Thursday, August 23, 2012

Highs and lows of Walking inside Fort St George

Heritage Walks receive great attention in this city, more so at Madras Week time when most are specially designed for this occasion.

V Sriram makes it a point not to repeat his Walks and is into his 70-plus Walk this season. The one in Alwarpet will be interesting.

I choose to focus on the Fort. Fort St George.
This place is a delight especially when you walk around it on Sundays. More so if you do this before 9 am.

The security at the main gate can put you off. Till last weekend I had not found out the simplest method to get a formal OK for Walks early in the mornings. The police secure the State Assembly and CM's office and may not be too keen what we do elsewhere. When Dr. Karunanidhi was the CM he used to drop in even on Sundays and so, the police had to be alert always.

They still are and so, last Sunday when 28 people had assembled for the Walk, I was still negotiating with an Inspector beneath the massive flagstaff at the Fort.

Thankfully, all the buzz and media coverage of Madras Week has created a great deal of awareness of this celebration and the Public Dept. of the State Govt. warmly okayed the Walk this Sunday  (Aug.26).

Yet, with over 35 people mailing us to say they will be joining me, I have had to close the sign-ins.
More so when a group of 40 Architecture students mailed us this week, asking to join us.

I hope to run another Fort Walk soon.
This the place that we want to be recognised as a Word Heritage Site.

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