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(ARCHIVE) Vol. Vol. XVIII No. 17, december 16-31, 2008

On a young man's to-do list...

...Re-creating the past
(By Pankaja Srinivasan, Photo: K. Ananthan)

Glows from the oil lamps bathe the sanctum sanc­torum. The sound of shlokas bounces off the carved stone walls. Worshippers stand, hands folded, heads bowed. Not a tube light, mobile or loudspeaker in sight. It feels like another era, another yuga. And, what peace and tranquillity! A young man in a pristine veshti and shirt watches intently as the aarti is performed in his family temple at Sama­thur, which archaeologists have declared is at least 700-years old.


He is Shankar Vanavarayar. His father is Krishnaraj Vanavarayar (Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Coimbatore chapter) and his maternal grandfather is N. Mahalingam (Chairman of the Shakti Group of Companies). The Vanavarayars of Samathur go back at least 1000-years and the Mahalingam family is well known for its industry and philanthropy. Shankar admits it is a lot of pressure at times but "but there are a lot of perks". His privileged upbringing allows him to do many things creative, says Shankar who is a mix of old world charm and modern ideas.

"I turned 30 this year and I have made a to-do list," he says with a smile. While he sheepishly confesses that eating better and healthier is one of the 'to-do' things, and reading and writing more is the other, he has more onerous intentions, too. "My time or future is going to be a balance of what I am expected to do (duties), what I need to do (career) and for sure what I want to do (passions and interests)," he says. Shankar is chief-executive of Shakti Textiles, deeply involved in many educational institutions, and he indulges in his creative ­instincts.

One thing he wants to do is enter the tourism and hospitality business. He has already converted his grandmother's farmhouse into a home stay. Nestling in the midst of farmland, trees, shrubs and healing silence, like the temple, time seems to have stood still. Doorways you have to duck into, fading photographs, beautiful old furniture... and an ambience that envelopes you in a warm hug as soon as you enter.

Shankar is full of stories from the past. His parents and grandparents have always impressed on him the importance of ­family, tradition and values. And, he says he has learnt so much of the culture, tradition and heritage of the region he calls home, that he would like to document the facts and figures and help preserve them in some way. For starters, he has rented and converted an old building into a boutique shop – Vibes, where handicrafts, clothes and interesting knick knacks sourced from all over the country are on display and sale. "Converting old, heritage homes into economically viable options like home stays and boutiques can save them from being pulled down," he is convinced. And now a museum is in the pipeline. He excitedly shares information that nearby fragments of pottery and other relics dating back to the Roman era have been found. And, with the help of a young archaeologist, he is in the process of documentating the finds.

One of Shankar's big obsessions is antiques. He is fascinated by them and his home is filled with old artefacts. His other passion is reviving the heritage and culture of Kongu­nad. "We need to celebrate Coimbatore and Young Indians we are planning a Coimbatore Festival in January," he says. Old homes, families, ancient trade routes, temples and anything about Coimbatore fascinates Shankar. He is hoping that through the Vanavarayar Foundation he will be able to set up a museum that will showcase the city's heritage.

Summing up his life's mission he says, "Today, I find my life is a mixed bag – in some ways not focussed, but I am enjoying it all the same. I work for educational institutions, manage a textile and retail business, devote time to preserve my family heritage, and put in a lot of effort and passion into art, architecture and history." – (Courtesy: The Hindu Metro­plus, Coimbatore).

Freeze!
You are in senior mode
(By Ranjitha Ashok)

You are having a conversa tion. You are all animated, waving your arms around, when suddenly, with absolutely no warning, everything goes blank, completely, devastatingly blank.

No, this is not an MP3 player...it's my external memory disc and it's connected to my brain!

You have, in that one second, forgotten the thread of discussion; you have no idea where you are, who you are with…and what to say next.

Frozen.

