The Madras Musings Lecture Series 2025

A total of nine programmes were held under the auspices of Chennai Heritage to commemorate Madras Day this year. The following are reports compiled by various people who are acknowledged below their write ups. We thank the AVM Heritage ­Museum, The Park, Radisson Blu, Savera and Cinema Rendezvous, Maris, Amethyst Wild Garden Café, The Madras Book Club, The Residency Towers and Hanu Reddy Residences for so readily hosting the events.

August 23, Saturday: The History of AVM Studios.

Madras Musings Lecture series for Madras Day 2025 opened with a delightful talk on the history of AVM Productions by Mohan V Raman, at the AVM Heritage Museum. Sriram V presented the welcome address with an appreciative sweep of his arms across the great hall encompassing vintage cars featured in various blockbuster movies, assorted props, and musical and other film equipment. In his words, he credited MS Guhan for the way the keepsakes at the Museum have been “patiently documented and lovingly restored”. When it is easy to lose the value and condition of heritage, big and small, Guhan has managed to cherish and safeguard these relics, with every item having a story to tell, he said.

Mohan V Raman reminisced about his own work life at AVM Studios, lauding the values and respectful culture of the AVM family. He regaled the audience with interesting history bytes and deep insights into events preceding the birth of AVM Productions, including details of pioneer AV Meiyappan’s failures which became stepping stones that ultimately led to success.

Meiyappan was a trailblazer in Indian cinema with many firsts to his credit. He was known for his constant focus on excellence, eye for detail, breaking new ground, and using creative methods of troubleshooting, at every turn. He was also a philanthropist and a thoughtful employer, garnering the loyalty of his employees and he led the way to make AVM a Go-To place for all things cinema in Madras.

The success story and history of AVM Productions has not only left a lovely legacy for the AVM Family, but also for the entire city to revel in and enjoy, and it is one of the most enthralling business journeys in the world of Indian cinema.

– Sujatha Tarakesan

August 24, Sunday: A Questionable Pastime – Quizzing in Madras.

The second in the Madras Musings Lecture Series for Madras Week 2025 was a veritable walk down the history of quizzing in the city. Led by well-known quizmaster Dr Navin Jayakumar with Gopal Kidao and Siddanth Rao as co-panellists, it was a tribute to the quizzing culture of the city which has developed over the years from being a mere collegiate level activity to one where people across age-groups get together in locations such as pubs and malls to indulge in the pastime.

The evening’s proceedings commenced with Saranya Jayakumar (Dr Navin Jayakumar’s mother), acknowledged as being the country’s seniormost active quizzer taking us through her journey, starting in the 1950s. It was interesting to note several people who would go on to become prominent personalities from our city, such as Akbar Khaleeli (former Indian Ambassador to Iran), PM Belliappa (IAS officer) and RK Raghavan (retd CBI director) were notable names in the world of quizzing during their college days.

Dr Navin Jayakumar took us through the journey of quizzing from the 1970s and the 1980s, a decade where it was still predominantly a college level activity. This would however soon change, with the formation of the Quiz Foundation of India (QFI)-Chennai in 1987. The first branch of the QFI in Tamil Nadu was in Coimbatore being spearheaded by Ramesh, who later moved to Chennai and started a chapter here. Amongst its founding members were Saranya Jayakumar, Dr Navin and Gopal Kidao. Over the years, this organisation played an important role in creating a vibrant quizzing culture, with several of its members winning tournaments across the country. In recent times, it has also started outreach programmes in a bid to bring in fresh faces.

Siddanth Rao, the youngest of the panellists represented today’s generation of quizzers. The founder of the Zephyr Quiz League in 2022, he touched on the transformations in the way quizzes are conducted, in terms of the content and structure and the challenges it posed.

No discussion about quizzing in the city can be complete without an ode to what went on to become one of the city’s identities, the Landmark Quiz. What started off as the first Audio-Visual quiz in 1988 to mark the first anniversary of QFI-Chennai and the Landmark bookstore, became a permanent fixture in the city’s social calendar every Aug 15th, from 1994. Hemu Ramiah, one of the founders of Landmark, who was part of the audience touched on the way the event grew and the transformation it has undergone in the last couple of years as the Zifo Open Quiz.

Overall, it was a perfect tribute to one of the city’s favourite pastimes today.

– Karthik A Bhatt

August 25, Monday: The Heritage Around You.

Sriram V’s talk on the third day of Madras Musings’ lecture series for Madras Day, titled ‘The Heritage Around You’, was held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, GST Road. The venue itself served as a springboard for the presentation – the heritage of the areas surrounding the hotel, which are not essentially known for their heritage value as much as a Mylapore or a George Town, and yet possess in them pockets of great historic significance.

Pallavaram: The first Palaeolithic site to be discovered in all of Asia, Pallavaram, is also the house of the 7th century rock-cut cave monument constructed by the Pallava ruler, Mahendra Varman. This cave now thrives in an entirely different identity – as the Pallavaram Dargah.

