Tiruppugazh

This article was written as a sleeve note for a CD in which Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi and SP Ramh have sung verses from the Tiruppugazh. The CD details are given in this link.

Tiruppugazh – the matchless prayer in verse

To sing the glory of God was the chosen mission in life of many great savants. Saint Arunagirinathar is among the foremost in the pantheon of such devotees who were steeped in bhakti. Details on the great composer’s life are at best sketchy and his biography as we know it today has been essentially culled out from the internal evidence that his compositions present.

It is believed that Arunagirinathar lived circa 1450 AD. In his verses he claims that his youth was spent in debauchery. This cannot be accepted as a fact completely, for it is customary for bhakti composers to ascribe all worldly sins unto themselves as a method of helping the laity understand the common temptations that lead one away from moral uprightness and devotion. At a certain stage in life Arunagirinathar appears to have become disenchanted with his lifestyle and contemplated suicide. As he was about to perpetrate the act, Lord Subrahmanya appeared before him and with his vEl (spear) inscribed the words OM SHARAVANABHAVA on his tongue. This changed the man completely. He gave up all thoughts of putting an end to his life and burst into song, singing of his patron deity. As per one version, the Lord himself gave the composer the first word for his songs namely “mutti”. The verse beginning with the word muttaittaru is considered to be his first composition. Later he is said to have visited Vayalur (a Subrahmanya shrine near Tiruchirapalli) where he is said to have begun composing in real earnest. He then proceeded to visit many of the great shrines of Subrahmanya in India and Sri Lanka and sang of them. In addition he also composed hymns at the panca bhUta sthalAs of Kanchipuram, Tiruvanaikka, Tiruvannamalai, Kalahasti and Chidambaram.

It is with Tiruvannamalai that the composer is most closely associated. He is said to have subdued those who believed in human sacrifices, in a duel fought at the sixteen pillared hall near the Sivaganga tank inside the temple precincts. Lord Subrahmanya is said to have manifested on one of the pillars in support of his devotee. Some of his compositions speak of a King by name Praudha Deva Raja. An interesting legend says that when the King was suffering from poor vision, he sought Arunagirinathar’s help. The saint left his mortal body and assuming the form of a parrot, flew into the heavens and brought back the dEva pArijAtam, a divine flower, which restored the King’s sight. The composer then resumed his natural form. The tower from which he flew as a parrot is said to be the “kiLi” (parrot) gOpuram in the Tiruvannamalai temple.

Putting legends to one side, historians have identified Praudha Deva Raja to be King Deva Raya II of Vijayanagar (ruled 1421 to 1448 AD). Arunagirinathar must have been a contemporary. He is said to have composed over 16000 songs of which only 1300 or so survive. Credit for their resurrection goes to VT Subramania Pillai (1846-1909) who published them in six parts. Working as an English Writer in the office of a British judge in a court at Manjakuppam, he was fascinated to hear a verse being offered as evidence by the priests of the Chidambaram temple in the process of a religious dispute that was a subject of litigation. He resolved to collect at least 1000 verses of the Tiruppugazh and devoted his lifetime to it. The first volume was released in 1894/5 and Pillai lived to see the third volume’s release. He formed a lifelong friendship with Vallimalai Saccidananda Swamigal (1870-1951) who began singing and popularising the verses. Pillai’s sons brought out the remaining volumes after his death. Pillai’s second son “Tanikaimani” VS Chengalvaraya Pillai wrote an authoritative commentary on the work.

As per the available verses, it is possible to identify 226 shrines that Arunagirinathar composed upon. It is also significant that out of these, 117 are also pADal pETra sthalams, or those sung by the 63 devotees of Shiva.

The internal evidence in the songs shows that Arunagirinathar was well-versed in music. He mentions paNs (rAgAs) such as varALi, shikhaNDi, dhanAshi, lalita, kaishiki, gauDi, bhairavi, malahari, bhauLi, gauLi, kuranji, vipanci and others. It is not certain if some of the familiar names can be identified as the same rAgAs as are sung today. However the tunes are now lost and it is conventional to sing the verses in rAgAs such as nATa, Ananda bhairavi, cenjuruTTi, hamsAnandi, kuranji, mOhanam and dEvagAndhAri. It is in the sphere to tALa that Arunagirinathar shows his deep insight into musical forms. He mentions five mArgi tALAs, namely udghaTitam, chachAtpuTam, chAchApuTam, ShaTpITha putrikam and sampat vEShTikam. He also gives the names of three dEsi tALAs, namely utsava tALa, darpaNa tALa and carcari tALa. However, the actual tALAs used are so varied that scholars have struggled to classify them in any of the well known groups of tALAs. Research is still going on in this area.

