Sunday, 14 July 2024

Hemantha Kalam - 108 "Memories Rekindled"

It’s been sometime since I had been to or was at Pondy Bazaar, in Chennai. In fact I haven’t been to Pondy Bazaar in about past eight years or so or even more for that matter. As we are about to go abroad to visit our daughter, my wife wanted me to accompany her to do a bit of shopping for some knick knacks.

So she took me to Pondy Bazaar. I left her to do her shopping and stepped in to meet my old college mate and the proprietor of the Instore, in there. It’s been about half a century since I last saw him and as expected, he could not recognise me. And he did not make any pretention of it either. But once I could convince him that I, indeed, was his college mate and the years of our study tallied, that he loosened up and we started chatting about some old incidents, had some laughs and some crying over too over guys who were in a hurry to leave us and this earth and who no longer wanted to be around us.

While sitting there, I was thinking of ‘Swarnam Store’ which was just a couple of shops away from Instore, but folded down long time ago. Yet, I have a very fond corner, for this shop, in my memories, because this was the first shop and the only shop for a long time in my life which was helping me with my dressing fashion. And the fashion designer was none other than my beloved father.

Just a few days before Sankranthi, the harvest festival which is the primary festival for us, my father used to come home early, take a bath, wear some fresh clothes and ask my mother to get prepared and prepare myself too, for an outing.

Once this was done, we used to leisurely saunter towards Pondy Bazaar and eventually drift towards Swarnam Stores.  

As soon as we entered the shop, all the staff members used to welcome my father to their counters, with beaming smiles. My father could always become one with them, crack jokes that appealed to them and change even a charged atmosphere into an enjoyable one and instantly, at that.

My father used to go to either the pants’ section or the shirts’ section first and start looking at the clothes. His choices were based first on the material, longevity, cost per metre, colour and brand. Brand normally used to be that of the Binny only.  The material could be consul, drill or plain cotton for pants and poplin or pure cotton for shirts. Those days, material like Terylene and Tery-cotton were yet to be known. Those were the simple days of brocades, cotton (handloom or mill), mull, mulmul, poplin, satin, velvet, voil, and of course silk etc.

At this point, I have to make a confession that two important things in my life,, and both starting with the letter ‘C’ could become nightmarish to others.

One is my Curriculum Vitae (CV). I have patiently built-up my CV such a way that very few in the world can match it. It can be a boon or a bane. Mostly it has proven to be a bane that for decades, the HR Managers seemed to have decided to make their lives that much easier by just rejecting to even go through any CV which is more than one or at the maximum two sheets, even if the other CVs could be promising. So when I make a CV of 20 to 25 pages, I think it is a bit of fat desire for me to expect to be noticed. So most of the times (99.99% of the times, my CV has been given a go by and used to probably land in the general file aka dustbin, rather in a hurry). I have this strong and nagging doubt that in my present assignment, my grey beard could have helped me more than my CV.  Period! I wonder whether the powers that are, have ever gone through my CV.

Now the second ‘C’ is my Couture. My tastes of clothes and dressing sense are at two extremes. Thanks to my dad, I can really dress well, if I wish to. Yes, in one of my previous employments, I was even titled as the “Well dressed male of the office”. But at the same time, if I am in that ‘who the hell cares’ mood, I can dress garishly too.

And another issue is that due to my atypical physical measurements, excepting for T shirts, I cannot get proper fit of/from any of the ready-made stuff. So mostly, I have to get clothes and get them stitched to suit my shape and sizes. Since India has been fast aping the Americas, getting good and skilled tailors is becoming a premium issue, and if at all we are lucky to get one nearby, s/he seems to charge a bomb nowadays. I am thankful that for men, the costs still seem to be manageable. For the women, it is literally astronomical and just a matter of match fixing. Costs vs the styles in demand. As one of the old English/Tamil multilingual song claimed some forty years ago, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBI_WV4vsSA) sleeveless blouses and what next blouse less sleeves? Thankfully feminism is active and women are mostly self-reliant to meet such changes and the expenses.

But my dad, being my beloved dad that he was, and who I think, also loved me very well, used to spend considerable time in choosing the best possible clothes for me to ensure that I will always stand-out from the rest of the crowd in my class and in school. His choice will be pastels and what in those days were called ‘British colours’. He was always averse to garish colours and even in a freaky moment if I wanted any such colours, he used to put up a snout at me and negate it. His choices mostly were light colours, pastels, pin stripes and micro checks.  Since I was a runt of a boy he always use to aver that larger checks could swallow my appearance and make me look even shorter.

So this match-making went on till he was alive and could make it to a shop. Of course, in the later years, it became common for me to buy clothes for him than he coming with me. He never ever used to complain on the clothes I used to buy him. Every time I used to return from my sojourns abroad, I used to bring him really freaking out T shirts which he used to wear with a glee.

