WE CARE FOR MADRAS THAT IS CHENNAI

MUSINGSVol. XXVII No. 12 October 1-15, 2017

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INSIDE

• Short ‘N’ Snappy

• Where the Masons were

• Madras aviation

• Requiem for a telegram

• Go-getter from Chennai

CMYK

Speedy completion of Metro necessaryfor benefits to be seen

(By The Editor)

The recent rains have brought life back to the Mylapore tank. (Picture courtesy: Mylapore Times.)

� by A Cost Analyst

Giant towerto disfigurea heritageskyline?

(Continued on page 8) (Continued on page 8)

For years, Central Station, along with its neighbours, the Southern Railway headquarters, the VP Hall and Ripon Building, was

a landmark of our city, a part of a handsome skyline, visible allalong that stretch of Poonamallee High Road. But that joy maynot be ours for much longer. Chennai Metrorail Limited (CMRL)now plans a 33-storey commercial structure just opposite, on landthat it acquired from the RajaSir Savalai RamaswamiMudaliar Choultry. With thiswhat ought to qualify as a heri-tage area will have a monstros-ity sticking out like a sorethumb. Not that such consider-ations are going to weigh muchwith the CMRL.

For the past few years,Chennai Metrorail has paidscant attention to damage thatit has caused to heritage struc-tures in the city. The list is longand has been carried so manytimes in Madras Musings it doesnot bear repetition. Suffice it tosay that in most cases, CMRLhas chosen to undertake drillingactivities in close proximity toheritage structures despitewarnings from experts. Andthere have been significantdamages. Each time such dam-ages have been reported, thesehave been brushed aside statingthat such occurrences need tobe borne with resignation forthe sake of development. Thatis strictly not an argument thatcan hold water. Developmentnecessarily has to carry with itthe interests of all stakeholdersand heritage too happens to beone.

CMRL will now have to em-bark on getting approvals frommany agencies and that in-cludes the Airports Authorityas a building of such a heightdoes not exist in the city. More

Experience across the worldhas shown that introduc-

tion of a mass rapid transit sys-tem can relieve traffic conges-tion, discourage residentialcrowding, lessen pollution andwiden work opportunities.Chennai too naturally hopesthat the Metro would not onlymake our City look modern, butalso more liveable.

For now, just 28 km of PhaseOne’s 45 km is in use. The ex-perience of this stretch is notenough to estimate the Metro’simpact on completion of the fullproject. But it is useful as a pilotmodel to test fare structure andrelated strategies to achievehigh capacity utilisation.

The uppermost aim must beto encourage mass usage. Highcapacity utilisation is necessaryfor financial viability and forreaping larger socioeconomicbenefits. The absence of an ini-tial surge of commuters takingthis mode of travel is disap-pointing. A 4-bogie train hadless than 20 per cent occupancyat about 11:15 hours on a Mon-day when there was heavy traf-fic on the roads. Enquiries indi-cated peak traffic was not sub-stantially larger. Looking down

from this elevated train showedthat there was, right under theMetro line, a seething traffic ofcars, autos and two-wheelers.Erroneous understanding of“off-peak” hours obscures rec-ognition of real factors that im-pede higher occupancy andleads to meek acceptance of un-satisfactory situations as beinginevitable.

the Metro to expect mass adop-tion.

Further, the largest segmentof present commuting modesshould be matched for cost byMetro with some allowance forbetter values offered in terms ofcomfort, speed and dependabil-ity. This is necessary, to estab-lish user addiction. To examinethis further, as a ready method,

hours for 26 days, i.e., Rs. 390,and the cost of four connectionsat boarding and destinationpoints, say, a total of Rs. 20 perday for 26 days which is Rs. 520.Thus, the cost door-to-door foroffice is Rs. 2158 per month.

Cost for a car owner going towork would be fuel at 12 km/li-tre, for a return distance of 20km, Rs. 120 per day or Rs. 3120per month of 26 working daysplus parking charge of Rs. 780.To him, the Metro, is a substan-tial saving. However, car own-ers are of different categories –the elite would never switch tothe Metro and the nouveau ex-ecutive class may consider thecar as a status symbol. It is thejunior and middle level execu-tives and business persons whoare likely to take to the Metro.Among them, couples workingin the same office or nearby lo-cations would find the car moreeconomical. Allowing for thesefactors, only about 10-15 percent of car users seem to consti-tute a potential segment for theMetro.

The auto fare by meter is Rs.100 for the same journey, butthe auto drivers I spoke to, said

Currently, owning a motor-ised vehicle or taking an auto isnecessary, with its consequentcost and inconvenience, to ac-cess a Metro station. There isneed for mini-bus feeder cir-cuits, on a hop-on-hop-off ba-sis, covering the hinterland ofeach station, ensuring that ashort walk is enough to hop onto a mini. Ideally, such a facilityshould be at a single standardcharge, preferably as a part of anintegrated Metro rate andticket. Circuit operators oncontract with Metro could getcompensated by a sum per cir-cuit. If connectivity is available,the parking facility at each sta-tion need not be large. Hinter-land connectivity is critical for

informed guesses of compara-tive costs are used. Within theshort span of an article, they aregood enough for appreciatingthe problem and suggesting pos-sible solutions.

At present, the effective costby Metro from Alandur forabout 8 km away (assumed asthe average distance a com-muter makes to reach the workspot) works out to Rs. 24 pertrip (Rs. 3 per km compared toRs. 0.5-1.5 range in Delhi) aftera 20 per cent discount for amonthly pass. Including returntrip for 26 days, this comes toRs. 1248 per month. To thecost of the pass must be addedthe cost of parking a motorcycle Rs. 15 per day of nine

2 MADRAS MUSINGS October 1-15, 2017

Garbage bina landmark

The garbage bin at my street corner is of great concern to me.Every time I step out of home, it confronts me. And I feel

depressed. So depressed that my head spins like the wheels ofthis garbage bin.

One recent evening, I walked down to the corner to wait fora friend who was picking me up for coffee and conversation.

To Ola drivers, auto drivers, friends who come by and strang-ers, besides the cooking gas cylinder delivery man, this bin is alandmark. There is a giant Metrowater tank around, but it’s toofar. There is actor Vijay’s office, but it is on Level 3. So the binis a convenient landmark.

More so since it is always pushed to the side of the road eventhough the Ramky staff push it into its corner after emptying itevery morning.

On another evening, after a nice shower I was standing closeto the bin when I heard some strange noises. Then two bagsrolled out. I was a tad nervous now.

Perhaps giant rodents? I dreaded the thought.Already, the rats had been taking it out on the shoots of my

dear thulasi plant and all the while we thought it was dying ofsome ill-omen.

There were more noises from the other side of the garbagebin. Then I saw two cows. They were tearing apart these largeplastic bags and seeking stuff to masticate for their evening tiffin.

The bags were full of plastic covers. I now realised why ourstreet-end bin was overflowing so much nowadays. The staff atthe two big stores on the other side were neatly packing theirwaste and dumping it in our bin at night.

I had once challenged the boys and they abused me. I re-strained myself, for I didn’t want them to next throw their wasteover our walls and spoil the bonnets of the Etios and Titanium.

Actually, I don’t mind the overflowing waste. It is the stinkthat drives me mad.

I think there’s not much of fish and meat waste in there. But,still, kitchen waste stinks. Roasted in this head and soiled in theshowers. It is the stink.

My neighbour has planted some jasmine in our campus. Theblooms are doing well but they are losing the battle with thestink.

