A man, a plan

He seems a mythical figure, almost. The fresh garland on the statute in front of the"Kamaraj Memorial House" indicates that he's still revered by some folks, somewhere. Leaders of the Congress Party in Tamil Nadu continuously harp about bringing back the "Kamaraj age", when Tamil Nadu was one of the best administered states in the country, not to mention one of the 'cleanest', as well. That age seems far removed, much more than the 48 years since K.Kamaraj stepped down as the Chief Minister of the state.

And that was probably the last great sacrifice in Indian politics. Though Kamaraj was in his third term as Chief Minister, he still had considerable political clout in New Delhi, enough for Jawaharlal Nehru to take his advice in implementing what has come to be known as the "Kamaraj Plan". On the face of it, the plan was innocuous enough. Kamaraj proposed that senior leaders of the Congress should give up their positions in the government and move back to the party's organizational framework to revitalize the party. Kamaraj himself gave up his Chief Ministership under the plan, as did five other Chief Ministers and six members of the Union Cabinet. Kamaraj himself was almost immediately elected as President of the Congress Party. It was during his tenure that he orchestrated the transition through two Prime Ministers - Lal Bahadur Shastri after Nehru and then, Indira Gandhi after Shastri's untimely demise.

There are differing views on why the "Kamaraj Plan" was developed; some think it was to strengthen Indira Gandhi's position in the Congress Party. Others belive it was to push out Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, the 'Prime Minister' of Jammu & Kashmir, who even though he was not a member of the Congress Party, offered his resignation - which was promptly accepted. Whatever be the compulsions for the Kamaraj Plan of 1963, the state unit of the Congress Party could do with some of Kamaraj's magic!

The man, the brand

Tucked away in a side street off Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Salai, this memorial to India's first movie-hero-turned-state-Chief-Minister seems to be an effort to downplay MGR's prominence. But then, it is not a state sponsored memorial, which is on the Marina; this one is maintained by the MGR Memorial Charitable Trust, and is more a storehouse of memories of the man who had a tremendous run of over 5 decades in public life, the first four more as a movie star than a politician and the last, as the state's Chief Minister. Sadly, visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. The official photographer inside will take your picture at certain pre-set locations.

The first thing you see when you enter the drawing room of what used to be MGR's house is the car he used for 10 years - a greenish blue Ambassador, TMX 4777. There is an urban legend that he was sold on the number 4777, because he first became Chief Minister on July 4, 1977. Some years later, when the registration series "MGR" fell due in Maharashtra, he made sure that he bought a car there and had it registered as MGR 4777 - though he never used it much. Other interesting bits that are little known: that he had a lion as a pet - 'Raja' now stands in stuffed glory inside this memorial. He bought the lion for his production "Adimai Penn" - a sequence where he fights the lion impressed Raj Kapoor so much that he wanted tips from MGR when filming a similar sequence for Mera Naam Joker. Though I don't have pictures of either, both car and lion can be seen on the Memorial's website.

In many ways, the house is quite a nice memorial of a man whose political legacy is being claimed by many, even today. After all, it is not everyone who can claim to have won a general election from a hospital bed not just once, but twice: the first time to become an MLA after he was wounded in a fracas in 1967 and the second, all the way from Brooklyn Hospital in New York, in 1984, to be re-elected as the Chief Minister. And if that wasn't enough, a 2008 movie about a taxi carried the number of his car - that's the power of the MGR brand!

Solid housing

In front of Singaravelar Maligai, the office of the Chennai Collectorate, is this incongruous structure. The arrowhead-tipped bars blocking its entryways reinforce the first impression of this being a cage of some kind, though what it could have held within it escapes the first level of deduction.

It is in fact a specially constructed cupola, designed to house the 14.5-foot high statue of Lord Conwallis. It was built in 1925, in front of Bentinck's Building, which was the then home of the Madras Collectorate. The statue, in its cupola, had pride of place right in front of the building. But it was a very short stay there for the statue; exposure to the salty sea-air was corroding it and so it had to be taken away to the Connemara Library. The cupola continued to remain there, even as Bentinck's Building was left to rot and later demolished to make way for the 'modern' office of the Collectorate.

It is anybody's guess how long it will be allowed to stand - maybe it will take that strangler fig growing on it to bring it down!

Resident's road

Like many of Madras' roads, Boag Road was also named after a senior civil servant who had his official residence there. It is likely that it was the only house on the road, when it came up sometime in the early part of the 20th century. In any case, the road leading up to Sir George Townsend Boag's house came to be called Boag Road, and continued to be called that until almost at the end of the 20th century.

