The final bend

That's what it is, the River Cooum turing due east as it heads out to the Bay of Bengal, marking the end of its 65-km run. During the past few days, there has been some renewed interest in the project to beautify Cooum, what with the Deputy Chief Minister reiterating the government's committment to not only beautify, but also restore the river to its glory days.

In those glory days, boating was quite common on the Cooum. Although there have been no boats for quite a long while now, skeletons of the boat houses are still around - you can see one on the right, just over the wall. It is rather surprising to see them standing even today!

Beam of justice

I don't think there is any other court of justice of which it can be literally said that it cast its beacon of light nearly 35 kilometres around. That honour can only go to the High Court of Judicature at Madras - that is because its tallest minaret, at about 175 feet, was taller than any other structure nearby when the court buildings were opened in 1892. Although I haven't been able to find anything to support it, my guess is that the minaret was designed to play the role of a lighthouse. It holds the record for being Madras' longest serving lighthouse, having been used for about 83 years, from 1894 to 1977.

The first lighthouse at Madras became operational in 1796 and was little more than a lantern with reflectors, housing a dozen coconut-oil burning lamps, placed on top of the Exchange Building (the Fort Museum of today). It was used for almost 50 years, when it was moved to the Esplanade, atop a Doric column built for the specific purpose of serving as a lighthouse. That column, which came into use in 1841, still stands inside the High Court complex, having given up its crown to be housed in the minaret of the Court. The Argand Lamps and reflectors, which began flashing on January 1, 1844, was supplied by Chance Bros., Birmingham and was replaced - rather, improved upon - in 1927 and by all accounts continued to be used until 1977.

So which is Madras' fourth lighthouse? All of you from Chennai would have seen it at the south end of the Marina, but that's subject for another post!

The minaret may not look so tall from this perspective, but an older post shows it standing head and shoulders above its cousins!

Letters, anyone?

The first formal postal services - maybe it is better to call them the Company's first postal services - in Madras were fairly rudimentary, with a dak runner to carry the Bengal mail. Madras got its first Postmaster General only in 1774, which was also the time when the company mail began to carry, for a charge, private letters also. Over the next few years, the public was likely fleeced with erratic charges for their private letters - and they were subsidising the expense incurred by the government, for all letters of Company employees were carried free. Mr. John Philip Burlton, a "junior civilian of eight years' standing" (now, what does that mean?) first wrote to Lord Macartney and then to the acting Governor of Madras, Alexander Davidson, in 1785, with a proposal to "establish a regular Tapall or Dauk upon a Plan similar to that at Bengal". It found favour with the authorities after a few rounds of consultations with civil servants of Bengal.

Meanwhile, Governor Davidson was succeeded by Sir Archibald Campbell - he wanted his private secretary A.M. Campbell to be in charge of the Post Office, with Robert Mitford as his deputy. That was not acceptable to the Company headquarters, since neither were Company employees; they favoured Burlton as the chief of the Post Office. As often happens, a compromise was struck and on June 1, 1786, the General Post Office opened near the Sea Gate of Fort St George with Mr. Richard Legge Willis as its chief. For the next 70 years, the GPO worked within the Fort. It was only in 1856 that it moved out to Garden House, in Popham's Broadway.

Nearly 30 years later, in 1884, it moved to this building on North Beach Road (now Rajaji Salai). The architect was Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who incorporated elements from Travancore, Bijapur and Gujarati architecture to come up with this building, which continues to be Chennai's General Post Office today. Though a fire in 2003 ravaged the rear of this building, the facade still stands as a striking example of Indo-Saracenic architecture!

In Delhi, they call it...

One of the hangovers of the Madras Presidency days is that many people in the northern parts of India consider anything 'south of the Vindhyas' as being "Madrasi". And that was the explanation given to me by the shopkeeper at Dilli Haat when I asked him why this product was called 'Madrasi Saunf': "ye toh south mein log bahut khaate hain" - people in the south eat this a lot!

Who won?

It is quite characterless today, but 'Victory House' is a building that has seen a lot of action going on around it since the late 19th century. It was originally built for Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., a Calcutta firm (here's a picture of their headquarters) which had branches not only in India/Pakistan but also in Ceylon, Burma and the Malay Settlements. It is not known what the building was called when it was built for Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., but one story has it that after the Allied powers prevailed in the First World War, Whiteaway (or equally likely, Laidlaw), in a fit of pride, named the Madras branch 'Victory House'. Though the firm was quite successful in its other locations, it could never overtake the Spencer's of Madras and post-independence, found its clientele further dwindling.

The building was then bought by C.R.Srinivasan of the Swadesamitran for the newspaper's offices - their presses were in Royapettah, but perhaps Srinivasan was carried away by the symbolism: taking over 'Victory House' from its British owners reflecting the success of the newspaper's strident calls for 'self-rule'. Maybe he named it 'Victory House' after he bought it, celebrating that success. In any case, the newspaper itself fell away and was almost bankrupt by the mid-1970s.

It was sometime around then that The Swadesamitran Ltd began asking its tenants to move out of the Victory House, claiming that the century-old structure was unsafe for occupation. One of the tenants, who was paying a monthly rent of Rs.7,000/-, offered to buy the 10-ground property for Rs.20 lakhs. The situation became messy, with Swadesamitran going to court for an eviction and the tenant filing a counter-case arguing that Swadesamitran was backing out on their deal merely to raise the price. While I do not know the details of the arguments, or even the final judgement, it is easy to assume that the tenant won the case. Over the years since, that former tenant - VGP & Co. - has converted the entire building into one huge stockpile of consumer electronics and durables. Victory House has lost its earlier charm (you can see the earlier building in this picture, on the right) and has become one more nondescript structure on Mount Road!

Proof of herit-age

In their earlier avatar, Harrison's Hotel did not find any need to advertise their age. When you turned your vehicle into their tree-shaded front yard, you knew that this was an institution with a lot of years behind it. The low round cane tables with their red-and-white-checked tableclothes, circled by cane chairs, out on the verandah of their bar - or was it the restaurant? - proclaimed the elegance of an era that was long-gone even in during the 1980s. Once there, you were transported to some plantation far away from the city. Sadly, even the cuisine was modelled on the spartan aspect of the plantations, so it was truly a 'throwback' place.

No wonder that it was losing out on its clientele in the beginning of the 21st century. So, away went the front yard, and the two-storied structure. In its place came the swank new boutique hotel - Harrisons. Even now there is some debate about what it was called in its pre-renovation days: was it Harrisons, or Meenam (which is one of the restaurants in the new hotel), Queens or O'Papa? All four names seem to have been in use earlier, but today it is unequivocally Harrisons, with the words 'Since 1885' under it.

There does not seem to be any document going all the way back to the 19th century, though. In the lobby of the Harrisons, there is this framed letter dated March 10, 1914, from the then Governor of Madras, Lord Pentland, appointing "Messrs Harrison & Co., to be Caterers and Confectioners in ordinary to His Excellency...". In the new-age lobby, few people bother to even glance at this relic. Those who do might wonder what this has to do with the current avatar - the cursory caption does not really capture the heritage of the institution!

Waiting to fly

It was said this flyover would be ready in a year's time. It has now been fifteen months since work began on this, the latest Chennai 'high-rise' and it looks good enough to drive on. Problem is, the approach and side roads at both ends of the Cenotaph Road - Turnbulls Road flyover are in a state of complete mess, so it doesn't look like the flyover is going to be put to use just yet.

That's good news for a few of the kids from around the place. They have been using the nice, flat surface of the road as a cricket pitch over the past couple of weekends - at least there's some kind of 'driving' going on there!