A news item the other day stated that the Government's Integrated Knowledge Park was to come up at the Directorate of Public Instruction campus. What was a matter of concern to this columnist was the report stating that the “Park will replace the landmark DPI campus” and that Government has allotted almost 17 acres for this project in which the 100,000 sq., architect-designed campus is to be sited. If such numbers are being bandied about and words like `replace' are being used, it could only mean the destruction of virtually every bit of built-heritage in a heritage precinct with close historic links with South Indian language studies.
I wonder how many members of the Heritage Conservation Committee are aware that this campus was the home of the College of Fort St George where every appointee to the Madras Presidency Civil Service spent two years studying two South Indian languages of his choice. It was founded by F.W. Ellis of Tirukkural fame and between 1813 and 1854 its munshis , pandits and many a graduate contributed to creating dictionaries and grammars of these languages which are still considered classics. What is needed here is not a new Directorate and whatever else constitutes a Knowledge Park but, in the plentiful space available, an Ellis Centre for South Indian Language Studies.
Apart from the historicity associated with the College's site, there are many heritage buildings in this precinct. To start with, there is the highly visible gate on College Road and the even more important – and more magnificent – gate on the Cooum's banks. It was to this little-noticed gate that Governors of yore were rowed and it was through this gate that they entered the College for its convocations.
Beyond the gates are three heritage buildings which I am familiar with. And there could well be more. The first of them is a large red building I used to visit when it was the CARE office. I haven't been there for years and don't know whether it survives, but if it does I'd still be wondering whether it was a College of Fort St. George building. Then there's the Madras Literary Society's 1906 building that was recently renovated and is a monument to the beginning of the library movement in South India. And there's the art-deco-cum-Classical building of the School Education Department, a vision in white that must date to the 1930s. And, as I said, there could be more.
Surely `replacing' doesn't mean pulling down all these buildings! Surely all it will mean is that in the plentiful space available there will be a more seemly addition than the most unseemly ones already added, like the Text Book Society's tower block! And, hopefully, whatever is planned will be discussed with representatives of the wider public rather than being merely a Government decision!
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The Lord Lieutenant and his mother
He strolled down my driveway the other day, be-sandaled and as informally clad as any overgrown Madras Christian College boy of the 1950s, and introduced himself with a broad smile, “I'm Paul Sabapathy.” So unassuming and friendly he was, to associate him with being one of the Lord Lieutenants of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain was unthinkable. In fact, he chuckled, my fellow Lord Lieutenants too find it difficult to associate me with the office; “I'm the sole brown face in a sea of white – and I also stand out for being taller than most of them.”
Having followed this column and Madras Musings on the Net for some years, he wanted to say hello to someone else interested in heritage – and there he was at my doorstep with not a trace of protocol. He was in Madras to speak at the 175th anniversary celebrations of his alma mater, Madras Christian College, whose Convocation he had addressed a few years ago. And so we had the opportunity to catch up with each other. It was a fellow Lord Lieutenant, one who had figured in this column earlier (Miscellany, May 12, 2008), Andrew Buchanan, the grandson of Governor Sir George Stanley, who had pointed him to me.
Sabapathy, who studied at Lovedale and MCC, arrived in Britain as a 21-year-old in 1964, and qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant in Birmingham. Joining International Metals in its financial department, he rose to be, and retired, after a 28-year stint with the Group, as an Assistant Managing Director of IMI Titanium. Ever since, he has been associated as a leader of various urban and rural community development trusts in the Birmingham area, including the famed Bourneville Village Trust. He was also appointed Chairman and Pro-Chancellor of the University of Central England, Birmingham, a post he held till 2008; given that the student body is about 40 per cent South Asian, I was quite at home on the campus whenever I visited it, the Tamil-fluent Sabapathy laughed.
In 2007, Paul Sabapathy, C.B.E., was appointed by the Queen as Lord Lieutenant of the West Midlands County, the second largest in Britain with a nearly 4 million population, which includes the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and Walsall. As Lord Lieutenant he is the Queen's personal representative in the West Midlands, a sort of Governor. The office dates to Henry VIII's time in the early 16th Century when the Lord Lieutenant was expected to raise troops in his county whenever needed by the Crown; it is from this local recruiting practice that many a regiment in the British Army now hosts a county name.
Paul Sabapathy was born the son of John Sabapathy, who worked with The Hindu for many years, and Catherine Jesudoss Sabapathy. His father died young, but his mother devoted her life to sending him to England for higher studies. Catherine Sabapathy taught at Ewart's when she was only 15 and one of her students was the former Madras Chief Secretary P. Sabanayagam. After qualifying as a teacher, she taught at Lovedale, where she was Headmistress of the Lower School when she decided to go abroad to give her son his chance. She taught in Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia while Paul Sabapathy studied in England. And once he was employed, she joined him and kept busy offering special tuition in Mathematics to numerous students. She passed away when she was in her nineties. To hear her son speak of her experiences was to think what a remarkable woman she was, fully deserving of a biography by her son.
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The Reverend Astronomer
I knew there'd be a reader out there who'd respond to my invitation for more information about Government Astronomer Michie Smith, but when it arrived from Prof.Joshua Kalapati of Madras Christian College it truly provided a surprise. Michie Smith was the Rev. Charles Michie Smith!
The Rev. Michie Smith, educated at Edinburgh University, arrived in Madras as a 22-year-old in 1876 to teach at MCC. In 1877, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics. Two years later he started the Department of Physical Sciences and taught in it till he was appointed Government Astronomer in 1893. It was while heading the Physical Sciences Department that he became interested in Meteorology and Astronomy, making himself an expert in both.
When the Observatory moved from Madras to Kodaikanal in 1899, it was Michie Smith who supervised the entire operation and then focussed on the study of Solar Physics in the facility he set up. He headed the Kodaikanal Observatory till 1920 and during all those years he kept in close touch with the College and helped many a student. Of him it was said, “Nobody can be said to have seen Kodaikanal, who has not seen Michie Smith.” He died in 1922.
Curiously, nowhere in the records in Kodaikanal have I seen him referred to as the Rev. Michie Smith.
