V Rama Rao is a familiar face in Alandur and Nanganallur not only among residents but also government officials. The 72-year-old retired government employee spends hours in government departments submitting petitions and filing RTIs to demand better transportation facilities, civic infrastructure and more.
Known as `Demand Rama Rao’, the former trade union leader and retired chief telegraph master, has won many battles against civic authorities. “I became an activist after seeing people suffering. Having been a trade union lead er, I found it easier to confront authorities and officials,” says Rao, who runs Traffic and Transportation Forum, a non-governmental organisation that has lobbied for extra ticket counters at suburban stations, more bus services, road widening and other facilities.
“People pay taxes and they have every right to demand that civic amenities are good and well maintained.Why should people suffer bad roads and poor drainage?” says Rao.
One of Rao’s first successful battles involved rallying residents to get underground drains. “We were the first to set up underground drainage in Nanganallur in 2003. Each resident contributed `5,000 to get the work done. Neighbouring Tambaram still does not have an underground drainage system,” he says.
Right now, the forum is demanding a bus stand near St Thomas railway station. “Once metro rail starts functioning, a bus stand will be needed urgently,” he says. “Why wait till then to ask for it?” The forum is also suggesting that metro rail use the underpass of Kathipara junction to connect to the neighbourhood for the proposed AlandurAsargana Hub, where more than 100 buses could be operated.
Rao and his team have now turned their attention to water bodies. “We are still fighting against encroachments on Adambakkam lake by both the ruling and opposition parties. We will make sure we will restore the lake to its its original condition,” he says.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / March 04th, 2015
At a quiz I conducted recently, one of my questions was: What were the railway companies that were combined to create the Southern Railway in April 1951? The majority of answers recorded South Indian Railway (SIR) and did not proceed further. A few put down Madras Railway Co and SIR. Still fewer said Madras & South Mahratta Railway and South Indian Railway. And only one person got it right saying Madras & South Mahratta Railway, South Indian Railway and Mysore State Railway. I recalled these answers a few days later when, thanks to new traffic regulations, I saw the Egmore Station after a few years and found it looking as handsome as one of a city’s prime heritage buildings should look.
Egmore Railway Station today.
Purist conservationists will undoubtedly sniff at what red and white colour washes have done to the building’s red brick, Tada sandstone and Pallavaram granite. But I have always held that they should be thankful for little mercies; after the latest ‘restoration’, many a layperson or a visitor is sure to stand and stare for a while at a building which stands out midst all the tawdry construction surrounding it. Certainly I did — and as I did so I wondered what the answers would be to another quiz question: The South Indian Railway had five stations in Madras; what were the three main ones? I wonder how many would have got Tambaram, Egmore and Beach. Egmore may have been the main Madras SIR station, but Beach was the end of the line and Tambaram and Beach were the two termini of the SIR’s electrified suburban railway system established in 1931 and which in its very first year handled nearly three million passengers.
Trichy Junction in 1935
The SIR’s main railway station, however, was in Trichinopoly, where its headquarters was. The first SIR headquarters was in Negapatam (Nagapattinam) from where its first train ran to Tiruvallur on July 15, 1861, then in December that year to Tanjore and on March 11, 1862 to Trichinopoly to which the headquarters began moving from 1865 and went on till 1880. Remodelling of the old station began in 1900 and went on till 1935, T. Samyanada Pillai of Bangalore responsible for the work. Pillai, based on his splendid work in Trichinopoly, was given the contract for building the Egmore Station we see today. Work began on it in 1905 and it opened for use on June 11, 1908. The station was designed by Henry Irwin, with specialised engineering work being carried out by Arbuthnot’s Industrials and the entire supervision being done by SIR’s company architect E.C.H. Bird.
Beach Station interior (1929)
Handsome stations were also built at Beach (which also received M&SM traffic) and Tambaram befitting their status. That handsomeness can nowhere be seen in these two stations today, given surrounding construction, lack of upkeep and all the grime. They too could use the attention and facelift given to Egmore.