Tirusulam: Atop the Tirusulam hill is the shrine of Tirusulanathar (Shiva). The 11th century Chola period inscriptions surviving in this temple record the temple’s antiquity. The temple, although certainly older than the Chola era, underwent remarkable refurbishment in that period. The Chennai International Airport itself stands right across the hill. Some of the most exciting descriptions of it were recorded by Ashokamithran in My Years with Boss at Gemini Studios, where he recalls how, owing to delays in shooting, they, at Gemini, would dial the airport and request them to hold back the aircraft for the film-stars to board. What more, the airport obliged, and the stars still in their camera-ready make-up would rush and board the flight to Bombay. Different times, indeed!

St. Thomas Mount: The cathedral located here is steeped in the mythology of St Thomas, believed to be the site of the apostle’s martyrdom. The locality’s Tamil name, Parangimalai, is derived from the word ‘Firangi’ (foreigner), reflecting the area’s significant foreigner presence from at least the Portuguese times. Under English rule, the Mount transformed as a health centre, and later, from 1750s onwards, a cantonment. To ensure swift military movement to Fort St George, in case of emergency, the Mount Road was laid between the two points.

Alandur: Among several historic streets of this area, Muthukumarasamy Naicker (MKN) Road is notable – named after a philanthropist who donated much of his land for the development of the municipality. Earlier, it was known as Bengali Bazar, the marketplace for the Bengali regiment of the Madras Army.

Other neighbourhoods: Chromepet carries the legacy of the Chrome Leather Company. Velachery, from the Sanskrit Vedashreni, appears in Chola records as Dina Chintamani Chaturvedi Mangalam. Nanganallur houses the Navaneeta Krishna Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple, dating to Pallava times. Layers of history abound in these neighbourhoods, waiting to be unearthed, enriching the city’s diverse heritage.

The talk concluded with a lively and engaging Q&A session.

– A Lashman

August 26, Tuesday: Madras in India’s Defence Fabric.

The event, co-hosted with Cinema Rendezvous, began with an introduction by Shylaja Chetlur, actor and entrepreneur and a short address of welcome by Savera’s Managing Director Nina Reddy. The speaker for the evening was Maj Gen Indrabalan, the highly distinguished army officer who has recently retired.

The talk was a masterly survey of the manner in which Madras has played a role in several battles, wars and skirmishes. The speaker took the audience on a tour down history beginning with the founding of the Madras Regiment by Maj Stringer Lawrence in 1753, marking the origins of the Indian Army itself. He then sequentially traced the role of people from this region in the various theatres of action over the years. Rather than making it just a talk, which by itself was very impressive, Maj Gen Indrabalan concluded with a lovely quiz – putting up photographs of various armed forces-related monuments, buildings and establishments in the city and asking the audience to identify them. There were prizes too! The talk concluded with the audience being asked to loudly shout “Veer Madrasi Adi Kollu Adi Kollu” – which has been the war cry of the Madras Regiment since 1969.

– Sriram V

August 27, Wednesday: Thirty Years in Theatre.

The fifth day’s talk was by actor Karthik Kumar, who traced his journey in theatre. Introduced by Sriram V, Karthik began with his childhood and the manner in which he was influenced by the great names in the field at that time. He then spoke of his beginnings on stage and later progress. The talk dwelt on how theatre seemed to have lost its earnings potential, becoming more of a sponsored art and the steps he took to change this through his creation Evam. He then spoke on the experiences of dealing with various so-called hallowed venues for theatre, where the administrative staff seem to exist only for obstructing the flow of creativity. That led to stand-up comedy and its moving to micro locations where the distance between audience and performer was minimised.

– Sriram V

August 28, Thursday: Lost & Found: From the Shelves of Moore Market.

The Folly at Amethyst came alive on Thursday evening with the sixth programme of the series titled ‘Lost & Found: From the Shelves of Moore Market’, a special programme of 16 mm film projections presented by the CPB Darkroom in collaboration with Madras Musings. The event drew a diverse audience of film lovers, historians, and curious newcomers eager to experience cinema in its original celluloid form.

The evening opened with refreshments in the courtyard, followed by a conversation between Ashok Gupta, who was once an underground projectionist during a time when alternative screenings were restricted, and his son Varun Gupta, Director and Co-Founder of the Chennai Photo Biennale. Their discussion reflected on Chennai’s film-collecting culture, the legacy of Moore Market as a hub for rare finds, and the enduring role of projection as both craft and preservation. In his anecdotes, Ashok Gupta traced a journey across genres and geographies – screening Kurosawa’s iconic films alongside the rich traditions of Bengali cinema.

What followed was a rare cinematic treat. The whirr of a 16 mm projector filled the room as salvaged reels flickered to life on screen. Chennai-based filmmakers Mukesh Amaran and Vijay Ramdu presented their 16 mm short Madras: The Dark Side – an ode to the city, bucket-developed and hand-edited to evoke a time-machine-like journey through Chennai. This was followed by French Panorama, a documentary salvaged from the shelves of Moore Market.

