The first phase of metro rail is nearing completion. (Photo: DC)
Chennai:
In the age of runaway electronics, the smartphone is just 20 years old. Compare that to a city that is turning 375 this week and you have some idea of the enormity of the differences we are talking about. And yet, much like the world of gizmos, the city has grown phenomenally in those 20 years, making a great deal of progress in a short span when compared to the eon that went before it.
The tale of two cities, Madras and Chennai could not have been more disparate than it is now with the modern city an amorphous mass of buildings, people and incessant traffic highlighted by the unique Indian habit of vehicles honking their way throughout their journey. While old timers would yearn with nostalgia for old Madras with its leafy avenues and distinct lack of traffic lights, the modern Chennaiiite knows he is on to a good thing in an expanding city.
At no time could the city have boasted of such a wide spread of leisure activities as now. Adventure sport not as much on the water as it should be in a harbour city has opened up avenues that never existed in times when the good old transistor radio was the sole link to the world even as youngsters sat on the Marina ground’s sea side wall to look on at the cricket, without quite knowing who was actually playing.
The fabulous spread of eating joints – from the most economical at the old messes of some of the city’s most ancient localities like Mylapore and Triplicane to the most expensive at the luxury caravanserais as the city hosts more and more hotels with multiple stars claimed by some grand but opaque system is a veritable gourmet’s haven as well as a gourmand’s delight. Of course, the tippler also has a wider choice now thanks to an incipient liberal policy.
In a city that toyed with Prohibition for a long time in the name of great socialistic values that were always well beaten by bootleggers and illicit liquor brewers, the scene has transformed beyond belief with a snooty new pub on Chamiers Road even declining to let in customers just for one drink on a Saturday evening unless they had a booking. In the old days, the speakeasys had a welcoming policy that did the customer and the seller proud.
It is a fervent hope that in the next 25 years to the city’s 400th anniversary Chennai would do two things that would make it more liveable clean up the stinking waterways along the lines of the Singapore model and plant millions of trees to give shade as well as invite more rain and absorb the carbon footprint. As the saying goes, change is the only constant and Madras-Chennai has been a living emobodiment of that principle; only it needs to be even more so as one the more sensible metros of India that has always melded the best of old values with the comforts of modernity.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC / R. Mohan / August 17th, 2014
Tambaram Sanatorium hospital was opened in 1928. This photograph was taken in 1936. Photo: The Hindu Archives / The Hindu
It is a little-known fact that the southern suburb of Tambaram is older than Madras itself.
A few centuries before East India Company acquired a small patch of land, now known as Chennai, there were several pockets in its vicinity which flourished, Tambaram being among them.
Chennai’s expansion, fuelled by the establishment of premier institutions and the creation of a railway hub, has bolstered Tambaram’s status as an important nerve centre in the immediate vicinity of the city’s limits.
1931 first electrified metre gauge train service in the country ran in the country ran between Tambaram and Chennai beach
1937 Madras Christian College, in its 100th year, moved to East Tambaram from George Town
1954 Indian Air Force Station, a premier training institution, was set up
DID YOU KNOW!Tambaram finds mention as ‘Taamapuram’ in temple inscriptions, notably the one Dating back to the 13th century, on the walls around the sanctum sanctorum at Marundeeswarar temple in Tirukachur village near Chengalpattu
A number of pockets around Tambaram have managed to retain their old charm, with life moving at an idyllic pace in sheer contrast to the outside world.
Chennai’s expansion, fuelled by the establishment of premier institutions and the creation of a railway hub, has bolstered Tambaram’s status as an important nerve centre in the immediate vicinity of the city’s limits. Photo: The Hindu Archives
“There were only lush green fields all over Tambaram. Living close to the Indian Air Force station, we used to get unlimited pleasure at the sight of aircrafts taking off. We were even allowed to go close to the runway when we were children,” recalls K. Loganathan (55), whose family has lived in Selaiyur for three generations.
For A. Suresh, the best part of his childhood was spending time with friends in the massive vacant spaces of Railway Colony.