Carnatic Music made Tiruppugazh its own sometime early in the twentieth century. The family of Kanchipuram Dhanakoti Ammal was famed for its extensive repertoire. Her nephew Kanchipuram Naina Pillai made them an integral part of his concerts and several were his fans who stayed on till the end of the concert to hear him sing them. Alathur Venkatesa Iyer, thanks to his close friendship with Pudukottai Dakshinamurthi Pillai, became enamoured of the songs and having set them to music, taught them to the Alathur Brothers comprising his son Sivasubramania Iyer and disciple Srinivasa Iyer. The duo gave concerts comprising Tiruppugazh pieces alone, a feat later achieved by TN Seshagopalan as well. The arrival of the Tiruppugazh in Carnatic repertoire was catalyst for the Tamizh Isai movement of the 1940s. Naina Pillai’s school represented by his disciple Chittoor Subramanya Pillai and his school, of which Madurai Somu was a famous student, continued the tradition. In the 1940s and 50s, the eminent singer KB Sundarambal and the well known lawyer “Tiruppugazh Mani” TM Krishnaswami Ayyar did yeoman service in propagating Tiruppugazh.

From T Nagar to Aerial City?

The Chennai Corporation appears to have finally woken up to the fact that it has a problem, an urban nightmare in the form of T Nagar. It had asked the city-based firm of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj in collaboration with Hong Kong based Townland Consultants to submit a report on how to make the area more friendly to all stakeholders and less congested. The report has since been submitted and public consultations have begun.

Theyagaroya Nagar or T Nagar as it is better known, is an area that most people in the city would agree symbolises chaos. While it may be a shoppers’ paradise years of uncontrolled growth have made it an urban nightmare. The area near Panagal Park also serves as a vital traffic link and with increasing traffic density is choked for the better part of the day. One hundred thousand footfalls and three times that many vehicles moving around contribute to pollution making this the area with the maximum air-borne particulate matter in the whole city. Residents of the area have rightly declared that living there is a most stressful experience. In the past few years the area has also witnessed fire accidents caused by faulty planning of buildings. It is also well-known for illegal extensions and encroachments which are periodically removed in high-profile drives.

The inception plan document by the consultants envisages utilisation of T Nagar’s space in multiple levels. Rightfully recognising that even shoppers here view the place as somewhere to be rushed into and rushed out of in as short a time frame as possible, the plan calls for transit-oriented development. It states that one of the keys to making this a less stressed area is to plan for a good mass transport system which will ensure that transiting vehicles keep moving smoothly. It envisages a multi-level solution with malls atop flyovers, elevated areas, demarcated pedestrian walkways and traffic-calm localities. It aims to make T Nagar an aerial city.

The public consultation exercise which began a few days ago highlighted several ground realities that need to be faced before the aerial city takes off. Residents have complained that they have not been considered as stakeholders as the plan talks of shops, shoppers, vehicle-users, hawkers and the staff of the establishments in the neighbourhood. They feel that the first step ought to be better traffic management in the area. Some called for the shifting of the bus terminus in T Nagar to Saidapet. This was immediately shot down by the Transport officials present. Such conflicts among the stakeholders will have to be resolved if any plan for improving T Nagar is to fructify. An inclusive solution is what will really help but the present plan looks for segregating of the various stakeholders.

Interestingly, while the first public consultation saw the participation by the Mayor, the Commissioner of the Corporation, police officers, Councillors and representatives of Metrowater, the CMDA was conspicuous by its absence. The reason given was that the CMDA has already given its nod and considers this to be a matter of local area development. How they can consider this to be so when the proposed changes will affect the Master Plan of the city is mysterious.

The plan is in its first stage of development. After public consultations it is expected to be tabled in the Corporation by June and then handed over to the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited which will be the special purpose vehicle to oversee the development. The plan document is expected to soon be put up on the websites of the Corporation and the TNUIFSL.

Short and Snappy dated April 15th, 2010

Some unique Chennai words and phrases

The Man from Madras Musings, in the course of a varied life has travelled far and wide and has come to the conclusion that Centum which is a gobbledegook equivalent of getting 100% marks in an examination, is a word that is found only in Madras/Chennai vocabulary. By this MMM does not mean that it is a part of Madras Bhashai from which we get gems such as regent (for decent), assault (for brazen) and feed (for speed). Centum is in a class by itself. It is also wholly middle-class. It has nothing to do with the rich (MMM has never heard a nabob of Madras state that he got centum on his investments) and as for the have-nots, centum has not yet penetrated their vocabulary. Centum, for the uninitiated also does not have anything to do with cent, which in Chennai is a word in currency, though not as a unit of currency but as a measure of land. But MMM is digressing, his brain no doubt addled by the heat.

To get back to Centum, it is a word that is at least three generations old. In all families, you will hear parents telling their children that everyone in the family from great-grandfather downwards scored Centum in all their examinations thereby qualifying themselves as apples of teachers’ eyes. Not only that, continue the parents, the same is expected from their own children, so that family traditions are kept up. It would break great-grandfather’s heart they say, pointing to the beady-eyed mustachioed gent gazing down from the oval frame, his turban towering over him. All this is said by the parent in the secure knowledge that the family academic report cards have all been destroyed and so there is no chance of the young wide-eyed innocent ever getting to know the truth. And in no other city is it said but in Chennai. Where did we pick it up from MMM wonders. The Centum was usually accompanied by a double-promotion which usually meant that our ancestors completed twelve years of schooling in six or seven. Why then did we not see toddlers in college you may well ask. That was because of another unique Chennai term – underage. This was what the college authorities waited for. Having caught the underage in the act of getting into college, they sent he or she home and made the person cool his or her heels till he or she had attained the correct age for admission. Which in MMM’s view beat the whole purpose of the double-promotion. This in turn rendered Centum fairly useless- null and void you may say.

