Last Sunday I visited the Ananthapadmanabhaswami Temple in Gandhi Nagar, Adyar. After the visit, my younger son and I strolled around the place looking for the statue of the last Maharajah of Travancore, Chitra Tirunal Balarama Varma. During the years he ruled, he was more or less guided in every way by his mother, the Junior Maharani Setu Parvathi Bayi and the Dewan, Sir CP Ramaswami Aiyar. The Maharajah is remembered today for his piety and devotion to Padmanabhaswami, the tutelar deity of the royal family. In his time he was a hero for it was he who first threw open temples in Travancore to people of all castes. The Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936 was a landmark in the history of our country.
Shortly thereafter, a statue was put up for the Maharajah in the Esplanade area of Madras, bordering the Law College Campus. A park came up behind the statue and it was known as the Travancore Maharajah’s Park. In the 1950s, the Annamalai Manram came up opposite and it had its own Rajah as well – Sir Annamalai Chettiar standing as a statue facing the Maharajah. The difference of course lay in that Chitra Tirunal was alive and well (he lived up to a ripe old age, dying in 1991) while Raja Sir was already dead.
The difference ended there, for as the years passed, Raja Sir’s statue was really cared for while Chitra Tirunal was sorely neglected. A bus terminus swallowed the park and the statue became a convenient urinal. The base, that bore the full text of the Temple Entry Proclamation, was covered with posters of political parties that claimed to fight for social equality and stuck in the Maharajah’s hand was usually the flag of the party that had last conducted a rally along the Esplanade. I have often wondered as to what Chitra Tirunal must have felt if he ever drove past that area and saw his statue.
In the early 1990s, some friends and well-wishers of the Maharajah, including Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, lobbied hard for shifting the statue to more civilized surroundings. And what better location than the compound of the Ananthapadamanabhaswami Temple? The ruler would be close to the deity he loved. So the shift was made and the Maharajah was put up in a small triangular patch of land next to the temple. But alas! It occurred to some bright spark that the statue was better painted and so it was done up in the best Kollywood tradition. The face and hands became pancake pink, the robes a gaudy blue and the turban yellow. He looked as though he was in some 1930s theatrical production of Alli Arjuna. I remember taking a photo of him then which I have conveniently lost.
But on Sunday, all was well. The statue had lost its paint and was back to its usual look. The original pedestal had been retained (which is something of a miracle in our country) and so the Proclamation was there for all to see. But what of the surroundings? Well, it appears that the Maharajah is destined to remain in a dumpyard though it is much better than where he was in the Esplanade. The present location is where the old broken tiles and various discarded wooden decorations from the temple are stored. But it is a protective shelter and Maharajahs ought to consider themselves lucky these days if they get that.
My son liked the way the robes of the Maharajah were depicted in folds at the rear of the statue and he took some of the shots. Its a good way to make history interesting I suppose! Interestingly, Adyar is also the place where the Travancore royal family owned a lot of land. The city palace Ramalayam, still stands close to the Muthulakshmi Reddy Park and it was on the grounds of the palace that the Sishya School and Padmanabha/Parameswari Nagars came to be built. The temple site gives details on how it was built and how the Maharajah helped – http://ananthapadmanabhaswamytemple.org/templehistory.php
The story appeared in The Hindu in my column Hidden Histories dated 15th May 2012
what an interesting story on history!
it’s really sad that this statue was treated this way. its an insult really to the artist, probably a poor man himself, who worked hard to create it. okay now that the temples are open to all, people still fight and complain, want to build their own temple, or don’t go to temple at all because it’s not cool, or decided to be atheist. they even throw garbage around temples too…
evil doesn’t discriminate.
those who are good are not ones of a particular identity, appearance, title, education level etc. to discern who a good person is, is based on how steady and pure their consciousness is, and the goodness of their intelligence over time. a person at one time will be appear good, and at another time become surprisingly corrupt. each person should be judged on an individual basis. the people who criticize elites, become corrupt and even more wicked themselves. i never take anyone’s criticism seriously. those who were abused, often become abusers themselves. when someone goes through injustice, it shocks me how they do the same injustice that was done to them. it seems like it wasn’t the injustice they were against, but just they wanted that position of power to do harm to others or whatever they wish, instead of the one harmed. ego. people always want to sell something, their talk, products, pitty, ego. i don’t take socialists, communist, capitalists, monarchists, seriously, anyone can be evil, evil doesn’t discriminate. i take individuals seriously, not identities. okay the monarchy is gone, so what do you do? hire goondas, and well do the same exact thing you cried about.
there were good kings and bad kings. they were not bad because they were kings. they were bad because they had a bad consciousness. if that same individual were not a king, but of some other profession, they would be just be as bad.
i say this because there is a lot of criticism of people who are rich, live abroad, are of a certain educational background. elite bashing. there should be bashing of people who are just simply BAD, and there’s no identity for that.
many who are are rich, are poor people who suffered a lot being poor, so they worked very hard to become rich. rich people are actually poor people who don’t want to be poor! the people doing the criticizing never see this side of the story. they see the house, not the hut from childhood, the car, not the bullock cart from childhood, or the bottle water, not the well water from childhood. and well if they didn’t have money, would you help them, no. that’s why people want money, we live in a world where no one is willing to help you unless you pay them to help you. if we lived in a world where we just helped one another without expecting anything in return, then people wouldn’t be obsessing over money, money would have no worth.
two were blind, but one had a better mind.
when i was in school there were two musicians who were blind. they were very similar in terms of looks and even in their names.
one boy never wanted help from others, seemed very peaceful, and treated the female students with lots of respect. the other boy always asked people for favors, seemed disgruntled at times, and used his blindness as an cover up to do bad things by seeking the help from females and then misbehaving with them to their shock and disgust.
two were blind, but one had the better mind.
there are so many stupid politicians who wanted to be a politician yet don’t know how to be one, its like a food critic, he’ll critic food, but won’t know how to cook himself.
so i would think there were kings and queens who had centuries of worth of knowledge on how to manage matters today’s politicians face. there is a lot to be learned from past kings and queens, i mean they ruled for centuries i’m sure they have some tips, lessons learned, advice? dos and don’ts….maybe a handbook on how to be a good ruler?
i’m beginning to understand your point on historical preservation.
as mentioned before, instead of a company building a new building, why can’t they offer to renovate an older one somehow…and there should be a law no plastering of posters on buildings! check out this link on beautiful architecture that would be lovely to be revived somehow. i think this should rest on companies not governments to take up. turn them into beautiful public spaces.
http://celebrationsdecor.blogspot.com/2010/01/hidden-decor-in-capital-city-of.html
It is really sad that this is the state of the great King’s statue. He was an exceptional ruler as well as an exceptional human being. The so called ‘democratic’ politicians doesn’t have even an ounce of humility that this great man had. His younger brother, Sree uthradom thirunal once said about an incident which proves His Highness’ fairness. As an 8yr old, sree uthradom thirunal, beat his man servant with a stick. The servant didn’t said a word but Maharaja Chithira Thirunal came to know about. He became very angry at his brother & ordered his private secretary to assemble every servant in the palace at the time. There were over 350 servants & all were assembled in the palace hall. Then sree uthradom thirunal’s man servant was brought to the hall. The Maharaja then asked his 8yr old brother to apologize to his man servant in front of the whole assembled servants !!! The incident happened during early 1930’s, during the royal rule. How many of our current politicians have such humility & sense of justice to them ??? As pp above said, there r gud kings as well as bad ones. Maharaja Chithira Thirunal was of the former group. He was a true ‘PADMANBHADASA’ as well.