Empty station

On the Beach - Tambaram suburban train line, there are some 'important' stations and others which are not so. Chetpet is not one of the important ones - to me it had always seemed to be a station which was placed more to break the monotony of the stretch between Nungambakkam and Egmore than to serve any commercial or even public interest.

Even so, Chetpet station is normally not so empty; it is just that, close to noontime on Sunday, there are just a few people on the platform - and fewer in the train!

Last light?

Heard that work on renovating the Victoria Public Hall has begun. Look forward to the first meetings there soon - wonder if the coloured glass panes will remain in place!

The old, the new

For a long while, I wasn't sure why this building - at the junction of Flowers Road and Dr. Alagappa Road (Ormes Road) - had caught my eye. Looking back at the few pictures I had taken of this, there didn't seem to be anything special about this building: like many others in the vicinity, this seemed to be another building with shops at the street level and residential spaces in the floors above.

Now I think I've figured it out. This building goes back to the 1930s; unlike many of its contemporaries, this one does not present itself in its original form today. A lot of the flourishes have been replaced by more recent construction - take the fascia under the eaves on the first floor, for instance. The houses of the '30s typically had carved wooden ones, (like this one), but here, it seems to have been replaced by a more functional wooden plank. The verandah has been protected by bars taking up space between the original wooden columns. The tiles are newer, and have flattened the gables - I imagine there must have been a couple of them initially.

And most of all, the construction on the second floor seems to be completely modern. Even though this building does not have the stately look of an old construction, it seems to be in better shape as a habitation right now!

A decade of the festival

The Mylapore Festival can justifiably claim to have inspired at least two other public celebrations, the Madras Day/Week and the Chennai Sangamam. The former is, of course, coordinated by the folks at the Mylapore Times, the same people who run the Mylapore Festival also.

While the newer events are run on a much wider scale, the Mylapore Festival retains the charm of a neighbourhood mela. As the website says, it has grown from being a kolam contest to a 30-event, 4-day festival - and yet, retains the spirit of a small village fête, where everyone knows everyone else!

The man, the brand

Tucked away in a side street off Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Salai, this memorial to India's first movie-hero-turned-state-Chief-Minister seems to be an effort to downplay MGR's prominence. But then, it is not a state sponsored memorial, which is on the Marina; this one is maintained by the MGR Memorial Charitable Trust, and is more a storehouse of memories of the man who had a tremendous run of over 5 decades in public life, the first four more as a movie star than a politician and the last, as the state's Chief Minister. Sadly, visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. The official photographer inside will take your picture at certain pre-set locations.

The first thing you see when you enter the drawing room of what used to be MGR's house is the car he used for 10 years - a greenish blue Ambassador, TMX 4777. There is an urban legend that he was sold on the number 4777, because he first became Chief Minister on July 4, 1977. Some years later, when the registration series "MGR" fell due in Maharashtra, he made sure that he bought a car there and had it registered as MGR 4777 - though he never used it much. Other interesting bits that are little known: that he had a lion as a pet - 'Raja' now stands in stuffed glory inside this memorial. He bought the lion for his production "Adimai Penn" - a sequence where he fights the lion impressed Raj Kapoor so much that he wanted tips from MGR when filming a similar sequence for Mera Naam Joker. Though I don't have pictures of either, both car and lion can be seen on the Memorial's website.

In many ways, the house is quite a nice memorial of a man whose political legacy is being claimed by many, even today. After all, it is not everyone who can claim to have won a general election from a hospital bed not just once, but twice: the first time to become an MLA after he was wounded in a fracas in 1967 and the second, all the way from Brooklyn Hospital in New York, in 1984, to be re-elected as the Chief Minister. And if that wasn't enough, a 2008 movie about a taxi carried the number of his car - that's the power of the MGR brand!

New steps

The Marina now has a three-kilometer long uninterrupted footpath - you can walk all the way from the Triumph of Labour statue to the lighthouse without any significant break. Almost at the end of your walk, you'll see the Mahatma striding the other way!

Far-gone?

There must certainly be a phase in every schoolboy's life when he is able to deduce a lot of information from just the registration number of a vehicle. Though I haven't come across any grown-up who continues to have that hobby - or fetish, if you will - I'm sure there would be several enthusiasts who could tell me all about TNJ 3879. The best I can do with it is to date this vehicle as being from between 1968 and 1980, and on that, I would beg for a huge margin of error on the upper bound.

Confidence about the early date stems from the fact that until 1968, the state was called "Madras" rather than "Tamil Nadu" as it is today. Vehicles in the pre-1968 years had their registration numbers starting with M, rather than with T. Ergo, this vehicle is from the post-1968 period.

