Chennai :

From Thursday, the historic Senate House, the first building of University of Madras, will have a permanent exhibit of photographs that highlight the contributions of the university to education in south India.

At least 320 photographs in A3-size, including 16 folios with inscriptional details of the education system in the past, have been put up in the main hall of the building. Each picture has a story to tell, beginning with a paper folio of inscriptions from ghatikas (seats of higher learning during the Pallava period) and mutts (monasteries ) as educational centres in medieval Tamil Nadu.

The exhibition is also a pictorial recollection of the people and events that contributed to the university, which is one of the oldest in India along with University of Calcutta and University of Bombay.

The photographs have been arranged in 25 sub-divisions. Each division has at least 10 to 15 pictures with detailed captions. “We have exhibited photographs of dignitaries, Indians as well as foreign nationals, who were part of the institution and education in the city as a whole. We have also included the old buildings, particularly schools that were later converted into colleges. Presidency College, Government Arts College and Madura College are the best examples,” says P D Balaji, head of the department of ancient history and archeology, whose team took almost a year to collect the photographs from various sources.

Constructed between 1869 and 1873 by British architect Robert Fellowes Chisholm, the Senate House was where the first meeting of the Madras Legislative Assembly of the then Madras Presidency took place in 1937. With its colourful glass windows, stucco work and frescoes on the ceiling, it is a wonder of the Indo-Saracenic style with Byzantine and European architectural features.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai> Senate House / by M T Saju / February 23rd, 2012