Ekamra Nivas
64/62, Luz Church Road, Mylapore
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This was the residence of Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer (1883-1953), one of the greatest legal luminaries of India. Apart from being one of the leaders of the Madras Bar, Sir Alladi served as Advocate-General of Madras for sixteen years. He also played a very important role in framing the Constitution of India. Ekamra Nivas was later home to Sir Alladi’s son Professor Ramakrishnan (1923-2008), a renowned mathematician who, inspired by the Institute of Advance Study in Princeton in 1962, persuaded the Government of India to set up MATSCIENCE, a similar institution, in Madras. Ekamra Nivas was its first home and Ramakrishnan its first Director. Today the Institute is in Taramani.
Ekamra Nivas was in its time a spectacular garden house of Madras. A colonial bungalow, it was, to quote Prof. Ramakrishnan, “spacious, elegant, old-fashioned and comfortable... a haunting memory and a living inspiration. It is a palatial building with almost a dozen living rooms, each the size of a small apartment in a modern builidng complex.” In its time it has played host to Prime Ministers and Presidents of India, lawyers, judges and scientists such as Niels Bohr. Its Navaratri celebrations, presided over by the gracious Lady Venkalakshmi Alladi were famous. Surrounding it were the houses that Sir Alladi constructed for his daughters. A couple of these bungalows still survive.
Today, the gardens surrounding Ekamra Nivas have gone, but the house remains, beautifully maintained, a fitting memorial to Sir Alladi and Professor Ramakrishnan.
(Courtesy: Kalamkriya.)
Correction: Sriram V writes that the last line in his write-up on Dhanvantri Villa (MM, February 16th) which read “Today, Kensington is occupied by Sir Ramaswami’s descendants and Dhanvantri Villa by Sir Lakshmanaswami’s family” should read, “Today, both Kensington and Dhanvantri Villa are lived in by descendants of Sir Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar.”
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