Soaking in heritage, Freedom Movement

The tree under which C.P.Ramaswamy Iyer edited ‘New India’ at Mylapore in Chennai when Annie Besant was incarcerated.— Photo: Special Arrangement.

Did you know that two major events that still resonate with contemporary Indian history took place at Mylapore?

A plot now housing quite an ordinary-looking apartment complex on North Mada Street, was the place where the seeds of Indian National Congress were sown in 1884 and it was at a house named ‘Sree Baugh’ on Luz Church Road that the first borders of the new State called Andhra were drawn up in 1937.

A Chennai Heritage Walk, titled ‘Mylapore and the Freedom Movement’ led by Sriram V. on Independence Day, paid fitting tributes to a few such landmarks and quite a few illustrious personalities who made Mylapore their home.

Interspersed with mellifluous lines sung by M. S. Subbulakshmi, Dileepkumar Roy and K. B. Sundarambal, the walk also looked at how Mahatma Gandhi was a recurring theme in the lives of many great men and women of the age.

Also remarkable was the number of women luminaries who were discussed during the walk that started from the Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam. The old, grey building on the leafy environs of Ambujammal Road at Alwarpet does not hold anything of interest to a passerby.

But those gathered for the heritage walk were in for their first surprise when they learned that the Thulasi plant enclosure in front of it houses the ashes of Gandhiji.

It was S. Ambujammal, who went on to become the vice-president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, who set up the memorial.

Just off the road is the place where K. B. Sundarammal spent the last years of her life. A phenomenally-successful gramophone artist, she later became the first woman legislator of an Upper House in the entire country. Durgabai Deshmukh, founder of Andhra Mahila Sabha located in the region, and also the person who lent a woman’s perspective to the Constitution, had a personal life as eventful as her political career.

Circling the ‘Grove,’ the magnificent abode of C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, the walk took the participants to the divi divi tree under which Aiyar edited the newspaper New India after the incarceration of Annie Besant. ‘Ekambara Nivas’ where Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer, who was the principal legal mind behind the Constituent Assembly, lived, and the Nageswara Rao Park on Luz corner were the next major stops.

Literally a walk down the memory lane, ‘Mylapore and the Freedom Movement’ presented the participants with snippets of heritage while not missing the larger picture.