Remembering Burma with love

With many in Madras having strong Burma connections, Madras to Man­da­lay, anchored by Geetha Doctor was an apt topic for Madras Week. Apart from Indian government ­servants, mainly from Madras, deputed by the British to serve in Burma, the Nagara­thar (Nattukottai Chettiars) went to Burma in the 1820s at the invitation of the British as traders and bankers serving Mr. Everyman. They set up kitangis in which they lived and worked, and met the financial needs of farmers, fishermen and wood traders who had no access to banks. The Chettiar ­community played a crucial role in the economy of Burma as well as in ­founding schools, building temples, and inviting artistes from South India to perform there.

The evening started with Shylaja Chetlur and her daughter ­reciting The King in Exile, a poem by Rudyard Kipling written in 1890. Thibaw Min, the last Burmese king and his wife Supalaya, were exiled to India when the British annexed Burma in 1886. During a temporary stop before being moved to Ratnagiri, their third daughter, Supalaya, was born there and became ­‘Madras Supalaya’ to all.

Muthiah, speaking of kitangi’ life, explained how young Chettiar boys were sent there to learn the ropes of business. They started doing all sorts of errands and lowly jobs and as they progressed they “could sleep only after tallying the cash of the day to the last paisa,” Muthiah said. One of their abilities was mental maths, including calculating to fractions of 192. The Chettiar agents would meet ­every day in the Dhandayutha­pani Temple and agree on interest rates.

Railway coaches in India were built using Burmese pinga­do wood, also called iron wood. “Wood was literally floated down the Irrawady River and then to Nagapattinam on the South Indian coast, much of it reaching Chettinad homes that were invariably built using Burma teak,” Muthiah narrated. Rice from Burma was a major export to India. So was dhal. “Our sambar has a Burma connect,” quip­ped Geetha Doctor who also spoke of the fabulous rubies of Burma.

M.V. Subbiah, who had recently visited Burma to relive his family connections with the country, spoke in glowing terms about Mandalay city which, he said, was better than even New York. He also described how Chettiar boys aged 11 to 14 joined their family kitangis or apprenticed in others to learn the business. Starting as paiyan (boy), they became adutha aalu or kanakku pillai (accountant). They progressed then to kootali (business partner), pangali (share­holder in business), and mudalali (owner).

Visalakshi Ramaswamy, who is into handicrafts, displayed various items of Burmese origin that were and still are part of the households of the Chettiars. Apart from wooden containers for storing rice and wooden koodais (woven baskets) for taking items for prayer in a temple, she displayed Moulmein jars and lacquer items. She said that when a Chettiar girl got married, each item given to her new household was written down and the list handed over to her. That’s how she came to know of Mandalay karandi (spoon) and other items from Burma.

P.V. Krishnamoorthy, a retired Director from All India Radio and Doordarshan, was born in Burma and recalled how the Chettiars helped the Indian community remain true to their roots. Chettiars founded schools where Tamil was taught and brought in able teachers from South India to teach the students, organised the Thai Poosam festival, and hosted Tamil film stars, like S.G. Kittappa and K.B. Sundaram­bal, and classical vocalists and musicians.

Mystical Mandalay, a pictorial presentation on ‘Burma today’, by Shylaja Chetlur was shown and a Burmese soup Khao Swe, ­prepared by Chef Rajesh and his team at The Park, was served before the audience said goodbye to Burma that’s now Myanmar.

The stories that Lloyd's Road tells

Lloyd’s Road, named after E.C. Lloyd, Commissioner of the Madras Corporation from 1901 to 1905 and then a Secretary to the Government of Madras, connects the Beach to Mount Road in a single stretch. It once had only 60 spacious bungalows, today it is an overcrowded stretch.

This is the road Sriram V. and Mohan Raman chose for a Chennai Heritage Walk during Madras Week.

The walk started from what was once the house of K.P. Viswanatha Iyer, a sub-editor of The Hindu, who is remembered for his coverage of the Dandi March. Mohan Raman then traced the origin of Madras baashai to Mir Sahib Pet, or Misa Pettai, where comedian Chandrababu once lived. A.V. Raman owned a bungalow at the intersection of Lloyd’s Road and Royapettah High Road. A civil and sanitary engineer, he was a close associate of Rajaji and advocated the importance of sanitation, the lack of which had Lloyd always chiding Indians about. It was Raman who gave MGR his first house in the city. MGR, then a fledgling actor in the late 1950s, paid a rent and an additional sum every month as instalment towards the house at 160 Lloyd’s Road where he lived and eventually became its owner. After Raman passed away, MGR had an oil portrait of him made, which still survives in AVR’s home. AVR’s son V.P. Raman, Mohan ­Ra­man’s father, was a noted lawyer and accomplished violinist, with political leanings and was a legal adviser to leading actors of yesteryears, including MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, Saroja Devi and lyricist Kanna­dasan.

The pithamaga of Carnatic music, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, and The Hindu’s famed founder, G. Subramanya Iyer, lived on Lloyd’s Road, which also boasts the home of Nara­yana Iyengar, who made a name as a film producer. His home was later acquired by the ­owners of Dadha Pharma. ­Another MGR property on the road was first Sama Needhi’s ­office, then ­became Nadigar Sangam’s office. When MGR founded the AIADMK, it was made the headquarters of the party in 1972.

Justice Somayya, who was a junior to the legal luminary Alladi Krishnasamy Iyer, owned a spacious bungalow which, ­after change of ownership, is now the Hema Malini Kalayana Mandapam. It was slightly off this road that gatherings of ­intellectuals took place under the auspices of the Lakshmi­pu­ram Young Men’s Association (LYMA), founded by Gopala­samy Iyengar.

The house of Kothaman­galam Subbu, the well-known script writer of Tamil films, still survives on the road. Lalitha Sa­dan, a vast 18,000 sq. ft ­property owned by the dubashes of Best and Company in its heyday, Ramaswamy and Laksh­mana Swamy Iyer, was acquired by Indian Bank as the bank was the principal lender to the dubashes whose stock had dwindled to the extent that it necessitated the house being auctioned. The Indian Bank is now headquartered here.

In a small lane off Lloyd’s Road lived T.K. Shanmugam, doyen of Tamil drama, who was called ‘Avvai’ Shanmugam because of the flourish with which he played the role of Avvaiyar. His son T.S. Kalaivanan still lives here. The property of V.T. Krishnamacharya, Dewan of Baroda, member of the Constituent Assembly and, later, of the Planning Commission, is ­today the headquarters of the Khadi Village and Industries Commission. His son, V.K. Thirumala­charya, a maverick lawyer and a close friend of K. Kamaraj, “sold it to Khadi for a song,” according to Sriram, ­because of his friendship with Kamaraj. Eswari Lending ­Library started off as a wastepaper shop and second-hand bookstore. Its owner Palani, having acquired a significant amount of books in the course of the business, started the lending library.