The tactile presence of film – with its grain, flicker, and warm tones – reminded audiences of cinema’s material history in a digital age. The evening concluded with warm applause and marked the beginning of a new Analog Film Society in Chennai, initiated by CPB Darkroom and its team. For many, it was more than a screening; it was a rediscovery of Chennai’s layered cultural memory.

– Vijay Ramadurai

Madras Musings thanks Rosella Stephen of The Hindu for putting together the above event.

August 29, Friday: Education through Music.

Anil Srinivasan, well known pianist and educator, addressed a joint meeting of Madras Book Club and Madras Musings on August 29 at the CP Art Centre, on ‘Education through Music’.

He had brought a keyboard to the meeting – it was as magical as a piano! Anil interspersed his talk with questions for the audience and snatches of popular songs in Tamil, Hindi and English to demonstrate his points and the power of music. These included “the most viral song in the world” Happy Birthday, and variations created by Mozart for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when he was just 12 years old.

Anil explained how the brain reacts to music, which permeates every part of it. Music is like a gym for the brain. When you study music, you are boosting your intelligence. “In fact, when you are into music, 30,000 ­neuro-transmitters in the brain are activated.” It was interesting to hear that in school and college, Anil remembered mathematical formulae by giving them tunes.

Anil created an imaginative structure for his talk on music education through the acronym MADRAS.

M stands for musical intelligence, which is different from music, from singing or performing. (It is an integral component of learning. Everyone should have it.)

A stands for Art.  (Music spurs artistic creativity.)

D stands for diffusion of innovation. (Great innovation is not enough. For it to spread, you need a community of believers. Messages through songs spread far and wide and create such a community.)

R stands for ratios and proportions which are fundamental to music. (They define harmonious intervals through frequency ratios. Anil played songs of Johann Sebastian Bach, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Ilayaraja to demonstrate his point.)

A stands for AI, artificial intelligence. The world  beyond AI requires a study in creative intelligence. Most of Anil’s professional research today is based on this.

S stands for the South and Southern Comfort.  The south in many parts of the world has created remarkable originality in music – the  south of India, the south of Europe, the southern US, the southern part of America – which is sunnier and creates more music.

Most successful people in history have been interested in music, says Anil. It should therefore be made an integral part of the elementary school curriculum. Kids should get interested in music before they are 10 years old.

Anil’s passion for education through music and its interconnectedness to other disciplines has led to many initiatives. Through his projects Rhapsody and Kruu, he has touched nearly a million kids and youngsters in many countries. The evening’s talk provided glimpses into what music can achieve in education.

– SR Madhu

August 30, Saturday: Transforming Through Football.

The AMM Foundation, the CSR arm of the Murugappa Group turned a hundred last year. It began in 1924 when family patriarch Dewan Bahadur AMM Murugappa Chettiar established a public hospital at his native village of Pallathur. It grew from there, with healthcare and education as its early foci of activity. In Madras city, the Ambattur-Avadi belt was a major beneficiary with the Sir Ivan Stedeford Hospital, the Sir A Ramaswami Mudaliar and the TI Schools. In Tiruvottriyur came up the Vellayan Chettiar School and many years later the AMM School was established in Kotturpuram. The Murugappa Polytechnic in Avadi helped spread technical education to create a workforce and the Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre in Taramani works on research with a social emphasis. Outside the city there are several other initiatives including healthcare, education and science promotion. In recent years, the rejuvenation of waterbodies and the promotion of football as a positive force have been fresh initiatives.

The last named came about when it was discovered that the school-going young in North Madras needed outlets for their energy. If not harnessed, this could be expended on acts of aggression causing further trouble. Football was identified as the medium to handle this and thus was begun in 2015 the Murugappa Youth Football Academy. Veeru Murgappan, Head, Sports, AMM Foundation, and Sajitha Rajiv, Head, Projects, AMM Foundation, in conversation with Sriram V traced the journey of MYFA which today has over 600 students.

The very act of setting up MYFA required much learning at the AMM Foundation. Licensed and certified coaches had to be hired, a process of selection of children had to be in place and in some cases, objections from parents that sports would ruin academics, had to be overcome. The COVID pandemic meant all training had to be online. But the team persevered and this paid dividends. A series against Salgaocar FC Goa saw the MYFA team faring well, on field and off it. And then came the signing up with BVB Dortmund. There are exciting times ahead and who knows, Chennai may emerge as the football crucible for India.

The session ended with Q&A.

– Sriram V

August 31, Sunday: Conversations with the Public Toilets of Chennai.

The last event of the series was a presentation by the NGO WASH Lab on the steps being taken to bring into mainstream the story of the city’s public toilets. The programme was structured as a talk by Shebin George, who heads the NGO, along with audiovisual clips on the manner in which the transformation is sought to be achieved.

It may interest citizens to know that Chennai has just around 1,500 public toilets and not all are in the best condition. But the problems are many – miniscule numbers, poor maintenance, bad design, misuse, vandalism, marginalised conservancy workers, and above all, the appalling ignorance in everyone – from those in office to those actually using the facilities. The programme ended on a note of hope.

What was amazing was the large turnout for this event, and the level of participation during the Q&A.

– Sriram V