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(ARCHIVE) Vol. XX No. 8, august 1-15, 2010
Our Readers Write

The Corporation should speak more to its citizens

Should Chennai Corporation create a space for citizens to discuss, debate and discourse on issues that affect our city?

It should.

It does.

It does by way of providing space, time and funds to Councillors who are elected in 155 wards of the city. Councillors who are supposed to speak for the community they represent.

But, do the real issues come up?

Take the case of the proposal to change the names of streets and roads.

A city’s civic body should have opened up the issue for discussion and debate, sought ideas and suggestions.

These would have enlightened all of us, the Councillors and the Mayor.

Madras Musings, devoted to all that is Madras and Chennai, ran columns on the history behind the prominent street and road names. In a way, it gave all us the hint that the names of people who had contributed to this city should be retained.

Chennai Corporation oftentimes takes its people for granted. Or sidelines them.

Recently, a small group of residents of the Leith Castle area in San Thome said they visited the city Mayor to impress upon him the need to retain the name and gave him a bit of the history behind it.

They returned disappointed because the Mayor dismissed their contention coldly.

I was amused when I read that the Corporation had even asked two new hotels to change their names because Mount Road was part of their names.

The reasoning: Since Mount Road had been renamed Anna Salai years ago, the former could not be used.

These are proper names and I don’t see how a civic body can keep ordering people and exceed its powers.

It is a form of extremism. And it should be challenged.

It is up to citizens to get the Corporation to open up, to provide them a space for debate and to respect their views.

So speak up when you need to.

Vincent D'Souza

Time for a nagar to do its bit

There is a move in Sastri Nagar, a neighbourhood in Adyar, to rename the streets and roads.

Some busybodies said that since the City Fathers have decided to consign most British names to the bin and rename streets after Tamil scholars, it is time a nagar does its bit.

I have been invited to put in my two bits because someone said I indulge in history and heritage.

So they said as long as I refrain from suggesting Portuguese and Armenian names I could contribute.

But there is a lot of work on our hands. There are 15 cross streets and 10 lanes in this nagar. And one main road.

I agreed with the busybodies that the cross streets are pretty dull as far as names for streets go.

When I first moved to this neighbourhood I thought the simple names made sense. It would be easy for guests and visitors to locate our places since there was a logical process in naming the streets.

But when a young man came looking for ‘Pepsi’ Uma’s residence and we made some enquiries, then we realised there were a few bends in the location of some streets.

15th Cross Street was not located after 13th and 14th but on the fringe of the nagar. The Corporation officials must have got it wrong somewhere when they plotted this place.

I find that most people do not use the name of the street. They know it by the name of the personalities who reside there. I used to refer to Vazhapadi Ramamurthy’s place where he used to live close by till his death. My istriwallah kept referring to the Governor’s Street as his alternate space! ‘Pepsi’ Uma, the TV anchor, joined the name call more recently.

So here we are with the grand idea of dumping the Cross Streets and Straight Lanes of our nagar. Our busybodies say we act fast to pre-empt the City Father from burdening us with names that are two metres long. And of people we never knew or have not seen.

Veteran Congressman P. Ramachandran used to be our neighbour. So I wonder if our street may want to have his name.

Maybe the City Fathers should leave it to the community to rename their streets.

Whatever our busybodies do, I would not want them to change Cart Track Street! This is a small patch that links two busy roads. It used to be the only path for carriages from this part of Adyar headed to the sandy swathes now called Besant Nagar. The past is important for the future.

Cart Track Street – it is there in the Corporation’s records!

Vincent D’Souza

Why hue & cry?

I am quite surprised that Madras Musings (July 1st) is making a big hue and cry over the renaming of the city’s streets. I feel that the Chennai Corporation has taken a good decision by renaming all these streets which were named after some unknown Englishmen.

You have given a list of names to be retained by the Corporation. No doubt these people have done some service to the people of Tamil Nadu. At the same time, we must not forget the people who have done so much for the upliftment of the city after independence.

As regards usage, I would like to point out just two examples. One is Mount Road, which name most people have forgotten. Most of them have started using Anna Salai. The other is Pycroft’s Road, which has been named as Bharathi Salai.

