 At the college in Chennai where I teach, Sahmat - the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust - has organised an excellent exhibition 'Hum Sab Sahmat' in which writers, artists and photographers proclaim the importance of secularism and tolerance. A particularly timely venture. Safdar Hashmi was 34 when he was murdered in 1989 while performing street theatre. He was a leftist, activist and writer. Allied to the exhibition, there's a section entitled 'The Light Has Gone Out of Our Lives', about the photojournalism of Gandhi's assassination on 30 January 1948 and his cremation. It's wonderful, and is co-curated by one of India's leading photographers, Ram Rahman, a founding member of Sahmat. Among the images exhibited is the one above of a young boy at Gandhi's cremation. The boy is Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who celebrates his 80th birthday next year. He has had a distinguished career as a diplomat and administrator. Marvellously, Gopalkrishna Gandhi came to the exhibition to see this photo in which he features. He apparently was not aware of it until recently  One of the themes of the exhibition is the professional rivalry between two of the leading news photographers of the twentieth century, both of whom happened to be in Delhi when Gandhi was killed. Margaret Bourke-White was American; Henri Cartier-Bresson was French.  We are told the story of how Margaret Bourke-White infuriated Gandhi's entourage by using flash photography to capture an image of Gandhi shortly after his death.  At the cremation, a third foreign photographer becomes part of the story - an American, Max Desfor. He perhaps deserves the credit for one of the most iconic images of that event.   Is that Life photo Desfor's work or Cartier-Bresson's? I'll leave you to decide! 
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 The following snippet of information could really give you the edge in your next pub quiz: Chennai is the only Indian city to have a lighthouse! It's very centrally located, at the southern end of Marina beach (reputed to be the second biggest urban beach in the world, though no one has told me what the biggest is). And Chennai's lighthouse has another national distinction - it's the only lighthouse in India to have a lift. Just as well, as there's a public viewing gallery at the top, on the ninth floor and 185 feet above the ground. And yes, you do get spectacular views.  Looking north along Marina beach - Chepauk stadium is just visible top left  Looking south - those are fishing boats drawn up on this stretch of the beach  Looking west - and yes, there is a cricket match underway on that pitch  Looking north-west towards the city centre - the big white building is the state police HQ S. Muthiah, the chronicler of Madras, comments slightly acidly that the lighthouse is 'one of the newer horrors in the city'. It's a popular landmark and a well visited spot for weekend family outings. But certainly it doesn't have the distinction of the city's earlier lighthouses.  The second of these lighthouses, looking a bit like a classical column, is still standing in the grounds of the High Court. Strangely the light in the current lighthouse - I'm told - was switched off after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in Tamil Nadu in 1991 and remained extinguished for a couple of decades. So it maybe that the lighthouse is more valued by landlubbers than by seafarers.
 The lighthouse seen from a distance through the very well-kept grounds of the police HQ  Of all the grand Indo-Saracenic buildings still standing in Chennai, the Bharat Building is by some distance the most outlandish - and sadly the most dilapidated. The great historian of Madras/Chennai, S. Muthiah, described this as 'styling run riot'. Here Gothic and Mughal design features are not so much in fusion as in open warfare.  The spires and minarets of the Bharat Building loom over Anna Salai, formely Mount Road, Chennai's principal city centre thoughfare. Though these photos are taken from its second, and slightly more imposing, frontage on General Patters Road. This was initially the Kardyl Building - designed by J.H. Stephens of the Madras Public Works Department and opened in 1897. It was described at the time as making 'a far greater show than any other commerical building on Mount Road'. These were the premises of W.E. Smith & Co, pharmacists and wholesale druggists, opticians, dealers in surgical instruments and makers of aerated waters. In it heyday, the building had a first floor showroom measuring 60 feet by 40 as well as a cafe and a beer bar. The building was bought by Bharat Insurance in 1934 and became known as the Bharat Building. It's now owned by the Life Insurance Corporation, which has its own regional HQ in a none-too-pretty high rise building nearby.
