Madras miscellany

Will it be more than talk?

SEVERAL DISCUSSIONS have been held during the past few months on restoring and renovating two of Madras' historic landmark buildings, Ripon Building, the seat of the oldest municipal corporation in Asia, and, adjoining it, the derelict Victoria Public Hall, in its heyday known as Town Hall. I'd have been happier if the discussion had taken in the whole area, once known as People's Park, including My Ladye's Garden, the Railways pavilion and grounds (the l902 Moore Pavilion of what was once the Ashley Biggs Institute), Central Station, Nehru Stadium and the Indoor Stadium, and the market meant to replace Moore Market. But I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies and hope that the present discussions prove more than mere talk and that work really gets going on renewing these two heritage buildings. If that happens, the renewal of the entire precinct is not likely to be too far off in the future.

In the case of Ripon Building, I have been intrigued by the fact that two different discussions are going on side by side. One with a team of engineers and architects, the other with the College of Arts and Crafts. I hope that discussions with the latter are in the hope that some of the wisdom of Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who designed many of Madras' 19th Century landmark buildings, will emerge from the institution he was the first head of. I hope they aren't with the hope of superimposing something out of the College's vision of an even earlier past.

The Corporation, first housed in Fort St. George in what is now the Tamil Nadu-Kerala military headquarters and then in Errabalu Chetty Street, moved into Ripon Building when it was declared open in l9l3 after four years of work and Rs. 7.5 lakhs that had gone into its building. Built by Loganatha Mudaliar, the first of its three floors has a 25,000 sq.ft. area. The tower of this 252 x l26 sq ft building is l32 ft tall and its clock is eight feet in diameter. Lord Ripon, Viceroy of India l880-l884, is remembered in name and statue here for introducing local government in the country during his tenure. Though drawing greatly from Indo-Saracenic, Ripon Building's classical lines and gleaming white are a throwback to the early days of Western architecture in India. Few buildings reflect the hybrid better than this magnificent building, whose renovation and renewal in a manner closest to the original should be an imperative of the Corporation.

Bringing back the crowds

ONCE IT was Madras' most popular theatre. This was Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar's stage and here the Suguna Vilas Sabha invited the finest players of Tamil theatre to exhibit their talent. It was also the venue of numerous pantomimes, dance recitals and balls. The best orators of Madras, when English oratory was the hallmark of the South Indian public figure, spoke from its stage regularly at a time when public lectures would fill a hall. Besides all these activities, it was meant for 'many other purposes conducive to the moral, social and intellectual welfare, or the rational recreation of the public of Madras'. A full house would ensure seating for 600 in the hall and 200 in the balcony. This was the Victoria Public Hall as earlier generations knew it. But to most of them it was the Town Hall, a hive of entertainment where there was something going on every evening. Any restoration project must ensure that this is what the Hall must once again be, a venue for meetings and entertainment, serving central and north Madras.

Built to honour Queen Victoria on her Golden Jubilee in l887, the Hall was inaugurated that year by Lord Connemara, the then Governor. Built to the plans of Robert Chisholm by Namberumal Chetty, to whose contracting Madras owes many of its handsomest buildings, the Hall came up in less than a year, thanks to the drive of Sir A. T. Arundel, the then president of the Corporation, and the generosity of Rajah Sir Ananda Gajapati, the Maharajah of Vizianagaram who led the donors' list by a handsome margin. From that time, the Hall has been managed by a Trust, chaired by the Sheriff of Madras, and with substantial representation from the Vizianagaram family and some from the Corporation. With the Sheriff's office no more, the Corporation has been playing a greater role, but it has not pointed the way to restoration.

In 1993, when Suresh Krishna was the Sheriff, he had a couple of rooms in the Hall restored to demonstrate what could be done. One of the artefacts he had restored at the time was the Trevelyan Memorial Fountain in the garden. Charles Trevelyan was the Governor of Madras (l859-60), who gave the City the ll6-acre People's Park and drinking water. But when he refused to go along with the Raj's command to introduce income tax in his Presidency following the example of the other Presidencies, he was recalled. The fountain in the Town Hall precincts was virtually in ruins when Suresh Krishna saved it. Not much has happened since then, but a year or so ago Krishna was requested to chair a committee to look into the question of restoration and renewal. And he sought INTACH Tamil Nadu's help in drawing up a restoration plan.

With no original plans of the building available, any new plan would have involved considerable erection of scaffolding to arrive at exact measurements. Photogrammetry was the solution, but who had the expertise? It was purely serendipitously that INTACH discovered that the technique was available in our backyard, so to speak.

When an INTACH member took a visiting German conservation consultant out for lunch, she discovered in the course of conversation that the faculty he had been working with at Anna University had just what was needed. With that discovery, fair stand the prospects of a proposal from INTACH. If it comes through, and I hope it will be sooner than later, I hope the Victoria Public Hall Trust and the Corporation will get together on seeing the proposal to a successful conclusion. May the Town Hall buzz with activity once again. We can dream, can't we?

A search for a biograph

A REVIEW by Prof. S. Ambirajan of a book published in Australia two years ago got me interested enough to go out and search for it. But hunt as I might in the Madras bookshops during May, nary a sign of 'The Polyester Prince' could I find. Which was surprising, because the book is said to be 'a most engrossing biography of Dhirubhai Ambani'. Written by an Australian journalist, Hamish McDonald, who met all the members of the family, besides scores of others, and published by Allen and Unwin, Sydney, it's a book that would have done well anywhere in India, but all the bookstores enquiries made in Madras were not very sure why copies of the book were not available in India.

Ambirajan cites a rumour and accepts as plausible its content. Orders were given to buy up copies of this book wherever it is sold in India only to destroy them'. Most booksellers I spoke to felt that was rather far-fetched, nevertheless they were unable to explain why for two years the book has not been available in India nor its contents publicised or reviewed.

Writing in the 'Industrial Economist', Ambirajan says, 'Did a poor schoolmaster's son from a small town in Saurashtra, with hardly Rs. 25,000 with him in l958, have any chance against a combination of the powerful Parsi business families...and Marwari merchants, not to mention the avaricious political class controlling the levers of a permit-licence-quota raj...? Dhirubhai Ambani could have led the virtuous life of an ethical yarn dealer in the backyards of Bombay and lived in a spartan chawl.

But he chose not to and tried to claw his way up the business pole. Naturally enough, the established vested interests struck. It was an unholy war with no-holds-barred. 'Surely a man willing to take on that kind of opposition is big enough not to worry about how McDonald 'graphically described' the battles and how they were won? Surely he'd want the Business School boys to read all about how the untutored trader from Aden became so successful as to be the only Indian businessman to get a private meeting with President Clinton during the President's recent visit to India?

With a copy coming in from abroad here and another there, you really can't stop the flow of information, can you? Perhaps we'll yet get to read the Ambani story freely. Meanwhile, try amazon.com, where it's got a five-star customer rating, excellent reviews and a U.S. $12.76 price.

S. MUTHIAH

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