Metro Rail vs Mono Rail

With a change in Government, as is to be expected in Tamil Nadu, there is a complete volte-face on several projects. Chief among these is the decision to revive the idea of a monorail system for Chennai, as opposed to the Metro rail underground network on which work in now underway. A saving grace is that the Metro is not entirely scrapped and an assurance has been given that Phase I of the project will be completed in its entirety. Now the focus shifts to what the monorail will entail. All schemes promise a multi-modal transport solution for the city but much will depend on how this translates into reality.

The idea of a monorail for the city is not new. It was proposed in 2006 and was then touted as the ideal solution for a congested city like ours. The trains being elevated, need less space on the ground for their supporting structures. The tracks can be easily structured to suit the narrow and curving contours of our roads. The construction is less complicated thereby ensuring a shorter gestation time and less disruption of traffic on the ground while work is in progress. This also means expanding the network to the suburbs will be simpler. Heritage buildings in the vicinity are unlikely to be impacted. The previous government however preferred the underground solution probably on the same considerations that the present dispensation is favouring an aerial solution.

Those in favour of the Metro argue that the monorail can be used at best in short stretches and that an underground system can carry a far greater number of passengers over longer distances. There is also the concern that the economic viability of the Metro was calculated on the presumption that at the end of a three-phased programme it would run right across the city in two corridors. Now with just one phase planned, it unlikely that the Metro will ever become financially viable. That does not appear to worry those propounding the idea of a monorail and a 300 km stretch covering 18 corridors in the city is now planned.

Whether it is a mono or a Metro rail network or both, what is important is that the city gets an integrated transport system where all modes of transport merge seamlessly into each other. Presently that is not the case with the MRTS, the suburban rail network and the bus transport services completely disconnected from each other. This has ensured that those who would prefer to commute using public transport are still forced to use private vehicles. Which in effect has brought all these schemes to nought. Of course, on paper every scheme has its proffered aim to provide a multi-modal system but in reality none has managed to achieve this.

The number of private vehicles in the city was 16 lakhs in 2005 and it has doubled in six years. With that kind of growth it is imperative that an integrated transport service is designed and implemented at the earliest failing which we may be hurtling towards a permanent gridlock.

OMG, never knew FSG is British!

In the ongoing ding-dong battle regarding the new Assembly cum Secretariat vs the old one at Fort St George, several interesting contentions and reasons are being put forward by both sides. The latest and perhaps the most laughable one postulated by those who want the shift to be made to the new building is that the Fort is a symbol of British imperialism and so ought not to be the home of the State Government. All we can say in response to that is that it has taken more than 65 years for this wisdom to dawn. And at the end of such a long period, does it matter any longer?

Let’s face it, several edifices of power in India were constructed in the period before independence. The Rashtrapati Bhawan, the Parliament, several gubernatorial residences, State Assemblies and High Courts of Judicature are all Raj period structures and we are none the worse for it by continuing to use them. And even in instances where the shift has been made to modern buildings, the reasons have been purely convenience-oriented with the older structure being taken care of. And what of earlier imperialism? Our Prime Minister still unfurls the national flag on independence day at the Red Fort, which is the symbol of Indian subjugation by the Mughals. And so does this logic in the case of Fort St George hold water? And what of our Constitution and our systems of bicameral legislature? Are these not based on Western models?

If Fort St George is indeed a symbol of British imperialism by the same standard we ought to be abandoning a number of other buildings. The High Court, the Central and Egmore Railway Stations, the General Hospital, the Madras Medical College, the Guindy Engineering College, Senate House… the list is practically endless. Of course, by doing so, we would make the real-estate lobby very happy but we would be much poorer at the end of it all. Even Madras that is Chennai is a creation of the British and so does that mean we abandon the city lock, stock and barrel?

What is also interesting is that those who put forward this argument have been in power at Fort St George at least from the late 1960s. Is it therefore a case of post-facto reasoning and justification?

