The lane called Pathuthoon Sandhu could be easily missed by a first-time visitor to the city as several textile shops dominate it. This protected archaeological site near the historical vilakkuthoon (lamppost) in Madurai was part of the erstwhile Nayak Mahal. It was at Rangavilasam where Thirumalai Nayak’s brother Muthiyalu Nayak stayed. The 10 pillars (Pathuthoon) were part of the palace.
The pillars are 12 meters high and have a diameter of 1.2 m. They were constructed with ring-shape stones placed one above another. The magnificent pillars inside Nayak Mahal are also of the same pattern, but they are plastered, archaeological sources said.
According to historians, Rangavilasam was dismantled when the capital of Madurai Nayaks was shifted to Trichy after Thirumalai Nayak’s rule in 1665. It was Thirumalai Nayak who turned Madurai as the capital of Nayak kingdom, but his predecessors and successors preferred Trichy instead. When they moved the capital again, they moved the materials from the dismantled portion of palace – Rangavilasam -to the new capital, said R Venkataraman, a city-based historian.
British rulers, who captured power in Madurai after the Nayaks, preserved the 10 pillars as they were quite amused by its architecture. “British rulers were curious to learn the architectural methods of the natives and they protected the pillars,” he said, while adding that “silk weavers living near the palace occupied the area after Rangavilasa was dismantled. Pathuthoon Sandhu was a typical silk weavers’ lane.”
There is a reason why the lane is so narrow, Venkataraman said. “After the Gupta dynasty, silk became the attire of royal families for it symbolized peace and prosperity. Silk weavers – predominantly Sourashtrians – were patronized by several dynasties across the country. Chola, Pandya, Nayak and Vijayanagara rulers patronized them in the south,” he said.
“Silk weavers lived near palaces and silk processing and weaving were conducted discreetly. The streets were meant only for use by the weavers. The narrow lanes were used to dry silk threads. Anyone sneaking into the streets was questioned by guards deployed at military outposts near the lane,” Venkataraman explained.
Several textile shops fringe the lane now. “There are not many houses when compared to about 30 years ago. The lane has been turned into a commercial hub for textiles in the last three decades,” said Balakrishnan, a textile merchant.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 09th, 2014
Established in 1892 by the British, Arapalayam Water Works is the first modern drinking water scheme in Madurai. An initiative of J A Jones, a British engineer, the project enabled the British to provide drinking water to Madurai city.
However, the scheme was abandoned after 1980 due to contamination of the riverbed and decaying of the stone structure which hosted the water works after city corporation dismantled its roof for renovation. Almost after a year, renovation was not carried out and the otherwise heritage structure is at peril. Residents and conservationists advocate that the structure and place surrounding it – being used as two-wheeler stand at present – can be converted into a beautiful park and heritage centre.
After capturing power in Madurai, the British constituted the city as a municipality in 1866 . To provide clean drinking water, Arapalayam Water Works was developed by the municipal administration by constructing a check dam and sand aquifer wells were sunk. The British were able to pump 30 lakh litres per hour through this system and were able to provide drinking water to the entire city. They also took care in protecting the check dam and aquifers by deploying a mounted horse battalion. According to a book titled ‘Neerinri – the water resources of Madurai’, the project, which had a long run was abandoned in 1980.
R Shivakumar, author of Neerinri, stresses that the structure should be protected considering its heritage value. “It could be turned into a park and the building could be used to host an event exhibiting photos and models of drinking water schemes of Madurai,” he said.
R Jothiram, 60, a resident of Arapalayam, recalled that a park existed some decades ago. “Some 40 years ago there was a park surrounding the water works. The Vaigai river itself was in good condition. The corporation and PWD failed to prevent contamination of the river and subsequently abandoned the project,” he rued. “There is no proper park for Arapalayam and Ponnagaram regions and converting this land at Arapalayam as park will be ideal. Besides hundreds of passengers utilizing nearby Arapalayam bus stand can cool their heels in this park,” said A Ramesh, a resident of Ponnagaram.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 11th, 2014
The 226th birth anniversary of John Sullivan, founder of the famous hill station of Udhagamandalam, better known as Ooty, which falls today, will henceforth be celebrated as ‘Ootacamund day,’ a top official of the Nilgiris Documentation centre said.
“The credit for finding Ooty was given to John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817. As a mark of respect, it has been decided to celebrate June 15, his birthday as Ootacamund day,” D Venugopal, Director of Nilgiris Documentation Centre said.
