The historic post office on Rajaji Salai has seen its fair share of mishaps. In 2011, a portion of the roof collapsed during the monsoon. / Photo: S. Netheshkumar / The Hindu

Portion of the late 19 century building was declared unfit for use; officials now consider restoration

The historic General Post Office on Rajaji Salai may well be termed a phoenix of a heritage building, for the number of times it has recouped after mishaps.

The civil wing of the postal department is now assessing the feasibility of implementing the recommendations of an INTACH report to restore a sizeable portion of the late 19 century building. The section currently lies unoccupied for fear of latent dangers.

According to sources in the department, the report which was commissioned by the former post master general, covers the ground, first and second floor of the eastern corner of the building used by the postal department. Of this, the ground floor is currently being used, they said. The other half of the bifurcated building is being used by the telecom department, according to them.

According to an official, the portions of ‘right-side’ of the building’ had been declared unfit for use, and the departments functioning in those portions had been relocated to other parts of the building in 2007. K. Kalpana, conservation architect, who worked on the report, says that she had suggested that the work be carried out in three phases, as close to 20,000 square feet of the heritage building was not in use when she was working on the report earlier this year.

“Collectively, it is a three-year project and I had suggested that work on the roofing be done in the first phase since it is the most crucial,” she said.

However, officials in the civil department note that restoration on such a massive scale is replete with challenges, including red-tape. “Studying the feasibility is only the first stage. If satisfactory, it has to be approved by the administrative wing of the department and the Heritage Conservation Committee, following which funding needs to be looked into. And, since it requires heavy funding, it may not be allocated at one go,” the official said, adding that he could not put a date to when the study would be completed.

Sourcing expertise and material, also would be a challenge, the official noted. “When we were restoring the elevation of a heritage postal building in Bangalore, we could not declare the work complete for a long time because the original material was not available, and had to wait for it.” However, the official, also said that since it was an important structure, they would accord it priority.

According to M.M. Inamdar’s ‘Madras GPO- Earlier Postal History of Madras Presidency’, the idea of establishing a GPO in the premises of Fort St. George was first mooted in 1785 and shortly thereafter A.M. Campbel was first appointed to the office of post master general.

On how it came to function in its current premises, he wrote that the GPO was first located in a building on the beach in Fort. St. George Square. In 1837, it was removed to a building in Fort commonly called the old bank. In 1856, it was shifted to Pophams Broadway from where it moved to its present building in 1884, he writes. In 2000, the GPO was witness to a fire that destroyed the main counter, sorting halls, computers and stores, and the speed post and foreign mail sections. More recently in 2011, a portion of the roof collapsed during the monsoons.

An employee who fondly recalls how a portion of the building designed by architect R.F. Chisholm was a vantage point to see the harbour and enjoy the see breeze, said that she hopes that the building would be restored to its original glory.

“Today, anyone can erect swanky buildings, but how many would get an opportunity to work in such an old and unique building,” she said

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Asha Sridhar / Chennai, January 03rd, 2013

KONGU NAATTIL THOMAS MUNROE

Idaippadi Amudhan

Anuradha Pathippagam, 9 Jalakantapuram Road, Idappadi — 637 101 Price: Rs.145

India during the British Raj brought some colourful personalities into limelight; Thomas Munroe is undoubtedly one of them.

Amudhan has done meticulous research on the role played by Munroe in the Kongu region. The writer has relied on historical records from the district manuals and gazetteers of Salem and Coimbatore, besides the biographies by G.R. Gleig, Alexander Arbuthnot, John Broadshah, P.R. Krishnaswamy, M. Arokiasamy and K.K. Pillai, as well as, three editorials of The Hindu from 1878 to 1978. What makes this book absorbing is the way he has strung the incidents together.

Munroe’s love for India, and particularly Dharmapuri in Salem district, comes out loud and clear. He considered seven years of his work in the area as a golden period.

For being posted in Dharmapuri, Munroe showed his gratitude to George Kippen in Fort St. George. Later as Governor, he helped I.M. Heath to establish Salem as the source for iron ore exports. He did not spare officials, whether British or Indian, who had indulged in corruption.