Eversilver is yet another English word heard only in Chennai. In all parts of the world it is referred to only as stainless steel. But in this our city, MMM has often heard people saying that they were going to a shop selling stainless steel items to buy eversilver vessels. Where did this word come from? MMM is of the view that eversilver must have been an early brand of stainless steel which became the generic term in Chennai. Talking of eversilver always brings to mind the tumbler. In other places it is usually referred to as a glass. But like Centum, the tumbler is also on its way out and is not heard all that often.

Two unique Chennai words that may never die out are tiffin and co-brother. Tiffin, which usually means a heavy snack in Chennai, apparently comes from an obsolete English word – tiffing, which meant a small sip. It belongs in the same class as Co-Brother (brother-in-law), another Chennai word which always brings to MMM visions of Co-Fathers and Co-Mothers, a kind of commune where everyone worked for the common weal.

A colleague with whom MMM discussed these words and phrases also suggested ‘morning ablutions’ which she felt was a quaint mid-Victorian term still in use in Chennai. She also referred to a friend who if called to the phone early in the morning would excuse himself on the grounds that he was still abluting! The colleague also suggested that MMM include a phrase unique to Chennai that meant that women were er… not at home. But MMM ruled it out on the grounds that the Chief would not approve. Period.

Horror Film

Every once in a while, the Man from Madras Musings is dragged kicking, screaming and protesting to the movie theatre by his family. MMM, who would rather be curled up with a good book, finds the driving to the theatre, the struggle for a car-park slot, the rough and tumble of getting into the theatre, the sitting idle for three hours and then the rough and tumble of getting out, the struggle to get out of the car-park slot and the drive home all very tedious. But he has so far not been successful in making his nears and dears (another Chennai expression found on invitation cards) understand this.

And so, off MMM went to the movies, though not without a mild grumble. Passing lightly over the drive, the struggle and the rough and tumble, let MMM take you to the moment when he, his family members having gone in long before, stood at the doorway to the theatre proper, waiting for the usher to check MMM’s ticket and let him in. “There is an unidentified bag below my seat” said a high-pitched voice to the attendant, who simply looked up and mumbled something about shortly coming along to inspect. MMM simply froze on first hearing what the high-pitched voice said and became petrified on seeing the carelessness of the attendant. In fact you would not be far wrong if you thought MMM was a statue put up by his admirers. At which point someone from behind asked MMM if he was planning to take all day and so MMM, the film having begun, felt his way down the aisle and sat at his designated seat. MMM’s family was to the left and when he turned to the right, what should he hear but the high-pitched voice, which evidently had forgotten the unidentified bag and was asking someone for popcorn. And sure enough, when MMM looked below, there was the bag itself, in all its glory.

From then on, MMM concentrated little on the film. His imagination focussed exclusively on what kind of bomb that bag could contain, who could have planted it (MMM even imagined the high-pitched voice was that of a suicide bomber) and what could the consequences possibly be. He could imagine the headlines in the papers. He thought of the Chief, waiting impatiently for the next installment of this column. And then MMM closed his eyes in prayer only to be woken up by his good lady who poked him in the ribs saying that the movie had been most enjoyable and did MMM not think so? Nothing could have exceeded the speed with which MMM got out of the theatre. Rockets could have taken their lessons from him. But in MMM’s view he is through with movies. This episode completes his case against them.

Parking –No Parking

The Man from Madras Musings believes that we in Chennai get the kind of traffic we deserve and our idea of any discipline is observed more in the breach. The accompanying photograph is an example.

The Botanical Gardens on Cathedral Road

The Government has unveiled an exciting package for the erstwhile Agri-Horticultural Society Gardens which stand on both sides of Cathedral Road. When the plan transforms into reality, the patch of green will become one of the largest lungs in an increasingly congested city. Going by the schedule, this is likely to happen by September this year.

Originally a single expanse of green spanning 20.76 acres, the garden was divided when Cathedral Road was laid in the 1850s. The southern portion was occupied by the Woodlands Drive-In Restaurant which was evicted from the place following a High Court judgement in the government’s favour in 2008. The northern portion which housed the horticultural society’s offices and a large garden continues to remain in use. Both parts are now in the possession of the Horticulture Department of the Government which has approved the plans submitted by Rajendran Associates, an architectural firm of Chennai for the development of the gardens. The implementation is being done by the State’s Agricultural Department in collaboration with private landscaping agencies. The whole exercise will cost Rs 8.00 crores.

Work on the southern side began last year and is expected to be completed by September 2010. When completed this will have Italian, German, Japanese and English Gardens besides generic forms such as butterfly, rock and aroma gardens. A children’s play area will also be opened within the southern portion. While plans for the northern side (sandwiched between the Cathedral and the Rane Group’s headquarters) are yet to be unveiled, it is reliably learnt that there are plans to link the two sides by means of an overbridge or a subway. This correspondent fervently hopes that it is the latter for the city’s skyscape has been marred sufficiently by flyovers and overbridges. Also it has repeatedly been pointed out overbridges are rarely used in the city. Most people find the task of climbing up very irksome. The same goes for subways. Whatever the solution it must provide for escalators so that people can use the corridor with ease. The CMDA is however yet to give approval for corridors of either type for the garden.