An announcement to this effect was made by him today at a function in front of twin oak trees planted by Sullivan at Government Arts College.
Venugopal said one has to reflect that when Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are locked in disputes over sharing river waters, Ooty has been attracting more visitors from these states. The Nilgiri mountains have been donating most of its
waters to the surrounding plains even while there is widespread water scarcity on the hills, he said.
John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817.
This co-existence was the guiding spirit for declaring the day to be celebrated after Sullivan’s birthday, Venugopal said.
source: http://www.ibnlive.in.com / IBN Live / Home / by Press Trust of India / June 15th, 2014
A shop in the region with Pennycuick’s face on its hoarding.
With a fan club, several memorials and induction into the local Hindu pantheon, the legend of John Pennycuick, British engineer and chief architect of the disputed Periyar waterworks, lives on in southern Tamil Nadu
The fabled rice paddies of the Cumbum valley in Theni district, one of the most fertile belts in south India lying west of Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, are girded by dense canopies of banana, grape and coconut. Here and there, Jersey cows look up from patches of serrated foliage, and rows of onion and beet saplings dance like so many chiffon-clad starlets before them in these bucolic uplands beloved of Tamil filmmakers. The road to Kumili, on the Kerala border, is a ribbon unspooling atop this parcel of green and surging towards the Cardamom Hills, wherein lies the fount of all this bounty: the 119-year-old Mullaperiyar dam, the source of a long-standing conflict between Tamil Nadu, which wants more of its water, and Kerala, which is concerned about the dam’s safety.
Last month, in a major victory for Tamil Nadu, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld a 2006 judgment on the height and safety of the dam and allowed the water level to be raised to 142 ft. The move could mean that farmers in the state, who had settled into a bi-annual cropping pattern and suffered crop losses after the reduction in the height of the dam to 136 ft in 1979, may go back to raising three crops a year. It was amid this wave of hope that we visited Theni, one of five districts — including Madurai, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and Dindigul — in the barren rain shadow region of Tamil Nadu that sprang to life with the opening of the 155 ft-high masonry dam in Kerala’s Idukki district in 1895. The spirit of the ruddy, mustachioed Colonel John Pennycuick (January 15, 1841 to March 9, 1911), the British chief engineer of the Periyar Waterworks, bestrides the low hills of Cumbum, which he is said to have surveyed on horseback over a century ago with his local aides, Aanaiviratti (tamer of elephants) Aanaithevar and Kaduvetti (clearer of forests) Karuputhevar. Over the years, legend of his largesse has snowballed and he has been assimilated into the local Hindu pantheon, with farming families offering the first harvest of the year in the form of pongal to a kumkum-anointed portrait of Pennycuick — a balding man in a white collared shirt and a dark jacket, his white-flecked moustache carelessly framing thin lips.
The legacy of a man who changed the course of the Periyar river, and the lives of millions of people, with the gravity of his actions and his sheer strength of purpose looms large over Theni. “If it wasn’t for Pennycuick, our fields would be fallow. Over 2.17 lakh acres of paddy, cultivated by 32,000 small farmers, are impacted by the dam. Every day, a crore or more people drink from its waters,” says KM Abbas, president of a farmers’ forum in Cumbum and author of a book on Pennycuick. In Cumbum, says Abbas, children know him as Pennycuick thatha (Tamil for grandfather) and are often named after his associates, a popular name being Logandurai, for ER Logan, who oversaw tunnelling works for the Periyar project.
For most of its 300-km length, the Periyar, literally, the Big River, flows through Kerala before emptying — wastefully, according to Tamil Nadu — into the Arabian Sea. Pennycuick’s great ingenuity was that he dammed the river at its confluence with the smaller Mullaiyar river, and diverted the water from the reservoir through a 1.6-km-long tunnel to Tamil Nadu, where it goes on to feed the Suruliyar river and the Vaigai dam. This water then passes through a grid of canals to irrigate vast tracts of land in the state. It would seem that the man who diverted a river from west to east for the first time in India’s history, charted a similar course for himself as he settled down to work at his modest cottage on the dam site at Idukki. Locals say he spoke fluent Tamil, relished biryani and made sure his workers never wanted for food or liquor. When torrents of rain washed away his labour of love three years into its construction, around the year 1890, he is said to have wept and struggled to gather funds for rebuilding the masonry dam in the face of scepticism from the British government.