“Our generation was very fortunate to be able to get a close look at steam engines. The railway staff was friendly and showed us how the engine worked. We used to play hide and seek in the long rows of goods wagons in the yard,” he says.
Tambaram has had its share of scare factor too. “The area known as ‘maan thoppu’ (mango grove) was much feared, and all the children in its vicinity were told to be home before sunset,” says E. Chandrashekar, another resident.
“Tambaram has its own rightful place in history,” says Johnson Wesley, a teacher, who predicts the suburb will continue to play a pivotal role in the city’s future too.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / K. Manikandan / Chennai – July 30th, 2014
Memorial tablets and gravestones, which mark the end of a life actually go way back to its early days. Except, back then only the valiant and deserving were immortalized in stone – usually with a spot of art to mark them apart. These prototype memorials were called hero stones and they were typically reserved for heroes or those who served their community. A 2-day national seminar held last week in Hosur, titled The Days of Heroes, uncovered new facts about these stones and pointed to their prevalence in the south.
Sugavana Murugan, a hero stone expert and convener of the seminar pointed out that Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts are known as the land of hero stones. “Multi-lingual people lived here in harmony and
their hero stones bear inscriptions in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. These stones range from the 5th to 18th century AD. “Inscriptions on hero stones usually describe the political, social and cultural history of the region. These stones commemorate people for their valour in a cattle raid, for the retrieval of captured cattle, fighting and killing wild animals, death in battle, sati or heroic death for a public cause,” he says, adding that fertility and ritual stones have also been identified there.
This was the first time since 1974 that a national seminar on hero stones was conducted in south India. Organised by the Krishnagiri District Historical Research Centre, the conference drew together scholars from 15 universities across the country, who presented papers on various aspects of hero stones. One of these was also from Pakistan, describing hero stones in the Sindh region.
Professor V Selvakumar of Tamil University, Thanjavur presented his paper titled ‘Hero stone worship and its significance in Tamil Nadu’. Although hero stones have been discovered in many parts of Tamil Nadu, particularly near its borders with Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, no detailed study has been conducted on the subject so far. According to Selvakumar these stones are referred to in Tamil as planted stones or natukal and in Kannada as virakkal (stone of valour).
“The concept of hero stone or hero worship evolved from the megalithic burial tradition,” he said, “The worship of heroes could have begun in the Iron Age when megalithic monuments were erected for the dead.
While we do find different types of burial sites in the Iron Age, some of them, especially menhirs (standing stone), appear to have been erected for heroes. They used different surface markers to convey the status of the dead and they were probably erected only for certain individuals, as we do not find them in large numbers, like burial urns.”
From Pakistan came a paper by Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro on ‘Memorial Stones of Sindh, Pakistan’. “This practice was widespread in the early medieval period in Sindh,” he said. Like Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, many of the hero stones in Sindh were erected in memory of heroes who died at the hands of cattle-lifters, Kalhoro said. “In other districts of Sindh are memorial towers erected in the memory of cattle retrievers. They are found in the hilly regions of Karachi, Thatta, Jamshoro and Dadu districts, which relied heavily on cattle.”
V Ramabrahmam, assistant professor at Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa, said the practice of erecting hero stones in India was recorded in Vedic texts. “The erection of a monument in memory of the dead and the practice of forming a mound with an attached post is described in the Satapatha Brahmana (9th- 8th century BC),” he said, “During the days of King Asoka (3rd century BC) hero stones were erected on wooden, and subsequently, stone posts. The origin of memorial stones of the later periods originates from here.”
What’s the difference between a memorial stone and hero stone? “Memorial stones contain funeral remains, whereas hero stones are only plaques commemorating a death, without any funeral remains. Incidentally, sculptures on hero stones not only convey the art of the times, but also a social and cultural commentary on the region in that time,” he explained.