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The houses by the Adyar
The other day I was reminded of a story I had told in these columns some years ago (Miscellany, July 13, 2009) when reading something about the Andhra Mahila Sabha. The Sabha’s nurse-midwife training scheme had to find accommodation for increasing numbers of trainees (120) in the 1950s. The Sabha had put down roots just north of the Adyar River and on the western edge of what is now Durgabai Deshmukh Road — named after the Sabha’s founder — and was then Adyar Bridge Road. Fortunately for the Sabha there was a garden house abutting it to its north, reaching out to the southern edge of Greenway’s Road. The owner was offering the large house and its 171/2 acres for Rs.1.75 lakh. Which the Sabha did not have. But he agreed to rent it at Rs. 500 a month.
When Union Health Minister Rajkumari Amrit Kaur came to inaugurate the children’s ward of the Sabha in 1950, Durgabai Deshmukh told her the problems she was facing with accommodation for the trainees. At the time the trainees were in the rented house, but the Sabha needed to own it to expand further and the owner was not willing to bring down his price. Let’s go and see him, the Minister promptly said. They found him sick and in bed, but overawed when his visitor introduced herself. She told him that she was willing to grant Rs. 1 lakh to the Sabha if they could acquire his premises for that amount. He agreed and Yerolyte came into the Sabha’s hands. The building still stands and is the administrative centre of the Sabha. Next to it has come up a modern hotel run by the Sabha.
Discovering what Yerolyte is the other day is what led to this item. Having discovered what Yerolyte is now being used for, I began to search for information about other garden houses that had come up on the north bank of the Adyar. To the east of Elphinstone Bridge, now supplemented by Thiru-Vi-Ka Bridge, are Brodie Castle dating to 1798, at present home to the Tamil Nadu Government College of Music, Underwood Gardens, now the residence of the Regional Manager of the State Bank of India, andSomerford that’s been incorporated into Chettinad Palace.
To the west of the Bridge, going west from the Adyar, the first block of buildings comprises, from river inland, Bridge House, Government property which I think has now been replaced with a newer building,Cranleigh, named after an English village in Surrey which has been replaced by the Andhra Mahila Sabha Hospital, and Yerolyte. The next block west once comprised Riverside, Hovingham, Greenway, Cherwell and Ardmayle, the three aside from Riverside and Greenway probably taking their names from villages in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Tipperary (Ireland) respectively, all no longer in existence and replaced by Government bungalows for Ministers. The next block includes Adyar House, used as a Police commando training centre (a glimpse into which shows an old building, possibly the original house), Beachborough, named after a hamlet in Kent, a house now built over it, and Ben’s Gardens, once leased to Parry’s by the Diocese of Madras-Mylapore and where Parry’s built a few more houses for its Directors. Then come, Serle’s Garden, no longer in existence, like neighbouring Pugh’s Garden. Still surviving, however, is what was Norton’s Garden (1853), built by the lawyer John Bruce Norton, and which c.1907 was re-named The Grange. With a Government management training institution in it,The Grange is fairly well maintained, but could take lessons from the last building on this stretch,Moubray’s Garden/Cupola (c.1790), and the first modern house to be built on the banks of the Adyar. Today it is beautifully maintained by its owner, the Madras Club.
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The tank that vanished
Was there a huge tank in the middle of Madras that has vanished, asks schoolgirl S Prema who tells me that she is interested in the environment. Yes, indeed, there was a tank called the Long Tank which once stretched about 6 km from the Adyar River to Loyola College, following the western side of Mount Road and Nungambakkam High Road. Reminders of it are found in such names as Lake Area and Tank Bund Road. It was in reality two tanks, the Mambalam/ Mylapore Tank in the north and the Nungambakkam Tank in the south, and spread through parts of Saidapet, Mambalam, Nandanam, T. Nagar and Nungambakkam.