In Palani Chettipatti, a small town near Theni through which a canal of the Mullaiyar flows, a legend reverberates with variations: the Chettiars from the area, locals say, donated liberally to the cause and Pennycuick gave them free access to the waters as a token of his gratitude. In yet another elision between fact and fable, solid gold offerings are said to have been consigned to the river at the behest of Pennycuick ahead of the opening of the sluice gates. We find a scant bit of history in Cumbum at the house of the descendants of Angur Rawther, Pennycuick’s contractor and supplier of labour and provisions. Rawther’s grandson, silver-haired Jafferulla, has preserved records of his family’s association with Pennycuick, including a note of thanks from the Government of Travancore for hosting dignitaries on their visits to the Periyar project.
In Thekkady, on the inter-state border, where the language changes abruptly to Malayalam as though we flicked a switch, the Rawthers still grow cardamom on lush slopes dotted with resorts. This side of the border, Pennycuick’s bust is the centrepiece of a well-tended garden facing the PWD bungalow at the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, where the artificial lake formed by the damming of the river is an important habitat for elephants and other wildlife. The 777-sq-km area was declared a sanctuary in 1934 and by 1978, it had become Kerala’s only tiger reserve. “All this tourism here is because of Pennycuick and the dam. But Kerala will never acknowledge him,” says a PWD worker, on condition of anonymity.
In Tamil Nadu, Pennycuick is both hero and victim. His face has became a trope for the troubled history of Mullaperiyar and a receptacle for political interests after the two states came to a head in the late 1970s. Photoshopped posters of chief minister Jayalalithaa and MDMK’s Vaiko sharing the stage with Pennycuick’s likeness are now plastered on public walls across the Cumbum valley. The Colonel even has his own fanclub, the Pennycuick Rejuvenation Forum led by O Andi of Palarpatti, a village near Thevaram in the Cumbum valley that hosted Pennycuick’s grandson in 2003. In December 2011, Andi led an agitation by over 1,200 farmers against Kerala’s stance on the dam. “We used Pennycuick’s posters to communicate our point of view — that the dam, after it has been strengthened, poses no threat to Kerala,” says Andi, in his dimly-lit home where a wall with a large, garlanded poster of the Englishman is the first thing that meets the eye. “We have been working for a decade to raise awareness about the great man,” says Andi, who began printing and distributing pamphlets on Pennycuick while still in college. “Not many people had heard of him before the Mullaperiyar issue became a movement in these parts. Now he is the face of the movement,” he says.
The largest and the latest of memorials to Pennycuick, with a giant bronze statue and black-and-white photographs of the dam, was inaugurated at Lower Camp near Gudalur in Theni last year by Jayalalithaa. It is here that Sanjeevi, 65, and her cousin Maragadham, 57, have come to pay their respects to a man who, they say, “did more than anyone ever could for Tamil Nadu”. “When we heard about the Supreme Court verdict, we set out on this pilgrimage,” says Sanjeevi, who spent her youth gathering forest produce near Gudalur before moving to Coimbatore to find work as a cook. In two days, Sanjeevi will leave for the city, but not before casting a final glance at Pennycuick at the Theni bus stand, which bears his name like so many restaurants, salons and cabs do in the region. “It is believed that his picture brings good luck,” says Rafiq Raja, of Hotel Mullai, a restaurant on the Theni-Kollam highway near Chinnamannur. “He gave us life. This is the least we can do to remember him,” Raja says.
Upon retiring from the PWD, Pennycuick returned to England to serve as president of the Royal Indian Engineering College, an institution on Cooper’s Hill near Egham, Surrey, that trained civil engineers to work in India. But for the people of the Cumbum-Theni region, Pennycuick is forever sutured into their consciousness, a flame of aspiration glowing through their darkest and driest years.
source: http://www.financialexpress.com / The Financial Express / Home> Economy / by V. Shoba / June 15th, 2014
Scholarships distributed the Carnatic Family Association (CFA) founded by the Nawabs of the Carnatic, distributed the annual educational scholarships to deserving students of the Carnatic Family, at its general body meeting held at Amir Mahal.
The Association distributed scholarships to 92 school students and college students, ranging up to `10,000, for different courses.
The Prince Of Arcot, Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali, is the head of the Carnatic Family and patron-in-chief of CFA. A large number of members from the Carnatic Family attended the function.