I read that the Corporation has plans for biogas plants atWard level. That’s a good idea. If the stink is any indicator,there’s a lot of gas in our backyards that needs re-generation.

I am not sure how many residents may want to get their kitch-ens connected to the Ward gas plant. You know how peoplehave some reservations. What if the gas is from recycled chickenwings?

So I expect the gas lines to be connected to the noon-mealkitchen at our local Corporation school that is just down theroad.

I am hoping this project is rolled out quickly.I don’t mind rodents going for the thulasi. But I will be at my

wit’s end if cattle begin to froth and gasp after feeding on tons ofplastic and paper dumped inside our garbage bins. I don’t knowif Blue Cross works 24x7.

Please roll out the gas plants before we have the councillorsin their seats.

– Vincent D’souzaMylapore Times

Thank you, DonorsWe today publish donations received with thanks for the period

16.08.16–15.12.16.

– The Editor

Rs. 50: Ballal C.B.L.; Sasikala C.

Rs. 100: Baskkaran K.B.100; Ejji K Umamahesh; Gopalakrishnan

S.; Jayaraj M.S.; Kalyanasundaram T.V.; Meenakshi Sundaram;

Prakash S.; Rajagopal S.; Ramaswamy V.; Shantha

Venkataraman; Sivakumar S.; Sreenivasan C.V.; Sridhar Ganesh;

Subbaraman N.V.; Subramanian S.; Sundari Sidhartha;

Viswanathan C.

Rs. 150: Jacob John K.; Kamalakannan A.; Krishna K.V.S.;

Vijaya Raghavan A.

Rs. 200: Chitra, S; Indukanth Ragade; Parthasarathy N.S.;

Raghavan S.S.; Ruthnaswamu C.; Unnaikrishnan P.;

Vaidyanathan R.

Rs. 300: Immanuel D.J.B.

Rs. 400: Gopalan T.R.; Jayaraman V.V.; Karuppaiah L; Murthy S;

Narayanan S.A.; Parvathi Menon; Pethachi M.C.T.; Rajagopal R.;

Ram Mohan, G; Ramani H; Rangarajan S.; Ravindranath J.V.

Soora Chandhiramouleeswaran; Sridharan, R.K.; Srinivasan

K.S.; Sundar S; Yatheendra Prabu K.

These are very bovinetimes. The country is

divided into two – those whorejoice in the cow and theother half that rejoices in whatis within it and by that TheMan from Madras Musingsdoes not mean milk. The partyof the first part is threateningto carve up the party of the sec-ond part as they say in legalese,rather in the manner in whichparty of the second part was allalong carving up the cow. It isin the light of all this no doubtthat a company decided to putout appropriate messages onthe sachets of cows’ milk thatit sells.

MMM is featuring the pic-ture alongside for your refer-ence and reading joy. It is alsoto prove that he is not makingup much of this column, a cal-umny that he has had to suffermuch from frequently. Butsince the photo alongside maynot be very readable, MMM isalso giving below the relevantextracts from it, together withhis interpretation on whateach line is meant to signify.

The first and most impor-tant statement is what you seeclearly – Indian Cow BreedsMilk. That in effect meanscows and bulls are saintly crea-tures who only breed throughimmaculate conception whenit comes to progeny. For therest of the time, whenever theyget excited, they breed milk.Now for the lines up top, onwhat could signify as the mast-head of the sachet. Reading lto r, the first line states ‘No in-jection use conceive, Naturalonly.’ This once again estab-lishes the purity of the cow. Itdoes not obviously receive anyinjections from bull of anykind. It conceives, but natu-rally, when it feels like it, orwhen ordained by God. Line 2states ‘No injection use beforeCollect Milk’. Taken in con-junction with the main state-ment that Indian cow breedsmilk it is quite obvious thatjust like Indian people, the cowtoo breeds rather freely, with-out the help of any injections,only it breeds milk. For prog-eny it looks to nature. Talkingabout humans, MMM is awarethat Indians are rather pronethese days to taking injectionsto breed. But that is largely be-cause they have become slavesto degrading Western habits.In the good old days, when toi-lets were all out in the openand the Gods designed the firstaircraft, we Indians couldbreed without such artificialaids. Let us therefore learnfrom the cow.

Line 3, which is Daytime gooutside for Nature Food is tobe taken together with Line 4,which is Night time insideShelter. This is no immoral ordepraved cow. In keeping withits purity of thought and ac-tion, it sets out each morningin broad daylight and not forany hanky panky at that butonly for Nature Food, whichconsidering their abundance inour city, MMM assumes refersto plastic covers and poster pa-

pers. By evensong, holy cow isback at home. It does not tarryat the local Tasmac bar or won-der if it can pick up a bull andbe off to the local discotheque.In short, its private life is aboveboard, as an Indian cow’s oughtto be.

It is therefore no wonderthat such a wonder cow canclaim to be ‘rich in medicinalproperties’. It must be so re-pressed that it must be requir-ing a tonne of anti-depressantsto keep it standing. MMM willignore the last line that statesthe saintly cow in question isfrom Q1 Organic Form, what-ever that means. But he is quiteclear that is the kind of cowthat this will win votes, andalso foment riots.

The Holy Indian Cow

all along been a fan of SimplyGreat (SG), the actor, MMMdecided to pay a courtesy callon him in his new home. Afterall, having enjoyed the breezesof the beach for so long, SGmay be feeling rather claustro-phobic in his new location bythe Adyar, which river, asthough in welcome, has beenrather extra smelly of late.

And so MMM went to meetSG. The tall gates leading to thememorial were locked and therewas no way MMM could haveentered, he having never beenlissom enough to leaps andbound. Not wanting to be im-paled on the spear-shapedgrilles, MMM just hung aroundfor a while hoping that some se-curity guard or the other wouldturn up to let him in. This didnot happen. As MMM left, theguard to the neighbouring prop-erty sauntered up and advisedhim to be sure to visit on Octo-ber 1, that being SG’s birthdaywhen, so the guard said, therewas sure to be a commemora-tion of some sort.

What of the rest of the yearMMM wondered. Well, SG,like so many other Tamilgreats, is fated to remain be-hind locked doors. Whichseems a great pity for SG was aman who loved the public andwould have been happy if theywere allowed to saunter in atwill.

On the same vein, MMMcould not help reflecting thatChennai as a city is dottedwith several memorials of thiskind. There is one to the con-stitution maker, which is notfar away from that of SG. Thisis also locked up all the time.The ones to the father of thenation, his sambandhi who wasGovernor General and thenheld a series of other publicoffices each less importantthan the previous one, andthat of a beloved Chief Minis-ter who put us on the indus-trial map are all next to eachother. These, though open tovisitors, hardly see any foot-falls and remain for most of theyear empty structures. So isthat of a leader of the back-ward classes. This edifice, in-cidentally, was put up afterquite a bit of jingoism on thepart of his followers. But theytoo appear to have forgottenall about it once the buildingwas put up.

All of this is rather sad, atleast in MMM’s view. This is acity that is rapidly losing what-ever it once possessed by wayof commons. Where then arepeople supposed to go? Thebeach, once a happy place tocongregate in, is now out ofbounds for any group that isgreater than four in strength,chiefly because there is a fearthat the bull people will re-turn. And talking about thebull peoples, MMM wondersas to what happened to themall. Where are those expertson indigenous vs importedcows, and the same breeds ofbull on whom whole pageswere written in print and so-cial media?

