Forgotten pedestal

Few people know why Cenotaph Road is called so; fewer still would have had the patience to figure out where the components of the cenotaph are located today. 

The original cupola, housing the statue of the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, remains untraceable. It's last shelter is now outside, on the grounds of the Fort St George, while the statue itself frowns imperiously on the visitors entering the Fort Museum. The base of the statue has this description of why it was erected. Maybe it is still not in tune with the wishes of Chennai's citizens, but Cenotaph Road has been spared the spate of renaming that the city's roads have been subjected to... and has remained the same for over 211 years, now!

Happy New Year!

Ah, well. Today's 'Theme Day' is the best photo from 2011; I've posted so few during the last year that it was rather difficult to find the 'best' one.... so here's one, unpublished.

Taken during the lead-up to Thiruvonam, in October, the pookalam (a kind of courtyard decoration, created with thickly packed flower petals) serves to welcome the King Mahabali, on the day when he makes his annual visit to the kingdom he ruled over. 

And this picture welcomes the new year - may it be like the reign of the good King Mahabali.... 

Maaveli naadu vaneedum kaalam

Manushyarellarum onnupole

Amodhathodu vasikkum kaalam

Apathangarkkum ottilla thaanum

When Maaveli was ruling the land, 

All the people were treated equal

And people lived joyful and merry

Free from even the lightest of threats

Here's to a wonderful 2012, folks!

Doll display

It coming close to the end of Navaratri; almost all over India, the 9-day worship of the mother Goddess in her various manifestations follows a similar pattern. But it is only in the southern states that the 9-step (or 7-step) display of dolls becomes a prominent feature of this festival. 


Here's a golu from the Kapaleeshwarar temple at Mylapore. Don't fret if you did not see it there yesterday; this picture is from last year's celebrations!

141, now

Today is one of the few 'National Holidays' in the country. This year, Gandhiji's birth anniversary falling on a Sunday ruled out one of the 'definite' holidays from the calendar. And I didn't get to see Richard Attenborough's Gandhi this year.... maybe Munnabhai's Gandhi made an appearance? 

But then, thanks to Anna Hazare and many others, the Mahatma has been more in the news this year than in most recent years. Maybe it is time to, as an old advertisement said, "...discover the Gandhi in yourself"! 

Mystery object

Ah, the greater mystery is about why I got out of the blogging habit for quite a while now. Doesn't matter. Another 1st-of-the-month, another 'Theme Day', another resolution.


This month, the theme for the City Daily Photo community is "Mystery Object". I had a couple of excellent candidates for that, but unfortunately, I had used them before, here and here; so now I've had to rummage through a jumble of images to come up with this one.


All I can tell you is that it is on top of the Thirusoolam hill. What was it used for? I'm not sure, but I guess it was   just a shaded rest / lookout point.... like the chattris on some forts in north-western India. I do hope some of the readers will be able to throw more light on this!


To see other mystery objects, from many other cities around the world, get over to the City Daily Photo portal. You may click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Under (re)construction

This is not a new building, for sure. The Bharat Insurance Building has been around for as long as I can remember. In fact, it has been around for so long that it is not being used anymore. But do you see those towers in the background, with scaffolding around them? 

That's because they belong to a much, much older era. They were part of the Kardyl Building, which was inaugurated in 1897. In the course of their long life, they have weathered much, but the sheer neglect of the past fifteen years or so pushed them to the brink of ruin. In August 2006, the Madras High Court restrained the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the current owners of the building from "demolition or change in character" of the building, thanks to the efforts of Chennai's minuscule but valiant heritage lobby. Since then, an agreement appears to have been arrived at. There is some restoration activity going on at this building. One hopes that it will go back to the bubbling spirit it had in the days when it housed a soda-water bottling plant and a beer parlour on the premises!

It is 'Theme Day', over at www.citydailyphoto.com! Go over there to find photos from around the world on the theme 'construction'!!

Faith!

Across the street from the gate of St. Peter's Church at Royapuram, is the Jamia Masjid mosque. The juxtaposition of the two symbols - the mosque's minaret and St. Peter's cross - make for an interesting picture!

Dramatic building

Back to those white-on-blue enamel boards. This building has two of them, both indicating institutions that have had a glorious run on the Madras stage. One of those, I shall save for another post, but this one, sadly, seems to have been relegated to a 'bit-part' these days.

The Sukrutha Lakshmi Vilasa Sabha (SLVS) is one-hundred-and-eleven years old this year. It has been operating from this building for sixty-seven of those years. In the early days of its existence, the raison d'etre of this Sabha was to compete with the Suguna Vilasa Sabha (SVS) in staging dramatic performances. Over the years, both organizations have had to struggle for existence. The SVS has fared a little better on that count, having morphed into a social club, while the SLVS seems to have last opened its doors a few years ago.

Maybe it wants to continue its association with the performing arts - that could be the reason why it hasn't moved out of this building, which once housed Madras' first ever cinema!

Temple in the crowd

As NSC Bose Road winds down through Sowcarpet, it gets ever more narrow until you wonder how two vehicles can ever pass each other by. Suddenly, you sense space. The road opens out just a bit and there you see this wall, the red-and-white stripes identifying it as part of a temple. From the peacock placed on the wall, you would guess the temple has to do with Subramanya - and you would be correct.

