The Madras Day

Hotel Green Park scores yet again

2011-09-01T18:42:00.001+05:30

Whether Madras Week celebrations received overwhelming or muted response this year, activities at Hotel Green Park, Vadapalani, went on an even keel and the response, like in previous years, was quite overwhelming and encouraging. There were quite a few who had travelled long distances to reach the venue and it was only after the clock struck eight that some began to slowly wend their way back home.

As usual it was the programme for children that set the tone for the evening. When Binita and Shrimati of Spring into Reading set about the task a few years ago, organising events for children during Madras Week, little would they have imagined the kind of response the events would generate. When Gargi of Zoom Kids joined this year, the three, under the Spring and Zoom (an activity centre for children) banner, made the most of an afternoon, welcoming children to experiment and create products using the potter’s wheel and palm leaves. Supported by resource persons from DakshinaChitra, ‘Madras – experience your cultural heritage’ was open to children five years and above.

Later, there was a peppy demonstration by the students, of ‘Madras: Then and now’, complete with song, dance and theatre, touching upon aspects such as traditional games and how children spend their time today compared to those in the past.

For Chithra Madhavan, Hotel Green Park is almost home. She has lectured here on two previous occasions. This year, she chose to make a presentation on ‘Lesser known temples of Chennai – some more’. As usual, hers was a thoroughly researched presentation, pleasing to the ear and easy on the eye. It’s indeed a shame that many of our old temples remain neglected with inscriptions scraped away and gaudy paint plastered over. Chithra points this out time and again, which only shows that it must be the same story in many temples and how it has impacted a lover of heritage like her.

Incidentally, Chithra completed her M.A. and M. Phil. from the Department of Indian History, University of Madras and her Ph.D. from the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Mysore. She has published five books - History and Culture of Tamil Nadu (in two volumes) and Vishnu Temples of South India (in three volumes). She has also co-edited a book South India Heritage which contains 500 articles on various aspects of South India’s heritage and culture.

Pradeep Chakravarthy made quite an interesting presentation, on how ‘Kodambakkam (Puliyur) was the centre of Madras’. He took a look at how Madras was organised geographically in the 9th-12th centuries, what some troublesome local governance issues were and how they were resolved. There is very little about Puliyur in the public domain and based on what Pradeep explained, there is a whole world out there that needs to be researched. It only shows how little we know about our own local history. Pradeep’s attempt I thought was remarkable simply because there is so little material to base a presentation like his on. I would urge him to conduct research himself, if he can. That might form the background to an interesting book.

Pradeep has two books to his credit – on Thanjavur and the Vahanas. A student of KFI and a graduate from Madras Christian College, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the London School of Economics, he is an executive coach for senior leaders in Infosys Technologies. His articles appear frequently in The Hindu and Business Line.

Pictures show some children waiting expectantly as a little girl gets her fingers thoroughly soiled on the potter’s wheel; a resource person from DakshinaChitra showing a boy how he can be creative with palm leaves; children from the local Corporation school show off their exhibits; a father and daughter look for something interesting to read as Malavika from Book and Borrow looks on; and a packed hall at Green Park.

Yet another unsung hero (A. Ananda Kumar)

2011-08-28T20:10:00.002+05:30

Probably the youngest hero of Madras Week was A. Ananda Kumar who exhibited his paintings at the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation. Kumar graduated this year from the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai and is the first degree holder in Fine Arts from his village Koralpakkam in Thiruvannamalai District.

When I visited the g Vennirul Art Gallery there was no visitor. The lights were off and somebody came to switch them on as I entered. The sad part in some of these exhibitions is that there are hardly enough people interested in coming to see what’s on offer.

Whether it’s the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation or the Gallery Sri Parvati or other galleries, it all looks good for the record, to have exhibits during Madras Week, but in reality, except for the inaugural if there is one, you will hardly find people coming. Lakshmi Venkataraman, who runs Gallery Sri Parvati, has echoed my view many times. She should know. Her gallery, done up fairly well, in the centre of the city, in Alwarpet, does not attract many visitors during Madras Week.

So, I had the whole Vennirul Art Gallery to myself and spent some time looking at the exhibits before an officer from the Foundation trooped in, probably signaling that my time was up.

Outside I was pleasantly surprised to see Ananda Kumar immersed in what he does best – paint. As he wielded his brush, his eyes were focused on an old building on the campus, probably one that might have been the residence of Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar.

Pictures show some of Kumar’s work – the flow of the Cooum against a backdrop of heritage buildings, of St Andrew’s Church and Victoria Public Hall, and of the Mylapore Temple tank. I managed a picture of Kumar even as he was providing final touches to his painting of the building that formed the background.

A flavour of early 20th Century Madras

2011-08-27T12:17:00.002+05:30

Last year, Nanditha Krishna of the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation had organised during Madras Week an exhibition on Fort St. George. The exhibition included aquatints, etchings and engravings from private collections, maps and sketches.

This year, she had two exhibitions running – one, a display of paintings by A. Ananda Kumar and the other, a display of some splendid photographs taken by the late M. K. Rangaswamy Aiyangar – of Madras and its environment in the beginning of the last century.

Let’s look at Aiyangar’s pictures first. M. K. Rangaswamy Aiyangar was a prolific writer and photographer. Born in 1886 in Srivilliputhur, he was a scholar of art, culture, religion and music, having written many articles on the subjects in leading dailies like The Hindu, Indian Express and the weeklies and magazines of his times. He authored several books, among which Thyagaraja Thatvam and Mahabalipuram – A Guide Book with illustrations of photographs taken by him are noteworthy.

Aiyangar was an eminent photographer and, according to Nanditha, will be remembered for his famous photographs of the early 20th century Madras and Tamil Nadu, especially the temples. Tirumala to Tillai, his famous exhibition of pictures, was held in Madras, Tirunelveli and Kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh.

Aiyangar’s son, the late R. Madhavan, who retired from The Hindu, gifted his father’s collection of negatives and prints to the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation library.

Here are a few of Rangaswamy Aiyangar’s pictures: a long-shot view of some of the pictures of monuments, of the Sri Thyagarajar Temple in Thiruvottriyur, of a person feeding vultures in Thirukkalukundram, of the Sangu Thirtham Tank there, and of the St Thomas Church on the Little Mount.

Other unsung heroes (John Moses, Winston Henry, Venkatesh)

2011-08-26T11:27:00.005+05:30

It appears kerosene was first imported to Madras by Best & Company in 1879. It was sold in tins by the brand names Chester and Monkey. Kerosene lamps were also sold on carts till the late 1970s. With the import of kerosene from abroad, lamps from England, Germany, Hungary, France, Japan and the United States followed. According to John Moses, who had an astonishing display of lamps at the Padma Seshadri School in KK Nagar, the lamp industry was highly competitive in these countries – in producing lamps, wicks, chimneys and globes. Most of the lamps then were made of brass, glass and porcelain.

Moses and Winston Henry (who helps put up aquariums and aviaries), narrated at length their passion for collecting anything old. Moses said his collection of old lamps, watches, pens and cycles was so large that there was hardly enough space at his home in Kilpauk to keep them. “My family just manages to tolerate me,” he said.

Winston said just about the same thing. The passageways in his house are lined with large containers filled with old books. He had brought along the 1870 edition of Francis Buchanan’s ‘Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar’, published by Higginbotham and Company, Madras. The pages were almost falling apart and the years had taken its toll – but you were taken to another world just by grasping the book.

Together, Moses and Winston made a difference to the exhibition at the school. They also took pains in describing the displays to all those who seemed interested to know and learn more.

Another participant who needs special mention was Venkatesh, a peon at the Padma Seshadri School. He has been an avid collector of coins and has always sought an outlet to exhibit them. Two years ago, he came up with a similar display. School duties have not blunted his enthusiasm to pursue his hobby. His is an example many should follow.

And these are the people who make Madras Week what it is. They toil hard all day long, expect little publicity, prefer to keep a low profile, are happy with even the smallest word of appreciation, and treat every person with dignity.

Pictures show Moses before his prized collection, Winston going about his job of explaining to visitors, Francis Buchanan’s book, a coloured illustration on one of the pages of the book, and Venkatesh beaming before his collection.

An unsung hero: S.A. Govindaraju

2011-08-25T13:30:00.003+05:30

The Madras Heritage Lovers Forum put up a wonderful show at the Padma Seshadri School in KK Nagar. Most of the members are past 50, with consultant architect D.H. Rao, who organised and ‘choreographed’ the entire show, well past 70. More than anything, it was rare commitment on display, a passion for a city and its heritage.

The forum is made up of Rao, V. Prabhakar, Winston Henry, S.A. Govindaraju, who has an amazing collection of old books and magazines, John Moses, Lazer, Roland Nelson and Hemant Chopra. Some of them were there throughout at the three-day event, standing for the most part in a hall without the air-conditioning system turned on.

Govindaraju is 80 years old but his passion for old books and magazines hasn’t diminished a bit. He has been collecting them for more than four decades and has over 5000 books and 10000 magazines, paper clippings and advertisements. A retired labour law consultant, he runs a small garage where he sells these books. What is remarkable is that he is able to identify each of the books just by the look of them – the author and publisher’s names, even the date of publication.

Govindaraju has books on law, philosophy, literature, history, wildlife, poetry, encyclopedias and books on film stars and politicians. He has a large collection of R.K. Laxman’s cartoons as well.

Every day, he spends his time in the garage (Rare Books, R.A. Puram, 2nd Main Road) with his collection, waiting for people with a similar passion, a passion that is hard to find these days.

Pictures show some of the material on display – Manohar Devadoss’s exquisite s pen-and-ink drawings; Govindaraju’s books; and one (Madras – Chennai Pattinam) of several fascinating articles by Nanditha Krishna (director of the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation) that had appeared in The Illustrated Weekly of India in the 1970s.

More spontaneity, energy needed

2011-08-24T13:59:00.000+05:30

After seven years of playing the catalyst role in putting events together in some places, I get the feeling that a lot of it is not as spontaneous as it would seem to be. We’ve had two press conferences – one in June to announce broadly the celebration, and the second a week ahead of Madras Week, to drive home the specifics. What if we, the catalysts or coordinators, did not convene the press meets – would we then have had as many ‘celebrations’ of the city or events that are there now? My answer is ‘no’.

People, whether they be individuals, heading schools, colleges or institutions have to be pushed a bit to get events off the starting block. There’s only one school that seems to have earmarked Madras Day and Madras Week in the school calendar. So, why is the spontaneity missing? Does love of one’s city not amount to too much, or doesn’t heritage and allied subjects not rank high at all? I would say heritage does not rank high in a person’s list of priorities.

So, how do we get more people to celebrate the founding of a city? To the best of my knowledge, Chennai is perhaps the only city in India to have such a weeklong celebration bracketing its birthday. There are no straightforward answers to the question as much as there is no short-term solution. The best way is to instill the idea in the minds of schoolchildren from all schools so that when they grow up, they realise the value of protecting and conserving the heritage of the place where they spent their growing years.

The other point is that over the years we’ve been having the same people speaking at various forums. Of course, it’s a pleasure to listen to city historians S. Muthiah and Randor Guy and V. Sriram but we need many others who can speak or make presentations on a variety of other subjects connected to the city. Where are the Tamil speakers? Gnanai Sankaran, Badri Seshadri or Ashokamitran are fairly good speakers and people will come to hear them, but they, and I’m sure there are many more like them, are not part of the week’s celebrations this year. What I’m trying to say is that often it is the same message that goes out, from the same speakers. I think some of the older speakers must make way for new and younger ones.

Overall, it’s schoolchildren who are benefiting the most, from participating in quiz contests, essay and drawing competitions, in exhibitions, and by listening to speakers. The three-day exhibition of Madras memorabilia, put together by the Chennai Heritage Lovers Forum headed by the indefatigable D.H. Rao, at the Padma Seshadri School in KK Nagar was a success, with students from many neighbouring schools coming to have a look.

However, a rather disappointing note was struck at the Jaigopal Garodia School in Anna Nagar, when Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan failed to live up to expectations and rather than showing some of the hundreds of pictures he must have taken during his ‘photowalks’, decided to get teachers of the school to demonstrate how they took history classes. His larger message was to get schoolchildren out of the classrooms, a message that we have often heard, and the point was not lost. But if he had enough pictures to show or stories to tell it might have made up for something, but it wasn’t to be.

May we have a Heritage Act, please?

2011-08-20T15:35:00.003+05:30

It is the joint request by the coordinators of the Madras Week on behalf of the people of Chennai on the day of Press conference, Aug. 19, 2011.
If passed, the act will have not just the heritage of Madras protected, but of the whole of the state.
As the banner with a request to pass the Heritage Act is unfurled, about 40 signatures on the spot filled the sheets of the campaign.

Through the Madras week from Aug. 21 to 28, we would like people support the campaign by signing the request.
If you are at a talk or taking part in a walk or a spectator at a show organised for the Madras Day, please read the leaflets kept at these venues to know why we need a Heritage Act and if you too love your heritage to be in tact for the next generation, do say it with your signature.

The Chennai Monolgues

2011-08-18T19:22:00.001+05:30

Two theatre fests. Presented by two rival newspapers.
I chose the 'One on One' monologues by a Mumbai group, kicked by the themes they handled - everything contemporary, wry and humorous.

My vote went to the bit on the Worli-Forli Sealink of Mumbai. The actor, a lamp post ( or was he part of the Link beam) sharing all that he saw and heard down below. From fancy plans to local goondagiri to fights in the Assembly on a name for this facility.

And I thought - why don't our writers here produce monologues on our city - its people, its hijinks and its autos, potholes and garbage agency whose patron lives in South America.

Did I hear some one say - do you think actors would have the nerve to stage them?

Winners of the Tee show

2011-08-18T19:12:00.000+05:30

We invited artist and theatreperson Pravin to judge the 50 plus entries for the Madras Tee Design Contest.
Pravin was locked up in his Adyar studio burning the midnight oil to prepare for his first art exhibition in Bengaluru ( you must have read about his works showing sleeping Madras dogs lying near still Madras cattamarans with jet black Madras crows hovering over the two.)
Pravin took time but signed off before moving on.

We should have the designs submitted by the top winner and the two who get special mention posted on the web site soon. Perhaps, post 5 other designs that were short listed.

The plan is to invite the winner to use his design or a bettered one for the Tee for 2012.

We still have a few Chennai Tees of previous avatars on sale. We shouldnt have ordered for XXL in this age of fitness!

Will to do the Villu-paatu

2011-08-18T19:06:00.000+05:30

I spoke about collaborations that make Madras Day in my weekly Jottings column last week. And referred to the Yellow Buss - Besant Theosophical Society school in the Adyar area,

This morning we were invited to sit through the first big rehearsal of the BTS group - 20 kids in uniform, two music teachers and gurus and colleagues of the students. This was to be their first go at the villu, their first before jaded mikes and an audience of 27.

They did reasonably well - telling the story of this city the way they perceived it with a dash about Annie Besant, the banyan tree inside TS and all.

This is a wonderful collaboration and we hope to invite the group to the Multi Media Contest finale in Luz on Aug 23.
If time permits they may take this show around.
My colleague Revathi intends to collect the copy of the lyrics and have it posted here so that future groups can partake of this production.

Its the Act . . .

2011-08-18T18:47:00.001+05:30

So I am wondering if a Anna Hazare-kind of campaign can be driven to get a Heritage Act for our state.
Because this is perhaps the most important element of this year's Madras Day celebration.

The campaign will be launched at the press conference on Friday afternoon.
There is an appeal to the Chief Minister and we are hoping to have at least 1000 signatories in the week that follows.

Volunteers plan to set up a table in some public spaces across the city.
And we hope to launch a e-petition too so that you can sign from home.

If you have ideas on how you can help drive this campaign, do let us know.

Madras through the eyes of children

2011-08-15T21:53:00.003+05:30

Walking with a camera on the road is fun.
The kids in your home always grab your camera to capture some unusual sights without waiting to compose, look at angles and aperture. They are instant captures.
When I thought of a photowalk exclusively for kids last year through YOCee, I wasn't sure if the kids would walk at least half a kilometer. But what we saw and experienced was completely different. They walked two kilometers just enjoying and shooting the scenes. They forgot to break for their snacks and water!
This encouraged us to continue the photowalks this year too.