Anyway, to come back tothe memorials, it is high timethe Government decided toput these places to some use.Yes, MMM is aware that inforeign countries too memori-als are what they are meant tobe – places honouring thedead. But there they appear toattract several tourists, whichis not the case here, especiallywith gates barred and watch-men chasing people away onall days except birthdays of thedear departed.

Tailpiece

The Man from MadrasMusings has heard of

waterbeds, but he had neverseen a water tanker bed. Theman in the pic appears to bequite comfortable sleeping ontop of the vehicle. You cannever account for tastes.

– MMM

SHORT ’N’

SNAPPY

On moving statues

Last fortnight’s piece by TheMan from Madras Musings

on the great thespian’s statuegoing walkabout resulted insome feedback, the burden ofwhich was that MMM oughtnot to have rejoiced at its shift-ing. MMM reserved his judge-ment on that, but then having

October 1-15, 2017 MADRAS MUSINGS 3

The Vizianagaram RoyalsMy grandfather, Dr. K.N. Kesari (1875-

1953), was a friend of the princelyVizianagaram family and the printing press thathe set up in the 1920s, Lodhra Press, wasinvolved in reprinting a report in 1938 that wasoriginally compiled in 1894 and went by thetortuous title: “Vizianagarm Treaty of November15th 1758 and the end of the fifteen years’ warbetween the English and the French for the Sover-eignty of India, from 1744 to 1759 , A.D. with asketch account of the noteworthy facts connectedwith the Vizianagarm Family”.

I send herewith images of the title page,preface, the last page of the main text and anappendix giving a brief history of theVizianagaram Family.

From the preface it would appear that thereport was prepared originally in 1894, in re-sponse to a communication received by the thenMaharaja from the British India Governmentfor the insertion of the Vizianagaram Treaty of1758 in Aitchison’s Treaties*.

The report itself is a brief history of India ofthe 18th and 19th Centuries (mostly dealingwith the shenanigans of the princely rulers andtheir dealings with the British and French colo-nial powers of the time) with extensive quota-

tions from chronicles of Indian history by Brit-ish writers such as Meadows Taylor, RobertOrme, Henry Beveridge and Macfarlane, andeven an odd quote from Thomas BabingtonMacaulay. In another dimension the report is afervent plea by the ruler of a princely state tothe British powers-that-be to confer theprivilege of including the Vizianagarm Treaty of1758 (with the British) in Aitchison’sTreaties, considering the unwavering loyaltydisplayed by the Vizianagarm Family to thecause of enhancement of British power in India.Inclusion in Aitchison’s was probably reckonedas the acme of recognition of a ruler’s loyalty tothe British Colonial power.

The report aptly concludes with the valedic-tion “Your most obedient servant”. Indeed!

The present Union Civil Aviation Ministerbelongs to this lineage. And then who can for-get the one and only ‘Vizzy’, the Maharajkumarof Vizianagaram who used to inflict his uniquebrand of cricket commentary (with more off-field rantings than descriptions about what wasgoing on in the field) over All India Radio onhapless listeners in the 1940s and ‘50s?

K. Balakesari22, Westcott Road, Chennai 600014

*Charles Umpherston Aitchison (compiler): A Collection of Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds relating to India andNeighbouring Countries. (India 1862-65)

Metro and the Moon

Regarding Riding the Metro,finding it costly, (MM, Sep-

tember 16th), the stretch be-tween Nehru Park and Centralis not yet operational.

As a family in HIG, we findit convenient to take the Metrofrom Shenoy Nagar station,which is a hop, step and jumpfrom our home, to places likeVadapalani and, of course tothe airport too. The Vadapalanistation is also right in front ofthe Forum Mall to which we goto catch the latest movie.

In Singapore, the pedestrianMetro subway leads right to theMall, though it would be akinto asking for the Moon for suchfacilities in Chennai, where tobe fair the new stations arebeing maintained well.

To add to the article, it doesnot take into account transportlike the Ola and Uber cabs andthe share autos in the citywhich have gained popularitynow.

T.K. Srinivas Charisrinivaschar@gmail.com

Levelling down

Apropos NEET, A wake-upcall for the State, (MM,

September 16th), the govern-ment is fully aware that manychildren who desire to joingood institutions change overto CBSE schools for their XIand XII classes. In spite of this,the powers-that-be have beenreluctant to upgrade the sylla-bus over many years.

They want every one tocome down to their level. It iscalled Samaseer Kalvi. Godsave our children!

T.M. Srinivasanadiisha@yahoo.com

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4 MADRAS MUSINGS October 1-15, 2017 October 1-15, 2017 MADRAS MUSINGS 5

CHARIVARI – 6

In all probability, it will remain Buckingham Canal forever. Nopolitician of our present times will want his/her name to be

associated with such a degraded waterbody. Yet, at least till the1950s, this was a navigable canal, through which supplies camefrom Andhra to Madras and people travelled by boat toMamallapuram and beyond.

Operated by a system of locks, it left behind numerous LockColonies within the city, and at least one lock still survives, be-hind the University buildings. Outside the city limits, the Canalis largely intact and is one of India’s longest, stretching from up-per Andhra to deep down Tamil Nadu, a length of 800km. Priorto 1875, it existed in two parts, a northern canal, named afterBasil Cochrane and later the second Lord Clive, and a southerncanal. It was the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos who got thetwo connected through the city, and consequently lent his namein perpetuity to it.

His Grace The Right Honourable Richard PlantagenetCampbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, the 3rd

Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was the first (and probablyonly) duke to accept a gubernatorial post in India. As he was apeer of the highest order in the British aristocracy, this was ratherunusual. But he was no stranger to public life, having, as theIndian Charivari puts it, held many ministerial appointments, thelast one prior to becoming Governor being Secretary of State forthe Colonies. He had just assumed charge when the Charivariwas published and so the book merely wishes him well on hisembarking on his career in India. In the event, Madras was hisonly posting here.

Taking charge in 1875, the Duke had almost at once to playhost to the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. The harbourworks were begun on that occasion. A year later, he was facedwith the terrible Madras famine. The Imperial Government inCalcutta largely thwarted his attempts at relief. The Viceroy LordLytton refused to believe that a famine was in progress and evenafter visiting Madras contented himself with writing about howthe natives in the relief camps were all fat and happy. Undaunted,the Duke of Buckingham appealed to the Mayor of London whoin turn ensured considerable sums were collected and sent overfor relief. A food-for-work programme was begun in 1876, whichinvolved the digging of the canal through Madras. Completed in1878, it was named after the Governor. It was also in the sameyear that the Buckingham Mill Co Ltd, promoted by Binny &Co, went into production. The entity was clearly named after theDuke as he was then the Governor. It was also during his tenurethat the British graves in Madras were all documented. The long-forgotten burial spot of Lord Pigot was discovered and he wasinterred with due ceremony in the Church of St Mary’s in TheFort, the Duke funding the tombstone with its simple legend ‘InMemoriam’.

The Duke completed his tenure in 1880 and returned toEngland where he resumed his career in local politics, passing awayin 1889.

– Sriram V

The Duke who gaveus a canal

Chennai, or Madras as it wasknown earlier, is the pioneer

city in the history of modern In-dia. Aviation excitement caughtup with Madras within sevenyears of the Wright brothers’ firstflight on December 22, 1903.

