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Keeping it clean
As Englishmen put it pithily, “If you do not make it dirty, you need not clean!”
We have the ingrained habit of littering homes and surroundings blithely. Instead of returning them to the shopkeeper or re-use,we throw away priceless plastic bags and, worse still, burn them, risking our and others’ health with the toxic fumes.
The Prime Minister has better business than wielding the broom. There are a host of officials and men paid to maintain the surroundings clean, starting from Panchayats to Corporations.
N. Dharmeshwaran
Plot 21, Kumaran Nagar, Guduvancherry 603 202
Lord Muruga complex
Adyarists learn (from MM, November 16) of the sad demise of Algappa Algappan in New York.
With the blessings of Kanchi Paramacharyal he had developed the temple complex of Lord Muruga (Arupadai Veedu) on the sea shore of Besant Nagar, enlivening the Murugan Street of Kalakshethra Colony, a godforsaken lonely place, a decade ago.
The unique feature of this temple complex is that it has all the shrines dedicated to Lord Karthikeya, viz, Tiruchendur, Palani, Swamimalai, Tirupparangundram, Tiruthani and Pazhamudhircholai.
Bhilai Gopalan
1/6, Sankara Flats, 1, 6th Cross Street
Adyar, Chennai 600 020
Errors and omissions
Reader Sriram V. points out that the correct answers for questions 12 and 18 in ‘Quizzin’ with Ram’nan’ last fortnight are:
2. The Ultsavar is Lord Parthasarathy; the moolavar goes by the name of Venkatakrishnan.
18. E Conran Smith was not the first ICS Commissioner of the Corporation. When that post was created in 1919, it was H H Burkitt ics who was appointed Commissioner. Conran Smith was Commissioner from 1928 to 1930.
In the tribute to ‘Mandolin’ Shrinivas last fortnight, the headline should have read ‘Was his best yet to come?” NOT ‘Is’.
In the material published last fortnight from the Cupertino High School monthly journal, the article and images for the feature titled ‘Arangetram’ were put together by Anisha Dangoria (a senior) and the cartoon, ‘The Great Trips to Mars’, was done by Joyce Ye (a junior).
The student from Besant Theosophical School
Dr. A. Alagappan (MM, November 16th) was a student of the Besant Theosophical School. He wrote at length in his contribution to the book South of the Adyar River, compiled by me and K. Ravi Menon in 2007. His senior, Vasant Nilakanta, now 93 years old, brother of Radha Burnier, wrote in his article about Dr. Alagappan, “There was one student, Alagappan, who ignored all distractions and achieved a very high standard of academic excellence.” Radha passed out of the school in 1939, a year earlier than him.
Alagappan had joined BTS in June 1937 and was a hostel student throughout his stay. He later graduated from Presidency College with a B.A. (Hons) first class, first rank (1945). He was a Candeth medallist and was automatically awarded the M.A. He became a Barrister-at-Law (Middle Temple, 1949), garplus M.Sc. (Econ) London University (1951) and his Ph.D., with a thesis on Article 101 of the U.N. Charter from New York University (1966).
Dr. Alagappan was a Kasturi Iyengar Scholar and was on the editorial staff of The Hindu (1947-49), Assistant Editor, The Bharat, Bombay (1951-52), and Research Officer with The Association of Trade and Industry, Bombay (1952-53). Dr. Alagappan joined the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East in Bangkok (1953) and was transferred to UN HQ in New York in 1961. He became the Head of the Water Resources Branch and Mineral Resources Branch. He retired in 1983.
In his contribution to South of the Adyar River, Dr. Alagappan wrote:
“I have always thanked God for placing me in BTS during my formative years. We had excellent role models to draw upon. Their idealism and internationalism taught us a great deal. Our School was shaped and moulded by Rukmini Devi day in and day out. She made it into a great centre of arts and culture. Our Principal, Sankara Menon, was a towering personality. The adjacent Theosophical Society and its grounds were a great place to visit, I used to love to go and see the Banyan Tree, one of the largest in the world...
“Kanchi Paramachariar, who was on a walking tour at Gulbarga, met me and in the course of conversation said that if the six temples of Lord Murugan, representing the six battle houses, were all assembled in one complex, devotees would be able to worship them all at the same time in the same place. He smiled and asked me to undertake the construction of the project. He also said that he would secure the needed land for the project. At his request, the Government of Tamil Nadu headed by M.G.R. allocated 26 grounds of prime land in Besant Nagar. During the course of twenty years all six temples in stone have been built...
“Prof. Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Syracuse University, in her book Diaspora of the Gods: Modern Hindu Temple in an Urban Middle Class World (Oxford University Press, 2004), drew special attention to the Palamudirsolai temple in the Arupadai Veedu Temple complex. Here for the first time Jyothi Shakti Vel has become Swaroopa Vel. A radiant Balambika is at the head of the Vel. Murugan’s sister Saravanabhavayai has taken form at the request of Lord Agastaya and Lord Nandi Deva to directly bestow Anugraha to devotees in the forthcoming difficult years of Kali Yuga.”
