Walltax Road, or VOC Salai, is not where you would want to stand in the middle to take pictures. Not even at mid-day. It takes a special kind of guts to train the camera on the structure opposite, while mad drivers try to maim you for life. But we're looking at Salt Cotaurs (property of Southern Railway), determined to find out what salt was doing in these parts. There was a delicious incentive to this quest. “I tried tracing people who could tell me something about Salt Cotaurs’ history, but no one could give me anything,” the divisional commercial officer said. “I'm looking forward to reading about Salt Cotaurs in your story,” he added.
I had dug into sources. Salt manufacture was an important industry along the eastern coastal districts from Pulicat to Marakkanam, historian Muthiah has mentioned in Madras: the Land, the People & their Governance . Salt Cotaurs was once well-known for its salt pans, he wrote. Today, it is a railway yard. Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan of the Chennai Photowalk sent me this note. “Salt Cotaurs is an old godown (corruption of the Malay godong , which comes from the Tamil kidangu , all meaning “warehouse”) that apparently takes its name from the Telugu word c otauru , meaning godown. You will find it on Walltax Road that runs parallel to the tracks of the Central railway station, with George Town on the west.” The road was named after the wall, built as a protective measure by the British in 1772–1773, and originally ran from Cochrane (Buckingham) Canal on the northern side, to the junction of Poonamallee High Road and Madras Central railway station to the south. The outer side of the wall had a space of about 600 yards for setting up a clear field for fire in the event of a future attack, and was later developed into People's Park and a railway goods shed named Salt Cotaurs in 1859.
The Internet coughed this up: Standing about 6-10m above sea level between Elephant Gate Bridge Road and Basin Bridge railway station the area is well-known for its railway-goods yard. The locality once had a godown for storing salt bags and the loading station 'Salt Cotaurs'. The checkpoint here is one of the eight in the state that are slated for modernisation at a cost of Rs. 333.6 million, along with 28 commercial taxes check-posts. The Lost Property Office (LPO) of Southern Railway (Chennai Division) is also located here.
Armed with this, we wandered in, and the watchman agreed to take us on a tour. The tall structure (locked) near the entrance, he said, was a 135-year-old “practice” tower for firemen, a piece of information we decided to take with a pinch of salt. “A rope hangs inside,” he offered as proof. But about the yard's reputation as a bustling terminal/goods-shed we had no doubt at all. Of the four sheds, at least one comes to life daily when salt, soda, wheat, rice or cement bags get dumped near the tracks. “Twenty-five years ago, we counted cardamom, garlic and sugar sacks as well.”
Run-down it may be, but Salt Cotaurs bravely bears signs of the city's vibrant commercial history — in the 45-acre compound lined with ancient fig, peepal, silk-cotton, neem, subabul trees, in the long, cement-filled smoky terminals, ramshackle parcel office, sparkling Railway Protection Force chowki , dilapidated Chief Goods Supervisor's office. The wooden beams, almirahs, desks and the railway-platform-seat boast of once-prosperous times, as do cash chests and the counters that kept clearing agents safely outside thick grills. “There are rooms above,” said the skeleton staff, “may be the superintendent lived there.” Locked up in an adjacent building is the “lost-and-found” property, while its corridors are dumped with past-expiry-date weighing machines and medicine packets. Hundreds of pigeons happily gorge themselves on the rice strewn everywhere. “Two hundred truck loads of cement bags will be unloaded tonight,” says the watchman. “From a thousand, the workforce has dwindled to 30, mostly north Indians.” Yes, as Goplan said, it is dusty, dirty and smells foul at times. “But it's a nice piece of history, beautiful if only to imagine the kind of trade and commerce that built this city.” Will it be restored to its glory? I found hope in a message-board. “An ex-Minister of State for Railways from Tamil Nadu had said there were plans to make this place a terminal,” wrote one Swami. Very good news, applauded others, saying, “It's a dream come true if Southern Railway could construct a terminal point in Salt Cotaurs, they could link it to the other side of Madras.” But I have another dream: a children's park with an exhibition of photographs on Southern Railway, demo of unloading ops, a joy ride on that beautiful road-roller, a toy train with a simulated station — restaurant/bookstore/shops. Do I hear the whistle?
