The Victoria Public Hall and the Suguna Vilasa Sabha

I have recently been reading Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar’s Nataka Medai Ninaivugal and despite the fact that the Tamil is rather old worldly and the author repeats himself at many places, the faithful way in which he had documented the theatre history of Madras with respect to his Suguna Vilasa Sabha is amazing. I found several references to the Victoria Public Hall in the book. Rather serendipitously, I was gifted by my friend and theatre personality PC Ramakrishna, a 1921 souvenir of the Suguna Vilasa Sabha. So putting the two together, here is a brief account of the VP Hall, as it appears in the life of the Suguna Vilasa Sabha.

As this article is also being serialised in Madras Musings, I will post it in two parts. The first is given below:

The VP Hall and the SVS Sabha

The Victoria Public Hall or the Town Hall is now being restored and several newspaper articles quote the Government as saying that once this is completed, the Hall “will be put to the use for which it was intended”. In its time, the Hall was venue for several important events including the meeting of agitated citizens following the collapse of the Arbuthnot Bank, the first ever demonstration of cinema and several dramatic entertainments. But if there was an organisation that was most closely associated with the Hall, it was the Suguna Vilasa Sabha (SVS), founded in 1891 with its objectives as

1. The study and cultivation of the histrionic art
2. The raising of the standard of the present Indian stage
3. The improvement of Vernacular Dramatic Literature
4. The helping of charitable institutions

 

It hoped to achieve these by “representation of dramas on stage, the formation of a library of dramatic works and affording encouragement for the production of original dramatic works in the vernacular”. When the SVS was conceived, VP Hall was about five years old, having been declared open by Lord Connemara in 1887. And the two organisations were to have a long association for over forty years.

Among the leading lights of the SVS was Rao Bahadur Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, one of the original seven signatories to the founding of the SVS. At the invitation of CR Srinivasan of the Swadesamitran, Mudaliar in 1930 began writing Nataka Medai Ninaivugal (Memories of the Stage), which is partly an autobiography but more importantly a history of the SVS. The series of articles was published in the Swadesamitran till 1936 and provide a year-by-year account of the SVS from inception. And from a reading of it, VP Hall emerges as a live and vibrant venue where plays invariably ran to full houses. In addition it also comes across as a social hub of Madras, resounding to music, speeches, fun and laughter.

The birth of SVS was itself partly due to VP Hall. The original seven, including Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar heartily despised native theatre, considering it to be cheap and vulgar entertainment. They were to change their minds when, as young college students, they witnessed a dramatic performance in the summer of 1891 at the VP Hall by the Bellary Sarasavinodhini Sabha. This was the brainchild of D Krishamacharlu, a lawyer practising at Bellary and an amateur dramatic society comprising his friends. The play that Sambanda Mudaliar watched was the last of a series, all of them in Telugu. Each one was a sell-out and Mudaliar writes that he was thankful that his father had arranged a reserved ticket for him, for otherwise it would have been impossible to gain admission into the Hall. Following this play, Mudaliar and his friends decided to form a similar amateur dramatic society themselves and thus the SVS was born on 1^st July 1891. It had Raja Sir Savalai Ramaswami Mudaliar as its first President and Poondi Ranganatha Mudaliar as its first Vice-President. Under its auspices Sambanda Mudaliar was to emerge as a playwright, better known today in this capacity than as a lawyer which he was by profession. He wrote 94 plays during his long association with the SVS besides translating several from other languages.

In 1891, following the successful reception of a private staging of Mudaliar’s first play Pushpavalli, the SVS decided to make bold to hire VP Hall for two nights for public performances. At that time, the VP Hall expected the hirers to bring their own stage curtains and props and the SVS did not have the money for such items. Last minute donations by patrons such as Savalai Ramaswami Mudaliar and Koonichampet Lakshmanaswami Chettiar ensured that this gap was bridged. So was the money required for renting VP Hall – Rs 50 for each night.  When the curtains were made, the SVS ensured that a picture of Senate House was put on the main stage curtain, this to indicate to the audience that the dramatic society comprised university graduates.

In order to publicise the first performance sufficiently, 25000 handbills were printed and a retired sepoy was hired to go on horseback from street to street and distribute them. The man carried a bugle which he blew at each street entrance and when a sufficient crowd had collected, he gave away the handbills. On the day of the first staging, the two gates of VP Hall sported decorative arches and were embellished in the traditional way with plantain stems and flags. A band was hired to perform at the gate from 4 to 9.00 pm when the play would begin. All these publicity measures had their effect and a vast crowd descended on the Hall and stayed for the full duration of the play, which lasted six hours and ended at around 3.30 am. Mudaliar writes that this was the duration of the average play in those days.

