Category Archives: About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu

The Serbian connection

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion

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The news that TAFE, India’s second largest tractor manufacturer, has bought the Serbian company Industrija Masina i Traktora (IMT) is the culmination of a 55-year-old relationship that has gone through different phases. It is a story that began with TAFE establishing its offices on January 1, 1961 on Kothari Road after it had been decided that TAFE would thereafter manufacture Massey Ferguson (MF) tractors in India. The TAFE factory opened in Sembiam and the first tractor assembled with components from Coventry was driven out by S Anantharamakrishnan in 1961, watched by his son A Sivasailam who was in charge of TAFE, now one of the most successful flag-bearers of the Amalgamations Group.

But it wasn’t all wine and roses in those early days. The first challenge was posed by IMT who had a 10-year agreement with MF to manufacture tractors in what was then Yugoslavia. India, in those Rupee-payment days, was able to import these IMT-MF tractors, while TAFE was struggling to get foreign exchange to import its CKD components from the UK. Sivasailam’s answer was to go to Yugoslavia. With him went one of his sales representatives in North India, V P Ahuja – who was to make Yugoslavia his home – and they successfully negotiated for IMT-MF components to be regularly supplied to TAFE, meeting Rupee-payment requirements. Slowly business picked up.

The initial imports from IMT were not without their headaches. Yugoslavia used the metric system, India the imperial. TAFE’s technical staff had to devise ways and means to adapt IMT components to TAFE’s requirements. Ahuja (made Chief Liaison Officer, TAFE, in Yugoslavia in 1962) also remembers that while the IMT parts were very good, the factory’s documentation was “terrible”. TAFE would get crates-ful of components but would not know what was packed in what; Ahuja was the problem-solver.

Profits, however, were yet slow in coming. Then came windfall. A World Bank tender called for 3000 tractors to be sold to farmers in the Punjab, where the Green Revolution was taking place, under a financing scheme of the Bank. The Punjab Agro Industries Corporation was to distribute the tractors to farmers who could prove they owned land in the Punjab and nowhere else. TAFE won the tender. Later, even as the deadline for the closure of the scheme neared, TAFE still had 600 tractors on its hands. Sivasailam persuaded the Punjab Government to let the firm sell them to Punjab farmers who owned land in Haryana. And TAFE was on its way.

With the business relationship in Yugoslavia well-settled, Ahuja, who is now Offshore Director, established an agency business for TAFE in Belgrade helping the firm’s export business by representing several Indian auto-product firms in the region. Gradually he also began introducing TAFE tractors, which before long were outselling IMT tractors, even though being more costly but being superior in quality. But, adds Ahuja, we remained “passive sellers throughout because of the Chairman’s regard for IMT.”

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With the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1980s, IMT slowly started slipping till it finally closed in 2015. At an auction, Mallika Srinivasan, Sivasailam’s daughter, closed the over 50-year-old circle. IMT tractors will be in the East European market again in a year or so, she promises.

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Madras’ first American Church

Zion Church I’ve long known as one of Chintadripet’s three landmarks, the other two being the Sathianathan memorial and the Goschen Library. As an architectural precinct it was quite a striking one, inevitably drawing attention to it. What I didn’t know then was that this was the first and only church built by American missionaries in Madras.

The legendary Dr John Scudder, who founded the American Madras Mission after arriving from Jaffna, and the Rev Miron Winslow, his colleague in Jaffna where he started work on the dictionary that is part of Tamil literary history, built a small church in 1847 in the weavers’ settlement after buying the land from a G V Naidu. They named it the Zion Church and it is now in its 170th year, a Church of South India church since independence.

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In April 1865, the American Mission, then concentrating on the Arcots and Madurai, sold the Church for ₹10,000 to the Church Mission Society, London. Some years later, in 1878, the Church was gifted its bell by the Christian Missionary Society; it is said to be the second oldest church bell in Madras. Another piece of antiquity is the pipe organ which was made in England in 1895. The church was completely renovated in 1995.

Noteworthy has been the long pastoral connection of the Sathianathans/Clarkes with this church. I’ve written about this in the past (Miscellany January 28, 2002) but it deserves retelling. The Rev W T Sathianathan became, in 1862, the Church’s second pastor and its first Indian one. There followed five generations of the family who have preached in the Church. Rev W T, after 30 years of pastoral care there, was followed by his son-in-law W D Clarke. The Rev Clarke was followed after 28 years by his son Samuel S Clarke, who served for about 20 years. He was followed by his son Sundar Clarke, who served a few years and went on to become Bishop of Madras.

