Back to the Fort
This week's column is almost all about what the postman's repeated knocks brought, including some rare illustrative material. But before I get to them, I really must take a few lines to say, “Hooray! Fort St. George is back as the seat of Government!” My joy would have been complete if the swearing-in had been held at Senate House , where the Assembly did meet in the past, or Rajaji Hall , built as Assembly Hall in the past, or even on the Fort's parade ground where Anna welcomed in a new era of Tamil consciousness in 1967, if space for thousands was needed, instead of the University's prosaic Centenary Hall.
That said, let me get back to two of my favourite hobby horses. One is to get Fort St. George, where modern India began, listed as a World Heritage Site. And the second is to get done what Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran almost achieved, namely moving the administrative capital to a new custom-built one in the centre of the State, near Tiruchi, and leaving Madras to commerce. I would urge the Chief Minister to seriously consider these long-discussed suggestions as well as to, now that she has reflected her commitment to history by returning the seat of power to the Fort, to emphasise that commitment further with my third hobby horse, making a reality of a long-pending Heritage Act.
Which leaves us with that eyesore that was to be the new Assembly Hall and ‘Chief Secretariat'. What do we with do this blot on the Mount Road landscape? All suggestions welcome. But used it must be, not allowed to rot or be misused as on Election Results Day .
When the postman knocked….
V.Theetharappan has sent me a picture out of the past, one of the SSLC Class of 1948 of Madras Christian College School, because it features his classmate, Nawaz Hussain, the next older brother of Jawad Hussain (Miscellany, May 9), who also played a bit of club cricket. In the class of 44 students, seen in Row 2 from bottom, are, 2nd from left, M.K. Narayanan, the present Governor of West Bengal, 5th from left Theetharappan and 10th from left Mohammed Akthar who became a general in Pakistan. (Does anyone know anything more about him; he must be one of the few South Indian Muslims to have made it big in the Pakistan Army.) In the topmost row, 10th from left is Nawaz Khan, who, writes Theetharappan, was a prankster of the first order. He would ‘christen' every new master with a nickname and would write addenda to road signs that often had him up before Kuruvilla Jacob (centre, open collar in picture). He went to become a senior engineer with Caltex and Hindustan Petroleum.
*Sriram V, referring to George V and Queen Mary (Miscellany, May 9) reminds me that both remain in statuary in Madras, the King near the Flower Bazaar Police Station, where he frowns down on the traffic chaos in the ‘town' named after him, and the Queen in the college named after her, where her bust is rather better tended than the pedestal of her husband which has become a ‘shelter' for a urinal of sorts. Sriram adds, “I hope the recent attention drawn to the postal service in its history (Miscellany, May 9) will also lead to attention being paid to the sad state the Railway Mail Sorting Office on Wall Tax is in. Has this Indo-Saracenic building been made over to the elements with a view to eventually demolishing it?”
* That postal service piece in Miscellany, May 9 has drawn much attention, providing Dr.K. RamachandiranN with more grist for his mill when he gets around to grinding out a second edition. Ramineni Bhasker sends me a picture of a 1935 stamp, issued on the Silver Jubilee of George V and says this stamp issued on May 6 that year, was the first issued with a ‘Tamil Nadu' subject, and not as stated in this column. It features the Rameswaram Temple and was one of a series which also featured the Taj Mahal, the Gateway of India, the Golden Temple, the Shwe Dagon Pagoda etc. Bhaskaran generously adds, “The stamp you mentioned was the first in Independent India.” And Dr. G.Sundaram is certain that film director Balachander was in the audit service and never in the postal service.
Also on the postal service is Dharmalingam Venugopal of the Nilgiri Documentation Centre. Quoting Sir Frederick Price's well-known history of Ootacamund, he says that for Lord Dalhousie's sojourn in Ooty (1855) a temporary telegraph line was laid between Bangalore and, via Sigur Ghat, Ooty through Seringapatam, Mysore and Gudulpet in February 1855. Laid at a cost of Rs.25,500, it was ready for regular use in April, having been made permanent. The permanent link from Ooty to Madras via Mettupalayam was constructed only in 1871-72. Perhaps some clarification on the earliest telegraphic service in the South is required.
And a long letter from Ronald E.Smith-Ansari gives me material for several knocks of the postman, but the immediate provocation was Sriram V.'s question about where the exiled Burmese royalty may have stayed in Madras (Miscellany, May 2). Smith-Ansari refers to an island in Ennore Creek which is now an ONGC complex and where, in the 1980s, VGP's had hoped to promote a ‘Wonderland'. Once, there had been a large colonial bungalow, a smaller house and several small outhouses on this island; indeed, there were several such houses in the Ennore Creek area in the 19th and early 20th Century, when Ennore was seen as an R&R destination for the sahibs. Smith-Ansari recalls an aunt of his living in the smaller house in the early 20th Century and being friendly with the residents of the main bungalow who were known as the “Burmese Monglatt Royal Family”. They apparently were there till the 1940s. Now could a part of the Royal Family exiled in Ratnagiri have returned to Ennore to settle, deeming it a familiar place where they had all once stayed a while? Any thoughts from anyone else?