VP Hall, according to Mudaliar, was much in demand those days despite being completely unsuitable for the staging of plays! He states that the Hall was built for the public to gather on certain occasions and not for dramatic entertainments. He writes (in 1930) that in his forty years of acting in plays, he feels that the VP Hall is the most inferior among all venues when it comes to acoustics. He also notes that the first dramatic society to ever stage plays in VP Hall, The Madras Dramatic Society, soon packed its bags and moved over to the Museum Theatre. The SVS however, decided to experiment with various measures to improve the acoustics. The members first tried a network of metal wires above the proscenium. Later they attempted to lower the height of the ceiling by stretching a cloth canopy across it. None of these methods really worked and then, as Mudaliar writes, they came to the conclusion that only those with buffalo-like vocal chords could really survive in VP Hall. The SVS, whatever be the vocal capabilities of its members, certainly did and encouraged by the response to the first performance of Pushpavalli, made VP Hall the venue for all its plays.

At the VP Hall, the SVS presented many new ideas and innovations, many of them being attempted for the first time in Madras. One of these was Kalvar Talaivan, which according to Mudaliar was the first tragedy ever to be written in Tamil. The Hall resounded to the sniffs and at times open weeping and wailing from members of the audience. Applause was also received but at the end of the play there was complete silence. The assembled throng had never witnessed a play where everyone on stage died and left with heavy hearts. Another pioneering attempt was the staging of the mythological Rukmangada Charittiram entirely as tableau vivantes, a series of scenes, without any dialogues. This was done as a play within a play – during the staging of Sarangadhara, another great hit from the SVS. An innovation brought into Tamil plays by the SVS, and displayed for the first time at VP Hall, was the practise of having two intermissions during which complicated backdrops were moved and successfully positioned for subsequent scenes. This was directly inspired by the way in which the Parsi Company, then touring Madras and staging its plays at the Esplanade Theatre, managed its backdrops. In 1896, the joys of English theatre were introduced to native audiences by the SVS, when Julius Caesar was staged at VP Hall. From 1897, Telugu plays were also taken up by SVS. In 1902, yet another pioneering entertainment for Indians was offered – fancy dress competitions.

Among the plays that were to be repeatedly staged was Manohara, a creation of Sambanda Mudaliar which premiered at the VP Hall on 14^th September, 1895. Though it was to later become a play much in demand and also be made into an enormously successful film, its first staging did not see much of an audience and ticket sales amounted to only Rs 200. The climactic scene in the play is where Manoharan, the hero, breaks free from the chains that bind him to a pillar. Sambanda Mudaliar, during the first staging did it with so much of force that the noise woke up Ellis, the Superintendent of the VP Hall, who was sleeping in his private quarters at one end of the building. He immediately rushed in thinking that a riot was in progress and VP Hall was in danger.

The SVS took its responsibilities to society very seriously and often staged charity performances. The first was for the Indian Famine Relief Fund in 1897 and this was a staging of Mudaliar’s Pittham Piditta Veeran. The staging netted the fund Rs 214-4-8 and among those who sat in the audience to witness it was Sir George Moore, President of the Madras Corporation. In 1902 the SVS had to bail out the VP Hall itself for the building was constructed with what was thought to be a monetary gift from the Maharajah of Vizianagaram which later transpired to be a loan. The SVS staged Virumbiya Vithame, which was inspired by Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Presided over by Justice Boddam, the proceeds of Rs 200 were handed over to the VP Hall Redemption Fund. An interesting aside about the play is that as in the original, it is largely in a forest setting. The SVS members therefore desired to see it being performed in a garden. The play was performed once in the grounds of Government House with Lord Wenlock in attendance and much later in 1904, in the gardens of the Ranade Public Library and Mylapore Club. V Krishnaswami Iyer, the noted lawyer, was at first irritated and later curious to know how a hallowed play of Shakespeare’s could be acted out in Tamil. He witnessed the staging at the Ranade Hall and was so impressed that he became the President of the SVS! Another interesting fallout of this play was that the SVS began translating and reworking on several of Shakespeare’s plays to suit an oriental setting. Arising out of this came plays such as Jwalita Ramanan (Romeo and Juliet), Vaanipuratthu Vanikan (The Merchant of Venice), Sarasangi (Cymbeline) and Amaladityan (Hamlet). In 1905, the SVS began the practice of celebrating Shakespeare Day at VP Hall. This gradually expanded into a Shakespeare Week, with the increasing crowds necessitating an outdoor staging of the plays. A stage was put up at the tennis courts at the rear of VP Hall and the plays were enacted there.

The practice of holding night-long plays was soon felt to be an impediment as many members and guests were government servants, professionals and businessmen who needed to report for work early the next day. The SVS pioneered the concept of evening shows when for the first time on 21^st October 1906, the play Kaadalar Kangal was staged at the VP Hall within three hours, beginning at 6.00 pm. At that time it was a novelty and several criticised the SVS for its new timings fearing that it would result in the loss of patronage. It however soon became the norm and when cinema came to Madras, it followed the same timings.