People made a big hue and cry when Madras was changed to Chennai, but today only a few remember Madras and, in a couple of decades, only Madras Musings will remember Chennai that was Madras. Frankly speaking, Chennai sounds much better than Madras.

Finally, not only Munro’s statue, but all other colonial statues should be removed not only from Chennai, but also from the rest of Tamil Nadu. This also includes the arches and clock towers which were built to honour the English rulers.

C.B. Rameshkumaar
rameshkumaar57@yahoo.co.in

Naming suggestion

As a former resident of Madras over 50 years ago, may I suggest, to avoid bickering, Street Names should be changed to GPS Co-ordinates? Perhaps with the additional notation saying 20 miles from High Court, 40 steps from Woodlands (landmark), etc., wherever possible a digital screen (AdPad?) displaying the Heritage information as published in Madras Musings could be put up. When you touch it, there it is, street view, or people view all those living in that street. Of course, the advertisers will pay for the AdPad!

Happy Madras Living.

Jorge Paes
annoynomas@gmail.com

PS: I lived across from a former President’s home and next to Vepa House in Edward Elliott’s Road.

Name assassination

I advert to Short ‘N’ Snappy item ‘Saving heritage the FM way’ (MM, June 16th) about the abbreviation of street names sometimes sounding ludicrous.

If a contest is held for the most startling abbreviation, the winner would be ‘K.D. Nagar’ as it appears on bus route boards. No, it is not a place inhabited by Known Depredators. It is Kannadasan
Nagar!

C.G. Prasad
9, C.S. Mudali Street
Kondithope, Chennai 600 079

Digitise journals

I recently read that the University of Madras (UoM) is planning to digitise the entire collection of books and theses available in all its four campuses. This is, of course, a laudable effort. But the Syndicate and Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University of Madras need to recognise the urgency of digitising the unique scientific journals published in the 19th Century from Madras, long before scientific journalism took strong roots even in parts of the Western world.

I refer to some of the classics such as the Madras Journal of Literature and Science (MJLS, published by the Madras Literary Society) and several other medical journals published at different times from Madras Medical College.

Whereas Google has digitised some issues of MJLS, as available in North American libraries, the complete set is not available digitally. Madras published the Madras Quarterly Medical Journal (MQMJ) from 1839 until 1844. The Madras Journal of Medical Science (1851-1854), Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (1860-1869), Monthly Journal of Medical Science (1870-1873), Transactions of the South Indian Branch of BMA (the British Medical Association) (1887-1910), and Madras Medical Record (1890) were other journals that appeared following the MQMJ in Madras in the 19th Century.

The VC of UoM may brush aside my suggestion of digitising early Madras medical journals as being the responsibility of the MGR Medical University. But the UoM Syndicate and the VC should recall that UoM is the mother of all the modern South Indian universities and, therefore, the onus lies on UoM primarily to preserve these valuable documents for posterity.

I hope people concerned will take this suggestion in right spirit.

A. Raman
Charles Sturt University, Orange,
New South Wales, Australia

Straitjacketed!

Another linguistic misadventure (MM, July 1st) I had with Tamil-English scenario might amuse your readers:

After losing a jacket during a train journey a few months ago, I hunted around the clothing stores in the Adyar-Tiruvanmiyur area for a replacement. At one place, the person at the counter assured me that they did sell jackets, and waved me in the direction of a counter where a number of salesgirls were present. One of them asked me what size I wanted and I promptly told her “My size”, which seemed to cause some puzzlement among them. That is, until the smart one loudly exclaimed, “Oh, jerkin-aah?”, which was followed by suppressed giggles all round, while I sheepishly made my exit. Further researches revealed that the Tamil term ‘jacket’ refers to blouses for women. It is likely that only a few domesticated husbands would be aware of this.

Maybe I should be satisfied with having provided a spot of merriment in what I imagine to be the humdrum routine of a few shop assistants. But I am yet to find a suitable and affordable jacket in my size of the non-Tamil variety!

Thomas Tharu
xteesquare@yahoo.co.uk

 

In this issue

Is it new life for two heritage buildings?
Elevated road at expense of the Cooum?
U.S. journal looks at the new Chennai
World-class city?
– “A wild dream”
Speaking for Chennai Heritage
A temple awaiting a gopuram
Zooming to a start at Sholavaram
Other stories

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