Boag's name did survive for almost fifty years after he left India in the wake of the country's independence. His residence was then taken over by Kysamballi Chengalraya Reddy, the first Chief Minister of Mysore state. K.C. Reddy didn't stay there for very long, for his political ambitions and interests were outside Madras. In 1959, the house was purchased by Sivaji Ganesan, who was by then a very popular movie star. It was probably during the renovation carried out by Sivaji that the building acquired its Art Deco frontage; that renovation took quite a couple of years. When he moved into the house, Sivaji re-named it "Annai Illam" ("Mother's
Abode") - was it because he was also acting in a film of the same name during that time?

In 1995, Sivaji Ganesan was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur; in 1998, South Boag Road (Theyagaraya Road had cut across Boag Road by then) was renamed 'Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Salai'. Though the actor moved on to a higher stage in 2001, the house continues to be occupied by his sons, who consider it a memorial to their father. Surely, Sivaji's name will live on in the road much longer than that of Sir G T Boag!

Room under the stairs

It was in 1793 that the "citizens of Madras", as represented by the Council in Madras, sent a letter to the President of the Royal Academy in London, expressing a desire to memorialize the military achievements of General Charles, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis. During his tenure as the Governor General of India between 1786 and 1793, Lord Cornwallis defeated Tipu Sultan in the 3rd Anglo-Mysore War. That was the crowning glory of his military career; a career that might have been consigned to the ashes when he surrendered to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau after the siege of Yorktown in 1781. Luckily for him, King George III was favourably disposed to him and instead of being left in the cold, he was sent to India as the Governor General, where he redeemed himself in no small way.

And so the request from the Council at Madras, that the Royal Academy send them a statue executed under the "inspection of the Academy". The Academy assigned the task to Thomas Banks; the final sculpture, 14.5 feet tall, showing Cornwallis in all his lordly mien, standing upon a pedestal reached Madras sometime in 1800. One account has it that the statue was erected in Fort St George, while another says its first home was under a cupola at the junction of Mount Road and (today's) Cenotaph Road. That's a fine point, but the statue did spend time at that junction, which was when Cenotaph Road got its name.

The pedestal shows Tipu Sultan giving up his two sons as hostages, to be held until Tipu was able to pay the multi-million pound indemnity to win them back. Many thought this particular depiction was in poor taste (compounded by poor execution - the work on the base of the statue suffers greatly in comparison with the detailing of his Lordship) and that was probably one reason why the statue was moved to the Fort in 1906, overlooking the Parade Ground. In 1925, it was moved to the gates of Bentinck's Building, the then collectorate of Madras. That location was too close to the sea and the salt air did not agree with his Lordship. In 1928, he was moved to the Connemara Library and then, in 1950, he was moved to the newly purposed Fort Museum - and here, he only has room under the stairs!

Grateful for other reasons?

This defunct fountain in front of the Victoria Public Hall proclaims the city's gratitude to a former governor not once but three times, going by the plaques on each of the three faces of the centrepiece. Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, who is so honoured, was the Governor of Madras for just a short while, from March 1859 to May 1860. Even in that short stint, he did enough for him to be held dear by the citizens of Madras.

For starters, he made land ownership easier, bringing in reforms that allowed freehold titles to be bought. He is also credited with conceptualizing the People's Park; a 116-acre garden spread which had over 5 miles of road inside it, meandering around 11 ponds, a bandstand, tennis courts, a public bath and a very basic zoo. It is for this that he is remembered: the plaques say "...to whom Madras is indebted for The Peoples Park".

But there's a lot more that Trevelyan needs to be remembered for. When he was governor of Madras, his council and he disagreed with a proposal for taxation drawn up by the Financial Member of the Legislative Council for India. And he made his disagreement public, by sending an open telegram to Calcutta and later, by releasing (or allowing the release of) the minutes of a Council meeting where the opposition was recorded. Though he was censured and recalled to England for this action, he was vindicated and returned to India in 1862 as the Financial Member! In the interim, he crafted the principles which guided the creation of the Indian Civil Service. With so much to his credit, one guesses that the city's gratitude stemmed from something more than Trevelyan's civic sensibility!

Vazhga, Gandhi mahan

The Gandhi Mandapam, on the Mahatma's 140th birthday. More details in a while...

Saint's temple

The man is venerated as a saint, but for all that, few people know that there is a temple dedicated to Thiruvalluvar within the city. And no, I'm not talking about Valluvar Kottam, which everyone knows about, but a 'proper' temple in Mylapore, where Valluvar is believed to have born, lived and died. The caretakers of this temple aver that Valluvar was born under an iluppai (mohwa, botanical name Madhuca - or Bassia - longifolia) tree that was fatally damaged in 1935, after having lived for over 2000 years, in this campus. The stump of that tree has been cemented around for much of its height, with a copper covering shielding the part above.