It is not a large temple, but considering the bustle of the area around it, the space is more than ample. The main deity is seen with his consorts, Valli and Devasena, the former's idol showing four arms - a rather unique representation of this Goddess. 

This temple is probably between 200 and 300 years old, going by the local stories. However, there are also stories that tell of Agastyar - whose image is also somewhere on the temple walls - having prayed to Subramanya in this temple. Well, you can choose what to believe!

General well-being

The Government General Hospital at Chennai is one of the oldest institutions in the city - and quite likely the oldest functioning hospital in the country. It started off as a small hospital to treat the soldiers of the British East India Company who were routinely falling prey to various tropical maladies. It was Sir Edward Winter, during his first stint as the Agent of Fort St. George, who inaugurated this hospital on November 16, 1664.

It wasn't much of a hospital, initially. being based out of one of the houses in the Fort. And for a few years, it moved around inside the Fort itself, before the general congestion of the Fort and the 'Town' area forced it to look outside. It was only in 1762 that a new site was identified, a little away from the Fort, on the road to Poonamallee. 

None of the buildings from that time was preserved when these new buildings came up in the early 2000s. All the old buildings were taken down and these two blocks replaced them. Supposedly, a couple of plaques from those buildings are preserved somewhere inside this campus - but discovering them may be more difficult than the task Charles Donovan faced in discovering the kala-azar agent in 1903. Even the plaque commemorating that discovery, one of the high points of the hospital's history is also missing!

Sinking in

This is one of the smaller roads in the Vepery area. And the mystery behind the name has been guarded very carefully. Maybe one of those reading this post will be able to throw some light on who Letang was. That it will be a person is not to be doubted, for there is a record of a couple of people who were born with that name in Madras between 1850 - 1880. Alfred Otranto Letang was the older one, coming into the world in 1853, while Constance LeTang followed him 26 years later. This road could have been named for either of them - or for their fathers: Peter (Alfred's) or Charles (Constance's). 

Or, it could be Ambrose Pierre Antoine, Chevalier de L'Etang. de L'Etang was stable-master for Marie Antoinette and had to leave France in a hurry after the French Revolution. In 1788, he was in Pondicherry, where he married Therese Blin de Grincourt. He also seems to have been an author, turning his experiences - and those of others - into a volume on farriery in 1795. But this connect seems to be a little far-fetched, for Antoine seems to have gone on to Calcutta....

So, the mystery remains. Can someone solve it, before the story sinks - like the road sign is threatening to?

Tower, Anna Nagar

Probably not the one you were thinking of, right? The Masjid Javeed on 3rd Avenue, Anna Nagar, has a minar that is quite eye-catching, especially at twilight!

Outward looking

Before this building came up on Mount Road, the space was the front lawns of Spencer's Hotel. Though they had sold the entire property to M.Ct.M Chidambaram Chettiar's family sometime around 1944, Spencer's continued to run the hotel into the early '50s. Even for many years after, that hotel building continued to be in use, as the training centre of the Indian Overseas Bank, who had by then raised their headquarters building on the hotel gardens. 

The Indian Overseas Bank was the second of the 'local' banks to be established in Madras, in 1937. As was the case with almost every business venture of the time, it began life in George Town. Chidambaram Chettiar realized that with several restrictions on foreign exchange business being placed upon banks after the Great Depression, Indian businessmen trading overseas would welcome an 'Indian' bank for their exchange transactions. And so was born the Indian Overseas Bank - that middle word establishing its market intent and to distinguish it from 'Indian Bank', which predated it. To prove that intent, the bank opened its overseas branches, in Rangoon (now Yangon) and Penang within a few months of opening their first offices in Karaikudi and Madras. 

It was M.Ct.M Chidambaram Chettiar's desire to have a skyscraper on Mount Road that saw him first go to work on the LIC Building, in 1953. But he died in 1954, before the building was completed - and before the insurance business was nationalized in 1956. His sons Pethachi and Muthiah fulfilled their father's wish - the design of this building also drawing inspiration from the UN Headquarters. This building also went into the Government's hands soon after - banking nationalization coming through in the late 1960s. Yet, a statue of M.Ct.M Chidambaram Chettiar's statue stands outside this building, which has been the headquarters of the IOB since 1964. Hopefully it will also participate in the platinum jubilee celebrations on February 10, 2012!

Precious coral

For almost a hundred years, from 1688 to 1786, Anglo-Dutch Jews moved to Madras and played a major role in the trade of precious stones. Strange as it may seem, the 'natives' were fascinated by coral and were willing to trade even diamonds for it. The Jewish traders typically had an arrangement where one brother was a free merchant near Fort St George, another was based in London and a third in Amsterdam. That helped: coral from the Mediterranean, which was much sought after by the people of India, was shipped to Fort St George through London. (In return, the merchants of Leghorn, Naples and other cities on the Mediterranean seem to have been paid in pepper). Diamonds obtained as payment for this coral were sent to Amsterdam for cutting and polishing.