N. Ramaswamy, who is a regular walker at the Chennai Photowalks was game to accompany the kids last year for the Madras Day and extended his support this year too.
The five kids who walked along north Madras roads from Royapuram Railway station to Srinivasa Ramanujan museum on Somu Chetty 4th lane had real fun. The fire temple and the cycle rickshaws and a Goshala, a home for cows . . . they saw a "different city" in their words.
For the larger group on Sunday's walks, there were two big attractions in the walk along Greenways Road. The Brodies Castle and the Krishnamurti Foundation of India (KFI) - Vasant Vihar.
The kids looked at the board 'P.S. Kumarasamy Raja Salai' and the 'Greenways Road' on the name boards of the shops. Puzzled.
Dr. Aravind, the outreach programme coordinator at the KFI took time off to guide the group inside the campus. He spoke about the flora and fauna of the campus, helped them identify the trees and the insects, bugs and butterflies!
The best pictures will be on display soon. Do keep visiting the Madras Day website for daily updates.

Technology institutes host walks inside their campuses

2011-08-12T17:38:00.002+05:30

Two major technology institutions are throwing open their campuses for a walk inside.

The Alumni Association of the College of Engineering Guindy is conducting a walk on Aug. 20, 2011.
David Michaelangelo says that the walk covers the sights and stories surrounding the the primary seat of Technical education in Tamil Nadu.
They invite the public who know the present Anna University to explore their institution which was started in 1794.

Prof. Ajit Kumar Kolar, Chairman, Centre for Continuing Education, IIT Madras called us end of August last year and was disappointed that his institution couldn't take part in the city's celebration. He made it up this year
He hosts a guided visit to the IITM Heritage Centre within the campus which depicts the early history through 600 photographs arranged on 80 panels and a nature walk inside the campus led by their Nature Club 'Prakrithi'.

These academic institutions add pride to the city. Who wouldn't want to go to these campuses? Here is a chance during the Madras Week. Do explore if you find time.

Campaign for Heritage Act

2011-07-30T18:42:00.000+05:30

Asking the state to enact a Heritage Act is probably the key campaign that will go on during the Madras Day celebrations this year.
The idea came up at the first meeting of the catalysts.
And we are working out ways in which we can use this opportunity to sensitise people to the issue.
Perhaps you can offer suggestions too.

An Act, a law in place will help encourage preservation / conservation of heritage and bok the people who destroy it. It has been over a decade since the issue was raised. It now needs to be a campaign of the citizens.

This is where you and I can chip in.

To start with, we hope to carry out a signature campaign. People will be given a little note on what the issue is all about and then invited to sign.

We wondered if we could come up with a small but striking stall / counter / desk which will attract people to the campaign in public spaces.

Your suggestions are welcome.

Somebody suggested that the desks should be outside heritage spaces or inside them. Central Station. Bharat Insurance. Govt. Arts College for Women . . .

Well, there is a buzz of expectation...

2011-07-22T22:08:00.002+05:30

Well, the Madras Week celebrations are coming up soon, and the coordinators are at work, all voluntary work, that is. The coordinators are basically more like catalysts who try and motivate people in the city, in different areas, to put up something related to the city’s heritage on Madras Day or during Madras Week, which this year is between August 21 and 28. Of course, you can always organise a programme before and after these dates; after all, the dates are more indicative than anything else.

Starting off the blocks before the others, like it has been doing almost every year since the celebrations started in 2004, was Asan Memorial School. When I called Suma Padmanabhan, the principal, for the first hello of the year (it usually happens after we coordinators have had our first meeting, which is some time in June), she began listing out the theme and the people they had planned to call. The fact is Asan Memorial has Madras Week listed in the school calendar – I wonder how many other schools have it. I don’t think the Padma Seshadri group of schools has it either, although they belong to the same cluster as Asan (we have what are called CBSE cluster schools now). Keep it going, Suma.

This year, Asan Memorial School has chosen the theme, ‘Our heritage in brick and mortar’ and Madras Week celebrations there will begin early – August 17 – and go on for three days. There will be an exhibition with models and charts conducted by the Social Science Department and the heritage club. Likely speakers at the inaugural and valedictory include the Nawab of Arcot, Kumararani Meena Muthiah, Gopika Varma and Shreekumar Varma. There will be an inter-school heritage quiz, ‘Heritage buildings of Madras’; preliminary rounds start at 9.30am on August 18, with the finals at 11am.

Another person who is off the blocks early always is Gita, the programme officer at DakshinaChitra now. I’ve known her a long time, from the time she ran the Adyar Arts Club close to her home in Besant Nagar. Gita is fast on the uptake and you just have to say something and she ensures things happen. So, this time, she has arranged a weeklong programme (August 21-28) at DakshinaChitra, with Abhishek Dadheech showcasing ‘Photographs of Chennai City’ at the seminar hall, a drawing competition for children in the 7-13-year age group with the theme, ‘Monuments of Chennai’, and a photography competition for children in the 11-15-year age group with the theme, ‘Bazaars of Chennai’. Well done, Gita.

Last year, Lakshmi Venkataraman was not very keen on being part of Madras Week, but this year it was different. She will provide space for two evenings - on August 22, when Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan will present ‘Ancient Light: Madras through the eyes of a photowalker’, and on the following day, when Chitra Madhavan will talk on ‘Lesser known temples of Chennai – some more’. However, celebrations will begin early at the gallery – on August 18 – with Maniam Selven (MaSe) exhibiting his paintings, the theme being ‘Madras: My Impressions’.

As always, Ashok Kedia (Garodia’s trusted man who is in charge of the trust activity after the philanthropist’s death) and the principal at Jaigopal Garodia Scjool, Anna Nagar, were only too pleased to host an afternoon of Madras Week celebrations. It’s on August 23, when Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan will suitably vary his presentation ‘Ancient Light: Madras through the eyes of a photowalker’ for a different audience comprising mainly students and teachers.

One of the heavyweight programmes this year (like in most years) is likely to be at Hotel Green Park, Vadapalani, where Spring and Zoom, KK Nagar, an activity centre for children, will welcome children to experiment and create exquisite products using the potter’s wheel and palm leaves, in what will be called ‘Madras – experience your cultural heritage’. Supported by resource persons from DakshinaChitra, it will be open to children five years and above. There will also be ‘Madras: Then and now’, a poster presentation by students.

Namma Arcot Road has lined up a pretty impressive run of speakers: Shreekumar Varma, Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan and Pradip Chakravarthy. Pradeep, as enthusiastic as always, will talk about how Kodambakkam is really the centre of Madras; he says he will look at how Madras was organised geographically in the 9th-12th centuries, what were some troublesome local governance issues and how they were resolved.
And for those who choose to stay back till the end of the show, there could be a special buffet dinner waiting at Hotel Green Park.

One more supporter; Arkay

2011-07-18T19:36:00.000+05:30

Ramakrishnan promotes the Arkay Centre in Luz. It is the building where Shah's opened recently - opposite the road that runs to Vidya Mandir.

Arkay is well-fitted and swanky - best for small meetings, business shows, seminars and such events.
Ramakrishnan also hosts music festivals. After all, every hall has to host a kutcheri!

Ram has come forward to support Madras Day events and will spare his space for some events.
Thanks Ram, this is indeed a nice gesture.

'Vintage Heritage' is planning to screen clips of films shot in the city in the old days and have 2 old-time film directors to talk on this occasion on the theme.
Look out for all the events here.

Travails of Walking Tour Guides

2011-07-18T19:21:00.001+05:30

I have just told myself that I should write to the police officer in charge of security at Fort St George. Write now.
For Madras Day, every year I make it a point to host a Walk inside the Fort. And these have been well attended - partly because people think we get easy access past the security here at this time of the year!

When Dr Suresh of INTACH is around ( am told he is currently on a study in the USA) I ask him to lead the group - Suresh would like to dress like a East India Company man if you invited him to do so.

It is never easy to convince the police to let us in on a holiday morning, as early as 7.30 am more so when the group is 50 strong - once the Inspector sent a policewoman to accompany us to make sure we did not stray from our professed plan.

They are happy if we keep off the CM's zone. We do.

But now that Jayalalithaa is back as CM and chosen to sit inside the Fort it will not be easy for us.
Jayalalithaa has been cool - time and again she has asked the police not to trouble people with overkill as far as security goes . . .

I hope to host this Walk on August 21, Sunday. So be in the loop to know more. I think we will have a Walk every day in some part of the city till Aug 28.
If you have a Walk idea put it through; host one!

Two Supporters!

2011-07-02T13:10:00.000+05:30

Two great institutions of this city have come forward to support the Madras Week.

South Indian National Assn (SINA) which manages the Srinivasa Sastri Hall and Ranade Library in Luz and the P S Education Society which manages the group of P. S. schools and projects in Mylapore are early supporters.

Both have promised to provide their facilities/space freely for events.

We need more such support.

Volunteers required! Sign up

2011-06-20T19:02:00.001+05:30

We need a band of people to host an event or run it in your neighbourhood.
So if you are keen do contact us at - madrasday@yahoo.com

We may have people who are willing to give you materials to hold a small exhibition. Would you like to make best use of this and have a show for your area / campus?

We may have experts who are willing to take a group of 25/30 people on a heritage walk. But they want one or two people to be the host and organiser! Want to be one?

There are some people who hold contests and are looking for young people to help. Can you spare 2 hours that day? Come along!

Madras Day/Week is all about networking and joining hands . . .

Our email -themadrasday@gmail.com

Some confirmed events . . .

2011-06-20T18:52:00.000+05:30

The annual Madras Quiz is on.
Should be on August 28, Sunday.
The extra good news is that there is going to be a Madras Quiz for schools too.
The Quiz in Thamizh for students is also on.

The annual Heritage Project for Schools which encourages teams to present a PP presentation on a specific theme on the city is also on. August 23 is the date.

The Chennai T Shirt contest will roll in a few days! The best design gets on the Tee for 2012.

Chennai Heritage will host a series of Talks every day, Aug 21 to 28. But more will be held at other venues. Expect at least 20 talks.

Plans for Madras Week 2011

2011-06-14T21:08:00.000+05:30

On June 13, the core catalysts of Madras Day (it has become Madras Week over the years) met at the Madras Cricket Club to initiate the plans for the celebrations this year.

The Madras Week will be from August 21 to 28, 2011.

Heritage walks are planned on all the days of the week.
A Madras Quiz for school students is on cards.
Exhibitions, talks, panel discussions, docu film screening relating to Madras and its heritage will be part of the celebrations as in the past years.

If you have ideas, do share with the team. Mail to madrasday@yahoo.com

Just before we say Bye . . .

2010-09-15T18:22:00.000+05:30

I am on the Madras Day web site after a long silence.
Work overtakes you.
But you also get pulled back. I look at the stats of visitors on the web site and am amazed - the traffic is still high.

I wonder - what can we do to keep this site alive around the year?

My colleague on the Madras Day team, Revathi reminds me that this is her final call to post the last set of pictures of Madras Day 2010. So I hurry to mail those that remain in my camera.

Madras Day is not about waking up on August 1 and winding down on August 31.

The 2011 plan is rolling. I have a meeting next week with a well wisher who may help us organise 3 exhibitions simultaneously in the city. Perhaps in Perambur, Thiruvotriyur and Anna Nagar.

Of a 'crazy city' and temples along ECR

2010-08-25T11:30:00.001+05:30

One of my efforts over the years has been to get interesting speakers to come to the Vadapalani-KK Nagar area. People in these neighbourhoods hardly get a chance to listen to speakers like S. Muthiah, Randor Guy, Mohan Raman, V. Sriram or Chitra Madhavan. And not everybody can go to Hotel Savera or to the Connemara or to the TAG Centre to listen to well-known speakers.

Developing a community also means bringing in resource people from the city centre and promoting interactions between them and residents. So, every time I have been able to get a speaker to either KK Nagar or Vadapalani or Anna Nagar, areas that are cut off from the cultural and literary circuit in Chennai, I am delighted.

Randor Guy came to address an audience at Hotel Green Park a few years ago, and Mohan Raman did the honours last year.

This time, I managed a Double Bill – V. Sriram and Chitra Madhavan in back-to-back talks. For Chitra, it was a second time at Green Park. A couple of years ago, her presentation was so well received that there were far more questions than anybody had bargained for.

Sriram as usual was as irrepressible as ever and the audience broke into peals of laughter time and again as he ploughed through the city with interesting visuals and rib-tickling content and commentary, an effort that showed the crazy side of the city.

Chitra, dwelling on temples along the ECR, amazed everyone with her sheer breadth of knowledge of temples and architecture, sculptures and inscriptions. She was able to answer with ease all the questions out to her.

When Bommi & Friends brought Kodambakkam alive

2010-08-24T11:19:00.000+05:30

Well, as you know, the Green Park show did not end with the craft workshop. No sooner had the children posed for the flashing cameras, holding aloft their attractive lanterns, than it was time for Bommi and her friends to come to Dazzleland, Kodambakkam in this case.

A few words about Bommi. Bommi and Friends is an original 3D animation IP (intellectual property) targeted at children of pre-school age, up to nine years. Production of the first season of 13 episodes for television is complete, and the telecast is likely to commence early 2011. The series has been created for children worldwide. In many ways, Bommi owes her existence to ace storytellers Jeeva Raghunath and Nandini Sridhar. Together, they developed the character. Image Venture, which owns the IP, developed the image and character of the girl and named her Bommi.

In the open lobby, despite all the colour Bommi and her friends brought to public view, there were patches of disorder and onlookers found it a bit difficult to connect the Bommi act with the images running on screen from yesteryear Tamil films a distance away from the performance.

The Madras or Chennai connection begins with Bommi visiting Dazzleland (Kodambakkam). So enthused is she by Kollywood, she calls her friends along and together they revisit scenes from the past as well as of the present.

Coordinating the show as only she can, Jeeva was in my view the star of the programme. But let the kids take it – they did a marvelous job. And it must not have been easy acting when almost the whole of Green Park was watching.

Kudos to the organisers of the show, Binita and Shrimati of Spring into Reading, for pulling it off yet again. And to Mathiseelan and Senthilkumar who attended the show with their families and distributed goodies to all the participants. They, along with Sivayogen, run Image Venture.

Of children, colour, lanterns and razzmatazz

2010-08-23T12:17:00.001+05:30

Madras Week programmes at Hotel Green Park are usually grand affairs, and this year was no different. Most of the events have to do with children, art and craft, and storytelling and, naturally, there is always a lot of colour and joie de vivre.

This time, Spring into Reading, run by Binita and Shrimati, organised two programmes for children – one to do with art and craft, and the other with storytelling. This was followed by back-to-back talks – by V. Sriram and Chitra Madhavan. Overcast skies and an afternoon downpour came as a bit of a dampener but in the end it did not take the spirit away from the Madras Day celebrations at Green Park.

Madras that is Chennai has a tradition of kolam creation. Using that as the theme, children, 35 of them in the above-six age group, were taught to draw kolams on handmade paper, shape the paper into a box shape, string beads on it and fashion a lantern.

The skillful Sindhu Suresh got the activity going, helping the children draw patterns first and taking them through the exciting process of lantern-making. The event lasted an hour and a half. For the first time, Hotel Green Park allowed use of its spacious lobby, but even that seemed small on Sunday because the whole place was swarmed by children, parents, volunteers and photographers.

There were children not only from the neighbourhood, but even from places like Nanganallur and Nerkundram. Rain and clouds had not deterred them. Indeed, it was quite a brilliant start to the proceedings, and the ambience in the lobby area was as festive as it could get.

The Fort where it all began

2010-08-21T22:22:00.000+05:30

Working out of the Fort St George premises must be quite an experience, especially if you have a sense of history. I wonder how it must be for Sathyabhama Badhreenath, superintending archaeologist, whose office, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), is inside the Fort. According to her, it is an old private building that once belonged to an Armenian merchant. She is surrounded by other historic buildings – the Fort Museum (originally the Exchange Building where trade happened), the St Mary’s Church (built by William Dixon and designed by Fowle), the Fort House ( probably the first built structure after the John Company set up shop, reconstructed over the years), and the Parade Ground. Indeed, whether for trade, religion or other activity, the British had built a conglomeration of buildings around Fort House.