While all these plans look good and will no doubt be beneficial to the city when executed, it would be best to keep in mind certain do’s and don’ts while going ahead. Firstly, the entire garden is full of very healthy trees and it would not do to cut them down for putting place English/Italian or any other garden. Whatever is to be designed must be done keeping these trees intact. The city has already lost a lot of valuable green cover in Government Estate and its environs owing to the new Assembly buildings and a repeat of the same will not only be ironical considering that a botanical garden is being planned, it will also be severely detrimental to the city’s ambient air quality. The plans while giving the assurance that no permanent structure will come up in the gardens is silent when it comes to the trees.

Secondly, whatever is designed and developed will need to be maintained well. The Chennai Corporation has shown that it can maintain its parks very well. Can the same quality of maintenance be extended to the proposed botanical gardens? Security will also be required for a large wooded expanse should not become a den for nefarious activities. The struggle that took place to relieve the Madi Poonga on Old Jail Road of these elements is still fresh in public memory.

Lastly, can we hope for public conveniences which are clean and kept available? Else our public which largely thinks that trees are sent into this world for only one purpose may put them to uses that may render the gardens a not very appealing place.

MS Subbulakshmi

Charsur recently released a 3 CD pack of a live recording of MS Subbulakshmi made in 1977. This is what I wrote in tribute to that great soul. Nothing new, just a rehash of facts but the life of MS is like the Ramayana. You keep reading about it and get more and more fascinated with it.

MS Subbulakshmi – The Queen of Song

MS Subbulakshmi is one name that will be familiar to even those who may not have heard of the art form called Carnatic music. Her melodious voice, her support for charitable causes, her rendition of numerous chants, the careful career management that her husband T Sadasivam supervised; all these went into the making of a legend. The lady in question however, remained completely untouched by fame and fortune and their vicissitudes. To her the greatest joy was in singing and through it she communicated directly with godhead, leaving her listeners in ecstasy.

MS as she was popularly referred to, was born on 16th September 1916, into a Madurai-based family that was traditionally dedicated to the arts. Grandmother Akkammal was a violinist and mother Shanmukhavadivu was a veena player. The family, comprising MS, her mother, her brother Shaktivel and sister Vadivambal, all lived in Hanumantharayar Koil Street in Madurai. The modest dwelling was where many musicians came to stay when they had a performance engagement in the town. Almost all of them were enchanted by MS’ voice and taught her some pieces from their repertoire. She had formal training under Seithur Sundaresa Bhattar and Madurai Srinivasa Iyengar. Pudukottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai was a great influence as well. From the age of eight she began accompanying her mother for the latter’s veena performances and sang specific pieces. At the age of ten she cut her first disc and musicians and music aficionados praised her high-pitched voice and its total adherence to pitch.

The first major breakthrough came in 1932 when the Mahamakham festival was celebrated in Kumbhakonam. K Subrahmanyam, later to become a well-known film director, was in charge of arranging entertainments for the vast crowds that had descended on the temple town. He gave MS a slot and such was the impact of her performance that she was given one more opportunity to sing, the second being in a prime evening slot usually reserved for top-ranking stars. Encouraged by this, Shanmukhavadivu took her daughter to Madras, which was then emerging as the cultural capital. Here MS sang for the Indian Fine Arts Society and by 1933 became a popular artiste. The Ananda Vikatan magazine planned a feature on her and coordinating this effort was T Sadasivam, a freedom fighter who was employed as the Advertising Manager. Sadasivam took charge of MS’ budding concert career from then on.

In the meanwhile her first film opportunity came when K Subrahmanyam cast her in the lead role in his film Seva Sadanam (1938). The film was a great success and established her on the silver screen. Next came Sakuntalai in 1940, produced by Sadasivam’s Chandraprabha Cinetone and directed by Ellis R Dungan, an American who had made a name in Tamil films. This film, which had GN Balasubramaniam as the hero, was a success too. MS married Sadasivam after this venture and became a mother to his two daughters Radha and Vijaya, both of whom were born to his first wife who passed away in the late 1930s.

Sadasivam and Kalki R Krishnamurthy left Vikatan in 1940 and set up their own magazine- Kalki. Funds were needed for this venture and MS donned greasepaint once again, this time acting as Narada in the film Savitri (1941).

By this time she had become a top-ranked artiste, cutting numerous discs and performing frequently. Her support and that of Sadasivam proved crucial to the fledgling Tamil Isai Sangam whose championing of Tamil as a musical language struck a ready chord in MS. In 1944, she gave a series of concerts for the Kasturba Memorial Trust thanks to Sadasivam’s mentor C Rajagopalachari or Rajaji. This brought the couple into close contact with nationalist leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It also made MS a national figure.

In 1945 the film Meera was made by Chandraprabha Cinetone. This proved to be the biggest hit in MS’ film career. People saw that she completely identified herself with the role of the singing devotee of Lord Krishna. The Hindi version of the film, complete with an introduction of MS to North Indians by Sarojini Naidu, premiered at the Regal theatre in New Delhi in 1947 and the screening was witnessed by Lord and Lady Mountbatten, the Prime Minister and several cabinet ministers. After this, at the instance of Mahatma Gandhi, MS bade farewell to films.