While Munroe introduced the ‘ryotwari’ system for direct payment of taxes by farmers, he fought with his own masters to reduce taxes on weavers. As Deputy Collector, Salem, Munroe had insisted that the Collectors are fluent in local language of the people. Later, he also distinguished himself in the British Army, during wars in the region.

Enriched with letters to his parents, siblings and friends, the book reveals the character of the protagonist. In his letter to his brother James living in Krishnagiri, Munroe wrote: “Do exercises daily in the morning. Be nice to your colleagues in the Army. Along with Maj. Cuppage and Capt. Irton and others, go round the place; it is helpful for body and mind. You would come to know more about the people. Please ensure your expenses are manageable within your salary, but don’t be a miser.”

Munroe faced challenges from his own men in the latter part of his life. However, William Thackeray and Charles Carpenter were closer to him. Novelist Thackeray’s fictional character ‘Colonel Newcome’ is none other than Munroe, quotes Amudhan. Carpenter’s sister was married to novelist Walter Scott. Carpenter died in Salem and his cemetery is found near Salem Collectorate.

Munroe married when he was 53 to a girl who was 30 years younger. In his letter dated September 15, 1795, Munroe replied to his sister who had found a girl for him, thus: “Even if we marry, I cannot assure her that our married life would be pleasant. While my wife would love to play the melody of flute into my ears, she would show her wrath on servants instead, whenever she is angry with me.”

The final chapter when Munroe contracts cholera and succumbs to it in Gooty, is moving. The book presents an intimate picture of Munroe with authenticity.

Charukesi

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> Arts> Books / by Charukesi / December 27th, 2012

Coimbatore :
An ancient box-like chamber made of crude stones believed to have been built in the megalithic period was discovered recently in Kongal Nagar Village near Udumalpet by a set of epigraphy students from Coimbatore. Known in archeological circles as dolemnoid cist, the chamber may have been built as early as in 5000 BC, according to epigraphy diploma students of PSG College of Arts and Science in the city and their teacher, who identified the cist.

Lecturer S Ravi and his team of 75 students went to the site after being told by a few local residents that they get old urns and pieces of earthen ware while digging or ploughing the land. The students spent three days in the village and found the cist accidentally amidst bushes in a corner of the village. “People worshipped at some of these burial  sites and they were unaware of its archeological importance. The place also contains slab cists which indicate that the area had ancient settlements. Even though the place has been mentioned as a megalithic site, there has been no proper study or the region’s importance so far,” said Ravi.

According to Ravi, materials that date back up to the megalithic period lie scattered over 300 acres of land in the village. While students found one cist almost intact, they also found stone pieces of many crushed cists in other parts of the village. In slab cist sites, stone slabs are normally found underneath the earth with chambers to keep metals or wares.

They normally indicate the prosperity of the habitation. However, dolemnoid cists are normally above the ground and used to keep dead bodies or skeletons. They are mostly devoid of valuables. “The dolemnoid cist indicates the early years of megalithic period when people mostly led a nomadic existence. Even though people of megalithic period used urns apart from red and black wares and metals, the dolemnoid cist found in Udumalpet did not have these things. It further confirms it was built during early megalithic period,” said Ravi.
The dolemnoid cist could have been built as a mark of respect to an important person in the group who died while safeguarding them from external attacks. Or it could be a tomb of a respectable member of the clan. The newly found dolemnoid cist has a port hole, a round opening with a diameter of 25 cm and thickness of 6cm.

The cist has a port hole since people then believed that spirits lived on even after death. Nomadic groups often offered prayers at such sites. Generally, dolemnoid cists are found in large numbers in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts in Tamil Nadu. However, the port hole is either on the eastern side or western side. “The most important finding of the dolemnoid cist found in Udumalpet is that it has the port hole on the northern side. This is something very interesting and the site needs to be studied by the archaeological department,” said Ravi.

V Jagadishan, a former epigraphist with Tamil Nadu  State Archeology Department, said the area is already identified as a megalithic site. The new findings must be researched further, he said. “Dr K Rajan, professor of history at Pondicherry University, had mentioned about the site in his research work. However, it is not sure whether there is a mention about this particular dolemnoid cist in his work,” said Jagadishan.