To meet the demands of a growing population, plans were drawn up from 1923 to reclaim land from the Long Tank and this was done from 1930 to create the 1,600 acres for the Mambalam Housing Scheme that gave us Theagaroya Nagar or T. Nagar. From 1941, further reclamation gave us the Lake Area in Nungambakkam. At the westernmost end of the Tank, 54 acres were reclaimed earlier for the Loyola College campus and in 1974 what was left of the Tank was reclaimed to give the city the Valluvar Kottam campus alongside Tank Bund Road.
Map showing the Long Tank
Once, when the Long Tank had water for most of the year, it was home to the Madras Boat Club’s activities. In fact, there was a Long Tank Regatta. It’s first recorded in 1893 that this was held “on the fine expanse of water that starts from the Cathedral Corner (once where Gemini Studio’s property was) to Sydapet”. Till any kind of boathouse was built by the Long Tank, the Club used the spacious premises of Blacker’s Gardens — kindly lent for the occasions by whoever the occupant was at the time. The Club’s first Boathouse, a temporary one, was inaugurated on December 5, 1896 and a permanent one in 1899. The Tank also hosted sailing events, the Boat Club at that time also nurturing yachting.
The earliest record of competitive rowing dates to November 21, 1875, ‘Scratch Fours’ races being held in the Long Tank. The first regatta held there was on February 4, 1884 on a course that was about half a mile. These continued till 1904, by when the Club had firmly put down roots in its present home in Adyar. The Long Tank, however, continued to be used by some oarsmen till work on reclaiming land began in the late 1920s.
There would be 200-300 “ladies and gentlemen (present, representing) the fashion and beauty of Madras,” as well as the Governor and his Lady and their retinue, the Band that would play through the evening and night, refreshments aplenty, and dinner and dancing. Now where their ghosts waltzed, there is no tank, only a congested clutter of buildings just as what you’ll see where the other important tanks of the city were. Once, the ten most important tanks of Madras were Vyasarpadi, Perambur, Peravallur, Madavakkam, Chetput, Spur, Nungambakkam, Mylapore/Mambalam, Kottur and Kalikundram. None of them exist in today’s concrete jungle.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by S. Muthiah / March 01st, 2015
V S Aarthi, a Class 9 student from SBOA Matriculation School and Junior College at Anna Nagar, won the first prize at an extempore speech competition conducted by the British Council here on Thursday.
Amrutha Desikan and Akileah Raman (both from PSBB school at K K Nagar) won the second and third prizes, respectively.
As many as 50 students from 10 schools in the city participated in the competition. The contestants for the competition were chosen based on their performance in a computer-based English language competency test held last week.
The British Council has launched an English language competency test — Aptis — in Chennai and Delhi to test the reading, writing, listening and speaking skills of students aged between 13 and 17 years.
“The test content has been designed based on the day-to-day activities of teenagers, and the topics reflect the scenarios that they go through every day,” said Gwen Caudwell, Aptis product development manager.
Caudwell said the test content had been designed based on global parameters but the topics had been chosen based on the activities that are carried out in India.
Mei-Kwei-Barker, director, South India, British Council, said, “The response for the test has been good, both in Delhi and Chennai. The students have performed well in speaking.”
Aarthi said, “Winning this extempore contest has given me a moral boost. I can now do public speaking anytime, anywhere.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Adarsh Jain, TNN / February 26th, 2015
Satyajit Ray astonished me at our first meeting. I had trotted out various Santiniketan connections I expected him to know. He looked at me for a moment while I felt his brain darting through the lanes and bylanes of the genealogical network. Then he said, “You must be related to Bussa Susheila Das!” It was the last name I expected to hear from the Maestro. Bussamami – whose death last week, three years short of a century, must be counted a merciful release – was the most fashionable, Anglicized and probably richest of my relatives. In georgette and furs, sporting a long cigarette-holder, she was a vision of elegant grandeur, the Last Burra Memsahib. When I told her about Ray, she said, “It must be because of Keshub Sen!”