More than 2,500 hero stones have so far been excavated from the state. Devarakonda Reddy, president of the Karnataka Itihasa Academy, said this may have something to do with the frequent fights between local kings and chieftains. It’s where the area’s history is set indelibly in stone. An imminent book titled ‘The Days of Heroes’ will incorporate the research papers presented at the seminar.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by M. T. Saju, TNN / June 30th, 2014
His modest workshop in the sleepy locality of KNG Pudur in Coimbatore stocks a few machines that spit out the revolutionary low-cost sanitary napkins. Menstrual man Arunachalam Muruganantham, perched on his chair, goes on with his business even as he sorts out his visa applications to the different countries he has been invited to deliver keynote seminars. “All these visits are by invitation only. I had never stepped out of the city before. Today, I rub shoulders with biggies across the world,” says Muruganantham, son of a poor handloom weaver.
A Muruganantham
The social entrepreneur has found a place in the list of 100 Most Influential People in the World by an international magazine, that too with the likes of Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Arundhati Roy. “When I got the news, I didn’t realize it was a big achievement. It was my wife, who told me that it was a feat I should be proud of.”
The tryst with the production of low-cost sanitary napkin producing machines began when Muruganantham saw his wife using a rag cloth during those days of the month. “I wouldn’t even clean my scooter with that. That’s when it struck me that most of the women, especially in the rural areas are not aware of sanitary napkins and those who did, couldn’t afford it. I studied women across the country and I was shocked to find out that only 5 per cent of them (excluding the metros) were aware of sanitary napkins. Women in rural households used saw dust, dry leaves and ashes on those days. When I showed these slides abroad, the audience was stunned. I started working on the machines with utmost care. No one volunteered to be my subject and when I tested these pads on myself, I was called a pervert. It was journey where I had to battle many ordeals.”
Muruganantham’s hard work bore fruits when his work was approved by IIT Madras in 2009. “It was a strange ambiance there. Everyone out there was conversing in English and I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying. I thought I would never fit into the corporate set up. But when my design was finally approved, I was glad that I was not well- educated as I didn’t have learn about ‘unnecessary’ things. I then supplied the machine to women self help groups, who now not only make a living out of it, but also take care of their ‘monthly’ issues,” says Muruganantham, who strongly believe in the cause of women empowerment. “We keep discussing nuclear power and other issues but we should spare a thought to the basic needs of our women. Now that I am on a mission to spread awareness about menstrual hygiene and help women, I would be glad even if I am able to raise the awareness level to 10 per cent.”
He also emphasizes that entrepreneurship is the need of the hour. “Every year, in our country, we churn out more job seekers rather than job creators. We have to look at new business models, identify a problem and work on a solution for the same. Today, the machines I have created have provided employment to many women in the rural areas across the country. Why can’t youngsters follow suit?”
As the conversation veers to his future plans, Muruganantham says, “I am now working on a model of suspended agriculture that is growing plants without water and sand,” he says as shows us a plant hanging from the ceiling of his factory. “This is to help the landless farmers,” he says with a grin.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by P. Sangeetha, TNN / june 07th, 2014
What does Chennai mean? The question troubled Paris-based historian J B P More quite a lot. After painstaking research, he found the answer.
In his recently released book, titled ‘Origin and Foundation of Madras’, More says, “Chinapatnam and Chennapatnam were the other names for Madras used by Tamil and Telugu settlers in the area. Chennapatnam was ‘Tamilised’ as Chennai but the word didn’t mean anything in Tamil. It’s undoubtedly a Telugu word.”
Madraspatnam was derived from Medu Rasa Patnam, said More, who was in Chennai on Saturday to release his book. “When Nayak Venkatappa (a local chieftain) issued a grant (a portion of the area where subsequently Fort St George came up) in favour of the English in 1639, only Madraspatnam was mentioned in it. But during the 1640s, two new names for Madraspatnam or for the area inhabited by Tamils and Telugus around Fort St George seems to have come into existence. They were Chinapatnam and Chennapatnam,” he said.
Chinapatnam would have been the first name that would have come into existence in the Tamil-Telugu quarters to signify the Black Town of Madraspatnam. “‘Chenna’ in Telugu means fair and is not to be confused with the Tamil ‘Chinna’, which means small. In Tamil, ‘Chenna’ is meaningless,” said More.