In 2006, the LIC told the tenants to leave the Bharat Building and began pulling it down. They were stopped by the courts, which placed this Gormenghast of South India on Chennai's heritage list. The problem is the building is now falling down of its own accord. And the construction of the new metro line which has so upended Anna Salai in recent years hasn't helped. So it would be nice to believe that this Bharat will be rebuilt. But I wouldn't put money on it.   What about this for historical continuity! Fort St George in Chennai is one of the oldest fortified British settlements in India, built over the period 1639-1644. It was initially a vast fortfication which enclosed the British garrison and the homes of the small non-military British community. The Fort was military base, seat of government and religious hub all in one. And it still is! Much of the Fort remains under Indian military control; it's where Tamil Nadu's state legislative assembly still meets; and it's home to the oldest Anglican church in India.  Happily, the Chief Minister's Special Cell isn't a dungeon; it's a high powered adminstrative team. But the sign feels as if it harks back to an earlier era.  Because so much of the Fort is under military control or houses government offices, photography is restricted. But it's still recognisably the same - at least as far as the formidable twenty-feet-high outside walls are concerned - as it was in this drawing of 1754. That's the steeple of St Mary's you can see at the heart of the Fort. And to this day, the moat (now dry) runs round the Fort and there are still cannons on display to discourage the delinquent.   St Mary's church first opened in 1680 - though its hallmark white spire is a little later in date. 
Chennai has some quite astonishingly beautiful churches: the Portuguese Luz church; the Armenian church; the Kirk; St George's Cathedral. But St Mary's must sit at the top of that list. Sadly, not all of the ancient buildings in the Fort are as well cared for as St Mary's
  It's amazing what you can come across in the back streets of Chennai. Just poke and prod, and you can uncover magic. Take this - a life-size statue of the remarkable, admirable, Annie Besant. It's in a vestibule slightly concealed from street view, at the New India Building (the title of one of her journals), also known as the Besant Memorial Building. This is in Georgetown, not far from the Gokhale Hall which Besant established in 1915 - and which I recently blogged about.
The caretaker here is all too happy to let the curious inspect Annie's statue - a marked contrast to the grumpy, hostile, jobsworth at the Gokhale Hall. I first came across this Besant statue four years ago - it's good to see it clearly cared for, even if its future must be a little precarious. The statue was at some stage moved from the Gokhale Hall. There are several other busts and statues of Besant across Chennai - from a full length gilded statue overlooking Marina beach to a bust and a portrait (and perhaps more) at the international theosophists' headquarters in Adyar.. There's nothing obvious to indicate when this statue was made, or by whom. It's probably from towards the end of Besant's life - she died at Adyar in 1933 aged 85. She is depicted dressed in what I take to be the Indian style, not a sari exactly but certainly not a conventional dress or skirt. And - an interesting detail - she is barefoot.  I admire Annie Besant. She got things done and was, at various times, an atheist, freethinker, advocate of women's rights, socialist, trade unionist, theosophist, Indian nationalist, writer and educationalist. Not bad for one lifetime! And this is the building which houses the statue - the entrance is on the left and she's on the ground floor, take a few steps in and you'll see her.   This is a rare glimpse into Chennai's Gokhale Hall. Once one of the city's leading nationalist rallying points, and later an important musical venue, the hall has been shuttered and near derelict for more than a decade. The hall was built in 1915 by Annie Besant, the Indian nationalist and theosophist. It was here that she announced the establishment of the Home Rule League. What a pity that it is now falling apart. The building was at first known as the Young Men's Indian Association Hall. The association was founded by Annie Besant as a 'political gymnasium'. The letters YMIA are prominent on the exterior. The association still controls the building. Its website says the hall is undergoing 'major repairs' - of which there is no sign - but also states that a decision is pending on whether to demolish the hall and rebuild on the site or whether to restore and refurbish,  If some repair work isn't carried out urgently, then the structure could well be unsalvageable. That would be unforgivable. This is historically such an important building in a city which values its heritage.  The hall used to have a capacity of 1,500. Now the caretaker fends off any sign of interest and shoos away the curious. No one is allowed in. The YMIA has another building nearby. This remains open, and it boasts a glorious life-size statue of, yes, Annie Besant. That will be the subject of my next Chennai blog.   Tamil politics makes a point of celebrating its heroes. And how! In the past week a grandiose memorial has been inaugurated to M. Karunanidhi, who spent almost twenty years over four spells as chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu. He died in August 2018 at the age of 94. His son, Stalin, is Tamil Nadu's current chief minister.  The memorial-cum-resting place-cum-shrine is on a spectacular scale and, as is customary here, is on a large plot alongside Marina beach in the centre of Chennai. The design makes much of Karunanidhi's hallmark - the dark glasses he always wore. The partly translucent white marble is from Vietnam. Stalin, at the inauguration, said the memorial to his father was a 'first wonder' on what he described as the second longest beach in the world. When I visited on Saturday, there was a stready stream of people strolling around - many of them families, and some picnicking in the grounds.  Karunanidhi began his career as a scriptwriter in the Tamil film industry. His great rival Jayalalithaa - who spent fourteen years in Tamil Nadu's top job and died in 2016 - started off as an actor. Strikingly, her similarly OTT memorial is on an adjoining plot, again overlooking Marina beach. I suspect, though I can't say for certain, that quite a few of those promenading round Karunanidhi's memorial also paid a call at Jayalalithaa's while they were in town. And then, I'm sure, they made for the beach, which is crammed with food stalls and lots of other excitements.