In some strange way, although the seat of Government has now shifted to Anna Salai, the Fort is still seen as a seat of power. Kottai piddippon (we’ll capture the Fort) has always been a slogan during election time. But once upon a time, it was just a dream of Francis Day and Andrew Cogan, John Company agents, happy to get calico cloth at a cheap rate. But from the Fort grew Madras and many institutions of modern India; as Sathyabhama said, it was the “bones of the Empire”.

Sathyabhama referred to the building where Robert Clive lived after his marriage, how later the Company took it over, and which now is Clive House, a museum that brings alive the history of the period. Close by is a building where another well-know figure, Arthur Wellesley, lived.

Sathyabhama showed pictures of King’s Barracks, built in 1755, the earliest barracks in the country. So also the flag mast, the tallest in India, according to her. Most of buildings inside the Fort had long verandahs, huge columns, Madras terraces and Mangalore tiles that together aided sufficient ventilation. While people resided on the first floor, the ground floor was often used as a place for storing goods.

What remains of the Fort today? Sadly, many of the first lot of buildings do not exist. The few that do are in a state of neglect. Fortunately, Sathyabhama has been taking interest in restoring some of the old buildings. Clive House owes its sparkle to her. She said she had plans to restore some of the other old buildings. Work is already going on one of the oldest buildings. Work on a couple of others could begin once she gets permission from the Defence establishment which owns them. Let’s wish her efforts success.

Active participation at Jaigopal Garodia School, Anna Nagar

2010-08-21T13:20:00.001+05:30

The management of the Jaigopal Garodia School in Anna Nagar has always supported Madras Week activities and over the years heritage talks and exhibitions have been conducted on the premises. Ashok Kedia, managing trustee, and Vijayakumar, principal, play the perfect hosts and ensure that there is a full house.

This year, Chitra Madhavan made a wonderful presentation on Lesser Known Temples in Madras and their evolution as Madras grew from sandy strip to metropolis. In attendance were students and teachers interested in history, as well as visitors from the neighbourhood. There were several interesting questions from the audience and Chitra fielded all of them well. At the end of it, there was masala tea prepared by Viji and crisp samosas.

I suggested to Ashok and Vijayakumar that from next year they look at a weeklong programme, with a talk every evening. They could also organise a heritage walk in the Anna Nagar area with help from the local community, people who have a fair knowledge of the place.

The problem with many schools is that the students have so much work to do on the academic front that they find very little energy and time for Madras Week. Only when the management considers it worthwhile does it have a spiraling effect, as Asan Memorial School, for instance, has shown.

There were quite a few questions after Chitra’s presentation, mostly from visitors. Surprisingly, no student had any. One gentleman came up with an interesting one: Why always talk about 370-odd years of the city’s history when it was in existence centuries ago.

The answer to that was Madras or Chennai never really existed before 1639; all that existed were several small villages such as Mylapore, Triplicane, Egmore, Purasawalkam and Tondiarpet. It was only after the deal was struck on August 22, 1639 between two hatted and cloaked traders Andrew Cogan and Francis Day of the English East India Company and the Nayak of Poonamallee, through the broker or Dubash, Neri Thimmanna, that Madras had its beginnings.

To add a bit of detail, the new English ‘factory’ in the early 1640s was little more than a small fortified enclosure within which were a main Fort House, completed in a rudimentary form on April 23, 1640, St George’s Day (thus explaining the name of the Fort), and 15 or so thatched huts. This ‘factory’ was to grow into the Madras of today.

To the north of it, on what is the High Court campus today, sprang up what was called ‘Out Town’ or ‘Gentu (Telugu) Town’. This ‘Black Town’, in the shadow of the Fort and stretching to today’s NSC Bose Road and south Broadway areas, came to be known as Chennapatnam, its name recalling Chennakesava Nayak, the father of the Nayak who made the grant to John Company.

The ‘urban agglomeration’ of the Fort, with ‘White Town’ within, and ‘Black Town’ without, was the genesis of today’s metropolis. In effect, Madras in 1640 was the ‘Castle’ (or ‘Inner Fort’) enclosing within its walls and four bastions the Factory House and the official European quarter; the ‘Outer Fort’ enclosing this ‘Castle’, other European homes and the Portuguese St Andrew’s chapel – all protected by four bastions, three walls and two gates in the north wall leading to ‘Black Town’. Fort St George is where it all began. And the Fort, named after St George, was built with the simple intention of protecting the trading outpost and merchandise of the English from their formidable and troublesome neighbours. It was never constructed with the notion of military aggression.

Moses' army buttons and Rao's Red Buildings

2010-08-20T20:55:00.000+05:30

D. H. Rao, numismatist and philatelist, retored civil engineer and passionate heritage conservator has been at the head of the annual Exhibition of coins, stamps, pictures, books, maps and all things antique.

His equally passionate and devoted 'left hand' used to be Raja Seetharaman. We lost him two seasons ago in a freak accident soon after an eventful Madras Week.

Rao's new friends have given him support to carry on with this annual show and this year it is on at Bhavan's Rajaji Vidyashram in Kilpauk, with the hope that people of this area would step in and enjoy the rare exhibits.

Rao's extra to add to his display this year is his series on Red Buildings of the city. The GPO, State Bank of India, High Court and the Magistrates' Courts, Museum and lot on Patheon campus, etc etc.

Moses was new this year and his collection was small but unique. Buttons of men in the Band and the Artillery which he had picked up at the Pallavaram shady market a decade ago ("nowadays they sell only fowl, cages and plastic so we don't go there anymore", he said when he realised I would want to explore that weekly market. "Those days the Anglos used to sell off such things!"
Moses also had cute lamp stands and pens and a rice measure with ' Madras' markings etched on it.

I realised this Thursday evening how Madras Week seems to create the space for people to showcase objects, records and all things of the past that we would never have got to see.

An Aussie with a Cam

2010-08-20T20:35:00.000+05:30

Chitra has been playing host to talks every evening at her Palazzo Gallery on Seethammal Colony, Alwarpet.

It is a cosy space and I was there to attend a talk on the Anglo Indians in Madras by Dr. Beatrix D' Souza, former HoD of English at Presidency College, former Member of Parliament (nominated) and community activist who resides on San Thome's Custian Beach Road.

Betty, as friends know her had done a thorough job and delivered a very professorial talk with a dash of humor and space for debate.
We were about 18 or 20 in that small space and one man stood out - Nigel Foote from Melbourne, Australia. He had set up his small digicam at his seat and shot Betty's talk start to end.

This was a bonus for Nigel, whose host was Harry Maclure, Ed of 'Anglos in The Wind' magazine. Nigel said he could trace his roots to an Englishman who first sailed to Australia and then worked at the Fort St George, Madras.

Nigel wasn't exactly tracing his ancestors here. His mission was to do a recce of the pilgrimages made by people to the Vailankanni Church in Nagapattinam at this time of the year. A recce to plan for a full docu-film for Australians on this business of pilgrims walking for days on end for a purpose.

But to have Betty's talk on tape was a big bonus for Foote. His reward - Betty and Co. took him and friends to dinner at the Gymkhana Club on Island Grounds where over 70 years ago, the Anglos played the Big Band music.

From New York, with love!

2010-08-18T16:13:00.000+05:30

Ashwin Prabhu emailed from New York, USA. The mail says it all.
--------------

Hi Vincent,

I just had to drop a line to you and your team to wish you all luck in organizing this year’s Madras Week celebrations.

As you might know, I’ve relocated to New York with Citibank and moved here a couple of months back. As I read reports of the Madras week celebrations online, I’m overcome by an acute sense of nostalgia and wish I was back home in Madras to dive into the choc-a-bloc calendar of events this year. The fact that I’ll miss the Madras Day quiz for the first time in the last 6 years also hurts.
- Ashwin Prabhu

An example of quiet corporate support

2010-08-18T11:01:00.003+05:30

Although the catalysts or coordinators of Madras Week have never sought corporate support, I'd like to highlight the quiet support L&T-ECC has been providing over the years. This year, the organisation has been supporting the activities at the Sastri Hall in Mylapore, which saw a multimedia presentation by students yesterday. All this, thanks especially to the enthusiasm and drive shown by its PR and corporate communications chief, V.S. Ramana. May we have more like him, people who hold senior positions in organisations who are interested in a city's history and heritage and are willing to do their bit for its cause.

Schoolchildren do a fair job, but many flatter to deceive

2010-08-18T10:38:00.000+05:30

It’s been some time since I judged a children’s competition and it’s always something I like doing. Last year, I was one of the judges, along with Prema Kasturi, co-convenor of INTACH, and D.H. Rao, the heritage buff, at an exhibition by various school students, held at Padma Seshadri School, K.K. Nagar. There was also a wonderful exhibit by the peon in the school and we lauded him for his efforts. In such competitions, the children’s enthusiasm usually rubs off on you and many a time it is also a learning experience.

So, a couple of weeks ago, when Vincent D’Souza called to ask whether I’d be keen to judge a multimedia presentation on the heritage of Chennai by school students at Sastri Hall, I readily agreed. The objective was to encourage city school students to explore the city where they lived, focus on one aspect that interested them – buildings, monuments, religious places, housing colonies, cinema houses, schools, lakes, forested areas etc – and make a multimedia presentation. The contest was open to children of classes 8 to 12, and each school wanting to take part had to send a three-member team.

Padma Seshadri, Nungambakkam, with a one-and-a-half-member team (there were only two boys and one boy did most of the presentation), walked away with the first prize; the second and third prizes went to all-girls teams – Sri Sankara Vidyashram, Thiruvanmiyur; and St Columbans, George Town. Lady Andal and Kavi Bharathi Vidyalaya, Tiruvottiyur, were ranked fourth and fifth.

Overall, the teams performed well, save for Asan Memorial and Jawahar Vidyalaya (Ashok Nagar) who really didn’t do their homework the way they should have and occupied the places at the bottom. The team from Asan, with a subject that was worthy of a decent presentation, had not even visited the place and in my books the team should have been disqualified. After all, the whole idea was to get children to visit places, meet people, explore, ask questions and learn something. And not seeking help from the Internet or Google.

Despite the overall performance being fairly good, no presentation really left a lasting impression. A couple of teams had some wonderful subjects – Bridge House, Gun at the Fort, Hamilton Bridge – and they gained points for considering such subjects and researching them but their presentations did not quite match up.

Then there were others who talked about Senate House and Ice House, subjects that have been flogged a great deal, and it was no surprise then that their presentations were insipid. There were others whose presentations seemed almost like a PR exercise for the institution or school they covered. Chinmaya Vidyalaya students made it appear as if they were reading out the school prospectus or newsletter; another school did a similar job with the Ice House. They had lost sight of heritage and lost their way.

The other thing was that most students showed slide pictures, had a script running and narrated with a monotonous drawl. There was very little use of video or podcasting. In today's world of citizen journalism and OhMyNews, our children have a lot of catching up to do. Also, several teams started well, showed promise, but lost their way. I'm sure students, and their teachers, will take this as a learning experience and come up with a much improved all-round presentations next year.

When Chisholm, Anglo-Indians and graffiti came alive

2010-08-16T20:52:00.000+05:30

Well, it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Just when the visitors were seated and a candle was lit to signal the commencement of the weeklong programme during Madras Week at Studio Palazzo in Alwarpet, there was a power failure. Try as well as the hosts did, power did not return, there was no back-up, and so the audience had to make do with listening to Sriram in semi-darkness and craning their necks to see the pictures on his laptop. Like Ranjan De said, after all it was Madras Wea(e)k!

Well, the lights came on in the end and the visitors did not have to leave disappointed without seeing the pictures on display. There were three exhibitions: of photographs by Ranjan De, titled Graffiti on the Walls of Madras that is Chennai; another by Chitra Ragulan of letters, diaries, memorabilia and photographs of M Gurusamy Mudaliar, a supervisor of the Public Works Department who worked closely with Robert Chisholm (he pioneered the Indo-Saracenic style in Madras); and yet another on the Anglo-Indian community of Madras, pictures courtesy Harry MacLure, editor of that lovely magazine called Anglos in the Wind.

Sriram spoke about the “mysterious man” called Robert Chisholm, mysterious because not much is known about the man except that he first worked in the Public Works Department in Calcutta and then was transferred to Madras. From small beginnings he gained recognition and influence, ruffling many feathers in the department he served. Chisholm is well known for the architecture of the imposing Senate House in the University of Madras, but he was also instrumental in the building of the Victoria Public Hall, P Orr & Sons and the central dome of the Central Railway Station, among other buildings. His influence grew so much that he was made consulting architect for almost every building project in Madras. And, of course, even today we take his name.

What really caught my eye, however, was Ranjan De’s creative effort in capturing for posterity the graffiti on the walls of Chennai. He had spent about six months capturing the images, about 200 of them. What is on display is only a fraction – about a dozen. However, the pictures are reflective of not only the thoughts behind some of the images but also the supreme skills of the unknown artists. I suggested to Ranjan that he produce a book on the subject.

The pictures of the Anglo-Indians of Madras brought to mind my childhood in Calcutta – when several of my neighbours were Anglo-Indians. Up to the early 1980s at least, when I started working, there were pretty Anglo-Indian secretaries for most vice-presidents and CEOs. And they did a fantastic job as secretaries, answering calls on the phone politely, with voices that were charming and pleasant to the ear. Where are the Anglo-Indian secretaries today? Harry can correct me on this one. And yes, they contributed a lot to Indian business, even if was only bringing charm and colour to staid offices.

Of high tea, bloomers and Barack Obama

2010-08-13T20:41:00.001+05:30

The Madras Week press meet this year (on Wednesday) had a sizeable attendance. Satyan Bhatt and Parul who run Prism Public Relations do a fine job every time and this time was no different. All work for Madras Week is voluntary and the same goes for Prism; so keep the good work going, Satyan and Parul.

Every year we have a couple of press meets – one at the preliminary stage and the second once all the events are confirmed, and a week or so ahead of Madras Week. The second meet is usually held at the Taj Coromandel whose management is gracious to offer tea/coffee, soft drinks, biscuits and snacks. This time, there was quite a spread, a proper high tea, and the counters were open till the end.

The coverage in some of the leading English newspapers could have been better though. There were bloomers as well. For instance, one of the coordinators was referred to as an author, while he really wasn’t one. There was mention of an actor having addressed the audience; actually he was only doing a translation job. And one paper included bits from the press meet and an interview with the great granddaughter of a close associate of Robert Chisholm all in one story. The second could have been a separate piece and the press meet story should have carried more of what the speakers had said. Well!

Nevertheless, the media has been doing a fairly good job of covering Madras Week events the past few years. One paper I understand is planning wide coverage this year, so am looking forward to it.

As usual, some of us coordinators were called to speak before television cameras. And we did. Strangely though, one of the reporters from a channel asked me to speak about Barack Obama getting tough on outsourcing from India and how it would affect Indian IT firms. I didn’t know quite what to say, but found myself speaking on the subject as well. The reporter said he’d let me know when the programme would be telecast. Am still waiting...

Young people capture the spirit of Madras

2010-08-12T22:59:00.002+05:30

What is Madras to the young Chennaiites?
Though the children are used to referring to the city as Chennai, they look for interesting history about the places they take a walk down on the roads of Madras.

At the two photowalks that YOCee, a website for Chennai kids organised as a pre event of Madras week celebrations, the children captured the spirit of the city through their simple aim and shoot cameras.

When I approached N. Ramaswamy to lead the photowalk for kids, he was excited. Ram is a dedicated blogger chronicling the city in pictures through his blog http://chennaidailyfoto.wordpress.com.

The walk on Aug. 1 started at the famed Ratna Cafe in Triplicane and the kids walked shooting all that is Madras to them, through Pycrofts Road.

Over the next weekend, walking on the Poonamalle High Road was a different experience for a set of students from Maharshi Vidya Mandir, Chetpet, who participated as a group in the photowalk. Along with a few kids from Kilpauk were a couple of children from Mylapore and Adyar. They travelled all the way early in the morning to reach Ega theatre, the start point of the walk at 7 a.m.

The photos taken by children at these walks have been pooled and are printed for exhibition during the Madras Week at four different venues.

Three academic institutions - Maharshi Vidya Mandir, Lady Willingdon School, Anna University (School of Architecture) and the Alliance Francaise Madras have come forward to host exhibition of the photos.

A true coming together of celebrating the spirit of Madras.

