The participants seen with the quizmaster Dr. Navin Jayakumar during the third edition of the 'Murugappa Madras Quotient Quiz'.

Did you know that Madras was threatened with evacuation in 1975? This claim by WikiLeaks cannot be confirmed, but it is true that when the city was then fighting severe drought, silver iodide used for cloud seeding by Atmospherics Incorporated, a Fresno, California firm, to induce rains, saved the day for Madras. Not many know that the first village donated by the Nawab of the Carnatic, Zulfikar Khan, to the East India Company was Triplicane in 1672. These questions and others – some long and some in audio and video format – related to the city’s Past, Present, and on the theme Madras for Ever, were posed by ace quizmaster Dr. Navin Jayakumar during the third edition of Murugappa Madras Quotient Quiz, in which 59 city schools fielded 242 teams, each consisting of three students. A prelimnary written round featuring 25 questions brought the competing teams down to six finalists.

The finals had three main themes – Madras Past, Present and Forever. Madras Past focussed on different aspects of the city’s history – Where was Armagon factory located? (Pulicat); Who gave the small strip of sand to the British (which eventually became the city of Madras)? (Damarla Brothers); How were the people south of the Vindhyas referred to and why? (Madrasis because they came under the Madras Presidency). Madras Present looked at the current scenarios and the Madras Forever round was about everything associated with the city.

“Whenever people talk about a quiz on Madras, they always think it has to be about its history. But there’s so much about today’s Madras too. So, Madras Forever featured customs and traditions that make the city what it is. Madras is seen as a city rooted in tradition but amenable to change,” said Navin.

The final six were P.S. Senior Secondary School, Vidya Mandir (both from Mylapore), AMM School (Kotturpuram), National Public School (Gopalapuram), Maharishi Vidya Mandir (Chetpet) and DAV Boys School (Mogappair). The questions thrown by Dr. Navin were answered confidently most of the time. Even their wild guesses at times were indicative of their knowledge of the city’s past. They were undaunted by some seemingly long questions, which provided lesser known facts for a well-known answer. But at times, the teams slipped on what seemed to be an easy answer (for example, relating Chinnaswami Rajam and Abdul Kalam to come up with the answer MIT). On the other hand the video round, which had film scenes featuring prominent landmarks of the city, had the AMM School identify seven of the ten landmarks.

P.S. Senior Secondary School surged ahead in the second round and consistently maintained the lead to win the quiz with 107 points. Its members were Sankrith, Nishanth, and Arjun Aravind. Defending champions Vidya Mandir, which was within striking distance of the title, couldn’t close the lead in the buzzer round and had to be content with being the runner-up (91 points). National Public School, which scored solidly in the buzzer round, was the second runner-up (85 points).

The astonishing energy levels of the students had to be seen to be believed and they didn’t lag behind in their creativity by coming up with wacky names for their teams. Some teams found Tamil to be ideal for expressing themselves. If Idli Vada Sambar was ordinary, By The Time You Read The Name Murugan Idli, They Sold An Idli was at its witty best. Arnab Goswami, the target of many mimics including a TV ad, wasn’t spared either by a team that called itself India Needs An Answer So Do We. Machi, which has entered the lingo of Tamil youth irrespective of their socio-economic status, was part of the name of the runner-up Vidya Mandir team which told itself It’s OK Machi, Finals-la Pathukalam. Why This Kolaveri Di, the irreverent Tanglish number that went viral on YouTube to garner more than a million views, morphed into Why This Vetri Veri Da for the winning P.S. Senior Secondary team. A Brahminical slant was provided by a team that proudly proclaimed itself to be Madras Maamigalin Chennai Pasanga. The soaring onion prices found a new expression in The Batman Rises So Do the Onion Prices. Chetan Bhagat, author of Three Mistakes of My Life, inspired a team that called itself Three Mistakes Our School Made. The organisers decided to give three prizes, instead of the usual one, for the best team name. India Needs An Answer So Do We; Madras Maamigalin Chennai Pasanga; and By The Time You Read the Name Murugan Idli, They Sold An Idli were the winners.

Madras Week’s ‘Murugappa Madras Quotient Quiz’ began with a 25-questionelimination round. The questions which were posed to the 242 schools participating in the quiz were the following:

1. On what date was Madras founded?

2. The fortified warehouse that Francis Day built was completed on April 23, 1640. In the Christian calendar, this day is dedicated to which religious figure?

3. Who lives in a palatial mansion once called Guindy Lodge?

4. Identify this person who was briefly in Chennai in August and will be seen in action in a world championship later this year.

5. Which Viceroy of India between 1880-1884 introduced local government in India during his tenure?
Hint: He is remembered by a prominent building and a statue in Chennai.

6. Two cricket stadiums in Chennai have hosted Test matches. One is the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk. Which is the other ground?

7. Who did American Heritage magazine dub, in 1999, as the Most Overrated Philanthropist, arguing that the institution that bears his name was actually due to the benevolence of one Jeremiah Dummer, but he got the credit only because they did not want to use the name Dummer which could be confused for ‘dumber’ which, for that kind of institution, would be a disaster?

