Volunteers required! Sign up

We need a band of people to host an event or run it in your neighbourhood.
So if you are keen do contact us at - madrasday@yahoo.com

We may have people who are willing to give you materials to hold a small exhibition. Would you like to make best use of this and have a show for your area / campus?

We may have experts who are willing to take a group of 25/30 people on a heritage walk. But they want one or two people to be the host and organiser! Want to be one?

There are some people who hold contests and are looking for young people to help. Can you spare 2 hours that day? Come along!

Madras Day/Week is all about networking and joining hands . . .

Our email -themadrasday@gmail.com

Some confirmed events . . .

The annual Madras Quiz is on.
Should be on August 28, Sunday.
The extra good news is that there is going to be a Madras Quiz for schools too.
The Quiz in Thamizh for students is also on.

The annual Heritage Project for Schools which encourages teams to present a PP presentation on a specific theme on the city is also on. August 23 is the date.

The Chennai T Shirt contest will roll in a few days! The best design gets on the Tee for 2012.

Chennai Heritage will host a series of Talks every day, Aug 21 to 28. But more will be held at other venues. Expect at least 20 talks.

Plans for Madras Week 2011

On June 13, the core catalysts of Madras Day (it has become Madras Week over the years) met at the Madras Cricket Club to initiate the plans for the celebrations this year.

The Madras Week will be from August 21 to 28, 2011.

Heritage walks are planned on all the days of the week.
A Madras Quiz for school students is on cards.
Exhibitions, talks, panel discussions, docu film screening relating to Madras and its heritage will be part of the celebrations as in the past years.

If you have ideas, do share with the team. Mail to madrasday@yahoo.com

Just before we say Bye . . .

I am on the Madras Day web site after a long silence.
Work overtakes you.
But you also get pulled back. I look at the stats of visitors on the web site and am amazed - the traffic is still high.

I wonder - what can we do to keep this site alive around the year?

My colleague on the Madras Day team, Revathi reminds me that this is her final call to post the last set of pictures of Madras Day 2010. So I hurry to mail those that remain in my camera.

Madras Day is not about waking up on August 1 and winding down on August 31.

The 2011 plan is rolling. I have a meeting next week with a well wisher who may help us organise 3 exhibitions simultaneously in the city. Perhaps in Perambur, Thiruvotriyur and Anna Nagar.

Of a 'crazy city' and temples along ECR

One of my efforts over the years has been to get interesting speakers to come to the Vadapalani-KK Nagar area. People in these neighbourhoods hardly get a chance to listen to speakers like S. Muthiah, Randor Guy, Mohan Raman, V. Sriram or Chitra Madhavan. And not everybody can go to Hotel Savera or to the Connemara or to the TAG Centre to listen to well-known speakers.

Developing a community also means bringing in resource people from the city centre and promoting interactions between them and residents. So, every time I have been able to get a speaker to either KK Nagar or Vadapalani or Anna Nagar, areas that are cut off from the cultural and literary circuit in Chennai, I am delighted.

Randor Guy came to address an audience at Hotel Green Park a few years ago, and Mohan Raman did the honours last year.

This time, I managed a Double Bill – V. Sriram and Chitra Madhavan in back-to-back talks. For Chitra, it was a second time at Green Park. A couple of years ago, her presentation was so well received that there were far more questions than anybody had bargained for.

Sriram as usual was as irrepressible as ever and the audience broke into peals of laughter time and again as he ploughed through the city with interesting visuals and rib-tickling content and commentary, an effort that showed the crazy side of the city.

Chitra, dwelling on temples along the ECR, amazed everyone with her sheer breadth of knowledge of temples and architecture, sculptures and inscriptions. She was able to answer with ease all the questions out to her.