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It's been a great success, the Coordinators of Madras Week tell us. There have been 40 per cent more programmes than last year, they indicate, speaking of the programmes they were informed about. “There were many more we were not told about,” they add. These programmes started from August 1st and are going on till the first week of September, the core week having been packed with events and many more being organised during the week that followed, making it virtually a Madras Fortnight with promise of August-September developing into a Madras Month.
Studying the programme, attending the events, catching up with the numerous reports, still more blogs and even more activities described in person, we are delighted to find that some of the concerns of the Coordinators in past years are being addressed positively. The major success story has been the number of schools participating. Apart from individual schools and some which teamed with a school or two in their neighbourhood, a significant contribution was that by PSBB, KK Nagar, and Pupil Saveetha Eco School, Poonamallee, who took it upon themselves to take the lead roles and act as nodal points for a cluster of a dozen and more schools each. About a hundred schools participated in numerous activities, some of the exhibitions they put up being, in particular, described as “excellent craftsmanship”. But the most significant contribution of the lot was a travelling exhibition of the CPR Environmental Education Centre that visited nearly 200 schools and showed the students a 14-panel presentation titled ‘Clean Adyar, Clean Coovum, Solve Madras’s Water Problem’. The message was in English as well as in Tamil.
Another heartening feature has been the extended spread of the celebrations. North and West Madras have seen much pioneering activity. Sri Theagararya College in Washermenpet, St. Joseph’s High School in Erukkenchery and Ambal Matric School in Arumbakkam have all contributed to this in a significant way.
Then there have been those who have turned the spotlight on the Chennai of today that was once Madras. Namma Chennai and the Indian Press Institute have taken a lead in this. The British Council had several innovative programmes ranging from the past to the present. And, two surprises, the Reserve Bank of India got into the spirit of the celebration and organised programmes for its staff, and the Hotel Ambassador Pallava introduced what we presume will be annual awards to the ‘Doyens of Madras’.
There has also been more than a doubling of the number of walks, all of them well attended. Nizhal led the way with its Tree Walks, but local individuals have shown the way to go leading walks in their neighbourhoods, Kilpauk, Tiruvottriyur, Royapettah, etc. There have also been groups studying their own neighbourhoods, past, present and future.
These are all harbingers of the future, say the Coordinators now grown from three to a dozen. We join them in hoping that the promise of 2013 grows into an even bigger, even more meaningful celebration in 2014. It’s time to start thinking about those plans right now.
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