The countdown is over... let the show begin

2010-08-12T22:49:00.001+05:30

It’s been quite a hectic week. In the midst of work pressure and deadlines to beat (writing-editing is tough sometimes), there were calls, calls and more calls. Calls from headmasters and principals in schools, PR managers, reporters, gallery owners… and a host of others. All to do with Madras Week, of course. When would the programme sheets be ready? Can we have the address and phone number of the speaker? When do we really start the programme? Will we have enough of a crowd? Do you think newspapers will report the event? Will you be there to help? These were some of questions I fielded, trying to be as helpful as possible. One person seemed to be bowled over by the apparent charm I exuded. “You’ve been a great help…” she said. I smiled as I dabbed a wet tissue on my face.

Well, we (Madras Week coordinators or catalysts) have indeed come a long way from 2004 when it all began. I still remember driving around town with Vincent D’Souza, tying the odd bits when calls would come every ten minutes asking us what Madras Day was all about, whether it was a competition, whether it was a sort of drama, and what people were expected to do. Madras Day was actually Vincent’s ‘brainchild’ – quite a few reporters use that word describing how it all started.

Today, most people I talk to have heard of Madras Day and Madras Week and, what’s more, they are keen to do their bit. Taking the lead here are some schools. Asan Memorial, for instance, has the event chalked out on the calendar and even before you call the principal early June, they are up and ready with a broad programme outline. This year, the Asan Arts and Science College in Pallikaranai is on the list. Lalitha, the assistant principal, called me a number of times as she did Suresh and Prema Kasturi of INTACH. The college was taking part for the first time and she was naturally a bit nervous. A few conversations, and she gained confidence. Her enthusiasm must have rubbed off on her colleagues, for the college is organising three events – an exhibition, a walk near the marsh and a food festival. The Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School in Egmore has come up with an excellent subject: An exhibition on Madras, the Coromandel trading post. So, more power to Suma Padmanabhan (principal of the school) and Lalitha.

Few people have been as sportive as Chitra Ragulan, and understanding as well. Back from the United States, she hardly had time to get things going. Something motivated her nevertheless – the discovery that her great grandfather was closely connected to Robert Chisholm who pioneered the Indo-Saracenic style in Madras (more about this in a later blog). Chitra will host two more exhibitions: one of photographs by Ranjan De, titled Graffiti on the Walls of Madras, and the other of the Anglo-Indian community in Madras. Well done, Chitra.

Gita, supremely talented self-taught artist who now works for DakshinaChitra, has always been very supportive. No sooner did I tell her about Madras Week than she organised a photography exhibition on Madras by three young photographers (Mani Maran, Nataraja Moorthy Kumar and Augustine Derrick) who have just obtained a degree in Fine Arts from the College of Art and Craft, Chennai. The subjects are based on happenings in and around the city. The exhibition at DakshinaChitra will open from 10am to 6pm.

Yifat, who runs Vanilla Children’s Place on Greenways Road (shifted from Mylapore), is always ready to be a part of Madras Week. Vanilla hosted shows the past year and this year they have lined up an interesting set of events – traditional games, art and craft, a talk on wildlife and performance by a mime artiste.

In Anna Nagar, it’s thanks to Ashok Kedia, now managing trustee of the Jaigopal Garodia Group of Schools, and Vijayakumar, principal of the Anna Nagar school, that programmes are being held in that part of town.

In Vadapalani, it’s Krishna Kumar (or KK), general manager at Hotel Green Park, who books the hall for you months ahead of Madras Week, and Binita, Shrimati and Jeeva Raghunath who together produce some absolutely marvellous programmes for children. This year, there’s a craft workshop while Bommi & Friends will take visitors on a tour of the Kodambakkam. The icing on the cake will be back-to-back talks – by V. Sriram (Chennai, the Crazy City) and Chitra Madhavan (Temples along ECR). All this on Madras Day, August 22. Not to be missed for anything.

Send us your reports, pictures please

2010-08-12T21:29:00.000+05:30

Madras Week is rolling.
And it will roll real fast.
While we continue to update the web site in ways we can we have a big request.
If you happen to attend an event please jot a few lines, take some fun pictures and email them to us - madrasday@yahoo.com.

We need your inputs to build the reportage as and when it happens. There are hundreds of people outside the city and around the world who are enjoying every bit of this event and they will be pleased you too did your two bit!

So please file and mail and post.

As the dailies reported the press-con we had yesterday, calls came from far and near after people had read the Tamil dailies. They wanted to know what Madras Day / Chennai Dinam is all about.
I hope the dailies devote more space to this event because people are keen to know and get involved.

The man who heads the online operations at 'Dina Malar' had a chat to share ideas. He hopes to start a section on Madras Day / Ol' Madras on their web site.

Positive indeed.

Madras Week Press Conference

2010-08-11T22:40:00.002+05:30

The Madras Day co-ordinators formally announced the launch of the Madras Week celebrations at a press conference held today. Prism PR and Taj Coromandel volunteered to oragnaise the event as part of their contribution to the city's celebrations.City historian S. Muthiah asked the press to carry the events on their papers the previous day to help the public plan their day in advance. Journalist Vincent D' Souza highlighted the participation of the young people and children in the celebrations. Another journalist Sashi Nair recollected the Madras Day celebration initiated in 2004 and its growth to a month long celebration now.

Actor Mohan Raman and S. Suresh, convenor, INTACH also briefed the press of the events lined up for the Madras Week.

Special T-Shirts - one designed by Chennai Heritage and another with the prize winning design of the contest held last year were released on the occasion.

Madras T-shirts Ready!

2010-08-02T22:01:00.000+05:30

Madras Day T-shirts have arrived at my office in Alwarpet.
They are in 3 sizes - M, L and XL with M size best for teenagers!
They are in white and in black.
And they carry the prize winning design - I think we have posted a sample on the 2010 T-shirt contest link on the Madras Day web site.

Rs.150 is the selling price.

We hope to have them sold at most Madras Day events.
You can also drop by at the office - 77, C P Ramaswamy Road (Coproration Complex), metres from the Alwarpet flyover), Alwarpet. Open from 10.30am to 5 pm., Mon to Sat.

Mylapore or Triplicane?

2010-07-29T20:26:00.003+05:30

N. Ramaswamy is a regular participant in the Chennai Photowalks put together by a group of photo enthusiasts. They also love their city, Chennai.
Ram preserves his visual documents of the city on his blog.
"The Photo walk is a simple concept, carry a camera, walk along a designated route and click pictures along the way," says Srivatsan of Chennai Photowalks in his mail confirming their walk schedule for the Madras Week.
Most of the time it is kids who love to aim and shoot when there is a camera around and I think that they too deserve an exclusive photowalk. But a guided one.
Friend Ramaswamy came to my mind for implementing the idea since his 11 year old son accompanies him whenever he can on the photowalks.
When I bounced this idea to Ram, he gladly volunteered.
We exchanged mails suggesting routes on Google maps and narrowed down to one walk in the south Madras and one more in the other part of the city.
What could be the route in south Madras? The Mylapore area or the Triplcane roads?
Both of us agreed that Triplicane has more to explore as Mylapore has been the favourite destination for photo enthusiasts always and a fairly large documentation is available to us.
On the other side Poonamallee High Road has a lot to kindle the curiosity of children on its entire stretch.
But kids need to walk with cameras. So we decided to do a shorter length.
The walks are scheduled for Aug. 1 and 8.
Many children have registered for the PH Road walk and Triplicane walk register is slowly filling up.
We say the parents can accompany the children but the kids will do the click!
If you want to host an exhibition of good pictures that will be shot at this walk, contact us by mail. madrasday@yahoo.com

Exploring St. Thomas Mount

2010-07-26T20:01:00.000+05:30

Richard O' Connor works for the Customs at the Airport.
He is also an active catalyst in the Anglo-Indian community.

I met Richard when the Anglo musicians were jamming at Vincent's studio in Kodambakkam, to prepare for the 'Blazing Guitars' show at Museum Theatre, Egmore in early July which went on to be another packed hit for 'Anglos in The Wind' and its promoter, Harry Maclure.

I was busy working on our docufilm on Anglo musicians in this city, hoping we could make it in time for the Madras Day docu screeninngs. Richard emceed the show but I had some thing else for him.

I coaxed him to be an informal guide for a possible heritage walk of St. Thomas Mount. He got quizzical and interested and this past Sunday, we spent an hour charting out a route and earning the stares and looks of local residents and a few nuns who were hurrying for Holy Mass at St. Patricks that evening.

Richard, his family and his folks live on the Hill. And he and his dad know a bit about the local history. this being the 2nd oldest Cantonnment in India.

We have decided to stick to a short tour of the area but it will include a walk up to the top of the hill and a walk down via the stairs that Petrus Uscan, the giant Armenian merchant donated to our city, amongst other civic works.

Richard has stories to tell. He met a young Burmese who came to the area looking for her roots! Didn't the church rehabilitate some Catholic refugees at the foothills?

This may well be a tiring walk but it will have its rewards. I am happy I have got new faces to do their thing for Madras Week!

As I blog, Srivats of the Chennai Photo Walks mails to say that the group has planned a walking tour of this area that Sunday morn. Should we change our start point, asks Srivats.

No, just enjoy yourselves.

A great grandfather rediscovered

2010-07-24T19:14:00.001+05:30

One of the very special things you feel while doing your bit for Madras Day and Madras Week is the warmth you receive from people and their willingness to cooperate to make the celebrations a success. Most people are keen to offer space, be it a gallery or home or terrace, to contribute and do something. There is no commercial aspect here, no talk of money really. Even those who conduct programmes for children willingly spend their own money for travel and purchase of necessary material. Of course, in case it is a craft or painting workshop, I always tell the person conducting it that he or she can ask the children to bring the basic stuff, so that one person need not spend all the money.

Nobody has asked me all these years: What is the benefit we get? That is the question we normally expect when people are called to do something. So, in a sense, Madras Day and Madras Week are different. It is the love for a city that brings people together. There are so many interesting people you meet, and so many interesting things you learn about the city during the week, which is fast extending into a fortnight.

What is also heartening is the fact that many people I have met or spoken to this year are already looking forward to attending Madras Week events; evidently, the August celebrations have registered in many minds. The other day, I bumped into a person who lives a few blocks away. He came running up to me wanting to know what were the events lined up at Hotel Green Park this year.

Well, I get a hunch that one of the talking points this year is certainly going to be an exhibition planned at Studio Palazzo in Alwarpet. Chitra, president of the Zonta Club in Chennai, who runs the gallery, recently made some discoveries about her great grandfather, a man who quietly assisted in the furnishing and completion of Senate House, between 1869 and 1873.

M Guruswamy Mudaliar worked as supervisor in the Public Works Department, and Chitra now tells me that he was the “right-hand man” of none other than famed architect Robert Chisholm who pioneered the Indo-Saracenic style. What’s more, Chitra’s great grandfather was presented a silver watch by the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. And it is some of the letters exchanged during the period between Chisholm and her great grandfather and others, as well as pictures, that Chitra will display at her gallery.

So, this is a must-visit venue. Although the exhibits may not number many, it will certainly, I’m sure, open up yet another interesting facet of the city from the past.

Was it a woman who attracted agents of the East India Company?

2010-07-21T13:48:00.001+05:30

Among a few of us, the catalysts, the Madras Week or Madras Day fever sets in early June. This year was no different with a meeting at Mr Muthiah’s home to discuss a broad outline of possible programmes. The small core group of catalysts hasn’t grown too much over the years we’ve been celebrating the founding of the city – Madras that is Chennai. So, within manageable confines, we together try our best to organise various programmes in the city, progarmmes that have to do with creating an awareness about the city’s heritage.

As usual, first off the blocks in my list was Suma Padmanabhan, principal of Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School. When I called her mid-June, she had already had a first meeting with the school heads to decide what to do this year. And it is Madras as a Coromandel trading post they chose as the subject. There will also be an exhibition on traditional occupations of Madras and its trade.

The subject was probably easy to choose, but to work out the theme in detail and decide how to go about, Suma sought my help and I in turn suggested she or her team meet Mr Muthiah. So, over a cup of milky tea at the historian’s home, three Asan Memorial School teachers and I listened to stories of old being recounted even as two students tried their best to keep pace with what was being said.

I may not be a storyteller but as much as I love reading stories of old, I love to hear them being told. It was therefore an afternoon well spent, listening to how Madras was in many ways instrumental in building today’s India, the “first city of modern India” as Mr Muthiah calls it always.

The English came initially to trade, and colonizing the country was the last thing on their minds then. It was only after trade and consolidation that around 1857 or so, after the Sepoy Mutiny, that the concept of Empire dawned. So, the British ruled India only for about a century, not from 1639 when the city was born after Francis Day and Andrew Cogan of the East India Company sank roots on “no man’s sand” thanks to Beri Thimmappa (Thimmanna), the Dubash who acted as an honest broker. The British rulers overseas were not too happy with the choice of land for a trading post, but they let go and that was how Madras came about.

Some of us still float in that spicy rumour of old – that Day had a mistress in these parts and it was the young lady who must have prompted him to choose the Madras sands. So, probably it was a woman after all who was instrumental in founding the city. One will never know for sure. But there’s no harm fantasising on a romance of old – some romance it must have been!

New Special Postal Cover

2010-07-19T19:56:00.000+05:30

There will be another special postal cover for Madras Day 2010.
The theme - Commerce.
Philatelist and numismatist D. Hemachander Rao is hard at work on the design and promises a top class product - a collector's item.

We intend to post the images of the previous covers on the Madras Day web site soon. A few are still on sale.
If you collect such stuff, buy them now.

Children explore Fort Time Gun and Trisulam Hill

2010-07-16T20:55:00.004+05:30

Does Brodie's Castle make a good subject?
Has the Parsi Fire Temple already been taken?
Can we do a presentation on the Fort Time Gun?

These are questions from kids and their teachers.
They are for the multimedia presentation contest for school children on the Heritage of Chennai.

The contest encourages the students to explore the history and heritage behind the lesser known landmarks and organisations in Chennai city.
This presentation contest is in its fourth year. And every year twenty teams come up with twenty different topics. We restrict the registration to twenty on first come first serve basis. because the contest is held for a full day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. More the entries longer the day!

Till today 18 teams have registered and now we are left with just two slots for just two teams.
The enthusiastic teams from Sri Sankara Senior sec. School, Adyar were disappointed when we said only one team from each school can participate. They rephrased their query, "Can there be more than three members in a team? We have a lot to present!"

The details of the contest are on the website.

The Chennai Tee!

2010-07-14T13:23:00.000+05:30

The new T-shirt of Chennai is getting ready.
We will be using the prize winning design of Ms Sonali that she sent in for the 2009 contest.
It is simple but evocative and we are trying it out on a black Tee and a white Tee.

I guess the black will be more appealing.
We should have the new Yees on sale by end July.

If you are creaqtive do enter the 2010 Tee Contest. Info at the web site - www.themadrasday.in

Calls from Royapuram and Nanganallur

2010-07-14T13:17:00.000+05:30

A womens group from the CSI Rainy Hospital region is excited - it decided to treat its Aug 15 events as Madras Day celebrations and has this as the theme.
Dances, pageants, quiz, painting and food . . .
They wanted suggestions - so I suggested that they hold an exhibition of all the less known landmarks in that area.

A residents' association from Nanganallur made contact - it is an umbrella for about 700 families.
Could they start a local history archives project?
We can try, they said.
This could be part of the common events they plan to host.

Madras Day should be the start of some thing substantial too.
Local archives is one project to give serious though to.

Shooting Anglo Indian musicians for a Docu

2010-07-09T20:32:00.000+05:30

Madras' omnipresent videographer Mohan Das Vadakara never says 'no' when you want to film something.
So when Harry Maclure of 'Anglos in the Wind', a magazine for the Anglos around the world mailed me an invite for a music show on Saturday (July 12) our minds raced.

Could we use this opportunity to do a docu-film on Anglos in Music in Madras?

Mohan was out with his Panasonic even before we gave it a second thought. He already has footage of jazz artiste Frank Dubier at a show and at a jam session and here was another chance to get some footage of the young and the senior Anlgo Indan musicians rehearse for the Country and Western show at Museum Theatre, Egmore this weekend.

It will be a sellout, I learn.