Now let us look at the new Assembly building and see how Indian it is. Designed by German architects, it has virtually no bearing on any Indian element of architecture no matter how many reams have been written towards explaining the essential Indian-ness in the design. The dome is German and as for the edifice proper, some have called it a circus tent and we believe that its inspiration is the oil tank in Royapuram. There again there is a German link, for was it not the Emden which bombed the oil tank? And if the argument is made out that the new building was built by Tamil-speaking artisans, let us hasten to point out that the bulk of the labour came from North India. More Hindi was heard on the site than at a conference of pundits. At least Fort St George when it was built must have used local labour, guided by native maistries who would have worked under British garrison engineers.

The fundamental argument for ensuring that the new Assembly building is used should be that Rs 1000 crore of public money has been spent on its construction. Abandoning such a structure would be a dangerous precedent for it would mean that in future too money on such a scale can be spent without any thought of the end benefit. Let those in power (and out of it) think on those lines and not come up with fanciful explanations that can convince none.

Where was Kelly’s Drain?

Searching for Kelly’s Scent-Bottle

I first came across the term Kelly’s Drain while researching the history of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Hilton Brown in his wonderful book Parrys of Madras (Parry’s, 1954), writes of a director of the company in the 1850s, Henry Nelson (and also Chairman of the Madras Chamber of Commerce for several terms) who kept badgering Sir Charles Trevelyan, Governor of Madras in 1859/60, to do something about Kelly’s Drain. And such was Nelson’s personality that the Government actually got around to doing something about it.

Now where exactly was Kelly’s Drain? Given its name, I assumed that it was somewhere near the area known as Kelly’s, and therefore surmised that it was probably Otteri Nullah. But if so, why was Nelson so perturbed about it considering that at his time, the area was very thinly populated and hardly likely to have had drainage problems? The answer lay in researching it out some more.

Nowadays, with the Tamil Nadu Archives being out of bound for anyone who is not a scholar registered with a University, the only option was to search the web. That august body, if the internet can be assigned corporeal identity, has improved vastly in the past few years as a source of authentic information. This is partly due to Universities in America which are doing a great job of uploading rare and out-of-print books which are out-of-copyright. These as opposed to the policy of our very own Archives, are available free of cost and are accessible to one and all. And it was there that I found enough information on Kelly’s Drain.

According to Reginald Henry Phillimore (Historical Records of the Survey of India, Published by the Survey of India, 1952), Kelly’s Drain, also known as Kelly’s Scent Bottle, commemorates Robert Kelly and was “a channel running through the heart of George Town”. Kelly can in some ways be considered the father of the Survey of India. Henry Davison Love in his Vestiges of Old Madras notes that Kelly joined the army as an Ensign in 1760. Love notes that on 22nd December 1778, Kelly, by then a Major, wrote to Governor Thomas Rumbold that he had in 1770, “determined to put together the few Observations” he had “already made and to Continue Surveying every Road I should have occasion to march in future”. He proposed a “General Map of the Decan and Carnatick, chiefly laid down from actual surveys, corrected by Astronomical Observations, and divided into Squares, or rather Parallelograms, each containing One Degree of Latitude and Longitude…” The matter was referred to the East India Company by the Governor of Madras. The Rev. Philip Mulley, who is a regular contributor to Madras Musings had sent information when we were collating information on streets named after foreigners, that Kelly fell at the battle of Arnee in 1790. Presumably, by the time a decision was taken to go ahead with the survey, he was dead. The rest of the story, concerning William Lambton and the Great Trigonometric Survey of India is well-known. At the time of his death, Kelly was a Colonel and in charge of HM’s 74th regiment, the 4th Madras European Infantry and the 21st and 27th Madras NI according to The History of the Organisation, Equipment and War Service of the Regiment of Bengal Artillery by Francis William Stubbs, published in 1877 by Henry S King & Co, London.