8. A well-known Chennai organisation was started by this person in 1989 to find excellent, novel and radical ideas to solve problems by involving those who cause the problem in the first place. (a) Name him and (b) the organisation.

9. This is the logo of which ‘Pride of Chennai’?

10. What building is seen here in this 1913 photograph?

11. Which building inside Fort St George has a roof that is 5 feet thick? The army stocked its artillery here and it was considered the only bomb-proof building inside the Fort.

12. (a) Which branch of the Indian Army has its HQ in this building in (b) which southern hill station.

13. T.K.S. Elangovan (North) and Chitlapakkam C. Rajendran (South) are two of the three Lok Sabha MPs from Chennai constituencies. Name the third who represents Central Madras.

14. Founded to promote the teachings of the saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, this sect has a temple on a road in Royapettah named after the temple. Name the road/temple. Hint: Hotel Ponnuswamy is located on this road!

15. In the Middle Ages this word referred to any person (Arabs, Turks, etc.) who was of Islamic faith. Through the Crusaders, the name spread into Europe, where it was long in general use and has survived until modern times. The word, also used in architecture, is familiar to Chennai residents as well. What word?

16. (a) Whose statue? (b) Which eminent filmmaker of yesteryear is said to have been the main force behind the raising of the statue?

17. The Metropolitan Area of Chennai extends into which two neighbouring districts?

18. Which famous political figure of Madras was described by Gandhiji as “my conscience keeper”?

19. There are nine bridges and two causeways across the Cooum River in the city. What are the two names (proper name and popular name) of the last bridge under which the Cooum flows before it ends in the Bay of Bengal?

20. Lt. Col. Dr. Gurdial Singh _____ was the jailor when Rajaji was incarcerated in Vellore prison. On Rajaji’s advice, he settled in Madras and his family over a couple of generations has built a number of institutions. There is even a locality in the family’s name. Fill in the blank with the surname of this family?

21. (a) ______, an educationist, is considered the father of the (b) _______ system of education prevailing in Chennai, as it did in the early part of the 19th Century when education was imparted by senior pupils who educated juniors.

22. What is the first two-word search result obtained if you enter the following words in Google Search (a) Madras; (b) Chennai.

23. A song (audio) featured in a film scene (shown here) is considered one of the best examples of Madras baashai. (a) Name the film; (b) Name the actor (who co-starred with Manorama).

24. A piece of music (audio) called Raaga’s dance was composed for a popular woman violinist (seen here), who is world famous.

a) Who is the composer? b) Name the violinist;

25. These two words refer to the Tamil Nadu coast.

a) The Tamil form is found in the name of the famous artists’ village started by K.C.S. Paniker in 1966 that brought modernism to art in Tamil Nadu.

b) The British pronounced/spelled this word differently. The Anglicised form is found in the name of a well-known Chennai hotel.

Both words may be found in names of Murugappa Group companies.

Cricket, Carnatic music and Coffee

One of the programmes organised by the Association of British Scholars to celebrate Madras Week 2013 featured V. Ramnarayan speaking on three of Madras’s favourite pastimes.

Before I go on to speak of musicians interested in, even fanatical about, cricket, let me declare with pride that the founders of Sruti, the magazine I edit, were all cricketers of some quality. The founding editor, N. Pattabhi Raman, was the youngest of three brothers. Despite being a polio victim, he was an active cricketer at the local level, while his brothers P.N. Sundaresan, my periappa, and P.N. Venkatraman, my father, both on the Sruti board, were stalwarts of Mylapore Recreation Club, famously engaged in Madras’s own ‘War of the Roses’ it fought annually against Triplicane Cricket Club. While many of the Buchi Babu clan and distinguished sons of Madras, like the diplomat G P, represented MRC (run by C.R. Pattabhiraman, son of C.P. Ramaswami Iyer), TCC had more than its share of stars – like double international M.J. Gopalan and fast bowler C.R. Rangachari. My cousin P.S. Narayanan, the publisher of Sruti, was a brilliant opening batsman of the 1960s and 1970s. He started with MRC and then went on to play for Jolly Rovers, the team sponsored by the Sanmar Group.

Another MRC star, my father’s uncle, P.S. Ramachandran who once took 10 for 18 in a single innings in the ‘War of the Roses’, was a member of the executive committee of The Music Academy. I am sure some of his colleagues in the committee were also club cricketers.

Tamil Nadu has developed a unique model of sports promotion whereby cricketers and other sportspersons are offered employment and facilities to pursue their sport, assured of financial security. They represent teams run by their employers in local and national tournaments. Among the business houses supporting sport in a big way are my employers, The Sanmar Group, who have been promoting cricket for a record five decades. Its chairman, N. Sankar, is also the chairman of the Sruti Foundation, which runs Sruti magazine. An interesting intersection of cricket and music.