Our two spells of shoot have worked well and if we can do another good spell at the show and do the interviews quickly we should have this film ready to screen for the Madras Docu Fest in August.

If you are itching to do a film too, check out the offer we have for you on the web site.
But don't ask for Vadakara!
Can you shoot with a Nokia? Sure!

Press Conf: Preview Show

2010-07-08T19:11:00.000+05:30

We had a press conference on July 7 to annouce the Madras Week dates and to send out an invitation to the city.

As always, our host was Prism, the PR agency that Satyan and Parul run in Egmore, opposite the famed Rajarathinam Stadium, once a haunt for athletes of all kinds and a venue where I won a certificate in the discuss throw! ( the stadium is now in a shambles)

In the chair was historian S. Muthiah and we also had S R Madhu, now an active Rotarian and R. Revathi who runs the website - www.yocee.in - for children of this city.

We are trying to get the English and Thamizh media to report Madras Week closely and they are warming up nicely. At least 4 newspapers put out reports on this alert.

Today, a production associate at Aaha FM called me for a 'byte' that will go on Suchi's Breakfast Show on Friday. Yes, all the local radio stations have also warmed up to this event and that is encouraging.

If you blog, write, freelance or work for media do write on this special event. It is becoming the biggest of its kind at least in India!

Madras Day 2010 - Celebrations Aug.15 to 22

2010-06-08T20:25:00.000+05:30

This is official!
The Madras Day celebrations for 2010 will be held from August 15 to 22, Sunday to Sunday.

This was decided at an informal meet at the residence of S. Muthiah, the city chronicler.
The core catalysts behind this event have listed of 'must do' assignments for the season ahead and will be inviting clubs, schools and colleges, associations, institutions and the rest to host their own events in August.

So if you are keen to host one, start thinking and planning and keep us posted.

Ducumentary films on Madras

2010-04-05T11:52:00.003+05:30

As a prelude to the MADRAS DAY 2010 celebrations due in August, a screening and discussion
on Documentaries on Madras / Chennai was held on April 3, 2010 at the Alliance Franciase - Madras auditorium.

Three recently made docu films were screened on that day.

One on a Catholic Community’s Feast. The film documents a small community which settled in San Thome celebrating its traditional feast dedicated to saint Lazar, patron of the lepers in Mandavelipakkam.

A film on Kannagi Nagar made by the students of the Media department, Madras University describing the life in a sprawling colony on the southern suburbs of the city which has been promoted by the state was also part of the Docu Film festival.

Also, the 3rd film was on the Panguni Fest of Sri Kapali Temple, Mylapore where Mohan Das Vadakara records the sounds, sights and colours of this annual fest.

After the screening of the films, Vincent D' Souza, one of the anchor persons behind the Madras Day celebrations interacted with the audience and encouraged the interested people to make more documents on the city of Chennai. He offered support to the docu film makers in developing the ideas, providing possible resources and tech support.

Interested persons can contact by email to madrasday@yahoo.com

Madras Day 2009; feedback

2009-09-01T16:12:00.002+05:30

I think Madras Day 2009 seems to have left a firm impression in the minds of many people.

Over the last fortnight, people have been telling me how widespread, varied and different the Madras Day concept has gone on to be. Others say that it will now occupy a permanent place in the city calendar.

Many others have understood the concept and hope to become part of it next year.

Some people felt that there were too many events and so, they couldn't make the best of most of them. Some felt the organisers of these events may be working at cross purposes by organising dozens of events in a week.

There are others who point out that communities in areas like Adyar and Anna Nagar, Perambur and Royapuram, Triplicane and Mint are yet to be seen in the Madras Day scheme of events.

There were people who sought help / aid / direction / guidance on how they could become part of the Madras Day event.

All I can say is that Madras Day will be a unique process.

Madras Rediscovered in Tamil

2009-08-28T11:23:00.001+05:30

Bringing up the finale as it were on the last day of what was a hectic Madras Week was the Madras Book Club, with the launch at the Taj Connemara of the Tamil translation of S Muthiah’s Madras Rediscovered. There were some sterling speeches by Prof. V.C. Kulandaiswamy, chairman, Tamil Virtual University, who launched the book, and Dr V. Irai Anbu, secretary (tourism and culture), Govt of Tamil Nadu.

But the honours must go to Badri Seshadri, publisher, New Horizon Media, for bringing out the 600-page book at an economical price, C.V. Karthik Narayanan for translating the book and, of course, Muthiah himself for having taken the initiative, I’m sure, of making it all happen. With this offering, prospects of the city’s history being read by many more people are bright indeed.

Reminiscing about his entry into the world of writing, printing and publishing as an eight-year-old, Muthiah said it all had to do with his joining a new preparatory school, St Thomas’s, in Ceylon (where he grew up and which is still his first love) where a teacher named W.T. Keble proved to be the greatest influence on his life. Keble got the children to read, and told them the histories of Ceylon and England as interesting stories of countries, unlike what is done in most school classrooms today. Later, when Muthiah wrote Ceylon Beaten Track, he found Keble’s influence on almost every page.

Muthiah arrived in Madras in 1968, to take over T.T. Maps and Publications, a TTK Group company then, and it was while bringing out a booklet with a large map of Madras that he discovered a city and its history, and from then on there was no looking back…

City Documentaries; lets make more

2009-08-26T18:04:00.003+05:30

When you have 40 people at a screening of docu-films on Madras, you are blessed!

And it also warms the hearts of the few who take the trouble to produce these films.

On August 23 afternoon, we screened five films including a short one made by a team of city school students.

The other films were on a woman who stands for election to the City Council, on the fate of people displaced from the seashore and canal banks in the city, on well known abstract artist Achuthan Kudallur, a short, warm one on the traditions at Heber Hall of Madras Christian College and one on the first Rainbow Parade organised by the LGBT community in the city and held on the Marina beach.

Alliance Francaise, Chennai was the gracious host and collaborator.

Very few people are passionate about working on docu-films. But this effort is a start. . .we need to make many films on Madras that is Chennai. If you are keen, e-mail us at madrasday@yahoo.com. Our intention is to screen one or two city-based docus once in 2/3 months and build a community.

Fascinating Exhibition in Mylapore

2009-08-26T17:03:00.002+05:30

D. H. Rao and his band of heritage lovers did a fine job in holding yet another exhibition at P. S. School campus in Mylapore.

Rao sends out a call to his friends in the philately and numismatics world to lend a hand. Some do. And they present an exhibition.

On the face of it, this may appear to be a standard show. Not quite.

There are some fascinating exhibits.

One was a booklet issued by the Slum Clearance Board, perhaps in the 70s. The pictures of city slums - in Palakkuma Nagar and Nochi Nagar - record the pathetic conditions in which people lived in. Another was a set of photo copies of trams in our city. Another was a set of print ads issued by Amrutanjan.

Rao has the Special Cover that was released on the occasion of Madras Day 2009. Call him at 98408 70172 if you want to buy a cover. The theme is Old Bridges of Madras.

Schools present City Landmarks

2009-08-26T16:43:00.003+05:30

This is now a Madras Day regular.

The contest for city schools to present less known heritage/landmarks of the city.

We began this contest many years ago as an event at which schools presented models of landmarks. We then moved on to ask school teams to go out and research on their themes, create Power Point presentations and present them at a day-long event.

20 schools signed up for this year's contest which was held at Srinivasa Sastri Hall. Luz. The judges were Dr. Balambal and Vincent D' Souza.

The top winner was the team from Kavi Bharathi Vidhyalaya from Thiruvottriyur. Its students presented the history of the Old Jail in our city, now the campus of Bharathi Womens College in north Madras.

The team from Sri Sankara Vidhyashram, Thiruvanmiyur bagged the second prize and that of Sri Sankara Senior in Adyar the third prize.

With films and food you can't go wrong

2009-08-26T11:53:00.001+05:30

The finale to Madras Week celebrations at Hotel Green Park was a wonderful presentation by Mohan Raman, a familiar face on television. He has acted in more than 100 films and 5,000 episodes, he says. Mohan collects stamps that are related to films; he is also a corporate trainer who uses cinematic tools to communicate.

A word also about the food festival that Hotel Green Park hosted through the week. Most nights saw the tables packed, with more than 100 people visiting to taste the cuisines of the Madras Presidency. Rohit Jha, food and beverage manager, and Chef Amsa deserve kudos for planning and executing the festival in style. Krishna Kumar, general manager, who has been taking the initiative each year in getting Madras Week celebrations organised at Green Park, has plans for more authentic food fare next year.

A poignant moment as Oxygen sings the Chennai anthem

2009-08-26T11:05:00.003+05:30

It was a special moment that evening during Madras Day, when music band Oxygen sang the Chennai anthem. Members of the group were friends of young Vikram who had composed the song’s music. There was a hushed silence as the opening lines of the song, Vandanam, vandanam, Chennaikku vandanam, vandarai vazhavaikkum, panbukku vandanam, rent the air. And rousing applause as Vikram’s picture was projected at the end of the song.

A road accident had claimed Vikram’s life, but his contribution will be always remembered and we hope that his dreams of a better and greener Chennai will be realised some day soon. Vikram had composed the original music for the song. He was passionate about the city and its people and was keen on pursuing the technical line in films and music.

The song (lyrics by C. R. Anandan, in Tamil) talks about the Fort St. George, the city slum dwellers, the Marina Beach, the Covelong Beach, and the Cooum and Adyar Rivers. The song urges Chennaites to preserve nature’s gifts.

Earlier, Oxygen began with Nagumomu, a Carnatic track of saint Thyagaraja. The band gave it a special flavour by creating a subtle Western mood to the song. The krithi was played in the traditional format by the violin, with the melodion adding a unique flavour to the melody.

Owing to a sound system problem, the band missed playing Vandemataram, which talks about youth empowerment. It is one of the songs in the album ‘Ooh la la la’ that was released by A. R. Rahman recently.

Members of the Oxygen band who performed included Harish (melodion), Karthick Iyer (violin), Vijaykrishnan (keyboard) Ethiraj (mridangam) and Subu and Vijay Narain (vocal).

Directors, technicians, actors get nostalgic, recall the romance of filmmaking

2009-08-25T12:55:00.001+05:30

Talking at Hotel Green Park about another age in the Kodambakkam studios, and about their experiences, were ten people closely associated with the film industry – Balraj, costume designer, Premkumar, cinematographer, Rajendran, make-up artiste, Jana, art director, Jananathan, film director, G. B. Vijay, film director and ad filmmaker, J. K., art director, Karthik Raghunath, film director, Ragavendra Rao, actor and lyricist, and Vasantha Anand, actor.

Ragavendra Rao started his career at the age of five and had worked with directors like Puttanna; he later turned lyricist. J. K. attended a screen test; people said he resembled kutti Sivaji, but he was turned down. He was the first in his family to enter films.

An emotional Karthik said he was born in cinema. He had told his mother soon after graduation that he wished to join the industry. Backed by her, the idea was put forward to his father, who said: “Understand cinema, and every aspect of it before you enter.” That was how he began assisting his father (T. R. Raghunath). Of course, he received offers from established companies, but he chose to remain in filmdom where his heart lay. Karthick also spoke of how great stars such as M.G.R and Sivaji would come home and how he grew up knowing nothing except cinema.

Balraj recalled how he was made to climb up a tree in Ooty’s cold, to portray an adivasi in a scene. That was when he decided to give up acting and moved to being a costume designer.

Vijay pointed out that where Hotel Green Park stood, was the canteen of Vauhini studios that served two idlis for five paise. He spoke of the thoughtfulness of the filmmakers of those days to provide excellent food at a subsidised rate.

Rajendran spoke of his struggles as a make-up man. He had to do odd jobs before eventually settling down. Jana mentioned how he was given no salary but Rs 2 daily with which he used to buy tea for 75 paise and a snack, enough to get back home.

Jananathan spoke of how actors, technicians and directors in those days allowed their protégés to grow. Vasanth narrated his theatre experiences in Singapore, as a young boy in a co-ed school. When once somebody called him the Sivaji Ganesan of Singapore, he replied that he hadn’t even risen to the actor's ankles.

J. K. also spoke of an instance when the assistant director was asked to stand on guard at the entrance and not to allow anyone inside. The art director's assistance themselves were denied entrance. Such was the devotion of assistants then, he said.

How the studios came to Kodambakkam

2009-08-25T12:14:00.001+05:30

The studios of Kodambakkam have a fascinating history. According to Randor Guy, film historian, during World War II, the Madras Electric Supply Corporation (MESC) had built a power house in the area, but there were no takers for the energy. The film studios were then encouraged to set shop there. And that was how the studios of Kodambakkam came about.

However, in 1935, A Ramaiah from Thanjavur had already established the first studio, Star Combines, near the Vadapalani bus terminus, which then marked the end of city limits. Gradually several studios came up – Rohini, Film Centre (set up by Majid), Bharani Studios (Bhanumathy Ramakrishna), Vikram Studios (B. S. Ranga, ace cameraman, producer-director), Paramount which later became Majestic Studios (Muthukumarappa Reddiar) Golden Studios, Vasu Studios (Vasu Menon) and Karpagam Studios (K. S. Gopalakrishnan). But they were all dwarfed by two giants - Vauhini Studios (B. Nagi Reddy), the biggest in Asia then with 13 studio floors, and AVM Studios (A.V. Meiyappan), the second largest in the city, with six studio floors.

“Most studios then were self-contained and had the latest equipment although importing stuff was difficult. You could go with a script and a team, shoot on the floor, use the editing room and the laboratory,” says Karthick Raghunath, film director, who has experienced life in the Kodambakkam film studios ever since he was five. There was really no shooting at actual locales then. It was only in the 1970s that filmmakers ventured out of the studios of Kodambakkam. But there was always a great demand for studio floor space.

Recalling the years he spent on various sets watching his father, TR Raghunath, well-known erstwhile film director who made his first film in 1937, Karthick says that a director then had to know all the nuances of film-making – editing, photography, script writing and laboratory practice. “In the black-and-white film era, when the speed of running film was slow and heavy lighting was needed, it called for vivid imagination and extraordinary judgment, and technicians had both in abundance. There was immense respect for directors,” he says.

Capturing the spirit of Ghoda Bagh, films of 1960s-70s shot in Kodambakkam studios

2009-08-25T11:57:00.001+05:30

The subject chosen by Spring into Reading for this year’s Madras Week was Kodambakkam and the life in the film studios there. According to P Venkataraman, who was a Kodambakkam resident for 52 years, the place was originally a part of Shrotrium Village in Puliyur Kottam, one of the 24 subdivisions of Thondainadu. There are several versions of how the name Kodambakkam came about – a corrupted form of Ghoda Bagh, the place where horses were reared during the time of the Nawab of Arcot; the sthalapuranam of one of the two Siva temples in the area (it is said that Lord Shiva turned the Meru Mountain into a bow; in Tamil, mountain is kodu, bow is ambu); after Karkodiyan, a descendant of Adisesha who is worshipped as Lord Narayana at the temple in Sivan Koil Street.

A few decades ago, there was no Kodambakkam Bridge; there was the ‘Periye gate’ near the track that people used, to cross. There were plenty of gypsies at the spot and always a crowd at the railway gate watching film stars waiting to cross once the trains passed, says Karthick Raghunath, film director and son of erstwhile ace director TR Raghunath, who has spent more than four decades in the Kodambakkam studios. There were no proper roads, no drainage or water supply. The area was full of palm and coconut trees. The rainy season saw waist-deep water everywhere. The area where the potters trade today was marshy land, almost a lake. Even in 1947, buses would stop at the Vadapalani Temple. Passing garland sellers and jatkas (horse carriages), people walked to the Vauhini Studios.

Chef Amsa at Hotel Green Park recalls how he and his friends used to walk from Royapettah to watch movies at the Pankajam touring talkies near Arunachalam Road. They paid 25 paise for a thara (sitting on the sand) ticket or one rupee if they wanted to sit on a chair.

Recapturing the spirit of Ghoda Bagh and the songs and scenes shot in the studios were students from the Dr M. G. R. Janaki School for the Hearing and Speech Impaired, Ramavaram, and the Dr. M. G. R. Janaki College of Arts and Science for Women, Adyar.