In 1995 the Clarke family gathered at the Church to celebrate their connection with it and the service was conducted by Sathianathan Clarke, the great-great-grandson of the Rev W.T. The fifth generation Clarke was visiting after completing a Doctor of Divinity degree at Harvard after a Master’s at Yale.

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Congratulations to a contributor

The Indian National Science Academy (Delhi) has awarded the prestigious Vulmiri Ramalingaswami Chair for 2018 to my regular contributor on Madras medical history, Dr. Anantanarayanan Raman of Charles Sturt University, New South Wales.

Ramalingaswami was a distinguished medical doctor and Director General of the Indian Council for Medical Research.

At the same time Dr M S Swaminathan was Director General of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research.

Dr Raman will spend July in India, headquartered at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, but travelling around to deliver lectures and conduct workshops. Congratulations, Dr Raman; it couldn’t have been awarded to a more dedicated researcher.

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes, from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / April 16th, 2018

Hotline for domestic, burn violence survivors launched

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Records, All

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National facility to provide legal advice; database on anvil

In an effort to support survivors of domestic violence and burn violence, the International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC) launched a national hotline facility here on Sunday. The numbers are 044-43111143 and 18001027282 (24-hour toll-free number). It was inaugurated by Elke Büdenbender, wife of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Prasanna Gettu, founder of PCVC, said the facility would help women get counselling, legal awareness and information. The PCVC helpline receives about 300 new crisis calls every year.

“The national hotline facility aims to reach out to more women and will be staffed by trained personnel. This is piloted in the State for two years and We want to create a database of stakeholders in all districts of a State. The database will have everything that survivors will require, from information on rehabilitation and government schemes to job opportunities,” she said.

“Many don’t know that such a helpline, that we already have, exists and people who call find the number through the internet; more women who want to reach out need to know about the hotline,” she added.

Research done in four locations — the National Capital Region, Telangana, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — has revealed that incidents of domestic violence are quite high

Rehabilitation process

Swetha Shankar of PCVC said 90% of burn violence incidents are reported as accidents and 75% of the victims die. Many calls from burn survivors come from the Kilpauk Medical College (KMC) and they need a sustained rehabilitative process, which takes a few years. But many of them don’t come for the rehabilitation because there may not be post-hospital services available or because their families are not keen. “For instance, of the 800 women who came to KMC last year, only 80 came for rehabilitation,” she said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Staff Reporters / Chennai – March 26th, 2018

Dravidian language family is 4,500 years old: study

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinion

The Dravidian language family’s four largest languages — Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu — have literary traditions spanning centuries, of which Tamil reaches back the furthest, researchers said.

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The Dravidian language family, consisting of 80 varieties spoken by nearly 220 million people across southern and central India, originated about 4,500 years ago, a study has found.

This estimate is based on new linguistic analyses by an international team, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, and the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun.

The researchers used data collected first-hand from native speakers representing all previously reported Dravidian subgroups. The findings, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, match with earlier linguistic and archaeological studies.

South Asia, reaching from Afghanistan in the west and Bangladesh in the east, is home to at least six hundred languages belonging to six large language families, including Dravidian, Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan.

The Dravidian language family, consisting of about 80 language varieties (both languages and dialects) is today spoken by about 220 million people, mostly in southern and central India, and surrounding countries.

The Dravidian language family’s four largest languages — Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu — have literary traditions spanning centuries, of which Tamil reaches back the furthest, researchers said.

Along with Sanskrit, Tamil is one of the world’s classical languages, but unlike Sanskrit, there is continuity between its classical and modern forms documented in inscriptions, poems, and secular and religious texts and songs, they said.

“The study of the Dravidian languages is crucial for understanding prehistory in Eurasia, as they played a significant role in influencing other language groups,” said Annemarie Verkerk of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Neither the geographical origin of the Dravidian language nor its exact dispersal through time is known with certainty.

The consensus of the research community is that the Dravidians are natives of the Indian subcontinent and were present prior to the arrival of the Indo-Aryans (Indo-European speakers) in India around 3,500 years ago.

Researchers said that it is likely that the Dravidian languages were much more widespread to the west in the past than they are today.

In order to examine questions about when and where the Dravidian languages developed, they made a detailed investigation of the historical relationships of 20 Dravidian varieties.