The Association also organises socio-cultural activities to promote communal harmony and national integration and also celebrates major religious festivals. It also conducts games and sports for its members periodically.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / June 16th, 2014
The DGP office near Marina beach would have been razed around 20 years ago but for the efforts of a group of heritage lovers. The police department wanted to demolish the building and erect a modern skyscraper that would house all its offices. The local chapter of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) filed a case against the demolition in the Madras high court, which ruled in favour of its preservation.
The judgment is widely hailed as a landmark in the heritage preservation movement in India. It is one of the earliest instances, in the entire country, when a voluntary agency successfully fought a legal battle against a government department for the cause of heritage.
The case inspired voluntary groups in other cities to fight for local historic structures. In recent years, Intach has approached the courts to save Chennai’s other historic landmarks such as Bharat Insurance Building on Anna Salai.
Although India is rich in historic buildings, there are hardly any laws to preserve them. The archaeology department protects a limited number of structures. It is in this scenario that the role of volunteers in heritage conservation becomes crucial.
For centuries, the task of conserving historic sites and monuments was the prerogative of the government. In the nineteenth century, people around the world realized the need for voluntary organizations for heritage preservation. These organizations, called National Trusts, were intended to supplement the role of the state and also question government action (or inaction!) in the field. Intach is India’s National Trust, started in 1984 and modeled on the English National Trust.
Throughout the world, National Trusts have been fighting court cases to save historic properties. Since 1970, the American National Trust has been involved in over 130 court cases including the most well-known Penn Central Transportation Co vs City of New York, 1978. In this case, the US Supreme Court prevented the erection of a 55-storey office tower atop New York’s Grand Central Rail Station.
Voluntary efforts need not always be channeled through the courts. Appeals and non-violent agitations can sometimes have the same effect. Right on Marina, Queen Mary’s College, next to the DGP Office, was slated to be demolished in 2003 for building a new state secretariat. But protests by citizens compelled the government to give up the plan. In 2012, the highways department, acting on appeal from Intach, changed the alignment of a proposed road near Villupuram to save a 1,000-year-old temple.
There’s a lot that people can do to stand up for heritage and it starts with just wanting to keep history alive.
(The writer is Tamil Nadu convener, Intach. As a Fulbright scholar, he earlier worked in American National Trust in Washington DC)
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / June 06th, 2014
The gopuram of the ancient Sri Veerateswarar temple with the flag staff (Photo: DC)
Chennai:
Seeped in rich ancient political and religious history Thirukovilur, a temple town in Villupuram district near here, is waking up to development and is getting readied to welcome hundreds of visitors. Recently, the state government had come forward to provide more infrastructure and this initiative will ensure more amenities around the ancient Sri Veerateshwar temple. The town is also held in esteem by Vaishnavites as it houses the renowned Sri Trivikrama or Ulagalanda Perumal temple, on the southern banks of Krishnabhadra. Besides here, Lord Vishnu is worshipped as Ulagalanda Perumal at neighbouring Kanchi.
Thirukovilur, about 190 km from here, is one of the “Ashta Veeratanams” (eight places of bravery) and it is believed that Lord Shiva took various forms (incarnations) to destroy evil and establish justice manifested Himself at Thirukovilur. The goddess of the Veerateswarar temple, on the banks of river Pennar, is Brhannayaki. Legend has it that Avvayaar wrote the famous “Vinayagar Agavel” at this temple.
It is said the greatest Tamil king, Rajaraja Chola, and his brother, Chola Prince Aditya Karikalan were born in Keelaiyur, Thirukovilur. About 1,000 years ago, Thirukovilur was regarded as one of the four largest cities in the southern region almost on par with the all time famous pilgrimage towns of Kancheepuram, Madurai and Thanjavur. The Sri Raghothama Theertha Brindavanam of the famous saints of Sri Madhwa parampara, Sri Raghotamma theertharu, along the banks of river Pinakini, is located about 36 km from Tiruvannamalai and 2 km before Thirukovilur, on Tiruvannamalai — Thirukovilur highway.
