From Madras to Chennai

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From Madras to Chennai

 

Jaithirth Rao

Posted online: Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 0000 hrs IST

 

I left Madras in 1971 and was relieved. Tambrahm pomposity and garish

Dravidian political cut-outs represented to me a parochial and

avoidable combination. The heat, humidity and the malodorous Cooum

river were only partially offset by the glorious beach. Over the

years, I have often returned to newly christened Chennai. Prompted by

resident historians, the redoubtable Muthiah and the effervescent

Randor Guy, I have delved into its history (recorded and unrecorded)

and its geography (spatial and metaphorical). My memories and

reactions today are more mellow.

 

St Thomas Mount, the residence of the scary, larger-than-life,

red-faced Tommies of my father’s generation, was in my time a place

where Anglo-Indians with names like Alistair and Denzil lived and

sent in their requests to Radio Ceylon’s ‘Listener’s Choice’. Their

preferences were for Cliff Richards and Englelbert Humperdinck. The

Thousand Lights Mosque built by the Prince of Arcot was and is a

reminder of the creative presence of Mohammedan nobility and

commoners in the city. Till not so long ago, most of the land in

south Madras belonged to the descendants of two Shia courtiers in the

Nawab’s retinue. The Khaleeli and Isfahani families have left their

names on countless title deeds in the yellowing files of Ripon

Building, the grand Indo-Saracenic structure, which houses the city

corporation offices.

 

The erstwhile presidency capital had a strong Telugu presence. Some

20 years ago, I bought a flat from Pradeep Rao, a college-mate of

mine, who if titles had not been abolished would have been the Raja

of Pithapuram, an Andhra Zamindari.

 

The records indicate that the city owes many buildings, bridges and

layouts to the far-sighted Armenian merchant-prince Coja Petrus

Uscan. My ophthalmologist in Chicago was the one who told me that the

first Armenian newspaper was published from Madras. So much for the

by-lanes of history!

 

The city is not in denial about its British connection. Munro’s

statue still stands next to Island Grounds. It was Sir Thomas Munro,

Governor of Madras Presidency, who first in the Baara-mahals

(literally “Land of Twelve Fortresses”, modern Salem District) and

then elsewhere laid the foundations of an imperial dispensation more

benign and less rapacious than in Bengal or the United Provinces.

Madras is also about cricket, not just international matches (I saw

Gary Sobers score a brilliant 97 there), but also of humble league

matches where some of us who did not play went to cheer and keep

score. College days are special in retrospect. For me, Loyola was

liberating in multiple ways. Francis and Raja, Srinivasan and Simon,

Swaminathan, Bechtloff and Govindarajan opened up enchanted worlds.

And of course, the college was full of brilliant persons, many of

whom have gone on to heights of achievement.

 

With age, consciously or otherwise, one has a tendency to embrace the

long-lost umbilicus and reach out to what must pass for roots.

Carnatic music surely represents an aural throwback to amniotic seas.

It is hard when one’s siblings can recognise a raaga from the first

few notes of the aalapana. I confess that I cheat. I have a crib

sheet that tells me the raagas of well-known compositions and I work

backwards. I am completely at sea during the aalapanas although

(given the vigorous shaking of my head) my neighbours in the

auditorium will hardly guess this. Once the composition starts, my

knowledge base is relatively secure. Of course, I knew all along that

this was Kamboji or Brindaavana Saaranga.

 

For two years in a row now, I have had the extraordinary luck of

being in Chennai on winter days when my friend Aruna Sairam’s

concerts have been scheduled. Last year, it was at the Mylapore Fine

Arts Club and this year, at the Narada Gana Sabha, both bastions of

classical music. The concerts were packed (standing room only) with

listeners who actually paid for tickets. What a contrast to

philistine Delhi, where even with the distribution of free passes,

great artistes find half-empty halls. Aruna and several of her

contemporaries are living proof that Carnatic music, while firmly

rooted in classical traditions, has an amazing capacity to rejuvenate

itself in multiple directions.

 

My aunt once told me that Telugu was the only “sweet” language that

could help extract the rasas of our music. She was dead wrong. Aruna,

among others, has gone back to astonishing mediaeval Tamil

compositions from Thevaram to Divya Prabandham. She has rediscovered

Uttukaadu Venkata Subba Iyer and his wonderful Tamil compositions.

She has come out with a CD appropriately called Kshetra Chennapuri.

The beauty of this CD is that it covers tributes to not just the

well-known Parthasarathi and Kapaaleeshwarar temples but also to that

little gem in the heart of “town”, Kandakottam, where the

nineteenth-century immortal Ramalinga Adigalaar lived. (As an aside,

just before he passed away, he wrote the following, my loose

translation: “We set up shop, exhibited our wares; finding no

customers, we packed up and left.”) She has included Tiruneermalai, a

temple of pre-Pallava times on the outskirts where the Aalwaars

described Krishna in enchanting Tamil as “Neer-vannan” — he who has

the colour of water — referring to Krishna’s blue hues. And when one

listens to Aruna singing the lesser-known Kannada composition of

Sripaadaraja “Kaveri Ranga”, even an atheist will turn a believer.

The inclusion in concerts, of unusual raaga maalikas and the

erstwhile humble tillaanas from the repertoire of dance confirms the

capacity of our music forms to innovate, expand and grow. Many

thought that when Aruna started singing Marathi abhangs praising

Vitthala (set to Carnatic raagas) there would be a pushback. Guess

what, that’s the number the audiences love most; they keep asking for

repeats.

 

Madras/Chennai and its music festival may hold the clue to how we

contend with globalisation in cultural and psychic terms. The

presence of large numbers of NRIs and foreigners has led, not to

simplistic global homogenisation, but to new dimensions of

creativity. May Aruna and her tribe flourish; somewhere in the

chambers of the sky I am sure Mamalla Pallava and Tirumangai Aalwaar

are rooting for Chennai.

 

The writer is an observer and student of contemporary India

jerry.rao

 

 

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