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When the postman knocked...
S. MUTHIAH
WITH SPACE at a premium for Madrascapes, and with the postman bringing as many responses to it as he does for Miscellany, I propose to deal with letters to both in this slot. Certainly my first correspondent, film historian, Randor Guy, has sent in something too good to wait. And that is a revelation that is bound to surprise most readers as it did me - and will no doubt surprise the present owners of P.Orr & Co.
Apparently the company once went into Tamil film production, entering the business through a subsidiary, Orr's Gramophone and Talkies Ltd. I know I had, unwittingly omitted the mention of gramophone imports in Madrascapes, June 18, but the film venture was truly news. The film Orr's made, Randor writes, was in 1939 and was a mythological titled "Vishnu Leela". It was directed by Raja Sandow (P.K. Nagalingam of Pudukkottai), who made his name in the silent film era in Bombay. Besides directing the film, Sandow played Hiranyan, Ravanan and Sisupalan in it. And in a nice democratic touch, off the sets, Sandow insisted that Orr's stop forthwith the two dining messes they had introduced in the large shed near Thousand Lights Mosque where the film was being shot - one for Brahmins, the other for the rest - and arrangements be immediately made for what the anthropologists call `interdining'.
* Reader D.B. James reminds me that Sir Thomas Munro (Miscellany, June 4) died at Pattikonda, now in Kurnool district, near Gooty, now in Anantapur district.
* And Reader K.R. Shenai, former Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu, recalls that, in the 1970s, there was a ceremonial Changing of the Guard (Miscellany June 18) at Police Headquarters on the Marina on, he thinks, the first Saturday of every month. "This," he adds, "was a public relations exercise and the Marina crowd was full of appreciation for the Tamil Nadu Special Police who manned the Guard."
May I once again appeal to the police to not only revive the ceremony but also consider the possibility of making it a daily one, with the Police Band and buglers in attendance.
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