Four responsible
There are four hospitals in Chennai which have mainly contributed to Medical Tourism (MM, May 1st). They are Sankara Nethralaya, the Cancer Institute, Madras Medical Mission, and Apollo Hospital.
While the first three are not-for-profit hospitals, the last is a Public Ltd. Company hospital with profit in mind. None of the hospitals was built with Medical Tourism in mind. Each one concentrated on its area of speciality.
Dr. Badrinath wanted to make Sankara Nethralaya the best eye hospital in the country. He achieved it.
Dr. Shanta wanted to make the Cancer Institute the best hospital for cancer care in the country. She achieved it.
Dr. Cherian and his team of doctors wanted to make Madras Medical Mission one of the best hospitals for heart ailments. They achieved it.
In the process of achieving excellence, their name and fame spread all over the country and abroad. Patients started coming to these institutions of excellence from all over the country and even abroad. And Medical Tourism in Chennai was born.
The term Medical Tourism was not coined when these hospitals were started.The only aim of the founders of these hospitals was to provide excellent treatment in their areas of specialisation at minimal cost to the patients, irrespective of their economic status.
This dedication and single minded pursuit of service to society by the dedicated teams of doctors created a brand image for these hospitals.Thus, Medical Tourism as we know it now was born.
I agree with the author that the Government should take steps to encourage Medical Tourism in Chennai. Some of the suggestions given by the author are noteworthy and worth implementing.
Prof. V. Chandrasekhar
Besant Nagar, Chennai
A music shop
There was yet another ‘musical’ association with the building occupied by the Everest Hotel (MM, April 16th). At least from the 1960s there was a musical instruments shop (Everest Musicals?) in a two-roomed portion on the ground floor. The owner was one Raja and he was very skilled at repairing musical instruments, especially the violin. He later specialised in manufacturing acoustic guitars, since electric ones had not yet arrived.
He had a windfall when he was asked to supply, in short time, fifty guitars for a scene in a Tamil movie, Madras to Pondicherry. Although he received payment for the work, his happiness was short-lived as the actors had not only to ‘play on’ but also ‘to play with’ the instruments. By the end of the scene, almost all the instruments were in pieces and on hearing about this Raja was broken-hearted for some time.
He later ‘invented’ a ‘guitar-veena’. Primarily a guitar, it had deep concave curves between the frets to facilitate pulling of the string. Towards the end of the 1970s he shifted his establishment to Chromepet and not much has been known or heard of him since.
N. Ramanathan
35, Fourth Main Road
Raja Annamalaipuram
Chennai 600 028
Academic too
After reading the three excerpts from Manohar Devadoss’s book From the artist’s perspective, I bought a copy of the book. It is not only interesting reading but is also brilliant academically and can be used for 1st year of Civil & Mechanical Engineering students for their engineering drawing subject.
S. Velumani
sethuramalingam.velumani@ gmail.com
Alternative?
In the letter from an eminent educationist about the big-hearted hotelier and the narration how those who came to value English language school final papers remained to praise his hospitality and generosity (MM, April 16th), I found the use of ‘alternate arrangement’ for ‘alternative arrangement’ in the letter a bit jarring.
Alternate and alternative connote different concepts and the words are not inter-changeable, having as they do different shades of meaning, even though, regrettably, many people including even some dailies, indiscriminately use them as a matter of course.
N. Srinivasan
9, 35th Street, Besant nagar
Chennai 600 090
What’s the source?
I have read somewhere (I cannot recall exactly where, perhaps in Srinivasachari’s The City of Madras, 1939) that the name ‘Armagaon’ – used extensively in literature on Madras, both in the context of the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company – derives from ‘Arumuga Mudaliar’, who is referred to in Dr. P. Sanjeeva Raj’s piece (MM, ????). Are there any thoughts on this etymology? I have long been searching for the etymology of ‘Armagaon’ and have never been able to track down the details.
Some of the terms used in Madras are indeed curious and hard to derive. One example is ‘Pinjarapole’, a gesture of the early Gujarati community in Madras to look after the destitute cows of Madras. For long I could not explain this term. Now I know that it comes from a Marwari [Rajasthani] term (not Gujarati), where pinjara means cage and pola means bulls (curiously, not cows). It is curious that the term pinjara is used, for panjaram (with an ‘a’ and not an ‘i’) is extensively used by the rural people of Tamil Nadu to refer to a large basket-like structure used to cage domesticated birds like chicken.
The words ‘panjara kozhiye vittu’ were used in the popular film song Porale Ponnuthayee, rendered by the late Sujata and scored by Ilayaraja in a Bharatiraja hit (cannot remember the film’s name).
Dr. A. Raman
Charles Sturt University
PO Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800
Australia
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