MS and Sadasivam maintained open house at their palatial Kalki Gardens in Kilpauk, Madras. The house, set in vast gardens, also housed the Kalki magazine and press and had a steady stream of visitors, VIPs and commoners alike. Mealtimes saw forty or more sitting down to eat food that was traditional and famous for its exquisite taste. The couple also became famous for their numerous acts of charity and MS’ sang more concerts in support of worthy causes than those which she sang for remuneration. An estimate after her death revealed that she had earned and given away for charity a sum of Rs 2 crores through her performances. During these years a succession of great gurus such as Musiri Subramania Iyer and Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer honed her skills to perfection. The Paramacharya of Kanchi and the Sai Baba of Puttapurthi became her spiritual mentors and she always sought their blessings. Her deep piety and faith saw a natural outlet in the recording of numerous chants, the most famous of which are the Venkateswara Suprabhatam and the Vishnu Sahasranamam. In all the performances and recordings she had the able support of her daughter Radha Viswanathan who was her companion and disciple. The MS bhani came to be characterized by total fidelity to pitch, emotion soaked singing, extensive niraval and melodious alapanas. That she was an artiste who could rise to the challenges of the most complicated pallavis was well-known, but under the Sadasivam baton she chose to strike out to a wider audience. Her concerts eschewed technical exercises and the lighter pieces comprised songs from a great variety of composers including bhakti and nationalist poets and seers such as Sankara and Guru Nanak. Several tunesmiths set these verses to music and MS made them immortal songs.

MS travelled West in 1965 to participate in the Edingburgh music festival. In 1966 she had the honour of being the first Carnatic musician to sing at the United Nations, New York. From then on foreign tours became a matter of routine. In 1977, she embarked on a coast to coast tour of the US to gather funds for several temples in that country. Ironically, the tour coincided with the sale of Kalki Gardens to compensate business losses in the Kalki magazine. Returning to India, MS and Sadasivam moved into rented premises and lived in Gandhian simplicity. It was also at this time that Sadasivam announced that MS would henceforth sing only for charity.

Numerous awards came MS’ away. Among these were the Presidents Award, the Padma Vibhushan, the Sangita Kalanidhi of the Music Academy, Madras and the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Government of the Philippines. In 1998 the Government of India conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour on her. It came when her life was shattered by the passing of T Sadasivam, her husband, mentor and architect of her sensational career. After this MS was rarely seen in public. She passed away on the 12th of December, 2004. It brought to a close a life dedicated to music, noble causes and complete devotion. MS will always remain unique in the annals of Carnatic music and the history of India.

Review of The Devadasi and the Saint

I found this recent review of my book on the web. It is written by G Swaminathan who also reviewed my first book Carnatic Summer.

Mylapore in 1910

The concluding part of Sister Devamatha’s memoirs as extracted from Days in an Indian Monastery appeared in Madras Musings last fortnight. The link has many other articles and so the extract is provided here:

Feasts & concerts in Mylapore
– as seen by Sister Devamata
(Flipping through yesterday’s pages* by Sriram V.)
*Days in an Indian Monastery by Sister Devamata
(Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai 600 004)

(Continued from last issue)

A dinner at Dr. Nanjunda Rao’s …
A leading light in Madras at the time of Sister Devamata’s visit was Dr. Nanjunda Rao, who lived on Brodie’s Road (R.K. Mutt Road) in a house called Sasi Vilas, which still stands. Sister describes a feast at his house:

I remember especially one dinner given by a leading physician of Madras. The poet and orator Sarojini Naidu was also among the guests (her wedding was celebrated in this house). The dinner was served in a central court. As we entered it, water was poured over our hands. Then we were seated on mats spread on the floor along the inner wall of a broad arcade. A large leaf plate was placed before each one of us and filled with rice. A number of little leaf cups were set around this. They contained a great variety of side dishes, mild and pungent, sweet and sour, curries, vegetables and fruits. The lady of the house and her daughters served the guests. They were too jealous of the privilege to allow anyone else to claim it. Their graciousness and sweetness added much to the joy of the dinner. When it was over, water was poured over our hands once more and we went home.

… and a public feast at Tanneer Turai market
The Tanneer Turai market now, alas, a mere shell of its former self and its future yet unknown, was the brainchild of V. Bhashyam Iyengar whose Vembakkam Gardens (today’s Vidya Mandir School and its annexes) was next door. Envisaged as a water-side market to which fruits and vegetables could be brought by boats plying on the Buckingham Canal, it must have been newly built when Sister visited Madras. Here she describes an unusual use to which the market was put:

In Mylapore there were families who made it known that on a fixed day each week they would feed a certain number of hungry mouths. My landlord, a wealthy judge, gave a hearty meal on Friday to any indigent Brahmin who came.