And of course, the new memorial is quite the place for selfies and group photos - a pity I didn't take one myself.    Unlike the memorials to national political leaders in Delhi, Chennai's monuments are neither flyblown nor particularly solemn. You go there with a smile on your face not a tear in your eye.
And then, of all things, I came across the old man himself on Marina beach - and, yes, I have a photo to prove it.   What a place! This is the unkempt, desolate beauty of St Mary's burial ground in the Island district of Chennai. It's not the oldest Anglican cemetery in Chennai - but it is, I believe, the biggest of the Raj-era Christian burial grounds in the city. As you can see, much of it is overgrown - some of the monuments are in deep disrepair, and have been for a while, and there's a problem with vandalism and trespass. BACSA, the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, is supporting conservation work here. But this astonishing, sizable site - surely the most important colonial-era burial place in India after Park Street in Calcutta - gets next-to-no visitors. That's in part because hardly anyone knows it's here - even some of those who know of it, can't find it - and when you do reach the place, it's not exactly welcoming for visitors.  This is the entrance to the cemetery - on a slip road off a very busy flyover (in the distance you can see the gateway to a Catholic cemetery and church). There's next-to-no signage outside, only a small plaque saying there are Commonwealth War Graves here. Inside, there's no signage at all - no map, no note of significant burials, nothing.  The gates to the cemetery are permanently padlocked. You enter through an unmarked pedestrian gate - the red metal gate you can just spot on the far left of one the photos above. This video may help you to find the place and navigate your way in to the burial ground. Intitially the British used a guava garden as a burial spot - that's on what is now the site of Chennai's High Court. Many of the old gravestones were moved to the fairly cramped grounds of St Mary's church in Fort - a beautiful church, still very much in use, and the oldest Anglican church in India. This overspill burial ground in the Island opened in the 1760s, and for the next sixty years - until the opening of St George's Cathedral - was the main place of burial of the British elite here. By the end of the nineteenth century, the number of burials here started to fall away. On the far side of the cemetery from the entrance, there are two well-kept Commonwealth War Grave compounds. The burial ground is still used for occasional interments. I understand it continues to fall under the jurisdiction of St Mary's church, which is now part of the Church of South India. The main focus of the current conservation work is the Anderson memorial, the burial place of the distinguished botanist and physician James Anderson (1738-1809). The memorial desperately needs a helping hand.   The work so far has included repointing the exterior, a new application of lime mortar wash to the interior, and remaking the steps up to the memorial. The granite slab in Latin is badly damaged and also urgently needs conservation work. The big problem is the tree growing out of the upper part of the memorial, and the shrubs and trunks which have become completely entwined with the structure. This mingling of the living and the dead is of course itself elegiac, and the task is to conserve rather than to restore the most notable memorials. But the vegetation makes it impossible to replace some of the stonework which has been displaced and lies around the memorial, and it also may frustrate installing a glass canopy to protect from rainwater seepage. One of the more remarkable aspects of the memorial is the name 'Anderson' which appears on all four sides of the memorial, in four different languages and scripts: English, Urdu, Tamil and (we think) Telugu. Quite a statement of acculturation!  As part of the conservation work, the broad main path through the cemetery is being cleared and resurfaced in stone. This photo shows a narrower, unmarked path off to the left. It heads towards the war graves - two plots, broadly one from the First World War and the other from the Second World War.
One disappointment: the plaque marking the grave of Adela or Violet Nicolson, who wrote transgressively as Laurence Hope, is lost under this sea of vegetation. I have visited this grave in the past and placed flowers, but for the moment it's submerged. She deserves better.  My thanks to Sravani Naraparaju, architect and conservator, who is leading on the conservation work and very kindly showed me round. And to Anil Mahto, who is the supervisor of the small team who are doing the heavy lifting.
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