If so, the Brahmo Samaj meant more to Ray than anyone imagined. Although neither Bussamami nor her husband, Mohie R. Das, had set foot in a Brahmo temple for many years, she was Brahmananda Keshub Chunder Sen’s great granddaughter. She was also the great granddaughter of General Sir Edward Barnes, India’s commander-in-chief and governor of Ceylon. That connection was embarrassingly highlighted when Bussamami stayed with us in Singapore. On the day she arrived, the afternoon tabloid, New Paper, which normally confined itself to sensational local tidbits, went to town with an unexpected cover story on Barnes and his Ceylonese mistress. As governor, he lived in what is today Colombo’s Mount Lavinia Hotel from which a secret underground tunnel snaked away to his inamorata’s dwelling. Bussamami wasn’t disconcerted.
She had flown in wearing a saree. It was her habitual garb when travelling abroad she explained. “I get better service.” At one time people laughingly called her “Susheila please!” because of her strenuous but unsuccessful efforts to banish the Bussa nickname. She was indignant when a British Indian woman in Singapore asked why she didn’t have a British passport. “Why should I?” she retorted. “India is my home. I’m Indian. I have property there.” The patrial clause in British immigration law would at once have granted her British citizenship. But people like her didn’t need to emigrate to raise their living standards or become Westernized. They easily did both in India. Her sister, Moneesha Chaudhuri, whose husband was the first Indian head of Andrew Yule, the biggest British managing agency in India, and an army chief’s brother, was also like that. She once refused the then whites-only Saturday Club’s invitation to play the piano in a concert under her English mother’s maiden name. “After all, you could pass for English,” they pleaded. She didn’t take it as a compliment.
Singaporeans found it intriguing that Bussamami and I were related twice over. She and my mother were second cousins, great granddaughters of Annada Charan Khastagir, who presided over an All-India National Conference session in 1883, preparatory to the Indian National Congress being launched two years later. Her husband, Mohiemama, and my mother were first cousins, grandchildren of Bihari Lal Gupta, who was responsible for the Ilbert Bill, which led to the AINC and INC. She and her husband being related, the marriage presented difficulties: one version for which I can’t vouch was they went to French Chandernagore for the registration.
Mohiemama’s father, S.R. Das, founded Doon School. He himself was the first Indian head of Mackinnon Mackenzie, the Inchcape shipping giant. When he joined Mackinnon’s exalted band of covenanted hands (UK-based officers who had signed a contract with the company) in England, the Numbers One, Two and Three were known in inverse order as Three, Two and One. Those figures indicated their monthly salary in lakhs of rupees. Mohiemama’s ways were upper-class English, the legacy of public school in Britain and Cambridge. My son, Deep, quoted Bussamami in this newspaper (“Learning To Speak Like The Masters”, October 13, 2004) as saying when asked if her husband went to Mill Hill or Millfield school, “Mill Hill of course. Millfield was only for the post-war nouveau riche!” Being dark and heavily built, he borrowed a turban from Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur – husband of the beautiful Gayatri Devi, who was Bussamami’s cousin – to visit America in the Fifties. He enjoyed describing how he clamped the turban on his head before entering restaurants in the American Deep South.
They settled down in a gracious villa called Faraway in remote Coonoor. But their world straddled Calcutta, Darjeeling, Hong Kong, London and the south of France. Or rather, small gilded niches in all these places, with extensions to Simla, Colombo and Singapore. World War II and the 300 Club had lent zest to their cosmopolitan set. Not everyone could come to grips with this dizzy diversity. Raj Thapar, wife of Seminar magazine’s Romesh Thapar, betrayed her own provincialism by dismissing Bussamami in All These Years as “an erstwhile crooner”. Yes, she, Moneeshamashi and their only brother K.C. (Bhaiya or Kacy) Sen were all gifted musicians. In her youth, Bussamami had indeed given music lessons in Calcutta, and Moneeshamashi continued to do so for free at St Paul’s School, Darjeeling. But the sleaziness that Thapar’s comment sought to convey just didn’t go with the Ingabanga (Satyendranath Tagore’s term for Anglicized Bengalis) elite.