When puppets brought the show alive

2009-08-25T00:55:00.000+05:30

One of the efforts of Madras Week coordinators has been to get children involved in as many activities as possible. In the Vadapalani area, playing that role the past few years has been Spring into Reading, an activity centre for children. Every year, Hotel Green Park plays host, thanks to Krishna Kumar, the general manager, and his wonderful team, including Ravi, chef Amsa and others. And every year, at programmes conducted by Binita and Shrimati of Spring into Reading, puppetry workshops and storytelling, there is packed attendance; there are more people for these shows than there are for the finale, which is usually a talk or presentation by a well-known speaker. This year, too, the story proceeded according to script, but even Krishna Kumar and his team might not have anticipated the kind of response that the events for children generated last Saturday afternoon.

Like last year, Bhanumathi’s puppetry workshop kick-started events. The theme this year was ‘flora and fauna’, more of fauna actually. Children – there were more than 30 of them – arrived with charts, colour pencils, scissors, glue… the works. Soon, part of the stage and the floor area next to it came alive with children drawing and colouring shapes of animals, turning them into puppets and lining up to show their creations to Bhanumathi.

And, perhaps for the first time this year during Madras Week, there were cries of ‘Happy birthday, Chennai’. The children chorused in unison to wish the city on its 370th anniversary.

Special fare at La Boulangerie

2009-08-23T23:03:00.000+05:30

A visit to Vanilla Children Place is often not quite complete without a snack or a cup of Cappuccino at the fairly popular French café there. For Madras Week, La Boulangerie came up with an offering of old-time bakery specials, Madras specials and Raj fare. Adding to the nostalgia were some fine sketches of Madras buildings, by the gifted artist Amalore.

From Avadi to the Marina, a bicycle rally

2009-08-23T22:53:00.000+05:30

VSSS Alumni, a forum for the past pupils of the Vijayantha Senior Secondary School School on the Heavy Vehicles Factory campus in Avadi organised a bicycle rally on Madras Day (August 22). The rally began at the Avadi Rountana and proceeded to the lighthouse on the Marina. The objective: to create an awareness about global warming and the measures to be protect the earth by using, for instance, bicycles for travel up to 5 km and public transport for longer distances, and also exploring possibilities of car/two-wheeler pooling.

The exercises showed how the local community can come together and contribute to Madras Week celebrations. M. Kathiravan, editor, Town News, and V. Nandakumar, dy. Commissioner, Income Tax, Chennai, flagged off the rally. Present at the Vijayantha School before the bicycles started on their journey were P. Omana, headmistress; James, headmaster; K. Vasantha, headmistress; S. Kalaivani, founder, Lokamathra Charitable Trust; S.K. Sivakumar, manager, NICT; Hari Babu, manager, Aptech; and D. Gopinath, manager, S.S.S. Computer Education.

Enthused by the response, P. Jayakumar, president, VSSS Alumni, and G. Aejaz Sheriff, treasurer, plan to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the school by getting the old students to attend.

Packed house at Garodia School to see pictures of old Madras

2009-08-23T21:21:00.000+05:30

It was a packed hall at the Jaigopal Garodia Vivekananda Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Anna Nagar. There were students, teachers and visitors waiting for D. Krishnan, picture editor of The Hindu, to make his presentation on ‘Pictures of the Madras Presidency’. Ashok Kedia, trustee, and G. Vijayakumar, principal of the school, are always excellent hosts and this year, too, they had done a fine job ensuring that everything was in place.

Krishnan’s pictures showed the Madras of the old and the new. The comparison was stark – there are fewer trees today, less walking space on roads, there is more congestion everywhere, and laidback life of the 1960s-70s have disappeared.

Some interesting pictures included the Bank of Madras (headquartered then in Calcutta) on First Line Beach (1896), the Arbuthnot Bank building (1904), which Indian Bank later took over, the Madras Harbour of 1895, Esplanade Road (1910) where none of the old buildings, except the Anderson Church, has survived, the Officers’ Mess (now the Fort Museum) in 1912, the Napier Bridge (1895), Senate House (1890) and the Chepauk Palace, the Southern Railway headquarters (1925), the Buckingham Canal on which 1,200 boats ferried people and goods everyday once, from Madras to Kakinada, the Victoria Hall (1887), a bodyguard at the entrance to Rajaji Hall, and the Roundtana on Mount Road.

INTACH competition in schools a success, despite virus scare

2009-08-23T20:05:00.001+05:30

One of the big successes of Madras Week this year has been the participation by schools and colleges in essay writing and drawing competitions, debates and exhibitions. More than 100 schools and colleges would have taken part by the time the exercise, being conducted by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), gets over by the first week of September. Sankara Vidyashram in Thiruvanmiyur had sought postponement for a while, the reason for the exercise not getting over during Madras Week.

It is a remarkable achievement, considering that the city, like many others in India, was in the midst of the H1N1 virus scare, with several students reporting sick and being asked to go home. There were reports of low attendance in some schools. Also, many schools had their calendars chock-a-bloc with the usual annual events. However, all of them were keen to be a part of Madras Week. So, from Velliyan Chettiar School in Thiruvottriyur to Sankara Vidyashram in Thiruvanmiyur, and from Vel’s Vidyashram in Pallavara to MCtM Senior Secondary School in Purasawalkam, scores of children wrote, drew, debated and exhibited.

Broadly, the theme centred on coins, in memory of Raja Seetharaman, a well known coin collector and active member of INTACH. ‘Coins of the Madras Presidency’ was the theme for the exhibition, ‘An autobiography in the life of a coin in Chennai city’ was the topic given for the essay competition, ‘Will plastic money replace coins’ was the subject for debate.

A word also about two committed people from INTACH who made all this possible – S. Suresh, convener for the Chennai Chapter, and Prema Kasturi, co-convener. Not only did they put together the entire programme for the schools and colleges (college celebrations of celebrate Madras Week will take off later this week), both of them visited the various institutions before and during the week. Travelling to places such as Pallavaram and Thiruvottriyur isn’t easy, but they accomplished what they set out to do. There were small problems, of course – not even being provided water or a cup of tea in one or two schools, or being asked by the school to catch an auto from the suburbs to the city. But Suresh and Prema did not mind at all and bore all that in fine spirit.

I visited the Padma Seshadri School in KK Nagar on August 20 to have a look at the exhibition of coins. The Jubilee Hall was not packed to capacity as it normally is. That was because of the H1N1 virus scare. But the participants were keen. The school was the hub or nodal school for the area. K. Anjana and K. Arjun from Jawahar Vidylaya bagged the first two spots in the essay-writing contest; Sai Vinai of Pon Vidyashram and Vasudha Misra of PSBB, KK Nagar shared the third prize. R. Sudarsan and M. A. Vaidyanathan of Jawahar Vidyalaya won the first two prizes, respectively, in the coin exhibition; the third prize went to Varsha Hari of PSBB, KK Nagar. The students were all from Classes 7 and 8.

It was good to see Y. G. Rajendraa, management representative, PSBB Group of Schools, dropping by to motivate the children. It was also heartening to see the school attendant, Venkatesh, present with his display of old coins. He was an avid coin collector even as a youngster, he said.

Later, addressing students, Hemachandra Rao, former president of the Madras Coin Society, gave them a challenging task. He asked the students to try and collect all one rupee coins produced each year in India since 1947.

A kolam workshop gets children engrossed

2009-08-22T12:52:00.003+05:30

Vanilla Children Place is one of the few centres in the city that has organised a weeklong programme for Madras Week. Yifat, who runs the place, has always been very enthusiastic in putting up something during the celebrations. Even though she was not in town when plans were on to enlist support, Deepa came forward to take up the responsibility of organising events. And she managed to put together quite a list – from talks on wildlife and education in the city to drawing and kolam sessions, to traditional games and storytelling.

I dropped by to have a look at the kolam workshop conducted by Sindhu Suresh. A few words about Sindhu… when I first called her, she was holidaying in Thiruvananthapuram. It was probably a wrong time to call and talk about Madras Day and Madras Week. But, sporting as ever, she readily agreed to take time off (she works in the IT industry and, as I found out later, doesn’t really fancy being called during work hours) and said she’d get in once she returned. And the first message I received from her after she got back was, “When are we meeting today?” And wasn’t I pleasantly surprised! We met at Vanilla that afternoon – despite her first day in office after a long break – and that was how the kolam workshop took shape.

Born in Thiruvananthapuram, Sindhu grew up in Pollachi before completing her studies in Coimbatore and eventually coming to Madras in the 1980s. It was in Pollachi that she picked up the art of making kolams, from her neighbours. She had a notebook, she says, and on that she would jot down an interesting kolam pattern or two she had seen somewhere. Well, Sindhu paints as well, on canvas and on glass, decorative and Madhubani paintings mainly.

The kolam workshop saw the children all excited and almost impatient to lay their hands on the powder. They were completely engrossed in shaping patterns on hard boards, vying with one another to see who did better. The competitive spirit always works well and the result: marvellously drawn, coloured kolam patterns that the children in the end took back home. There were excited mothers, too, and some of them were seen handling the powder and glue themselves. Yifat was keen to know about how such intricate patterns are drawn so easily by women and children in Tamil Nadu. She was shown a chart displaying a certain formula to the patterns. Overall, an interesting two hours for young and old alike.

Madras and the Paleolithic connection

2009-08-22T11:50:00.000+05:30

In 1999, the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation published ‘Madras to Chennai’ for a project on ‘Clean Chennai – Green Chennai’, supported by the environmental orientation to school education scheme of the ministry of human resource development. About 350 schools were covered and the book was distributed free to them.

According to Nanditha Krishna, director of the Foundation, in 2008, when Dr K.V. Raman’s book ‘The early history of the Madras region’ was re-published (during Madras Week), she realised that the city’s history went back to ancient times – the Paleolithic era – and that it played a major role during the Pallava period. She says that the first Paleolithic relic in India was found in Pallavaram, and Nandivarman III, the Pallava king, was even known as ‘Mylai Kaavalam’ or ‘Protector of Mylapore’.

“We realised that the children were unaware of their history and the environment and there was no simple material that could be used to teach them. That was when I felt that it was imperative to write a simple book which would be readable by the young and the old, and that is how the book (‘Madras-Chennai, its history and environment’) came into being,” Nanditha says. The royalties earned from the sale of the book will go to fund the Foundation’s education charities. The Foundation runs two schools in Chennai, but Nanditha is looking at getting the book introduced in many other schools as well.

‘Madras-Chennai, its history and environment’, written by Nanditha herself, was formally released on August 19 by Dr M.S. Swaminathan, chairman of the C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre (CPREEC). Dr Raman, who was present, talked about Roman writers referring to Madras, about Thiruvalluvar residing in the city, inscriptions of Dantivarman in the Triplicane temple, several temple inscriptions classified as belonging to the Pallava and Chola period being found in temples in Velachery and Adambakkam, and the existence of committees to control agricultural operations 1,000 years ago.

Some wonderful images of the Madras Presidency

2009-08-22T11:17:00.002+05:30

Nanditha Krishna and the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation that she runs has always been a part of Madras Week celebrations. Nanditha herself has marked Madras Day on her calendar and makes it a point to do something each year. This year, on August 19, we saw the inauguration of an exhibition titled, Madras – from the city to the Presidency: etchings, engravings and aquatints’, from the collection of V. Narayan Swami.

Last year, during Madras Week, there was a Narayan Swami exhibition, but that was concerned exclusively with prints and drawings relating to Madras city. This year, there were a number of engravings relating to the old Madras Presidency, comprising the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The display includes a panoramic view from the lighthouse in 1829, a few visuals of Georgian buildings inside 18th century Fort St George, a hunt map of Madras, the city’s architecture as well as its people. There are about 100 engravings and maps included in this year’s display (there were only 40 last year), and more than 80 relate to the Madras Presidency.

Nanditha says she wishes to convey two points – that although the coming of the British in the Madras region and in the Carnatic was responsible for the rise of the Madras Presidency, the Presidency itself (comprising of various states) contributed to a unique geographical entity; also, that the Presidency grew gradually, through hard-fought campaigns, negotiations, double-dealing and intrigue, and was not an overnight entity. And it was not until the early 1800s that the outlines of the erstwhile Presidency were drawn.

Docu on Gandhi in TN

2009-08-20T21:46:00.000+05:30

Posting a mail from RMRL ----

You are invited for a documentary show on Gandhi to be screened on 22nd August 2009 at 5 p.m. at Roja Muthiah Research Library. This is being organized as part of the ongoing exhibition at the Library on "Gandhi in Tamilnadu".

Venue: Roja Muthiah Research Library, 3^rd Cross Road, Central Polytechnic Campus, Taramani, Chennai 600 113. Telephone: 2254 2551 / 2254 2552

North Madras stories that didn't flow . . .

2009-08-20T21:29:00.003+05:30

It was my first visit to the Madras Terrace House for the Madras Week.

The House has already become a destination for the young - talks, small acts, exhibitions, concerts. . . . lots happens here.

Kaveri Lalchand, the promoter has strained a lot to also make this a lively place for Madras Day events - a packed week on its calendar.

But Pritham's show on Thursday night was not what this actor is capable of. Wonder if the letdown had to do with a toothache and painkillers.

'Dustily Yours; Stories of North Madras' was Pritham's theme and I expected much from this veteran solo performer. But it didn't come off.

Pritham went in circles on the lives of the bura sahib and the memsahibs and their retinue of maids and men. Yes, she kept coming back to how water has always been an issue since the times the Fort was built. . . but the stories we were looking for just did not flow. . .

And North Madras is a huge bank of stories of all kinds.

Of smart merchants and smarter dubashes, of Capuchin padres and Anglo-Indians, of ruthless killers and hardened fishermen, of colourful entrepreneurs and spirited nuns.

Of landmark cinema halls and Veena Dhanammal and her famed kutcheris, of Burma Bazaar rogues and Telegraph Office damsels.

Or did Pritham have something else on her mind for this show?

Whatever, Stories of North Madras is a fascinating theme.

Of Nellore cows, Hindu girls, Palanquin bearers, Boom Madu - the city during 1862-76

2009-08-20T14:32:00.000+05:30

The Government College of Arts & Crafts just across the St. Andrew’s Kirk on Poonamallee High Road has a wonderful campus. Strange as it may seem, not many today really seem to know of its existence. Quite a few people asked me where exactly it was located. Sad, however, is the fact that such a wonderful campus has not been maintained well. I was there on Wednesday afternoon to listen to Pradeep Chakravarthy talk about the Madras of 1862-1876, based on photographs taken by students of the college in those days. Dr. Alexander Hunter founded the college in 1850 as a private institution, the Madras School of Arts. The well-known architect Robert Chisholm headed it in the late 1860s.

The other sad thing was that there were not enough students in the room where the presentation was made. Many were seen sitting outside, lazing and chatting; only a few bothered to attend. Pradeep’s presentation in lucid Tamil was excellent. There were several landmarks that were photographed then and Pradeep quizzed the students about some of these places.

I had never seen the Madras Central station without a clock tower, but he showed us a picture of one. There were pictures of the Government Telegraph Office built in Georgian style, in Erabalu Chetty Street; St Thomas Mount, a holiday destination in those days for the Britishers, Armenians and Portuguese; the Wooder School in Saidapet, a Western style school (1715); the statue of Thomas Munroe on a horse (installed in 1839), with no saddle or stirrup; the statue of James Neal near where the Connemara Hotel stands today; a village temple or the Achhan Koil on Spur Tank Road; a view of the Medical College, Government General hospital and the Cooum River from the Wallajah or Island Bridge (1715). Pradeep had something to say about each and that kept the audience engrossed..

Other fascinating pictures included ‘Missionaries in a cart’, ‘Commisserate bullocks’ (what commiserate means is not clear), ‘Saidapet farm’, ‘Nellore cows’, ‘Hindu girls’ on balloon-back chairs, ‘Indian bride’, ‘Vegetable woman’, ‘Palanquin bearers’, ‘Native merchants’, jewelers of Madras; silk weavers of Mylapore, ‘Boom Madu’ (decorated bull); and ‘Native servants’.

It is a presentation Pradeep must make more often at other fora.

Madras's history: through coins, stamps

2009-08-19T12:47:00.001+05:30

At the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, there was also an inauguration of an exhibition on Russian stamps and coins of the Madras Presidency. Doing the honours was Hemachandra Rao, former president of the Madras Coin Society.