They also point out a well, claiming it to be the one from which Vasuki, Valluvar's wife, used to draw water for her household. Once, hearing her husband call out to her, she ran into the house, letting go of the rope with a vessel that she was hauling up from the well. Legend has it that the vessel remained in place until Vasuki returned - such was the power of Valluvar's word. Yet, it is said that he had to go to Madurai for his work to be recognized. That may be history or legend, but even today, it is at Kanyakumari - or even at the Kottam - that people pay homage to Valluvar, rather than this temple at his putative birthplace.

Given that the poet-saint's great work had very little to talk about God - or religion of any kind - it is somewhat surprising to see shrines of Hindu deities. Trying to balance both legend and faith, the temple ends up doing justice to neither!

Day Memorial or Memorial Day?

It is generally accepted that Madras came into being on August 22, 1639, when Day and Cogan accepted a grant of land from the Nayaks of Poonamallee. Yet, there are many who bristle at the idea that this great city was a child of foreign parents. They point to the rock-cut caves and stone-age relics of Pallavaram, to the temples at Tiruvottiyur and even to the 'Portugee' settlement at San Thomé - a town that Arab traders of the 10th century CE knew as 'Betumah' - as evidence of thriving habitations long before 1639. Those objections have some level of validity, but it took the British East India Company's efforts to stitch together all of these, and several other villages, to craft the Madras that has evolved into the Chennai of today. Since those efforts began with Day and Cogan, they deserve a place of honour in the city's history.

Unfortunately, there is no record of any memorial to either of the two, or their dubash, Beri Thimappa; an omission that has often been lamented by several of the city's heritage enthusiasts. The name of this building is therefore rather intriguing. Actually, I missed it at the first look, because the signboard saying 'Madras Centenary Telugu Baptist Church' was what caught my eye and I took the picture of the church building. It was only later that I began to ascribe different meanings to the words 'The Day Memorial' on the building.

Could this actually be a forgotten memorial to the city's founder? Or is it commemorative of the founding day? Another trip to Vepery is definitely called for!

A sleepless night - and a new dawn

Gandhiji was in Madras on March 18, 1919, staying as a guest of Rajaji, who he had met for the first time earlier that day. He had come to the city to mobilize opposition to the report of the Rowlatt Commission, which had been submitted to the Imperial Legislative Council in 1918. Set up in response to a conspiracy by radical Indian nationalists and Germany to undermine British power in Asia, the Rowlatt Commission recommended that the Viceroy of India be given untramelled power to persecute anyone suspected of treason or sedition. Gandhiji, even then, believed the British government would play by the rules, that they would pay heed to public opinion against the provisions of the 'Black Bill'. His visit to Madras was part of his nationwide campaign against those provisions.

Gandhiji addressed a meeting of leaders at Tilak Bhavan, a guest house belonging to Kasturi Ranga Iyengar and the gathering continued their discussions on actions against the Rowlatt Bill late into the evening. As they were debating, they received news of the Bill becoming law; the infamous Rowlatt Act had been passed. Gandhiji's belief that the British government could be countered by normal democratic processes was completely shattered by this high-handed behaviour. No wonder that he spent a "..restless historic night..." as the inscription says. The morning brought clarity with it: Gandhiji had now become a convert to the idea that cooperating with British institutions would not bear fruit and he articulated his chosen form of attacking them through satyagraha, (desire for truth) the non-violent, non-cooperation movement that became his defining legacy much later.

That, as 'The Story of Gandhi' says, "...was the great awakening of India in her struggle towards independence". But Thilak Bhavan, where that restless sleep and the great awakening happened, is no more. The high-powered business executives, movie stars and political leaders going into Sheraton Chola do not have the time to even spare a glance at this monument to that historic day of 90 years ago!

Chariot in town

Temple chariots have a long history in India. The most well known is the chariot procession of Lord Jagannath at Puri, even though many who use the word 'juggernaut' may not readily connect the word to the temple chariot. It was therefore natural for Ganapathi Sthapati to look to such chariots for inspiration when he was given the task of designing a memorial for Tiruvalluvar, a great poet-saint of Tamil Nadu. His chariot of choice was from within the state, from the town of Tiruvarur, where the chariot festival has been conducted annually for hundreds of years.

