu Chetty Street and you have a potential recipe for a longjam lasting into next Wednesday.

That's what comes of having a gopuram which seems to be mass produced rather than one created just for this temple. The rajagopuram seen in this picture is just about a couple of decades old, having been set up in the late 1980s. What the it hides is a temple that has been at this spot for at least 300 years; legend has it that the temple was originally closer to the sea, but was re-located to this spot in 1640. That may not be borne out by available data and records, but more reliable is the visit of Chhatrapati Sivaji to this temple. On a campaign to south India, Sivaji stopped overnight at the nearby Armenian Street. He then offered prayers at this temple on October 3, 1677. Inside the temple there is a picture of Shivaji and a plaque recording his visit.

No one seems to know what the outcome of Shivaji's campaign of 1677; it must have been successful, for Shivaji became a nuisance beyond any borders for the British!

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!