To be continued

SVK’s review of the Music Academy book

SVK the noted critic has reviewed my book Four Score & More. A good review and I have been better treated by SVK’s pen than most musicians

http://www.hindu.com/br/2010/02/02/stories/2010020250111300.htm

More on Tension at Tyagaraja Aradhana

Just got an email which says that the intrepid youth who asked SK Chettur to stop smoking was KC Veeraraghavan. An apt name. He became a CBI Officer and was known for his integrity. He was awarded the President’s Police Medal in later years. Also Rajaji did act. He got Chettur transferred and sent SY Krishnaswami, ICS in his place. SYK ensured that the interrupted Aradhana was resumed.

Short and Snappy 1st February 2010

Party Elections – Chennai style

The Man from Madras Musings knew that something strange was afoot even in the wee hours of the morning. Considerable noise was making itself heard even while the road was dark. The steady thudding did not mean that MMM’s blood pressure had finally reached alarming levels, but that some political party workers were pounding together a makeshift platform or a scaffolding on which a ‘temporary’ (in the eyes of those who maintain the law) hoarding was being put up. Scratching noises closer to the window did not mean the cat was returning home after its night out but that willing hands were clambering up the neem tree to tie plastic coated festoons. That this was so got confirmed when a hair-raising scream was followed by a sharp hiss and a meow, in turn followed by a loud bump indicated that one of the feet that belonged to the willing hands had stepped on the cat as it lay on a branch. The cat had fought back and the party worker was now lying on the ground awaiting rescue by some of his cohorts. After all this sleep was well-nigh impossible and MMM decided to investigate and found that sure enough, a political meeting was unfolding in all its glory in the kalyana mandapam opposite MMM’s house. Only this was  a meeting with a difference- it was a party election.

Our party leaders may profess atheism but it has not yet percolated down to the grass roots. While the higher-ups were all correctly colour coded, wearing the obligatory whites with the necessary borders, the ‘tondan’ and his female counterpart were obviously a confused lot what with this being the season for various pilgrimages to shrines that demand certain colours in clothing. It was a colourful group that came in to vote.  Some of the men wore ochre dhotis while others sported a deep violet and yet others a jet black. Women wore saries ranging from red to a cadmium yellow. If the get-up (not to be confused with set-up which is a Tamil word with other meanings) was colourful, so was the language, with friendly comments being bandied about on family relationships in each other’s houses. Anyone would imagine that we are the most incestuous society in existence. Almost all those who came to vote had cell-phones and kept talking into them. And the dialogues over the phone were no less colourful.

Colour was also provided by the red sprays with which the entire neighbourhood was decorated. MMM is not referring to any Communist party here, but if the party workers had come as an electorate, they had also come to expectorate and to MMM, watching from a window, it was as though a competition in spitting was in progress. There were evidently two disciplines in this spitathlon–who could spit most often and who could spit the maximum distance. The former group relied on short bursts and aimed at the nearest spot on the ground while the second group took in deep breaths, formed a V with two fingers around the mouth and aimed for the farthest target possible.

By 10.00 am, a vast horde of motorcycles and cars (mostly of a variety that rhymes with valise) had blocked most of the road off. Those caught inside houses could not leave them even though they may have had urgent engagements. The police that stood watching advised those who complained to have patience and not get excited. It was bad, said the police for everyone’s health. Traffic that usually went by MMM’ road also got diverted adding to the chaos.

At 11.00 am, the local leader (often referred to as the pista though MMM has never found out what that dry fruit had in common with our eminences) arrived. He was greeted with the bursting of crackers. One of these was actually a series of smaller fire-crackers which was unrolled as a sort of carpet on the road. A passing party worker noticing that MMM was looking at the goings on explained that it was a 1000 wallah. From the noise it made and the duration that it went on, MMM could be forgiven in imagining that it was a 10000000000 wallah. The leader incidentally, had two cell-phones, one which he used to make calls and the other, kept with a flunkey, in which he received calls. The leader having voted and left, once again to the deafening cheer of crackers, polling as they say continued briskly.

By afternoon it was not so brisk, what with several of those who came in briskly now tottering alarmingly. Enquiries by MMM revealed that all this had to do with the refreshments served on the occasion. Perhaps the food was too heavy but many of those who came to vote chose to sit on the footpath opposite MMM’s house cradling their heads in their hands. Yet others chose to sleep away the feeling. By evening all was over and a further burst of crackers revealed that the leader had won. There was only one contestant anyway.