I am now in abroad with my first daughter and when I brought her a new sari of a light colour, she was asking that I choose mostly light colours, don’t I. Yes, I do, because this has been injected into me, by my dear father, over the years, but who chose to leave me for better hunting grounds, this day seven years back.

Now, as I am skimming through the streets of Singapore, I realised that I made the worst blunder of never taking him abroad. I am sure that he would have enjoyed these places as would a small kid who has been given his first YoYo!

Yes, he is not there physically with me, sure, but he is there with me and in me, through some of his practices and always in my fashion.

So, until the next, I remain with,

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian, Bahasa Malay and Singaporean) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India

 

 

 

 

 


Tuesday, 30 April 2024

Hemantha Kalam - 107 "Paradise Lost"

After writing on stories of the streets in Chennai, in my previous blog, let me now write about a paradise lost, not very far from Chennai (India) but just about 13 kms from the Central Railway Station and about 12 kms from the Chennai Airport.

But we need to go back about six decades to know more about this lost paradise.

During mid 1960s, my parents were on the lookout for a small plot of land so that they could build a small cottage for our family to live in. They could zoom in onto one, about a kilometre behind the now Vadapalani Bus Depot. At the point of time of the purchase of this plot, the Vadapalani Bus Depot was in the finishing stages. So was the Kodambakkam Rail Over Bridge (ROB).

Most of the buses used to ply only till the Vadapalani Andavar Temple and return to their respective destinations, from there. Beyond that, there were only two villages known to the general public – Saligramam and Virugambakkam. From the bus stop at the Vadapalani Temple, those who needed to go further to these two villages, either had to walk or wait eternally, for the three buses that go beyond Vadapalani temple stop (routes 17B, 63 and 88) or if you can’t wait, take a Jutka (a horse drawn carriage) that could normally take about 4 people a trip comfortably or about 6 people by cramming them up a bit. 


Jutka Photo by: Yours faithfully (On 20th June, 2014 at Kancheepuram, TN, India)

Beyond Saligramam, till Virugambakkam, there were Cinema studios on either side of the road and beyond Virugambakkam only green fields, banana plantations and other orchards. Our daily food needs, mostly, used to be catered by hawkers from these villages - needless to say, farm-fresh.

Having been used to eat such farm-fresh vegetables, I am not sanguine to buying vegetables in the modern shops, unless compelled. Some of my colleagues laugh either in front of me or behind me, whenever I buy vegetables on roadsides, near any farm, during my visits on work.

For a long time, Arcot Road (Now NSK Salai), was having hardly any traffic on the road beyond the last studio and National theatre, about which we will discuss here in a little while.

Once I learned to ride a bicycle, I used to pedal off on this traffic-less road till the Porur Lake, which was about seven kilometres away from my home. Halfway through, there used to be a place now known as Valasaravakkam with a small temple and its pond by the wayside. The temple is still there and a pond still exists. There also was a Sumai Thangi (In Tamil Sumai means load and Thaangi as it should be pronounced, meant bearer) for the benefit of hawkers, travellers and other pedestrians with loads. There were actually two of these structures; one behind the other. The front one was shorter so that people can sit on them and the one in the back was taller so that people carrying loads on their heads can simply move/push the load on to the stone slab, even while standing, without any other person’s help. This was one of the beneficiary structures in the society to help travellers, hawkers et al who were carrying loads.

After bicycling for about three kms or so, I used to stop here for a while sitting on the taller one and fantasising that I was the king of the place. Once in a way, a bus used to pass and all the passengers used to gawk at me. Today this Sumai Thangi is at the ground level as, over the decades, the road kept on rising and only known people like me can go and search for the stone. I will bet that hardly any native of Valasaravakkam today would even be knowing of this.

[The above is a crude Sumai Thangi whereas the one in Valasaravakkam was well chiselled]

Picture Courtesy: https://harishmurugan.blogspot.com/2016/08/do-you-know-sumaithangi-kal-load-bearer.html

After reaching the Porur lake, I used to park my bicycle and lie down on the sloping bank of the lake with my feet submerged in the cool water. If one wanted heaven, it was then and it was there.

Now, Kumaran colony, just behind the Vadapalani Bus Depot, was also a paddy field laid out into plots with five streets, in between the plots. At that point of time all the five streets were cul de sacs. Now I think two of the streets are connected to the Arunachalam Road. In fact, there was a very large farm-well between what today are the third and fourth streets of Kumaran Colony. Over a period of time, people stole all the bricks of the well and it became a not only a huge, but also a deep water-pit and rainy season was always a danger to pedestrians, who were using a path going adjacent to the well, cutting across the empty plots of Kumaran Colony. Only the difference in colour of the water used to caution them, but in night times it was still dangerous.