Our religious Order has always been lavish in this form of charity. At the first festival held at the Mylapore monastery after my arrival, we fed eight thousand poor and at the next one the number rose to ten thousand. The food was served in a large marketplace which was built and presented to Mylapore by a philanthropic resident of the community. The market consists of a series of raised cement platforms roofed over, but open at the sides. About six hundred could be seated on these platforms at one time and when that number had been admitted, the gates were closed and ample time was given to satisfy the heartiest appetite. As soon as all had finished they were let out on the opposite side of the market and another six hundred allowed to enter.

The food was distributed by a band of students. When the people were seated, plates made of leaves fastened together by the stem were brought. Then rice brought in closely woven willow bowl-shaped baskets was served, a soup of pulses was poured over this; next a curry was passed around and a dessert of sweet curds closed the meal. The food was of the best and every one was given as much as he could eat. There was no stint in the quantity. Some were served four times. I saw children three years old helped two and three times to a large pile of rice and curry. The feeding began at ten in the morning and continued till two or three.

The preparation for the feeding was carried forward with great zest. Some of the workers did not eat for 24 hours and their leader, the founder of the Students’ Home, who was known as Ramu, in his ardour of service, took no food for 36 hours. As the festival fell on a Sunday, the boys from the Students’ Home came early on Saturday to prepare the vegetables. They peeled and sliced hour after hour until long rows of bushel baskets were filled.

About ten o’clock when the road was comparatively free from traffic and the quiet of the night had fallen on the community, all the provisions were carried by hand or hand-dray to the market. Here a long trough had been dug, logs laid in it and huge copper cauldrons placed on its two edges. By the time everything was in readiness to begin, it was long after midnight. There are special cooks whose trade it is to prepare these mammoth feasts. They arrived at about one. A little later, Swami Ramakrishnananda who, with his fervour had been the impelling spirit in all the preparations, conducted a short religious service, after which the fires in the trench were lighted and the cooking began.

As the rice was cooked it was piled on clean boards in an open shed. When it was all done, the huge pile reached from floor to roof. It kept itself hot. It was steaming still at noon and it required no little fortitude to stand beside it, as one of the workers did, and filled the serving baskets. The curry was kept warm in the cauldrons and the curds stood in enormous earthen jars.

Musical entertainments
One hot afternoon I opened my entrance door in answer to a loud knock and found a group of eight or ten little girls ranging from six to twelve, all dressed in bright silken saris with many gold chains and bangles. There was a tall beturbanned servant with them; he acted as interpreter and explained that the children had come to give me a concert. I unrolled a large mat on the floor of the lower hall and they sat down cross-legged upon it. The servant stood beside them. Then they took out their violins, put the neck against the crossed right foot, the other end under the chin and began to play and sing. I was surprised at their skill and fluency of technique. They remained for nearly two hours and it touched my heart deeply that they should come in that scorching heat to entertain me.

While at Mylapore I had a rare opportunity to hear Indian music at its very best. One of the leading singers of South India was asked to come and sing for the Head of the Order while he was at Madras. With him he brought his father, also a famous musician, and his younger brother of nine. The little boy played the violin with great fecility; the father played small tempered steel cymbals with one hand and with the other marked the beat by softly snapping thumb and first finger together, producing a sound of mellow ivory. The singer himself played the vina, one of the most perfect instruments art has created. The musicians sat in the centre of the huge rug in the monastery hall; Swami Brahmananda, Swami Ramakrishnananda and I sat at one end. There was no one else in the hall and the whole monastery was still. The singer sang with indescribable art; and vina, violin and cymbals wove a spell around his song. Sometimes his voice faded to an intangible pianissimo, violin and cymbals died away, nothing remained but the subtle tones of the fine understrings of the vina. Then they lost themselves in subtler silence and the song was over. Never did music give me a keener pleasure than on that late afternoon in the monastery at Mylapore. I seemed to be listening to something more plastic and melodious than mere human sound…

I remember going one evening to the home of a close devotee at Mylapore. Several branches of the family lived together, forming a community household. I found the head of it in the central court of the house surrounded by children of all ages, some toddling, some crawling, one wee one of a few weeks swinging in a suspended crib. I asked him how he happened to be playing nursemaid. He replied that a wandering sannyasin was reading the Ramayana every evening in the porch of the Vishnu temple nearby and that night Sita was to give her answer to Ravana, the hostile king who had carried her off. The ladies of the house were so anxious to hear (her answer) that he had offered to stay with the children while they all went.

When I first reached Madras, the other sacred epic, the Mahabharata, was being read at the Mylapore high school. The school stood at the lower corner of the four streets of the temple, close to the primary school building where I was then living, and I could hear the sound of the voices from my room there. A rich resident of Mylapore had engaged a learned Pandit and another Brahmin scholar to read the whole of the epic. It took six months. This is not an infrequent form of public service. Every evening at dusk, the Pandit would take his place at a table on the school verandah with a lamp beside him and a large Sanskrit tome open before him. A bench stood at right angles and on it sat cross-legged the other Brahmin holding a tamboura. Next to him on the bench stood a large picture of Sri Krishna. Their appearance was a signal for people to gather. The readers waited patiently for their listeners. When a sufficient number had gathered, the Pandit began to chant in a deep voice a passage from the Mahabharata; then he paused and the other Brahmin rendered the passage in the vernacular, intoning it in a soft, melodious tenor voice to the accompaniment of the tamboura. It was beautiful and musical. During the hour this continued, many stopped in the street outside to listen. Tired burden-bearers laid down their loads and sat in the dust of the road beside them to hear the heroic lines; home-coming coolies and peons and sweeper-women joined them.