It is still a mystery as to why such as well-decorated officer had to suffer the ignominy of a drain being named after him. Also the exact location of the drain is also unclear though it must have most probably been a successor to the infamous Atta Pallam which had earlier officiated as the drain for the city before undergoing a makeover and emerging as Popham’s Broadway. But wherever it was, it had become notorious, suffering the fate of almost all waterbodies that have had the misfortune to exist in and around the city. Our Chronicle, which was the monthly publication of the 67th (South Hants) Regiment stationed in Madras, in its issue of 1st November 1876, carried a humorous story of a conversation between an army officer and a rat that infested Kelly’s Drain. It claimed that the sewer was “one of the oldest, most time-honoured and most cherished institutions of the city and materially aids in giving to Madras that pre-eminence it holds over the most odorous of cities”. Submitting a proposal for a comprehensive drainage scheme for Madras, Captain Henry Tulloch in 1867, without mentioning the name of the drain states it was a “mere cesspool, from which sewage cannot possibly escape” and that laments of “the abominable stench from the mouth of the sewer at the north-east angle of the Fort, which drains a portion of Black Town only”. No description can convey to the minds of those who have never lived within the influence of the smell of this sewer, its overpowering offensiveness while the outlet is open. The fort would hardly be habitable from October to February, or while the north-east winds prevail, if this outlet were kept open the whole day. Fortunately, the sewer is large enough to hold all the sewage which flows into it, for a day or two, so that it is unnecessary to open the mouth except for about a couple of hours during the night. This is done too, at a time when the wind is blowing from the city in order that the smell may be driven out to sea”.

Topping the mouth of the drain, at the point where it met the sea was apparently a curious structure. This according to Our Chronicle was a Kelly’s Scent Bottle and was “short stoutly built chimney-looking structure, situated on the Esplanade close to the north-east angle of Fort St George, and not so far distant from the beach”. Which probably locates the spot as being close to the present location of Evening Bazaar Road and Annamalai Manram. According to the publication, the structure was the idea of a Dr Kelly (which indicates that it may have been the idea of Robert Kelly who over time may have over time metamorphosed into a Dr much like our present day politicians) who planned it as a ventilating shaft “to carry off the foul atmosphere of the drains of the Town. Unfortunately through want of confidence in the Doctor’s theory or from other causes, the shaft was not carried to the original height it was intended it should, but remains curtailed to one-fourth of its intended dimensions. The consequence of which is that the atmosphere under certain circumstances, in its vicinity, is tainted with the vilest odours in the most concentrated form, it is possible to imagine. Various efforts have been made to remove this nuisance but all have been unavailing. It seems sacrilege to meddle with it or disparage it in anyway”. The article goes on to state that it was the regiment that was in the Fort that suffered the most and one gallant officer decided to bring it to the notice of the Governor in a rather dynamic fashion. He bribed the officer in charge of the scent bottle to open it when the Governor and “his council were transacting business in the Council Chamber in the Fort, whereupon such a stench arose that the Governor broke up the Council with all haste and betook himself away as far as he could”.

Another account, that of Isaac Tyrrell (From England to the Antipodes and India – 1846 to 1902, the ALV Press, Madras 1904), has it that Kelly’s Drain was the main sewer north of the Fort and was also known as Kelly’s Folly. According to him, everyone took good care to remain on the windward side when the drain was opened, except Bishop Fennelly who said “chaffingly that he did not think there was any harm in the smell, but that on the whole he rather enjoyed it”!!

In 1906, Kelly’s Drain appears to have covered itself in glory for it overflowed its banks. The stink figuratively speaking reached Westminster for The House of Commons Report for that year records that “owing to the nuisance caused by the overflow of sewage into the Kelly Drain the matter was given preference to all other drainage proposals and a satisfactory scheme was under active preparation”. It appears that this scheme went the way of several of its predecessors and successors for in 1927, GA Natesan’s Indian Review, Volume 28 was still lamenting that Kelly’s Drain, “familialrly known as Kelly’s Scent-Bottle” was not connecting with the drainage through the Cooum “rightly styled the Cloaca Maxima of Madras”. Evidently by then, using rivers for discharging effluents and sewage was an accepted practice.

What happened subsequently to the structure known as the Scent Bottle is a mystery. Was it demolished or is it still there, hidden behind some structure or covered with posters? And does Kelly’s Drain exist in some form even now? Where does the drain of George Town now go? I for one would not like to know.

Short and Snappy dated 16th June 2011

The Season of Knots

These are days when the Man from Madras Musings is rather short on topics what with the thrashings he received after writing on women’s slumber-wear (oops! Did not MMM say that all correspondence had ceased on the subject). But the Chief takes his role as Simon Legree quite seriously and that means MMM can only be Uncle Tom. “There are so many things left untouched,” says the Chief looking quizzically at MMM, all the while no doubt wishing that he had better material than this to mould.