My father’s plot was made out, adjacent to this Kumaran colony, in a lovely coconut grove of 11.5 acres with an approximate 1,000 plus coconut trees cultivated, more for the toddy, by a gentleman called Dharani Singh Gramani (Late), in whose name there is a street now connecting the Senthil Andavar Road in our colony and the Nerkundram Pathai (to be pronounced as paathai, a Tamil word, meaning way or a track). Our plot was almost at the end of the layout and in a corner, with all lanes around our house being cul de sacs. In fact, almost all the streets in our colony are also cul de sacs being nemesis to naïve thieves/robbers and petty criminals, who ventured to practice their business in our area.

The layout, made in the coconut grove, was named as Dhanalakshmi (Goddess of wealth) Colony and each plot got an average of six to eight coconut trees as its share. Totally 92 plots were made in the layout with decently wide streets, unlike today’s miserly alleyways. Plot 92 was where the southern film actress Silk Smitha (on whose inspiration the Hindi film 'The Dirty Picture' was made) lived and died. 

Of course, some trees were lost even while making streets in the colony. We, for our plot, could get 8 coconut trees as our share. My parents wrestled with an architect for a design that would not need to fell or harm the trees (or at the minimum, if at all) and finally could construct a tiny house by sacrificing only two of the coconut trees, leaving six in our plot.

For a very long time, we had these six trees till the wise government drew overhead high-tension wires, in a residential area, running adjacent to our plot. The coconut fronds, after drying, used to often drop from the trees onto these high-tension wires and short circuiting the area’s power supply. The government, through the employees of its agency, the Tamil Nadu State Electricity Board, constantly used to reprimand us and called for our cutting these coconut trees, on the pain that if we don’t, they won’t attend to power complaints in our house anymore. So, unable to withstand the pressure and also the coercion, we had to lose four more trees. So much care for the environment, even by a government agency.

My father planted a couple of Andhra variety mango plants, and nurtured them along with these coconut trees, which yielded fruits for at least three to four decades. And then one tree suddenly died, reason for which we could not diagnose. In about a year or so, the other mango tree also gently died, without hurting any life, person or a building, but falling across the street. The tree was so huge that traffic came to halt from either side of the street for a couple of days. But the other residents of the streets around us, who were quite inconvenienced but also were the beneficiaries of our mangoes periodically, were gentle with us and cooperated by helping us remove the tree.

The long and short of it is that our house, which was nicknamed as “Mara Veedu” (House of Trees) which at one time boasted of six coconut trees, three mango trees, two neem trees, one badam (desi almond) tree, one custard apple tree, several papaya trees and many floral plants, today has just one coconut tree, one neem tree, one badam tree, one custard apple tree, several banana and papaya trees.

Coming back to the original story, there was a small patch of half an acre of land owned by an utter miser called RJN (Late) opposite to our plot. In addition to this property, it was alleged that he had properties in his native place and also a house, bang opposite the AVM Studios on Arcot Road. Yet, I never saw him wearing a full set of dress. He was always wearing a dirty towel (not even a shirt or sandals) around his dirty body and that is how he used to commute too.

There was a hut in this half-acre grove and a couple {of inter-linguistic, inter-caste living arrangement (even in the mid-1960s)} who apparently, as per their story, ran away from their parents and known society, to take shelter here, to be incognito. The guy was a painter and the woman was a housewife and generally a loudmouth and a gossip monger. And they had two little kids, if I remember well.

Excepting a couple of houses in Kumaran Colony and a couple of houses in Dhanalakshmi Colony (we were the second to construct a house in the colony, but since the owners of the first house sold away and we stayed so far, we are now officially the first and pioneers of Dhanalakshmi Colony) and a small lower-income settlement nearby, there were hardly any other dwellings in the vicinity.

Having a bicycle was a luxury (and protecting such luxuries also needed skills). My father had a good bicycle and the people in the low-income settlement nearby always held my father in awe and high respect. When my father was electrocuted, most of the settlement was at our house to inquire about his health and wellbeing. At that point of time, if my father wished to contest elections, he would have won, hands down, as a ward councillor.

Initially, there was no electricity, nor roads, nor corporation water, nor sewage facilities in our entire area. But the coconut trees in most of the vacant plots helped us immensely. Thanks to the dry fronds from the coconut trees, we had abundant, year round cooking fuel, free of cost. Everything else also had to be done naturally and the coconut trees covered us well, rain or shine.

For water, in the beginning, we had a handpump which cranked off after a couple of years of use, necessitating us to dig a proper dug well for water.

My dear father and I always bathed on the platform around the well in the open air, under the sky, even in rainy and cold seasons, with a competition till either of us was tired. Water was so abundant. And what a pleasure it was. How I long for such baths with my father again! Sigh, anyway, it is not possible as my father passed away and civilisation has taken care and compelled that the well’s height had to be reduced to the ground level.

