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VOL. XXIV NO. 11, September 16-30, 2014
nostalgia brought about Madras Week
Memories ever green of Madras
(by Lakshmi Sundaram)

Beautiful Madaras! Then Singara Chennai! Now?

Years ago, when we moved from our home town Trivandrum to Madras, the city unfolded itself in its magnificence. Good clean roads flanked on either side by huge majestic trees with the branches extending beautifully to provide some sort of a canopy to the road. It was such a beautiful feeling to be walking down the road with  a green cover above you accompanied by a refreshing breeze.

The main roads had only bungalows then, big and small, on either side. Roads with shops were mostly in residential localities and were confined to certain parts of the city like Mount Road, Luz Corner, Triplicane High Road, Armenian Street, Thambu Chetty Street, some pockets in T’Nagar and in streets round a temple in each area. Shops with sparkling brass and copperware made many a shopper stare and buy. I remember there were only a few saree shops with traditional Kanchipuram sarees and bits. The jewellery shops had limited variety of gold, diamond and stone jewels tempting the women and girls to buy and to cause a dent in the men’s money-purse, as a wallet was then called.

Good educational institutions were few, like P.S. School, Madras Christian College School, Church Park Convent, Holy Angel’s Convent, Vidyodaya, Good Shepherd. The colleges were Queen Mary’s, Presidency, Loyola, Madras Christian, and Women’s Christian besides other colleges like the Madras Medical, Stanley Medical and Guindy Engineering.

My sisters, my nieces and I never missed a chance of watching the various drama troupes staging serious plays as well as troupes like Cho’s which provided political satire and which sent us into splits of laughter. The T.K.S. Brothers, S.V. Sahasranamam, Sivaji Ganesan and K. Balachandar and others made the audiences sit up and watch performances of meaningful stories with mythological, historical and social themes. Sometimes, the plays were staged even on a stage erected in an open ground. As I go down memory lane, I can still recall some scenes of T.K.S. Brothers’ Raja Raja Cholan, S.V. Sahasranamam’s Therotti Magan – a theme revolving round the famous Karnan character of Mahabharatham, particularly the scene where Karnan discovers that Kunti Devi is his mother, and the emotional meeting when the mother and son meet. It was acted so powerfully that I, as a little girl, saw tears trickling down many a face. Cho delighted the audience with his humour; so did Balachandar’s stage plays with social themes, which conveyed a message and made people think.

On the music side, the few sabhas staged top singers like Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Musiri Subramanya Iyer, G.N. Balasubramaniam, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Madurai Mani Iyer, M.S. Subbulakshmi, and D.K. Pattammal, M.L. Vasanthakumari and others, accompanied on the violin and mridangam by proficient artistes who regaled the audiences. Though I did not much understand classical music then, we youngsters listened with rapt attention as the raga alapana, sahityam, swarams, etc. profusely filled the auditorium. These kutcheris were all held in modest buildings with no trappings. Whatever discomfort the hall had was forgotten in the melodies from the musicians. The other fine arts – dance team led by Balasaraswathi with her technical proficiency, Kumari Kamala’s aesthetic Bharata Natyam performance and a medley of dances called Oriental dances staged by the beautiful Travancore sisters, Lalitha, Padmini, Ragini among others – were all a feast to the eye.

We in the family enjoyed all these different facets of Madras life at the time. My father had built our house Burma House in a colony off the then Edward Elliot’s Road. From the terrace of our house, we could see the sea and the blue waters. Our home bieng not very far from Marina Beach, we, after school and college, would go almost every evening with my father to the beach. The two hours spent there playing on the sands and getting our feet wet with the waves were the most delightful moments of our lives. The cool refreshing air and playing on the clean sand made us return home glowing with happiness. Only a few vendors came to the beach to sell pattani sundal and occasionally a Mysore Cafe van was parked there and we youngsters used to go to the small tea stalls there. Even after years, thoughts of these things remain green and firmly etched in my memory.