The chariot is but at an end of Valluvar Kottam, as the memorial is called. A life size statue of Tiruvalluvar sits in the 101-ft tall chariot and looks to the east, over the roof of a large hall. The hall itself has a capacity to seat about 4000 people, though it is not used for such sit-down performances. The pillars around the periphery of the hall carry verses from Tirukkural, Valluvar's tour-de-force which sets out tenets for virtuous living.

Somehow, Valluvar Kottam has not been able to make it to many of 'must-see-places-in-Chennai' lists. Even in those that it does appear, it just has a passing mention, almost as if hoping "well, it is so large, there must be something to it". Having been around for 32 years, it has become one more of those everyone knows where it is, but no one has been there kind of places. That's a pity, because there is no other monument in the city that can rival the sheer size of Valluvar Kottam!

A hollow memorial

If it hadn't been for the Mahatma, Babasaheb Ambedkar could have been the undisputed voice of the downtrodden. He was for creating separate electorates for the 'untouchables', a move that Gandhi opposed vehemently. The British, sensing an opportunity to splinter the freedom movement, went ahead and announced the creation of such electorates. The Congress however managed to bring Ambedkar around to accepting 'reserved seats'. Despite such run-ins with the senior members of the Congress, Ambedkar was appointed by independent India's first government to Chair the Constitution Drafting Committee - a task that he completed with a great deal of distinction.

This Mani Mandapam, or memorial, to Dr. Ambedkar was inaugurated in June 2000. It remains empty most of the time, with little inside the dome besides a few photographs of Ambedkar with some of his contemporary reformist leaders in Tamil Nadu. There is nothing inside which brings out the breadth of the man's thoughts and actions. In that sense, it is less of a memorial but more of a meeting place, where those who claim his legacy come to hold forth a few times every year.

Remember the fallen

Chennai, or even Madras, is not a city with a martial heritage. Defining battles have been fought close to Madras, but the city itself has never been overrun by invaders. Even during the tussle between the French and the British - the siege of Madras - the key objective seems to have been to take the Fort; not much of action beyond. Surprisingly though, Madras is the only Indian city to have been shelled in the First World War (will come back later with that story). The average Madrasi has been far removed from military invasions, Mughal to Japanese; even the present day 'incursions' affect him only peripherally.

But Madras has its share of heroes through the ages. This circular marble structure, with a 'victory' pillar in the centre was built sometime after the First World War, to celebrate the defeat of the Central Powers. After World War II, the purpose was modified to honour those from the Madras Presidency who had fallen in action. The inscriptions in Tamil - வெற்றி - reads 'Victory', with the dates of the First and Second World Wars, also in the same script.

The practice continued after Independence; the 1962 Chinese Aggression and the 1965 Indo-Pak War also find mention on the monument. I couldn't spot any of the subsequent wars - but that could also have been because I was in a hurry to get back to my car, which was haphazardly parked near a gate of the Port of Chennai!

Big brother

Though his term as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was among the shortest - just under two years, between 1967 and 1969 - C.N.Annadurai was a powerful force in the political arena of the state. So much so that there is almost no place in Chennai that does not have something or the other to do with the first non-Congress Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

Mount Road was renamed Anna Salai, after Annadurai's death in 1969. When the state government set up its first technological university in 1978, they named it Peraringar Anna Universtity of Technology (thankfully it was changed to Anna University later: imagine the credentialling agencies outside India - no, outside Tamil Nadu - trying to get their tongues around the earlier name! The Indian IT revolution may not have quite taken off!!). The first planned layout in Madras - Anna Nagar. We could go on playing this game, but you get the point.

Anna -that means 'elder brother' in Tamil - is certainly omnipresent. For quite a while, the state publicity cell even used the obelisk in his memorial on Marina Beach as their logo!

MGR

If the mark of a great city is the opportunities it provides to people coming into it from other regions, then Chennai does belong up there. While there is some mild jingoism about Tamil language, culture, heritage etc., I'm hard pressed to think of any state in India besides Tamilnadu that carries a refrain similar to 'வந்தோரை வாழவைக்கும் தமிழகம்' (roughly translated as 'the Tamizh land that fosters any who comes').

And MGR is one of those who was fostered very well. Of Keralite origin, born in Sri Lanka, his first role was in a movie directed by an American who knew no Tamil (Ellis R. Dungan); but then he went on to become a leading actor, on to be the state's Chief Minister and even 21 years after his death, remains a larger-than-life, influential figure in the politics of the state.

The plaque at the MGR memorial on the Marina seems too bland - does not quite capture the phenomenon that he was and the hysteria he inspired in the population of Tamil Nadu.