He said in the Tamil Lexicon, the Tamil word ‘Cennai’ has been mentioned which would signify ‘a drum announcing religious procession of an idol’. More said there was no reference in documents and literature of the period to ‘Chennai’ as a drum.
“In the document of Beri Timanna, we find ‘Chenna’ written as ‘Chennai’. Thus Chenna Kesava Perumal became Chennai Kesava Perumal and Chennapatnam became Chennai Pattanam.
This seems to be purely the work of a translator of the 19th century who had preferred to Tamilise the Telugu word ‘Chenna’ into ‘Chennai’ so it sounded more Tamil,” said More. “The word ‘Chennai’ seems to have been born to designate Madras town. Its origin is Telugu. There is nothing Tamil in it,” he added.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by M T Saju, TNN / May 04th, 2014
A rather confused reader, L.A. Rajendra sent me a letter shortly before May Day wondering who really had started the first trade union in Madras. He’d heard of at least four claimants to that honour and was thoroughly confused by not only these claims but also by the different stories circulating about those beginnings.
In fact, I’ve heard six names mentioned, Annie Besant and Ramanujalu Naidu were the additions to Rajendra’s four: M. Singaravelar Chetty, B.P. Wadia, G. Selvapathy Chetty and Thiru Vi Kalyanasundaram Mudaliar. But as far as I can gather, the story goes like this.
Singaravelar Chetty / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Selvapathy Chetty, a small businessman, took over a sabha his father was running and moved it to D’Mellow’s Road, Perambur, alongside the Buckingham & Carnatic Mills campus, where it was converted into a club of sorts. Moving on from religious discourses and bhajan singing that the sabha had originally offered, it began offering lectures by eminent personalities on a variety of current topics. Then, during the Great War, there were daily discussions on the progress of the war and what it all meant to India. A large number in the audience were mill workers and, before and after meetings, they would pour out tales of woe about the happenings in the mills to Selvapathy Chetty and his friend and fellow trader Ramanujalu Naidu. The two helped many of the workers to write petitions to the management, but, gradually, as they got more involved with the problems of the workers, they began to feel that something formal needed to be organised to negotiate with the mills’ management for the amelioration of the harsh working conditions.
On March 2, 1918, the two organised a public meeting near the mills where several speakers addressed a 10,000-strong audience, mainly of mill workers. Philosophical and religious themes, as advertised, were the subjects of all the speakers bar one, whose topic had only been whispered about. Thiru Vi Kalyanasundaram (ThiruViKa) forcefully urged them to form a trade union; that would be the only way they would get fair treatment, he had argued.
Selvapathy and Ramanujalu next went to meet Annie Besant of New India and invited her to address a meeting where the union would be inaugurated. She was unavailable but B.P. Wadia, her colleague, was. With Wadia presiding, a mammoth meeting was held on April 27, 1918 in Perambur at which the formation of the Madras Labour Union (MLU) was announced. Wadia was its first President, Selvapathy and Ramanujalu its first General Secretaries and ThiruViKa, Sella Guruswamy Chettiar and Dewan Bahadur Kesavapillai it first Vice Presidents. The Union survives to this day.
It has been claimed that this was the first trade union in India. This claim is perhaps in the context that it is still in existence, its name unchanged, and was formed as an organisation in rather formal circumstances. A year earlier, a union had been formed by mill workers in Ahmadabad, but from reports I’ve heard, it did not survive for long nor did it have a formal structure.
As far as the MLU is concerned, if I had to pick a founder, I would choose Selvapathy and Ramanujalu as its joint founders, though from what I’ve heard the latter would have most likely given the honour to the former.
Singaravelar was undoubtedly a fellow-traveller with this group when it came to trade unionism, but he was more a political figure. He was associated with the Congress Party, but broke with it over differences with Gandhiji, and, on May 1, 1923, at what was then the High Court Beach and Triplicane Beach, he announced the formation of his Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan and wanted May 1st declared a holiday. And, so, May Day, International Workers’ Day, came to India thanks to Singaravelar. He next helped form the Communist Party of India (CPI) over whose founding he presided in 1925. Then he broke with the Communists and became associated with the Self-Respect Movement and its overtones of Dravidian politics.