Giacomo D’Angelis, a confec-tioner from Messina, Italy, ar-rived in Madras in 1880. He rana flourishing confectionery busi-ness, and in due course of timeestablished Hotel D’Angelis,Madras’s finest hotel of the time,in Mount Road. Inspired byFrenchman Louise Bleriot’sflight across the English Channelin 1909, D’Angelis built a bi-plane, with the help ofSimpson’s, entirely from his owndesigns. The airplane was pow-ered by a small horse-power en-gine. He tested his aeroplane atPallavaram, and then arrangedfor a public viewing, for a fee, inMarch 1910. D’Angelis madethe first public flight on March26, 1910 from Island Grounds.Clearly, Madras pioneered thefirst flight in India, and may be inAsia as well. Subramania Bharatiwrote in 1910 about the planethat was built by Tamil workersin the workshop of Simpson’s.Then, in 1914, J W Madley, thecivil engineer who built Madras’swater supply system, assembledan aeroplane and flew from Is-land Grounds over the Red Hillswater reservoir to make an aerialassessment with photographs.

Madras again took thehonours, when more aerial activ-ity began to spread across India.On February 14, 1911, JulesTyck made demonstration flightsfrom Island Grounds. Hechanged his demonstration tim-ings from 6.30 pm to 8.30 am forbetter weather conditions. Gov-ernor and Lady Lawley turnedout to see his successful flightsover the Beach and Mount Roadand over George Town. On thesame day, in Mysore, Baron deCaters took off from Mysore Ex-hibition Grounds to Rangoon.En route, he made exhibitionflights in Secunderabad at anaviation exhibition. During thatsame week, on February 18th,Henry Pequet made the historicfirst airmail flight at 5.30 pmfrom Allahabad exhibitionground to Naini, 13 miles awayacross the Yamuna. This was thefirst official air mail traffic, andthe first official postal airmailcancellation in the world.

While all initial flights in In-dia were made by Europeans,Madras is closely linked with theemergence of India’s first aviator– engineer, designer, and test pi-lot. This was Srirama Venkata-

Madras aviation– in peace & war

S.V. Setty (on right) and an Avrobiplane of Great War vintage.

subba Setty, better known as S.V. Setty. Bornin Mysore in 1879, S.V. Setty graduated witha degree in mathematics from Madras Uni-versity. Thereafter, he joined the College ofEngineering, Guindy for two years after whichhe shifted to the Thomason College ofEngineering, Roorkee, to complete his stud-ies. He joined Mysore State Service as anengineer in 1906. He won a scholarship in1909 to Faraday House to pursue an electri-cal engineering diploma. Evincing keen inter-est in aviation, Setty joined A.V. Roe and

Company (later to evolve as thefamous Avro) in 1911, in its de-sign and drafting department.Soon he enrolled in a flyingcourse. When Setty flew theAvro D prototype it crash-landed. Setty analysed its flawsand redesigned the aircraft. Healso demonstrated the improve-

Bombay in 1932, and also beingthe first person to be issued apilot’s licence in India in 1929, itshould be noted that Madras alsohad aviation pioneers. The Ma-dras Flying Club pioneered air-mindedness in the Presidency.Set up in 1930, the Madras Fly-ing Club commenced with 11

fighter aircraft during the Span-ish Civil War (1936-39).

Capt. V. Sundaram was thefirst person to get a commercialpilot’s licence in 1937. He flewfrom Karachi to Madras. His wifeUsha became India’s first womanpilot, and they flew for theMysore Maharaja and Tata Air-lines. They set a world record fly-ing a de Havilland Dove fromLondon to Madras in 27 hours.This record for a piston-engineaircraft is still unbroken.

The Great War (1914-1918)saw the use of aircraft in war, andthis catapulted aviation researchinto military applications. Fromthen on it was the military di-mension that led aviation devel-opment. The Indian Air Forcecame into existence on April 1,1932. The IAF’s first squadron,No 1 Squadron was established,albeit, very slowly. It took threeyears to establish three flights,and it remained so till the begin-ning of World War II. Thesewere mostly deployed and usedfor policing activities in theNWFP. With war clouds loom-ing in 1939, Coastal DefenceFlights were created, with No 1CDF positioned in Madras in1940. Similarly, No 5 CDF wasin Cochin, and No 6 CDF was inVizag. While the IAF remainedstagnant at one squadron, there

LOST LANDMARKS OF CHENNAI– SRIRAM V

Laundry, auctions, where

the Masons were

For years it stood, just besidethe LIC building and com-

pletely dwarfed by it. It was bestknown by the name of its last co-occupant, the other being thefamed auction house of Murray& Co. But the building, with itscolonnaded portico had a farmore interesting history thanthat, for it began life as a Ma-sonic Lodge.

The building, or whateverstructure existed on the site ear-lier, first finds mention in 1849when the Lodge Pilgrims of Lightmet there. This was a short-livedbody, for it died out in 1862, butits meeting place was evidentlyquite popular for we find that by1877 the Lodge Perfect Unanim-ity (PU), today the oldest Ma-sonic body in South India, wasthinking of acquiring it. PU hadin 1839 embarked on building itsMasonic Temple by the beach.The Lodge was however nothappy with the structure when itwas completed at enormous ex-pense. It would later be sold tothe police whose headquarters itremains till day. In the mean-while PU moved to Vepery andby the late 1870s was consider-ing a shift to Mount Road.

The property, known by thenas the premises of Mr Garratt thetailor and spanning 100 grounds(around 6 acres), was acquired in

1883 for Rs 18,000. Shortly aftermoving in, members began com-plaining about the place. Theexisting bungalow was not suit-able for meetings and sufferedfrom poor ventilation. The in-stallation of two punkahs at thecost of Rs 150 did not help. It wasthen decided that a new buildinghad to be put up on the sur-rounding land, of which therewas plenty. But of money therewas none, all of it having beenspent on the purchase and initialrepairs. Building a first floorroom for meetings was consid-ered more practical and to fundthis, the Lodge borrowed money.Wor. Bro. R.F. Chisholm, thewell-known architect, designedthe room, which strangelyenough had no roof other thanthin timber beams. This was fineon clear nights, but when itrained the place was a mess.Moreover, rats, owls and birdsbegan to reside in the rafters.Mangalore tiles were consideredbut were ruled out on thegrounds that the timber couldnot bear their weight. Tarpaulinswere eventually resorted to, in1887. The groundfloor becamethe dining room.

Financial difficulties contin-ued to dog the Lodge PU, chieflybecause of the building. More-over, the weight of the first floor,

the light roof notwithstanding,had caused the ground floor wallsto bulge out. Parts of the prop-erty facing General Patters Roadwere sold in phases, all of themeventually becoming the plot onwhich the firm of WE Smithwould build its landmark Kardyl(now Bharat Insurance) Build-ing.

Renting out the compoundfor grazing cattle and growingfruit at Rs 8 a month to GopalPillay brought in some revenue,as did leasing a disused wing ofthe bungalow to Masons. Electriclights were used for an installa-tion ceremony as early as in 1890and by June 1st, 1891, piped wa-ter from Red Hills was available.

But the property proved acash guzzler. With the Lodge PUfacing financial difficulties, it wasdecided in 1905 that the prop-erty be sold to the District GrandLodge of Madras (DGL), theapex body for Freemasonry.With that building became thehome and meeting place of allthe Masonic lodges in the city.But complaints continued un-abated. The DGL finally opted tomove to its present property inEgmore in 1916, disposing off itserstwhile home to KushaldossChaturbhujadoss, the Gujarati

were at least 6 to 8 RAF squad-rons in India till 1939. A Volun-teer reserve concept was created,and civil licence holders were al-lowed, both Indian and British,for induction into the coastalflights, with mandatory training.The flying clubs became resourceproviders.