Combining duty with pleasure

The other evening MMM and his good lady went off to Island Grounds to witness the inauguration of a public event. The highest and mightiest in the land were present and not surprisingly, security was tight. MMM had to get off the car at quite some distance from the venue and instruct his driver to go to the designated parking lot and wait. The event, and mighty enjoyable it was, being over, MMM and lady began the process of trying to find the car. The cell-phones were all jammed owing to security and by the time the signal was restored, MMM’s driver was not answering his. The good lady was quite convinced that the driver had run off with the car but MMM not prone to such alarums and excursions decided to find the nearest police booth from where public announcements were being made. And it was here that he met policemen who make all the difference and restore MMM’s faith in the force.

First was the smiling face which received MMM at the entrance and asked as to what the issue was. No problem said the face, they would announce MMM’s car number and driver’s name and as the broadcast is also made at the parking lot, he should soon be here. (“If he is there”, this from MMM’s good lady). It was at this time that MMM got to see the angel who was in action at the microphone. “Driver of car number so and so” said the angel. “Where are you sleeping? Or are you playing cards under a tree? Come here at once.” MMM had scarcely ceased chuckling over this and even the good lady appeared mollified, when a noted dancer arrived asking for her car to be announced. The angel apparently knew who this was and so announced, “Where are you driver? Your madam is standing on one leg. No, the other leg. Now, madam is dancing due to tension.” And so it went on. It was a performance par excellence. When the angel found too many people at the gate, waiting for their cars, even as the VIP vehicles tried to make their way through, it came up with another gem. “You are all VIPs to us. We don’t want any VIP car to run over you. So please move over to the kerb”.

After a while, MMM’s driver turned up. Immediately the microphone boomed, “Aha! So there you are! You look nice and refreshed just as your owner is all tense over your disappearance”. All this brought a nice touch to what could have otherwise been a dreary chore and that made all the difference. If only all of us were like this.

Remembering Indira Menon

My tribute to a great friend was published in the Sruti issue of January 2010

Indira Menon – Author and Rasika

Indira Menon passed away peacefully in the early hours of the morning of 27^th November 2009.

I got to know her first in 1999 or thereabouts when I read her first book, The Madras Quartet. While the principal focus in the work was on the lives of T Brinda, MS Subbulakshmi, DK Pattammal and ML Vasanthakumari, it had an exhaustive section on the careers of women in Carnatic music in the early years of the 20^th century. This was fascinating. We subsequently met when Indira came down from Delhi for a short visit. As she autographed my copy of her book when we first met and also included the date, I can see that it was on 7^th November 2001. From then on we became firm friends.

Indira came from a family of achievers. Maternal grandfather Sir K Ramunni Menon was a zoologist and had served as Vice-Chancellor of the Madras University. Father VRK Menon was an ICS officer, sister Narayani Gupta a respected historian who specialized on Delhi and nephew Ramu Damodaran, apart from being in the IFS, was a familiar face as a newscaster and a famous voice over Doordarshan. Indira was an achiever too. In 1947 she contracted polio which rendered her right arm completely useless. She taught herself to manage with her left hand and not content with that managed to learn how to cycle, go mountaineering, make charcoal portraits, take lovely photographs and plenty of other things. Qualifying in Economics, Indira taught at the Daulat Ram College and the Jesus and Mary College. Retiring in 1991, she was able to spend time in doing whatever she liked, which was many things, including the taking care of her mother and listening to Carnatic music.

Indira was born in 1935 in the house that MS Subbulakshmi made famous as Kalki Gardens. It was the residence of Sir K Ramunni Menon for a short while during which time Indira was delivered. “My mother had a tough time delivering me,” she later recollected. “I was huge. And my grandmother Lady Menon, after the delivery and with a view to strengthen my mother, called out to Dr MR Guruswami Mudaliar who was present if my mother could be given curds”. “Are you mad woman?” he is said to have barked. “Why would she want to eat birds now?” Relating this to me, Indira burst into her trademark laughter – high pitched and most infectious. “Many years later,” she continued, “I went to Kalki Gardens with my mother and was pointed out the room where I was born. Imagine my thrill when MS told me that it was her boudoir”!

Music was one of Indira’s great passions. She frequently recollected how she would be taken along with elder sister Kalyani to listen to the Tamil Isai Sangam concerts at the St Mary’s Co-Cathedral on Armenian Street and the neighbouring Gokhale Hall for the Indian Fine Arts Society’s concerts. “On one occasion, MS sat behind us. I was so excited that I kept turning around until my mother pinched my thigh and asked me not to gape like that. After a while I found my mother doing the same and then we both shamelessly kept gazing at MS. The suspense was too much. We wanted to know what her speaking voice sounded like. And so my mother made some inane enquiry as to why Radha had not come. MS gave a gentle smile and said something in a low voice. But that was enough for us. We were so thrilled.”