Make that "this registration is from the post-1968 period"; the vehicle looks much older and somehow it is etched in my mind as a Fargo lorry. The design of those lorries from the 1950s was something like this, so it could very well be from that period - it could possibly have been re-registered much later. By that logic, the TNJ registration is also outdated - so, is this vehicle going for a re-registration, unlike its brother, who lies nearby? That would certainly explain the new paint on it!

Another rest-house

Its appearance is not as imposing as that of the choultry or the sarai which lie to the south of the Chennai Central railway station. Given its location on the eastern side of the station, on Wall Tax Road, it probably served a customer segment less fussy than the ones frequenting its southern neighbours.

It is not much younger than them, though. The choultry was in all likelihood a late 19th century construction, while the sarai came up in the 1920s. This dharmasala is probably a contemporary of the sarai. The similarity to the sarai continues in that the sponsors of this dharmasala were traders - Paramananda Doss and Chotta Doss, who set up their eponymous firm in 1888, trading in cloth from Benares.

Beyond that, there's little that I've been able to find out about the twin Doss-es. Surely their firm continues to survive somewhere in the warren of George Town!

Misidentified - twice over!

Taxonomy is difficult, even for Carl Linnaeus, the father of binomial nomenclature. When confronted with butterflies, the difficulty increases manifold. Butterflies have more complexity than many other animal orders; apart from the sexual dimorphism common to most animals, butterflies also have seasonal morphs and, in some cases, locational morphs also.

In the case of this butterfly, Linnaeus had first thought of it as an African species (remember, the taxonomists of the 18th century depended heavily on travellers' memories about where a specimen was sourced from), describing it as Papilio terpsicore in 1758. In 1775, Johan Christian Fabricius, a Danish entomologist studied a specimen that came to him from Africa and described it as Papilio serena - he was very quickly told that his P. serena was none other than the P. terpsicore described by Linnaeus. In 1793, Fabricius got hold of a specimen from India and believing it to be completely new, classified it as Papilio violae. It was later that all the tangles were sorted out; it was then determined that this butterfly, the Tawny Coster, is one of the exceptions, the other being the Yellow Coster - other members of the family have stayed on in Africa.

This one of course was in Chennai, basking in the sun at the Adayar Poonga!

Protected building

You might think that, being the headquarters building of the Tamil Nadu Police, this long, low, white building is a well-protected one. In a way, however, you would be mistaken. Had it not been for some heritage lovers, this building would have been demolished sometime around 1993. In what was probably a first for Madras, the High Court came down on the side of conservationists led by INTACH, and stayed the demolition. Subsequently, the building was renovated and in 1998, was back to being used as the headquarters of the state's police force and the office of its Director General - and the south end of the Marina continued to have the same skyline as it had had since 1839.

It was in that year the Freemasons had begun using this building, constructed at a cost of Rs.25,000/- as their Masonic Lodge. Known as the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity, the lodge used these premises for their activities until 1856, when for some reason, the Masons moved out of this building. It seems to have lain unused until 1865, when W. Robinson, the first Inspector General of the Madras Police rented the building for use as his headquarters. The Masons were probably not particularly attached to this building, for they sold it off to the government in 1874, for Rs.20,000/-. Since then, the building has been used almost continuously by the policemen (and women - how can we forget that it is less than a month since the state got its first - and the country's second - woman DGP in Letika Saran, IPS!).

Currently, more office space is being constructed as an adjunct to this building - hopefully, all this activity points to a long innings for this classic building on the Marina!

Story listener

This temple to Hanuman is one that's not terribly old. Not that it is a spring chicken, but it's age does not run into multiple centuries, or even one, for that matter. It was constructed some time between 1930 and 1950 and was probably intended to cater to the traders and workers who frequented the nearby Thaneer Thurai market. It is said that the idol of Veera Anjaneya, the presiding deity of this temple was placed in such a way that when viewed from the street, it seems to be on its way to the market. Whether that was really the intention, or is it just chance that set the idol in that direction is a matter of conjecture, rather than fact.

In its early days, it must have been quite a popular temple. It was to this temple that Rajaji brought the manuscript of his interpretation of the Ramayana after he finished it, circa 1956. Between reading the manuscript and listening to discourses on the Ramayana from the nearby Sanskrit college, this Hanuman would have had his fill of Sri Rama's story!

Traditional, version 2.0

The Mylai Sri Karpagambal Mess is back in action after having been completely knocked down and re-built. It will take a while - quite a while - for this building to get that worn-out, we're-too-busy-to-think-about-painting-this look that its predecessor had. But inside, not too much seems to have changed. As it used to be, there are packets of various kinds at the entrance, and the serving staff seem to have stepped right out from the old building into the new. Just that with a little more light, we're able to see them more clearly than we're used to.