Since only a couple of houses were in our coconut grove colony, the entire place used to be not only picturesque, but also very cool. My friends were the children of the lower income settlement and cowherds, giving me an opportunity to learn immensely on equality, agriculture, cattle and dairy, nature and its ways.

In summers, we used to sleep outside our houses on camp-cots and under the coconut trees.

The nearby areas were studios and paddy fields. The present posh Horizon Apartments on Arunachalam Road, Saligramam, are located in what once was a paddy field in cultivation.

In 1968, on a fine day, a large hut was being put up, in a portion of this field, leaving me in awe and wonder, as I did not understand what that large hut could be for. A month or so later, one fine evening, a Cinema ‘Tent’ was inaugurated. It was named Padma Theatre.

There were only three classes of tickets. Floor class for 0.30 paise, Bench class for 0.65 paise and Cane Sofa class for Rs.1,10. To sit in a cane chair there would be a symbol of wealth and influence. I used to wangle bench ticket money from my father, but mostly used to go only for the floor class, thus saving money for the next film.

Only re-run films used to be screened here and that too only two shows – one in the evening from 6.30 pm onwards and another by 10.00 pm onwards. Since most of the times, I used to walk from school, had homework to be done, and also had to help my mother in taking care of my siblings and other household chores, I used to prefer watching night shows and I used to go alone to the theatre cutting across the paddy fields in the pitch darkness braving snakes. I was all of 12+ years then.

The ‘theatre’ could not screen daytime films as;

(i) apparently, they did not have licence for the three screenings and

(ii) there were no walls to the hut, to shut out extraneous light.

On one end, there used to be a small building for the projection room and on the opposite end, a huge white wall for the screen. Rest of the sides were open, so fresh air was always in abundance. In summer, they used to hitch small portable fans to the poles supporting the hut which would be a little relief, but there used to be rush for the places near the fans.

Sometimes, drunkards, thieves and other petty criminals used to sneak into the theatre and police searches for them also used to take place during the screenings, creating more excitement and unprohibited news and gossip value in the area, the next day. What a fun? Today all this action is missing.

Just near the corner of my house, one student, who apparently was from an economically weaker family, used to sell popcorn at 0.10 paise a packet. The boy used to be of my age. After returning from school, he used to bathe and wear clean clothes, mostly a veshti (dhoti) and a shirt.

After setting up his wares in an attractive pyramid manner on the jute sack that he used to bring the popcorn in, he used to start his business. He never used to leave the place till the last packet was sold, all the time, even if mosquitoes were devouring him. In the rainy season, he used to bring a large umbrella, but still used to continue his business. Today, when I look back, I wonder what could have been his compulsions and why I never got that idea to make money. I am sure that I lacked the enterprise.

A couple of years later, when the permit of Padma ‘Tent’ expired, they moved the tent a few feet and reapplied for license under the name Sri Krishna ‘Tent’. A little away in a slowly developing adjacent colony was another tent called Santhi. 

The licences of these also expired after a couple of years and slowly these theatres vanished. But I easily saw hundreds of movies in these 'Tent' theatres. 

A couple of kilometres away on the main Arcot Road in Virugambakkam was the National Theatre which always was my favourite. This theatre had ample space, even to park cars if any patron brought one, but which seldom happened.

The premises were homely and always clean. It had two gates at each end of the compound wall one for entry and the other for the exit. The front yard used to remind one of a bungalow and not a theatre. Unlike other theatres, this theatre somehow had a very calm ambience and in my opinion was a 'Gentle Theatre'. 

This being a proper theatre, the comforts were better and accordingly the costs were higher. I used to visit this theatre rarely as I was still a dependent boy and could not afford the ticket prices.

This theatre is now National Inox and located at the same place in Virugambakkam, and also housing a mall, but the old feeling of visiting this theatre could not be relived in this new avatar and the zest for watching a movie in the theatre is totally killed for me now.

L. V. Prasad (Late), the doyen of Telugu films (Hindi film ‘Ek duje ke liye’ fame) had agricultural land surrounding our colony, the main reason as to why almost all the streets in our colony are cul de sacs.

With great difficulty, could he be convinced to give land for one street to be opened, connecting our colony to Arunachalam Road. He was smart enough to get his compensation for this ‘noble deed’ of his, by (i) getting the road named after him (ii) and apparently in some other ways too, as alleged.

In the rest of the area, surrounding our colony, he had a mango grove and paddy fields, taken care by a family headed by one Mr. Mani. This Mr. Mani was who saved my father during his electrocution (for more details on this, you may like to visit my blog “Mrutyunjaya has compromised” on Hemantha Kalam at http://hemantha-kalam.blogspot.com/2018/07/).