You stare ahead at nothing in particular, mouth open, eyes popping…

And that's when your companion looks at you, and asks, with a compassion that warms your heart, even through that haze: "Senior moment?"

Yep… that's exactly what it is.

You just did what you once thought only 'oldies' did – something that, at one time, would make you heartless little devils collapse in unholy laughter.

Actually, these 'senior moments' are becoming increasingly common, and seem to be setting in quicker these days.

Your 95-year-old Great-Aunt cackles at you, and points out that she can, even now, recite entire passages from books she read as a child.

You, on the other hand, if suddenly faced with the question "9 times 7 is …?" will find yourself needing to go through the whole process, starting with "9 ones are 9", and even then you are not quite sure if your answer is right, and will have to resort to the calculator….if you can find it, because you don't know how to use the one on your cell phone.

Your Great-Aunt remembers the name of the jutka-driver who took her and her entire brood of siblings to the tent theatre to see that famous mythological.

You're lucky if you can remember the name of your first-born's first school.

She pops her bit of ghee-soaked mysore-pak in her mouth, and chomps away with her own set of teeth.

Now you – you cannot even mention the word 'ghee' without feeling your hips bloat beyond reach of that outfit you picked up last week.

Great-Aunt Still-Going-Strong has an answer to that too.

"We just ate. We didn't think and think and think."

"Well, there are advantages to not having access to information." You snap back, (but not too sharply. The lady can still make you feel like a particularly ineffective four-year-old, for all your big talk).

But you can and do grumble in your defence to everyone else.

"Easy for her to talk. They knew less, and so had less to remember." you whine. "She did not mentally fill up on all that's dumped on us. Just think, at even the simplest meal we have to keep in mind stuff like acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges, adequate intakes as against our estimated average requirement, basic food groups, LDL, HDL, and VLDL, discretionary calorie allowance, macronutrients, micronutrients, saturated fatty acids, trans-fats, lacto-vegetarianism, ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, our BMW….."

"BMI", your child says tiredly, at which point you tell him that you don't need any attitude from someone whose head you've had to hold on several occasions as he threw up thanks to pigging out on too much chocolate.

Which, he is swift to point out, is a cheap shot, and since when did mere abuse become argument?

(You have to admit he's right.)

It all boils down to this – We have thought of ourselves into mental gibbering.

You are told too much; you see too much; you know too much.

They invent – you acquire. They tell you – you absorb.

And the more chaos there is.

Seniors today suffer from serious Information Overload.

Forget the big picture. We've managed to worry-fy even the simplest of daily details.

Seniors of yore had all the time in the world to toughen their brains.

They ate what they wanted, but understood the pitfalls of over-indulgence. Exercise meant a game or two, a simple walk….without having to understand concepts like "anaerobic vs aerobic", "did-half-hour-of-cardio", "basal metabolic rate", or having to choose between Pilates, Tai Chi and Bollywood dancing, while trying to appear at home in the gym, and looking gym-ready even before starting any exercise regime, so you can wear all those cute clothes that supposedly signal that you are so ready for all this "leisure time physical activity".

It's all too much.

Take spectacles – the time-honoured companion of Age. You needed them; you wore them.

Look at some of us today: one for reading, one for TV, one to make sure you recognise relatives, one for the computer – and you lose them all. You wonder why your computer glasses don't fit any more, and where the hell are your reading glasses?

You then discover that you were trying to fit one pair of glasses over another – the errant reading glasses being perched right there on your nose all this while.

Your near and dear are, of course, falling about, laughing themselves sick.

Chennai does not make it easier.

It destroys landmarks, changes the way streets look, and never leaves road rules alone.

It offers too many activity choices in a day, which is why some of us land up at book-readings, wondering where the accompanying musicians are; or go to an art show inaugural, and snigger that they forgot to hang up the designer clothes.

You walk briskly into a room… and forget why you went there in the first place. You make three phone calls in a row... by the time you get to the third one, you've forgotten whom you meant to call…and why.