The Karpagambal Mess has always been one of those places which you could not be indifferent about. There are people who don't mind waiting for (what must seem like) hours to get a table, who make the pilgrimage to Mylapore only to eat at one of its tables. Then there are others who cannot stand the very mention of the name. The latter group, in most of the cases, comprises individuals who went in there with sky-high expectations about the Mess' much talked about adai-avial and badam-halwa ("melts in the mouth"). They did not anticipate having to deal with slow service and less than squeaky clean tables - so every little slip has been magnified and vilified quite disproportionately. With such strong, polarised views, it is rather difficult to take a middle-of-the-road approach to eating here.

As for me, I have no complaints about the times I've been here - in its earlier avatar or now. But then, I'd not be the first in a group to suggest we have a bite here, either!

No game on the sands

It is not clear who was inconvenienced by kids - and several adults, too - playing cricket on the sands of the Marina. Apparently many of the walkers were, as were people who had parked their vehicles right next to the sands of the beach. So it was one fine day, a couple of months ago, that the cops began to chase away anyone found with a cricket bat in his hands on the Marina Beach. Many of the regular beach-cricketers were upset and staged protests; by one count, there were about 2,000 poeple protesting against the police action.

To no avail. The ban on cricket stays, and boards like this one, in English and in Tamizh, make sure the message is understood by anyone who wants to put bat to ball on the sands!

One for the birds

Last weekend at the Pallikaranai Marsh; this was one of the quieter spots, with not too many birds around. Just a few egrets, a few pond herons, a couple of pelicans swimming in the water and two purple moorhens - or purple swamphens, if you want to call them that.

It would take a bit of looking to spot the moorhens in the picture, though!*


*They are at the edge of the water hyacinths, to the left of the pelicans....

Worship is work

If you haven't been to the Kapaleeshwarar temple for a few years, you will be surprised to see how this establishment has grown - literally. What I remember as being a ground-and-first floor agraharam-kind of shop is now a three storeyed modern building. That's reflective of how Giri Trading Agency has itself grown, especially in the past decade or so. Considering they have been in Chennai for just about thirty-four years now, their growth has been quietly phenomenal.

The organisation is itself older, going back to the 1950s. But it began in Bombay, not in Madras, though it did have very strong Madras roots from the day it was born - or even before. Like many others of his generation, TVS Giri Iyer had moved from Madras to Bombay, looking for work. One day, he wanted to gift a friend's son a sandhya vandanam book for the boy's sacred thread ceremony. Not finding any such publication catering to the Madrasi's need for specific religious texts and puja material, Giri Iyer sensed a business opportunity. On his next visit to Madras, he bought several such books and started selling them at the Matunga railway station. It was certainly not roses all the way, but believing that he was on to a good thing, he had all his nine children help him with the business. The boys were based in Madras to source the material and transport them to Bombay, while the girls handled the sales and distribution there. In 1976, they opened a 200-square foot showroom right at the entrance to the Kapaleeshwarar temple.

That decision coincided with a rise in the demand cycle for religious items - and the nature of the items also began to diversify. Apart from the books, devotional music casettes began to rise in popularity. In the early 1980s, they began a separate division to cater to the music business. From that time on, there has been no looking back; with increasing global mobility, the demand for pre-packaged puja items and quasi-traditional merchandise like bharatanatyam costumes began to come in from around the world. Today, many of Giri Iyer's grandchildren are active in running the various businesses, through their showrooms as well as their online portal (where you can even download a religious ringtone for your mobile phone!). All those businesses add up to an annual turnover of around Rs.20 crores - all of which has grown from the Rs.300 worth of books that Giri Iyer took with him to Bombay!

An old chapel

In the early days of its occupation of Madras, the British East India Company was nervous about admitting British missionaries into their possessions. This was because they were worried about having to deal with maverick British traders entering the region pretending to be missionaries, but with the goal of breaking the Company's monopoly over the India-Britain trades. Believing they would have a free hand to punish imposters of other nationalities, they allowed French (Roman Catholic) and German (Protestant) missionaries to go about preaching to the natives.

That's how Benjamin Schultze, a German Lutheran, became the first Protestant missionary in Madras. Though he had come to Tranquebar (Tharangambady) in 1719, it was only in July 1726 that he arrived at Madras and began work in the 'Black Town' area outside Fort St George. Needing more space, he requested his employer, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) to buy up a garden house, where the Chennai Central Station stands today. That garden house was, in 1719, the subject of a petition by Antonio de Carvalho da Silva who claimed that it was bequeathed to her by her grandfather, Joao Pereira de Faria (John Pereira). The whole area around it was called John Pereira's Gardens, so there seemed to be some merit to her claim. Fort St George however, took a stand that their agent, Mr. Foxcroft, had in 1671 let the area to John Pereira to farm for 31 years and it belonged to them, even if they hadn't repossessed the place. Finally, the Council directed that John Pereira's Gardens be leased out for 11 years. Though the gardens had within them a tiled house and a sort of chapel near it, the property did not find too many takers, as it had fallen into disuse and had become a refuge for gamblers, who used the space for cock-fighting.

