The city's Sarai

Abdul Hakim was a reasonably wealthy businessman in Visharam, a town about 150 km west of Madras. He had inherited a successful hides and skins business from his father; bursting with ideas, he must have travelled to Madras many a time to do business with the leather buyers who came to George Town from Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay and the Punjab, not to mention the British, who were there for trading, anyway. The hides and skins business continued to be successful and Abdul Hakim, now with the suffix of Saheb, moved into public life through several charitable acts, largely directed towards education in his native Visharam. The Melvisharam Muslim Educational Society that he founded in 1918 continues to be active, most recently in setting up the C. Adbul Hakeem College of Engineering at Technology.

Influenced in some small way by his contemporary Rajah Sir Ramasamy Mudaliar, Hakim Saheb turned his attention to the traveller to Chennai and built a rest house near the Central Station, quite close to the Choultry built by the Rajah. So it was that bands of travellers to Madras in 1920 now had one more excellent facility to put up their feet and relax. Named after Hakim Saheb's father, Siddique Sarai has separate quarters for men and women, as well as a mosque for the men. The projecting balconies with their sloped shade keep the sunlight out and the traveller cool.

Unlike the choultry, the Sarai has been in continuous use since it was opened and is a shade better maintained than its neighbour!

Complex entrance

Here's one more rajagopuram; unlike the one pictured on this blog earlier, this gopuram is as old as the temple and not a later addition. Also, this is the entrance not just to one temple, but an entire complex, with at least 10 sannithis (sanctums), a goshala (dairy) and lots of space, both open and covered, for devotees to sit awhile. There is also a garden with 27 nakshatra lingams - according to lore, the 27 stars of the Hindu lunar calendar have worshipped at this temple at some time or the other.

It does appear to be a temple beyond time; the stones on the outer wall appear to be sagging from the weight of the ages, but most of the complex is reasonably well preserved. Inscriptions on the temple pillars date it back to the time of the early Chola kings, about 1500 years ago. Looking at it from the bustle of present day Chennai, or even British Madras, Tiruvottiyur appears a rather odd location for such a large and prestigious temple. The Thyagarajar temple (or more completely, the Thyagaraja Swamy udanurai Vadivudaiamman temple) is therefore a very visible reminder of the existence of a thriving town - one among several that have now been embraced by Greater Chennai - long before the British arrived.

Middle school

The Corporation of Chennai runs free schools for children from extremely poor families. Though these schools lack facilities considered rudimentary by those from the more privileged sections, that must not be held against them. Students in such schools come from a mileu where a healthy child not going to work is seen as a loss of revenue - the incentive for parents to pull children, especially boys, out of school is very high. As for the girls, education was seen as a burden: for, according to them, no man would like an educated wife.

With all those factors against them, the Corporation Schools continue to function reasonably well. They get through the basic syllabus and give their students a feel of the opportunities available. At the high school exams, students from these schools have been registering a 'pass-percentage' of over 90% consistently over the past 5 years.

This school - and others like it - together have over 142,000 students in them. When the Corporation began its schools department in 1912, there were 40 schools under their wing. Today, the Education Department oversees 360 schools, including a Urdu High School and a Telugu one!

Sporting arena

Home - rather, office address - to almost all sports associations in the state, the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is the best venue in Chennai for track & field events or football matches. It would be a great experience to watch an exciting match or soak in the thrill of serious running and jumping when the stands are full. But the capacity has rarely been tested, mainly because neither athletics nor football arouses serious passions in a Chennaite. Sure, Nallusamy Annavi first came onto the national scene at Madras about 20 years ago with his record setting high-jump effort, but he never considered himself a Madrasi and the fever his record created died out pretty quickly.

As for football, the stadium is rated for international games, but memory strains to recall a decent international football match here. There have been matches of the South Asian games and suchlike, but none that featured high-powered international stars - and there are few local stars in the game.

No wonder then that the stands appear deserted almost all the time. A few hundred spectators watching a league football match or a state-level athletics meet will hardly serve to fill the 40,000 seats in this stadium!

Crossing the street

It is rather difficult to believe that the humble pedestrian crossing turns 60 this year, having first been introduced at a thousand sites in Britain in 1949. It was done on an experimental basis, arising from the 1949 UN Conference on Road and Motor Traffic, during a 'Pedestrian Crossing Week'. In 1951, the pattern and the colours of the pedestrian crossing were formalised as the familiar alternating black and white stripes - within no time, they were being called 'zebra crossing'.

Once the zoological reference had been made, Britain seemed to wade into it time and again when naming their pedestrian signs. Apart from the zebra, there is the Pelican (Pedestrian Light Controlled) crossing, the Puffin (Pedestrian User Friendly Intelligent) crossing and the Toucan (Two-can) crossing - and then there is the Pegasus crossing, found near race courses. For more explanations of these crossings, click here.

Chennai doesn't have any animal crossing, other than the omnipresent zebra. This zebra moults, so it's coat has to be re-painted every once in a while. And here are a couple of policemen at it, early in the morning before the traffic starts to pick up. In 2007, the then Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) submitted before the Madras High Court that the city has 310 zebra crossings. That would take some painting, for sure!

And all along, one thought it was only the chicken that crossed the road!

Tangy stuff

What would south Indian cuisine be without this fruit? There would have been no sambar, rasam or puliyodarai without this tangy fruit to give them their distinctive flavour. It is a challenge to eat this fruit by itself, straight from the tree - not too many people would do it because the flavour is sharp and if you haven't ever tasted it, will wake you up double quick!

Almost every part of this tree can be used; the leaves and flowers are used in several dishes. The fruit, of course is the most commonly used part - eaten raw, pounded into a pulp with sugar added to it, stored in earthen pots and brought out a little at a time to add heft to the stock for sambar or rasam - a few years ago, small globules of these, sweetened with sugar, almost became a competitive advantage for one of the airlines, forcing everyone else in the skies to serve the same sweets.

For all that, this is not a native Indian tree. It came to India from Africa, but that move happened a very long time ago. Even the name - which has its roots in the Arabic phrase for 'date of Hind'- has a double dose of India in it. With a name like Tamarindus indica, it would be pointless trying to prove its foreign origins!

Heritage building

Arvind Adiga, author of 'The White Tiger', the Man Booker Prize winner for 2008, has strong ties to Chennai. To put it another way, Arvind's great-grandfather, Dr. U.Rama Rau was a man who contributed significantly to the development of Madras. Among the many things that Dr. Rama Rau did was to nurture the Music Academy, be a co-founder of the Indian Medical Association, establish the south Indian arms of the Red Cross and the St John's Ambulance Association, edit medical journals such as the Antiseptic and Health, all without neglecting the practice of medicine from his clinic on Thambu Chetty Street in George Town.

On a recent walk down the street, I was looking for some evidence of Dr. Rama Rau's descendents, many of who are still medical practitioners in Chennai. The closest I could get was this building: Sudharsana Building, dating from the early 20th century, housing Dr. U.Venkata Rao's clinic. It is as likely to be someone entirely unconnected with Dr. Rama Rau as not. But the combination of a heritage building (the picture of Krishna reminding one that Dr. Rau also had a pharmacy called Sri Krishnan Brothers) and the names of the doctors practicing there tilt the balance towards this being the same premises - 323, Thambu Chetty Street, George Town, Madras - that Dr. Rama Rau ran his practice from!