Study author Vishnupriya Kolipakam of the Wildlife Institute of India collected contemporary first-hand data from native speakers of a diverse sample of Dravidian languages, representing all the previously reported subgroups of Dravidian.

The researchers used advanced statistical methods to infer the age and sub-grouping of the Dravidian language family at about 4,000-4,500 years old.

This estimate, while in line with suggestions from previous linguistic studies, is a more robust result because it was found consistently in the majority of the different statistical models of evolution tested in this study.

This age also matches well with inferences from archaeology, which have previously placed the diversification of Dravidian into North, Central, and South branches at exactly this age, coinciding with the beginnings of cultural developments evident in the archaeological record.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Science / by PTI / Berlin – March 21st, 2018

How a recent archaeological discovery throws light on the history of Tamil script

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion
DECODING THE SCRIPT Archaeologists taking an estampage of the Tamil script found on the oil press. Photo: Special Arrangement | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
DECODING THE SCRIPT Archaeologists taking an estampage of the Tamil script found on the oil press. Photo: Special Arrangement | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A team of amateur archaeologists discovered an oil press belonging to 10th century C.E. near Andipatti with a Tamil script. It is one of the earliest Tamil inscriptions to be found in this region.

When R. Udhayakumar a research scholar of Government Arts College, Melur got a call from Tamil teacher Balamurugan from Andipatti about an age-old stone structure that resembles a grinder, he did not take it seriously. But when he along with his friend C. Pandeeswaran, who is also a research scholar from Madurai Kamaraj University, visited the spot he came to know that it was not a grinder but a ‘chekku’ (oil press, used to extract oil).

“When I went there I could locate the oil press neatly carved on the rocky bed of a wild brook, which now runs dry,” says Udhayakumar. “The place is very near to the revenue department office in Andipatti and many villagers say that they had seen water flowing through when there was flood some years ago,” he says.

The team took estampage of the inscription and it was brought to C. Santhalingam, secretary, Pandyanadu Centre for Historical Research, to decipher. “Based on the inscription, the oil press belongs to 10th century CE. It is written in Tamil script and says that the oil press was installed by one Kudiyaan Thevan for common purpose. Also, the inscription throws light on the village and its geographical location. The place is inscribed as ‘Thenmutta Naatu Kannimangalam’. Probably, there should have been many Kannimangalams and this one is located in Thenmutta Naadu, a geographical unit Kings followed in those periods. Places in and around Andipatti region were called as Thenmutta Naadu and there are references,” says Santhalingam.

Though discovering an oil press is nothing new in these parts as the team identified similar one in Chitharevu near Periyakulam six months ago. What made the discovery significant is the Tamil script on it. Earlier ones had Vattezhuthu script. “King Raja Raja Chola I ruled Pandya Kingdom during 10th century CE and he introduced Tamil script here as he was quite adept in it. Also, he did not know to read Vattezhuthu. Hence, he recorded all his documents in Tamil script and encouraged the people to learn the same. The king had even translated Vattezhuthu script to Tamil script evident from the Kutralanathar Temple inscriptions in Courtallam. Comparatively, Tamil script was easy to learn than Vattezhuthu and public patronage grew that saw the decline of Vattezhuthu. Gradually, Tamil script gained prominence,” he says.

Tamil script was widely practiced and popularised by Pallavas who had inscribed on the door jambs of sanctum santorum of temples in Thanjavur. “In fact, it was Pallavas who helped Cholas learn the script. Most of the inscriptions after Chola rule in Pandya kingdom are in Tamil script,”

Early inscriptions found in Pandya Kingdom are in Tamil Brahmi and Vattezhuthu scripts. Even in Irukkandurai, a medieval period port city in Radhapuram Taluk in Tirunelveli, which was discovered by Santhalingam and his team last year, there are 25 inscriptions. Of them, only three belonged to early Pandyas and they are in Vattezhuthu whereas the rest are in Tamil script and they talk about the prowess of Rajendra Chola I.

The oil press found in Andipatti goes into history as the symbol of transition from Vattezhuthu to Tamil script.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by T. Saravanan / Madurai – February 21st, 2018

A Daniell now in Madrasi hands

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, World Opinion

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Whether it was to celebrate Madras’ August birthday or not, Vikram Raghavan, a regular contributor to this column from the American capital, a Madras history buff, and a collector of Madras memorabilia, has just picked up the Thomas Daniell aquatint of Fort St George seen here. Thomas Daniell and nephew William were in India from 1785 to 1793 (Miscellany, April 21, 2008) and published in Britain between 1795 and 1808 “a monumental work”, Oriental Scenery, with 144 prints of Indian scenes. Of these, half a dozen are of Madras. A few more are of Mamallapuram, Tanjore, Madura and Rameswaram.

