The text of the first Madras Miscellany column by S. Muthiah published in The Hindu Metro Plus on November 15, 1999. A chronicler of Chennai's history and heritage, Mr. Muthiah passed away on April 20, 2019.
Laughter for better health
THE KAVI P. Mishra, eminent cardiologist, consider laughter the best medicine. The doctor from Orissa who has made Madras his home these many years may have once been known only for his diagnoses and his bedside manners, but today he is a well-known as a public speaker who brings to its feet even the most somnolent of audiences. And he does it by lacing his home-spun philosophy with a multitude of jokes.
A lover of Khalil Gibran's work, as familiar with the Vedas as the Bible or the Koran, as knowledgeable about the Mahabharata and the Ramayana as he is with George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain, he can quote them all as smoothly as he moves on to his next joke — and does in every talk. Author of a successful joke book, Humour in (and as) Medicine, he tells his patients and his audience, "Buy a copy of my joke book and help a charity as well as yourself a laugh a day will keep me away."
Speaking recently at a meeting on humour for better living, he had a story to tell about... well, he insisted it was The Hindu . Apparently the paper had published a notice announcing the death of a patient of his. The man, alive and kicking, kicked up a row with the paper after fielding several calls condoling with him on his passing way. The paper apologised the next day, stating "We had yesterday announced the death of Mr... We are informed that he is alive and well. We regret it."
Forgotten founders
WHAT'S ALWAYS struck me as sad about this road name business is that the names of three persons who deserve to be remembered the most in Madras do not have any road, locality or building named after them. Andrew Cogan, Francis Day and Beri Thimmappa, the founders of Madras, have all been consigned to oblivion - even la British times — while Damaria Chennappa Nayak of Vijayanagar and Chandragiri, who had nothing to do with Madras has hit the Jackpot in Chennai - even in British times!
The only commemoration of those names I can recall was by a little-known school, Kavi Bharathi Vidyalaya, Tiruvottriyur. In an unforgettable performance at 'The Heritage of Chennai' competition earlier this year, its 8 and 9-year olds brilliantly re-enacted the founding of the city and the role the founders played, walking off with the honours. That's a play that should be invited to every school in Madras that is Chennai.
It is against his background that I wonder whether the CMDA's Heritage Advisory Committee will also be asked to take a good hard look at the names of the City's roads and parks and buildings to ensure commemoration of those who deserve remembrance and not of those who deserve to be forgotten.
A road by any name...
THERE WAS once an old lattice bridge in Adyar and so Lattice Bridge Road was a perfectly neutral name that had no links with British administrators or soldiers of little significance. Like Patullo or Elbot or Ritherdon. To replace it with Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy's name was not strictly necessary, especially as she herself might have preferred recollection of the old lattice bridge. But if change there had to be, Dr. Muthulakshmi was a worthy choice, pioneer lady doctor that she was, founder of the Cancer Institute, a woman who was a daunting presence in the legislature she presided over from time to time, doughty champion of women's rights in an age when they had almost none, and vigorous opponent of the devadasi system.
Kalki Krishnamurthy is as worthy of commemoration in a road's name as the founder of the Avvai Home for destitute women and children, but did one road have to be divided between two such outstanding personalities of Madras? Especially after the whole of it had years ago been given the Indomitable Dr. Muthulakshmi's name!
It reminds me of that tamasha a few years ago when Chicago — and a bunch of Illinois Senators named a stretch of Devon Avenue in the Windy City after Chief Minister Jayalalitha. She shared that road with several others — including Mahatma Gandhi — who each had a bit of its action. So overjoyed was she with that short stretch, a youth group had arranged for her in Chicago, that she organised a celebration in Kalaivanar Arangam for herself, for them and a couple of their senators, including one from Wisconsin, who promised to name a park in West End, Wisconsin, after her.
Kalki Krishnamurthy, somewhere up there is unlikely to be looking down in such celebratory mood at what has been wrought in his name, at the expense of another, particularly as there are so many other roads that could have been given his name in the Kilpauk area from where Kalki was published for years.
The Minister who loved sport
WITH THE recent death of S. Raghavanandam, one more who was in at the founding of the DMK has passed away. In the party's early days, he was its labour leader and as a consequence, later, when he was a Minister in the MGR Cabinet, in the late 70s, he tended the Urban Development, Housing and Labour Welfare portfolios. A pragmatic leader with an earthy sense of humour, he was popular with all rungs of the political as well as bureaucratic worlds.
I remember him, however, in rather different circumstances. Aside , Madras's own city magazine, had launched a campaign to save Moore Market — which the Railway wis eyeing — and well-wishers of the magazine threw their weight in with a list of signatures. It was one holiday morning that Minister Raghavanandam agreed to receive their petition in his Greenways Road residence and listen to a delegation of conservationists plead Moore Market's case. There were about 20 of us signatories — "come as many as you want", he had said — and he was a warm host.
I recall him presenting the usual official arguments "Are a few hundred like you more important than the thousands who will use the station and "How does saving Moore Market help those short of food, clothing and shelter?" It was all said very eloquently, earthily and with an element of humour. But it took a long time in the telling — and that's what I remember best, the two hours and more from 10 am, to nearly 1 pm. That extended session was entirely due to the Minister who after every speaker or after every point of his, took a break by going into an inner room and returning to announce the score and discuss the state of play.
It was the early days of cricket on TV and the sports fan, Raghavanandam, found it difficult to miss any of the action. "I was a good soccer player in my youth and I still love sport... all sport," he explained as he went out for another break to discover how India was faring in the Test. An American and a Swede among the petitioners were rather bowled over by this precedence given to cricket. "The Minister is probably being more active following the game than those actually on the field," one of them said testily.
(Mr. S. Muthiah, "the storyteller of Madras that is Chennai," is Editor, "Madras Musings". His special interests are Madras, sport, conservation and the environment. In the past, he has been associated with newspapers and journals in Sri Lanka, the U.S. and the U.K.)