The Navarathri season brought joy and colour into everyone’s house as it was time for kolu, arranging dolls on steps. At that time there was a  lot of bonhomie amidst social visits. North Mada Street by the  side of Kapaleeswarar Koil  in Mylapore had vendors selling and displaying the colourful dolls, and people happily buying new ones every year to add to their collection. Our small colony wore a festive look as we young girls in Kancheepuram pattu pavadais, and blouses, with  a kunjalam at the end of each one’s plait and flowers in the hair enjoyed arranging our kolu and visiting the kolu displays in nearby houses.

Life was easier to live then, the city was less crowded and you could walk in peace except in some parts of the city, like the town-side, as they used to refer to them, where all the wholesale markets and shops were located. The crowd was much less in every other place. There was no vehicular aggression unlike now; it was easy to go shopping to Luz or T’Nagar by state transport buses. Of course, there were the rickshaw-pullers for short distances and you did  not have to depend on cars. 

Madras in those days was beautiful, fairly clean, and commercial institutions were not so interspersed with residential buildings as they are now.


Never to be forgotten... Balasaraswathi... M.S. Subbulakshmi... Cho Ramaswamy.

Today, the transformation is very noticeable. Beautiful independent houses, big and small, have been razed to the ground and, instead, high-rise buildings have come up, with the city growing vertically, with pressure on urban land and the migration of people from towns and villages to the city in search of jobs. Haphazard growth of commercial buildings, shopping malls, money splurged and increasing cinema houses have all played havoc resulting in inability to maintain old buildings. Of course, a few heritage buildings remain, but the entire city now has more stereotyped buildings. The Madras of then, with houses and buildings with architectural beauty, has given place to a city of high-rises. Rather, Singara Chennai now is a flattened city, a city of flats. Earlier, in spite of lack of modern vehicles for removing garbage, carts with men would come and clean streets. Now with modern methods of removal, the dustbins are overflowing with garbage, the rubbish strewn all over the place.

I admit there is no point in complaining. This is the price a citizen has to pay for urbanisation, commercialisation, globalisation taking place in all metropolitan cities and Chennai is no exception.

But, for people who have seen Madras in its glorious days in all its splendour, memories will always remain green.

I yearn for the Madras that once I knew

(by Sudha Umashanker)

Madras that is Chennai has just celebrated another birthday. And I can’t help getting all nostalgic and hark back on the Madras of my childhood. From my parental home in Egmore, known as the bungalow to relatives, to Church Park Convent on the arterial Mount Road would be one dash and took just under ten minutes. You could even manage to stop by at Dawn Stores and pick up some urgently needed school supplies. Cars could drive right into the school compound, unlike today where many traffic pile-ups happen at school times thanks to schools not allowing cars in.

School admissions were never a problem as opposed to today when you have to start planning it even before the birth of the baby.

Three times a week my music teacher would come home and take veena lessons. Many of us learnt for the sake of exposure to the art and not to be performers or professionals and that was joy enough. The tuition teacher too would come home and one had to carefully choose people who knew their job and who were safe to be around with. Had I been as well-clued about child abuse at age nine as I am today, some of those guys and the obnoxious driver could have been slapped with charges

When you drove into a place like the Madras Gymkhana Club, the colonial overhang was palpable, There was exclusiveness about it. The members were the who’s who of the city and since everybody was somebody everyone knew everyone else. Fish and chips and tartar sauce, chocolate gateaux, and baked corn were made to perfection and were tempting to die for. The Saturday movie and live band, the weekly children’s movie – just the thought of it all – transports me to a different era.

Eat-outs and hotels (one hadn’t heard of five star ones) were few but  I remember my father talking about a Coimbatore Krishna Iyer and his badam halwa besides the tram and the much-feared plague. Madras had changed even in his time.

Spencer's that was a landmark. (Courtesy: Vintage Vignettes.)

In the city, homes were far apart and there weren’t too many people in sight .The only crowded areas were Triplicane and Parry’s Corner (in the Kandaswamy temple/Rasappa Chetty Street vicinity). Even Ranganathan Street hadn’t quite come into its own and wasn’t the nightmare it is today. I wasn’t as familiar with Mylapore as I am today. So I can’t say much about it, but for the Kapaleeswarar temple which I had visited as a child.