Siesta
On the morning of my last day in Madras a gentleman sent his eldest son to bring me to their home for a visit. The son came in a pretentious carriage with two liveried servants on the box and two standing behind. We drove along a broad shaded road edged by handsome residences, through a high gate and beautiful garden, round an imposing house with up-reaching pillars, to a curving verandah-terrace in the rear. There, amid other seats and swinging hammocks, stood a narrow wooden bench with one end raised like a pillow. Laughingly I said to the boy with me, pointing to the bench: “I suppose you sleep there.” The quick reply came: “No, but my grandmother does.”

The hard, narrow wooden bench struck the key-note of the South Indian home. The South Indian by choice sleeps on a mat on the floor with his head on his arm. I had one close friend at Madras, a government official, who all his life had slept on an eighteen-inch bench with Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary as a pillow!

Sister Devamata left for Calcutta from Madras and from there returned to America.

(Concluded)

Is changing road names the only way to remember Tamil scholars?

As part of its budget for the year 2010/11, the Chennai Corporation has resolved to rename fifty roads presently commemorating Europeans after Tamil scholars. This has been done keeping in mind the soon-to-be held World Classical Tamil Conference. The plan to commemorate Tamil scholars is indeed a good one but before it is implemented in haste, it would do the Corporation good to debate on whether this is the only way. The civic body would also do well to ponder over the possible problems this can cause to citizens.

The city has barely lived down the hastily and rather ill-advisedly done renumbering exercise. There was complete chaos and confusion with some residents sticking to the old numbers while others switched to the new. While political parties traded charges on the logic of why this was done, several letters went astray and couriers had a very difficult time delivering packages. Those who receive payments and dividends by post spent an enormous amount of time in intimating the concerned organizations. A cut-off date for switching over to the new numbers was never announced and it was by a general unwritten consensus that citizens themselves arrived at a method of dealing with it all. The new number was followed by the old number with a slash separating the two. This too, is not universally practised.

Now comes the latest proposal to rename roads with probably the same consequences listed above. In the past we have seen several exercises of a similar nature and very few have achieved the results that were envisaged. Avvai Shanmugam Road still remains Lloyds Road for many. And Chamiers Road has not seen a widespread use of Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar Road (incidentally this is one road name where the caste name is still featured, something that we understood was not allowed as per law).

Should we change the names just because they are European? Ought we not look at what was the contribution to the city by the person after whom the road was initially named and whether it is still worth commemorating? JW Madeley was Special Engineer for Waterworks and Drainage and it was under his supervision that most of the drains in Madras were laid. He is remembered in Madeley Road in T Nagar. It was said of him by J Chartres Molony, a President of the Madras Corporation that “he never promised what he did not perform and he made the interests of his employers his own”. His employers incidentally were the same civic body that now plans to erase his memory. Molony is also remembered by way of a road that bears his name in T Nagar. He penned his memories of Madras and the Presidency in a book titled A Book Of South India and his love for the city comes through in it. Does he deserve being forgotten? What about JR Coats, Engineer for the city and under whose supervision new areas were developed? What about Sir AT Arundale whose brainchild was Victoria Public Hall, now being splendidly restored? And can we forget Charles Trevelyan who not only gave us People’s Park but also built a basin for augmenting the city’s water supply with the road leading to it even now called Trevelyan Basin Road? And should Conran Smith be erased even though his statue remains well-tended for right within the portals of Ripons Building? Will Annie Besant be a part of this list? What about Dr GS Arundale (Arundale Beach Road), Col Olcott (Olcott Kuppam) and Ripon himself?

This correspondent would like to suggest two better ways to deal with the exercise. Have a committee go in to the merits and de-merits of remembering a particular foreigner by way of a road name. In case the name does not warrant commemoration let us by all means rename the road. Alternatively, with Chennai now an ever-expanding metropolis can we not have Tamil scholars commemorated with street names in the new areas that are coming up? Why create confusion by renaming roads in existing areas?

Short and Snappy dated 1st April 2010

Kanchipuram Chaos

For all that it boasts of being “one of the seven towns that grant salvation”, the Man from Madras Musings who was there recently can confidently state that the town itself is beyond salvation. Chaotic traffic, narrow streets, uncontrolled building activities and none of it in keeping with the heritage character of the town, have made the place a living nightmare. MMM wonders as to what it is about our historic towns that makes its residents want to demolish their aesthetic, tile-roofed homes and raise some of the most hideous structures possible. The hoarier the town, the uglier its buildings, that is what MMM thinks it all boils down to. And Kanchi is no different.