Beginning with the creationof the Royal Flying Corps andRoyal Air Force through WorldWar II, Madras Presidencyfunded the creation or re-equip-ment with new aircraft of quite afew RAF squadrons. These wereNos 35, 79, 98, 99, 234, and 264squadrons, and were known as“Madras Presidency Squadrons”.For example, the No 35 squad-ron history states... “35 squadronwas founded in 1916. When in1940, it became the first inBomber Command to be re-equipped with Halifaxes, themoney for the new aircraft wasgiven by the people of the Ma-dras Presidency.”

(To be concluded)

(Continued on page 5)

A MASONIC LODGE(Continued from page 4)

magnate. He in turn leased a partof the building in 1918 to Pio-neer Laundry. In 1927, the re-maining portion was leased toMurray & Co.

That was not the end of it. In1951, MCt ChidambaramChettyar acquired the entireproperty, land, bungalow and all.On the open space beside the oldbuilding he put up his dream edi-fice, a 14-storeyed structure tohouse his United India Insur-ance. This was completed in1959 by when insurance hadbeen nationalised and Chettyarhimself was killed in an air crash.

With that the entire property in-cluding the Bharat Insurancebuilding and the old Masonictemple became LIC’s.

The structure also served asthe office of the advertisingagency O&M and in that capac-ity played host to ad legendDavid Ogilvy who described it asa cross between a church and abarn. Whatever it was, it sur-vived as a reminder of a moregracious era. That was until 2015when LIC, for presumably rea-sons similar to those that make itneglect Bharat Insurance build-ing, demolished the Masonictemple, thereby obliterating his-tory of a century and more.

� by Air Marshal

M. MatheswaranAVSM VM PH.D (RETD)

ment by test-flying it in front ofthe Australian aviator JohnDuigan. Impressed by the solu-tion, John Duigan bought theaircraft, and named it AvroDuigan. Setty played a signifi-cant role in the design and de-velopment of the prototypes ofthe Avro 500 and Avro 504 air-craft. The Avro 504 evolved asthe world’s first trainer aircraft.It was also the first aircraft tobomb Germany in the GreatWar. Setty returned to India inmid-1912, and was employed bythe Mysore government. Hewent into design and manufac-ture of aircraft, but this was cutshort by a ban imposed by theBritish India government. Unfor-tunately, Setty died prematurelyin 1918 in an influenza epidemicthat killed a fifth of Bangalore’spopulation.

While J.R.D. Tata is consid-ered the father of Indian civilaviation, for flying the inauguralpostal flight from Karachi to

members of whom Rm.S.A.A.Annamalai Chettiar was the onlyIndian. It later increased to 71members including 14 Indians. Atrio of three NattukottaiChettiars, all wealthy Chettinadbusinessmen, pioneered aviationin Madras through their personalinterest and patronage. The firstto get a private pilot’s licence inthe Madras Presidency was RmAvadaiappan Chettiar in 1931.He was barely nineteen. S.A.A.Annamalai Chettiar was thesixth to get his Indian licence,and Solayappan Chettiar was the21st to get his license. WhileAnnamalai Chettiar procuredhis own aircraft, the threeNattukottai Chettiars helpedfound a flying club in the villageof Kanadukathan in Chettinad.This airstrip was strengthenedduring World War II for the op-eration of Allied bombers. Thereis also an unverified report of anRm. Veerappa Chettiar ofPuduvayal village having flown

In its last days... the Pioneer Laundry building, once a Masonic Lodge.

D’ Angelis’Madras-made aeroplane.

6 MADRAS MUSINGS October 1-15, 2017

“E-I-S-H-5,” he called outgently and even though his

voice was quietly cajoling, myfive-year-old brain, not yet usedto the English alphabet,struggled to grasp the new or-der of those letters.

He went on to explain, “E is1 dot, I is 2 dots, S is 3 dots, H is4 dots and the numeral 5 is 5dots. Similarly, T, M, O is 1dash, 2 dashes, and 3 dashes re-spectively.” He went on to tellme that the international dis-tress signal ‘SOS’ was transmit-ted quite simply and easily onthis basis as: dot dot dot / dashdash dash / dot dot dot / or inother words, you spelled outeach letter in Morse code. Myeyes opened in child-like won-der as it all began to fall intoplace. ‘It’s all so simple,’ Ithought, and it increased myyearning to learn more becauseI had the best teacher in theworld – my very own Dad.

Dad (known as ‘Robby’ inthe office) was employed inMadras in the P&T Depart-ment of the Central Govern-ment – short for Post and Tele-graph Department, of whichthe Telegraph section country-wide, became sadly defunct in2013.

There is a good chance,however, that if any of us hasever sent or received a telegramat all, that at some time in itslife it could have passed throughthe hands of my Dad or any oneof the other Anglo-Indian menor women who once served theP&T Department all over thecountry, especially in theSouth. The P&T Departmentwas an Anglo-Indian bastion,though seldom talked about.Since the earlier nature of theirwork required them to ‘tap out’words, P&T employees were of-ten ribbed as ‘Brass Tappers’.

My lessons in long distancecommunication began at fivewhen Dad said, “Son, before theteleprinter arrived, long dis-tance communications weresent and received in Morse codeand we operators had to be noless than perfect to correctlyencode or decode and tran-scribe the message that had tobe transmitted or received.”

Through the years I learnedmore from Dad. “After the tele-printer was introduced as theadvanced technology of theday,” he explained, “it madework a little easier. We tele-printer operators (called Teleg-raphists or TLs) sat in a largehall called the InstrumentRoom (or IR) at individualdesks and worked behind thescenes. On our desks there wereteleprinter machines that wereconnected to another city viaan electronic link. Every day we

sent or received a stack of tele-grams destined for or from thatcity from that particular ma-chine.”

To send a telegram, youwent to the nearest local PostOffice and booked (wrote) atelegram to a person in, for ex-ample, Calcutta. It was thensent from that local Post Officeto the Central Telegraph Office(CTO for short) for final trans-mission. (The CTO was housedin that colonial style red-brickbuilding on 1st Line Beach, op-posite Madras Beach station onthe suburban rail line.) It wasthen put into a pile of telegramsfor Calcutta and given to theTL working the Calcutta line.

Dad revealed to me how atelegram was sent. The TL thentransmitted it by typing the textof the message on his machine.The typed matter appeared si-multaneously only on theCalcutta TL’s machine and itemerged in Calcutta on a rib-

bon of paper from a spool fedinto the machine. A code signi-fied to the TL the beginningand end of a message on the rib-bon, which was broken off and‘gummed’ on a special form.This form was then sent off fordespatch via the channel thatkept track of ‘sent’ and ‘re-ceived’ telegrams. In the sameway the Calcutta operator senthis messages to the Madras TLwho did the same thing. “Thewonder,” Dad said, “is that mes-sages could be transmitted si-multaneously and continuouslyfrom either end until all mes-sages for a particular city weresent or received.”

Most of us who have hadthe opportunity to receive atelegram will remember thepink form on which two orthree strips of white paper tapeconveyed the urgent message.

Dad said that most peopledid not give a thought at thattime to the ones who worked tokeep communications going inthe country through the tele-gram. “Many of us at the P&TDepartment were Anglo-Indi-ans and we filled important cen-tres in almost all cities, espe-cially in the South. News wasconveyed by us from one loca-tion to another on a teleprinter.The matter transmitted con-sisted of information regardingbirths and deaths, arrivals anddepartures, congratulatory mes-sages, weather reports, newsdespatches – you name it and itwas sent as a telegram.”