Anyway, what it all boils (what a painful word in this heat) down to is that MMM has to churn up something fresh and you will definitely understand the depths to which he had sunk when almost the first idea that came to mind was a lament on corruption. But what with better and more supple men handling that minor matter, MMM chose to think of bigger and better things and that can only mean cricket or weddings. Since MMM is not much of a buff for smacking leather with a willow, you are left with the latter as a subject.

Come June, and if you drop in at chez MMM you will find the letter box which usually is filled with missives from suppliers, banks and tax departments, all of them asking for amounts long overdue, taking on festive hues. Ochre, pink, green, orange and a variety of other colours fill it, for tis the wedding season. MMM may not be receiving a shower of manna but he definitely is flooded with invitations to watch various couples tying the knot and becoming man and strife (on second thoughts expunge that Chief. We don’t want a battalion of newly married women in nighties encouraging an army of bridegrooms in shorts to set fire to our humble office do we?). MMM is not exaggerating when he says that it is quite possible for him to dine out at weddings practically every evening in June.

That thought fills MMM with a nameless dread and here is where you will see the truth of the statement that one man’s meat is another’s poison. For such a thought revives MMM’s good lady (also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed) like a watered flower and she goes about singing around the house, selecting sarees to wear and jewellery to match. MMM, who has nothing more than a shirt and trouser to slip into is left brooding and in Job-like vein he has been thinking of what he objects to most in these weddings.

The nadir as far as MMM is concerned is when you get on to stage to greet the young couple and find that you don’t know them from Adam and Eve. MMM is now of that age when he is definitely a friend of the parents and needs them to introduce him to the newly weds. But given MMM’s usual luck, he has noticed that the pater familias (or sometimes the mater), who was all along standing on stage and doing the honours chooses to vanish just as MMM and lady make their appearance on stage, with MMM nervously clutching the gift. And from there on matters go steadily downhill at least as far as MMM is concerned.

There have been occasions when the strain of making himself known to the couple (not that they cared two hoots) was so much that MMM forgot to hand over the gift and came away with it. There was one memorable occasion when he wished the bride “Best of Luck” as though she was just sitting for an exam. It threw a blight on the rest of the rather short-lived marriage, MMM is given to understand. The obligatory photograph is another harrowing experience. MMM never knows when the smile can be switched off and the result is he has either remained beaming on stage long after everyone but he has fled or he has walked off too soon and has had to be called back.

And what of the good lady you may well ask. Well she breezes through it all, rather like the Queen going walkabout. A gracious smile here, a word or two there, a dazzling beam for the photo and all this while keeping a watchful eye on the dining hall to choose the right moment to charge ahead at the trough. And so MMM opts to follow her leadership in these matters as in everything else.

International roads- Chennai style

The police (or is it the highways/PWD?) have done it again. Taken yet another step towards making our roads truly international. The Man from Madras Musings refers to the frenzy with which the city’s thoroughfares are having their boundaries marked. A solid white line is being painted on both sides of the roads, close to the footpath (which as MMM never ceases to point out, barely exists) and a dotted line is being painted along the middle. As to what purpose this exercise is in aid of MMM is not very sure. Is it a quaint ceremony like the beating of boundaries as was practised in English villages in the past? Perhaps it is for the benefit of those who usurp footpath space for various purposes. MMM is of the view that the solid line indicates how much of public space can be taken over by these people (for the purposes of vending, political cut-out/banner erecting, extension of shop-front space etc, in short all those things for which our roads exist). Thus far and no further say our police, whose lightest word is law. MMM also suspects that this could be a case of someone blundering and the administration being stuck with surplus stock of white paint. The easiest way out would have been to send someone out to paint the boundaries.

It was with a similar frenzy that the cameras were fixed on various traffic signals a few months ago. As to what happened to these afterwards is anybody’s guess. As MMM is typing these lines, he cant help glancing out of the window and noticing that the white lines are already looking somewhat faded. No doubt within a few weeks this exercise will be repeated again. But that depends on whether the paint will be available in stock then.

