Deva Solai
92/32, Landons Road, Kilpauk |
Landon’s Gardens was the home of Col. Colin Mackenzie who became India’s first Surveyor-General. Beginning in 1796 and ending with his death in 1821, Mackenzie collected palm-leaf manuscripts, coins, drawings and antiques. Around 8000 of his manuscripts formed the nucleus of the 50,000-strong manuscript collection at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in the University of Madras campus. Landon’s Gardens was bought by Rajarathnam Chetty, dubash of Binny and Co, for his granddaughter Venkata Nagalakshmi, and Deva Solai was built there.
Her husband Timeri Vasu Naidu (1884-1949) was a businessman and developer, but it is for his contributions to Madras cricket that he is most remembered. He was a founder of the Madras United Club which did much to foster Indian cricketing interest in the city. Vasu Naidu’s nephew and son-in-law, Timeri N. Murari (1901-1988), was Director of Animal Husbandry, first for Madras and later for Andhra. During the Second World War, he served under a King’s Commission, and rose to the rank of Major. He was the first Indian member of the Madras Cricket Club and also the Marylebone Cricket Club. He played cricket with legends such as Hobbs and Sutcliffe. In the 1920s, both Vasu Naidu and Murari played for the Indians against the British in the Madras Presidency cricket matches.
The well-known author Timeri N. Murari is the son of Major Murari and is the present occupant of Deva Solai. His novel Four Steps to Paradise is said to be based largely on life as it was lived in this house in the 1940s and ‘50s.
– (Courtesy: KALAMKRIYA.)
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