Dangerous expansions
A dangerous trend is emerging in T’Nagar, where commercial complex owners, in a bid to expand their area of operation and quench their insatiable thirst to earn further, are targeting the nearby residential dwellings. The modus operandi is that they lure the owners of the flats to sell their property by offering them hefty amounts. Once they are able to trap a few flat owners to do so, they pressure those who are hard nuts to crack.
Though the constitutional provision enjoins upon the residents the ‘right to live’, the trend is clearly in violation of equality of that right. Government must view this seriously and help the residents who have been living in T’Nagar for decades. A suitable legislation must be brought in so as to put a ‘cap’ on any kind of development by commercial complex owners in and around T’Nagar.
The shopping hub has already grown beyond its size and any further tinkering at the cost of its primary stakeholders, the residents, will only help its deterioration. This should mean that the commercial complex owners should play only within their present area and no new complexes/extensions/activities be allowed to come up in T’Nagar.
This must be treated as an SOS from the hapless residents of T’Nagar who are already in dire straits due to excess commercialisation leading to poor sanitation, pollution of various kinds and a host of other civic issues.
K. Harihar
20, Venkatesan Street
T’Nagar, Chennai 600 017
The Anglo-Indians
The Indianised Anglo Indian community was well perceived by Venkatesh alongside in the book by S. Muthiah (MM, November 1st). Anglo-Indian community does live not only in urban areas but in rural interior too. As I perceive, the identity itself, i.e. ‘Anglo-Indian’ derives from the fact that these people speak English. In other words, it means English speaking Indians. However, though hundred years passed, they retain their own lifestyle.
Their women still maintain wearing gowns. Still I remember one family which lived at our remote village in Tiruchy district. I am told, Anglo-Indian men mostly work in Railways. They do not seem to have involved in any quarrels in society as other communities do. Two Anglo-Indian aged sisters use to visit our Bank once in a week. They smile at me on entering and enquire about my health. It shows their behaviour in public even today. Though we change our lifestyle, I see no change in Anglo-Indians. They love gardening around their dwellings. They extend help to poor people. Let their lives go on in our Indian soil for many decades to come.
S.R. Rajagopal
7/12, Peters Colony
Royapettah
Chennai 600 014.
Some resemblance?
The centre piece at Viegland's park.
I have not known of the Madras scuptor Murugesan nor of his impressive creations. I am ashamed of myself on that score.
The photograph featured in MM last fortnight brought to mind our (me and my family) visit to the sculpture park created by Gustav Viegland in Frogner, near Oslo (Norway), while living in Germany in the early 2000s. There seems a reasonable resemblance in the work of Murugesan and the Norwegian creator Gustav Viegland.
Both have created artwork out of wood, stone, and bronze. More importantly, both have themed human sentiments in their creations. Murugesan who was born much later was influenced by Viegland, who died in 1943.
The sprawling open-air display of nearly 200 lifesize pieces of artwork of human emotions and behaviours by Viegland attracts even a dummy like me, who has no innate flair for any work of art, having been trained in hardcore science and only equipped to see either the black or the white.
My short visit to the ‘Viegland Park’ (as it is known) in Frogner made me feel a soft vibration in myself, awakening the subtleties of life.
As I strolled in the Viegland Park, holding the tiny palms of my daughter, my lips were involuntarily murmuring the song starting Nirpatuve, nadappatuve... by Subramania Bharati. I cannot explain why I was muttering that song.
Am I thinking correctly in telling myself that ‘thought evolution’ can occur concurrently and parallely?
A Raman
New South Wales
Australia
ARaman@csu.edu.au
Growing up with Anglo-Indians
Having spent my academic years in Good Shepherd Convent, Christ Church Anglo-Indian High School and Loyola College, I enjoyed the benefits of a close interaction with the Anglo-Indian community. And Madras Musings’ recent feature (MM, November 1st) made me recall my experience in those institutions.
The standard of education in South India would not have reached such high levels over the years but for such institutions.
The Anglo-Indian schools worked according to an agenda of grooming an individual to serve society at every stage. Discipline, proper study, prayer, physical activities, sports and games and music formed the matrix of a good social background if you were a product of such schools – and it showed!
To narrow the focus to my own individual experience, I still remember the days when the legendary Father Murphy visited Good Shepherd Convent on certain days of the week. It was sheer excitement to be in the presence of the aged Reverend Father who always sported a smile on his cherubic face even as he taught us how to lead a good life. (At the other end of the spectrum, he wrote book reviews for The Hindu on a regular basis.)
John Asirvatham, Headmaster of Christ Church, was a stickler for discipline and hard work as far as studies were concerned. (At the risk of being immodest, I will have to add that one day he called me to his room and said in his usual authoritarian voice that he had identified me for a State Rank; the next year I managed to come in second to his moderate satisfaction!). His Prayer Sessions at the beginning of the day were a great source of inspiration for all of us.
The Assistant Headmaster, Samuel, taught us the nuances of Wren and Martin. He selected a handful of us and made us visit his home on Sunday afternoons in order to put us through a course of appreciation of Shakespeare’s works while his hospitable wife plied us with snacks and soft drinks! Gently persuaded by us, he would roll out a couple of songs on his stately piano. (He used to play both the piano and the organ at Christ Church on special days when we attended Church for prayers.)
Christ Church prided itself on hockey and was a bitter rival to St Bede’s on San Thomé Road. If hockey flourished in Madras it was largely due to the Anglo-Indians. Police officers from the community, even if they were of Deputy Commissioner’s rank, used to play hockey with great enthusiasm.
A couple of names, such as Eugene Edmonds and Maurice Timms whose father was in Madras Police, come to mind when I recall playing hockey with the Anglo-Indians. With their exodus to Australia, Canada and New Zealand, hockey lost its sheen in the city. Crowds thronging the stadiums also at athletics meets began to dwindle thereafter.
Apart from studies and sports, music and dance marked every social occasion and the clubs used to swing to the rock and roll of Elvis Presley and others of his ilk. Young carol singers during pre-Christmas weeks were welcomed by the elders as they gave them cakes and puffs while they strummed their guitars. The Star of David shining from the roof-top made a pretty picture. That some of us were not Christians did not matter at that memorable moment!
At school, we not only picked up the mellifluent sounds of hymns and carols but were also exposed to Mozart and Beethoven.
Occasionally, in order to take a nostalgic trip down the Anglo-Indian route, my wizened old classmates from Christ Church, comprising a retired Army Colonel, the retired Chairman of a Bank, a fashion designer who now chooses to live with Uncle Sam, and I would meet and relish our sundowners in the musical company of Frank Sinatra (Ol’ Blue Eyes), Bing Crosby (White Christmas), Elvis Presley (Angel), Cliff Richards (On the Evergreen Tree), etc.
I will for ever remember the Anglo-Indian community; may their tribe increase wherever they are!
V. Kalidas
vkalidas@gmail.com
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