The road users however see these lines differently. Given that we are the only nation in the world which has adapted neither the left nor the right hand drive but a technique of driving along the middle, most drivers have now begun to assume that their vehicles ought to be exactly over the dotted line in the centre. But with both up and down lanes assuming the same and what with most of the one-ways having become two-ways once again (another decision reversal by the new dispensation), chaos rules. But we are quite used to that aren’t we?

Tailpiece

What with the new dispensation deciding to take a diametrically opposite stance to that of the previous one, it appears to the Man from Madras Musings singularly appropriate that a monorail which is elevated is being considered over a metro which involves digging into the ground. Going by the same logic MMM looks forward to decisions favouring the pedestrian over the vehicle user as well.

Viagra of the 1930s

Some things never change I guess.

The Missing Binny Gate

Continuing from where I left off in my previous post, one of the main reasons for my going all the way to Choolai was to photograph the gate of the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills. I needed this for my forthcoming book on the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry. But try as I might, I could not locate it.

What made it even worse was that between 1993 and 1998, I drove past these gates almost everyday, for our family was then running a factory in Vyasarpadi and I had to go there each morning. I could have just stopped and taken a photo. It can only be a case of belated wisdom.

The gates, though they had clearly seen better times, were imposing. The logos and emblems of Binny Limited on either sides added to their grandeur and if you could imagine that in the 1920s these gates were admitting 20,000 people each day (yes, that was Binnys’ employee strength then) the mind boggled. By the 1990s of course, these gates were invariably locked, except on the odd days when a film-shooting took place in the premises.

Now, with the entire area coming up for development, the gates have presumably been demolished. Which if it has happened is indeed a pity for they must have almost certainly been designed by Robert Fellowes Chisholm, who was Chief Consulting Architect to the Government of Madras in the 1860s. The gatepost, if indeed Chisholm designed it, was from his classical period, that is around 1862, immediately after his arrival in Madras and when he had had not yet become a firm votary of the Indo-Saracenic.

I however found this picture of the gatepost on the internet. It is of too small a resolution for me to use in a book and I wonder who has the copyright to this pic. But in the meanwhile, I have filled the space with a sketch of the A&F Harvey Mills of Madurai, done by Manohar Devadoss. But who will fill the gap in Chennai’s heritage by the vanishing of these gates?

A Well-Hidden Clock Tower

As part of the Madras Week celebrations I plan to conduct a tour around the Choolai area of Madras/Chennai. Ambling about the place with Karthik Bhatt (someone has said that we must have been property-brokers in our previous birth), I came across this narrow park dedicated to Selvapathi Chettiar (of whom more in a later blog), running along one side of Demellows Road and flanking one wall of what was once Binny Estate. And at one end of the park, there is this massive clock tower.

Whenever anyone has asked me about stand-alone clock towers in the city, I have always been able to name only 3 – Mint, Doveton and Royapettah. There is a fourth in Tiruvottiyur I am told. If so, this must be the 5th. It was declared open in 1948 by Dr U Krishna Rau (son of this blog’s old friend, Dr U Rama Rau) a famous surgeon, sometime Mayor of Madras and a Minister in the Congress cabinets of the 1950s. The clock’s mechanism was made by Gani & Sons, a firm that I only knew of as GNB’s asthana watch supplier. Young Bhatt informs me that they specialise in these massive clocks and in that context, this site is interesting -http://www.ganiandsons.com/fiftyclocks.html

This clock however does not work and I presume that the Corporation has forgotten about its existence. The park is well-maintained as are most of Chennai’s parks and well-patronised. Can we hope that something will be done to the clock tower also (by which I dont mean demolition)?

Short and Snappy dated 1st June 2011

Short on clothes

The Man from Madras Musings has been at the receiving end ever since he wrote the piece on nighties. There is a growing body of opinion that by commenting on women’s slumber-wear that is now outdoor-wear, MMM had overstepped his er… brief. He has received letters from irate readers, largely forming the distaff side of Madras Musings’ readership. MMM will not be surprised if pretty soon WOMEN (World Organisation Meant for Empowering Nightie) plans on a march to the registered office on Madras Musings and having reached there, burns MMM in effigy.