But thereafter, with age catching up, he gradually faded from the political scene, though maintaining an interest in all the causes he had espoused.
*****
An architect’s story
My quest for information about J.R. Davis of Prynne, Abbott and Davis (Miscellany, April 21) brought me much information from P.T. Krishnan, who had a latter day connection with a successor firm, and a rather rude phone call from a reader who refused to send me his information in writing, which is the only way I like it as I am averse to long telephone calls that necessitate taking notes I’m hard put to later decipher.
From what Krishnan and I have been able to piece together, it would seem Prynne, Abbott and Davis (PAD) had its beginnings in one of the first firm of architects in Madras, Jackson and Barker, who set up practice around 1922. They were responsible for converting the Spencer’s-owned Connemara Hotel’s building, that at the time resembled something better suited to a forest lodge, into a then modern hotel building that reflected a classical art deco style. The remodelled Connemara opened in 1937 to rave reviews. Today’s façade and much of the main block are what Jackson and Barker bequeathed to the Connemara.
Shortly before World War II, H.F. Prynne took over Jackson and Barker when the partners were planning to return to the U.K. Prynne, curiously, was no architect; he was the Governor’s ADC. And his first architectural work, so to speak, was to convert the stables of his house on College Road into his firm’s offices. He was joined by Abbott and Davis. It is stated that Abbott never took his place with the firm, passing away during his journey to India. When Prynne went back to England in the early 1950s, Davis stayed on and ran the firm till the 1960s, when Kiffin-Petersen and Bennett Pithavadian (whose father changed his name from Fenn to Pithavadian), who had worked for the firm, took it over. Amongst the best buildings PAD designed were the University of Madras’s Library and Teaching (Clock Tower) Block and the Centenary Building, both raised in harmony with Senate House. If Abbott never made it to Madras, the bespectacled person explaining the Centenary Building’s model to Prime Minister Nehru in my 1957 picture today must have been Davis, though the University has named him as Abbott in a caption it has used. Davis was also responsible for the Bombay Mutual Building and Dare House on N.S.C. Bose Road.
The Davis-Nehru picture of 1957. / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Another noteworthy building the firm did design was Adyar Villa in Kotturpuram, the assignment for his home being given to it by M.A. Chidambaram, who was a good friend of Davis. The design, however, was by Kiffin-Petersen, an Australian, who favoured the Spanish villa style that Florida’s Palm Beach had made famous in the 1930s. Many of the corporate houses in the Boat Club area too were designed by him. Davis returned to England in the early 1960s before construction of Adyar Villa started and the building was raised during the Petersen-Pithavadian partnership that succeeded Davis.
When Kiffin-Petersen left Madras in the late 1960s, Prynne, Abbott and Davis was taken over by Pithavadian who ran it as a proprietorship. Then, in 1972, he took in partners and renamed the firm Pithavadian & Partners. Of Pithavadian Krishnan, who had worked with him, says, “A McGill University, Canada, graduate, he was a modernist more concerned with the problems of a poor country and used his civil engineering skills to produce functional and economical buildings. He won the President’s Gold Medal for the design of a low-cost house during the early years of his practice.” Later, however, he was responsible for another type of landmark in Madras, the IOB Building, “the first highrise in Madras responding to principles of designing for the tropics.”
I’d be glad to hear from my caller who prefers telephone-chat to writing if he has anything more to add to this — provided he sends it in duly written.
*****
When the postman knocked…
– A copy of Ravenshaw’s 1822 map of Madras is with P.T. Krishnan and, he tells me, the five boundary pillars of the second esplanade, the one beyond the New Town Wall (Miscellany, April 14), are marked on it. Only, the present site of the Washermenpet Police Station is nowhere near where the boundary marker is shown on that map. The plaque had obviously been moved, as I had conjectured. Krishnan also tells me that the boundary markers also indicate on the map the boundaries of Royapuram, Tondiavoodu (Tondiarpet) and Washermenpet. Three paths led out of gates in the Wall and crossed the esplanade. These paths became, from west to east, Tiruvottriyur High Road, Monegar Choultry Road, and Mannarsamy Koil Street. Their gates, I reckon, would have respectively been what were called Ennore Gate, Trivatore Gate and Pully Gate. I look forward to more details of this area from Krishnan.
