“I was born in Madras and have lived in this most congenial of metropolises – this unhurried, cultured, mature, no-frills, surprisingly green, and progressive city by the sea – for all but three years of my life. I would not, of my free will, live anywhere else in India or the world.”

– N. Ram
in the Foreword to A Madras Miscellany by S. Muthiah

I share the sentiments of N. Ram. I too would not, of my free will, live anywhere else in the world. Madras was my home for the first 25 years of my life. Marriage, my career, children, their education and their future have all made me a wanderer on foreign sands. But within me beats a Madrasi heart which is at peace only when I am back in the enveloping embrace of the city at regular, frequent intervals. In one of my recent visits to Madras, I picked up A Madras Miscellany by S. Muthiah and leafing through the pages I am experiencing an overpowering rush of nostalgia for all those days, months and years spent in the lap of this great city.

I have had a successful career as an architect in Bahrain and am currently an academic, teaching Management in a university in Sydney. But if someone were to ask me what has been the most satisfying achievement in my life, I would definitely pick the sporadic journalistic endeavours which I have engaged in over the years in Madras, ‘The Gulf’ and Sydney. All of this has been inspired by a spur of the moment’s decision to enrol in a Diploma in Journalism course at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Madras, many, many years ago... and the tutelage of S. Muthiah and VPV Rajan, then the editor of The Mail.

What do I miss most living in a foreign country? I have brushed the question away with stock answers – the food, of course; having servants to do the housework; my family, my friends. These answers are no longer valid – every type of Indian grocery is available in Sydney and in fact a larger variety as we get merchandise from many cities in India; almost every suburb boasts of an Indian restaurant; I get cleaners to come in on a regular basis; family and friends are frequent visitors, and technology has eradicated distances. So what in reality do I miss about Madras?

Is it the city or the past? The line seems blurred as I note down the images that float in front of my eyes...

One of my earliest memories is of me as a very young child wetting my hands in the water that flowed from the tap. I would then tap a small amount of Gopal palpodi (tooth powder) into the cupped palm of my left hand. Dipping my right forefinger into the powder, I would proceed to clean my teeth examining my pink teeth in the mirror hanging on the wall mottled by black spots where the coating had been eaten up... as I write this, the tantalising taste of Gopal palpodi fills my being and I tell myself that when I am in Madras next I should investigate the history of the company – did they adapt and move into the toothpaste world or were they made extinct by the toothpaste companies?

Movies were (and still are) my passion. Living in Mylapore, my earliest memories are of our favourite haunts (more out of convenience than choice), ‘Kamadhenu’ in Luz and ‘Kapali’ in Mandaivalli. I believe both do not exist any more, taken over by real estate developers. The ticket price which seemed a big amount those days was a mere Rs. 2.50. It would get us the best seats in the house. But even the best seats could not keep out the strong stench of urine which would hang inside the hall. A very innovative elder sister came up with a strategy – she would buy a whole bunch of mallippoo (jasmine flower strands) which she would distribute to all of us. We would all hold the flowers under our noses while watching Sivaji emote and MGR vanquish the baddies. Subsequently, with the Safires and Shanthis and Anands on Mount Road, our ventures expanded into better quality cinema experiences leading all the way to Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth and K. Balachander days. Watching Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the wind in these state-of-the-art cinemas was an out of the world experience. I can vividly recall the entire cinema filled with the scent of flowers as Omar Sharif threw the garland towards Peter O’Toole with the words ‘Flowers for the victor’!

Eating out was a weekly extravagance with my father until he died when I was twelve years old. We would walk to Luz from our house in Mylapore to do our vegetable and other shopping, and this had become a ritual, walk into the restaurant ‘Shanti Vihar’ on Kutchery Road where he would buy me an ice cream and watch me eat it with relish. It had never occurred to me to question why he did not eat anything himself – I treated it as my birthright, but looking back, the patriarch of a large family had obviously been economising and I am filled with shame that I had been so inconsiderate.