We the Robsons lived in St.Thomas Mount and Dad wentto work to the north of the city

by train. There were manyAnglo-Indians working in theDepartment and they camefrom other Anglo-Indian locali-ties in Madras – Kasimode,Royapuram, Vepery,Purasawalkam and Pallavaram.They all met at the office whereshifts were referred to on the24-hour clock. Everyone knewwhat 6 to 14, 7 to 15, 10 to 18,14 to 22 or First Watch meant.Unlike Railway men, the P&Tstaff did not travel anywhere,yet they traversed the countrywhile just sitting at a desk. Sun-day was the usual day off sincemost of the TLs were Chris-tians. Almost everyone saved

Telegraph Sports Day, and theTelegraph Christmas Tree, oron Christmas shopping trips to‘Moore Market’ it was sheer joyto “chin-wag” with people whowere considered good friends.

Dad retired in April 1979.He told me that he wanted towrite a book one day on life ashe saw it through the eyes of aTelegraphist. Sadly, an illnessrobbed him of muscularstrength after retirement. Hepassed away in December2005.

To keep with change, theTelegraph Department had togive way to the advent of newtechnology. When mobilephones, email, SMS,WhatsApp and Facebook camealong, they offered instanta-neous communication. The De-partment shrank to a quarter ofits original size as the teleprinterwas replaced by a computer tosend telegrams by email. Thedesks vanished; the incessanthum of conversation and theconstant chatter of the tele-printers were heard no more. Inthe midst of it all, quietly andfinally, the telegram became re-dundant and died a silentdeath. The Government de-cided to close down the facilityof the telegram on July 15,2013.

On that last day, the publicwas given the opportunity tosend telegrams one last time be-fore midnight. To commemo-rate this poignant moment inhistory, and to keep alive thememory Dad and his tenure inthe Telegraph Department, Iwent all the way to the familiarCTO at about 8 o’clock thatnight and sent separate tele-grams to my Mum, sister, threebrothers, and one to myself say-ing: “Last day last service – Sentfrom Dad’s office”.

As I came home that night,nostalgia overwhelmed me.Though Dad was no longer withus, I wanted to reach out to themany other surviving Anglo-In-dian men and women who hadworked alongside with him. Iwanted to convey to them thatI too grieved at the passing ofan era that still holds a specialplace of affection in our hearts.By descent I consider myself tobe a footnote in that chapter ofthe history of the telegram inIndia. – (Courtesy: Anglos in theWind.)

(Quizmaster V.V. Ramanan’squestions are from September1st to 15th. Questions 11 to20 relate to Chennai andTamil Nadu.)

1. What is Hillary Clinton’s re-cently released memoir, about hermost recent presidential campaign,called?

2. Halimah Yacob was recentlyelected as the first female presidentof which prosperous Asian nation?

3. On September 13th, the Inter-national Olympic Committeeawarded the 2024 and 2028 Sum-mer Olympics to which cities?

4. The ‘Bakhshali manuscript’, anancient Indian manuscript in theBodleian Library in Oxford, is nowthought to mention the first use ofwhich concept?

5. What are the proposed terminalpoints of the ‘bullet train’ that is torun between Ahmadabad andMumbai?

6. What is ‘Operation Insaniyat’,initiated by the Ministry of Exter-nal Affairs recently?

7. On September 11th, DefenceMinister Nirmala Seetharamanflagged off the ‘Navika SagarParikrama’. What is it?

8. On which heavenly body hasthe International AstronomicalUnion named two mountainranges as Tenzing Montes andHillary Montes in a tribute to thefirst humans to conquer Mt.Everest?

9. Which Navaratna PSU has gotCabinet approval to be upgradedto ‘Maharatna’ status?

10. Name the new portal launch-ed by the Union Ministry of Hu-man Resource and Developmentto provide a digital platform toteachers to make their lifestylemore digital.

* * *

11. Jivabhumi, Vellivilakkau andKaliyugam were some of the namesconsidered for which popularmagazine before the present namewas adopted?

12. The storage tanks of which fuelcompany were hit by SMS Emdenon September 22, 1914?

13. Which 1785 initiative had themotto ‘Quicquid Agunt Homines’?

14. With which industrialist wouldyou associate the Paragon Cinemain Madras, the Ritz Hotel inMumbai and the general insurancecompany, East-West Insurance?

15. Which Chennai-based institu-tion, part of the CSIR umbrella,was founded on April 24, 1948?

16. Tiruvakkarai (Villupuram Dis-trict) and Sattanur (PerambalurDistrict) have which specific kindof national park?

17. The Jain temple on KutcheryRoad is dedicated to the 12thTirthankara. Name him.

18. Which famous freedom fightertook up residence for ten years onEaswaran Dharamaraja Koil Streetin Puducherry?

19. ‘Little Randolph’, ‘Gold Mo-hur’, ‘Flor de Spencer’ and ‘Tor-pedo’ were brand names of whichproducts made by Spencer’s?

20. Name the cargo ship that hitthe shores of Marina in November1966, and remained as wreckagetill the 1990s?

(Answers on page 8)

� by Bruce Robson

their annual leave for Christmastime.

Three payments were madeto staff every month. ‘Salary’was always paid on the firstworking day of the month. ‘Pie-Money’, a slang term adaptedfrom the erstwhile Rupee, Annaand Pie monetary units, buttranslated as ‘Incentive’ in amore formal way, was paid onthe 11th and this was calculatedpro-rata on the basis of the ex-tra messages sent beyond therequired minimum of 240 mes-sages per term of duty. Therewere some TLs who could sendover 400 messages on each spellof duty, depending on the ‘traf-fic’ and his or her skill. ‘Over-time’ was paid between the 18thand 22nd of the month and wasfor the extra hours put in be-yond regular working hours.These payments, which werespaced out during the month,brought in the extra money tokeep the home fires burning.

“We shared a rare kind ofbonhomie that came fromworking long dedicated hourstogether, speaking a universallanguage in versions unique tothe Anglo-Indians, and in anenvironment that brought ustogether by bonds that werecommon to almost all of us. Wehelped each other financiallyand emotionally, sharedtroubles, bereavements andgrief, visited the sick and lentmany a shoulder to cry on,” Dadwould recall. Everyone knewthe spouses of their colleaguesand on the occasions when theymet as families, such as onTelegraph Thanksgiving Day,

Requiem for the

October 1-15, 2017 MADRAS MUSINGS 7

Glamorous go-getterfrom Chennai

What happens to a middleclass Tamil Brahmin,

Besant Nagar girl, who has thelongest legs in the neighbour-hood and a fondness for thayirsaadham and pickle, when sheups and follows her mother tothe U S of A? Years later, shebecomes the face of one of themost watched, Emmy awardwinning American cook shows,Top Chef (and gets to wearfabulous clothes and jewellery).Along the way, she also be-comes a top model, occasionalactor, cook book writer, colum-nist and arm candy (later, wife)of author Salman Rushdie.Padma Lakshmi is the prototypegoddess of the Indian immi-grant success story in America.(In Chennai we first came toknow of her only when shebrought Salman over to meether grandparents.)

� byJanaki Venkataraman

tempts to enter the world ofmodelling, her leaving after col-lege to Italy, to pursue a careerin fashion modelling. After ini-tial struggles, she achieves whatshe set out to do, become a topEuropean model, whose hori-zons widen as speedily as herTambram inhibitions disappear.