According to an order issued by Mr R. Kannan, principal secretary, tourism, culture & religious endowments department, chief minister J. Jayalalithaa ordered to provide basic facilities at 14 important tourist centres, at a total cost of Rs 10.58 crore including Thirukovilur in Villupuram district. About Rs 1.27 crore would be spent to improve tourist infrastructure at Thirukovilur including establishing promenade, on Sannadhi street and sanitary complex around Sri Veerateswarar temple and water supply work.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC / by J.V. Siva Prasanna Kumar / June 01st, 2014
A car for all seasons: A white Ambassador with a red beacon light on top symbolised power. Painted yellow-and-black, the Ambassador also played the role of a taxi admirably./ Photo: S.R. Raghunathan / The Hindu
It once ruled our roads. It still rules our hearts
In the 1990s, Bjorn Borg cut a sorry figure as he faced younger players with his anachronistic wooden racquet. This man, who picked up Grand Slam titles with the ease of someone gathering sea shells, put up a dismal show during the comeback trail, failing to win a single match. Tennis had shifted gears from finesse to power, and Borg was too stuck in the past to make the adjustment.
The Ambassador’s story shares similarities with Borg’s. A symbol of social significance and an icon of power for decades, the Hindustan Ambassador lost its way when the field got wider allowing for more cars to compete for the buyer’s wallet. With a design that seemed to be cast in stone, the Ambassador was pitted against sleeker modern cars that were responsive to even minor shifts in buyer’s preferences. The writing was on the wall, for everyone to see, so clear that aliens in outer space could not have missed it. And therefore, the news of Hindustan Motors stopping production of Ambassadors at its Uttapara plant in West Bengal has been received with more sadness than surprise.
It is actually not so much sadness as an unsettling sense of loss. The car has been so much a part of the landscape, so us, so Indian, that it does not feel right to have it removed from us.
A white Ambassador with a red beacon light on top symbolised power for us. A politician or a bureaucrat somehow looked incomplete without an Ambassador. Painted yellow-and-black, the Amby played another role admirably, that of a taxi, gathering unlikely bands of admirers. In 2013, the Hindustan Ambassador was chosen as the world’s best taxi at Beaulieu’s World of Top Gear show. This humble car from India is reported to have made it by besting tough contenders from Britian, Russia, Germany, South Africa, America and Mexico.
The Amby has found its place among the cars of the world and has its loyal fans, which include youngsters who were born much after Maruti Suzuki 800 arrived with its impressive pick-up, compact body and attractive looks.
Joseph Rajini Asir (right) in his Ambassador, doing a politician’s greeting along with his friend Ram Keshav. / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Joseph Rajini Asir destroys the theory that only people over 35 are charmed by the Amby. All of 24, he spells out his distress over what has happened to this car, and he is not making such remarks to blend in. Five months ago, this young man became a proud owner of an Ambassador. Employed with Amazon.com and a freelance photographer, he had been putting aside money towards buying one.
“Our family has had a relationship with the Ambassador. My grandfather Durai used to drive a Landmaster,” Joseph explains what led to his purchase of an old Ambassador with a carburettor-fed engine.
Enthusiasm of this kind for the Amby is rare among those in their early-twenties. Because, from the early days of their lives, they would have had a raft of modern cars to gaze at and the Amby would have seemed very distant from their times. That is because the car did not undergo major changes for a large part of its life. Mechanics and Amby collectors would tell you that the Amby rolled out in 1990 was essentially the same as the one in 1958, with the majority of the differences just surface-deep.
“A plethora of important elements, such as the gearbox and suspension parts could be interchanged between Ambassadors in the Mark I to IV family,” says R. Gunasekar, who is employed with Popular Motor Corporation.
Others like vintage and classic car collectors Jayaram brothers — Sri Kumar and Jai Kumar — who have had Ambassadors ranging from Mark I to Mark IV, at different points of time, would agree with him.
Patterned on the Morris Oxford II and the Morris Oxford III respectively, the Hindustan Landmaster and the first Ambassador model, often conveniently referred to as Mark I, were like cousins who clearly appeared to have come from a common stock, but also looked markedly different from each other, helped by factors such as dimples, deep-set eyes and the arrangement of teeth. Distinguishing features of the Ambassador included a dimpled hood, a three-spoke steering wheel (the Landmaster had a two-spoke wheel), tail fins and deep-set cowls for the headlamps.
In contrast, the Ambassadors through Mark I to IV were like children born to the same couple and were similar in many more respects and could be retrieved and grouped together even if they were lost in an ocean of humanity. The frontal section helped differentiate between these Ambassadors; other parts of the car, including the dashboard and the lamps, also underwent some changes. It was this generation of Ambassadors that established the idea that these cars had a common core that shone brightly though their dissimilarities. A path-breaking development took place in this generation: a variant of the Mark IV received a BMC B-series diesel engine and is now credited with being the first diesel car produced in India.
