The Towers of Assurance

Today, owned and rented out by the Life Insurance Corporation, the Bharat Building, is a landmark recognised as a symbol of heritage in the city and State.

ACROSS FROM each other at the General Patter's Road junction are the towers of buildings where a variety of assurances have long been sought and in which, in some cases, the seeking continues. The assurances range from the spiritual to the material and the seeking of good health.

To the west of the junction is one of Madras's most sacred sites, the Dargah of the saint Hazareth Syed Moosa Sha Khaderi, a holy man of renown. After arriving from Baghdad in the middle of the 17th Century, he lived on the site of what is now better known as the Mount Road Dargah. In life, he is said to have had great healing powers. When he died, he was buried next to his house and here his family raised a tomb-shrine, a Dargah. And to it have flocked the sick over the years, seeking the benefits of healing from his spirit.

Popular local legend has it that when a British engineer in times long past ordered the shrine to be demolished for road-widening, his workmen refused to proceed with the work when, at the first attempt at excavation around the building, blood spurted from the soil. When the engineer forced them to resume work, he collapsed - dropped dead, say some - the moment trenching began again.

More than legend, however, it is faith in the saint that draws people of all faiths to the tomb \ shrine every Thursday, seeking assurances of good health, answers to their prayers and the blessings of the holy. The shrine, looked after by the saint's descendants from the time his tomb was raised, is however, only a part of the campus today. Dominating it in recent times has been one of the largest mosques in South India, with a 100-feet tall minaret. The five-storeyed Makkah Masjid, with its five 5000 sq.ft. halls that can accommodate 5000 worshippers at a time, may be a landmark, but it is the spirit of the saint that make this, one of the city's holy sites.

Across from the Dargah, more mundane healing was offered in an earlier era, then assurance of a different sort had people flocking to what was in its second avatar called the Bharat Building. Today, owned and rented out by the Life Insurance Corporation, it is a landmark building recognised as a symbol of heritage conservation's losing battle in the city and State.

The Bharat Building's story goes back to 1868 when W.E. Smith, a pharmacist, arrived in Madras and, finding enough pharmacies and more in business in the city, proceeded to Ooty where he set up shop. The success of the Ooty pharmacy and other branches in the Blue Mountains made Smith decide not only to look at Madras again but also set up a shop the city would not forget. On the site that became Bharat Insurance's, he set up facilities that enabled W.E. Smith's to describe itself as "wholesale and manufacturing druggists... opticians, dealers in surgical instruments... and makers of aerated waters." When business grew, Smith's wanted not only more built-space but also a building in keeping with the image it had gained, as South India's leading pharmacists. And so work began in 1894, on a building that was to be inaugurated in 1897 as Kardyl Building, headquarters of the firm that now described itself as "W.E. Smith & Co Ltd."

A triangular building with its peak flattened, Kardyl Building was designed by J.H. Stephens of the Madras P.W.D. and he let his vision of Indo-Saracenic architecture run riot in it. Domes, spires, 100-foot minarets, arches and verandahs blended the Mughal with the Ottoman, the Hindu and the European Classical in a fantasy that at its inauguration was described as "a palatial structure... ten times the size of what was occupied originally... one of the sights of the city... a far greater show than any other building on Mount Road." Within, its main feature was a magnificent 60-foot by 40 showroom. It also provided rooms for doctors and dentists on its first floor facing Mount Road, and for its European assistants facing General Patter's Road. It even ran a café and a beer bar! And in its rear compound was its aerated water factory.

When competition - especially from its great rival across the street, Spencer's (more about anon) - increased, Smith's sold its business, building and all, to Spencer's in 1925. Whereupon that growing giant incorporated Smith's pharma business into its own and rented out all the space, including the showroom. In 1934, Spencer's finally found a buyer for the building, Bharat Insurance that had been established in Lahore in 1896 by Lala Harikishenlal. Bharat was taken over by the Dalmia's in 1936 and when life insurance was nationalised in 1956, the numerous buildings the various life insurance companies owned in the country - including the Bharat Building - were taken over by LIC, which became one of the biggest property owners in the country.

But before that happened, in the triangular garden in front of the old building was raised incongruously, in the art-deco styling of the time, a new, near contiguous block to the design of Prynne, Abbott and Davis, the leading Madras architects of the day. This was called the Bharat Insurance Building; the old Kardyl Building had never really changed its name but had begun to be referred to as the Bharat Building.

With nationalisation, LIC also took over what became another tower of assurance not far from the Bharat Building. This was what was intended to be called the United India Building and which M.Ct. M.Chidambaram Chettyar, MCt to all, who started the work on it, planned to make the headquarters building of the MCT Group, comprising United India Life, United India Fire and General, New Guardian Insurance, Indian Overseas Bank and Travancore Rayons, one of the first major industrial ventures in the south.

United India Life Assurance Company was floated in 1906 by Lingam Brothers, Vijendra Rao its promoter. It was the first Indian-owned insurance company founded in South India.

In 1924, after Vijendra Rao's death, the company ran into difficulties and was taken over by Sir. M.Ct. Muthiah Chettiar. On his death in 1929, his son, MCt, took charge and built it into not only an all-India company but also one of the major insurance firms in the country. MCt, a committed builder who saw in the raising of impressive buildings the reflection of the growth and solidity of his businesses, invested in several United India buildings in India. But he wanted one to top them all - and, in the post-war years, he saw in that symbol of peace and global vision, the United Nations building, inspiration for his new headquarters. Brown and Moulin, a British firm of architects, was chosen for the work because at the time there was no know-how in India for laying the foundations for, and raising, such tall steel-framed buildings. Coromandel Engineering were the contractors and they learned much on the job - but testimony to their work was that after the 1975 fire in the building, the steel frame was found unaffected.

Today, 14-storeys tall, what was till recently the tallest building in the South, but which still is the tallest in the State, Life Insurance Corporation's regional headquarters remains the towering symbol of assurance it was conceived as.

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