We had a wonderful relationship with Mr. Mani and his family members that we could get fresh organic farm vegetables, greens and especially hand-picked mangoes for our pickles, from their farm too.

Today there is no farm and instead, a Colour laboratory has been set up by the owners and the entire land is protected by a large and high stone wall all around.

Nearby to this farm, a cooperative society used to operate by collecting pure and fresh milk, both from cows and buffaloes. It is here that I met my good friend dear Janab Basheer Ahmed Moosa, a sound engineer par excellence! It is also here that I had to learn and use my marketing techniques on the milk distributing guy. 

The guy used to have a large clean wide mouthed vessel (called Degsa now known more popularly as Biryani Handi) to collect milk from the cattle owners and sell to the buyers. The society was actually playing a facilitating role by buying the milk from the farmers for a slightly lower price but still better for the farmers, selling to the buyers for a slightly higher price making a reasonable and decent margin for the society to take care of the expenses and a little profit.


The only issue for us was that my younger brother was used to be fed only on the buffalo milk and the society used to mix both the cow’s and buffalo’s milk in the vessel and sell only the mixed milk. Though I knew which buffalo’s milk I needed, the society prohibited me to buy directly from the buffalo owner. So, I had to cajole, convince and get the specific buffalo milk, even while the society guy was collecting it and before the milk is mixed with the other already collected milk. I was all of 13 years old. 

Then, there was a medium sized irrigation canal that connected to a small water pond called ‘Gangai Amman Temple Pond’ and I used to accompany the cow herds when they used to take their cattle for washing and for their own swimming. Since I did not swim and scared to go home with a wet dress, I never ventured to learn swimming from them, which I should have done, as today one of my only two regrets is not possessing the swimming skill.

This irrigation canal slowly started disappearing and, in its place, many dwelling units appeared there. Today, what was once the irrigation canal is known as Rajangam Maththiya Veedhi (Raajaangam Central Street). The Gangai Amman pond is not there anymore either. I wonder whether it would be there on any map also now.

RJN’s half an acre of land, under the nourishment of the couple, started yielding excellent coconuts and started earning income for the owner. The harvesting day used to be filled with a bit of commotion around. The land used to be covered with green lawn, and which was always maintained well by the couple. It was an ideal place for picnics.

But for some reason, RJN made the couple vacate his land and sold off, to the second wife, of a well-known film personality, who herself was an accomplished actress and singer of yesteryears. After some ruckus within their own family, the land changed hands and the new owner constructed apartments by cutting all the trees, not leaving even a few. Not only that, the promoters completely laid concrete on the floor of the entire complex, so that the residents will not be inconvenienced by the slush during the rainy season.

My father pleaded with them to leave some land uncovered, so that water could be absorbed by the earth and the water table will improve. They laughed at him and said who cares for an old man. Little did they know or realise that the old man’s words (like other old people’s as well) would be prophetic. Today, every time there are rains, it is these apartments which are thoroughly inundated with flooding waters and in summer, it is they who suffer most, for want of water.

Similar is the case with one huge apartment complex on Arunachalam Road, constructed much against the neighbouring local people’s will and which is now in dire circumstances, facing rebuilding. The greedy developers have put the entire area into peril through not only water depletion then, but now by all the pollution to be created while imploding the high-rise buildings to be reconstructed.

Since our entire colony started getting more houses only during the mid 1970s, till then staying in the colony was a paradise.

Slowly the paradise started giving in to new people of various and different mentalities. The whole place is full of houses and apartments and hardly any tree can be seen. Our colonies are being garlanded by the Metro transportation. Everyone has at least one car and innumerous bikes.

Material facilities have cropped up! All for a price. The area is surrounded by star hospitals, evidence of precarious health and filthy rich people around. Highrise buildings ensured profits for the developers, but depleted water levels for the neighbours.

Can see hardly any coconut tree in an area of over 1,000 trees. Farm lands in the vicinity is a laugh.

We did not have any government facility those days. But we were happier with the nature and the company of the innocent neighbouring people, mostly living on the fringes, yet content. Today though everything is available that money can buy, including crime in the area; what about nature?

A paradise is lost – before my very eyes. And I have been a useless mute spectator left to mutter to myself, like an old guy that I have become, of all the good things that have gone by, never again to return, unless there is an apocalypse and a resurrection, perhaps.

Remembering of our homecoming in the colony on the 30th April, 57 years hence.

Until the next, I remain with,

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, 31 July 2023

Hemantha Kalam - 106 "Streets and Stories of Chennai"

While on the subject of memory streets, let me share with you some intriguing stories of Chennai (Madras) streets and the history behind their names and name changes.

Many of the new generation citizens of Chennai, even if they are visitors, might be wondering (if they have the inclination and time, which I very much wonder whether they have) about some names of the streets.