S Chinnasamy, president of Kongal Nagar Panchayat, said residents of the village have in the past got metal and earthen ware while digging the ground. However, no one knew the importance of it and many have been destroyed. “No study was ever conducted here. It is only when students and the teacher from PSG College came here we got to know the importance of the site,” he said. “We are planning to set up a committee to safeguard these ancient sites,” he added.

Students who were part of the study are naturally excited about what they have discovered. E Sangavi, an epigraphy student, said that it was an exciting trip for all the students. However, it was unfortunate that people were unaware of their importance which has led to many of the sites getting destroyed.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Coimbatore / by C.P. Sajit, TNN / December 20th, 2012

MADRAS MISCELLANY:

Looking for a definitive date for the beginnings of cricket in Madras, a Daniells painting seemed to indicate that it would have been 1792. By the 1840s, European clubs, British military teams and Planters’ XIs had begun to play the game a bit more seriously and by the 1860s, more competitively. By the 1860s too, they had introduced the game to Indians, who began to play it in schools and colleges and in friendlies between scratch teams. But it was the founding of the Madras United Cricket Club in 1888 that resulted in Indian cricket being born as an institution. That Club, now called the Madras United Club, will begin celebrating its centenary year from December 8, a few days away.

Responsible for founding the Club was M. Buchi Babu Naidu of the Dera Venkataswami Naidu clan, and a few of his friends who shared his passion for the game. Buchi Babu’s own passion for the game developed when the English nurses he and his four brothers had, used to take them to watch the sahibs at play. It was said many years later, “Buchi Babu lived and died like an Englishman with all the English love for horses, cricket, tennis and fox-hunting.” It was this love for the game that had him gathering as many teenagers as possible in his neighbourhood to learn the niceties of the game in the spacious grounds of the family mansion in Luz. His fellow-founders of the Club did the same in their homes. And these recruits were the nucleus of the MUCC team when it got its own ground on the Esplanade where its clubhouse still is, though those grounds have been taken over by Government.

With the MUCC having a ground and a team, Buchi Babu was determined to take on the first formal cricket club in South India, the ‘Europeans Only’ Madras Cricket Club. This was easier said than done, with Indians not being allowed the use of the pavilion. Buchi Babu, who came from a family of dubashes (of Parry & Co) and who himself was a dubash, was, as a result, on friendly terms with many of the members of the MCC. One of them was P.W. Partridge of that leading law firm of the time, King and Partridge, which had a big say in the affairs of the MCC. And when Buchi Babu and Partridge worked out a formula whereby the MUC could use the pavilion but lunch on Indian food at a separate table, the first MCC-MUC match was played c.1890. Indian cricket was on its way. This fixture was to lead to what was Madras’s ‘Big Match’, the Presidency Match played annually during Pongal between the Presidency Europeans and the Presidency Indians.

The first match almost did not come off, Buchi Babu passing away a few months before the scheduled dates at the end of December. But his lieutenant B. Subramaniam felt the best way to honour Buchi Babu’s memory was to play the match. The European XI was mainly a MCC team, whereas the Indian XI was mainly college players and Subramaniam, P.D. Krishnaswamy and R. Chari from the MUC. The next year (1909), Subramaniam organised the Buchi Babu Memorial tournament which is still with us. The MUC ran the tournament till the first representative organisation for Madras cricket was formed in 1933.

Over the years that followed its founding, the Club began looking at other sports activities. After all, its bye-laws stated that to become a member, you had to participate in some sport or the other. And so the MUCC became the MUC when the membership decided to introduce other sporting activities. A MUC team took part in the first hockey tournament played in Madras, the Madras Hockey Tournament, for which the MCC offered the trophy. The MUC team and a Royal Artillery team from Bangalore were the first to take the field when the tournament started on July 22, 1901. The MUC team included Buchi Babu at full back and its best player, as reported at the time, was centre half S.V. Chetty. But the Indian team was thrashed 15-0 in the match, something which did not happen in later years when M.J. Gopalan began playing for it.

Tennis too was a sport in which the MUC played a leading role in ensuring participation in the game by Indian clubs. This was in 1913, with J.G. Ramaswami Naidu of the Club playing a key part. When in 1917 the South Indian became the MCC Lawn Tennis Tournament, with Indians included in the competition; the MUC was offered two places on the organising committee. And by 1925, the MUC was organising an All-India tournament of its own on its courts.

