The 1920s saw a noticeable trickle of Tamils to Delhi from the erstwhile Madras Presidency (which covered present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka besides parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana). The numbers migrating to the distant north kept rising steadily, so much that a Tamil school opened in Delhi in 1923. By the time India won independence in 1947, there was a mini army of Tamils working for the central government, perched mostly in lower echelons but secure and pensionable jobs.
My now late father, MA Raman, and mother, Raji Raman, made Delhi their home in 1948 when it resembled an overgrown village. Delhi was then dominated by Punjabis, who swelled its population after fleeing Pakistan in large numbers following the bloodbath that came with the partition of the sub-continent.
Most Tamils – they constituted the overwhelming bulk of the south Indians in Delhi in that era – were hard working, efficient and honest, qualities which quickly won them respect and led to ready acceptance. North Indians preferred to rent out their homes to south Indians and Bengalis, the two communities who accounted for up to 40 per cent of Central government jobs for many years. Shopkeepers did not mind giving them goods against monthly instalments, fully aware that no Tamil would ever cheat.
One reason the Tamils were preferred in the bureaucracy was because they had a more than working knowledge of English and knew typing and shorthand well. Hindi language was an issue, at least initially. They were of course good at Tamil, which was spoken at home. Those from Palghat, like my parents, were proficient in both Tamil and Malayalam although they leaned on the former. The men quickly came to grips with Hindi because of colleagues, although it took time for their homemakers – women to catch up.
Rivoli cinema in Connaught Place. Picture courtesy: The Hindu.
So as not to be too far from their place of work, the Tamils settled down in areas around government offices, taking small houses on rent. The first mode of transport was the bicycle. Two-wheelers came much later when salaries began to go up. Once children were born, everyone suffered a space crunch. It was in the 1950s that the government began building and allocating houses for its staff in places like Minto Road, Gole Market, Lodi Road, Sarojini Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Lakshmi Bai Nagar, Nauroji Nagar, Moti Bagh and RK Puram. This was a great boon. One early concentration of Tamils was in Karol Bagh, a commercial and residential area near the heart of Delhi. It is no wonder that a string of schools launched by the Madrasi Education Association (later Delhi Tamil Education Association) came up strategically in places close to where the Tamils lived.
Government built houses like these in which numerous Tamil families lived for long years, thanks to the government jobs held by the head of the family. Many of these houses have been now razed by the current government to make way for high rise apartments.
While a great majority of the Tamils in Delhi worked for the government, the passion of the just-won independence ruling their hearts, steady numbers also made it to the private sector. In the 1940s and 50s, a majority of the Tamils in Delhi were Brahmins. One by one, Tamil temples began to come up. The first, which still exists, opened near the iconic Rivoli cinema in Connaught Place, the capital’s main commercial district for decades. Others followed, mostly in central and south Delhi. In the absence of other attractions, the temples became a strong cultural glue for the Tamils, particularly during major festivals which drew hundreds of men, women and children.
The Vinayagar temple at Sarojini Nagar. Picture courtesy: YouTube for Cycle Traveling Delhi vlog.
Whether they were temples or schools, while the efforts to build them were consistent, the progress was slow given the limited resources. Temples came up brick by brick, step by step and shrine by shrine – literally and otherwise. The Vinayagar temple at Sarojini Nagar raised funds by selling a notional ‘brick’ each for a fixed amount. The Uttara Swami Malai temple (locally known as Malai Mandir) similarly sold a notional step leading up to the primary shrine atop a hillock. The primary shrines came up first and the sub-shrines followed.
The MEA (later DTEA) schools too started as a cluster of tented accommodation for various classes before buildings were erected. Often, the tented schools could not function during heavy rains leading to unexpected holidays. Even after the schools shifted into newly constructed building(s), many parts remained incomplete leading to mishaps and accidents.
Sree Swaminatha Swami Temple at the Malai Mandir Complex in Delhi. Courtesy: Wikipedia.
Eager to stay in touch with their roots and culture, the Tamil community established a number of socio-cultural organizations. D Ranganathan recalls that his father, KN Doraiswamy, and a few friends started the Karnataka Sangeetha Sabha and held its maiden concert by inviting the Nagaswara Chakravarthi, Thiruvaduthurai Rajaratnam Pillai, no less! Almost in parallel, another organisation with similar intent, the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha, came up. Both groups over the years arranged music and dance concerts and festivals running into thousands. Stalwarts such as Madurai Mani Iyer, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, GNB, DK Pattammal, MS Subbulakshmi, Vyjayanthimala, Yamini Krishnamurthi, Chitra Visweswaran et al have performed.
A Vadhyar Association came up to support the religious and spiritual requirement of the society. The South Indian Samaj, a few years later, became a fulcrum around which many cultural and religious activities could happen and flourish.
One of the earliest ‘clubs’ was the South India Club at Mandir Marg (then Reading Road). The more progressive met regularly for a game of bridge or rummy. Those having talent for writing and acting found avenue at the South Indian Theatres.
Sunday morning Tamil movies, particularly those starring MGR and Sivaji Ganesan, in select theatres attracted Tamil fans in droves. Another way the Tamil community kept in touch with the then Madras state was through hugely popular magazines such as Ananda Vikatan, Kumudam, Kalki and Kalaimagal. Their annual Deepavali bumper issues were a major draw. The Delhi Tamil Sangam, still flourishing, was born in 1954 to foster and preserve Tamil culture, language and traditions. One by one, similar associations sprouted.
Many Tamils made regular visits to southern India during school summer vacation, thanks to the government’s leave travel perks. The condition was that such a trip had to be taken only to their home town or village. In those years, it was easy to identify a Tamil crowd at the railway station because they alone would be transporting north India-made cane seats called moda while going to their hometowns. A decade or so later, the moda was replaced by Nutan stove!