The erstwhile Madras and Chennai as it is called now, had most of the streets and roads named after some British person, legend or not, for whatever reason. I don’t intend boring my readers with such details. There are historians for that anyway.

For a long time there used to be a practice in Chennai a person constructing a house first in an empty street or an area could name the street/area after him/her.

So, many street names were taken after some person who was a pioneer in that street.

However, in 1978, the Dravidian party that ruled Tamil Nadu under the leadership of Puratchi Thalaivar (Revolutionary leader) Late Thiru M. G. Ramachandran took a historic decision to drop all caste names in every street/road name in Tamil Nadu. So, overnight many street names have been changed, some leading to hilarious situations. 

Just for the readers’ sense of knowledge and memory, I give below samples of how some of the names used to be and how they have been changed.

Old Name

Changed to

Further Changed to

Angappa Naicken Street

Angappa Street

 

Chari Street

Street

 

Chinnaya Pillai Road

Chinnaya Road

 

Dr. Nair Road

Dr. Road

 

Gopathi Narayanaswamy Chetti Road

Gopathi Narayanaswamy Road

G. N. Road

K. G. Nair Street

K. G. Street

 

Kasi Chetti Street

Kasi Street

 

Linghi Chetti Street

Linghi Street

 

Narasimhachary Street

Narasimhan Road

 

Reddy Street

Street

(Reddy) Street

Sadan Street

Kumaran Colony 7th Road

 

Subba Rao Street/Avenue

Subba Street/Avenue

 

Thambu Chetti Street

Thambu Street

 

Thirumala Pillai Road

Thirumalai Road

 

Vyasa Rao Naidu Street

Vyasa Rao Street

Vyasar Street

 All these changes took place during my lifetime when I was so aware of these changes and happenings.

I also happen to know the history of the changes of some streets.

Mr. Chari’s grandson was my colleague and I was aware of the legal battle they had to undergo to regain their lost name for the street, rendering the name of the street to just ‘Street’ which was named in honour of his late grandfather. It took time and many efforts to make the powers be understand that Chari need not essentially denote any caste as there are Charis in Brahmins, in Carpenters and in Goldsmiths.

Late Chinnaya Pillai (who was our erstwhile neighbour when we lived next door in the street) was a renowned advocate/lawyer and the street was named after him apparently because his was the first house in the street. If today someone wonders who the Chinnaya was on whom the street was named, they, perhaps, would draw a blank.

Dr. Nair Road became just Dr. Road.

Apparently no significant protest has been made about Reddy Street becoming just Street. Now it looks like people found a middle path by putting the caste name in parenthesis and made it (Reddy) Street.

Gopathi Narayanaswamy Chetti Road is an arterial road and after removing the caste name Chetti (other equivalents are Sreshti, Shetti, Setti etc.) finally it became G. N. Road.

The story of K. G. Nair street is interesting as this happened fully in my presence. My father was the first to construct his home in the street of the area which was originally called Meenakshi Street, when the layout was made. So one day Mr. K. Gopalan Nair who also had a plot in the street but constructed his home much later walked into our home (he was our electrician and his sons were selling us fresh milk from the cattle they owned too) and asked my father whether he (my father) was interested in naming the street after him. Now came the interesting dilemmas. My father’s name was Venkateswara Rao. As per government Rao is supposed to be a caste name and so is not permitted. The next road was already called Venkateswara Street and the colony cannot have the same name for two streets as it won’t serve any purpose.

I was keen in naming it after our surname Pamarthy (to be pronounced Paamarthi) but my father vehemently did not agree. His logic was that inevitably my Tamil brethren will successfully kill the name in the pronunciation. Tamil script has the same alphabet for ‘pa’ and ‘ba’ and so is the case ‘tha’ and ‘dha’ as is the case with so many other syllables. So what is Pamarthy now will soon become Bamardhy (to be pronounced Baammardhi) which in Telugu means brother-in-law or Saala in the Hindi slang. My dear father visualised this possibility in a jiffy while on his toes. Then I said let us name the street after my mother and my father objected to that too immediately, saying that he didn’t want all and sundry to keep calling my mother’s name. That ended our side of the argument.

Now that my father did not want any name from our side, Mr. K. Gopalan Nair asked whether we have any objection to naming the street after him as K. G. Nair Street. We said we did not have any and so he moved the authorities convincingly to keep the name as K. G. Nair street which was short lived as, soon it became K. G. Street. Mr. Gopalan Nair also contested the Panchayat elections for Saligramam Panchayat and successfully lost.

Interestingly the portion of his plot onto the said road has been sold away but that part of the street is still called K. G. Street. Our part of the street has been reinstated with the old name of Meenakshi Street.

