The postman has certainly kept me busy this past week answering his knocks. But much of what he delivered merits space in this column, so today's is virtually devoted to these letters which provide additional inputs.
The tree that fell
I start off with an angry letter from Pauline Deborah R. of that tree-loving NGO Nizhal, who leads many of its tree walks. What she has today about that “oasis on Cathedral Road (Miscellany, June 20th) is best said in her own words. She writes: “The awkward-sized, elongated plot between St. George's Cathedral and the Bishop's house (where the 'oasis' has been developed) had a beautiful, rare tree about 18m high and 3m girth, known in botanical parlance as Anogeissus acuminate (Button tree). It's massive size dwarted the other six trees (of the same species) in the city that I've seen – in Government Museum, Egmore Maternity Hospital, Kalaivanar Arangam, the Bishop's compound (a very much smaller one) and two inside the Guindy Raj Bhavan campus. Even the new botanical Garden, Semmozhi Poonga , does not have this valuable timber species.
This majestic tree with pendulous branches had a unique form and silhouette that whatever was built there could have happened around the tree without sacrificing it. But the tree was axed 6-8 months ago. And Chennai lost yet another heritage tree.
This tree must have been at least 150 years old or even more and perhaps had been planted by one of those pioneer botanists like Cleghorn or Robert Wight as part of the Agri-Horticultural Society programmes.
“One of our significant indigenous trees, Anogeissus acuminate, a botanist's delight, has been replaced by the `Vision Divine'. I wonder what the former Director of the Botanical Survey of India had to say about it. All over the world, the Church has always believed in creation and conservational stewardship, but this is an exception.”
When I asked her for a picture of the tree she responded, “I once tried to take a photograph of that tree from the opposite side of the road, but was stopped by the security personnel of the American Consulate. Little did I realise that the tree would disappear, otherwise I would have preserved and photographed it. I led a tree walk for Nizhal in the Church campus last June and I mentioned the significance of that tree to the church group that walked with me.”
1857 in the South
There was more action in the South during 1857 than you have mentioned (Miscellany, June 27th) writes reader Theodore Baskaran. He refers to a principality called Shorapur in the Mysore kingdom that rose in revolt in 1857. A British contingent soon over-ran the fort of Shorapur – in present day Karnataka's Yadgir District – but not without the loss of some lives. There are a few graves outside Shorapur testifying to the British losses, writes reader Baskaran. He adds that King Venkatappa Naik, who had led the revolt, fled to Hyderabad but was captured there and was being brought to Vellore when he was found dead in his tent while en route. The gunshot wounds he bore would, I would think, indicate that `encounter deaths' were not unknown in those days!
Reader Baskaran, on the trail of Meadows Taylor, author of Confessions of a Thu g, recently met a grandson of Raja Venkatappa Naik, Raja Phidnaik, who showed him the graves. Taylor had been the Political Agent of the British in Shorapur and guardian of Venkatappa Naik when he was a minor. Baskaran says that it was said that there were only two British officials who could move around freely during the 1857 revolt, Taylor and A.O. Hume, “both great friends of India.”
A family connection
My reference to the Rama Raus (Miscellany, June 13th) and their connections with N. Subramaniam of Kalyani Hospital and Sir Samuel Runganadhan of Annamalai University, has Prof. K.N. Rao, formerly of Pachaiyappa's College, offering additional material to the lineages, but also has me seeking clarification. Prof. Rao writes that Collepalli Rama Rao, born into an orthodox Brahmin family in Nellore, was disowned by his family when he fell in love with and married a Christian girl while at Presidency College. Was this the Mary of my earlier item? And if so, how did she get the name Venkataramiah? Prof. Rao writes, “Disowned by the Collepallis, he must have dropped the family name and his children many have adopted Rama Rao/Rau as a family name.” But was Venkataramiah his name?
The Professor then goes on to state that Rama Rao's sister was his grandmother and that Rama Rao had a daughter Leela who marked Samuel Runganadhan. He recalls that when a University Commission comprising Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Sir Samuel Runganadhan and Dr. C.R. Reddy visited Nellore they called on his grandmother because Leela Runganadhan had wanted to meet her aunt. After they left, he writes, the “polluted house had to be made habitable for the orthodox Brahmin family, so a pooja had to be performed.” While that is indicative of life 75 years ago, I still remain confused: in rounding off a circle I hate to be left with loose ends and hope I'll hear more about the Venkataramiah and Rama Rao/Rau connection.
What was `New Town'?
Yet another of those genealogical questions that, given the state of our records, I'm unable to help with, comes to me from Lynda Keenan who lives in Singapore. Her grandmother, she writes, was An Anglo-Indian and to trace her roots she's looking for information about two great great great grandmothers, Hannah Smith nee Wilson and Mary Anderson. Lynda Keenan's search has found that the baptism certificate of her great great grandmother, Elizabeth Anderson, in 1848 gives Elizabeth's father as Thomas Anderson, and her mother as Mary. A baptismal name like Mary with no surname was an indicator in those days of an Indian woman who was converted to Christianity at the time of her marriage to a European (in this case a Scot). What, however, intrigued me was that Thomas and Mary Anderson and several other Keenan kin were listed as being from “New Town, Madras”. I've never come across that name before. Was it the new Black Town that became George Town or was it some place else in the city? Perhaps there was a time when the new Black Town that replaced the first Black Town (on the site of today's High Court campus) was indeed, rather sensitively, called New Town, or could the following be an alternative explanation?
Since Elizabeth Anderson's husband, a Henry Smith, is mentioned as being an Assistant Apothecary and others in this New Town family also sport this designation, I wonder whether New Town could be Park Town, not far from the General Hospital?
The Americans' Tamil teacher
Reader Saradha Schaffter tells me that the Rev. Dr. J.S. Chandler's Tamil benefited considerably from his close interaction with a good friend, Prof. Paul Jotimuttu, her father. Prof. Jotimuttu was Professor of Tamil and Head of the Department at American College, Madurai, his alma mater. From his first days on the staff of American College, he taught several, American missionaries Tamil and his success with them led to him being invited to the United Theological College, Bangalore, to serve as Director of its Language School. Among the several books he wrote in and about Tamil, The Guide to Tamil for non-Tamil adults was particularly popular with the American missionaries.
A more recent and successful Tamil teacher was Dr. Michael Lockwood's palm-sized guide to spoken Tamil prepared while he was teaching at Madras Christian College. Michael Lockwood's father was long associated with American College and no doubt father and son picked up a word or two from Jotimuttu. I wonder whether the little book is still in print.
