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​Andrew Whitehead's
Blog

Another term in Chennai: Coral Merchant Street

28/1/2018

4 Comments

 
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What an alluring street name - Coral Merchant Street. And resonant of so much of Chennai's early history. It was once one of the most important trading streets in the city. A long time back. Things have changed ...
​
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This is George Town - one of the oldest corners of the city, just north of Fort St. George. It's where the traders not allowed to live in the British fort gathered. It was initially known as Black Town, as opposed to the White or Christian Town where the Europeans lived.

​The first Black Town was cleared when the British military decided it needed a 400 yards clear zone round the Fort to prevent a stealth attack (that's the land the Madras High Court is built on).

This second, slightly further out from Fort, Black Town took the formal name George Town just over a century ago when George V became King-Emperor.

And the coral merchants? Well, yes, there was in the eighteenth century a small community of Sephardic Jews living on this street trading in rough coral, coral beads, diamonds and precious stones. This was where Chennai's first synagogue was built. The community prospered - but only briefly. By 1800, the trade had moved elsewhere and the traders with it. There's now nothing at all beyond the street name that harks back to that era ... apart from a solitary signboard - 

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But this was a well situated street, and new trading communities moved in - particularly Chettiars, among the most prominent of South Indian merchant castes. I suspect the handful of once grand but now largely dilapidated mansions along Coral Merchant Street were built for Chettiar families. They still display some wonderful design flourishes - and one at least remains imposing in appearance.
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Between the world wars, the sea route between India's east coast and Burma, Malaya and Singapore was the busiest migration axis on the globe. War and then the insular state socialism introduced in Burma choked off much of that movement.​
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Chettiar traders were particularly affected and many returned to South India. Some set up what became one of the city's principal markets, Burma Market (it's still there, though no longer flourishing) - and on Coral Merchant Street there is silent testimony to those old trading links across the Bay of Bengal.​

Coral Merchant Street has a number of fine Hindu temples, including one of the few in Chennai in which Krishna is the main deity. Chettiars have a reputation for philanthropy and patronage of religious institutions - whether there's a link here, I haven't yet found out.
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Another entrepreneurially minded community is still evident on Coral Merchant Street - the Jains, members of an ancient Indian religion which has perhaps four million followers around the world. 
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There's a small, fairly new, Jain temple and a Jain Bhavan. A bit like Quakers and Parsees, Jains have a reputation for commercial acumen. 

Jainism is much stronger, relatively, in North India than in the South. I was told that while there are a significant number of Jains in other parts of Chennai, in George Town there are not more than two-hundred families, and the attendance at this temple is rarely higher than fifty.

And one of the pleasures of walking city streets - anywhere, but especially here in India - is the serendipity factor. It's a long time since I've come across an itinerant knife grinder. You might expect them to be grizzled veterans of a dying trade - but the grinder I chanced upon on Coral Merchant Street is probably barely in his teens. He had a pedal and cycle wheel which kept the grinding disc in motion, and when meat cleavers and knives were being honed, a shower of sparks erupted - alas that's not caught in these photos.
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4 Comments
Kalyan Arun
29/1/2018 15:32:56

My aunt and her husband lived in this street for more than 50 years from the 1930s. And another uncle, a doctor, had his clinic there from 1935 to 1960. His practice was taken over by his 'compounder' after he died, as his regular patients trusted the compounder as much as the doctor. He ran the clinic for five years before my cousin convinced him against practising medicine with a qualification

Reply
PA
23/4/2019 04:20:14

My grandpa did textile business in this street and owned more than 3 houses in this street. The Krishnan temple were our playing grounds. "Kolu For Navarathi" was my favourite part of the year. We used to visit Akka madam, thangai madam. Mudaliyars, Chettiars, and other merchants lived in good harmony here doing their family business. Hope the government could help keep some landmark buildings maintained., before history gets lost.

Reply
Davvid Levi link
9/5/2020 20:11:38

My whole family was in Coral merchant street.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Jews-Of-Chennai-2021529707908187/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2027590933968731

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradesi_Jews

Reply
ASK
9/10/2022 19:09:33

ARC School for girls where my sisters studied. There was elementary school where evening classes were conducted to teach Hindi. I did my Hindi lessons there in 1962/63. The Hindi teachers name was Mr Parmeswaran if I not wrong. I am now aged 71 and retired as a doctor from UK. During Navarathri period Periya Madam used conduct Katcheri on Road which was nice period. I wonder if they still do.

