From villages to metropolis

MADRAS That Is Chennai... Queen Of The Coromandel, by S. Muthiah, is the story of a city that he knows too well; a story told with hope, highlighting the good, and playing down the bad, which so many of us despair of ... Each well-loved landmark of Chennai is interlaced with history and interesting anecdotes.

How is this book different from the others that he has written? For one thing, the true-to-life drawings of the metropolitan city by C.L.D. Gupta, who "enjoys sketching more than anything else". A gold medallist in painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, Gupta joined forces with Muthiah, who is an active crusader for the city's well being, and a respected authority on Madras that is Chennai. While Gupta's vibrant line drawings enhance the story, the cover of the book is disappointing, and dreary when compared to the very lively text and illustrations ... But then, one cannot judge a book by its cover.

Madras, a comparatively new city, less than 400 years old, was the Gateway to India during its first 150 years, and India's fourth largest city. History was made when Francis Day of the East India Company, discovered and negotiated for a three mile sandy strip, inconvenient for ships to anchor, and devoid of the local population. Andrew Cogan, chief agent for the East India Company, was not intimidated by the drawbacks, and was determined that this land would be England's main settlement on India's east coast. He built a factory and a few homes in less than a year. It was on April 23, 1640 that the land was called Fort St. George, and the heart of it was christened Madraspatnam. Along the bank of the west river, Beri Thimappa who owned the land, settled weavers, dyers, bleachers and washers who he brought in from Telegu land. The settlement was promptly named Chennapatnam. Around the towns of Chennapatnam and Madraspatnam, Madras grew, with add-ons by the British, who acquired villages. From 1640 to 1772, the Company's Governor and his Council in Madras were in charge of all East India Company settlements, from Surat to Bantam in Java. That then was the genesis of this metropolitan city.

Some of the glimpses which I enjoyed ...

The journey by-the-coast, begins with Fort St. George, moving south, down the Marina Beach right up to Adyar. All major landmarks are descriptively detailed with illustrations to bring the stories alive. Little known facts jostle with one another, providing a delightful pep to the narrative. How many Chennaiites pause to ponder over the beauty of the University of Madras which is the finest example of Indo-Saracenic architecture? Or, how many know that the Madras Cricket Club, founded in 1846 by Alexander Arburthnot, is the second oldest cricket club in the country? Or that the oldest engineering college outside Europe is the Guindy Engineering College, now part of the Anna University?

Muthiah moves down the Marina Beach, crossing landmarks which one usually takes for granted. "It was a group of Englishmen who built the palaces of the Raj in the late 19th Century, making Indo-Saracenic architecture the idiom of the public buildings of the Indian Empire. But few realise that it was an architectural style developed in Madras a hundred years earlier ..." In the 1840s, the Tudor Brothers of Massachusetts formed the Tudor Ice Company. They harvested ice from New England's lakes and ponds in winter and the drifting Newfoundland icebergs in the summer and shipped them out to India in Yankee clippers. Originally, the ice business was started in Calcutta, but Tudor's soon established itself in Madras where it bought a Government-owned building by the beach to store its ice and send requirements to other vendors, earning its name, Ice House.

For over a century, the Marina was acclaimed as the second largest beach in the world, and it would have ranked among the world's finest beaches, if only deteioration was kept at bay. The south beach has become an eyesore with fishing huts in a dirty, squalid jungle of uncared for tenenments.

Religious tolerance seems to have been in existence over the years. San Thome was dedicated to the apostle of Christian Faith, St. Thomas. The Nestorian Church, raised over the crypt of St. Thomas, was visited by Marco Polo as recorded in the 13th Century. The Basilica one sees today was built on this very site in 1896, a beautiful Gothic church with a towering steeple over the entrance and a smaller steeple over the crypt.

The Kapaleeshwarar Temple, the most famous in Madras, in the 2,000-year-old port town of Mylapore, and the Big Mosque in Triplicane built by the family of the Nawab of Arcot are beautiful examples of architecture. The Mylapore tank was dug on land granted for the temple by the Nawab of Arcot in the 18th Century. The suburb of Mylapore has the largest Muslim population in the city. The Chandraprabhu Bhagwan Naya Jain Mandir, in Sowcarpet is a classic example of a beautifully sculpted Jain temple in marble.

Burma Bazaar, a traditional bazaar, very much a part of the city ethos, today faces competition from glitzy super stores in chrome and steel. The bazaar began when refugees from Burma in the 1950s and 1960s were allowed to set up petty shops as a pavement bazaar, selling foreign goods in a discreet manner, but one wonders how many refugees from Burma still have a stake here.

Madras's first and main railway station, was built in palatial, classical style at Royapuram, with its fluted Ionic pillars, arches, balustrades and stucco floral decorations.