My favourites, one of which I would like to get a real-life glimpse of, are two of the earliest pictorial representations of sport in Madras. A print of the Assembly Rooms on the Race Course at Madras hangs in the Fort Museum. The other is of Cricket in India, an original aquatint which is with a private collector in Calcutta who once sent me a poor transparency of it. As this representation was dated 1792, it was probably done in Madras because that was when the Daniells had left Calcutta and were here. And if that was so, the match was at The Island, the only grounds for the game at the time.

In the picture, the bowler is shown bowling under-arm, the practice then; the bat is a club-like implement like a baseball bat; many of the fielders wear coloured trousers and the scorer is sitting a little wide off gully. A cow ambles about in a corner of the field in the foreground and at the left, by a few trees, is a tent, probably the pavilion. All this is really recognisable only if the picture is seen large. So take my word for it! It was sailors from East Indiamen, locally stationed British soldiers, and East India Company Writers and younger merchants who introduced the game in India. The first recorded cricket activity in the country dates to 1721, when visiting sailors played a game in Cambay, Gujarat, “to divert ourselves”, according to ship’s captain Nicholas Downton.

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As for the Assembly Rooms, they were a kind of grandstand and clubhouse a little south of today’s racecourse where “entertainments” were held, a ball organised for every race day evening; the races were in the morning, then it was off to work and back again for waltzes and minuets. The first reference to organised sport in Madras, racing at St Thomas’ Mount, is in 1775.

As for Vikram’s original colour-engraved aquatint, it dates to 1797 and is titled South East View of the Fort St George, Madras. The scene was probably viewed from somewhere near Royapuram. It shows masula and other boats, four men pulling a boat through the surf, and ships well out to sea in Madras Roads. Madras Harbour was many years in the future.

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When the postman knocked…

Clarifying my Institute of Mental Health (IMH) story (Miscellany, June 26) is my Australian correspondent, Dr A Raman, whose hobby is Madras medical history. His research deserves a book one day. Meanwhile, a more accurate story from him than mine about what began in Purasawalkam in 1794 as ‘The Madras Madhouse’ run by Valentine Connolly. It was a leased building (at ₹825 a month) to which Surgeon Maurice Fitzgerald succeeded, holding charge until 1803. James Dalton took over, rebuilt the facility and ran it till 1815 as Dalton’s Mad Hospital. Its cases included ‘circular insanity’, later described as ‘manic depressive illness’ and today as ‘bipolar illness’.

Government involvement started in 1867 with approval for a facility to be called the Madras Lunatic Asylum (later called the Government Mental Hospital and from 1978 the IMH). The Asylum, raised in the 66.5 acres of Locock’s Gardens, Kilpauk, opened in 1871 with 150 patients and Surgeon John Murray as Superintendent. By 1915, there were 800 patients, 80 per cent of them civilians. About half the cases were classified as ‘mania’, about 20 per cent as ‘melancholia’ and about 25 per cent as ‘dementia’. ‘Criminal lunatics’ were kept segregated.

Cycling Yogis will mark Madras Week with a booklet called Cycling Trails. It includes 40 trails with details about what to see on them. Every trail in the booklet has been cycled on by the compilers over the last year. Some of the trails which caught my attention were called ‘Madras the First’, ‘Madras the Oldest’, ‘Historic Residences’, ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ and ‘Police Heritage’. For booklets, contact ramanujar4u@gmail.com, then make use of them during Madras Month.

This is not about Madras at all, but strange things happen around us all the time. And the recent strike by our Government medicos drew Don Abey’s attention to it. He refers to the Government Medical Officers’ Association in Sri Lanka calling off their agitation in mid-strike when the National Movement for Consumer Rights threatened “it would stage ceremonies in front of the homes of GMOA executive committee members to invoke God’s curses on them for holding hundreds of thousands of patients to ransom!” Powerful are the threat of death-threatening curses and pleas of consignment to Hell!