A strict vegetarian to beginwith, Padma began to eat meat

flowers to live snails. The reci-pes that intersperse the chap-ters in Love, Loss and What WeAte by Padma Lakshmi, HarperCollins India, are deceptive intheir simplicity: thayir saadham,khichdi, chatpati chutney, egg ina hole etc. Padma’s culinarytastes are far more complex andinformed. She offers an interest-ing recipe for a stomachcleanser, though, called Cran-berry Drano. It is said to cleanseyour insides after binge eating,as Padma is forced to do duringshootings of ‘Top Chef’.

As for her love life, most ofthe men she has been involvedwith seem to be much older,wealthier and knowledgeablethan her. That, of course, leadsboth the reader and the authorherself to wonder whether shewas not looking for father fig-ures who could mentor and pro-tect her, as her own father wasalways absent from her life. Asa young model, she learnt fromher much older Italian lover allabout fine living; from SalmanRushdie, she learnt how to ex-press herself in words (onecook-book, and several col-umns on fashion and food hap-pened during this period in herlife); from the billionaire lovershe acquired after divorce fromSalman, she learnt, well, how tolive the good life; and from theyoungest lover of them all, theonly non-celebrity, she got herchild.

There is a lot in the bookabout Endometriosis, a uterinecondition that Padma sufferedfrom most of her life until anenlightened doctor in NewYork treated her for it. (Sheblames the illness in part for thebreak-up of her marriage withRushdie, as she was too ill toplease him and he was too un-caring to understand her condi-tion). Padma is currently co-founder of the EndometriosisFoundation of America thatpromotes early diagnosis andtreatment of this painful condi-tion.

The picture that emerges ofPadma Lakshmi at the end ofthis book is that of a glamorous,globally successful, gently ag-gressive, go-getter of a woman.Yet there is a sub-text thatportrays a woman who at heartstill remains that wide-eyed,eternally curious girl who livedby the beach in Chennai andloved her Thatha and all heraunts and uncles and cousinsand the jars of mouth-wateringpickles her beloved grand-mother made.

*Love, Loss and What we Ate by

Padma Lakshmi (Harper Collins).

Padma Lakshmi.

Padma and Salman Rushdie on their wedding day.Excerpts� My grandmother emerged with a small katori, or bowl, withmashed-up lentils and rice from the kitchen. Her hand, wrinkledand worn, had mixed rice for every child of our family in thishouse for over thirty-five years. It was the same hand that hadbraided and oiled my hair, drawn countless marks of vermilionon my forehead, and had even landed hard on the side of mythigh when needed. This hand had shown Neela how to pleather sari, and Bhanu the right way to burp Rajni and Rohit. Itwas the same hand that mixed batches of our secret house recipefor sambar curry powder twice a year, wielded the ladle of dosabatter when I first learned to make the fluffy thin crepes on theiron griddle, and administered Tiger Balm to KCK’s temples inthe days when his head ached from the monsoon heat.

For a moment, I thought she might be the one to feed Krishnaherself. I was keeping a low profile, doing as I was told. Afterhanding me the bowl, she bent over, with agility, impossibly low,and applied a line of holy vibhuti ash across Krishna’s foreheadas she lay writhing in annoyance. “Ippo, nee punnu,” Rajima said.“Now you do it.” Then I heard my mother’s voice, coming froma table where an open laptop was perched. She was tuning in viaSkype and commanding me from Los Angeles. “Come on, Pads,the baby’s hungry!” I snapped to attention and placed a smallespresso spoon of kichidi into the baby’s mouth. At first shecoughed and sputtered, but in mere seconds, she seemed to bemashing the pap with her tongue against the roof of her mouthlike an old toothless man. Everyone in the room seemed to ex-hale at once. I heard the hearty belly laughs of the priests.

I thought then that for the first time in my life, in that house,these women were finally saying: “Okay, you’re up. It’s yourturn.” For the first time, I did not feel like a minor, a junior, ora half pint. For the women in my family, I had finally made it tofull adulthood, into their club, the big league. For a second Imourned not only the final extinguishing of my girlhood...

In her fast paced, very read-able autobiography*, Love, Lossand What we Ate Padma tracesher life from the secure roots inher maternal grandfather’s fam-ily in Besant Nagar, Chennai,(she went to school in St.Michael’s, Adyar) to her follow-ing her divorced mother whohad left for America to build alife for the two of them. We seeher coping with the excitementof her new life, the uncertain-ties of her identity as a brownskinned immigrant, her discom-fort regarding her mother’s suc-cessive boyfriends, her early at-

in America, encouraged by hermother, who felt it was betternutrition. But it was during hertime in Europe that she becamea true foodie. Until then herfavourite foods were spicySouth Indian, with the occa-sional chaat thrown in. Europeopened the doors of fine West-ern cuisine to her, and thecheesemongers of Paris taughther to appreciate every kind ofcheese there was. Then therewas really no stopping Padma’spalate. It was inquisitive, ad-venturous and would try any-thing edible, at least once, from

Excerpts� The city of Chennai itself, however, was much different fromwhat it was when I had built sand temples in the courtyard. Thecity that had felt in many ways like a sleepy town had become afrenetic metropolis. Much of the sand was now asphalt. St.Michael’s Academy had expanded into a large compound withtall buildings and fields for soccer and cricket. The Milk Barthat was once a leafy oasis was now a seedy, dilapidated place tobe avoided.

Neela and I visited the old flat. All around our old building,urban development now made the area feel very congested. Wecould no longer see the ocean from my grandfather’s bedroomwindow. Taller buildings had been erected all around. Everyonewanted to live near the sea. The courtyard below had beenasphalted, too. Children no longer made temples in the sand. Icouldn’t believe how small the flat looked. It had always felthuge to me. I visited each room, could still see the lizards wherethe cracked walls met the ceiling. The place was empty save forsome sewing machines and tailors, employees of Neela’s busi-ness. So many of us had grown up here, fought as children here,cried as teenagers, and often run back to this place as adults.Several sewing machines hummed as I walked barefoot on theold green marble from room to room. Underneath the hum, Icould still hear echoes of Rajni tattling on me to Bhanu, thescreech of my grandfather’s metal desk chair as he rose to saygood-bye to a student. The house had never been beautiful, butit was beautiful to me, even in its dilapidated and empty state.

Yet for all the changes, much felt the same in the new apart-ment. There were still buckets of hot water for bathing, in spiteof showerheads being installed in these new bathrooms. Therewere still far too many of us, old and young, from my grand-mother to Krishna. We would crowd onto the floor, drapingourselves on pillows, grooming and feeding like a troop of mon-keys, me scratching my nephew Sidhanth’s back, Neela braid-ing my hair, kids climbing among our bodies. Aunt Bhanu kneel-ing on the floor, peeling potatoes or mangoes. My grandmotherhaggling with every vendor she came across on the porch below.

And we still talked, a lot. Our conversations were a blur oflanguages. Everyone in the household was tri- or evenquadrilingual. I grew up speaking Tamil, the language of myethnicity; Hindi, the national language but also the language ofDelhi; and English. Others in my family added Malayalam, thelanguage of Kerala, my ancestral home, to that list. “Please” and“okay” were in English and bookended many bursts of speech.“Please”– someone might begin, then switch to Hindi – “couldyou make some chai for me?” Then, without skipping a beat,she might continue in Tamil, “I’m really craving it” – then backto English – “Okay?” Certain words were just better in onelanguage than another.