MMM was there to visit a couple of temples and his good lady wanted to buy a few sarees and so off they went. MMM’s first port-of-call was the famed Kamakshi temple and all that MMM can say of the visit is that it deeply saddened him to see the veritable maze that the temple has been converted into. There are iron railings, grilles, collapsible gates and several ad-hoc staircases leading to nooks and corners and contributing to the general chaos. All this apparently is to keep the crowds under control on the days when they descend in large numbers on the shrine, and this happens almost every day. The upshot of it all is that the crowds are any way not controlled and there is the usual pushing, shoving and exerting influence to get ahead of the queue. All that the vast network of grilles etc manages to do is to cut off access to some wonderful sculptures which of course may be a good thing from the sculpture’s point of view given the general attitude of the average pilgrim to such statuary. Most view these as convenient places where kumkum and sacred ash can be deposited, some feel that they must inscribe their names on the stonework as an immortal record of their visit and yet others use them as posts on which they can clean their hands of lime-paste or much worse.

Yet another excrescence is the vinyl hoarding which has made it to the temple in huge numbers. The story behind the temple is on one, the list of festivals is on another and good sayings of sages on a third. These are aesthetically most unappealing and also cover huge sections of walls that may have interesting inscriptions or carvings. MMM may be stoned when he visits Kanchipuram next or perhaps be burnt in effigy along with copies of this issue of MM within a short period of time but he is not afraid of stating that the temple needs a makeover and by that he does not mean glazed tiles, red granite and garish oil paint. It needs a thorough cleaning up and a more efficient queue system which does not necessarily mean that the pilgrim gets the feeling that he is walking into a prison of sorts.

Saree Shopping in Kanchi

Having struggled through the temple, the Man from Madras Musings joined his good lady at the shop where she had been billeted from the morning. And these are his impressions. If only the town was run with same efficiency as its saree business, we would have a model city administration in our hand. Apparently, if you have to be in the silk trade in Kanchi, you have to be a Sah, which is an old Saurashtra surname. Over the years strange combinations have occurred for how do you account for names such as Kandasami Sah? Be that as it may, these textile traders operate from shops that are unpretentious in the exterior and often completely covered with awnings that would give you the impression that they were plying trades that were better not in the open. But once you enter, you are in a world of air-conditioning, brightly lit interiors and the general impression that every woman in Madras is shopping in Kanchipuram for a saree or as is more often the case, sarees. The shops follow a system which stands the gender issue on its head. The women (wo)man the doors and once you are in the men take over. Each man is surrounded by at least six or seven women and he is often carrying on a conversation with one on general fashion trends, helping a second to choose one saree out of half-a-dozen for a wedding, welcoming a third to join the group and stand up, drape a saree over a shoulder and give a fourth woman an idea of how it will look. The towing of sarees to-and-from the interior of the warehouse to the display is all done by women and you would expect that that was man’s work. And when your good lady is done with the selection, which can take up to a few hours and after several sarees have been opened up, discarded, folded neatly and put back, you go to the billing counter where all the accounting is done by women. And then as you leave women bring your bags to the car and you are off, back into the world where men are men.

Given MMM’s tendency to let his mind wander, he soon got into the way of the men and the women and was soon asked in no uncertain manner to sit in one corner and observe the goings on. Which is what, as you can see he did.

The Mylapore Temple Festival

Each year, come March/April, the Mylapore temple celebrates its annual festival. And large crowds turn out to witness the spectacular processions. And never is there a larger turnout than on the eighth day of the festival, celebrated as Arupathu Moovar, commemorating the 63 saintly devotees of the Lord. The Man from Madras Musings never misses this festival though as he grows older he finds that is ability to withstand jostling and pushing has progressively lessened. And each year, MMM comes away with feelings of great sympathy towards the police whose thankless job it is to ensure some law and order is imposed on the general chaos. And that makes MMM feel that perhaps it is time for some counselling to be given to the public on what is expected and more importantly, not expected of them. Firstly, the temple precincts are declared out-of-bounds for vehicles on that particular day. But each vehicle-user appears to think that this means anyone other than himself or herself. Consequently MMM could see several people on scooters, bikes and in cars trying to argue with the police on why they should be let in so that they could get a closer view of the deities. Secondly, the police tried their level best to have one stream of people to go along with the procession and the stream on the opposite side was to walk against it. Those who wanted to go to the other side had to only cut across. But try teaching our people to follow such simple instructions. The one’s upstream suddenly decided to go downstream and rather than walking across to do so, simply changed direction wherever they where.

Lastly, there is the question of the famous tanneer pandals. These could be set up anywhere and all of them became bottlenecks preventing the free flow of people. MMM is all for these pandals as they display our traditional hospitality but he wonders if so many pandals are needed to distribute food when what is really needed on such hot days is plenty of water and cooling drinks. The crowds that came looked upon these pandals as sampling opportunities and tried the food at each location. Wherever they did not find the offering up to the mark, they simply dropped the food on the street and walked on. Over a period of time, the various varieties of rice, the sweetmeats and the biscuits on the ground were stamped upon by thousands of feet and formed a rich oatmeal kind of paste which had to be seen to be believed. Added to these were the plastic plates and water sachets which have by now become part of our non bio-degradable waste collection. MMM wonders if the organizers cannot use the traditional cadjan leaves.

The Great Maratha in Madras

The story of Chatrapati Sivaji visiting our very own Kalikambal Temple has always fascinated me. I wrote a piece on it for The Hindu. Click Here.

I made a mistake on the date I notice. It ought to be 3rd October.