 The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes, from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Madras Miscellany – History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / Chennai – July 10th, 2017

James Wilkinson Breeks remembered

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All

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The honorary director of the Nilgiri Documentation Center, Venugopal Dharmalingam, laid a wreath at the grave of the first Commissioner of the separate Nilgiris, James Wilkinson Breeks at the St. Stephens Church on Tuesday.

Mr. Venugopal said that June 6 marks the anniversary of the tragic death of Mr. Breeks 145 years ago in 1872.

“The Nilgiris, which was a taluk of the Coimbatore district from 1800, was made a separate district in 1872 and placed under a Commissioner. Mr. Breeks was the Private Secretary and later the son in law of Governor Dennison,” he said.

He said that Mr. Breeks’ lasting legacy was his tireless excavations of the pre-historic grave sites on the Nilgiri hills which revealed a human history of over 3,000 years of the hills. “The collection includes pottery, animal and human figurines, ornaments in iron, bronze, gold and a magnificent bronze bowl,” he added.

Mr. Breeks apparently died due to the emission of some poisonous gas while opening one of the grave sites, and died at the age of 42.

“The work of the NDC is to bring to light, the history literally buried in the Nilgiris,” said Mr. Venugopal. Murali Kumar, the general manager of Sullivan Court, accompanied him.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore / Staff Reporter / Udhagamandalam – June 06th, 2017

When Dalits were also landowners and Vellalas slaves

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All
Palm leaf manuscript. | Photo Credit: Handout
Palm leaf manuscript. | Photo Credit: Handout

Palm leaf manuscripts reveal a history of slavery in Nanjil Nadu, now part of Kanniyakumari district

“The severe drought has left us with nothing, not even gruel. Our legs and calf muscles have become swollen and we are not able to walk. So as suggested by the head of our family, we sold ourselves to Raman Iyappan.”

A 1459 palm leaf manuscript faithfully records the grim story of a Kerala Samban magan, Avayan, his nephew Thadiyan and his sister Nalli, in the note prepared for their sale as slaves.

The lush green fields of Nanjil Nadu, the rice bowl of erstwhile South Travancore and now part of Kanniyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, hide a history that cut across the social spectrum. Slavery was common in the region as recently as 200 years ago.

Interestingly, while members of the Vellalas, a land holding community that wielded enormous influence during the reign of the Travancore kings, were sold as slaves, Dalits, who were also often sold as slaves, also owned land.

A collection of 19 palm leaf manuscripts, part of the so-called Mudaliar Olaigal, reveals details of the practice. Written in Tamil script, the language of the manuscripts is mixture of Malayalam and Tamil, reflecting the composite culture of the region.

“A manuscript recorded in 1601 that records the sale of land by two Dalits — Avaiathan and Konathan, who belong to the Pallar community — proves the claim that Dalits also owned lands,” said folklorist A.K. Perumal, who has translated and edited Mudaliar Olaigal, published by Kalachuvadu.

The term ‘Mudaliar’ refers to the head of the family in Azhagiyapandiapuram in Kanniyakumari district. The community of Saiva Vellalas were conferred the title ‘Mudaliar’ by the Travancore kings and they ruled Nanjil Nadu on behalf of the kings.

Late poet Kavimani Desigavinayagam Pillai copied a few manuscripts in 1903. In addition to records on slave auctions, they contain a wealth of detail on the revenue system, maintenance of irrigation tanks and rivers and professions of many communities.

Chronicling a reality very different from the present, the manuscripts speak of wealthy Dalits.

A manuscript from 1462 says one Sundarapandian Chetti borrowed four ‘kaliyuga Raman panam’ (money used in that period), from one Kesavan of ‘sambavar’ caste, a sub-sect of Dalits. A 1484 manuscript, when referring to the border of a piece of land, says it lies “south of [the property of] Perumparaian”, a big land owner from the community.

Women punished

“But in the case of Vellalas, the women sold as slaves were used as maids in their owners’ houses. Only a Vellala was allowed to own another member of his community as a slave and this was openly announced before the commencement of an auction,” said Dr. Perumal.

The women slaves from the Vellalas were known as ‘Vellatti’. According to the Madras University Lexicon, ‘Vellati’ means a servant maid or slave.

“Slaves from the upper caste were clearly differentiated from Dalit slaves. Vellattis were used for the housekeeping,” explains said Dr. Perumal, who collected the manuscripts from the Thiruvananthapuram archives.

Women from upper castes were often sold as slaves after they were found to have had relationships with men from lower castes.

