The Government College of Arts & Crafts just across the St. Andrew’s Kirk on Poonamallee High Road has a wonderful campus. Strange as it may seem, not many today really seem to know of its existence. Quite a few people asked me where exactly it was located. Sad, however, is the fact that such a wonderful campus has not been maintained well. I was there on Wednesday afternoon to listen to Pradeep Chakravarthy talk about the Madras of 1862-1876, based on photographs taken by students of the college in those days. Dr. Alexander Hunter founded the college in 1850 as a private institution, the Madras School of Arts. The well-known architect Robert Chisholm headed it in the late 1860s.
The other sad thing was that there were not enough students in the room where the presentation was made. Many were seen sitting outside, lazing and chatting; only a few bothered to attend. Pradeep’s presentation in lucid Tamil was excellent. There were several landmarks that were photographed then and Pradeep quizzed the students about some of these places.
I had never seen the Madras Central station without a clock tower, but he showed us a picture of one. There were pictures of the Government Telegraph Office built in Georgian style, in Erabalu Chetty Street; St Thomas Mount, a holiday destination in those days for the Britishers, Armenians and Portuguese; the Wooder School in Saidapet, a Western style school (1715); the statue of Thomas Munroe on a horse (installed in 1839), with no saddle or stirrup; the statue of James Neal near where the Connemara Hotel stands today; a village temple or the Achhan Koil on Spur Tank Road; a view of the Medical College, Government General hospital and the Cooum River from the Wallajah or Island Bridge (1715). Pradeep had something to say about each and that kept the audience engrossed..
Other fascinating pictures included ‘Missionaries in a cart’, ‘Commisserate bullocks’ (what commiserate means is not clear), ‘Saidapet farm’, ‘Nellore cows’, ‘Hindu girls’ on balloon-back chairs, ‘Indian bride’, ‘Vegetable woman’, ‘Palanquin bearers’, ‘Native merchants’, jewelers of Madras; silk weavers of Mylapore, ‘Boom Madu’ (decorated bull); and ‘Native servants’.
It is a presentation Pradeep must make more often at other fora.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Madras's history: through coins, stamps
At the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, there was also an inauguration of an exhibition on Russian stamps and coins of the Madras Presidency. Doing the honours was Hemachandra Rao, former president of the Madras Coin Society.
It was R Vaidyanadhan's collection on display that I was drawn to. Vaidyanadhan has just taken over as president of the Madras Coin Society; he is assistant editor in the sports section of The Hindu. He also edits Indian Coin News, an eight-page monthly produced by the Madras Coin Society. In its August issue, there is interesting material on the Madras-Vijayanagara connection, and most of the pictures of the coins displayed related to the Vijayanagara period.
Briefly, the history of Madras’s coinage is more than 2,500 years old. Other than the ancient coins of the Pallava, Pandya, Chera and Chola empires, the Vijayanagara influence was prominent on south Indian coins. In 1361, Kumara Kampana II, son of Vijayanagara emperor Bukka Raya I, established the Vijayanagara rule in Tondaimandalam. The Vijayanagara rulers installed viceroys to rule various parts of the empire. In 1535, for instance, Achyuta Deva Raya, the brother and successor of Krishna Deva Raya, granted Devappa Nayak, the governor of Thanjavur, permission to establish a feudatory kingdom. King Viswanatha Nayak, the viceroy to Madurai, was the founder of the Nayak dynasty there.
Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, an influential chieftain under the Vijayanagara king, Peda Venkata Rayalu, based in Chandragiri, was in charge of the area where Madras took root. He granted a piece of land lying between the river Cooum, almost at the point it enters the sea, and another river known as the Egmore river, to the English in 1639. The grant empowered the English to administer justice and to acquire additional land and produce coinage. It was in honour of Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, father of Venkatadri, that the settlement around Fort St George was named Chennapattanam.
Most of the Vijayanagara coins issued for circulation in south India were made of gold or copper. The coins show Shiva and Parvati, Lakshmi and Naryana, Venkateswara, Sita and rama, Balakrishna and Narasimha.
It was R Vaidyanadhan's collection on display that I was drawn to. Vaidyanadhan has just taken over as president of the Madras Coin Society; he is assistant editor in the sports section of The Hindu. He also edits Indian Coin News, an eight-page monthly produced by the Madras Coin Society. In its August issue, there is interesting material on the Madras-Vijayanagara connection, and most of the pictures of the coins displayed related to the Vijayanagara period.
Briefly, the history of Madras’s coinage is more than 2,500 years old. Other than the ancient coins of the Pallava, Pandya, Chera and Chola empires, the Vijayanagara influence was prominent on south Indian coins. In 1361, Kumara Kampana II, son of Vijayanagara emperor Bukka Raya I, established the Vijayanagara rule in Tondaimandalam. The Vijayanagara rulers installed viceroys to rule various parts of the empire. In 1535, for instance, Achyuta Deva Raya, the brother and successor of Krishna Deva Raya, granted Devappa Nayak, the governor of Thanjavur, permission to establish a feudatory kingdom. King Viswanatha Nayak, the viceroy to Madurai, was the founder of the Nayak dynasty there.
Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, an influential chieftain under the Vijayanagara king, Peda Venkata Rayalu, based in Chandragiri, was in charge of the area where Madras took root. He granted a piece of land lying between the river Cooum, almost at the point it enters the sea, and another river known as the Egmore river, to the English in 1639. The grant empowered the English to administer justice and to acquire additional land and produce coinage. It was in honour of Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, father of Venkatadri, that the settlement around Fort St George was named Chennapattanam.
Most of the Vijayanagara coins issued for circulation in south India were made of gold or copper. The coins show Shiva and Parvati, Lakshmi and Naryana, Venkateswara, Sita and rama, Balakrishna and Narasimha.
Will the gates of Madras Port open?
Hopefully they will!
I had mentioned in my weekly column (www.vincentsjottings.blogspot.com) the rather discouraging response of some government departments when it came to sharing info, pictures and access to celebrate the city.
We were keen to organise a walk inside Madras Port, a city landmark and have been at it for almost a year. . .
Now, a well wisher has got back to say that he will even talk to Union Minister of Shipping, G K Vasan, who is also a Chennai resident, to help us organise a walking tour.
The Indian Navy conducts a walking tour of the Mumbai Port once a month. Madras should follow that example.
One more heritage walk - in Mylapore
'Namma Mylapore' is hosting a Heritage Walk in connection with 'Madras Day'.
The walk will be conducted on Sunday Aug 23, from 7.00 am to 8.30 am starting from Nageswara Rao Park to Kapaleeswarar Koil and will cover the important heritage spots on the way.
Interested persons may contact Suriyanarayan at 98415 97750 or Geetha Iyengar at 9382315999 to register.
The walk is free.
Pictures bring two cities together
It was quite an interesting photo exhibition put up by the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, the Indo-Russian Women’s Association (IRWA) and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) at the Russian Cultural Centre on Kasturi Ranga Road. This year (2009) is the Year of India in Russia and the exhibition had the theme, Madras-Volvograd: Twin Cities’.
There were some wonderful pictures of the Madras of old on display and immediately after the exhibition was inaugurated visitors and photographers trooped in and crowded around the display to have a closer look. There were pictures of Volvograd, too, all in colour, but they somehow did not seem to attract as much attention. The black-and-white pictures of Madras were what everybody was keen to see.
Later, S.V. Soloviev, deputy consul-general, Consulate General of the Russian Federation in South India, spoke broadly about the friendly nature of Indo-Russian ties over the years. But it was Janaki Krishnan, president, IRWA, who put things in perspective as she went back in time to trace the city’s history. According to her, Madras’s history goes back to its temples, with the Thiruvottiyur Temple being the oldest. There were even animal sacrifices conducted there once upon a time, she said, adding that the British had stopped the practice. She mentioned the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore, the Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane and the Marundeeswarar Temple in Thiruvanmiyur; Luke’s paintings of Christ at St Thomas Mount; the Armenian Church and the Marmalong Bridge; and recollected memories of the time she had spent at the bandstand near the Clive Battery and the presence of the British army there. Krishnan also provided an image of what Edward Elliot’s Road once looked like (in the 1930s), mentioning that jackals would be heard howling at night and that there were hardly any buildings in sight, with trees all around and the beach visible from afar. On Mount Road, there would be hardly four or five cars passing in an hour, and she would sometimes do the counting.
It was thanks to the British that Madras was born, Krishnan said, and compared its beginnings to Petersburg in Russia, which was founded by Peter the Great 1. She also mentioned Russian scholars who came to south India to learn Tamil, work and research.
There were some wonderful pictures of the Madras of old on display and immediately after the exhibition was inaugurated visitors and photographers trooped in and crowded around the display to have a closer look. There were pictures of Volvograd, too, all in colour, but they somehow did not seem to attract as much attention. The black-and-white pictures of Madras were what everybody was keen to see.
Later, S.V. Soloviev, deputy consul-general, Consulate General of the Russian Federation in South India, spoke broadly about the friendly nature of Indo-Russian ties over the years. But it was Janaki Krishnan, president, IRWA, who put things in perspective as she went back in time to trace the city’s history. According to her, Madras’s history goes back to its temples, with the Thiruvottiyur Temple being the oldest. There were even animal sacrifices conducted there once upon a time, she said, adding that the British had stopped the practice. She mentioned the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore, the Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane and the Marundeeswarar Temple in Thiruvanmiyur; Luke’s paintings of Christ at St Thomas Mount; the Armenian Church and the Marmalong Bridge; and recollected memories of the time she had spent at the bandstand near the Clive Battery and the presence of the British army there. Krishnan also provided an image of what Edward Elliot’s Road once looked like (in the 1930s), mentioning that jackals would be heard howling at night and that there were hardly any buildings in sight, with trees all around and the beach visible from afar. On Mount Road, there would be hardly four or five cars passing in an hour, and she would sometimes do the counting.
It was thanks to the British that Madras was born, Krishnan said, and compared its beginnings to Petersburg in Russia, which was founded by Peter the Great 1. She also mentioned Russian scholars who came to south India to learn Tamil, work and research.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)