Reminiscing about the past and about life in Madras will not be complete without referring to our shopping trips to Nalli Silks and Children’s Corner in Luz, Colombo Stores on Kutchery Road and the hours of matching blouses to sarees at Rani Cutpiece Centre. Over the years we remained loyal to Luz shopping centre but the city had changed so much that we were compelled to do most of our shopping in T.Nagar. But our family still follows a tradition – the first saree for any wedding in the family has to be bought from Nalli Silks in Luz! The owner would reverently place the saree we purchased in front of the deity in the shop and hand it over to us after a small prayer.

Living in the proximity of Kapaleeswarar temple erased the Shiva-Vishnu divide for our family as we went there often to pray in spite of having Krishnaswamy as our surname and Balaji as our family deity. From our open terrace, where we often slept on humid nights, we were woken up in the wee hours during the month of Margazhi to the strains of the songs belting out of the loudspeaker. Covering our ears with the pillows and softly cursing the loud music we would try to go back to sleep and eventually did as we got used to the early morning intrusion into our slumber. I would give anything in the world now to own and live in a home in Mylapore with an open terrace from which I can catch a glimpse of the temple gopuram and hear the Margazhi matham songs as the night slowly recedes and the sun’s rays wake up the city.

We later moved into an old rented house on Edward Elliot’s Road (subsequently called Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai) where we lived for many years and those were among the best years in my life. I am proud to say that I had neighbours who have subsequently become very famous – Parasaran, Senior, and Mohan Parasaran (he was a small boy then), the father and son duo who both became Advocate-Generals. Mrs. Parasaran (or Saroja mami as we called her) reflected the life of the small community we lived in (made possible by the fact that our street ended in a dead end with a wall separating us from Judge Jambulinga Mudaliar Street). Her house was the first one to get a television and I remember how all of us would flock to her place to watch the weekly episode on Ramayana. Saroja mami and her daughter Rangam would spread mats on the floor for all of us and, best of all serve prasadam during the interval! She was such a generous woman with an incredible sense of humour – her best joke was her claim that her husband won all the court cases because the opposition could not understand what he was saying as he spoke so fast! She left the world a few years ago but her smile displaying her ‘vetthalai’ stained teeth is still fresh in my memory.

Other neighbours who are now well known are Usha Ramanathan who has carved a niche for herself as a Human Rights activist and lawyer based in Delhi, and her sister Sharada Ramanathan who has made a foray into the world of films with her debut directorial venture Sringaram and now her documentary on Indian classical dance Natyanubhav. Another famous neighbour was the dancer Chandralekha though at the time we were not aware of her fame or prowess. Sadly I have to admit that the closed middle-class thinking of those days led to a feeling of uneasiness amongst the rest of us as we did not comprehend the bourgeois lifestyle she led with many people moving in and out of her house. She was very much a recluse and did not have much to do with the others living on the same street.

My middle-class background, and living in a fairly conservative family, resulted in two challenging experiences in my life in Madras. The first, when I was still in school (Rosary Matriculation) I had participated in an inter-school science competition. I won the second prize and my classmate won the third prize. Her father escorted us to the Awards ceremony which was at a posh venue – not very sure, but may have been the Gymkhana Club. There I met a German girl who was the recipient of the first prize and she was the first foreigner I had met in my life (if I discount the Italian Mother Teresa Xavier whom I had seen only in her nun’s garments at school). I was all excited and scared and I can still relive the experience when delicious looking food was served on the plate in front of me and I struggled with my fork and knife. When I came back home late at night and had everyone giggle when my mother would heat up food for me. The second episode occurred when I was invited to attend a Lion’s Club meeting to receive my award as the best IV year student from the School of Architecture – though more mature and worldly, the trepidation was still there to be amongst all those successful businessmen and I think of the experience every time I attend a Lion’s Club meeting of which I am a member now.

Times and outlook have changed. Forks and knives are not alien any more. Unlike N. Ram, I cannot claim the privilege of having lived in Madras all my life. But I have those precious 25 years. No one can take those years away from me. Random thoughts pour in, evoking images, scents, voices, faces and emotions from the past – a past which definitely holds some of the best years of my life.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand!

- Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)