Beginning with the launch of the Nova, which came on the heels of the Mark series, a desperate attempt was made to infuse a sense of variety into the brand so that potential buyers did not feel starved of choices. The exercise extended to the current generation of Ambassadors (or, should it be called the last?), consisting of Classic, Grand, Avigo and Encore. Efforts were also made to bring these cars on a par with the best in their category in terms of technology and visual appeal.
From the time of Nova, attention was paid to the steering column for the sake of safety and suspension and braking system were improved considerably,” says Gunasekar.
Despite this exercise, the Ambassador continued to be seen as a brand that underwent only nominal design changes. Admirable continuity, you may call it, but the apparent sameness did not make the car popular with a generation that is spoilt for choice and is always looking for new experiences.
Families began to gravitate towards other cars entering the expanding market. However, for a long time before the canker dug its feet in, Ambassador continued to be the car of choice for politicians and bureaucrats. It also continued its grip on the taxi business. In fact, even now, when the Indica seems to dominate the scene, the Ambassador has a following.
Ravi Kumar, who runs a car travel company, says he will not let go of his 2008 Ambassador. / Photo: K.V. Srinivasan / The Hindu
Ravi Kumar, who runs an eponymous car travel company in Mylapore, is known as ‘Ambassador’ Ravi. He would not let go of his 2008 Avigo because he has found regulars who would not settle for anything other than an Ambassador. “I know people from Malaysia who ask me to bring my Ambassador when they are here in Chennai,” says Ravi, who longs for the days when the Amby ruled Indian roads.
“At one point, in my travel company I was running 15 Ambassadors that were my own and 40 others that belonged to other people. The advent of the call taxi business has pushed out the Ambassadors. But, there are still people who want the Amby,” says Ravi.
Call it wishful thinking or anything you want, but this is what Joseph believes in: “The Amby is here to stay.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Melange / by Prince Frederick / Chennai – May 30th, 2014
An array of age-old Thanjavur paintings was found at an abandoned Ettukal Mandapam near Gandharvakkottai in the district by members of the District Science Forum.
According to Manikandan, a teacher at the Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Gandarvakkottai, and member of Tamil Nadu Science Forum, the paintings were found on the roof top of the Ettukal Mandapam located in the banks of Chettiyurani, a small irrigation tank, in Gandharvakkottai. He said the paintings were lying in a dilapidated state.
After finding the paintings, the team called on a famous artist S Kaliyaperumal here, to know its details. Kaliyaperumal told them that the paintings were of the later Maratha period. Artists had used bio-chemicals to give colour and shade to the paintings.
The members of the Science Forum urged the district administration to take decisive steps to protect the painting before it gets completely destroyed.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / June 03rd, 2014
Director Haricharan./ by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Director S. Haricharan is in China to film the life of Bodhidharma, said to be a Tamil prince
“Is the blue-eyed barbarian, as he is referred to in Chinese texts, a myth or real?” asks film director S. Haricharan (Thoovaanam), who is in China on invitation to shoot a film on the life of Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism. “I consider this a rare privilege and an even greater honour that I have been given access to shoot inside the Shaolin temple at Mount Song in the Henan Province of China. It is probably the first time that a film director from Tamil Nadu will have access to shoot inside the Shaolin temple. It is even more gratifying that I will be shooting a film on the life of the great Bodhidharma who, according to many available records, was a Pallava prince born in Kanchipuram!” says Haricharan.
Haricharan in front of the Shaolin temple./ by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Prior to his visit to China, Haricharan went on a recce to Vaiyalur (Kanchipuram) to check out a culvert inscription available with A.S.I Chennai (provided by Dr. Maheshwari) that one Bodhivarman (a Pallava prince) did exist around the same period that Bodhidharma surfaced in China. “Did Bodhivarman, on embracing Buddhism and fearing persecution, flee from Kanchi via the Palar river to Mammalapuram and then board a ship to China? Did his father, the king, aid him in his efforts to leave Kanchi in search of a forefather who was already in China spreading Buddhism? There are many such unanswered questions. With hope in my heart and filled with pride and enthusiasm, I am on the way to China in an effort to try and unravel the mystery surrounding Bodhidharma,” says an excited Haricharan.
The director is accompanied by cinematographer Sharon and will be assisted by a Chinese crew while shooting at the Shaolin temple.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Cinema Plus / by Nikhil Raghavan / Chennai – May 31st, 2014