Among the plethora of letters that have come in are some that have questioned as to why MMM chose to gloss over men wearing shorts and T-shirts and going pretty much everywhere in the city. MMM pleads guilty to that and the only defence he can think of is that having grown up in this city where men thought nothing of wearing dhotis which they conveniently folded up at knees (an uncle once told MMM that it provided ventilation) and went about, shorts appeared to be a natural progression. But that answer did not please a lady who is into education. “The sight of fathers coming in shorts to school in the morning to drop their wards is not in any way better than mothers in nighties,” she said. Now before MALE (Men’s Association for Lungi Enhancement) marches towards Madras Musings office, let MMM remind them that these are not his views but those of the lady who expressed them.

Ultimately it appears to MMM that it is all a matter of comfort. And on that count MMM has a question. Has our Madras that is Chennai changed its dress code from saris and dhotis to nighties and shorts? Have the days of the saris (nine or six yards) and the dhotis gone forever? Will they be seen only at weddings and similar events? MMM fervently hopes not.

MMM also tends to agree with what a wag wrote on the subject. In these days of load shedding owing to power shortages, why not a bit of clothes shedding he asked? And before anyone thinks of sending further mail on the subject, let MMM draw a discrete veil by saying that correspondence on the matter has now ceased.

Short on water

Chennai is now a city that takes its rainwater harvesting seriously and it is also seeing the benefits of it. The Kapaliswarar tank in Mylapore is just one example, its brimming with water being a sight for sore eyes. But come summer, the thoughts of the Man from Madras Musings automatically stray towards the 1970s when the city became water-starved for the first time in recent history.

MMM remembers the evening when the hand-operated pump was first installed in his ancestral house. The well had run dry for the first time and there was no other source of water for a household that had at least twenty-five people. Everyone from grandmother downwards learnt how to operate this mysterious creature, which creaked and groaned, besides needing to be propitiated with several mugs of water to create what the plumber referred to as “prime pleasure”. The pleasure was all the pump’s for those who operated it, and that included everyone from grandmother downwards, soon came to recognise it as a grade A pain in the rear … of the house. This was the first time when the Corporation was supplying water to our hitherto self-sufficient locality and that august body too was coming to terms with the ground profile of our locality. We came to know of words such as gradient, head and flow and even the maids were soon discussing such matters with authority. For some reason, the Corporation supplied water through the hand pump only in the middle of the night and MMM remembers that everyone adjusted their sleep schedules accordingly. In those days of no TV, it was easy to turn in at 8.00 PM, wake up at 1.00 AM, pump the water and fill all the buckets and vessels, go back to bed at 2.00 AM and wake up at 5.30 AM once again. Enterprising souls came up with a unique creation – the plastic kudam.

Then came the deep bore-well. This involved digging deep for water. People spoke proudly in code – MMM recollects walking along with a group of elderly men. “50,” said the first, to which the second said “60.” MMM assumed that they were discussing the age up to which they had managed to avoid bifocals when a third said “300” and everyone else looked at him with a newfound respect. As the gent in question did not appear to be so venerable MMM made discrete enquiries and came to know that they were all discussing the depths at which water had been found via the bore well in their respective backyards. When the bore wells ran dry, you had to repeat the exercise in some other part of the garden. And if all possible spots had been exhausted, the digging had to just go on deeper. Even if it involved the risk of digging right through to the United States.

Summer was also when the water pumps in the house suddenly stopped working. Washers and fan belts fell apart and the plumber was practically a fixture in the house. Uncles and granddads clambered up overhead water tanks defying all fears of heights and attacks of vertigo. And from there they roared instructions to the plumber, who crouched on all fours besides the pump which was the ground, did exactly what he thought was best.

The last of the great icons of the water scarcity was, according to MMM, the water tank on wheels. This was a vehicle that regularly extracted human sacrifices as it raced along our roads, reckless in its hurry to deliver or collect water. You had to book water days in advance and even then there was no guarantee that some neighbour would not seduce the tank driver into delivering the water into his empty underground sump and not yours. For some reason, these water-carriers invariably plied their trade in the witching hour of the night, but then, Big Boys Play at Night if you remember. And what was bigger than the water scarcity?

