A wrong turn brings us to George Town’s Ibrahim Sahib Street, a road with an old-world charm, despite the crush of modernity. Beyond the buses that thunder past, droves of people crowding the stately Stanley Hospital, and the gaggle of students outside Bharathi Women’s College, stands the Wall — a solid, touchable remnant of our history. Running alongside the street, its many gates and bastions marked the northern boundary of what was once the walled city of Madras.
Today, only a few of the original battlements built in 1772 remain. But, the Wall is symbolic of something more lasting — the resilient nature of this neighbourhood. What Tennyson describes in The Princess: O Swallow : ‘And dark and true and tender is the North’.
When you summit the flyover at the end of First Line Beach, you see more than just the row of grand Victorian-Gothic and Indo-Saracenic buildings that line it. Beyond the cranes at the harbour, the trains that stop for a whistle-stop tour and the row of asbestos-roofed shops once owned by Burmese repatriates, glints the Bay of Bengal, salted with catamarans that once brought Francis Day to these shores.
Geographically, the area to the North of the Cooum, North Madras, was once a cluster of fishing hamlets that grew into a township when the British started the construction of Fort St George on a strip of coastal land they leased on August 22, 1639, from a native ruler.
Chennai, 15/08/2017: For Metro Plus : An aerial view of the North Madras. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam
“The date signifies more than the birthday of Madras; it celebrates the first city of modern India that has made immense contribution to the idea of India,” says S Muthiah, city chronicler and heritage activist. “North Madras was where the city began. It’s a whole area worth exploring in the context of our identity as citizens of Madras.”
Over three centuries ago, along the northern perimeter of the Fort came up Black Town, an area of business and residence that catered to the needs of the burra sahibs who lived inside the Fort. Today, it comprises several neighbourhoods, and is frowned upon for its lack of infrastructure, crowded roads, real estate that’s on a downward spiral, high incidence of crime and lack of snob value. But, it has something the rest of Chennai can only aspire for — an old-world charm coupled with a history that went on to define the character of this city.
One sweltering afternoon, we set out to explore North Madras. The statue of King George V still lords over a raucous part of an area named after him. He is the monarch of all he surveys — the visual, audio and olfactory kaleidoscope of rickety-roadside shops, pedestrians and carts weaving between vehicles. Behind him stands the Flower Bazaar Police Station: once a quaint red-tiled building, it is one of the few in the State with a central lock-up, enabling offenders to be produced at the courts down the road. A little ahead lies a rabbit’s warren of streets identified for specific trades — from picture framing and jewellery to stationery. The air here is clingy with sweat, the acrid stink of urine and the tangy aroma of roadside chaat.
Chennai, 15/08/2017: For Metro Plus : A view of the Rajaji Salai, also known as North Beach Road or First Line Beach, is one of the main thoroughfares of the commercial centre of George Town in Chennai. The road connects Royapuram in the north with Quibble Island in the south. Being the main thoroughfare connecting the erstwhile Whitetown and Blacktown, the road has several historical landmarks that date back to the colonial era. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam
“North Madras is a vibrant area in terms of politics and culture,” says Muthiah, “Washermanpet is where the DMK was founded and the Labour Movement birthed.” The areas beyond Mannadi are now home to a population that has been in a constant state of migration for at least two centuries — Telugus and Marwaris and Gujaratis and Tamils from the southern districts. Parry’s is home to Bohra Muslims who exchanged the harsh living conditions of Yemen to make a home here. The area was also the haunt of many Anglo-Indians who migrated in the thousands, leaving only their names carved on the worn flagstones of schools such as Bishop Corrie and St Gabriels. Colonial-era churches are only a rickshaw-ride away from ancient temples, and law chambers are nestled between hardware stores.
Heading West, past the wooded Seven Wells, the power stations of Basin Bridge and the vast grounds of Binny Mills, soon to be a gated township, lie Vepery and Perambur with their air of Raj nostalgia and old Railway houses.
“As people made money, they pushed South, and what you have now is a generation that does not know of the other Madras,” says Muthiah, speaking of a year when children from North and South Chennai were bussed to other parts of the city for Madras Day celebrations, and discovered facets of the city they never knew. “All activities associated with Madras Day have been in the South and West. North Madras needs catalysts; people have to be more conscious of their heritage — it’s where the city began,” he says.
A good place to begin is to follow the coastal road that runs North, past container terminals and old cemeteries, the sands from where people were sent in wretched conditions as plantation labour to colonies across the ocean, and the dark sludgy waters from where a ship tried to decimate this city during the Great War. Walk down the groynes that dip into the sea, and be rewarded by an amphitheatre view of Madras — an old-world antidote to the sameness of modern life.
(This is the first of a six-part series that looks at various neighbourhoods in North Chennai, as part of Madras Week)