It was R Vaidyanadhan's collection on display that I was drawn to. Vaidyanadhan has just taken over as president of the Madras Coin Society; he is assistant editor in the sports section of The Hindu. He also edits Indian Coin News, an eight-page monthly produced by the Madras Coin Society. In its August issue, there is interesting material on the Madras-Vijayanagara connection, and most of the pictures of the coins displayed related to the Vijayanagara period.

Briefly, the history of Madras’s coinage is more than 2,500 years old. Other than the ancient coins of the Pallava, Pandya, Chera and Chola empires, the Vijayanagara influence was prominent on south Indian coins. In 1361, Kumara Kampana II, son of Vijayanagara emperor Bukka Raya I, established the Vijayanagara rule in Tondaimandalam. The Vijayanagara rulers installed viceroys to rule various parts of the empire. In 1535, for instance, Achyuta Deva Raya, the brother and successor of Krishna Deva Raya, granted Devappa Nayak, the governor of Thanjavur, permission to establish a feudatory kingdom. King Viswanatha Nayak, the viceroy to Madurai, was the founder of the Nayak dynasty there.

Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, an influential chieftain under the Vijayanagara king, Peda Venkata Rayalu, based in Chandragiri, was in charge of the area where Madras took root. He granted a piece of land lying between the river Cooum, almost at the point it enters the sea, and another river known as the Egmore river, to the English in 1639. The grant empowered the English to administer justice and to acquire additional land and produce coinage. It was in honour of Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, father of Venkatadri, that the settlement around Fort St George was named Chennapattanam.

Most of the Vijayanagara coins issued for circulation in south India were made of gold or copper. The coins show Shiva and Parvati, Lakshmi and Naryana, Venkateswara, Sita and rama, Balakrishna and Narasimha.

Will the gates of Madras Port open?

2009-08-19T12:22:00.002+05:30

Hopefully they will!

I had mentioned in my weekly column (www.vincentsjottings.blogspot.com) the rather discouraging response of some government departments when it came to sharing info, pictures and access to celebrate the city.

We were keen to organise a walk inside Madras Port, a city landmark and have been at it for almost a year. . .

Now, a well wisher has got back to say that he will even talk to Union Minister of Shipping, G K Vasan, who is also a Chennai resident, to help us organise a walking tour.

The Indian Navy conducts a walking tour of the Mumbai Port once a month. Madras should follow that example.

One more heritage walk - in Mylapore

2009-08-19T12:19:00.001+05:30

'Namma Mylapore' is hosting a Heritage Walk in connection with 'Madras Day'.

The walk will be conducted on Sunday Aug 23, from 7.00 am to 8.30 am starting from Nageswara Rao Park to Kapaleeswarar Koil and will cover the important heritage spots on the way.

Interested persons may contact Suriyanarayan at 98415 97750 or Geetha Iyengar at 9382315999 to register.

The walk is free.

Pictures bring two cities together

2009-08-19T10:59:00.000+05:30

It was quite an interesting photo exhibition put up by the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, the Indo-Russian Women’s Association (IRWA) and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) at the Russian Cultural Centre on Kasturi Ranga Road. This year (2009) is the Year of India in Russia and the exhibition had the theme, Madras-Volvograd: Twin Cities’.

There were some wonderful pictures of the Madras of old on display and immediately after the exhibition was inaugurated visitors and photographers trooped in and crowded around the display to have a closer look. There were pictures of Volvograd, too, all in colour, but they somehow did not seem to attract as much attention. The black-and-white pictures of Madras were what everybody was keen to see.

Later, S.V. Soloviev, deputy consul-general, Consulate General of the Russian Federation in South India, spoke broadly about the friendly nature of Indo-Russian ties over the years. But it was Janaki Krishnan, president, IRWA, who put things in perspective as she went back in time to trace the city’s history. According to her, Madras’s history goes back to its temples, with the Thiruvottiyur Temple being the oldest. There were even animal sacrifices conducted there once upon a time, she said, adding that the British had stopped the practice. She mentioned the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore, the Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane and the Marundeeswarar Temple in Thiruvanmiyur; Luke’s paintings of Christ at St Thomas Mount; the Armenian Church and the Marmalong Bridge; and recollected memories of the time she had spent at the bandstand near the Clive Battery and the presence of the British army there. Krishnan also provided an image of what Edward Elliot’s Road once looked like (in the 1930s), mentioning that jackals would be heard howling at night and that there were hardly any buildings in sight, with trees all around and the beach visible from afar. On Mount Road, there would be hardly four or five cars passing in an hour, and she would sometimes do the counting.

It was thanks to the British that Madras was born, Krishnan said, and compared its beginnings to Petersburg in Russia, which was founded by Peter the Great 1. She also mentioned Russian scholars who came to south India to learn Tamil, work and research.

Good work, Sankara Vidyalaya

2009-08-19T10:42:00.000+05:30

Just outside the exhibition hall at the Alliance Francaise, I spotted a display of drawings and paintings, as well as writings, of students from Sanakara Vidyalaya, Thiruvanmiyur. There was quite a bit about Madras's history packed into all those pictures and words and it was evident that the children who did all that had put their hearts and souls into it. Keep up the good work, children!

Some fascinating pictures, at Alliance Francaise

2009-08-19T00:39:00.003+05:30

I visited the Alliance Francaise today to have a look at the exhibition of pictures titled ‘Images of Chennai’. Two young photographers, Karthick Ramalingam and Siva Chithirai, had taken the pictures displayed. These are pictures that you immediately relate to – temples, churches, market places, trains moving, sunrise… All of them relate to contemporary Chennai and immediately strike a chord.

There have been visitors to the exhibition at regular intervals, Rudran, the person at the office, tells me. There are booklets on the history of the city as well.

Some of the pictures displayed include the Egmore railway station, a racer,sellers at a bazaar, a portrait of a Therakoothu artiste, runners at the Chennai marathon, the interiors of an MRTS station, a view of the Central Jail, the gopuram of Kapaleeswarar Koil in Mylapore, the Luz Church, and an ancient temple in Madampakkam.

But the pictures I loved were images of mornings in Sembakkam and near the Beach Station.

Please visit and take a look. The exhibition is open till Thursday.

A tribute to Chennai's spirit, by Oxygen

2009-08-18T13:48:00.001+05:30

On Saturday, August 22, at the Hotel Green Park, Vadapalani, there will be several programmes running through the afternoon. But one programme, likely to be the shortest, will be the most special.

Oxygen, the well-known music group inn the city, will play the Chennai Anthem, a composition evoking the passion of Chennaites and also focusing on some areas of the city and the achievements of its people.

The programme is special because a youngster who was passionate about the city and its people composed the original music for the song. V. Vikram is no more, a road accident claimed his life. But his contribution will be remembered and we hope that his dreams of a better and greener Chennai will be realised some day soon.

The lyrics of the song (by Anandan, in Tamil) mentions the Fort St. George, thus far the headquarters of the government of Tami Nadu, the slum dwellers who provide much of the city’s labour force, the Marina Beach, one of the longest beaches in the world, the quieter Covelong Beach, and the Cooum and Adayar Rivers. The song urges Chennaites to keep keep nature’s gifts as pristine pure as they were meant to be. There is also mention of the city being the ‘Detroit of South Asia’, about software development parks and business process outsourcing (BPO) units. The anthem concludes with praises of the cosmopolitan character of the city.

Playing to Vikram’s music will be Girinandh (keyboard), Karthick Iyer (violin), Harish, Prithvi (drums), Ramana (mridangam and percussion) and Anirudh (kanjeera). The singers are Vijay Narain, Subu, Harish and Shakti Sri.

Going live on NDTV-Hindu

2009-08-17T21:04:00.003+05:30

I was listening to Randor Guy recount his version of some scandals that hit Madras in the 40s and 50s at Sunday's talk hosted by Chennai Heritage when the call came.

NDTV-Hindu, the metro TV channel wanted me over at its studio in Perungudi.

The thought of moving from Mount Road to the southern fringe on a Sunday made me go ' should i say yes?'

I did. After all, as catalysts of the Madras Day events, it is our job to enthuse everyone.

And since I hadn't seen Jennifer Arul, COO of the channel for some time and had never been to the new NDTV facility, here was an opportunity.

Jenny's mom had also dropped by - she too hadn't seen the new studios but before she did that she travelled back in time, to the late 1940s when she and her friends walked to the edge of the Port after dinner at their Royapuram home, sat on the low boundary wall and took in the air.

She would have had a hundred stories to share but Jenny and her co anchor Saptarishi wanted me before the cameras on Sunday night show . . .

Jenny says she has asked her team to produce at least one story on Madras Week through this week. A nice idea.

And it is wonderful to find that many other TV and print channels are covering the Week closely.

If you blog on any or all of the events you have been checking out, send me the links please . . .

Keeping our date at the Fort

2009-08-17T20:48:00.003+05:30

Dr. Suresh and I have tried hard to keep to this date.

Start Madras Week with a walk of Fort St George.

This time it was tough on Suresh - he has just got back from a testing archaeological study of the Guruvayur temple and on Sunday, he had to perform the rituals in memory of his mom who I recall set the most innovative kolus for Navaratri.

There were over 80 people for the walk on Sunday. And 75% of them were under 45.

Evidence of the I-Day celebration here was still around - pandals, chairs, barricades and stuff. We ignored all that and got into the assignment.

Suresh always carries four vintage coins that were used in this region, to amuse and fascinate the walkers. He didn't fail this time. Nor did the organist at St. Mary's as he warmed up for another Sunday service. The ASI staff were kind - they opened the doors to the exhibition on 'Early Madras' and when we finally got to the last point - Fort Museum, it was 10 a.m.

We enjoy doing the Fort. And all those who come along seem to enjoy it too.

When we do it for 2010, the Secretariat and Assembly may have moved to the new address in Givernment Estates

P. S. - We will be posting pictures of any events soon. . .

Kilpauk Walk

2009-08-17T12:12:00.001+05:30

A new walk is added to the Madras Day calendar this year.
When Deepa Sekar got excited about the idea of having a walk around Kilpauk, her friends from the neighbourhood seconded the idea and joined her.
She contacted many residents of the area, the schools which have a grand history behind them, the institutions that are existing for more than a century and drew up the schedule.
Close to 30 people assembled at the start point- Votive Shrine on Halls Road, on the day of the walk - Aug. 16. Some were from Kilpuak and some had associations with the area when they studies at Pachiapppas and their work with Kilpauk Water Works.
A few schools kids were among the walkers as the group visited their schools too on the way. Writer, novelist Timeri N. Murari was also part of the walkers.
Though a long, they group touched a variety of places like church, temple, the schools which were studios earlier, Kalki Garden's - once the residence of M. S. Subbulakshmi and Sadasivam ...
On the way, the group exchanged stories of their connections with Kilpauk.
At the end of the walk, the group realised that every area has a fantastic history, culture and heritage that need to be revisited through such walks.
The group has a blog now putting up the details they gathered while organising for the walk. They continue to get feedback and reminiscence about the area and plan to keep the blog growing.
Photos on the Madras day website.

Irrepressible Guy, but not quite vintage Randor

2009-08-16T23:45:00.003+05:30

When plans were being made two months ago to connect speakers and events for Madras Week, one of us suddenly remembered a name that was not on the speakers’ list. A star speaker whom everybody gathered there seemed to have forgotten. And how on earth would Madras Week be complete without one of Chennai’s best ever storytellers, who could talk endlessly about people, places and events and keep you engrossed for hours on end, who could effortlessly weave humour and keep giving you clues about the person he was talking about, whose name he was loathe to divulge? “No Randor, no Madras Week,” we chorused and almost immediately Sriram was on the phone with Randor, almost directing him to talk on ‘scandals of Madras’. With Prathima Vasan, manager-communications, Park Sheraton, present, it did not take us long for us to decide that we could have Randor Guy speak at Dublin, the hotel’s discotheque. It is to Prathima’s credit that the Sheraton agreed to host the talk and, as it turned out today, Randor is still a star.

The talk was scheduled to start at 4pm, but the seats at the Dublin were full by 3.45pm. And then there was hardly any space to add sufficient number of chairs. A few of us sat on the stairs, others rested on side railings and yet others remained standing throughout the one-hour show. Sushila Ravindranath, former resident editor of the New Indian Express, whispered into my ears, “It was you who wanted Randor, and now see what you have done.” Randor hadn’t even arrived by then; someone else whispered that his pick-up car was delayed and the man was fretting and fuming. Eventually, Randor sauntered in, with his wife Dolores in tow. He seemed to be calm and headed straight to the area below where coffee was being served.

I will not go into the details of the scandals he spoke about. He got off to a great start all right but it wasn’t vintage Randor though this afternoon. There was humour but not enough of it. His razor-sharp wit was missing. The crowd did roar with laughter but not as frequently as you would expect with Randor around. But overall, an afternoon well spent by all those present. Sushila, who sat next to me on the stairway (even she couldn’t find a proper chair), finally acknowledged that the effort was worth it after all. Yes, it could have been better, but perhaps the next time. The second day of Madras Week continued to report packed houses.

'Besh Besh Besh' gets rolling

2009-08-16T11:26:00.001+05:30

New entrant to Madras Week celebrations this year, Prakrit Arts Gallery, set the ball rolling with S. Muthiah, Chennai historian inaugurating 'Besh, Besh Besh', an excellent mix of pictures and paintings by the city's artists such as Rama Suresh, Manisha Raju, Raju Durshettiwar, Nelson, Tyagarajan, Usha Devi, N. Ramachandran and Vinay. The exhibition is the initiative of Meena Dadha who runs Prakrit Arts.

Talking to the artists and to those who had gathered, Muthiah said that the reason for conducitng Madras Week was not only for celebrating a city's birthday but also to create an awareness about Madras's heritage, that as the first city of modern India it had contributed immensely in varied fields.

Trees, and the evolution of man

2009-08-16T11:07:00.000+05:30

There couldn’t have been a better start to Madras Week. Sri Parvati Gallery on Eldams Road was packed and more chairs had to be brought in to accommodate visitors. A few had to stand. On display were some fantastic pictures of trees of Madras that is Chennai, pictures taken by Rod Hudson with help from his friend K Srinivasan, one of the founding members of the Madras Naturalist’s Society.

A Londoner who has worked as a teacher and journalist, Rod took up photography 30 years ago. He has been concentrating full-time on his passion for creating images in south India, where has now been living for the past seven years. Rod has had several exhibitions of photographs in Madras. The past year, he has been creating images for his forthcoming book, provisionally titled ‘Trees of Madras’ and it is some of those images that are displayed at the gallery (open to the public till April 23).

However, the morning belonged to well-known botanist Professor Dayanandan, whose brilliant presentation provided a broad sweep, from Darwin and Lincoln to Charles Lyell, Alfred Wallace and Joseph Dalton Hooker, all scientists of repute whose research on flora and fauna have made an everlasting impact on humanity. Profesor Dayanandan dwelt how Darwin drew the first evolutionary tree in scientific history, about the latter’s Beagle journey and the existence of trading ports 2,000 years ago. He said that plant life was so vast, there were so many species that even those like himself who had spent a lifetime researching on flora on the western ghats, and in the south of India and the northeast, had traversed only a small part of that universe. According to him, 600 million species of animal life have been lost over thousands of years.

Pointing to the difference in cultures between countries, Professor Dayanandan provided the Darwin example. Darwin’s book, ‘The Origin of Species’ sold out in London the day it was released, he said. That sort thing might never happen in India, he added, because “our cultural ethos has not developed to that extent”.

500 human genes are shared with all living beings, Professor Dayanandan pointed out, adding that the onus is on us to consider trees as our relative and care for them.

A former student of Vijayanta School in Avadi shows the way

2009-08-15T00:04:00.001+05:30

More than 20 years ago, when I was in the insurance industry, I had, as part of my work, taught students for a couple of years at the Vijayanta Senior Secondary School, which is part of the Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi. Many of them work in private and public insurance companies today and are doing well. After my stint there, I had no touch with the students really although I remembered most of them.

I was, therefore, delighted to receive an email the other week from a student who I hadn’t taught since he was part of the fourth batch of the vocational course. But after I mentioned about my stint in Vijayanta he gave me the names of several I had taught and was keen to get the school alumni to participate in Madras Week celebrations.