Sir K Ramunni Menon wanted the best tutelage for his granddaughters and so T Brinda became their guru. Indira treasured the handwritten notations that Brinda wrote down for her. She also had a tambura of Brinda’s which if I am not mistaken she gifted to N Ravikiran. All this and more were pieces of information that Indira shared whenever we had one of our unending telephone conversations – always interrupted by her high-pitched laughs.

Indira and I embarked on almost identical projects in 2003. I began writing Carnatic Summer and she, Great Masters Of Carnatic Music (1930-1965). Eleven musicians were common to both books and while writing it we exchanged a lot of information. She would be tickled pink if told some of Ariyakkudi’s witticisms or Maharajapuram’s ribald jokes and often regretted that the latter could not be put down in print! Later, her pen portraits of the musicians were translated into Malayalam by her friend PK Uthaman for the Kalakaumudi. Somewhere in between, Indira came to Madras once again. This time Uthaman was also here and I took them to George Town. There we helped Indira climb into a rickshaw and we visited Gokhale Hall and Veena Dhanam’s house. Indira was overwhelmed. We also visited Bunder Street where Tyagaraja is said to have stayed in 1839.

In Delhi, Indira spent a lot of time taking care of her mother who lived well into her nineties, passing away only in 2007. By then Indira was confined to the house as well. The polio had steadily weakened her lungs and she needed to be on oxygen support. But this did not sap her spirit. We continued chatting on the phone and our favourite subject would be the music and the idiosyncrasies of the masters of the past. Following the release of my book on Bangalore Nagarathnamma, The Devadasi and The Saint, Indira arranged for me to release the book in Delhi and give a talk on the subject at the India International Centre. A high-profile audience attended the talk, thanks to Indira.

I last called on Indira in 2008 and she had some gifts for me. One was a bound volume containing xerox copies of catalogues and advertisements of gramophone records from the 1930s and 40s. The other was a set of five 78 rpm gramophone records in mint condition with each disc in its original cover. Indira had inherited Sir K Ramunni Menon’s collection which she had preserved carefully before handing it over to N Pattabhiraman for SAMUDRI. The discs she gave me were some that had been retained by her.

My last telephone conversation with Indira was a few months ago when she gave me a couple of anecdotes concerning the Music Academy. “If you are including them in your book, remember to acknowledge me” she said. She was busy organizing an exhibition of her photographs of Hampi. And then she was gone. I did remember to include the anecdotes and also acknowledge her in Four Score and More, all the while thinking of what a laugh we would have had after seeing the stories in print. Truly she was a blithe spirit. 

Tension at a Tyagaraja Aradhana

This happened in 1939

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2010/01/29/stories/2010012951560600.htm

Some articles in The Hindu

I find that I have not been adding links to some articles in which I was involved (either as subject (hehehe) or ones which I wrote) that appeared in The Hindu. So here goes:

1. Konnakkol Pakkiriya Pillai

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/music/article51241.ece

2. Sorting out Sruti Bhedam

http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2009/12/18/stories/2009121851320400.htm

3. The article on Four Score and More

http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2009/12/11/stories/2009121150960100.htm

4. Article on the release of the book

http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/12/stories/2009121260220400.htm

5. My first article for the Hindu’s Sunday magazine

http://www.thehindu.com/mag/2009/12/20/stories/2009122050010100.htm

Short and Snappy dated 15th January 2010

Majoring in Mega Serials

Each year there comes a time when the Man from Madras Musings in confined to bed with back problems. This year was the worst in MMM’s living memory and MMM, always prone (a painful word under the circumstances) to melodrama hobbled around claiming that all was lost. MMM’s good lady thought otherwise and felt that positive thinking ought to do the trick. All that MMM had to do according to her was to keep repeating that he had no backache and presto he would be right as rain. But that did not happen and so off MMM went to a doctor who recommended bed rest and that meant MMM had sufficient time to brood on life in general and on mega serials to be specific.