Many Carnatic musicians are cricket fans. In the past, great masters like Madurai Mani Iyer were enthusiastic followers of the game. So is Mani Iyer’s nephew T.V. Sankaranarayanan, a Sangita Kalanidhi like his uncle, who played cricket while at Vivekananda College and follows the game closely. Mannargudi Eswaran, the mridanga vidwan has played cricket, too. On the distaff side, the younger of the Priya Sisters, Shanmukhapriya and Haripriya, represented her State in the national cricket competition.

There is this fabulous story about Sangita Kalanidhi D.K. Jayaraman’s interest in the game. Jayaraman and his sishya Vijay Siva were on a concert visit – to Trivandrum, if I remember right. The duo reached there on the morning of the concert, with the performance slated for the evening. There was no television where they were staying, and there was an ODI featuring India going on that day. DKJ was very keen to watch the match, and a reluctant Vijay Siva was asked to locate a TV set. He found a TV retail shop nearby and, as often is the practice, the shop was showing the live telecast of the match. Vijay hastened back to bring DKJ to the shop to watch from the roadside his favourite Tendulkar open the innings for India.

I have had the pleasure of playing cricket with the celebrated singer Unnikrishnan (MM, September 16th) as well as his father Dr. Radhakrishnan of Bunts Cricket Club. Unnikrishnan, a very good club cricketer, chose to concentrate on developing his considerable musical talent.

Back in the 1990s, well into my forties, I was captaining Parry’s Recreation Club in the third division league. Unni, an officer of the company, was our star player. Midway through the season, I arranged a concert by Unni at my residence on a Sunday evening, only to discover that we were playing a match that day. On top of that, Unni also had a concert the previous evening at Nagercoil. Refusing to cancel the concert, Unni travelled by bus all night and, getting off at Pallavaram, came straight to the English Electric ground where we were playing. We fielded in the hot sun in the morning, and I gave Unni the option of opening the innings (he was our usual no.3) and going home after his knock. Unfortunately, Unni was out for zero, but insisted on staying till the end of the match, which we won. He then went to his Royapettah home, showered and changed and came to my Kottivakkam home on the ECR for the concert, just half an hour later than the scheduled start. It turned out to be a perfect concert.

Sivakumar and Burma Shankar were both my teammates in the TNCA cricket league in the 1960s. Sivakumar is D.K. Pattammal’s son and a mridanga vidwan in his own right, besides being the father of star vocalist Nityashree Mahadevan. Burma’s son, the hugely talented Sanjay Subrahmanyan, is crazy about cricket too.

The annual cricket match among leading Carnatic musicians is now a regular feature of their calendar. I happened to officiate as umpire in one of those games some years ago. The intensity of the competition had to be seen to be believed. At least one musician cricketer gave me a withering look when I gave him out lbw. I have never again been asked to umpire in this gala affair, but I do hope I will get another chance in the future. Who knows, I may have the pleasure of giving a Sangita Kalanidhi out, provided the Music Academy relaxes the age criterion a bit in honouring its vidwans.

Music lovers and musicians are few and far between among cricketers, but the few I know of are diehard rasikas. S.J. Kedarnath, an accomplished opening batsman of yesteryear, was a trained mridanga vidwan, who forsook music for cricket. He is a wonderful mimic who can imitate some of Carnatic music’s greats.

Fast bowler Kalyanasundaram, who once took a hat trick against Bombay, is a dedicated rasika whose knowledge of music is good enough for him to discuss its technical aspects with musicians and even advise them sometimes. Kalli’s good friend K. Balaji, an elegant left hand batsman and a director of Kasturi & Sons, the publishers of The Hindu, is a regular concertgoer. His cousin and fellow director, N. Murali, a leftarm medium pacer for MRC ‘B’, a team run by The Hindu family, is now the President of the Music Academy.

Former India wicketkeeper M.O. Srinivasan was well known in music circles as the founder of Dasanjali, a one-man crusade to teach a large number of school children music, especially of the bhajan or light classical variety. His son M.O. Parthasarathi was a Ranji and Duleep Trophy player, who bowled fastish leg breaks with a Paul Adams-like action, except he was a right arm bowler. He was also a hard-hitting batsman, somewhat unorthodox, but extremely successful. A student of Hindustani vocal music, he has performed on the concert stage.

Violinist S.D. Sridhar is the proud father of left-arm all rounder S. Sriram who played ODIs for India. Sriram too learned the violin for a few years before the pull of cricket proved too powerful.

Former Ranji trophy cricketer S.V.S. Mani, an elegant batsman who played for Tamil Nadu and South Zone with considerable success in the 1960s, and once fielded as a reserve against England, is the son of Kothamangalam Cheenu, that talented singer, who faded away after a stint in films.

S. Radhakrishnan played for several seasons for Parry’s Recreation Club in the league and Hindu Trophy. Once, a century by him in the league led to a newspaper report which said Radhakrishnan, the son of Semmangudi Srinivasier, had scored a century, thus revealing to the world at large his musical ancestry only friends had till then known about.

(To be concluded)

Cataloguing the heritage of Kilpauk

Santhanam Chetty, a descendant of Beri Thimmappa, addressing the participants during the Kilpauk Walk.