Kacy called his delightful memoirs The Absolute Anglo-Indian. He wasn’t “a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent, but who is a native of India”, which is how the Government of India Act, 1935, defines Anglo-Indian. Nevertheless, his was the culture of the Rangers Club, Grail Club and the club of which he says “if ever there was a place that separated the men from the boys, and no angels feared to tread, it was the good old Golden Slipper”. I was struck as a child by his imaginative wedding invitation, “Bridgette and I are going to be married at the Golden Slipper Club.” His Cavaliers was a popular band. He frequently compered at the Oberoi Grand Hotel’s open-air Scherezade night club, which occupied the space now taken up by the swimming pool.
He provided Ray with Devika Halder aka Vicky Redwood for Mahanagar “over a cup of tea on the verandah” of his flat. The voice off-screen in Mahanagar was Devika’s, but the song was a ballad, Time Gave Me No Chance, he had composed in his rowing days. Major Sharat Kumar Roy of the American army was an unusual wartime buddy and surely the only Indian to be commemorated by a mountain in Greenland: he discovered Mount Sharat. Laced into the light-hearted banter of Sen’s memoirs was the fear that the “Absolute Anglo-Indian” would become the “Obsolete Anglo-Indian”.
Bussamami built personal bridges to very different milieus. Cooch Behar, Mayurbhanj, Jaipur, Nandgaon and other royals, some also descendants of Keshub Sen, were relatives and intimates. When I mentioned the novelist, Maurice Dekobra, she told me she had known him as the Paris-born, Maurice Tessier. Axel Khan, whom I met as India’s ambassador in pre-unification Berlin, was another old friend. Rumer Godden produced a flood of memories, which were borne out by Ann Chisholm’s biography, Rumer Godden: A Storyteller’s Life. Her apology for arriving late for dinner with my wife and I in our Calcutta flat was that she had got lost in the suburban lanes to Kanan’s house. Kanan who? She meant the legendary star, Kanan Devi, whom the young Bussamami had taught her dancing steps in the Thirties. They had remained friends ever since.
The real burra memsahib didn’t need to keep up appearances. Neither did she have to try to be stylish. To adapt the Comte de Buffon, the style was the woman herself. There won’t be another like her.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Story / by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray / Saturday – February 28th, 2015
A view of flowing of the Vaigai river and pathway for pedestrains at Madurai. Photo: The Hindu Archives
Curious explorers, a two-member dance company that visited beautiful Madurai and a page out of the archives…. Dr. Swarnamalya Ganesh shares her findings.
India was a place of great curiosity and interest to many westerners in the early parts of the 20th century. Notwithstanding the threats about epidemic diseases and unhygienic surroundings, many from America and Europe dared the adventure and lived to write their own memoirs.
Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis, who formed a company and was a couple in real life, known as Denishawn, were American dancers. Today considered the founding parents of American modern dance, they travelled to India as part of their grand tour of the Orient between 1925 and 1926 CE. Their interest in the East and particularly in India owed it to St. Denis’s obsession with the Nautch and the dancer. Initially Ruth’s disciple, Ted Shawn became her dancing partner and husband. Shawn was also drawn to Indian dances. He was especially interested in the Nataraja Tatva and the dance of Lord Siva.
