 Paul Jacob lives in Veteran Lines in Pallavaram, a cantonment area on the outskirts of Chennai. He's standing outside the single-storey, old style house which has been the Jacob family's home for more than sixty years. And he believes the building dates back a few decades before that. As the name suggests, the locality was developed for Indian military veterans of the two world wars. In the 1960s, most of this area was the home of Anglo-Indians, a small and distinct Indian community of families which have a European man in their ancestry. There are now not more than ten or a dozen Anglo-Indian households in Veteran Lines, and the old houses are slowly being replaced by brash new mansions.   So the heritage walk I went on this morning with Madras Inherited was an opportunity to see something of a disppearing vernacular architectural style and certainly a disappearing lifestyle. The Jacob family has been hugely helpful to Madras Inherited as they researched the architectural and social history of the area, and Paul Jacob kindly agreed to talk to the group about his home and his community.
The house has a big covered verandah, which was able to receive visitors and to host the social events so central to Anglo-Indian identity. There's a huge mirror hung on the back wall, which adds to the sense of space.  On the table in the centre of the verandah, there's a small bust. I asked who it was. Lenin! A gift from a visitor, not a token of political allegiance. But not what I was expecting!  To one side of the main building, there's a more basic structure: the tuck house. This traditionally was where cooking was done, particularly in the summer, and where food was stored at other times of year. What a wonderful survival, and still very much in use.  The Jacob family are animal lovers. They feed fifty - yes, fifty! - cats and dogs, who of course have the run of the place. And the cats in particular cast a suspicious eye on curious visitors. 
 The area around Veteran Lines continues to have two institutions often associated with the Anglo-Indian community - though Anglos now are only a small proportion of those using them. Just down the road is St Stephen's church (and that's Bhavika Vaidyanathan who led today's walk for Madras Inherited).   I attended a service here a few years ago and blogged about it - and I'm glad the church is still thriving.  The church was consecrated in 1935 after years of campaigning and fund-raising by four military widows from Veteran Lines. All were Anglo-Indians. As we were told, while the definition of an Anglo-Indian is based on patrilineal descent, the community is matrilocal: it's the women who are the backbone of the community, preserve its identity and organise its social activities. Just a short distance away are the vast playing fields initially set up by the English Electric Company, a private concern which gave work to quite a few Anglo-Indians.
But the area is changing. As Anglo-Indian families sell up and move out - many have chosen to migrate to Australia or the UK - the new buyers often demolish the old buildings and construct ostentatious mansions. Within a decade or two, there may be nothing of the old Veteran Lines to be seen. That's sad.
But it's wonderful to have a glimpse of Veteran Lines as it is, and was. Nice one, Madras Inherited.  
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 They say the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Well, in Chennai he comes in a cycle rickshaw. Every so often this mobile Hindu religious shrine makes its way through the back streets, playing out devotional music and offering blessings.  The saffron-scarfed rickshaw wallah is a cheerful guy and some local people - including the woman who runs the coconut water stand just opposite where I stay - are happy to receive his benediction and to offer a donation.  The sides of the rickshaw-cum-shrine are decorated with images of Sai Baba, the much revered holy man and spiritual teacher who died more than a century ago.  Assisting in the operation was a saffron-clad young woman who seemed to be the one accepting donations. I gave - not so much to seek salvation as to say thank you for their kindness in allowing these photographs.   A real privilege today to be invited to the annual service at Chennai's exquisite, eighteenth century Armenian Church on (of course) Armenian Street in Georgetown.. Armenians were once one of the main trading communities across Asia. Some of their churches survive - in Kolkata, Dhaka, Yangon and Mumbai and a few other ports and cities - but the community has all but gone. In and around Chennai, there are perhaps four or five Armenian, or part-Armenian households. The attendance at today's service - including visitors and well-wishers - was about thirty. The Armenian Orthodox priest at today's ceremony came over from Kolkata (Calcutta), where the community is a little bigger. So too did the two altar boys, and four young women, three of whom sang very tenderly throughout the two-hour service; they are students at Kolkata's historic Armenian College. One longstanding member of the Chennai congregation came over, with his young son, from Bangalore. An Australian Armenian family visiting Chennai also swelled the congregation. Most of the tiny number of Armenians in the city are not from long established Indian Armeninan families, but are married to South Indians whom they met in Armenia. And then there were well-wishers like me - it's the second time I've been able to attend this annual service, which is so very important to the community.
The church is in its own grounds.It is small but serene. The most striking visual aspect is the separate belltower, which has a set of six bells all dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and two of them cast in London. Today, the bells chimed to mark the opening of the service.  As well as the singing, there was lots of incense. Full members of the church took communion and we were all give the opportunity to kiss the cross and the Bible. The priest delivered his sermon in Armenian and English.   After the communion service, there was a short requiem service at the grave of Harutyun Shmavonian. He was a priest who in 1794 published the first ever periodical in the Armenian language. He died in what was then Madras in 1824.  After that there was a chance to chat, to eat very tasty Armenian pastries and of course to take the all important group photograph. Here it is!   This is Eyre Burton Powell, presiding over the college of which he was the founding principal ... at the tender age of 20. This statue stands in the once grand main block of Presidency College in Chennai (or Madras as it was when the college was built). The garland is fetching; the statue is in good condition; the building is grimy and needs a lot of love and care.  Powell's story is striking. In 1840, having just completed a Maths degree at Cambridge, he headed to India to become the first head of this college. How anyone can imagine that this was a suitabke first job even for a clever and ambitious young man is beyond me. He was the principal of Presidency College for 22 years and then spent another 13 years as Director of Public Instruction for the Madras Presidency. The college is the oldest in south India and the oldest constituent of the University of Madras. Its purpose was to provide a British public school-type education to the children of India's elite. The inscription on the plinth of Powell's statue makes clear that the money for this tribute came from that local elite - the rajahs and the landowners - rather than from the colonial authorities.  An inscription on the back of the statue reveals the sculptor to be one of the leading London memorialists of the Victorian era, John Adams-Acton.  The college continues to be highly regarded. A board lists all the principals right to the current day. To go by the names, the first Indian principal didn't take up the post until the 1940s, the decade that saw India gain independence.  The current, imposing site of Presidency College was inaugurated after Powell's long years as principal - though he was still working in what was then Madras and I'm sure took some credit for the building. It opened in 1870. The drawing below appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1872.  Why 'Che-9' in the title of this blog? Well, this is my ninth spell teaching at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai - though two of those years, during the pandemic, I taught remotely from London. I had the privilege to see Presidency College today as part of a heritage walk arranged by the excellent Madras Inherited. It was the starting point of a tour of some of the most remarkable buildings in the Indo-Saracenic style, British designed but incorporating elements of Indian and particularly Mughal architecture. Presidency College has a commanding location looking out on Marina Beach. And many Chennaiites will know it for its clock tower - a much later addition, but an attractive one.   By the way, the roll call of former pupils of Presidency College is impressive, ranging from India's onetime defence minister and the country's first high commissioner to London. V.K. Krishna Menon, to the current chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin. So Mr Powell's pupils done well!   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!   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.  |
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