Dr. Perumal said slave markets existed in Aloor ( present day Kalkulam taluk), Aralvaimozhi, Thazhakudi (Thovalam taluk) and Rajakkamangalam (Agastheeswaram taluk).

K.K. Kusuman, who has studied the history of slavery in Travancore, had recorded that the price of a slave depended on the social hierarchy.

The manuscripts contain records of the prices fixed for slaves. In the records, the caste of a slave is used as a prefix unlike the modern day practice in which a caste title is used as a suffix.

Dr. Perumal said poverty was the reason for slavery.

A 1458 manuscript records a slave as saying: “We sold ourselves because of poverty.” Another one, recorded in 1472, records the poignant story of a man pledging himself and his daughter as he was unable to repay a loan and interest due on it. Subsequently he is recorded as having become a permanent slave.

Slavery was abolished in Travancore on July 18, 1853 by a declaration made by the King Uthiram Thirunal.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Tamil Nadu / by B. Kolappan / Chennai – May 08th, 2017

Who was Quaid-E-Millat?

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Business & Economy, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All

That was a question I was recently asked in connection with a reference I had made to Umda Bagh and its links with education in the city for nearly 125 years. Good question, and off I went ahunting for information.

Into the Umda Bagh campus moved c.1895 the Madrasa-I-Azam, the chief Muslim school in the South and which was established in 1849. This developed partially into a Government Muhammadan College with its own buildings in 1934.

In 1948, the College was reconstituted as the Government Arts College for Men. The College moved to Nandanam in 1972 and a women’s college opened in its stead in 1974. This was named the Quaid-E-Millat Government College for Women, leaving many a student puzzling over the prefixed name, which I’m told means ‘Leader of the Nation’.

A Tirunelveli Rowther, Mohammed Ismail went into business in the 1920s and became a leader in the worlds of leather and Madras commerce. That leadership led him into politics, in which he had shown interest from when, as a 13-year-old, he started in 1909 the Young Muslim Society in Tirunelveli.

Nine years later, he founded the Council of Islamic Scholars and joined the Indian Muslim League. In 1946, he led the League’s Madras unit in the Assembly elections and became Leader of the Opposition. He was also elected to the first Lok Sabha, which simultaneously served as the Indian Constituent Assembly. And, an intriguing election that year was as the founding President of the Madras State Mutton Dealers’ Association, which he remained till his death 26 years later.

When Pakistan was born in 1947, the Muslim League divided and an Indian Union Muslim League came into being. Mohammed Ismail was elected its first President. After serving in the Rajya Sabha from 1952 to 1958, he moved into Kerala politics with States’ Reorganisation in 1956. Leading the IUML, he won Lok Sabha seats in 1962, 1967 and 1971. He died a year after his last election, revered in both Tamil Nadu and Kerala as the Quaid-E-Millat, a leader who ensured communal harmony. Interestingly, his education had been in Hindu, Catholic and Protestant schools and colleges!

Perhaps the greatest tribute paid to him was by Congress Chief Minister M Bhaktavatsalam who, describing his dignified and conciliatory behaviour in the Legislature, said he was “a model for all Opposition leaders”.

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When the postman knocked…

V Mahalingam writes (Miscellany, April 17): “N Kannayiram went to the West Indies as a replacement for G Kasturirangan of Mysore who cried off because of groin injury and not as replacement for CD Gopinath.

Also CDG didn’t opt out as he was not happy with the cricket board’s ways. He pulled out as he was suffering from collar bone injuries and he was replaced by L Adisesh of Mysore who also pulled out. Totally there were four replacements before the tour.”

With this column’s word length now abbreviated, I don’t have the luxury of elaboration. But even then, there was no reason to link two entirely different sentences about Kannayiram and Gopinath except for the fact that they were adjacent to each other. Juxtaposition is not the equivalent of replacement! More interesting is my correspondent saying it was “collarbone injuries” that made Gopinath skip the tour.

Reporting a long interview with Gopinath for the book Office Chai, Planter’s Brew — Gopinath approving every word of the final text — this writer stated: “(In 1952) Gopinath, being South Indian, was ‘rather strangely called Madrasi in a rather contemptuous way’ by other members of the team. This was an era when cricket essentially meant Bombay — and in Gopinath’s words, ‘…it was almost as if, if you came from Madras, you had no business to play cricket…’ He goes on that around then Gordon Woodroffe’s offered him a job — it was a time when the first Indians were being recruited by British firms — and he was mulling over it because he felt the remuneration was inadequate given his academic and sporting record.