As for faces and names – now there's a 'Match the Following' puzzle from Hell.

We'll never make sharp as nails 90 year olds.

We were born in the wrong generation for that.

Information overload is damaging to the brain... (yeah, yeah – even for those with the mere half-price bargain variety…very funny.)

We need a brain-drain of a different kind, a device that would judge, then intone: "Now that you've processed this information, this particular nugget will self-destruct, leaving your brain clean and fresh for new arrivals." – and whoosh – excess information is gone.

Or a simple 'Delete' button in your brain?

But you'll have to remember where it is, how to use it, and why it's there in the first place.

 

Everyday-ills in a metropolis
(By V. Kannan)

Our ancestors did not have it! It is called pollution. What is
pollution? Most ignore it until personally affected. How can we meet its challenge?

The freshness of the air in your environment has a fundamental impact on the quality and length of your life. Air is more a necessity of life than either food or water. Imagine living in a city where a gray-brown, noxious haze of smog permeates. Imagine that its streets are filled with jam-packed traffic, a slow-moving assembly of vehicles which spew unhealthy exhaust fumes of carbon monoxide and other harmful chemicals. The air is not pleasant to inhale and it gives you breathing trouble, makes you cough and wheeze. Your eyes water, your nose runs, and you have headaches. Many regular walkers would have experienced all this.

The suspended particulate concentration of the air has a significant impact on a person's health. Bus drivers, two-wheeler riders and auto­rickshaw drivers are those who suffer most with chronic respiratory problems and diseases. Airborne lead from leaded petrol is a major air pollutant. In high concentrations it is known to impair liver and kidney functions and is associated with reduced mental development of infants and children. There are only three mega cities in which suspended particulate matter ­concentration is, by and large, within WHO-prescribed limits: Tokyo, New York, and London.

All said and done, vehicular traffic is a major source of pollution in all mega cities. In half of them, it is the single most important source. It is a major source of four of the six major air pollutants – carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and lead. When cities expand into mega cities, more people drive more vehicles greater distances and for longer periods. In the absence of controls, automotive emissions will only increase. Though Euro-II emission norms have been introduced for the whole country and Euro-III norms for our mega cities, the rapid increase in vehicular traffic makes it necessary for even more strict automotive emission controls.

Another major urban pollutant in cities is noise pollution, which may be defined as displeasing human sound that disrupts the activity or happiness of other humans in a city. Roadway noise is the collective sound energy emanating from motor vechicles. In growing cities like Chennai, roadway noise contri­butes largely to the total societal noise pollution. A car can reach up to 85 decibels, while the noise levels at railway stations can reach up to an average of 110 decibels. Aircraft are much worse. A person exposed to such noise for a long time may grow deaf. Those who live in cities are affected by several ailments that ­include vegetative vascular dystonia, heart failure, dyspepsia and headaches. Studies on the finches (a sparrow-type, seed-eating bird) have shown that they become less faithful to their partners when exposed to traffic noise. Birds are the best indicators of the environment.

A third concern is water that is so essential for life. Everyone wants clean water to drink. As there is natural water pollution, most of the hotels in Chennai have to depend on unclean water. With Chennai facing a water crisis, getting clean water becomes even more difficult. It is another contributory factor to ill-health in burgeoning Chennai. The city's growing economic activity has only increased water pollution, affecting a densely crowded city's population.

The fashionable thing these days is to make demand projections for the year 2020 and to work out a plan to meet the ­projected demands. Let us start with the population. What would be the population in 2020? What would be its requirements of water and food? How can these requirements be met? What would be the impact on ecology? The questions go on and on.

The need for development is obvious. But we need to keep our eyes open and minds alert so that we do not overlook lurking dangers. Just as we borrow technology, we can also borrow remedies to adapt wherever and whenever needed. Many of these so-called development projects have come under fire for damaging the environment. The question arises: Which comes first, development or environment, economy or ecology? What can be done to reverse this trend? What is more important is the search for new ideas, new leads and new breakthroughs to ­ensure a safe environment.