– Dr. R.V. Rajan (Miscellany, April 21), writes Dr. P.S. Venkateswaran, had studied to become a surgeon and went to England where he got his FRCS, but got interested in Venereology and became an internationally recognised expert on the subject. Dr. K.S. Sanjivi, who was part of Dr. RVR’s intellectual circle, retired as Professor of Medicine and was awarded the Padma Bhushan. But in what must be a unique record, Dr. Sanjivi’s brothers, Prof. K. Swaminathan and Dr. K. Venkat Raman, were also awarded the same honour. Swaminathan, Professor of English at Presidency College, turned to journalism after he retired and then became the Chief Editor of the 90-volume Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Dr. Venkat Raman retired as the Director of the National Chemical Laboratory. As for Dr. RVR, as already mentioned, he went on to become the first Indian Dean of the Madras Medical College, but, points out Dr. Venkateswaran, it was a designation that came into being after the term ‘Superintendent’ had been done away with. Two Indians had served as Superintendents, Col. Pandalai and Dr. Sangam Lal. Dr. Rajam lived on G.N. Chetty Road in a house that has now given way to Ankur Plaza. As was the vogue those days, it was “a sort of semi-circular house (art deco?) with many doors. Dr. Rangachary’s house had 16 doors; Dr. Rajam had fewer.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Society / Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / Chennai – May 04th, 2014
The Dindigul municipality has been upgraded as Municipal Corporation with effect from Wednesday.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa handed over the government order to Municipal Chairman G. Marudharaj. On receipt of the information, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam councillors celebrated the occasion by distributing sweets to the public and bursting crackers.
According to officials, the population of the newly created Corporation limits is 2.7 lakh.
The annual revenue to the exchequer is expected to be around Rs.30 crore.
The Chief Minister had announced at the Assembly on April 10, 2013, that the municipality would be upgraded as Municipal Corporation.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Tamil Nadu / by Staff Reporter / Dindigul – February 20th, 2014
Chennaiites may spot an empty train going up and down the city, over the next nine months, after which they will be able to hop on to Chennai Metro and travel from Koyambedu to Alandur. / Photo: K. Pichumani / The Hindu
In coming months, several trial runs will be conducted on elevated stretch
At a quarter to twelve on Saturday afternoon, the train operator switches to ‘isolator mode’ and presses the ‘start’ button.
With a slight jolt, the Chennai Metro Rail train takes off from CMBT Metro Rail station. Since it is only a trial run, the train crawls at 10 kmph on the elevated corridor and reaches Ashok Nagar in half an hour.
While the train doors open automatically, they shut only after the driver looks at the CCTV cameras and hits the close button.
The pre-recorded announcements inform passengers of the route and destination details; this, apart from the electronic route map in both English and Tamil on either side of each car.
Should there be an emergency, there is an internal manual alarm or passengers can speak directly to the train operator through the intercom; there is also a helpline displayed inside the train which will enable passengers to contact Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).
The trains that took shape in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, will last at least 30 years and are equipped with regenerative braking that has the capacity to recover 30-35 per cent of the energy during braking.
So far, of the nine trains manufactured in Brazil, five have arrived in Chennai and will be put through the trial run after two months, says an official of CMRL.
The first of the remaining 33 trains manufactured at the Sri City plant will arrive in the city later this month, says L. Narasim Prasad, director (systems and operations), CMRL.
“Each train will have a special class in which a third of the seats will be common and the other two-thirds will be exclusively for women. At first, we plan to use nine trains for operations,” he says. Chennaiites may spot an empty train going up and down the city, over the next nine months, after which they will be able to hop on to Chennai Metro and travel from Koyambedu to Alandur.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Sunitha Sekar / Chennai – February 16th, 2014
It is hard to believe that a mere 22 kilometres from chaotic, noisy and lively Salem, at a height of 4,970 feet, lies Yercaud, a quaint hill station in the middle of Shevaroy Hills in the Eastern Ghats.