The first train service in the South, and the second in the country were inaugurated in 1853. This important occasion was reported in England, and the Illustrated: London News devoted a two page spread to the festive occasion. With the merger of Madras Railway and Southern Mahratta Railway in 1908, one of the biggest railway companies was formed in India.Its headquarters was built in 1922, a palatial Indo-Saracenic building with stone finish, putting into shade most of the other historic buildings in Madras.

The first Western style hospital was established in India in Fort St. George in 1664 and formalised by Governor Yale in 1690 with a new building, which was later moved out to its present premises in 1772 as the Madras Hospital and the Madras Medical College. It was only in the mid-19th Century that Indians were admitted as patients. In 1889 it became a civilian institution with excellent healthcare, till an overhelming overcrowding in the 1960s stifled its progress.

The Adyar river, which marks the southern boundary of Madras, was a great port of the Pallavas in the Seventh and Eighth centuries. A well-loved landmark is the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society on the river bank, housing the second largest banyan tree in India, with 150 species of wintering birds and fauna of the Adyar estuary, in its vast gardens, orchards and stretches of forest. Today, as we know it, the estate throngs with "walkers" for their morning and evening constitutionals.

One of the oldest bookshops in the country, and formally opened in 1904, Higginbotham's was established by Abel Joshua Higginbotham in 1844. One still considers it to be a prominent landmark on Mount Road, marble floored with stained glass windows. Despite modern speciality bookstores opening (like Landmark and Odyssey to name a few), diehards still favour Higginbotham's, as browsing there is perforce a habit ...

The Madras Club founded in 1832, was the second club to be opened in India, with an exclusive membership open to the civil and military leadership governing the Madras Presidency. It was only in 1964 that the membership opened to Indians. It moved to Adyar after the merger with Adyar Club.

Eugene Oakshott who built Spencer & Co. into the biggest retailing and catering empire outside Europe bought the Connemara Hotel which had 31 rooms, in 1891. After his death, his sons sold their hotel holdings to Spencer & Co in 1913 and it became the flagship hotel of the Spencer Empire. It is now leased to the Taj Group.

The Madras Museum, Government sponsored, opened in 1851 and moved to the The Pantheon in 1854. The Museum Theatre was originally a lecture hall and subsequently rented for public performances.

The Madras Museum is housed in five buildings, and its 1,700 bronzes constitute the world's finest bronze collection. Its 1,500 Buddhist antiquities are a world class collection. The Connemara Public Library, one of the country's National Libraries since 1955, was a part of the museum till it got its own building in 1896. The furniture of the library has its brand of beauty, and its stained glass windows, ornate woodwork, elaborate stucco decorations and marbled floor take one back in the time, when such luxury was warranted. The finest building in The Pantheon Complex is the National Art Gallery, which is built in the Mughal-Jaipuri style in pink sandstone finish.

Valluvar Kottam, a recent construction, was built on the reclaimed Lake Area of Nungambakkam. This monument in granite is dedicated to the sage and poet Tiruvalluvar. The pillared gallery has the 1,330 stanzas of the Tirukkurral inscribed on it.

The Music Academy was convened in 1929 and the T.T. Krishnamachari Auditorium was opened in its present site in 1962. Theacademy serves as a catalyst to the music season with its 2,000 odd concerts by renowned artistes, during the cooler months, and a time of the year when Chennai is at its best.

The skyline of Chennai today is outlined by high rise apartments, some of them ultra-modern in dark glass, steel and concrete, where posh showrooms, offices or glitzy shopping malls claim space. Spencer Plaza is one such classical example, and is the largest shopping complex in South India and way different from the Madras architectural landmark it was till a fire destroyed it in 1981.

Madras's Gemini Flyover was opened to traffic in 1973. Today there are over a score of "skyways" supposedly being built to ease traffic problems. There are arguments, and counter- arguments, on the success of the scheme which has digested crores of rupees poured into it. An expensive overground railway system, was seen as an answer to transporting hundreds of commuters daily. Only a few stations have been completed and the few trains that chug the routes look dilapidated and do not tempt the public. And yet, the Chennai Metro is one of the most prominent indicators of Madras moving into the 21st Century.

An outstanding feature of Madras is its tradition of giant cinema hoardings shouting from the rooftops as it were that Chennai boasts of the largest number of films made each year in India. One cannot write on Madras and omit the giant political hoardings and cut outs which project the Dravidian leadership in the city.

The city entering the 21st Century shows more of its problems than its achievements; problems like pollution, overcrowding, poor sanitation, energy, traffic, law and order as against the tremendous strides in education, democratisation, industry - particularly information technology and the automobile industry - commerce, consumerism and health care.

Madras That Is Chennai ... is a book that every Chennaiite would be proud to possess, and the visiting tourist would find all the answers to the questions which rise over this city which speaks of history at every turn ....

SABITA RADHAKRISHNA

Madras That Is Chennai... Queen Of The Coromandel, S. Muthiah, with illustrations by C.L.D. Gupta, p.122 , Rs. 325, published by BPI (India) Pvt. Ltd..

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