The story of Vyasa Rao Naidu Street is truly hilarious. First the caste name Naidu was removed. Then after sometime, as an after thought Rao was removed rendering the street to become Vyasa Street. Then the authorities wanted to add reverence and so made it Vyasar Street. But the point missed by the authorities is that Rao is not a caste name anywhere in India except in Tamil Nadu. Tamilians anyway don’t name themselves as Rao. But for some reason, maybe because of naivety, many of my Tamil brethren think that the suffix ‘Rao’ denotes a surname of Brahmins. Little do they seem to know or  realise or would like to learn is that it is just a suffix used after names, by people belonging to 'all castes', in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana. My Tamil brethren are very intelligent but somehow appear to be obstinate in this aspect, probably because they do not want to give away their staunch belief so easily. Now who will bell the cats?

The story of Sadan street is interesting and for me, a bit touching too. Mr. Sadan (Late) was a stage and film artist, mimicry artist, film singer and may be some instrumentalist too. He constructed a cute and petite home, off Kumaran Colony and now behind the Nexus Forum Mall in Vadapalani, which I loved and used to admire much. He was famous for his mimicry in the song ‘Kadavul amaiththu vaiththa medai…’ (Tamil) which was made into Telugu as ‘Thaali kattu subha vela…’. So, the street leading to his house was named Sadan Street for a very long time. Sometime later Mr. Sadan passed away. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattom_Sadan)

However, one fine day when I was passing through the street, I found that cute house was no more in the plot and now some other construction is there, which to me is insipid and a big let down. What more, the name of Sadan street seems to have silently transformed into Kumaran Colony 7th Street. Every time I pass the place, where his house used to be, I feel sad for the good times his family must have had there in their cute house. I do not know any more information about him or his family.

Names to the streets are given to remember people and whatever their little contribution or history was. So, tinkering with them not only is an insult but also a step towards obliterating history in its true sense, in the guise of creating equality. Like poverty eradication, equality, in my opinion, is a myth.

But then, we have never been good in keeping things for posterity. If at all there is any history, most of it is thrust on us from the northern Indian history. Whatever is left, is lost like this. And as for the future, it appears most of the millennials and ‘Gen Z’ hardly seem to have any time for such trivial things as history.

Still hoping for something good and until the next,  

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, 14 July 2023

Hemantha Kalam - 105 "Memory Streets"

                                                                                  Memories don’t leave like people do;                                                  They always stay with you...

Sir Tom Jones

Men and some animals (known to us) have memories, however vague or strong they might be. We will not be able to say whether animals could have favourite memories, but as human beings many of us have some or more favourite memories. Well, so do I. In fact, I have too many memories that many of them are more of a burden as I belong to the breed that forgives a lot but seldom forgets!

So I was dwelling on my favourite memories and then started writing this blog with one favourite memory of mine (in fact that of almost all of our siblings), which is about my father. I have so many memories of my father that I can perhaps write a book on them. So this is a slice of those.

As mentioned by me in my earlier blogs, my father was working in whichever way his talent pushed him, to make ends meet.

During the early 1960s, he started stabilising a bit when he started working for a gentleman who ran two companies – one was called SYGA Corporation and the other SYGA Movies. My father was the manager of the first and an associate director in the second. I have reasonably distinct and vivid memories of his work in both.

But the favourite memory is from the first – SYGA Corporation. This was an indenting office in Madras (Chennai),  for an Indian company called the Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing Company Limited (later name changed to Grasim Industries), with its manufacturing plant located at Mavoor, Kozhikode (Calicut), Kerala, India (if I am not mistaken, this manufacturing plant does not exist anymore there). The job of the indenting office was to check on the availability and prices of raw material needed by the plant, on a daily basis, from various sources in Chennai, and inform the factory appropriately and promptly so that their procurement department would place orders directly to a vendor of their choice.

My father used to go to office around 11.00 am, work in the office to cater to the needs of the plant, as also taking care of the necessary communications, leave office to go to George and Park Towns and the Sowcarpet area in Chennai (between Chennai Central Station on the West, DARE house on the East, Broadway area in the South and Mint/Mannadi area in the north).

For this purpose, his company did not provide him with any vehicle, not even a bicycle. So he used to commute initially by bicycle but as we started growing up he too started aging and preferred to commute by public transport and the nearest facility to his office was the bus service.

Depending on the day’s requirement of material, he used to alight sometimes at Wall Tax road (adjacent to Chennai Central station) and start walking the streets to meet vendors and find out the availability and prices of the raw material needed for the day.

