Tall grass and stems

Over the past week, teeth have been strengthened thanks to a daily routine of tearing into the stalks of the tall grasses belonging to the genus Saccharum. No, it is not some new-fangled vegetarianism ritual, but just that it is Pongal time and sugarcanes have been coming in to the city markets.

The street side shops today had another non-regular item, besides the sugarcane stalks. You can make them out in the photo, just beyond the sugarcane display. Those are the turmeric rhizomes, still attached to the plant. Today, both the plant and its rhizome are put to use. Tradition has it that the mud-pot which is to be used for boiling the milk-rice mixture must be smeared with turmeric paste; sometimes a plant is tied to the pot after the cooking is done. The leaves of the turmeric plant are used to place some of the offerings.

Sugarcane sales this year have been dull in Chennai: some reports say that the city's demand has dropped by as much as 30% over last year. Maybe the ongoing uproar over sugar prices has something to do with that!

Of pins and irons

Somewhere between the full-fledged, automated dry-cleaners and the mobile iron-man on your street lies the group of laundry/iron-ers (?) called 'pinmen'. Here's one of them on R.K.Mutt Road.

I haven't been able to figure out why they should be called so, but 'pinmen' seems to be a common term in these parts. Any ideas?

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!

From Headquarters to Main Branch

It is said of this building that it bears some similarity of forms with the Mughal buildings of Fatehpur Sikri. That should not be a surprise because the architects of the Indo-Saracenic era borrowed heavily - and in quite a motley fashion - from various building forms across India. In the case of this building, it should be even less surprising because its initial plans were drawn up by Col. Samuel Jacob, who was at that time the Chief Engineer of the then state of Jaipur.

It was built in 1896 as the headquarters of the Bank of Madras, which was one of the three Presidency Banks (the others being those of Bengal and Bombay) at that time. Befitting the stature of the bank, this building cost Rs.300,000, with the contract being executed by Namberumal Chetty. Col. Samuel Jacob's initial designs were modified by Henry Irwin, buthe north Indian influences were allowed to remain. Much of the woodwork and the stained glass in its windows date from the early 1900s. When the State Bank of India was formed in 1955, this building was designated the SBI's Madras Presidency headquarters. Since then, it had become the 'Local Head Office' and today, is just the 'Chennai Main Branch', a title that it continues to hold more out of courtesy!

Stage presence

The Tamizh month of Margazhi (Dec 16 - Jan 14, roughly) sees a buzz of activity in all the concert / performance halls across Chennai. The true impact of the 'music season' in Chennai is quite immeasureable: older Chennaiites around the world plan their holidays to coincide with as much of the 'season' as they can pack in; newspapers have daily supplements devoted to the concerts and the performers.

Every year, despite all my intentions of attending 'quite a few' performances, I end up going to none. But not this year. A friend was singing at the Sivakami Pethachi Auditorium and I made sure I was there. I understand he was on stage after a very long hiatus, but his singing did not reveal that - well done, Raj!

Unichrome reptile

It shouldn't take very long to spot the reptile in this photo. The little bit of time taken is also only because the chameleon has taken on the colour which predominates in its surroundings. But when you have six such creatures on a tree remaining almost motionless, it does take you quite a while to find them all.

The Indian Chameleon (Chameleo zeylanicus) is quite common in south India and Sri Lanka. There are very few species of the chameleon which can change a wide enough variety of colours as to blend with the background; this one restricts its spectrum mainly to green and brown. In the scrub jungle habitats around Chennai, those colours are good enough for it to remain unnoticed by a huge majority.

The power of the colouration can be seen in this exhibit at the Snake Park, Guindy. When the leaves dry up, the chameleons adopt their green-brown band and merge with the leaves, so that even then, it remains a challenge to spot all six of them in this enclosure. In fact, I was sure that there were only five until someone pointed out all six to me!

Restored glory

This magnificent building on the Marina has been a familiar sight for so long that one forgot what it was originally meant for. It was in 1864 that a competition was announced for designing two buildings connected with higher education in the city. The first was for the Madras Presidency College, which had been functioning since 1840 and the other was for a building to house the administrative offices and a large examination hall. It was a grand vision, for the University Board, which had been established in 1840 had, in the first quarter-century of its existence, done little to justify such dreams. A preparatory school was set up in 1840, a high school in 1841, an elementary school a while later and in 1853, a collegiate department was created - which in 1855 was renamed the Presidency College. The University of Madras itself was incorporated only on September 5, 1857. Here they were, less than a decade later, asking for huge buildings to be raised.

The competition attracted entrants from all over India and possibly from England, too. The prize-winning designs were submitted by Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who was then barely 25 years old, with less than a year's practice as an architect in Calcutta. Winning the prize brought Chisholm to Madras - which then became his base. The Presidency College buildings were constructed first and it was only in 1874 that the work on the building to house offices / examination hall was begun. The hall was large enough to seat 1600 students for their examinations. Under the hall was an equally large cellar, intended to be used as the storage vaults. In keeping with the grandness of the vision, the materials for construction were also the best; the bricks were from Commonwealth Brickworks, Kerala and marble for the floor from Italy. The intricate detailing on the domes and the supporting columns survive to this day.

That survival was made possible by a sustained project to restore this grand building in time for the sesquicentenary of the University of Madras in 2007. The budget of Rs.6 crore for the renovation was met in part by a long list of individual contributors who pitched in with amounts ranging from Rs.11 (!!) and Rs.25 to Rs.25 lakhs. Thanks to all of them, the domes of the Senate House continue to reflect the glory of the University's history!