There were just about twenty postal zones and places like Madipakkam and Moulivakkam were not heard of. Anna Nagar had  just had the World Trade Fair  and commuting to that area seemed like going on a long-distance trip.

Only in the late 1960s and early 1970s had builders like Southern Investments made their entry and highrise apartments were few and far between. The fourteen-storeyed LIC building had remained the tallest building for a long time. Down Mount Road, Spencer’s was a landmark with its unique facade, its beautiful driveway, and its wooden floors – very sadly now replaced by a mall.

Many Sindhi businessmen had set up shop in Madras, and India Silk House, Chellaram’s, Parsuram’s and Lilaram’s were notable examples. They were ever so solicitous – addressing most woman customers as sisters and young children as babies plying them with coffee and cool drinks. One even came away with a key-chain or paper weight or some freebie most of the time.

Corporate hospitals were unheard of and one went to the friendly family doctor and only if really necessary would you get referred to someone else. With excellent and dedicated doctors, institutions like GH and Stanley (Kanji Thotti hospital) and Royapettah GH, not to forget Maternity at Egmore and Gosha (Triplicane), served a large population. The street corner 24x7 dispensary hadn’t showed up back then. Supermarkets too hadn’t made their appearance and the local grocer would home-deliver stuff packed in paper cones and secured with twine. Yes, home delivery was a value addition even then.

Everything from eggs to ghee to Kanchipuram sarees to Venkatagiri sarees to the Sholapur sarees and bangles would come right home to your doorsteps and big brands were few and far between .We had an old tailor who would come home and do the unimportant stuff – inner wear, boxer shorts, chemises, etc. while we went to Town or someplace else for the dressy jobs. The barber too would drop by and a makeshift salon would be created. The knife sharpener with his stone and the sparks flying, now part of a vanishing breed, was a familiar figure then. The idiot box hadn’t arrived yet and movie theatres like Casino and the Safire complex with its popular Blue Diamond, where shows ran back to back, bring back warm and happy memories – not to forget Elphinstone (can Jaffer’s ice cream parlour be far behind – never mind if it sometimes made you sick) and Minerva. Of course, if you wanted to catch a Tamil film, the gaudy Gaiety, Paragon and the posh Shanthi for die-hard fans of Sivaji Ganesan were the places to go to.

As Madras gets another year older, I yearn for the city of yore (whoever dared call it a village) and wonder where and whether  I will ever find some traces of it.

Remembering Royapettah

The Indersains.

The Indersains (MM, June 16th) lived at 17 Royapettah High Road (opposite where the Pilot Theatre was) till recently from 1933. The house had a large playground and high walls allowing four boys and one girl to play cricket with a regular cricket ball and stumps in position, and a shuttlecock court of right dimensions, well measured and marked with a place for a regular net. The house had a mango tree with many mangoes.

Remembering those times I recall trams plying on both sides of the road, some going towards Mylapore, Luz and the Temple, others in the direction of Parry’s Corner and terminating at the High Court.

The nearby Sultan Market opposite Royapettah Police Station was where the family got its fresh vegetables. Next to the Police Station was Malabar Bakery, which sold fresh bread, pastries and buns that tasted as good as those from Bosotto’s or MacRenett’s on Mount Road.

Opposite the Royapettah’s Government Hospital was a ‘hotel’ that served non-veg and vegetarian food. Named Hotels Cheap, it was well patronised.

City Printing Press started by a Mr. Iyer and assisted by Amaji helped children from the Corporation school on Royapettah High Road, particularly with book-binding when needed. Rates were reasonable to encourage all those who lived in the area, among whom was ‘Ammani’, now Dr. Mathangi Ramakrishnan.

Never will you see again in Royapettah Bus No. 13 whose route covered from Triplicane to T’Nagar via the Bazaar Road. Going to MCC College in Tambaram in 1943 was from Mambalam Station by local trains and a quick march, left, right, to the College. During the rains, Royapettah would be flooded and wearing half-pants to College was not uncommon.