P Jayakumar, president of the Vijayanta Senior Secondary School alumni and about a 100 other students have organised a cycle rally, from Avadi to the Marina beach on August 22. En route, they will be spreading the message of creating a green Chennai and raising awareness about global warming.

This is the kind of initiative that the coordinators or catalysts of Madras Week look forward to. Many of us can be a Jayakumar and show others the way.

Those in Avadi or others wanting to know the time and route can contact Jayakumar at 93802 41029.

Malayalee Club joins in... and how!

2009-08-14T01:03:00.001+05:30

The Malayalee Club in Chennai is 110 years old. It has a great history and we will go into that some other time, but for the present I must mention the leadership qualities and enthusiasm displayed by its president M Nanda Govind in participating in Madras Week celebrations. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I had broached the subject of the Malayalee Club being a part of the heritage celebrations in the city. Nandu, as he is better known, wished to know more about it and once I explained he was keen to get started.

Today afternoon, I received a letter from him, addressed to the Club’s members. And may be I should quote some sentences in it to bring out the flavour:

“…Very few modern cities can boast of this type of antiquity (of being 370 years old)… many have contributed to making Chennai what it is – a cosmopolitan, tranquil cradle of tradition and culture, blending seamlessly with an unobtrusive modernity. From the days when it was the capital of the composite state of Madras, including large parts of present-day Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, to its current position as the gateway to south India, the growth of Chennai has been influenced and nurtured by people of various linguistic denominations. And not the least among these have been the Malayalees…”

So, what has Nandu managed to organise in such a short span? Well, he and his team have decided to honour some of the Malayalees who have enriched the heritage of Chennai with their invaluable contributions – stalwarts from varied fields such as politics, literature, cinema, music, education, medicine, business, civil service, social service and theatre.

On Madras Day, Saturday, August 22, at 6pm at the Malayalee Club auditorium in Chetpet, the Club will honour the following:

Politics
MG Ramachandran, represented by his nephew MGC Prabhakaran
Kozhippurath Madhava Menon, represented by his daughter Meenakshi Menon

Civil service
PC Mathew
TV Antony
Hari Bhaskar

Education
AK Gopalan
TP Imbichammed

Law
P Govinda Menon, represented by his son
M Sankaranarayanan
MK Nambiar

Medical science
Sarada Menon

Accountancy
M Ramachanra Varier

Literature
Chelanat Achuta Menon, represented by his grandson KP Sunil
Prabhakara Warrier

Music
V Dakshinamoorthy
MS Viswanathan
KJ Yesudas

Cinema
Sasikumar
MO Joseph
KS Sethumadhavan
Navodaya Appachan
Sukumari
TR Omana
Jayabharathy

Social service
TG Menon
V Ravunni Menon

Business
KM Mammen Mappila, represented by his son Vinu Mammen

Art
KCS Panicker, represented by his son Nandagopal

Theatre
VP Sidhan

There are bound to be trips down memory lane and it is a programme not to be missed by Malayalees in Chennai.

Chennai Food Trail anybody?

2009-08-11T14:42:00.002+05:30

Surprising.

Nobody has thought of hosting a Chennai Food Walk.

Street Food Walk would be easy to handle.

T. Nagar to Marina to Zam Bazaar to Sowcarpet and Mint. This is one route I'd suggest.

You could also think of 5 vintage food joints of the city to explore. Buharis on Mount Road, Ratna Cafe in Triplicane and a Gujarati Mess in Broadway is on top of my list. Would you like to add on and coax a foodie and diehard citizen to lead the tour?

Roll on, it is still not late foodies.

Network! If you still have not planned an Event. . .

2009-08-11T14:31:00.002+05:30

If you still have not planned an event for Madras Day 2009 . . . if you are in the middle of a plan . . well, I'd suggest you network with people and groups which already have and get going!

The Exnora umbrella is Anna Nagar is strong and active organisation. It is keen to host its own programme. . I have suggested to that community that it could perhaps take part in the Kilpauk Heritage Walk that is firmed up now.

Writer-journo Charukesi speed-read the book ' Chennaikku Vandein' , published by Kalachuvadu last year ( essays written by famed writers and literrateurs) and coaxed the Kalanilayam Troupe ( theatre) to present a dramatised reading of at least four essays.

We requested Hamsadhwani sabha in Adyar to host the event and thats fixed. Thanks Charukesi. Some one in Mylapore also wants to invite the troupe. Networking works . .

You may go through the Calendar of Events - choose events you may want to have in your region and make the contact!

If you still need help, email - madrasday@yahoo.com

An anthem for Chennai

2009-08-10T11:37:00.001+05:30

Every year, it is during the days leading to Madras Week and during the week itself that you bump into people you have never known before but with whom you instantly strike a chord.

One such person is Malini Visweswaran. I haven’t met her as yet but we have been talking on the phone the past couple of weeks and she strikes me as somebody who can play a useful part in the days ahead in efforts to preserve the city’s heritage.

Malini first called to speak about her son who had composed music, at least most of it, for a song about the city; it was a song he had composed as a sort of Chennai anthem during an earlier programme. She found Madras Week the ideal platform to highlight the efforts of her son and to complete what he had left unfinished.

Malini has spoken to members of the music band, Oxygen, who were known to her son. The group will now complete the composition and present it at Hotel Green Park on Madras Day (August 22) at 6.45pm. And as Oxygen plays, pictures of parts of Chennai mentioned in the lyrics will unfold on a screen in the hall. The performance may not last more than 15 minutes, but it will bring to public view for the first time a certain facet of the city from the eyes of a youngster and also bring to fruition a small part of his dream.

Malini has also volunteered to help out during Madras Week. Thank you, Malini, for your wonderful gesture.

Special Postal Cover! Grab it . . .

2009-08-07T13:01:00.003+05:30

D H Rao has done it again. For Madras.

This passionate philatelist will be bringing out yet another special Postal Cover dedicated to Madras that is Chennai in connection with Madras Day 2009.

The theme - Old Bridges of Our City.

Rao spent close to a year going around to photograph these bridges -"they look stunning when you look at them from the other side", he says. The best will be on the postal cover.

The cover will be released on Aug 22, 10 a m at P S School auditorium in Mylapore

They will be on sale Aug 22 to 24, 10.30 am to 7 p m at the campus where a show will take place.

This is a cover you must have. Buy it.

P. S. : If you are a retired person living in the Mylapore region and can spare 2/3 hrs to be at Rao's show, please volunteer. Rao's cell no is - 98408 70172.

T shirt contest gets good response

2009-08-06T18:28:00.002+05:30

The T-shirt design contest closed on the weekend. And we have had a good response.
52 entries - some creative, some average, some provocative, at first glance.
The entries are on their way to the judge - a young clothes designer - and we should announce the result next weekend.
The winner will in keeping with our tradition, get the opportunity to work on a series of designs that could be considered for the 2010 Tee!
So what does the 2009 Tee look like? Ah! We should know in a few days time!

Besh, besh, Meena...

2009-08-05T12:28:00.000+05:30

I have known Meena Dadha for a while now. She is the founder of Mukti, an NGO which provides artificial limbs to amputees and polio victims, as well as hope to thousands of the less fortunate. The M. S. Dadha Foundation runs Mukti. Meena loves the arts and she also runs the Prakrit Arts Gallery in Kotturpuram. The gallery is seven years old. Mukti also promotes some excellent work by the physically challenged.

I met Meena a few weeks ago, eager to get her to participate in the Madras Week celebrations. Meena as usual wanted to play the good host and show me around, but a sudden power failure cut short all her plans. She was happy to be a part of Madras Week though and immediately noted all the details. The only condition she had was that Mr Muthiah (city historian) inaugurate the exhibition.

So, what we now have is a weeklong celebration at Prakrit Arts, starting August 15. Titled ‘Besh, Besh, Besh’ (the Bengali equivalent of ‘excellent’), the exhibits will provide a candid view of life in Chennai. The artists are all city-based – Asma Menon, Manohar Raja, Nelson, Rama Suresh, Elanchezian, Jkalaiselvan, Thyagarajan, ma Devi and Vinay.

Prakrit Arts is situated in a quiet avenue in Kotturpuram and you might like the ambience. So, do make a note of the dates in your diary.

Poochi Venkat and his rail trail

2009-08-04T16:35:00.002+05:30

Poochi Venkat is a man of many parts.

One part of him chases Indian trains.

He is part of a nationwide group of railway enthusiasts. You can get to know more about their work at http://www.irfca.org/

Venkat is planning a railway stations heritage tour for Madras Day 2009. Egmore, Central and Royapuram. We did this tour late last year and people have been keen to get their friends on it.

So if you love the trains and our stations, look out for info on this tour at the Madras Day web site - Venkat is the sort who wants to have a formal letter in his hand before he explores stations lest some pesky officer haul him and his guests to the cold room!

Groups in North Madras, please contact!

2009-08-04T16:29:00.002+05:30

We are looking for hosts in places like Perambur and Royapuram and Kodungaiyur.

We want them because there are a few artistes and speakers who are ready to present an act or deliver a talk on Madras.

All you need to do is to perhaps pick up and drop the artistes / speakers and provide a nice space where the event can be held.

If you feel motivated, call 98410 49155. Now!

Reminisces of a Queen Marian

2009-08-04T12:27:00.000+05:30

There's a huge swell of participation forming for Madras Week this year. The buzz is already on. Prema Kasturi, one of the coordinators, called me the other day to say how she was being flooded with calls from schools and colleges wanting to participate. I had put her on to Jailaxmi Ramamoorthy, principal, Vaels Vidyashram in Pallavaram, who was keen to have her school roped in. And now I understand that the school will also be conducting a city history project in September-October.

Prema tells me that two of the colleges participating this year include Queen Mary's and the Madras Christian College. Her mention of Queen Mary's led me to find Anna Varki's reminisces of the institution. This is also a tribute to people like Anna who are all for heritage conservation and value things of the past. Over to Anna:

A couple of weeks ago, there was an account of what was going to happen to dear old Capper House where Queen Mary’s College was born – the first women’s college in the erstwhile Madras Presidency (closely followed by Women’s Christian College). QMC produced the first women graduates. QMC is my Alma mater. I am narrating the sight I saw when I took my son, my daughter in law and grandchildren to show them the prestigious institution I had studied in once upon a time…

We entered the portals and I was appalled at the condition of the buildings. Capper House was not a surprise as you (Mr S Muthiah, city historian, possibly) had warned me it was going to be demolished. The rest of the blocks – Pentland, Jeypore Stone, plus the central block housing the principal’s domain, was unkempt and wild - no broom has moved over it for some time. It was an appalling sight – the condition of the building was such that it hadn’t seen paint for years and it was covered with patches of moss. The front garden was covered with shrubs and very unkempt. To my grandchildren and to all of us, it looked like a haunted building. My architect son’s comment was: “This is what they do when they want to demolish a building …ruin it so that the verdict is that it has to be pulled down.”

I didn’t explore the rest of the premises… and as for the swimming pool (imagine a college in very early 1900s with a swimming pool!) I had been warned it was a garbage dump. Sadly, we left to look at Presidency College, where I studied, my husband studied, and which produced stalwarts like Sir C. V. Raman and Chandrasekher, many outstanding doctors, parliamentarians and politicians. We drove in, before being stopped at the gate to look around. The dear old Fyson clock had patches of moss. The red-brick outer structure was dull. Each window and door was painted in different colours - some white, some blue, some green. These were really grotesque: window shades - most of them dilapidated.

My children were taking photographs - the window shades were broken. Two watchmen came running - they were out drinking tea. “Sir..Sir, are you from the media - please don’t report us!” I told him I had once upon a time studied here. His reply was, “Andha kalam elam poche (All those days are gone).” I asked him why the place was not painted.
Apparently tenders are called, but the money perhaps goes into somebody’s pocket.

We had a ditty: “Queen Marians never die, never die, they only fade away…”

When beer cost 16 annas and Egmore railway station had sponge cake, lemonade

2009-07-26T21:48:00.005+05:30

She’s 87 years old but, would you believe it, she is keen to proofread! Anna Varki belongs to another age, so too her reminisces. Her memories of the Egmore Railway Station (its centenary was celebrated recently) in the 1930s-40s when life was more easy paced and Chennai quite another city, are vivid. With the city’s birthday less than a month away, Anna’s descriptions of Madras with its old world charm make for delightful reading. So, here’s Anna, in her own words:

Apart from the Marina Beach and good old Moore Market, our one and only mall where you could get everything you wanted, there was the Egmore railway refreshment room. A place I have vivid memories of, where we could have a treat. It used to be a favourite haunt of my father and his journalist buddies, days when journalists had to rush to get news to papers by phone and telegrams They enjoyed their anecdotes and we could hear their raucous laughter. People like Raja of Pithapuram and the Raja of Kollengode all spent time in the Egmore Railway Station refreshment room waiting for their trains.

Those days, trains came and went. Those who spent time in railway refreshment rooms were not travellers but just those who wanted a place to eat or a place to meet. In Chennai those days, eating out was not encouraged, in fact not allowed A bottle of beer cost 8 annas (before the decimal system, we dealt with rupees, annas and paise; 16 annas made a rupee). One rupee was a precious amount, especially for journalists who were so poorly paid. My dad used to take us for a treat to the Egmore refreshment room. We looked forward to sponge cake and lemonade fare and spent time moving around watching cars drive into the platform, people alighting and entering – something so much in the past. We watched the trains coming to the platform, the guard blowing a whistle waving a green flag, and the train steaming out.

No idli dosai. English breakfast consisted of two fried eggs, bacon and coffee. Really Expensive. You could have a four-course English lunch soup, a fish dish, meat dish and a dessert. You couldn’t just eat with a fork. The strict British manners were followed with cutlery meant for specific purposes A great favourite, which now may be termed as Anglo Indian, was rice and curry, and the famous Mullagutawny soup, which is really a kind off pepper rasam with some other ingredients put. Even some chicken pieces could be added which you the termed Chicken Mullagtawny soup.

Train travel those days had four classes - first class, in which only the rich and the British travelled The first class was a four-berth compartment; it had an attached bathroom then. The second-class and inter-class depending on the degree of thickness of the cushions; the inter-class where the cushions were very thin. Last but not least, the third class with wooden seats, in which the majority of people travelled by. A third-class compartment would have forty to fifty seats, long wooden benches; it was the cheapest. Any travel meant a holdall, suitcase and a trunk Travelling light was years away. Not far from Egmore station, round the corner, was the Egmore ice factory, which has a history of its own. One rupee was all my mother sent for the day’s marketing, which included meat, fish, vegetables and everything a family needed, except for the rice masala etc.

Spl City Tour for Schools

2009-07-24T11:55:00.004+05:30

Here is a lead that heads of schools can pick up.

The state transport corpn. runs a Chennai city tour.

It has a special fee offer for Madras Week.

Want to grab it?

Call Ramesh Babu at 98417 22026.

The Corpn can also plan a tour to suit your timings and need.

Help! Learn about Royapettah's link with cinema

2009-07-24T11:50:00.002+05:30

A lady who resides in Royapettah and is related to poet-lyricist Kannadasan is keen to highlight the fact that close to 2 dozen film personalities of yesteryear - Sivaji, Karunanidhi, RMV, etc etc lived in this area.

She wants to plan a walk. And she has stories to tell.

She needs Royapettah / Gopalapuram residents who can lend her a hand. Youth welcome!

Plan the route and the walk, organise it and end with a breakfast perhaps.

If you want to help, leave your contact in the Comments section please

WANTED: Stories of North Madras!

2009-07-24T11:45:00.002+05:30

Pritham K Charavarthy is an independent storyteller/performer based in Chennai.

For the Chennai Week, she would like to do a series of North Chennai stories for about 45 minutes duration, which she hopes to keep adding on to in the future.

She is familiar with that area - she has been the research associate for both Prof John C. Harriss and Dr. Sarah Hodges and has also independently worked on a documentary with her husband, Venkatesh Chakravarthy called 'Chennai/ The Split City'.

If this production takes shape, she hopes to travel it in North Chennai itself, in Tamil. for she performs both in Tamil and English.

Pritham wants to hear from people in North Madras who can share stories / legends / experiences. You can contact her at - chakravarthy.prithamk@gmail.com.

Or contact Vincent anyday after 9 pm at 98410 49155 and pass on leads.