When the Club started playing football, following the lead of the Madras Gymkhana, the two clubs teamed together with Harry Buck of the YMCA to form the Madras Football Association in 1934. The MUC members behind the formation of the Association were J. Subbuswami, Dr. V. N. C. Rao and ‘Comet’ Ramaswamy. The Association’s offices were at the MUC for many years and its grounds were one of the most popular venues of the game.

Billiards, snooker and bridge were all other games in which MUC players made a mark in the city and, in some, nationally. Today, these three games, tennis (on two courts) and cricket in a lower division, but with no home ground of its own, survive and are supported by an enthusiastic membership. That membership in the year ahead will remember that their Club was the first Indian club to be formed with a total focus on sport. Will the centenary year see the drawing up of plans to bring back those halcyon days when the Club was a leading representative of Indian sport in the city?

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> Arts> History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / Chennai, December 02nd, 2012

What do you think was the most significant battle in modern Indian history (1498-1948), I was recently asked by a researcher who called on me. I had no hesitation in replying, “The Battle of the Adyar River.” Much to her surprise.

The battle was a consequence of Fort St. George surrendering to the French early in October 1746. On October 15, the Nawab of Arcot — whom the English had supported — sent troops under the command of his son, Mahfuz Khan, to invest Fort St. George and ask the French to return the settlement to the English. Instead, the French broke out of the fort and dispersed the Nawab’s troops. Mahfuz Khan, reinforcing his army, it is said, to about 10,000 men, then moved south, seized San Thomé and formed a battle line on the north bank of the Adyar River on October 22 to prevent the French moving up reinforcements from Pondicherry. Two hundred French and French-trained Indian troops led by a Swiss mercenary, Captain Paradis, force marched from Pondicherry on the same day, crossed Quibble Island and took positions on the south bank of the Adyar River where they came under ineffective artillery fire from Mahfuz Khan’s forces.

On the 24th, Paradis decided to ford the river with his 200 men after he heard that a similar sized force led by de la Tour was on its way from Fort St. George to attack the rear of Mahfuz Khan’s line. But in the event, de la Tour arrived too late to support Paradis whose troops, with disciplined firing and then charging with bayonets, broke the Nawab’s line. Mahfuz Khan’s troops fled and, so, the Battle of the Adyar River, which began on the morning of October 24, 1746, ended by that evening, with the French occupation of Fort St. George consolidated.

In terms of later battles and today’s ones, the Battle of the Adyar River was not much of a clash of arms. But it proved one thing. That disciplined European troops and Indian sipahis trained in the European manner of soldiering could rout thousands of Indian soldiers with little training and less discipline. And that lesson was not lost on the English who, the same year, in their last bolt-hole on the Coromandel, Fort St. David, Cuddalore, began raising and training what became the Madras Regiment that was to be the nucleus of the Indian Army of today that grew from those beginnings. It is with that Army that the British created an India that has grown into the modern nation of today. Triggering English thought to create such a military force that was to spearhead the drive for Empire and the creation of modern India is the significance of that battle that many treat just as a footnote to history. From my point of view, it was a pivotal point in history.

Where are the tanks?

Not long ago, about a 100 years ago, Madras had within its municipal limits something like 300 water bodies. Today, there are hardly a couple of dozen. The rest have all been built over. And that includes three of its biggest ones: the Long Tank, the Vyasarpadi Tank and the Spur Tank. And lest we blame the authorities of post-Independence Madras, we should recall that the process of replacing precious water with brick and mortar began around 1920.

The Long Tank was a boomerang-shaped one, about 6 km in length from the southernmost tip of what was called the Mylapore Tank to the westernmost tip of the tank it flowed into, the Nungambakkam Tank. The Mylapore Tank stretch was one of the early venues (1870s-90s) of the Madras Boat Club regattas, having as it did “a fine expanse of water from the Cathedral Corner (where Gemini Studios used to be) to Sydapet…”. Blacker’s Garden, near what is now called Cathedral Garden Road (and then occupied by successive high Government officials) was where the boathouse was and where the Governor, his Lady and their entourage, together with his Band and other spectators (‘Europeans Only’) gathered to watch the finishes.

