On September 26th, 2016, a book titled A Silver Jubilee Selection was released at the Crowne Plaza to celebrate 25 years of Madras Musings, the little newspaper with a very big heart, which cares for the city on a very personal, fiercely protective, level.
It all began with a slightly hazy, general feeling that the best way to commemorate this special occasion would be to put together a compilation of selected pieces drawn from Madras Musings, from its very first issue.
The idea of a book, which would later be named A Silver Jubilee Selection began to take shape.
At our very first meeting for this project, Sriram V and I tried to come up with a list of topics Musings was best known for, which had to be included in the proposed book, with Sriram noting them all down on a paper napkin, (serious professionalism!) while we were having coffee….that’s how informal the beginnings were.
Initially, Sriram and I, rather ambitiously, made a couple of attempts to begin the compilation.
We proved hopelessly inept, as we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave anything out, and came dangerously close to making the compilation a massive tome, containing one of every issue of Madras Musings.
It dawned on us then that this project needed a team – and we decided to find them among Musings contributors and readers. And that’s how this interestingly motley group, comprising of Karthik Bhatt, Ambika Chandrasekar, R. Chandrasekar, Radha Gopalakrishnan, S.R. Madhu, Shobha Menon, Sushila Natraj, Vinodha Ram Mohan, S. Muthiah, Sriram V. and Ranjitha Ashok, was formed.
Everyone (except, of course, the Chief) gamely went through 600 issues of Musings – and right there, the team fell into two distinct groups – those who breezed through with online archives, and those who collapsed at the very idea, insisting on hard copy. However, everyone stayed the course, showing a lot of courage, and culled what appealed to them after cribbing that it was an impossible task, because everything was so interesting…. and we took it from there. I think there were other moments of outright panic – like when some of them found out they had to write a Main Article of at least 2500 words…non-negotiable. Having come a long way from their essay-type answer days, I think there was some amount of teeth clenching and mild cursing. But they hung in there with grim determination.
The process of actually putting all of this together had its moments. I’m just amazed poor G. Shankar of Mot Juste did not come spectacularly apart and have the mother of all nervous breakdowns, given the number of emailed articles that went back and forth from all of us. Especially when some of them kept disappearing into a virtual Bermuda Triangle none of us could explain.
Through it all, The Chief was in fine form. At times, we’d receive a rap on the knuckles from him as, through the entire process, he thought we were nuts and going about the whole project in a completely haphazard way.
And then there were those times when he’d take things up a notch, and, like a slightly disgruntled resident on Mt Olympus, start saying it with thunderbolts. And as anyone who has worked with the Chief knows, that can get just a tad uncomfortable….really not something you want to encounter. (In all fairness though, I have to say, the Chief usually gives us a very long rope, although he does frown a little bit on outright rebellion in the ranks….which always leads to some interesting little debates.)
All writing in its journey ultimately will arrive at the stage of proof reading …and that’s a truly strange space, where the placing of a capital letter can have cataclysmic results. A comma can ruin relationships. I remember one phase in which our collective world shrank to one universe-shaking question – italics – to use or not to use. Malvika Mehra was deeply missed on the evening of the launch. Her role, as the designer, was not easy. Every now and then, my phone would ring, and I’d hear Malvika’s plaintive voice asking: “Yes, but if this has to go in italics, Ranjitha, why should that not go in italics as well?” One of those deep questions to which there is no real, right answer. The impact within a slanted letter is really in the eyes of the beholder.
In all, ‘Project Musings’, as it was referred to in all the months it took to complete, proved a truly fun process.
We made it to September 26th, 2016 – and I think the team did great.
As a final word, there is something I’d like to acknowledge:
In the years of working with Musings, we found a mentor who gave us a teacher’s quintessential gift: a reintroduction, a sort of reconnection, if you like, to ourselves, to that which is unique to each of us. It’s a quality, a certain essence, each one of us has within, but in the daily business of living, amidst all the roles we have to play, we sometimes lose sight of, or we forget to nurture, that particular inner landscape. When that happens, it takes a teacher to re-direct us back on to the path to ourselves.
And that is what Musings, and the Chief, has done for us.
Thank you for that.
And thank you, Madras Musings – the little paper with a very big heart – most of all.
Ranjitha Ashok
A limited number of copies of the Madras Musings Silver Jubilee Commemorative Volume are available at Rs. 500 a copy from:
(1) Odyssey, Adyar and Tiruvanmiyur
(2) By mail order to Madras Editorial Services
(Vijay Gardens, Vijayaraghava Lane, Vijayaraghavachari Road, T. Nagar, Chennai 600 017) with a cheque of Rs. 500/- made out to Chennai Heritage per copy inclusive of delivery charges. (Email: smuthiah.mes@gmail.com)