Serendipitously there arrived on my desk recently a Madras guide book of the 1950s, with a heap of pictures of the landmarks of that era. Some of them survive as they were, others survive in a re-constructed form, and many have vanished. From this issue onwards, we will publish a picture of one of them every fortnight, as they were 50 years ago and more ago. We start with Dasaprakash Hotel, an Udipi icon of that era, on Poonamallee High Road. A wonderful art deco building, it was part of a chain built up by Kuttethoor Seetharama Rao who gave up a lowly Government job in 1921 to join his brothers in running a restaurant in Mysore. It later established others in Madras and Ootacamund, then in the 1970s, moved to North India and, thereafter, to the USA.

The Poonamallee High Road flagship hotel was inaugurated in 1954, as was its twin kalyana mandapam, Dharmaprakash. The hotel was known for its good Udipi fare, ice creams and comfortable rooms. In its time, its restaurants had seen visitors ranging from Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru to J.K. Galbraith.

Differences in the family and the five-star culture saw the closure of Dasaprakash in the 1990s. The building was demolished in 2010 to make way for highrise after the property changed hands.