But his father, an old Imperial Bank hand, pointed out he’d get fair treatment in a British firm and could go far (he did; he became its first Indian Chairman). The interview then records, “Musing on the advice and his issues with (Indian) cricket, Gopinath decided to refuse the West Indian tour.” No mention of collar bone injuries anywhere.

Subash Chandra Bose at the Tea hosted for him at the Beehive Foundry, Madras on September 3,1939. To his right is K S Rao, owner of the Beehive Group, and third from right (seated) a mystery man only recently identified by the owner of this picture. Standing is C. Audikesavalu Chettiar, Rao’s partner.
Subash Chandra Bose at the Tea hosted for him at the Beehive Foundry, Madras on September 3,1939. To his right is K S Rao, owner of the Beehive Group, and third from right (seated) a mystery man only recently identified by the owner of this picture. Standing is C. Audikesavalu Chettiar, Rao’s partner.

Ramesh Kumar, who’s kept the Beehive Foundry name going in its original Oakes & Co. premises on Popham’s Broadway (Miscellany, June 2, 2014), now Prakasam Salai, sends me today’s picture of yesteryear. It’s of Subhas Chandra Bose being hosted at tea at the Beehive premises on September 3, 1939. With him are Kowtha Suryanarayana Rao, the founder of the group that owns the premises, and his partner C Audikesavalu Chettiar, Ramesh Kumar’s grandfather. To Rao’s right is a person whom I wonder how many recognise, despite his being a well-known name in Tamil Nadu. He is Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar.

Rao founded the Swadharma Swaarajya Sangh (Orthodox National League) in 1913 for the “revival of the declining spiritual and cultural values of Bharateeya life, dharma and religion”, I wonder how much Bose or Thevar had in common with it? I also wonder, given the date of the felicitation, whether Bose fled to Germany from Madras; that was the day India was dragged into a World War.

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places and events from the years gone by and, sometimes, from today

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / May 01st, 2017

A look at South India’s journey into iron age

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All
An ancient urban civilisation existed in the recently excavated site in Keeladi which archaeologists compare to Harappa
An ancient urban civilisation existed in the recently excavated site in Keeladi which archaeologists compare to Harappa

The Indus Valley Civilisation was part of the cop per age which dates back to 6000 BC but, interestingly, man was still in the stone age in southern India during that time, notes P D Balaji, head, department of history and archaeology, University of Madras . “In peninsular India, the chalcolithic (copper) age deposits overlap with the neolithic deposits of the stone age. There is neither pure neolithic culture nor pure chalcolithic culture in south India ,” Balaji said during the 23rd annual session of the Tamil Nadu History Congress at Periyar University  in Salem on Sunday.

Balaji said the reason for the absence of the pure copper age in southern India still intrigues many archaeologists.At one point of time in India, both copper (in north) and stone (south) were used as raw materials for manufacturing tools. This might be the reason for the presence of copper implements mixed with the neolithic deposits, he said.

“The inverted firing technology used for manufacturing black-and-red-ware pottery had emerged in north India during the copper age itself. In many chalcolithic sites, including the later Harappan sites, black-and-red-ware sherds are found in plenty. However, the same technology took more than 1,500 years to reach the southern part. When it reached peninsular India, people were in the iron age,” he said.

The chalcolithic-era pottery of north India eventually became the characteristic pottery of iron age culture in south India. “Perhaps this sort of divergent chronology leads one to interpret that development first took place in north India, from where it penetrated to other parts,” said Balaji, who was speaking on ” Archaeology in reconstructing the past: Problems and perspectives”.

The iron age of south India is considered important as there was an extensive horizontal mobility of society during the phase. To prove his point, Balaji said microsettlements began to emerge all over the ancient Tamil country at this time. “The people of this period followed a megalithic culture that synchronised with the end phase of iron age and preSangam age. That vouchsafes for the references to megalithic burial practices in the Sangam literatures literatures,” he said.
The Sangam age between 300 BC and 300 AD was significant as it was during this period that major townships, capital cities and port cities came into existence for the first time in the ancient Tamil country, he added.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City News> Chennai / M T Saju / TNN / October 04th, 2016

Portrait of a city

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All
Sandhya Mendonca. Photo: V. Ganesan / The Hindu
Sandhya Mendonca. Photo: V. Ganesan
/ The Hindu