It appears that the Jews played a significant role in moving the centre of the coral trade from Goa (then with the Portugese) to Madras, which would explain their pre-eminence in this trade in the early days of the city. However, with the discovery of diamonds in other parts of the world, their value fell and the trade became less lucrative. Also, there appears to have been a shake-up in 1765 with the bust of a diamond smuggling ring, in which 3 Jewish agents from Madras (and the governor of Madras) were alleged to have been involved. 

The trade was then taken over by the Nagarathars. Whether they continued to trade coral or not, they took up offices in the street vacated by the Jewish traders. By this time, the street was itself so closely associated with the coral trade that it was called Pavazhakkarar Theru - Coral Merchants' Street. It is likely that anyone commencing trading activities there would be dubbed a Pavazhakkarar, whether coral was part of his bill of materials or not. And in keeping with the fascination for red coral, this gift from 'Coral Naiker Madras' to the city's Corporation, has been topped off with bright red paint!

The book "Diamonds and Coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-Century Trade", by Gedalia Yogev seems to have some fascinating accounts of the Jews of Madras, going by excerpts found here!

The Rajah at the choultry

Were he alive today, he'd be getting on to his 170th birthday, which is what the Wikipedia entry on him seems to indicate. Rajah Sir Savalai Ramaswamy Mudaliar, KT CIE has been away from us for over a century, but during his time he was a big enough philanthropist for his name to be seen in several places over Chennai. People miss it because it is in a narrow band on the choultry. They miss it because the initials "R.S.R.M." in Government RSRM Lying-In Hospital in Royapuram means nothing to them. His place of burial in Kilpauk, where he once owned a vast stretch of land, is probably inaccessible now.

This statue, erected by his friends, is probably the only one in the city. The man who was given the title Rajah as a personal distinction - rather than as a hereditary keepsake - keeps a watch over one of his favourite gifts to the city from right inside it!

On the bridge

Not as often used as the Central Station or the LIC Building, but this view of the Raja Annamalai Memorial Hall and Rani Seethai Hall is also an instant identification of the city.


From the top of the Gemini flyover...

The other side

Well, you saw the view from the landward side several days ago; here is the Simpson clock from the beach - and Radhakrishnan Salai / Cathedral Road leading away from it.

Parsi property

Down West Mada Church Road in Royapuram are several indicators of the city's Parsi heritage. The oldest of these indicators is probably this building, which stands on land that, by all accounts, was acquired by Heerjibhai Maneckji Kharas with five other Parsis sometime in the last decade of the 18th century. Just before that century ended, additional land had been leased for 99 years from the British East India Company. In 1858, with the Crown assuming sovereignty, the lands were transferred to the Parsi Panchayat.

In 1900, the Parsi Panchayat was renamed the Madras Parsi Zarthosti Anjuman. The property that had been leased from the British East India Company came to be referred to as Anjuman Bagh. Today, Anjuman Bagh houses within it a dharmsala for travellers, besides about fifteen flats though which the Anjuman provides subsidized housing for deserving senior citizens from the community. 

Though the original property on this road has been fragmented, the Anjuman Bagh continues to be a reminder of how the Parsis had contributed to Madras in large measure!

Just a building

Actually that's all it is. But the Sheraton Park Hotel & Towers is so very inviting. 


This property has seen quite a few name changes over the past 30 years or so that it has been around. It was first the Adayar Gate Hotel, then the Adayar Park; after its management was taken over by the Welcomgroup, it became Park Sheraton. Now, with ITC's brand building effort, it is the ITC Hotel Park Sheraton and Towers. 


If we conveniently ignore all the dance floors in various old world hotels and clubs of the city, Park Sheraton can claim to have brought the discotheque into the Madras of the late 1970s. The Gatsby was a major USP of the hotel when it opened and the name had enough recall value for it to be reintroduced as Gatsby 2000 in the late 1990s. 


The Gatsby is not this hotel's only connection to New York. What is today known as the Park Central Hotel was, between the 1950s and the 1980s, known as the Park Sheraton New York!

Hosting the Academy

It is not the oldest of the music sabhas in the city, but it ranks among the top 3 in that category. For quite a long time, the Sri Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha was the lone ranger; from the time it was founded in 1900, until the Music Academy came into being in 1928, there was no other sabha in Madras. 

The Music Academy's founding - in the wake of a resolution by the All India Congress Committee - led to a mini-rash of similar institutions coming up. Of the ones that followed, only two continue to be active: the Indian Fine Arts Society and the Rasika Ranjani Sabha. The latter, established in 1929 in Mylapore, seems to have enjoyed better facilities in the early days. It had its own concert hall on Sundareswarar Swamy Street. The concert hall was most likely named after the street, and Sundareswarar Hall hosted many of the prominent musicians of the day. In 1958, the Sundareswarar Hall was renovated and the new venue served the RR Sabha for over half-a-century. The current renovation - which should be completed soon (if it hasn't been already), will hopefully see the hall continue to use its current name.

Because that's a name that has hosted the Music Academy itself - before the Academy got its current premises, it conducted its annual conferences at different venues: and among them the Sundareswarar Hall was an early choice!