Yercaud, the “jewel of the south”, is not as well known as Ootacamund or Kodaikanal and therefore spared the ravages of droves of tourists, but it is a popular hill station because it is relatively less expensive and has comfortable weather conditions throughout the year. Tracing its etymology to the Tamil term yer meaning lake and kadu meaning forest, Yercaud, literally means the forest around the lake, and is believed to have been inhabited first by the tribes from Kanchipuram, when Tamil Nadu or Thondai, as it was then known, was invaded by Telugu rulers.
We know about Yercaud from the time Sir Thomas Munroe discovered it on 1842. Planters made a beeline after David Cockburn, the collector of Salem in the 1820s, facilitated the establishment of plantations with coffee, pepper, orange, apple and other citrus fruit plants imported from South Africa. Cockburn has since been known as the Father of Yercaud.A 45 minute drive from Salem on a fine ghat road is one of the USPs of Yercaud.
This drive is best done in the morning, so that you can admire the 20, scary hairpin bends, the beautiful scenery and the clusters of baby monkeys and their families. You know you have reached Yercaud when the lake appears. This is quite a sight — a serene body of water ringed in by mysterious beautiful hills and dotted with colourful boats. There are other sights too in Yercaud. The Lady’s Seat, perched up on a precipice gives a vantage view of the hills all around, the sunrise and the sunset.
It is named so because the women of the Raj would sit there and pass the time of the day soaking in the sun and the beauty with a pair of binoculars. At the Botanical gardens, you can see the diverse flora and fauna of the Shevaroy Hills right down to the insectivorous pitcher plant. The Killiyur Falls, into which the lake empties out, is another beautiful sight, if you can manage the trek. The Chennai Trekking Club organises some interesting treks. The view from Pagoda Point and the Karadiyur Point in Karadiyur village, 12 kilometres from Yercaud are worth a visit.
For those who swear off the traditional sightseeing spots, Yercaud offers many small streets and bylanes through which you can amble gently, soaking in the quaint colonial bungalows like
The Grange, which was built by the collector in the 1820s or the Fairholme Bungalow. Stop by and tease a butterfly and quaff a cup of tea from the chai kadai (shop) in the typical old world thick glass tumbler. Pick up some absolutely fresh green peppercorns, bite into soft avocados and taste some uncommon fruits right off the trees in the plantations. Or get into the car and drive around the 32 kilometre loop road, which starts at the lake and ends at it — a road straight out of the picture book complete with the canopy of trees.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald /Home> Supplements> Sunday Herald Travel / by Bhagyalakshmi – January 19th, 2014
When I revise my book on the Anglo-Indians, one of the many achievers I will have to add to my already long list will be Dr. John Shortt of the Madras Medical Services in the 19th Century. He could well have been one of the Madras Medical School’s first students when it was founded in 1835 with ten East Indians, as Anglo-Indians were then known, to be trained as apothecaries and 11 Indians to be trained as dressers, both, however, being additionally trained in diagnostic and aftercare skills. Among the four-member staff to train them, headed by Surgeon Mortimer, was Apothecary D’Beaux, an East Indian, and P. Muthuswami Mudaliar, but where they were trained I have not been able to trace. It was possibly this team that trained John Shortt.
To cut a long story to Shortt, he joined the East India Company’s services as an Assistant Apothecary. He must have been something exceptional even then, for he was selected to go to Edinburgh to study further. There he got an MD degree before returning to India to join the Madras Medical Services in 1854. In the Service, he served with the rank Surgeon-Major. When he retired 25 years later, he was serving in the rank of Colonel and, more importantly, as the Deputy Surgeon-General of the Madras Presidency, quite an achievement in those days for an East Indian.
Like many Government officials in those days, Shortt too spent much time on a variety of interests which got them wider recognition. His interests were botany, biology and anthropology. His published works included a paper on the Indigo plant in 1860, an anthropological study of the Todas, and a paper on the coffee plant. His paper on Indigo, written when he was Zillah (District) Surgeon, Chingleput, was published by ‘Pharoah and Co’. It was a publication noteworthy for its two-column page format featuring the English text in the left column and the “Hindustani translation” in Urdu script on the right. Shortt also practised as a veterinary surgeon after his retirement in Yercaud till his death. Out of his experiences of those years came a book titled A Manual Of Indian Cattle And Sheep: Their Breeds, Management And Diseases published by Higginbotham’s.