Dr. Alagappan and his family have built at Mayiladuparai, between Kundrakudi and Pillaiarpatti, two beautiful stone temples; one of these is for Saravanabhavayai in the new form as Swaroopa Vel and the other, a Saraswati temple, is in honour of Rm. Alagappa Chettiar, the great educationist.
K.V.S. Krishna
kvskrishna@gmail.com
Is there any real growth in advertising in Chennai?
Sitting in New York on a cold and blustery autumnal evening, after wading through a 100-plus page Sunday edition of The New York Times, I swung into the sunny climes of Chennai on the Net and had my enjoyable fortnightly tryst with MMM, I later zeroed in on R.V. Rajan’s concluding instalment on the growth of advertising in Madras.
Having had my fill of the advertising industry, courtesy The Hindu, in the four Metros over four decades during the same time as Rajan, the doyen of the advertising industry in Madras, I have some thoughts on why Madras/Chennai did not rise to the level of its peers in the West and North of India. Calcutta had its days of glory when it boasted the likes of Satyajit Ray (yes, indeed, he was Commercial Art Director at D.J. Keymer’s), Subhas Sen, S.N. Bannerjee and Subrata Sen Gupta in one group pitted against the great Subhas Ghosal at the other end of the spectrum. Later, when Calcutta’s glory faded, even Ghosal had to move to Bombay which quickly established its credentials as the Mecca of Indian advertising. Delhi was constantly breathing down its back as a close second. Came a stage when younger leading lights, like Dilip Sen and Tara Sinha, found greener pastures in Delhi. Madras too had its great moments when R.K. Swamy, the enfant terrible of Indian advertising, moved out of J. Walter Thompson and, through his own outfit, added a new dimension to corporate/institutional advertising and public sector PR print campaigns. At one stage, he sent tremors down the foundation of JWT in Chennai.
Many years later, the young and dynamic Rajan rose like a Phoenix from the chawls of Mumbai and taught the world what a Madras lad could do if given an opportunity to blossom in this corporate jungle. After his peregrinations through the country in the early part of his career in advertising, Rajan was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and he decided to pitch his tent in Chennai. Anugrah Marketing blazed a new trail in Rural Advertising and caught Mumbai napping! It caused even the CEO of India’s largest independent media agency, Madison, Mumbai, to forge an alliance with Rajan and piggy-ride on his rural expertise!
Apart from these occasional flashes in the pan, it needs to be reluctantly admitted that advertising agencies in Madras/Chennai have not been able to make it to the big league. They themselves are not responsible for this strange phenomenon, given the fact that there has always been a wealth of creative talent, originality and imagination as is revealed in the output in the various arms of the media and in brand development and corporate image building exercises.
One of the main reasons for this indifferent growth is that the handful of large industrial groups that rule the advertising scenario in Chennai/Madras have been traditionally very conservative and resorted to advertising which was entirely need-based. Not for them the trappings of an impactful campaign burst and bombastic image-building exercises which their competitors in Bombay and Delhi excelled in, much to the delight of their advertising agencies!
Realising that their bristling talents were kept under a bushel and not allowed to see the light, many adventurous advertising professionals have been migrating from Madras/Chennai to Bombay and Delhi where their flamboyance found its niché! The brain drain in advertising has been moving further even into other centres like Dubai and Muscat, as I discovered when running into some of them during my own business tours! On another occasion, I had the pleasant experience of being accosted by a smart executive at one of our (The Hindu) presentations to an agency in Bombay who smilingly remarked: “Sir, perhaps you do not remember me, I had attended one of your lectures at the advertising course conducted by Advertising Club, Madras.” When queried as to why she chose to move to Bombay, she mentioned that she was not encouraged to join any of the local agencies when she approached them!
The increasing numbers of multinational advertising agencies have been quick to identify India as the new powerhouse of growth in Asia, next only to China. They swoop down on Mumbai or Delhi but content themselves with having just a liaison office in Chennai whose importance they realise but they know that these very branches fall back on their main offices in the North or West for their various projects and exercises. To add insult to injury, many of the Chennai-based clients who pick on these global agencies insist that their senior officials have to come down to Chennai to make presentations, work out strategies, provide avant garde ideas on brand activation programmes, and spell out media selection!
Within their restricted ambit, the Chennai-based agencies have been churning out remarkable work in some of the leading categories like real estate, education and retail. Unfortunately, the appropriations made available to these advertising agencies are nowhere near the levels prevailing in Mumbai or Delhi, though in terms of wealth of talent they are on par!
No wonder Rajan, in his concluding remarks, has expressed the hope that “the Chennai advertising world will soon bounce back to its glorious past!” A vision or a mirage?
V. Kalidas
(vkalidas@gmail.com)
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