Things have changed since rainwater harvesting and the water tanker has receded into the background somewhat. No doubt most of these vehicles have gone back to ferrying what they were originally built for – petroleum. But in MMM’s view they are simply biding their time, waiting for the day when Chennai will once again be in the grip of a water crisis.

Short on Patience

That is what everyone is on the roads these days, what with our temperatures soaring. Matters have come to a pretty pass, at least in the view of the Man from Madras Musings, when he espied a policeman asking an errant auto-rickshaw driver if he had “informed everyone at home” before setting out for the day. Surely such phrases were the auto-rickshaw driver’s copyright.

Short and Snappy dated 15th May 2011

Saying No to the Nightie

There was a time when this was meant to be slumber-wear. But the Man from Madras Musings finds that as far as this city of ours is concerned, several women consider it to be something that can be worn at all times of the day and not necessarily at night time.

And so as MMM goes about his Ariel-like responsibilities, namely collecting information on all that is strange and quirky about Madras that is Chennai, he finds himself increasingly bothered about the nightie. He notices that now women wear it while going on evening walks, shopping for vegetables, dropping children at school and even when visiting temples. He is not certain if they have separate nighties for wearing at home and others for wearing while outside but on this he is certain, these are not garments in which to be seen in public. Some women harbour the mistaken belief that a wispy upper-cloth that goes by the name of the dupatta somehow transforms the nightie into a sari or a salwar-kameez but surely is this not stretching your imagination a bit too much? MMM lives in mortal fear of the day when women may take to wearing the nightie to office.

Of course the nightie cannot be placed in the same bracket as the helmet but MMM is able to foresee a situation when a group of thinkers and those who have the welfare of the State at heart may file a Public Interest Litigation demanding the abolishing of the nightie as a garment that can be worn in public places. And then of course, given our State’s record in the matter of helmets, even with a judgement to the effect that it be banned, political statements may be made that will water down the whole thing. The end result? The nightie may thrive regardless of what is said, either for or against.

MMM can see a section of the distaff readership of Madras Musings rising in protest, calling him a sexist and preparing to burn copies of the magazine in public. Stretching his imagination a little more, he can see effigies of his being burnt as well. Discussions and debates on television will follow and finally, politicians will interpret the wearing of the nightie as a freedom of expression. And from there who knows, it may become a national garment as well.

Can the women of the city therefore nip the problem in the bud by adopting some self-discipline?

Going hand in hand with My Ladye

It is not often that the Man from Madras Musings has the opportunity to visit My Ladye’s Gardens, that oasis of peace in Park Town. But the other day he did call at that sylvan spot and was glad to see that the number of people strolling along the tree-shaded walks had increased manifold. A laughter community was rolling about in mirth, a group of flabby gents were trying their hand at badminton and some women had decided to go jogging in rubber slippers and saris. But to MMM it was the increased usage that mattered for it meant that the garden will be well-tended and there will be no talk of making it over into some concrete monstrosity.

That said, it saddened MMM to notice that all the name boards of the park had been dismantled. It appears that there is some move to rename this historic garden and if that is so, it must be objected to tooth and nail. If only we could find out who My Ladye was. MMM had always liked the four statues executed in the 1930s by the Madras School of Arts for this garden and keeps what may be said an avuncular eye on their welfare. He was glad to note that they were all there – Venus, Flora, Prosperity and Woman Writing a Letter. But that is all that he can say. They have been completely modernised. Gone are their art-deco pedestals and they now stand on granite (which can qualify as the State’s Official Stone Variety) pedestals that are completely incongruous. Their official names have not been inscribed on the new pedestals and so there is no way that a newcomer (unless accompanied by MMM) can identify Flora from Prosperity.