He would cover areas and streets like Pai Kadai, Evening Bazaar, Mint Street, Govindappa Naicken Street, Flower Bazaar, Godown Street, Badrian Street, Anderson Street, Lyons Square, Broadway, Sembudoss Street, Armenian Street, Thambu Chetty Street, Linghi Chetty Street, Angappa Naicken Street, Thatha Muthiappan Street, Seven Wells, Mannadi, Muthialpet, II Line Beach, Burma Bazaar etc., and many more depending on the need. For at least a couple of decades he was the uncrowned king of these streets like many other petty traders in these streets too. Every vendor my father met or had business in these streets loved him.

This walk would continue till about 9.30 pm by which time he would have covered a major portion of the area, when he finally would call it a day, more because the vendors were closing than because of lack of energy on his part, and take a bus from Broadway bus stand. The last buses of the day were always crowded and one needed deftness to find and hold a seat which my dad used to do with aplomb. Even the most irritated and irate person used to calm down on seeing his smile.

As I entered school and later college (which was located at less than 500 meters from his office) he started taking me around too, just to show me the ‘world’ in its true sense. Being a bit of laissez faire guy that I am, I never had his energy levels and used to crib often for walking so long and for so many hours. Being a foodie, one of my favourite cribs was to ask him for evening snacks; in restaurants where the different aromas used to waft onto the streets; which he almost always used to pass by saying that we are ending our work for the day and should not stuff ourselves, else we cannot justify our dinner. There were times when I used to point blank refuse to accompany him, if he did not buy me snacks in the evening.

Once or twice a week he also used to buy and bring home vegetables from ‘Kotwal Chavadi’ which was the wholesale vegetable market in the city (before it was relocated to Koyambedu) at the time and was located at Lyons Square. Part of Broadway near the Lyons Square was cobble stoned (British era) and even in the normal times it used to be a bit painful to walk on the smooth polished dome like cobbles. In rainy season it used to be dreadful added with slush and stink. There used to be ankle deep water filled with vegetable wastes and walking on the slippery cobbles, without spraining an ankle, was an art.

My father used to hold his office brief case in one hand, umbrella in the other and used to bargain for vegetables where no bargaining was available. But those vegetable sellers, who loved my father, used to offer him good prices and generous in measuring / weighing too. My father used to wear real stylish cooling glasses or they all just looked good on him whichever way, but also used to lose them mostly at the vegetable shops by forgetting to pick them up when they fell from his pocket or when he placed them on some vegetables while picking the good ones!.

I must have moved with my father in the evenings like this for several years alright. My cribbing continued, but later, only much later, could I (the dumb guy that I am) understand the value of my father’s personal tutelage in teaching me (later, all my siblings) the markets, the products’ availability, the art of negotiation et al., for which I am forever indebted to him. Unknown to me then, the seeds, for my qualifying in Materials Management study, were sown in those days itself.

My favourite memory in this episode is that somewhere in 1973 (yes, half a century ago) one evening my father asked me to come to his office straight from college to go to Parry’s corner. We met Mr. Kishan Lal Khanna, a good friend of my father, at a pre-fixed place on Thambu Chetty Street and slowly walking through Armenian Street, Broadway, Lyons square, Bundar street, Govindappa Naicken street, we finally reached Kasi Chetty street. That was the first time I was entering Kasi Chetty Street as earlier, there was not much of an occasion for us to go there since it was a street well known for products in the grey market.

But, apparently, unknown to me as yet, that was a special day. We went shop after shop where my father was asking for good and stylish imported wrist watches. Allwyn and Titan were not born yet and HMT models were considered not stylish enough at that time.  Finally both of us could agree upon one model of a watch, interestingly in grey colour. Those days, my father used to wear a beautiful white dialled and light weight Swiss ‘Favre Leuba’ watch, and I was wondering why he was buying another watch, as he is not known to squander his money. This watch, after a deep bargaining, was fixed for Rs.230.00. My father paid the cash and asked me to wear it. He had a twinkle in his eyes when he saw me wearing it.

That was my first watch and gifted by my dad on the occasion of my entering a college, the first to do in our family. That was one happy day and this is an unforgettable memory of my father. I tried resurrecting the now defunct watch several times, even last year, but though it has not lost its sheen, it is just not functioning. Perhaps, its function now is to remain a good living memory for me.

Later my first job was in the same area for about a year and a half when both of us used to meet sometimes in the evenings and together bring vegetables home. My work over the past eight years takes me to the same area again and every time I walk on any street in the area, I find myself walking along with my dad, invisibly though. I see him everywhere in the area.

Today (14th July) is the day he passed away six years ago. Interestingly that was a Friday and today is a Friday too!  There has not been a single day when I don’t think of him or do not reminisce my association with him. He had been a dad of a different stock and I could not or can’t ever be like him and I am glad of that, so my father’s uniqueness is unscathed and untouched.

I do hope that he would be busy wherever he is with that infectious smile of his and bringing more smiles on to others’ faces, or would he be singing, without a care for time? How I would love to know!

So folks that’s about it for this blog.

Until the next, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India