August 22nd is the birthday of Madras. It was on that day in 1639 that the grant was signed and given to Francis Day of the East India Company for the piece of no man’s sand from which the city has grown. This day, Madras Day, has been commemorated during the last few years by celebrating a Madras Week around it. Madras Week, proposed and catalysed by a small group of volunteers who value the heritage of the city, encourages individuals and organisations to arrange Madras-focussed activities during the Week to create a greater awareness about Madras that is Chennai’s proud heritage. Madras Week this year is from August 17th to 24th and over 40 programmes have already been arranged by volunteering individuals and organi­sations. There is still time to plan your contribution and inform Madras Musings before August 10th to get it publicised in the Press, in this journal’s program­me sheet and Mylapore Times’ website (www.MylaporeTimes.com).

The hotel industry has as usual laid out the red carpet with the Taj Coromandel, the Taj Connemara, Park Sheraton, The Park, Green Park and The Raintree joining in. Chamiers (Anokhee) is another enthusiastic supporter of the Week by offering its space as a venue.

The Heritage Clubs in schools are busying themselves with projects, exhibitions and area studies. Asan Memorial School appears to have taken the lead with a five-day celebration (18th to 22nd). Vanilla, a play school in Mylapore for young children, will be holding storytelling sessions with Madras as a theme as well as other activities.

The celebrations have year by year been fanning out from South Madras to other parts of the city. This year the Jaigopal Garodia Vivekananda Vidya­laya Matriculation HS School, Anna Nagar, will be a venue for talks and the Green Park Hotel in Vadapalani has programmes scheduled and what is most gratifying for us at Madras Musings is that the Avvai Kalai Ka­zha­­gam in Royapuram, which houses the Srinivasa Ramanujan museum, is hoping to bring North Madras into the celebrations. Chennai Heritage-Madras Musings will as usual host talks in English at various locations in South ­Madras.

There are several heritage walks that will be conducted in several places in the city and this list promises to grow as the date approaches. Art galleries Sri Parvati and Forum have planned art exhibitions with Madras-based themes. A band of philatelists and numismatists has planned a thematic exhibition at Rajaji Hall, the highlight of which promises to be a series of photographs taken along the Buckingham Canal by Hem­chandra Rao. The late AL Lak­sh­manan’s autograph collection, which includes signatures and words of several historical personalities, will be on display at the Taj Coromandel even as the Vintage Vignettes photographs of Madras will be exhibited at Taj Connemara. And the Roja Muthiah Research Library is working on an exhibition titled Madras and the Freedom Movement which will be inaugurated on August 15th.

The Taj Coromandel will also host a food festival dedicated to the cuisine of the Madras Presidency with recipes taken from Chan­dra Padma­nabhan’s forthcoming book, Simply South. The Green Park is also planning a Madras-focussed food festival.

At least two books related to Madras will be released during Madras Week. On the 17th, Sriram V’s Historic Residences of Chennai, a bilingual book, will be released at the Taj Conne­mara under the auspices of the Madras Book Club. And on the 24th, the long-awaited first in the series Madras – A 400-year Record of the First City of Modern India, sponsored by the Association of British Scholars, will be released at the Museum Theatre.

Mylapore Times is organising several programmes which are being supported by Larsen and Toubro.

Rotary Clubs, the International Women’s Association, the Overseas Women’s Association, the Inner Wheel Clubs and many other organisations are talking about joining the celebration. In short, it promises to be a week (or may be a fortnight or a month) of joy. We hope it grows in stature, for this is the least we can do for this city, our home.

We provide in this issue a pullout of the scheduled events and their locations. We request organi­sations that are interested to contact us at editor@madras musings.com for further information and ideas.