In May 1926, towards the fag end of their Indian tour, the company travelled to Madras, to perform. They had visited many North Indian cities like Lucknow, Benaras, Calcutta and Hyderabad in the South, before coming to Madras. Wherever the company travelled they dressed themselves in native costumes and posed for pictures, shopped for Indian artefacts and tried to see the local dances. Shawn and Ruth’s particular interest in Nautch had them always searching for performances, perhaps to absorb more from the ‘authentic’ into Ruth’s already staged Radha and Nautch repertoire. But in the 1920s it was rather difficult for foreigners to go into the interior dwellings of dancers and watch their performances, unless invited. In his account, Shawn laments that they could only see some street performers. He of course, calls these as nautch too but remarks that they are “quite not up-to-the-mark.”
However, when they come to Madras they are greeted by, one Mr. Krishnaswamy Rao who, as the last leg of their Indian trip before taking the ship to Colombo, arranges a visit to Madura (Majura or Madurai). Upon the recommendation and arrangement made by Dr. A.K. Coomaraswamy (whose writings and guidance Ted took to create his Indian dances like the Cosmic Dance of Siva), Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis along with their company dancers which had Doris Humphery and her likes in it, readied themselves to watch the dance of a devadasi named Kamalambal in Madurai.
Here is his observation:
“Kamalambal, a temple deva-dassi, danced for us for several hours. She was technically very fine and attractive in a plump way, and an extremely wonderful pantomimist. She was quite the finest we had seen in all of India,” Shawn exclaims. He also admires the beauty of Madurai and compares it to Benaras calling the city a “dream or something read in a book.”
Madurai Kamalambal during one of her performances.
The beauty of Madurai with its teeming South Indians seems to have really captured the dancers. Records Shawn, “The men with their heads shaven half way back and a bush of hair on the rear half, wearing the scantiest bit of goods in the way of a G-string that I ever saw, as their only garment, the women heavily swathed in thick, but richly coloured cotton saris, made the city itself exciting.”
During my recent research of the Denishawn archives, parts of important ethnographic details such as these pictures emerged. One of the missions of the company during the travels to the Orient was to take pictures and video footage (film reels) of Indian lives, music and art. Their visits to the bazaars of Calcutta, Palaces in Lucknow, tea party gardens where Ruth is dressed as a Nautch dancer and is posing are all archived. Photograph and video filming were done by Ruth St. Denis’s brother who was called “Brother St. Denis” or simply “brother.” His actual name was Rene St Denis and he was their travel manager as well for this tour.
The photo here is a picture taken a few days after May 10, 1926, which is when the company gave their last performance in India at Madras. Then they travelled to Madurai to watch Kamalambal (picture). She is seen here with her team (Sadir melam) comprising a nattuvan, a pilangrovi player, a muttukaran and another player with what seems like a clarionet. This photograph has been doing the rounds for years now as part of Sadir archives, but it is only now that we get to know the name of the dancer, date and the place it was photographed in and the photographer’s name.
Kamalambal and her team with the dance constumes.
The other photo with many girls clad in dance costume and posing, sitting and standing in front of a large tent, which is an often seen image of 20th century Sadir dancers, seems also a photo courtesy of Brother St. Denis taken. during this trip.
We thus put a name to the face in the picture and a name to the man behind the lens too. That’s the story of how Brother brings us our own Madura Kamalambal after an incredible eighty years.
(The author is a dancer, choreographer and dance historian. She is the Director of Ranga Mandira School of Performing Arts and Research Academy. As a recipient of the Fulbright fellowship, she is currently researching and teaching at University of California, Los Angeles, in the World Arts Cultures department.)
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Friday Review> History & Culture / by Dr. Swarnamalya Ganesh / February 26th, 2015
Suguna Purusothaman was known for her flair in layam —Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
Noted carnatic vocalist and teacher Suguna Purusothaman, an exponent of the Musiri school of music, died here on Wednesday, after a battle with cancer. She was 74 and is survived by her husband and two daughters.