Reply



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  • Home
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    • London Fictions >
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      • Lynne Reid Banks
      • "Against the Tyranny of Kings and Princes": radicalism in George Gissing's 'Workers in the Dawn'
      • 'Beyond Boundary Passage'
      • 'London' by Dorf Bonarjee
    • A Mission in Kashmir >
      • Full text: A Mission in Kashmir
      • 'The People's Militia: Communists and Kashmiri nationalism in the 1940s'
      • The Rise and Fall of New Kashmir
      • The Making of the 'New Kashmir' manifesto
      • 'For the Conversion of Kashmir'
      • 'I shall paint my nails with the blood of those that covet me'
      • Freda Bedi looking 'From a Woman's Window' on Kashmir
      • Kashmir 1947: Testimonies of a Contested History
      • Kashmir @ 70
      • Kashmir 47 Images
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      • Father Shanks's Kashmir 'Diary'
      • Krishna Misri: 1947, a year of change
      • Shanti Ambardar: Kashmir 1947
    • The O'Brienites >
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      • Popular Politics and Social Structure in Clerkenwell >
        • The Residents of Clerkenwell
        • The Occupational Structure of Clerkenwell
        • Clerkenwell and Reform
        • Fenians, Reformers and the Clerkenwell "Outrage"
        • Clerkenwell: Socialism Finds a Niche
        • Clerkenwell: Not Forgetting the Anarchists
      • Red London: radicals and socialists in late-Victorian Clerkenwell
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    • Partition Voices >
      • Partition Voices: L.K. Advani
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      • Partition Voices: Ben and Marguerite Suter
      • Partition Voices: Leela Thompson
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    • Kashmir Voices >
      • Kashmir Voices: Asiya Andrabi
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    • Communist Voices >
      • Communist Voices: Manmohan Adhikari
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      • Communist Voices: Denis Goldberg
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      • Communist Voices: Lionel Martin
      • Communist Voices: Vishwanath Mathur
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    • Political Voices >
      • Political Voices: Sally Alexander
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      • Political Voices: Screaming Lord Sutch
      • Political Voices: Dorothy Thompson
      • Political Voices: E.P. Thompson
      • Political Voices: Tom Wilson
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      • The Land Song
      • Harry Pollitt on disc
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      • New Left: Headopoly
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    • From Our Own Correspondent >
      • FOOC: Working at Westminster 1990
      • FOOC: Ulster's Talking Shop 1991
      • FOOC: House Rules at Westminster 1992
      • FOOC: India's Red Fort State
      • FOOC: Keeping Kosher in Cuba
      • FOOC: Italy's Gourmand Communists 1992
      • FOOC: Scoundrel Politicians - 1993
      • FOOC: Kashmir's New Puritans 1993
      • FOOC: The Rajah of Bihar 1993
      • FOOC: Bringing the Gospel to Mizoram 1993
      • FOOC: Netaji, India's Lost Leader 1994
      • FOOC: A Self-Respect Wedding 1994
      • FOOC: The Miseries of Manipur 1994
      • FOOC: Village Bangladesh 1994
      • FOOC: Calcutta's Communists Discover Capitalism 1995
      • FOOC: Localism in Ladakh 1995
      • FOOC: Bhutan, not quite Paradise
      • FOOC: Crime and Indian Politics 1995
      • FOOC: Sonia Gandhi 1995
      • FOOC: Sri Lanka's Missing Leaders 1995
      • FOOC: India Votes 1996
      • FOOC: Communism Revisited 1996
      • FOOC: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1996
      • FOOC: Kerala's Jewish Community 1996
      • FOOC: India's Corruption Scandals 1996
      • FOOC: The Maldives Crowded Capital 1996
      • FOOC: India's Polluted Capital 1996
      • FOOC: Jinnah, Pakistan's Quaid 1997
      • FOOC: Mauritius, an Indian Ocean melting pot
      • FOOC: The Hijras Blessing 1998
      • FOOC: Massacre at Baramulla 2003
      • FOOC: An Old Photo from Kashmir 2007
      • FOOC: Prosperity Driven from Detroit 2008
      • FOOC: An Atheist in MLK's Atlanta2013
      • FOOC: San Francisco's City Lights 2014
      • FOOC: Kashmir Revisited 2014
      • FOOC: By Ferry in Burma 2014
      • FOOC: Toyah's Grave 2017
      • FOOC: The Tibetan Colony in Kashmir 2017
      • FOOC: Stars of Tamil Politics 2018
      • FOOC: Koreans in Chennai 2018
      • FOOC: Epitaph to Empire 2019
      • FOOC: Armenians in India 2019
      • FOOC: Lahore's Bradlaugh Hall 2020
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