A page from Dr. Shortt’s book on Indigo / The Hindu
His work in biology was responsible for Shortt being invited to be a Fellow of the Linnean Society, London. He was later to propose Dr. Senjee Pulney Andy (Miscellany, August 26, 2013) for a Fellowship of the Society. Both of them independently wrote articles on the branching palms in South India that were published in 1869 in two different journals of the Linnean Society. Both also wrote on the Palmyrah and other flora in the journals of the Madras Agri-Horticultural Society. Shortt, who in the early 1870s, was listed as the Superintendent-General of Vaccination, was probably Pulney Andy’s boss, the latter serving as the Superintendent of Vaccination, Malabar, at the time. Shortt was also during this period the Secretary of the Obstetrical Society of Madras. He passed away in Yercaud on April 24, 1889. I wonder whether a reader in Yercaud can come up with a picture of Shortt’s tombstone and a note on his practice there.
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The Turings of Madras
Alan Turing / The Hindu
It was Vishwas Ghaskadbi who set me on this trail by sending me an extraordinary story of coincidence related by Anvar Alikhan shortly after the story appeared of the famed World War II code breaker, Alan Mathison Turing, also known as the ‘Father of the Computer’, being pardoned posthumously by Queen Elizabeth II 60 years after he had been convicted for homosexuality. Shortly after the conviction, Turing had committed suicide.
Alikhan, doing a bit of research on Turing, discovered that Turing had connections with Madras on both sides of his family. The trail led to a house in Coonoor to which had retired E.W. Stoney, a railwayman, who was the father of Ethel Sara Stoney, the mother of Alan Turing. Then came the amazing coincidence — The Gables, which still survives in Coonoor, was bought by Nandan Nilekani, one of India’s leading authorities on the IT industry. He had no idea that his holiday home had a Turing connection — till Alikhan showed him indisputable evidence dating to 1916 that E.W. Stoney had indeed been the owner of The Gables.
Nandan Nilekani / The Hindu
The statement by Alikhan that Turing had connections with Madras on both sides of the family got me searching for the trail of the Turings of Madras. The Turing story in Madras begins in 1729 with Robert Turing, the fourth son of Sir John Turing, the 3rd Baronet, being appointed Surgeon’s mate in Fort St. David, on the recommendation of Dr. John Turing (a kinsman?), who was the Surgeon of the East Indiaman Greenwich which called at Madras that year. By 1741, Dr. Robert Turing was Surgeon at Vizagapatam and then served in Madras from 1753 to 1762 as a Presidency Surgeon. He lived in a house near Harris Bridge, which is near the Casino Theatre.
Dr. Robert Turing helped Robert Clive to recover from a prolonged illness in 1752 and had him fit to sail for England early in 1753. He was also a persistent advocate for a much larger hospital in the Fort. He wanted space for 250 men, an area to treat 200-300 seamen when the Fleet was in the Roads, and an operating theatre. It was from Sir John Turing’s brother Walter’s line that Alan Turing descended; his father was Julius Mathison Turing, an ICS officer who served in Bihar and the Ganjam District of Madras Presidency.
Whether they were connected with Robert Turing or not, there were in Madras in the second half of the 18th Century John and William Turing, both in the Madras Civil Service, and James and Robert Turing in the Madras Army. John Turing Senior was Sheriff in 1767 (an office William Turing who entered the Civil Service in 1769 was to hold in 1778) and Mayor in 1776. He lived in a garden house in Vepery. Another John Turing, Junior, arrived in 1795 and died in Vizagapatam in 1808. Significantly, that great chronicler of Madras History, H.D. Love, writes c.1912 that “the name of Turing is still represented in the Indian Civil Service in the Southern Presidency.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / Chennai – January 12th, 2014
