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Ravi Srinivasan

The sky was turning a pale cobalt blue. A dash of orange, and patches of grey clouds lingered along the horizon. Fresh salty air blowing from the sea was rejuvenating my lungs. Sea waves were gently crashing on the shore. I gingerly trod along the water's edge to avoid trampling the small sea crabs, and gazed at the enormous lighthouse that was beaming beacons of yellow light to the oncoming ships in the Bay of Bengal. It was almost sunrise.

Madras’ Marina seashore had started to bustle with activity.

Fishermen were getting ready to push their catamarans into the ocean. Some of the fishermen were untangling their fishing nets. Some were busy giving instructions to other fishermen for their early morning seaward journey.

Scantily clad men were taking a dip in the sea water, a morning bath, and praying to the Sun God. An old man was wandering near the shore in the hope of selling some sea shells. As I walked to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a landmark on this beach, I noticed that a few people were getting ready to play beach volleyball. The sandy road parallel to the beach road was filled with joggers and walkers. Even in the pre-dawn hour, Madras’ ever-expanding population was evident. Needless to say, the city was beginning to wake up...

Not much had changed in the last few years! It was August and I was visiting Madras after a number of years.

The Red Fort was visible next to Seerani Arangam building, off Marina beach. No! I was not dreaming. This was Madras and not Delhi! A Red Fort ?!

To commemorate the 50th Independence Day, the Tamil Nadu government had constructed in wood, a replica of the front entrance of the Red Fort a la New Delhi.

The golden jubilee celebrations were to be conducted on the massive dais constructed in front of the Madras version of the Red Fort. The next two days were going to be fun-filled for school children. Almost every school in Madras was participating in the Independence Day celebrations, and would provide ample entertainment to the faithful Doordarshan watchers of Madras. Songs and dances on patriotic themes and national literary masterpieces were choreographed and orchestrated to the delight of the public.

The park near the Gandhi statue was mobbed by school kids as they swarmed off school buses, arriving to practice for their role in the Independence Day parades. Anxious teachers were yelling at the kids to form a line to start the practice parade. Two police constables were lazily eyeing all this commotion from their temporary booth near the Gandhi statue. It wasn't 6:00 am yet! I continued my saunter along the sandy road.

The city of Madras had paid tribute to several Tamil literary stalwarts and Indian national patriots by erecting larger than life-size statues along the Beach road. Starting right from the Gandhi statue, one could walk past the string of statues that stretched all the way up to the Anna Samadhi, the late chief minister's memorial, about a couple of miles away.

Any mention of Madras is incomplete without explaining who C N Annadurai was. The founder of the Dravida Munnetra Kazahagam or D M K, he hailed from the nearby town of Kancheepuram. An eloquent orator and Tamil scholar, a down to earth humanitarian and a no-frills politician, Annadurai captured the hearts of millions of Tamils and became the chief minister of the state in the late sixties. Fondly remembered as Anna, which means 'brother' in Tamil, he inspired millions of Tamils, and led the struggle towards equality and fraternity among the poor and downtrodden and the ‘untouchable masses’ in the mid-fifties.

Anointed as the South Indian Gandhi, he is a household name all over Tamil Nadu. Anna district, Anna Technical university, Anna college, Anna airport, Anna Nagar, Anna statue in the centre of Madras, Anna road and Anna streets all over Tamil Nadu, Anna ... all testify to his popularity. And to top it all, the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, headed by Jayalalitha Jayaram, continues to make political capital out of his name and fame. Little surprise that Tamil Nadu was not changed to Anna Nadu like Madras became Chennai.

I paused near the statue of Veerama Munivar aka Bishop Heber Caldwell, who coined the word Dravidian. Little did he know that major regional political parties would use the term to their advantage as an avenue for stirring the emotions of Tamils. To stoke the notion of a division between the Aryans and Dravidians of India. Recent archaelogical excavation, I learnt, has apparently shown that the invasion of Aryans never took place and that the entire Indian sub-continent was a homogenous race of people, albeit practicing different rituals based on personal beliefs

Moving along, I passed the statue of Subramania Bharathi, the poet laureate of the freedom movement, whose zeal for independent India was no less fervent.

I finished my early morning walk and departed for my parents’ home. There were other parts of Madras I wanted to explore. Call it nostalgia or wandering down memory lane, I was out to discover how the city had changed since my last visit.

Right off, I had noticed that all the English road names like Eliotts Beach Road, Edward Eliotts Road, Whites Road, Lloyds Road, Pycrofts Road and Halls Road., had been renamed after Tamil leaders or other famous Indian national patriots or scholars. But the glory of the British colonial years was still evident as you passed along Anna Samadhi toward the Secretariat, the Iron Bridge, the War Memorial, and Fort St George along the Beach Road. Or when you gazed at landmarks like the impressive Lord Ripon building which houses the Madras city corporation office. These glorious-looking monuments are symbols, markers of passage… buoys on the Madras landscape reminding you of the British era.

Madraspatnam, as it was called earlier, was a small coastal fishing village in the pre-British days. Legend says that the new name Chennai was said to be derived from Chennapatnam, named after its earlier ruler Chenniappa Naicker of the pre-British era. Chennapatnam and Madraspatnam were located side by side. But the Madras seaport mushroomed with the thriving British trade and engulfed Chennai. Eventually, both areas merged and became one.

Derided as conservative and orthodox, Madras goes much deeper than that.

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