MMM having made a study of these during his enforced rest has come to the conclusion that all you need for making a serial that can be termed mega are three sets- a police station, a house and a hospital. You keep rotating the story between these three locations. You also take precautions that not all three locations are featured in the same episode but ensure that considerable time is wasted in showing the characters rushing from one to the other. For instance, Character A has just been unfairly hauled up before the awful majesty of the law in the person of police officer B who is in the pay of villain C when D, the wife of A faints at home on hearing of what has happened to A. This brings on the commercial break with a voice over announcing breathlessly a slew of sponsors after which D is shown being rushed off to hospital by neighbours/ relatives E,F, G & H, all of them in poor shape and not capable of running along with a prostrate D. At the hospital the Doctor, say I, takes a look at D and draws a deep breath and then the titles come on and that is the end of the day’s episode. The next day you show A coming home and being informed by E/F/G/H that D is in hospital and so he rushes off there. En-route villain C sees him and calls B and gives him hell for letting A off. Commercial break comes on next followed by B taking a deep breath prior to setting off on A’s chase and that brings the day’s play to a close. The next three days are spent in showing D struggling for life in hospital with E/F/G&H lamenting and predicting dire endings (which MMM as audience was earnestly hoping for) while A, in a bid to dodge C, is taking several circuitous routes to reach the hospital. In the middle of all this, the cast resigns en-masse and you are told that A1 will now act as A, B1as B and so on. Sometimes one or two cast members, perhaps sick and tired of lamenting, being on the run and putting on worried expressions, quit the serial whereupon they are promptly bumped off in the story. A couple of photographs with rose petals strewn around will suffice. And in case the script-writer is really stuck for ideas, then an entire evening is spent in showing the story till now in flashback. This is also perhaps to refresh the script-writer’s mind (if there is such an organ) as to what are the convoluted threads that have been woven till then.

Almost all serials feature men with two establishments (the small house being an integral feature), wife-beating, drunkenness, gambling, fraudulent financial deals and corruption. In short they serve to showcase all that is negative in society. If it is a Hindi serial, it invariably depicts battles between the rich, with each family being so feudal in its set up that it makes you wonder if we are really in the 21^st century. Each serial has a villainous character who is forever plotting to corner the family’s business share, or poison the in-law or plot the downfall of a brother or a sister. The juvenile story line, the poor acting, the clichéd dialogues and portrayal of characters as black or white with nary a shade of grey make for the worst possible entertainment. And yet thousands must be tuning in to watch these and that includes children as well. Surely there ought to be a law that regulates these. But given the number of sponsors that are announced before every episode, MMM is quite certain that the producers are laughing all the way to the bank and so nobody is really bothered about impact on society.

Tigers in winter

The weather is already hotting up but early mornings are still pleasant and as the Man from Madras Musings looks out of his balcony, he being not walk-worthy as yet, he finds a number of men prowling about, all of them with tiger like ears. No, MMM is not hallucinating but is referring to a new variety of ear muff which is being worn. These are simple bands that stretch over the rear of the head and form two pads over the ears. Almost all of them sport tiger skin like designs and it makes MMM wonder if we are suddenly transforming into a city of tiger-men if not werewolves. Wonder what happened to the ubiquitous monkey cap which was worn by an earlier generation. Also, MMM who is rather challenged when it comes to matters concerning hair, wonders as to how these tiger pads protect the top of the head, which if bare causes greater problems in winter as compared to exposed ears.

Water Woes

And so, we are hearing noises about the water levels dipping and therefore not being adequate for the forthcoming year. But the powers that be have made reassuring noises that we can last till the coming monsoons and if they fail, things can get sticky, both literally and figuratively. And the very thought of water tankers fills the Man from Madras Musings with horror and he trembles like one afflicted with ague. For the past few years, thanks to rainwater harvesting and relatively copious monsoons we have seen a little less of the water tanker. There have been occasions when MMM has seen water being supplied in certain areas by tankers that are painted with petroleum signs on the outside. Such being the levels of desperation to which we sank. The bigger irony is when water tankers bear all kinds of messages asking us to conserve water while the vehicles themselves have such poor plumbing that water is forever leaking from them. Very often, the top lid of the tanker is left open and the water splashes liberally on those who are passing by. Sometimes the shock of suddenly being doused by water can throw a two-wheeler user off balance and even result in a fatality. But that is not something that we appear to be bothered about.

New Year Greetings

And as always, the Man from Madras Musings received his share of outlandish greetings, the most weird ones of course coming in through the cell phone. The longest one wished that MMM has “12 mths of happiness, 52 wks of fun, 365 days success, 8760 hrs good health, 52600 mins of favour (what does that mean?), 3153600 sex (yes) of joy”. It also added HpYnEwYr which MMM assumes means Happy New Year. At the end of the message and rather understandably so, given the length of the missive, the sender’s name was omitted.

More things to do

Just as the Man from Madras Musings was heaving a sigh of relief that this column is done and at the same time worrying over what to write in the next, he finds a political party’s local cadre election is just beginning in the marriage hall opposite his house. And so, joy reigns supreme. MMM is quite confident that there will be enough and more to relate. Till then, have a good time and a happy pongal (HpYpNgL).

Remembering Jyoti da

And so the old man has gone and the newspapers and the electronic media are full of how he was a great leader etc. I thought I must pen a few words on living in Calcutta during the Jyoti Basu years for those were the years that moulded my life.