The statues have also been Kollywooded if the Chief will permit that expression. All of them have been suitably clothed, though Venus appears to have put up a spirited resistance. These rich raiments are in the best glorious technicolour tradition and given our cinema’s penchant for plump women, the Letter Writer about whom the Chief had once wondered if she was My Ladye, has been given a few spare tires on her back! Even worse is Subbiah Naidu’s fate. He was the Commissioner of the Corporation in the 1930s and was therefore enshrined in a plaster of paris statue in the midst of this bevy of women. He was always a uniform white but whoever-it-is-that-decides-on-such-matters has decided to colour him up. He now sits, with pale pink complexion, jet black hair and red lips, looking like some long forgotten portrait of a neighbourhood uncle. It may be MMM’s feverish imagination but judging from his expression, the old gent appears to be enthralled by whatever it is that Prosperity is doing. Titillated would perhaps be the mot juste.

Lastly, even though the statues are now on 5 ft pedestals, they are not in any way safe from the hands of graffiti-artistes and vandals. And Venus, given her tendency to be en-dishabille is a frequent target. When Appu decided to express his love for Meena, you can see where he has done it. MMM will not be surprised if Venus voluntarily decides to drape a sari around herself in the next few days. MMM hopes that Appu and Meena had a good day for it when they decided to tie the knot. And given Appu’s almost acrobatic abilities, Meena will surely be glad to have selected him, he will be a dab hand every time something is needed from the loft.

Tailpiece

The powers-that-be have beautified the beach and also installed toilets in the sunken road, thereby encouraging the public to relieve itself in private. But that has not prevented those who are open-minded and completely transparent about their habits to carry on regardless. The Man from Madras Musings feels that the Corporation ought to employ bouncers who will bodily lift such people and take them to the loos.

Chennai’s coast knows no regulation

A news item a couple of weeks ago reported on the High Court ordering the stoppage of work on the mouth of the Adyar river. The activity, ostensibly of cleaning the mouth and removing blockages was it transpired, at the behest of private parties who had a vested interest in ensuring that the river changed its course. There was much jubilation on the court order. But this is merely the beginning and a closer investigation reveals a far deeper malaise – consistent violation of regulations that protect waterbodies and their environs.

The Coastal Regulation Zones Rules of 2011 govern all construction and development activities close to the sea coast. And yet the Government is planning a three-lane bridge over the Adyar river close to the point where it meets the sea. It transpires that the authorities are yet to even apply for CRZ clearance but have decided to proceed with the construction on the grounds that it is only the modification of an existing structure for which no permission is needed. The structure referred to no doubt is the now defunct Elphinstone Bridge. If the authorities look a little further East, nearer the coast, they will see the broken bridge, a long-standing testimony to what Nature’s fury can wreak to structures on our coastline.

And yet, the work on the new bridge is to proceed with no reflection or thought. Sand bags have been placed across the river’s mouth preliminary to the construction and this along with the sand bars that reportedly give the river its name have caused the water to stagnate. A foul stench emanates from the water and mosquitoes have also begun to breed. In response to complaints, the PWD has been desilting the mouth but the root cause of the problem lies with the CMDA and a fairly inactive Tamil Nadu State Coastal Zone Management Authority (TNSCZMA) which has chosen to turn a blind eye to most of the work going on near the river and the sea. Another instance of the TNSCZMA’a inaction is a temporary road near the Srinivasapuram beach which was later paved and made permanent. This has become a convenient thoroughfare for lorries that carry away sand illegally mined from the area. Repeated complaints have brought a standard reply that the road was a temporary one and so did not require CRZ clearance! But that it is already a permanent structure is clear for all to see.

CRZ rules are also violated by private parties who have been reclaiming land all across the Northern bank of the Adyar. This has become a new residential area of sorts and further reclamation is going on. Similarly, there has been continuous reclassification of areas that are on the southern fringes of the city. Places like Kottivakkam were once classified under CRZ as areas for rural development. These have now been changed in status to ‘urban shorelines’ where multi-storeyed construction can be allowed. How this has been made possible is not clear to anyone.

Environment activists have been crying foul, claiming that all these projects are playing havoc with the aquatic life of the area besides exposing people to threats such as the tsunami. Several applications have been filed under the Right to Information Act and all of these have see the papers moving from Department to Department with none wanting to own responsibility. It is clear that this game of passing the buck will continue for long and builders will make merry till Nature takes matters in hand and teaches a firm lesson that we are unlikely to forget in a hurry.