Sridhar Lakshmanan put up this photo on Facebook and Jaishree C Iyer tagged me on it. The street is in Jafferkhanpet, an area I have not visited, and it took me quite a while to figure out who or what was commemorated by the street name.
This colony grew in the 1970s, and so every political leader of that era — national and regional — is represented in its streets. John ‘Kannadi’ street, the neighbouring thoroughfare to the one featured here, gave me the clue — it is named after Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1964.
That should come as no surprise, for Chennai has several streets and colonies named after Soviet strongmen such as Lenin and Stalin. The latter is, for other reasons, a household name in the city anyway. I am not sure as to how or why Khrushchev has a street here, but he does have a Madras connection. He and Nikolai Bulganin, then the Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, toured India in November 1956. In keeping with the times, it was a long and leisurely visit, with many towns and cities thrown in. The duo arrived in Madras on the 28th and was received by Governor Sri Prakasa. A huge rally down Mount Road followed, where over 60,000 people lined the streets to cheer the two, who, rather like a bridal couple of yore, stood swathed in garlands and carried floral bouquets. The Governor threw a party at Raj Bhavan, where Kumari Kamala danced. There was also a civic reception at People’s Park, organised by the Mayor of the Corporation. Children performed drills for the visitors’ entertainment at the venue.
Included in the agenda was a visit to the Integral Coach Factory. Khrushchev addressed the workers for 35 minutes during which, in characteristic fashion, he criticised everyone present for wasting so much of steel in the construction of the factory. In Russia, he said, the usage of concrete had resulted in savings of over 80 percent steel. The same man had earlier in Agra said his heart wept for the labourers who toiled over the monument. In Delhi, when an industrialist had presented a watchman whose family had been doing the same job for three generations, Khrushchev had called him a thief for preventing them from developing beyond that. From Madras, the duo went to Coimbatore and then Ooty, where they had their hair cut by a local barber who became a celebrity. In short, it was a visit that became a legend.
Khrushchev suffered an ignominious retirement in 1964. He would have been happy to know we have kept his memory (almost) alive. Interestingly, the Eicher map of Madras, excellent in most respects, has mut(il)ated this street name further into Guru Siva Street. A godless Soviet to a Hindu deity — this is quite a transition.