We, my parents and I, went to Cal when I was ten- 1976. For the first time, I experienced what would become a part of our daily life – load shedding. This meant the electric power being turned off at the mains as the state did not have sufficient power to cater to the demand. Every day the newspapers would carry details of how some unit at the Santaldih and Bandel power stations was not working, the Damodar Valley Power Corp supplied only so much power and how therefore several parts of the city went without power for so many hrs of the day. Gradually it became a situation when we managed without power for most of the day – 10 to 12 hr powercuts became the norm. I learnt to study by hurricane lamp and to sleep in an open verandah at night where thanks to our flat being on the 3rd floor and there being no highrise in the vicinity, we were assured of  plentiful breeze. Each time the power failed, a collective groan would echo across the entire locality and when it came back a cry of relief would resound too. Miraculously, during Durga Puja and on cricket/football match days, the power would not be cut. In fact, the government would make an announcement to that effect well in advance. Discussions in offices (where people invariably discussed more and worked less), schools, buses and roads centred on load shedding. The Statesman, then Calcutta’s leading newspaper once remarked that it was strange that while the CM was called Jyoti, the state was always in darkness. Some other publication said that the city was full of Mukherjees, Bannerjees and Chatterjees but no energy. We learnt what an inverter was and bought one that was housed with a bank of lead-acid batteries in the principal bedroom of the flat. God knows how much lead fumes we must have inhaled. The brand name Sen & Pandit became famous. The Government published schedules by locality for load shedding. The only thing we could be sure of was that the scheduled hour was when the power would definitely not go off. At all other times it was anybody’s guess.

A newspaper carried a report that the area where the CM lived was free of power failure. This was hotly denied but it was apparently true. Jyoti da had a heart attack and was advised against living in his flat which necessitated his climbing up the stairs. He then shifted into a small bungalow in the Raj Bhawan campus. The Telegraph I think it was, published a story on how those who lived in the vicinity of the CM’s old flat were willing to even carry him up each evening provided he returned thereby ridding them of their power woes.

Calcutta was also notorious for the functioning of its telephones. They rarely worked. And yet people got bills regularly, often for exorbitant amounts. Linesmen were famous for connecting your telephone to someone else who made international calls at your expense. Telephones remained dead for more than two years in some houses and once an irate group of citizens organised a funeral for the telephone. Hundreds joined the march including yours truly and amidst chantings of Hari Bol the instrument was consigned to flames at Keyatolla Ghat or some such place. Everybody laughed. In Calcutta, a good sense of humour could keep you going.

The roads were another story. Bramhapur, developing as a new suburb was called Bumpur. And Strand Road had so many potholes that it was decided that each one would be named after a political leader.

Despite all this we survived and came to love the city. Cost of living was cheap and the Government never revised the bus and tram fares and you could get around on payment of 25 paise on long routes till well into the 1990s. Vegetables and rice were available a plenty though when it came to the former, variety could dip to all time lows in summer. The people were so friendly and warm and the language was beautiful. The city was a heritage lover’s delight. Thousands of crumbling mansions stood, undisturbed thanks to litigation or apathy. And during Durga Puja, Calcutta was heaven. Jyoti babu and his ministers were simple too. Oftentimes during a traffic jam if you turned around you could see Jyoti babu in his Ambassador, waiting patiently for the holdup to clear. Just one car ahead of his for security. In those days, only Governors and Presidents used vehicles with outriders.

 

The city was famous for its bandhs too, always called for on Friday or Monday just to ensure that the people got a long weekend. Bandhs were always a grand success irrespective of who called it and the same went for rallies too. My father and his colleagues used to mutter that all this was no good for industry and that companies were leaving the state in droves but I did not understand it then.

Afraid that I would develop into a heritage loving culture vulture, complete with unshaven look, long hair, jholna bag and drinking tea at adda shops, father packed me off to Delhi. Then many years later, complete with MBA, yours truly returned to Calcutta to work in Lintas. It was 1989 and along with the rest of the country, Calcutta and West Bengal too were trying to come to terms with change. By then ITC was the only big ad-spender in Calcutta and all ad agencies wept with delight at its smile and trembled with fear at its frown. Roads were still bad. Power continued to fail. But suddenly the telephones began working thanks to new electronic exchanges. Metro made a difference to travel though minibuses, an excresense of a new kind contributed along with the bumps and potholes to spondilitis. Industries were practically non-existent. You had to just travel by rail down the Howrah-Rishra line to see hundreds of sick units – old British firms, all having seen their heyday and now being eyed by speculators for the real estate – not the factory land but lovely bungalows and flats in posh Alipore. By 1990, power failure was a thing of the past. The generation capacity had increased but wags said that there were no industries to draw power anyway and so domestic consumers got it in plenty.

In 1991 I joined a multinational firm in Calcutta which too had seen better days. Labour problems were rife and a permanent pandal would stand outside the building for protestors. “What do they want?” my Sardar boss would thunder. Then he would laugh and say, “See these b**** c****! They will now shout slogans and five minutes later pull out a harmonium and sing songs”. And sure enough that is what happened.

