I was in the midst of writing last week’s column when the call came. A heavily accented voice told me he was calling from Italy and wanted me to help him with some information for a book he was writing. Could I find where the tombs(tones) of Niccolao Manucci and his wife Elizabeth were? I was sorry I couldn’t help with 17th Century tombstones — unless they were in Protestant St Mary’s in the Fort, and the Manuccis were Catholics — but thanked him for reminding me of someone who deserves some space in this column.
Manucci is remembered internationally by those interested in Mughal history. His Storia do Mogor is considered a classic for Moghul studies as it was a first-hand account of life in Aurangzeb’s court. The entire book was written during the years Manucci spent in Madras.
The Venetian arrived in Surat as a 17-year-old in 1656 and, making his way to Delhi, became an artilleryman in the Moghul army.
The army took him to various parts of India, during which the ever-curious Manucci learnt something about indigenous medicine. How he also picked up some knowledge of Western medicine is not known, but in 1670 he turned up in Lahore to practice as a physician. And he was to be a ‘doctor’ for the rest of his life, acquiring local medical knowledge from wherever he went.
Sixteen years later — including a return to the Moghul court — he arrived in Fort St George, a fugitive from the Deccan fleeing Moghul wrath over some misdemeanour or other. From Madras he moved to Pondicherry to seek passage back to Italy, but Governor Francois Martin advised him against returning to the climate of Europe after so many years in the tropics. Get married and stay in India, the Frenchman advised, and went about finding Manucci a bride. Elizabeth Clarke nee Hartley, an Anglo-Mestizo who was the widow of Thomas Clarke, the first known Englishman to have lived outside Fort St George, and Manucci were married in October 1686. She had been left by her first husband a handsome house and property near what would today be the southern end of Broadway (Prakasam Road) and Law College. And there the Manuccis set up house and the ‘doctor’ his practice.
The success of the practice, especially with his ‘Manoch’s Stone’ (believed in more recent times to be cinnabar), whose slivers were compounded into a liquid medicine, made him one of the most eminent residents of Madras at the time.
It was eminence to be enhanced by his fluency in several languages, particularly Persian.
Governors Gyfford and Pitt used his linguistic skills as well as diplomatic manners to negotiate with the Moghul and Mahratta leaderships as well as with neighbouring European settlements.
Elizabeth Manucci died in 1706 (where is her tomb?) and Manucci inherited her properties, including a garden house, it is dubiously stated, at St Thomas’ Mount. The Italian doctor ‘who was formerly in the Mogulls Service’ remained in Madras till 1711 completing what — for all its fancifulness — has sometimes been compared with Samuel Pepys’ work. His story recorded, he moved on to Pondicherry where he lived the next five of six years of his life — continuing his study and adaptive use of local medicine.
Manucci’s is a fascinating story. I look forward to the results of the research of my caller whose name I could not catch.
Back in the headlines
The Tata-Mistry battle has brought back into the headlines one Madras name more than the rest. It’s the name of C Sivasankaran who came out of nowhere in the 1980s to establish the Sterling Group and make and lose crores. But whatever his business record, it cannot be denied he was a pioneer in the post-1980s’ new technologies. In them he saw a new world of communication — and the opportunities it also offered for profit.
Described as a man of mystery, Sivasankaran, now a citizen of the Seychelles from where he taps into the African market, deserves a book to himself, the complexities of his business dealings being what they are. As they unfolded over the years, I can’t even begin to understand them. But what I do recall is that they started with Sterling Computers’ Siva PCs assembled in Madras. Using the assembly line technique with imported parts, he sold them for a fraction of the price of the major brands. And then when he saw challenge creeping in, he got out while the going was good.
He was into many investments thereafter till he entered the telecom business that was just beginning in the 1990s. When he sold the Delhi Circle in 1995 to the Ruias, he began to live life king-style, operating as an NRI out of Singapore and California. The Tamil Nadu Circle brought him more money when he sold his holding to Bharati Telecom. Meanwhile he had bought into the Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank and started forays into the health food, fitness and spas business.
Next came the forging of the Tata connection. He launched Dishnet Ltd, a private internet service provider. And a couple of years down the line he sold it to Tata Teleservices. That business, and his friendship with Ratan Tata, is what has brought him into the latest headlines. (His connections with Tata’s also included a stake with the Tata’s in the Barista coffee pub chain for a while.)
Back he went into the telecom business after Dishnet and this led him into controversy after controversy and allegation after allegation. One of these deals led to the Supreme Court of the Seychelles declaring him bankrupt in August 2014. Yet, as he comes back into the headlines today, he looks and sounds anything like a bankrupt. He has you wondering where his next crores are coming from.
When the postman knocked…
* My question on November 14th about Porter Hall and Gopal Rao of Kumbakonam had Dr N Sreedharan providing the answers.
Tandalam Gopal Rao, from a Tanjore Marathi family, was Porter’s successor as Principal of Government Arts College, Kumbakonam. Together they had made it one of the premier educational institutions in South India, after they had worked together to ensure its elevation to collegiate status. When Gopal Rao had joined the institution in 1854 as a teacher, it was a newly established school in the backwaters. By the time he became Principal in 1872 it had become a renowned college. It became a second level college in 1867 and a full fledged college in 1881.
Gopal Rao also served as an Inspector of Schools and, later, was appointed Professor of History and Political Economy at Presidency College, Madras, to which the Kumbakonam institution had been a regular feeder.
As for Porter Hall, Porter Town Hall, to be accurate, still exists, Dr Sreedharan tells me. Located opposite Gandhi Park and near the Gopal Rao Library, it is used as a club. The Library too has a large hall which hosts meetings, functions etc.
* Your mention of the Varadarajar Temple in Collettpet reminded me that there was a large Telugu publishing house not far from it; what happened to it, wonders L C Rao. That institution was once the leading Telugu publishing house in India. Sadly, it is no more, unless there is a ‘descendant’ somewhere in Andhra Pradesh that I have not heard of. Founded in 1851 as the Adi Saraswathi Nilaya Press, it took its better remembered name, Vavilla Ramaswami Sastrulu Press in 1906, its founder’s name being remembered shortly after his death. Pioneers in Telugu publishing, its first title was issued in 1854. Thereafter there was, apart from contemporary Telugu writing, a regular flow of reprinted Telugu and Sanskrit classics, the latter in Telugu. To make the output of his press reader-friendly, Ramaswami Sastrulu developed several new Telugu types, some of which were still in use till the computer age. After Andhra Pradesh was born, Telugu publishing grew substantially, but the Tondiarpet press continued for a number of years. That it then moved to Andhra, was the last I heard many years ago. In its day, the press was a household name in the world of Telugu letters.
* Several readers have written to say that next to what became Rajeswari Kalyana Mandapam was the “palatial house” of N V Raghavan. No one has offered further information about him other than to say he was “well-known”. And neither have I any knowledge about him. R N Ratnam adds, “From 1952, ours is the only house next to the kalyana mandapam on the southern side. In our title documents the northern boundary is described by reference to ‘Devakottai Zamindar’s bungalow’.”