In the 1960s, the late Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, ­observed that big projects were 'the temples of today'. The modern-day 'temples' and the growing cities should not be the 'tombs' of the coming generations. Well thought through long-range ­urban development planning and strong enforcement of rules and regulations are the key to making our cities habitable. Will Chennaiites take this as a challenge to make the city clean and green?

 

Astrophysics, Dinwiddie and 172 years of MCC
LITERATURE ON MADRAS (an annotated bibliography from the Web)
compiled by Dr. A. Raman

Science

Indian Institute of Astrophysics, The (2007) A brief his­tory. http://www.iiap.res. in/History.

Documented by the late M.K. Vainu Bappu (1927-1982) this history starts with the origins of the Madras Observatory. The East India Company having resolved to establish an observatory at Madras for promoting knowledge of ­Astro­nomy, Geography and Navigation in India. Sir Charles Oakeley, then the governor, had the building for the observatory completed by 1792. The Madras series of observations had commenced in 1787(1786) through the efforts of a member of the Madras Government – William Petrie – who had in his possession two 3'' achromatic telescopes, two astronomical clocks with compound pendulums and an excellent transit instrument. This equipment formed the nucleus of instrumentation of the new observatory, which soon commenced a series of observations of stellar objects with the accurate determination of longitude, as its first concern. The pier that carried the original small transit instrument on a massive granite pillar has on it an inscription in Latin, Tamil, Telugu and Hindustani, so that "Posterity may be informed a thousand years hence of the period when the mathematical sciences were first planted by British Liberality in Asia". This quote from the first annual report of the observatory is at least a record of the fact that astronomical activity at the Madras Observatory was the first among British efforts at scientific studies in India. Other details included refer to survey work, astronomical observations, solar eclipses, solar observatory at Kodaikanal, up to current time. A fascinating story is buried in this file and at IIAP.

Mason E.D. (1934) The basal metabolism of European women in South India and the effect of change of climate on European and South Indian women. Journal of Nutrition 8: 695-713.

European women residents in the city of Madras showed an average metabolism of 7.9, 6.3 and 12.5% below standard values. Indian women in Madras showed an average metabolism of 9.0, 9.9 and 4.7% above the average metabolism by the same standards. The European vital capacity was normal and very much higher than that of Indian women.

Institutional

Madras Christian College, The (2007) Gleanings from 172 years history. http://www.mcc. edu.in/index.php?option= com_content&task=view& id=30&I temid=56.

The origin of the Madras Christian College is from the General Assembly School founded by Rev John Anderson, a missionary from the Church of Scotland, on 3 April 1837, when the school was housed in Armenian Street. Rev William Miller, 24 years of age, arrived in Madras in 1862, upgraded the school into a college by adding F.A. (1865) and B.A. (1867) courses. With the support of a few other Christian Missions in Madras, Miller transformed the Institution into an ecumenical, cooperative enterprise, and named it the Madras Christian College on January 1, 1877. He was assisted by Scottish (Skinner, Hogg, Meston) and Indian colleagues (Rungiah Chetty, Chinnatham­bi Pillay and Joseph Muliyil). The college moved to its present Tambaram campus in 1937 – a hundred years later. Alexander Boyd led the college from 1938. J.R. Macphail succeeded Boyd and served up to 1962, and was succeeded by Chandran Devanesan. The site is fascinatingly informative and includes several enchanting photographs of the bygone period.