Further down, on the left corner, which slowed down the tram, was Dr. Rangaswamy Nursing Home where three children of the Indersains were born (now opposite Swagath Hotel), and the Provident Fund Office. Next to this was 24 Royapettah High Road where the Punjab Association began a shuttle court opposite the Burma Bamboo furniture shop. Here there came and lived in 1947 refugees from Pakistan. Down the road was Kali Mark bottling company. At Lloyd’s Road corner was the house of V.P. Raman, the famous lawyer, where Rajaji formed the Swatantra Party. And what about Raja Iyer, another well-known lawyer, and Ajantha Guptas Hotel? Then there was the tram shed on the way to the YMCA.

How can we ever forget going to Church Park School near Thousand lights with rickshawman Chellappa, and the barber shop oppostie today’s Hotel Amin?

Bharat Hiteshi

Quizzing with Murugappa's

At the Madras Quotient Quiz 2014...


Rushing (left) to get into the auditorium (right).

The audience gets into the act.

First prize winners from nearly 300 teams – Maharishi Vidya Mandir.


...and at The Madras 375 Quiz

Three of the finalists in The Madras 375 Quiz, an open event sponsored by the Murugappa Group and organised by Mylapore Times. The 260 quizzers included T.K. Balaji, one of the winners of the Madras 350 Quiz. This is how the love for Madras brings people to the city's celebrations again and again!



Other Madras Week events

Vidwan R.K. Sriramkumar and Latha Nathan sang about tree species at The Musical Tree Walk in Kotturpuram Tree Park organised by Nizhal during Madras Week.

Participants at "Living Statues" walking tour organised on the Marina by the World Storytelling Institute.

Madras Naturalists' Society conducted several programmes for children during Madras Week.

MadrasWeek for the young

During the Kottur walk

During the Adyar Poonga walk.

Walk and make a scrapbook

At St. Mary's in the Fort.

YOCee (www.yocee.in), a Chennai-based news website for children, organised events for schoolchildren over two weekends recently to celebrate Madras Week. Two photowalks – one inside the restored Adyar Poonga and the other in Kottur village – a ‘Walk & Make Scrapbook’ session after a short walk from Luz Church to the Children’s Club close to Jammi Buildings in Mylapore, and ‘A day at Fort St. George’ were the events that attracted around 50 children at each event while they explored the city in parts.

The children found the Adyar Poonga, now open to the public twice a week, fascinating. Guided by the Interpretation Executive of the poonga, the children learnt a lot about the flora and fauna of the creek. Looking at the variety of plants, colourful butterflies and various insects, the children clicked away and saved much information and many memories.

A forenoon spent at Fort St. George had the children taking home much knowledge and heaps of photos, maps and activity sheets. Hugely supported by the Archaeological Survey of India, the morning offered the young a variety of activities. Thanks to Dr. G. Maheshwari, Superintending Archaeologist, ASI, Chenni Circle, who showed great interest in getting children involved in the city’s heritage and who offered all possible assistance and hospitality, the children delved into the history of Chennai.

The Assistant Archaeologist Vetri Selvi and the Fort Museum Curator Nidhi led the children on a heritage walk inside the Fort and the Museum respectively. Kalyani Narayanan of ‘Snapshot Memories’ guided the children in making scrapbooks of the places they visited inside the Fort. The children enjoyed a short map-reading session and a fun word-game.

The walk in Mylapore, looking at historical spots like Luz Church, Vivekananda College, Madras Sanskrit College and unique neighbourhood sites such as the dhobi khana, a shop making percussion instruments, roadside shops and statues, ended at the Children’s Club and brought the children back to the present.

Walking in the Kottur area, which still has the characteristics of a village, including a few tiled houses, a temple for a grama devatha and a Perumal Koil probably 500-years old, was a joyful way of learning for the children.

N. Ramaswamy of Chennai Daily Photo blog led the walk. From the facades of buildings to the spinach-seller on the pavement, who had at least ten varieties of greens, they were interesting sights to talk about for curious children.

The walks and the activities only proved that the city has much to offer children outside the classroom. I do wish parents will encourage their children to participate in more such outdoor learning.

R. Revathi

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In this issue

There appears to be hope for the Canal
Time to stop Chennai losing industrial edge
Madras Landmarks - 50 years ago
Madras Week
The bridges of yesterday
No word like 'Chennai' in Tamil
Recalling Triveni
A story of three major triumphs

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