Probably the SPCK got it cheap at the end of that 11-year lease period. But they too did not take any interest in developing the property, most likely because it was outside the walls of the Fort and directly in the line of Hyder Ali's maurading armies. Even the building of a wall did not make the Garden any more desirable; the SPCK too seemed to have forgotten that they owned this property. It was only in 1826 that Rev. J.Ridsdale began to take an interest in this space and began work to construct a chapel - the older "...small Tyl'd house with a sort of Chappell..." having been destroyed during one of the many skirmishes of the previous century. The Trinity Chapel opened its doors to the public in 1831 - Rev. Ridsdale seems to have died soon after. Somewhere in all the furore, it is said, the chapel was never formally consecrated. No matter; for after all these years, it doesn't really need to be consecrated, does it?!

Eating-room

It looks like a hole in the wall, but like many establishments on NSC Bose Road, it probably opens up a lot once you get inside. Even then, this eatery is normally chock-full during lunch hours on weekdays, for it is widely regarded as a value-for-money joint, especially by those from north India. The lunch menu is standardised and quite workmanlike - roti, rice, dal and vegetables - so one does not have to waste time choosing from a menu. The portions are unlimited, which is just what the bachelors need - a midday meal that fills them up well into the next day.

Somehow, nobody seems to have told them that there is no Bombay any more; there is a bunch of people who do not like that word being used these days. Surely they wouldn't say a word against this 'eating room'!

Different, with similarities

It is said of us that we don't value history when it is all around us; like the villagers near the site of Harappa who did not realize the historic significance of the bricks from their village which were used as ballast by British railway engineers, many of us remain unaware of the history around us, just because it has always been around us. Add to it a tradition of transmitting information verbally rather than through any records and it becomes difficult to separate fact from legend.

The Madhava Perumal temple in Mylapore is steeped in legend. Depending on who you listen to, the temple goes back to the days of Vyasa - the 8th century BCE - or around 800 years, according to records available with the temple authorities. The four-pillared mandapam in front of the temple, which is a feature of Pallava temple construction, supports the latter estimate. For its age, the temple is quite well maintained, though not as crowded as one would expect given its antiquity and imbued holiness. In that aspect, it falls behind the Kapaleeshwarar temple, which is also of roughly similar stature.

Though the deities at the two temples are starkly different (Siva as Kapaleeswarar and Vishnu as Madhava Perumal), both of them have the same tree - the punnai (Calophyllum inophyllum) as the sthala vriksham (sacred tree)!

A newer vintage

It does look really old, but my guess is that it hasn't yet crossed the century mark. From what I understand, mixed-use buildings - with shops at the ground level and living quarters above - in Madras of the late 19th century and the early 20th century were fashioned slightly differently. Not from a functional point of view, much of that did not change until probably the early 1980s. If the straight line of the tiles in front is broken by a gable-like structure, that (to me, in my limited understanding) is indicative of a turn-of-the-20th-century house. Sometimes, those houses would have more than one such gable, but even a single gable is a give-away.

A house like this one is probably at least a generation later. The later part of the 1920s was when it became fashionable to have images of gods and godesses built into the facade (Gandhi Peak being a great example). This building does not have the soaring vision of the Gandhi Peak, but it does find space for the Lord Krishna flanked by Lakshmi and Saraswati. The cherub is probably to emphasize that it is not a religious building, but a fashionable one, rather.

Guess it has to wait a bit for that century, still!

Expensive pause

The first automated parking meters in Chennai came up sometime in October last year. Four of them were installed in Mylapore's North Mada Street, where parking has traditionally been quite haphazard. They haven't done away with the parking attendent completely, however. The idea with these meters is to pay the money for the duration you intend parking and leave that ticket on your vehicle's dashboard. The parking attendent's job is to make sure that all parked vehicles show off a valid ticket on their dashboards.

Theoretically, it is meant to tighten up cash collections and reduce the risk of parking attendants losing - or being robbed of - the fee they collect through the day. The Corporation hasn't yet released any results of how things have changed in the three months this system has been in operation at Mylapore, T.Nagar and Taramani, but I'm guessing they will not be in a hurry to rip these out and go back to the attendant-only system, which was being run by the Tamil Nadu Ex-servicemen Corporation (TEXCO). The firm supplying these parking meters is getting ready to install them at a dozen more locations.

One aspect that has gone almost unnoticed is that the parking fee has, from one perspective, gone up six-fold: earlier, TEXCO's authorised rate was Rs.5 for a maximum of six hours. It has now become Rs.5 for every hour - and you can park in one slot for only 3 hours at a stretch!