Madras miscellany

An outing from the city

WHEN DR. Robert Aarse, Cultural Attache, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, New Delhi, visited Madras recently, he brought with him good tidings. The Dutch, he told me, would be most interested in restoring parts of their first and main settlement in India, Pulicat, and helping local authorities develop it as an eco- tourism and heritage site. This interest was generated by a preliminary study the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, Tamil Nadu Chapter (INTACH-TN), had prepared at the urging of a few Dutch scholars and architects who had visited Pulicat a couple of years ago and saw in it great promise as an eco-tourism destination for visitors from abroad and an outing from Madras for local Nature and heritage-lovers.

The INTACH-TN study induced five Dutch parliamentarians to make a special trip to Pulicat during a visit to India last year and thereafter urge their Government, non-official heritage organisations in Holland and Dutch conservationists to take a closer look at the possibility of restoring Pulicat holistically as an eco-friendly heritage town. Dr. Aarse brought with him to Madras the news that the Dutch would be willing to help with the finance and experts necessary to prepare a master plan for the restoration of Pulicat, provided the local and State authorities showed an interest in the revival of the township and conservation of its heritage.

The Dutch interest in Pulicat dates to 1609, 30 years before Madras was founded 40 kms to the south of Fort Geldria that the Dutch East India Company had raised in Holland's first settlement on the Indian mainland. Vegetable-dyed cottons from Pulicat and its hinterland, a business still remembered in a name that still lingers, Palayakat lungis, was what brought the Dutch to Coromandel shores. Pulicat remained Holland's chief settlement in India till 1781, when the British took over. Restored to the Dutch in 1785, it was seized by the British again in 1795, then handed back once more in 1818 before it was finally ceded to the British in 1825, by which time Holland's main interest in the Orient had taken firm root in the islands of the East. With Madras thriving, the British by then had little interest in Pulicat and let it fall into a state of somnolence not even governments after Independence have woken it from.

Today, there's little left of Castle Geldria except for its moat, vestiges of walls that are barely seen and the Fort's cemetery that is looked after the Archaeological Survey of India. An older Dutch cemetery, two Chola-age temples, a mosque over 300 years old and two churches of Anglo-Dutch lineage are part of a town whose most striking feature is that its plan has remained unchanged from Dutch times. With houses on a few streets and the market place reflecting their development in the 19th Century, conservationists see the opportunity of not only restoring the township as a model heritage town but they see the old homes as an opportunity for their owners to convert parts of them into guest accommodation with mod cons.

With Pulicat's traditional occupations of textile and basket- weaving and fisheries in the doldrums, restoration could well include the revival of the weaving industries to meet modern 'boutique' requirements and the fisherfolk encouraged to enter new fields of alternative employment. Rich in bird-life, Pulicat Lake is particularly a sight to enjoy when the flamingos make it their home between October and April and, at times, offer an expanse of pink as far as the eye can see. Both the birds and the unique biosphere of the sand-duned islands of Pulicat Lake as well as the opportunities the waters provide for the angler are all activities the fisherfolk could play guide roles in.

A tourist master plan on these lines could be a model for India. Will the Pulicat and State Administrators grab the opportunity the Dutch are offering to show what is possible?

The way an MP has helped

EVERY MEMBER of Parliament receives Rs. 2 crore from the Government to be spent on 'Local Area Development'. From most reports, most MPs spend their allotment on showpieces that commemorate the 'donor' rather than serve his or her constituency. One MP whose contribution has been significantly different and considerably more meaningful is Madras' Dr. Beatrix D'Souza. The former Professor of English, Presidency College, and nominated Tamil Nadu MLA, is at present one of the two Anglo- Indian MPs nominated to the Lok Sabha.

To further computer literacy among school children, Dr. D'Souza has gifted 100 computers to 11 Anglo-Indian schools in Madras at a cost of about Rs. 50 lakhs. She has offered another Rs. 50 lakhs to the Friend-in-Need Society, Poonamalle High Road, for the building of a two-storey building to house 50 aged and homeless Anglo-Indian men and women. The Society, founded in 1807, is one of the oldest civic amenities in the city. And a third Rs. 50 lakhs has been given for improvements to the 82-year-old Bow Barracks in Calcutta.

The barracks on Bow Street one of the oldest housing complexes of the Calcutta Improvement Trust, are mainly tenanted by lower income Anglo-Indians who have been unable to maintain their flats leave alone the barracks area. Dr. D'Souza's contribution, channelled as in the case of the Friend-in-Need Society in Madras through the local municipal corporation, is earmarked for use to upgrade the roads, drainage and electricity in the complex and build a multipurpose recreation hall-cum-gym. Candidly stating that improvements to the buildings were beyond her allocation, she hoped that the improvements she was contributing to and the interest Calcutta heritage groups were taking in the barracks would lead to the residents maintaining their buildings better.

I've not been able to find out for what the remaining Rs. 50 lakhs was given by Dr. D'Souza, but I will no doubt hear from her one day. I can't, however, help but wonder whether it shouldn't have gone to improving Foreshore Estate, San Thome, in one of whose MIG flats she has lived for years. That's an area crying for improvement as much as the bit of Adyar Creek it overlooks and which Dr. D'Souza had hoped would be protected and improved.

Coffee cafes in the limelight

CATCHING THE eye of a young generation of feature writers in recent months has been the coffee cafe boom in Madras. Qwiky's, Cafe Coffee Day, now Barista's, and Starbucks on the way have all had their share of space in publications ranging from city sections to the national magazines, written about in such breathless fashion that you'd think Madras never had any coffee houses till the arrival of these glitzy, polished-chrome-and- glass creations driven by music. I'm glad there's been at least one writer who's remembered Woodland's Drive-In and I hope there'll soon be others who will remember Madras decoction-by-the-yard in Udipis and elsewhere. But I only wish I could remember more about an unforgettable coffee house in Madras that a couple of generations frequented in the 1940s and 1950s and early 1960s and which deserves better tribute than these few lines.

I refer to the India Coffee House which sprawled over India Silk House and its neighbour in Mount Road. That's where turbanned and liveried waiters served the best decoction coffee in town and offered splendid masala dosais, vadais and other truly fast foods. As a youngster-come-to-town, it was a Hollywood film- loving uncle who would take me there as a prelude to a visit to the New Elphinstone. As a young journalist visiting Madras every year, it was The Mail's burly V.P.V. Rajan of the loud voice and booming laugh who'd make it a point that I have a coffee and dosai with him at his favourite haunt.

Whatever happened to India Coffee House with its old world elegance and the best coffee and snacks in town? In fact, whatever happened to all those other Indian Coffee Houses run by the Indian Coffee Board in several towns in India, many of them the best places to get a clean, quick meal in places like Salem and other medium size towns. The last of them I visited was the famous one in Delhi's Connaught Place where everyone from the intellectuals to the politicians and bureaucrats of every kind gathered to timepass in heated discussion and steamy gossip. I don't know whether it is still around, but it's time the Indian Coffee Board thought of reviving these legendary coffee houses that were full of life and good taste but which, sadly, were allowed to burn out too fast.

S. MUTHIAH

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