“She wanted to listen to something in the hospital. I had, on my mobile phone, Musiri Subramania Iyer’s Nadupai in Madhyamavathiand Marivere in Shanmugapriya and her daughter played the songs for her. She opened her eyes for a second, and the end came,” said Rajeswari Thyagarajan, a family friend and wife of Thyagarajan, the grandson of Musiri Subramania Iyer.
Suguna, a native of Ponvilainthakalathur in Chengalpet, came under the tutelage of Musiri Subramania Iyer, on a Central Government scholarship in the 1960s. She was also a good composer.
The late mridangist Thinniyam Venkatrama Iyer taught her the intricacies of layam , and introduced her to Musiri. “She would say it was the emotion and feeling in his music that convinced her to learn with him though Musiri then was past his prime,” said Mr. Thyagarajan. She studied with Mani Krishnasamy, Suguna Varadhachari, Padma Narayanasamy and Rukmini Ramani.
Suguna had a great flair for layam and could use her hands to keep two different thalams even as she sang. “An expert in pallavi singing, she could even render simma nanthana pallavi (128 counts) in a way that appealed to a lay rasika,” said writer Lalitharam.
Mr. Thyagarajan recalled she would ask more questions than other students and had a great sense of humour.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by B. Kolappan / Chennai – February 26th, 2015
Veteran cinematographer-turned-director, A Vincent, the master of black and white photography who marvelled even the best with his ability with the camera, passed away at a private hospital here on Wednesday.
He was 86, and is survived by his wife and four children, including two sons who are cinematographers.
A Vincent (1928-2015)
After making his debut as a cinematographer in 1953, Vincent shot into prominence in the very next year with the acclaimed Malayalam film, Neela Kuyil that won awards at the national level. Vincent then went on to man the camera for over 250 films and directed about 50, in languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi over the years.
Born in Kerala in 1928, Vincent landed in Chennai, then Madras, the capital of the presidency, to begin his career in films as an assistant cameraman. Here in Chennai, he assisted the legendary cinematographer, Marcus Bartley, who introduced what is called Hollywood style camera work in regional language film industry.
His noted works as cameraman include Amar Deep (Hindi, 1958), Uthama Puthiran (Tamil, 1958), Nenjil Oru Aalayam (Tamil, 1961), Sumaithaangi (Tamil, 1962), Kadhalikka Neramillai (Tamil, 1964), Enga Veettu Pillai (Tamil, 1965), Vasantha Maligai (Tamil,1973) among others.
His directorial debut was in Malayalam with Bhargavi Nilayam in 1964. The first film in Malayalam to feature a ghost, this was a runaway hit, establishing Vincent as a director. He went on to make several popular and critically-acclaimed films, often choosing scripts based on works by renowned writers.
Family members said Vincent’s funeral mass will be held on Thursday at St Joseph Church in Nungambakkam, and the burial will be at the Quibble Island Cemetery.
Jaya offers condolences
Chennai: AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday condoled Vincent’s demise. “His demise is a huge loss to the film industry. I convey my deepest condolences to his family members and pray that his soul rest in peace,” she said. He had directed Tirumaangalyam, in which she had acted .
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / February 26th, 2015
Books and the sea filled her life, and the city gave her enough of both. That’s author Anita Nair reminiscing her Chennai days.
“Growing up in Avadi, my main interests were to go to the Moore market to buy books and hit the beach where the sea seemed like an endless horizon of abundance and hope,” said Nair, whose latest novel is ‘Idris: Keeper of Light.’
She was addressing English literature students of Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed College for Women as part of a collaborative lecture series organised by the Madras Literary Society (MLS) to create awareness about its project to restore books, digitalise its catalogue and enroll more members.