 

Our company had completed a new chemical plant in Rishra with Japanese collaboration. Jyoti da came to inaugurate it thanks to our chairman who was his close friend. It was a big event and the first major investment of any kind in Calcutta in many years. The press was there in full strength. The unions were there too. It was expected that Jyoti da would make some new policy announcement. The unions were confident that it would be some new populist measure. The industrialists were resigned to their fate.

Jyoti da began and there was a collective gasp. He chastised the unions for bringing the state to the morass in which it found itself. He said he would do nothing to help those who were unproductive. He said that the only way Bengal could regain its past glory was by proving that it was equal to any other state when it came to work culture. I looked at the union leaders – all of them aghast to a man. I looked at the rows of industrialists and they all looked as though they had seen a new dawn. “Lovely speech old boy” said our chairman patting the CM on his back. In any other state you would be better off touching the feet no matter how you close you were. Jyoti da rarely smiled. He just nodded and got into his car and left. It was much later that we found that he had forgotten to take his expensive silver momento. He had no flunkeys who could take care of such things. The next day, one newspaper said that he had sung paeans to industry. A union leader in the company put it more succintly. Das Kapital he said, had become Capital Das.

 

I left Calcutta in 1993 and have not returned since. Wonder how the place is now. My friends assure me that it has changed quite a bit. I hope the people have not.

 

 

 

 

 

Heritage Conservation – In fits and starts

As 2009 wound to a close and the heritage movement in Madras that is Chennai clocked yet another year to its tally, it is clear that the awareness is slowly seeping in and today, both Government and private parties are to an extent sensitised about the need for conservation and preservation. What is needed however, is knowledge as to how to go about it, failing which the awareness will not translate itself into anything beyond shedding a tear or two every time a piece of heritage vanishes.

But first, let us look at some of the positive developments. Victoria Public Hall is undergoing a thorough restoration, though the cloak of secrecy that surrounds it is still worrying. The library building on the Masonic Lodge premises in Egmore has been splendidly restored. Close on the heels of this came the opening of the restored P Orr & Sons showroom on Mount Road. Purists have pointed out that the building was never white but always capped in red, but nevertheless we have to be thankful for the way the renovation has been done. Elsewhere, on the DPI Campus in Nungambakkam, the Madras Literary Society building has been restored to its old glory and as this article goes to press, work is beginning on the heritage gateway that fronts the campus on College Road. It is to be hoped that work will also be undertaken on the more important gate which fronts to Cooum. The police station in Triplicane has escaped the hammer thanks to timely intervention from the highest quarter. Restoration of historic Ripon Building has been announced and it is understood that the work will be done in keeping with the heritage status of the structure.

But despite all this cheer, what worries those with the interests of conservation at heart is the absence of any consistency when it comes to taking a decision on heritage structures. And even if a decision is taken, there is no clear-cut guideline as to how the process of restoration ought to be handled. Thus, while the restoration of Chepauk Palace began over three years ago very little can be seen beyond the liberal use of white paint on some walls. Similarly, it is not clear as to whether the Government is using the services of those qualified in preservation of heritage structures in its conservation activity at the Victoria Public Hall. The National Gallery (formerly the Victoria Memorial) was declared out-of-bounds some years ago on the grounds of structural weakness but nothing has been done so far to get the structure strengthened and restored. Ironically, the gateway to the latest Government sponsored exhibition at the Island Grounds is modeled on this building and the artisans who fashioned the entrance have even been given an award by the Government. While there has been considerable hype over the saving of the Triplicane police station, what is not being pointed out is that neighbouring buildings such as the Kalaivanar Arangam which served as the State Assembly for some time and Cooum House which was meant to be the official residence of the Chief Minister of the state, have been razed to the ground. Action was promised in restoring the High Court campus and a committee was formed to go into the modalities. But since then nothing has been heard of this and it is not clear if the committee has met even once. The Saidapet Teachers College campus has seen excellent restoration of buildings fronting the road, while those behind have been allowed to languish.

If this is the fate of Government buildings, those in private hands have fared even worse. The Bharat Insurance Building is now a cause-celebre with the matter pending in court. Similar is the case with Gokhale Hall on Armenian Street. In both cases, the owners began demolishing the structures and work was suspended only after the court intervened. Both buildings have survived for the past few years as roofless shells, completely exposed to the elements. Work began on the demolition of  the historic offices of Binny Limited, also on Armenian Street, last week. In the last two years, several cinema theatres, many with unique facades such as Roxy and Crown, have vanished. For every successful example of restoration, there are at least ten buildings that have been pulled down.

What we need is a well-defined policy and a framework which will be consistent towards all heritage structures. And for this we need a Heritage Act. Can we hope for it 2010?