Individual

Dinwiddie D. (1878) The memoirs of David Dinwiddie. http://freepages.genealogy. rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bd5334/dd_memoirs.htm

Available in Internet through the courtesy of Brian Duncan (the great-great-grandson of D. Dinwiddie, 5 October 2002). The reproduced file (modestly edited by B. Duncan) was originally written as a letter by David Dinwiddie (1818-1883) to his brother Alexander Dinwiddie, which began in 1864 and finished in 1878. Although the file is a personal chronicle, this includes comments, in passing, on the social life of Madras and its environs of the period in context. David Dinwiddie starts his letter from Palavarum [Pallavaram] near Madras, where obviously he lived and refers to a journey he made from Madras to Kamthi (Kamptee, Maharashtra) via Bombay in 1867.

General

Kalyanasundaram K. (2005) History, geographical and physical features of Chennai city, capital of Tamil Nadu. http://tamilelibrary. org/teli/chennai2.html

A summary of Madras history from the period of Tondaiman Ilam Tiraiyan (II Century AD) to 15 August 1947; a brief note on the geography and location is also available.

 

A thought or two for The Season

Remembering Kalakshetra
(By Anjana Rajan)

When I arrived in India to join Kalakshetra in 1978, I did not know I was going to enrol in an institution that was the first of its kind. I did not know it was part of a cultural movement linked with history, with the identity of a nation and the transformation of a society.

There were mitigating circumstances for this monumental ignorance. I had grown up in America and in Switzerland. I was familiar with French and German, but Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam were an indistinguishable south Indian blur. And I discovered that in the Kalakshetra girls' hostel, to be from the Hindi belt was to be as foreign as I had ever been among my American and European schoolmates. Strange then, how it felt as if I had found a home.

Adventures and mis­adventures notwithstanding – rolling off the bed while asleep only to be caught in the ­mosquito net, learning how to wash clothes dhobi-style in the sunny yard behind the hostel, sitting cross-legged in the ­dining hall and eating with the hands, then standing up with both plate and saree intact, were only some of the challenges beyond a rigorous dance training – Kalak­shetra turned out to be all I could have dreamed of. The whoosh of the ever­green trees in the sea breeze mingled with the Sanskrit slokas we chanted in the morning, with the sounds of the tattukazhi beating out the dance rhythms, with the swara exercises of the music classes.

I am not listing these elements as examples of exotica that struck a person raised in the West. It is just that I realised that, imperceptibly, they helped me see the holistic oneness of Indian culture. My feeling that there was a common thread running through India which made it one despite its diversity was affirmed. And I saw how the arts were a natural progression of a way of life, of dealing with terrain and climate and the basic needs of humankind. It was an education that went beyond the dance lines and postures and the Carnatic music and the Tamil conversation that gradually coloured my personality.

Yes, it was not an easy life. Teenagers resent any infringement of their freedom. And in the Kalakshetra of those days, we felt our every step was monitored. No leaving the hostel except one weekend a month, no television, no ceiling fans, no non-vegetarian food, no Western clothes, restricted visitors, no spoons to eat your curds with! The list of curtailments was long and varied. But, weep as we might intermittently into our pillows, we knew we were surrounded by gurus who lived by their precepts and taught by example.

By the time I left Kalakshetra in 1983 and went to live in New Delhi, I had imbibed a certain Indian essence. It made me unfit for a while to live in the capital, where Rajiv Gandhi soon ushered in the computer age and I felt like a fossil.

But it was the example of Athai and her colleagues – Sankara Menon Sir, Paddu Teacher and all the dance music teachers who slogged to make us understand the inner and outer 'life' of dance – that once again helped me tide over the phase of bewilderment.

There are many words I could use to describe the experiences I had as a student of Kalakshetra and since. They are like the innumerable choreographic compositions you might come up within a lifetime. At their core, there is the thought that though I came to Kalak­shetra thinking it was a school for Bharata Natyam, I received an inner reservoir that never fails me in the dilemmas of life.(Courtesy: The Hindu – Sruti.)

 

In this issue

Better streetscapes ahead...
General Guidelines for CCC's...
Chennai's rains & drains...
...And thus he made...
Historic residences...
Other stories in this issue...
 

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Short 'N' Snappy
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Quizzin' with Ram'nan
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