In a sense, writing the book itself was a journey for her as she “travelled to places beyond to tap into the great unconscious world” where she visualised Idris, an African trader who is the main character of her novel, named after a prophet who wielded a pen. She wrote in long hand and it took six years to complete the book. ‘Idris’ was inspired by stories narrated by an acquaintance on a boat ride on the Nila river, now called the Bharatapuzha in Kerala, about a group of warriors in the 1600s who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the Zamorin of Calicut every 12 years. Historical fiction, she said, “makes history palatable and fiction relevant.” She researched the period and culled material from foreigners’ travelogues and records kept by a Portuguese clerk called Duarte Barbosa. Dr Fathima Banu, head of English department, Admiral M Raman and Padma Padmanabhan of MLS were among those present.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / February 25th, 2015
S. Thabuna, a former student of Cluny Matriculation Higher Secondary School, has won the Bal Shree award for creative writing at the national level for 2011-12.
The Bal Shree Honour Scheme was constituted by the Centre in 1993 to recognise and tap creativity in children in the age group of 9 to 16. Ms. Thabuna, now an MBBS student at the Government Kilpauk Medical College received the honour for her talent in creative writing.
She told The Hindu that topics were given just before the competitions began.
“The national competition went on for four days, and each topic was challenging,” she said adding that she wanted to become a medical writer.
She wanted more school students to participate in the competitions.
Her parents A. Sivaprakasam and S. Girija said that they were proud of their daughter winning a national level award.
B. Hemanathan, Regional Assistant Director, Art and Culture Department, Salem Zone, said that the competitions were held in painting, collage designing, formations from waste materials, clay modelling, c classical vocal, and Bharatanatyam.
Union Minister for Human Resource Development Smriti Zubin Irani presented the Bal Shree award at a function held in New Delhi recently.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Tamil Nadu / by Staff Reporter / Salem – February 25th, 2015
A file picture of director Sakthi with Kamal Hasan
Chennai :
Exactly two months to the day he lost his mentor K Balachander, Kamal Haasan lost the man who directed his first film as an adult. R C Sakthi, who directed an 18-year-old Kamal and Srividya in a movie about sexually transmitted diseases, Unarvugal, in 1972, passed away on Monday afternoon. He breathed his last at the SRM Institutes of Medical Sciences in Vadapalani, where he had suffered a massive heart attack at 10 pm on Sunday night and passed away at 2.55 pm on Monday.
At 76, Sakthi may have appeared as one of those active, old directors who still had a keen eye on cinema – with few worries in the world. But his doctors have a different story to tell. A nephrologist who had treated him at SIMS said, “For over four years now, he has been on dialysis twice a week. His kidneys were in really bad shape and his sugar levels were extremely high. Recently, we found that his heart wasn’t pumping blood quite actively, with an ejection fraction rate of only 30 per cent. He needed surgery, but with all the medical complications, there was simply nothing we could do.” They had almost lost him when his second kidney failed in 2011, at Vijaya Hospital, but he fought back and survived against massive odds – much like his cinematic career. In 2013, 20 years after his last feature film Pathinipenn, he made a short film featuring his grandchildren with a song sung by Kamal in the soundtrack.
He had been in and out of the hospital several times for his kidney and heart issues – but on Sunday, it was diarrhoea and high fever that had brought him there.
A flustered, almost teary-eyed Kamal rushed to the hospital by 5 pm and paid his respects to a man who was much more than just a director to him. “He was a brother… a part of my family… a true friend,” said Kamal, struggling to find the words that best describe Sakthi. “But above all, he was a true fan. He remained one of the most ardent fans that any true actor could have and his loss is one that will take me some time to accept,” he rasped, before leaving the hospital with Gauthami.
After making Unarvugal – a film that was held up for four years because of its radical content by the censor board – he did Dharma Yuddham with Rajinikanth and films like Manakannaku with Vijayakant, before tapering off into small projects. With his roots firmly planted in theatre, he had come to Chennai from a small village near Paramakudi and joined Villupaatu Subbhu Aarumugham’s troupe, before graduating to cinema. He remained a close friend to both Kamal and Rajini.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / February 24th, 2015