By the 1960s, there were so many Tamils in Delhi and with similar names that prefixes became important to differentiate one from another. Thus, you had a DCM Hariharan, DTEA Narasimhan, Housing ministry Parasuraman, Steel ministry Krishnamurthy, Metal Box Mani Mama, IAS Krishnan, accountant Venkatesh and PAN-AM Ravi among scores of others.
Life was generally tough for the early settlers. Money was always in short supply since there was only one earning member in the family with two to four children – at times more. Many families enforced, to an extent, hand-me-down clothes, text books and notes, passing them from the elder brother/sister to younger siblings. Like others serving the government, Tamil families depended on food and groceries rationed by the Jawaharlal Nehru administration to ease the cost of living.
New dresses were bought only during Diwali. For the festival, families made their own sweets and savories, partly due to economic reasons and because only north Indian eats could be bought from the market. Those in school were constantly cautioned not to lose their pencils, pens and lunch boxes because replacements cost valuable money. If slippers or shoes suffered damage, they were mended as often as they could before a new pair could be sought. The kids were warned not to waste a single morsel of food on the plate. The hand to mouth existence which Tamil families endured helped create respect and value for money.
Like others, my parents grappled with shoestring budgets for a long time. One reason was that my father, initially with All India Radio, sent money every month to his aged mother in Palghat and to an elder sister in Bombay who housed him and his wife for long months before he journeyed to Delhi. A small amount was sent every month to our family temple, called Kavu, in Palghat. With house rent slashing the income further, there was often very little left in the last week of the month.
This is when my parents sold one stainless steel utensil each month to bring in badly needed extra cash. One night, while on his way to the market, a policeman accused my father of possessing stolen property. He was allowed to go only after he blurted out the family’s dire daily tribulations.
In 1949, my father picked up from the street a small discarded tin in which cigarettes were sold. A non-smoker himself, he gave it a good wash and dried it under the sun. He then told my mother to use the tin – which still exists in our house! – to scoop out raw rice and dal. They could not afford to buy ladles.
Many other families had near similar experiences. Architect AR Ramanathan recalled that many Tamil families had savings accounts in the Palai Central Bank, headquartered in Kerala. This bank was suddenly ordered to close by the government on the recommendation of the Reserve Bank of India compounding the already delicate and fragile financial condition. The impact of the closure cast a shadow on the financial wellbeing for several years after.
The story of NA Parasuraman, who came to Delhi from Palghat in 1946 at age 17 was no different. Recalls his son NP Eshwar, now in Bengaluru: “It used to be a hand-to-mouth, salary-to-salary kind of existence. In the early years, the hearth was kept hot with coal and wood. Over the years, the family graduated to kerosene to fire up the stove. The gas cylinder came much later. My mother Meenakshi not only made sure there was enough food on the plate for everyone but would make varieties of sweets and savories, come any festival. Hardships were apparent, but happiness was latent.”
Delhi’s freezing winter – which in that era lasted four full months, from November to February – was the first shock to those who came from that part of the south where woolens were a rarity. In the process, many ended up suffering their first winter in cotton clothes before everyone pressured them to go for sweaters, socks and gloves. They did not come cheap, though. And every member of the family had to have a separate set of winter clothes to survive in Delhi. In those bone-chilling winters, the occurrence of ground frost was common.
Tamil boys and girls studying mostly in DTEA schools – where good quality education was virtually free considering the low fee structure – got either no pocket money or 5 to 10 paise on select days. This amount might sound silly now but it helped to buy small eats in the school canteen and from street vendors.
Some boys who did not use the school bus added to their income by paying only half the fare in city buses; the rest was pocketed by the conductor who would not issue tickets in return. This was probably an early instance of corruption! Only the wealthier boys owned cricket bats and tennis balls. If the owner got miffed for any reason and went home, the game would end!
For long years, Tamils in Delhi were addressed – or taunted – as Madrasis. Most north Indians had no knowledge of the southern geography, and viewed everyone from the south of Vindhyas as a Madrasi. As the Tamil pioneers’ children were growing, it caused tension between the locals and Tamil boys. Finally, in the 1970s, aggressive Tamil boys, who had no love for the timid nature of their parents, began beating up Hindi-speakers who made fun of their language, culture and cuisine. This was probably the first sign of Tamils asserting themselves in Delhi.
Those who had trooped to Delhi from before and after India’s independence, leaving the comfort zone of their villages, largely began to retire in the 1970s and 80s – after over four decades of loyalty to the government. It was a period when the first Tamil settlers adapted to climate, language and culture of north India. A sizeable number returned to south India, with or without children. The majority, however, struck roots in Delhi and stayed on, also due to pressure from their children who were as conversant with Hindi as with Tamil.
Eventually, many of the children found well-paying jobs, becoming doctors, engineers, charted accountants, architects, lawyers, civil servants, soldiers, executives in private and public sector companies and so on. Many of their own children, the second-generation Tamils born and raised in Delhi, ended up marrying outside the linguistic barrier, bringing into Tamil homes daughters – and sons-in-law from Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It was nothing short of a socio-cultural revolution.
This was a far cry from the pre- and Independence era when Tamils in Delhi suffered from loneliness because they could not easily communicate in Hindi. Now, when their children and grandchildren speak in Hindi, north Indians find it difficult to believe that they are Tamils! All this was made possible due to the way the first Tamils brought up their children with good values and beliefs, says K Vishwanathan, now a resident of Chennai, whose father KG Krishnan embraced Delhi in 1954. “Hats off to their resilience and determination to succeed,” he says of his father and mother, echoing a widely held view among those who remember their parents with utmost respect.