When there was a debate in the 1890s on whether this stretch or the Adyar (which is now the Club’s home course) was preferable, the supporters of the Long Tank pointed out, “Although the glare of the setting sun off the broad stretch of water was somewhat trying, a good view of the whole course could be had, which is not obtainable on the Adyar. The Long Tank provides a long broad stretch of deep water, the course being straight from start to finish, so that, for racing purposes, it is infinitely preferable to the river which winds about a great deal and presents at low tide, a shallow and uneven course almost throughout.” What a body of water to lose!

But lose it we did when, in 1923, the Town Planners decided that growing Madras needed more land for housing and proposed the Mambalam Housing Scheme for whose 1600 acres it became necessary to breach the Long Tank and let its waters into the Adyar. The breaching was done in 1930, and the development of Theogaraya Nagar (T’Nagar) began. Then, in 1941, the ‘Lake Area’ was developed on part of the Nungambakkam Tank and was followed by 54 acres being given for the campus of Loyola College. The last vestiges of the tank were handed over, in 1974, for the Valluvar Kottam complex.

The Vyasarpadi Tank, into which the water from 28 tanks once flowed, gradually gave way to post-Independence development and finally vanished under the weight of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board’s Vyasarpadi Neighbourhood Scheme and the Vyasarpadi Industrial Estate in the 1960s and 70s. And the Spur Tank all but vanished from around the 1920s as buildings came up for what is now the Kilpauk General Hospital. All that’s left of it is what is called Chetpet Lake, which is dry most of the time.

When the postman knocked…

Aruna Gill, in a response from Princeton on my item this past week on her book The Indus Intercept, writes that she has been neither to Pakistan nor its troubled Baluchistan province. “I have to thank,” she explains, “Google Maps for allowing me to zoom in on the terrain and the streets of Quetta for a bird’ eye view and a street’ eye view.” She then tells me, referring to her interest in the Indus script, that while her husband Gyan Prakash, who teaches at Princeton, is focussed on modern Indian history, her interest has always been “in the ancient worlds.” She adds, “Reading the history of ancient cultures humbles me — that they could know and think and do things with such limited resources. Ancient scripts are just one manifestation of this, while we take the written word so much for granted.”

* Additional information on the brothers Vembakkam Sadagopacharlu and Rajagopalacharlu (Miscellany, November 5) has been sent to me by reader V.C. Srikumar, the Editor of the Law Weekly.He tells me that the journal was founded in 1914 by V.C. Seshachariar, an advocate, the son of Rajagopalacharlu, whose elder son was V.C. Desikachari, Chief Judge of the Madras Small Causes Court. Referring to the appointment of Sadagopacharlu to the Madras Legislative Assembly, the first Indian to be so appointed, reader Srikumar points out that he was one of the three non-official members nominated in 1862 by Governor Sir William Dennison under the then introduced Indian Councils Act, 1861. The other two were Robert Campbell, chairman of the Madras Chamber of Commerce, and an earlier chairman of the Chamber, William R. Arbuthnot. The three first sat in Council on January 22, 1862.

Commending the choice of a person it later described as “a native pleader in an East India Company’s Court,” The Hindu stated, “He is a man of extensive and varied information regarding the country and its wants; is a sound practical lawyer; has come in contact with almost all sections of the population of the Southern Districts of the Presidency; is highly esteemed for his popular sympathies… and (he) possesses in abundance the essential requisites of a public man, to wit, sound judgment and tact.” Several acres of his property in Alamelmangapuram, Venkatesa Agraharam and what is now Raja Annamalaipuram were, on his death, endowed by his wife Echamma to the Sri Vedantha Desikar Temple, Mylapore, which has given much of the acreage on 99-year leases for housing development.

* Library Week, which was celebrated throughout the country from November 14 to 20, was, I am reminded by a reader, the outcome of the first All-India Public Library Conference which was held at the Gokhale Hall on November 14, 1919. Another significant outcome of the Conference was the founding on the same day of the All India Public Library Association. This was five years before S.R. Ranganathan, the ‘Father of Library Science’, entered the field. I wonder, then, who was the driving force in Madras who initiated the Conference and headed its Organising Committee. Someone indeed to be remembered.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Cities> Chennai> Madras Miscellany> Arts>  History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / November 25th, 2012