Best of Chennai Volume 2 tells a vibrant story of the metropolis through perceptive articles and beautiful visuals. Editor Sandhya Mendonca talks to DEEPA ALEXANDER about the making of the coffee table book

The Sangam Lobby at ITC Grand Chola, with its elegant white stucco and spectacular copper-and-bronze horses, is an ornate narrative of Chennai, a city that Sandhya Mendonca celebrates in her latest book. As she sits to be photographed at the head of a sweeping staircase, she holds in her hands Best of Chennai Volume 2, to be released that evening by the Governor of Tamil Nadu, K. Rosaiah. Published by Bangalore-based Raintree Media, the book — sixth in a series published in India — is part of a unique format that is brought out in over 40 countries by Global Village Partnerships to showcase entrepreneurial spirit and bridge cultures.

Coming seven years after the first volume published in 2009, Best of Chennai Volume 2 is an opulent production, a slim slab that covers topics as far afield as culture and corporate icons, education and hospitality, luxury and logistics, spaces and entertainment and media and start-ups.

“It took our team of nine, the better part of a year to lay it out,” says Sandhya Mendonca, editor-in-chief, Raintree Media, who conceived and edited the book. Mendonca, who holds a Masters in Political Science and started out as a journalist, took her love for writing and editing further, when she founded her media brand 12 years ago. “I handled public relations for events with artistes such as Mark Knopfler and Sting, and taught as visiting faculty at IIM-B. I had explored nearly all aspects of communication… it was time to become a publishing entrepreneur.”

“The first book I published was on a golf course in Bangalore. I approach publishing like an artist does his painting — and therefore, the book was designed like a golf ball, with birds that populated the course as page holders. I got hooked to doing different kinds of books filled with both style and substance,” says Mendonca. An eye for unusual layout and a love for celebrating communities pictorially led to Raintree producing handsome customised volumes on the culture of states, gymkhana clubs, Raj Bhavans, cricket teams and schools. Fiction, articles for magazines and websites, and books in the Best of… and Marvels of… series artfully mix travel with scenes from the everyday.

“The Best of… series is part of Sven Boermeester’s Global Village Partnerships. When Sven travelled to Australia, he decided to create a template to show the best of what is local. Most people feel they know everything there is to know of their city or country, but that isn’t always true. The Best of… series has the same format across the world, whether the regions they feature are homogenous or culturally diverse. In particular, they look at businesses and what makes the region tick,” she says.

Decades of photojournalism have illustrated Chennai’s major themes and trends, so how different then is this book from others? “It serves a fresh dish. You try to find hidden aspects even in the many stories and people that are known in the city. Not many in Chennai are aware of the Officers Training Academy or how Real Image Media Technologies enhances their cinema experience or that Ajit Narayanan, who pioneered an app for children with communication impairments, is an IIT-Madras boy,” says Mendonca.

The book decodes Chennai’s history from its gracious days as modern India’s first city with its garden houses and elegant boulevards, to its status as a hub for films, fine arts, start-ups and education. It celebrates change through finely-scripted articles by both producers and guest writers, such as dancer Anita Ratnam and film critic Baradwaj Rangan. It interviews heads of established business houses, hotels, restaurants and building conglomerates, who have shaped the city’s many incarnations. “The business houses here are icons, their work is mindboggling, but they are very low-key about it. So, the book has some rare interviews where these corporates speak of the role of their companies.”

It also captures the zeitgeist of our culture — dance, music, art and theatre — from the classical to the common. “This is a city framed by the idea of culture,” says Mendonca, flipping through the pages punctuated with a rich tapestry of artwork by Achuthan Kudallur, S. Nandagopal and K. Muralidharan. “The book focusses as much on mainstream culture as it does on the alternative,” she says, alluding to Sofia Ashraf’s music video on the mercury pollution in Kodaikanal and the incredible work of the common man during the floods. “It weighs on Chennai’s culture and commerce in equal measure. A community that hinges only on commerce will have no soul.”

It is this essence of the book that Governor K. Rosaiah endorsed at the launch, when he commended the team for capturing the city’s indomitable spirit. “The book nicely depicts the bouquet of culture, architecture and commerce of Tamil Nadu, especially Chennai,” he said.

It should be read not only because it celebrates the city but also because it celebrates us.

(Priced at Rs. 3,000, Best of Chennai Volume 2 is available at Odyssey, Chamiers and online.)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Metroplus / Deepa Alexander / Chennai – July 08th, 2016