8 MADRAS MUSINGS October 1-15, 2017

Published by S. Muthiah for ëChennai Heritageí, 260-A, TTK Road, Chennai 600 018 and printed by T J George at Lokavani-Hallmark Press Pvt. Ltd., 122, Greams Road, Chennai 600 006. Edited by S. MUTHIAH.

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Published by S. Muthiah, Lokavani Southern Printers Pvt. Ltd., 122, Greams Road, Chennai 600 006. Printed by Anu Varghese at Lokavani Southern Printers Pvt. Ltd., 122, Greams Road, Chennai 600 006, and edited by S. Muthiah.

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Speedy completion of Metro necessary(Continued from page 1)

1. What Happened; 2. Singapore;3. Paris and Los Angeles; 4. Zero;5. Sabarmati to Bandra; 6. To pro-vide assistance to Bangladesh in re-sponse to the humanitarian crisiscaused by the large influx ofRohingyas from Myanmar; 7.India’s first all-women crew globalcircumnavigation expedition; 8.Dwarf planet Pluto; 9. Bharat Pe-troleum Corporation Limited; 10.Diksha.gov.in.

* * *11. Kalki; 12. Burmah Oil Com-

pany; 13. The weekly Madras Cou-rier newspaper; 14. Rm. AlagappaChettiar; 15. Central Leather Re-search Institute; 16. National Fos-sil Wood Parks; 17. VasupujyaSwami; 18. Subramania Bharati;19. Cigars; 20. Stamatis.

Answers to

Quiz

minutes for the same journey;the class of bus users would findthe Metro way out of reach. Bususers are not an immediate po-tential market for the Metro.

A motorcycle, at an effi-ciency of about 36 km/litre, isRs. 2/km for 20 km, Rs. 40 perday, Rs. 1040 for 26 days. Thereis no parking cost. (8 km plusdistance to station assumed as 2km to and fro at boarding sideand same at destination side.)To this, interest of Rs. 300 onthe motor cycle loan, payablemonthly, must be added, addingup to Rs. 1340. The saving intime, air-conditioned comfortand pollution-free and punctualtravel might induce motor cycleusers to spend another 10 percent over their cost. Adding 10per cent to the cost of Rs. 1340converts to Rs. 1474 which isthe Metro affordability thresh-old.

The present cost of Metro isRs. 2158 and needs to bebrought down by Rs. 684. Re-ducing the parking charge perday from Rs. 15 to Rs. 10 wouldhelp to reduce Metro cost by Rs.130 per month. The balance Rs.554 per month or Rs. 21 for re-turn trip or Rs. 10 per single tripis about the reduction needed –from the present fare of Rs. 24to Rs. 14 per trip. That reduc-tion by 40 per cent may appearlarge, but after the proposed re-duction the rate of Rs. 14 is stillnearly Rs. 2 per km higher thanDelhi’s throw-away price that iseroding the financial viability ofthe organisation. A substantialpart of the motor cycle traffic,say as much as 75 per cent, isripe for transfer to the Metro, ifthe fare is rationalised.

In 2013, the total vehiclepopulation of Chennai was 39lakh of which 31 lakh were two-wheelers. The total went uprapidly to 48 lakh by 2016. The

focus should be on winning overthe growing motor cycle seg-ment for the Metro to thriveand for the city atmosphere toimprove.

But then, would not fare re-duction decrease revenue andresult in revenue loss? Being apublic utility, the Metro cannotshut down for a few hours, daysor weeks to save costs just be-cause the traffic volume is low.Operation goes on and costs areincurred irrespective of the traf-fic volume. As such, Metro hasonly costs that are of a fixed na-ture and not varying with pro-duction to meet varying vol-umes of demand. Any fare in-come is contribution to thisfixed cost. Therefore, it makessense to try and increase trafficvolume to augment the contri-bution to fixed cost. The surgein total revenue, when fare islowered, would be higher as theprice elasticity of demand forMetro travel is likely to be high.

Thus, it makes sense to lowerthe fare to match or get closerto the motor cycle commuter’scost. That would only increasetotal revenue and higher assetutilisation.

While Delhi Metro may bethe cheapest, it may not be theideal model, as the low rateshave led to huge losses of theorder of Rs. 466 crore annually– and growing year after year.With better last mile connectiv-ity and comprehensive networkcoverage, it may not be neces-sary to offer such low fares inChennai. People are desperatefor relief from the suffocatingcongestion and may be willingto pay reasonably more thanwhat it costs them now.

It is not possible to feel thebenefits of the Metro propor-tionately as and when the mile-age increases. Only when theproject is complete, or if the to-tal mileage attains a criticalmass, can the benefits be felt.

Investment made up to now,therefore, is yet unready to yieldreturns. On these counts, there-fore, speedy completion is cru-cial. With all sanctions nowscheduled for release intranches, with much of thespecifications for componentsstandardised and with a largerproportion of underground inthe remaining phase — to avoidtime-consuming land usepermissions for overhead andsurface tracks — speedierexecution is possible, necessaryand must be rigorously moni-tored.

Owing to high traffic den-sity, average bus speed in ourcity in 2014 was 18 kilometresper hour. Over the next fiveyears it is expected to comedown to 12 km per hour. Thatis the sound of opportunity.Chennai Metro must be imple-mented quickly and mass usageencouraged to derive the ex-pected benefits.

importantly, it will have to seeka go-ahead from the HeritageConservation Committee of theChennai Metropolitan Devel-opment Authority (CMDA).This body, not exactly knownfor its dynamism, will have toview the request in the light ofthe High Court’s judgementthat, based on thePadmanabhan Committee re-port, clearly forbids blocking ofheritage structures with perma-nent or temporary construc-tions. A 33-storey building willundoubtedly do just that. Butwill the HCC of the CMDAtake a hard look at the pro-posal? Peopled as it is by justpersonnel from Governmentdepartments and ministries, it is

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DISFIGURING A HERITAGE SKYLINEquite likely that the Committeewill yield to pressure. It has beenknown for flexibility in that re-spect, always in detriment toheritage.

As to what CMRL wantswith such a monstrosity in sucha crowded area is possibly clearonly to those working within it.Does a metro service really needsuch a large administrativebuilding? Moreover, parts of itare to be leased out for commer-cial development as well. Thishappens to be one of the mostcongested parts of the city.Such a large building, with itsattendant footprint, will onlyadd to the chaos. Emergencymeasures, not something forwhich Chennai is best known,will have to be doubly stringenthere.

The land in question was ac-quired after some litigationfrom the Raja Sir SavalaiRamaswami Mudaliar Choul-try. At the time of the verdict,CMRL had committed that itwould preserve the Choultry inits entirety. That is now open toquestion too. How can a singlestorey structure ‘survive’ if it isto be dwarfed entirely by a33-storey building? Will it evenbe visible?

It is now entirely up to theHCC of the CMDA to ensurethat some serious thought isgiven and such an idea isfirmly nipped in the bud. Butwill it do so? We hope it willprove wrong the scepticism ofMadras Musings and stop theCMRL’s mindless project in itstracks.

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that they would not go for lessthan Rs. 150. They preferlocalised trips to maximise pay-load ratio. The auto-user is un-likely to be a habitual user forgoing to work. He is a casualtraveller depending on workexigency, reach and urgency.

The bus is only Rs. 15 for thejourney, but takes more than anhour, including several stops,whereas the Metro takes just 13