Tamil Town

 

Panoramas
Not much change: Mylapore today

Last year, an economic columnist in an Indian journal wrote about how foolish local politicians had been to change the names of some of India's greatest cities. Re-naming Bombay 'Mumbai', Madras 'Chennai' and Calcutta 'Kolkata' was not only a denial of three centuries of history, but it also meant giving up powerful brand names recognised the world over. Who would relish Mumbai duck or wear bleeding Chennai?

As a British settlement, it might surprise outsiders to learn that 'Madraspatam' is the oldest of the three cities mentioned above. All three reek of history, of course. But while in downtown Bombay and Calcutta it is their European heritage that frowns down most imposingly on you in many-muscled stone, Madras almost never looks like anything but an Indian city. This has nothing to do with the name change, effected as recently as 1996. Bombay's cosmopolitan air and sense of discipline are noticeably diminishing in Bombay. Calcutta is undergoing much cleansing, beginning with its acclaimed Metro. In contrast, Madras seems hardly to be changing at all.

This could be due to the fact that the original settlements around which Madras grew up are far older than the nuclei of any other of India's great cities, except Delhi. The most ancient of the many temples in Madras are more than 1000 years old, and testify to a millennium of daily worship. At Madras's heart still lie the old neighbourhoods of Mylapore (City of the Peacock) and Triplicane (Holy Flower Lake), with temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu. In places like these, sometimes, the centuries seem not to have passed at all.

Unlike in much of India, the urban landscape in Madras is not a swarming kaleidoscope of buildings being pulled down and others being put up. Mount Road, renamed Anna Salai in the 1970s, runs in one long sweep from near the government buildings of Fort St George in the north to St Thomas Mount some 20 km south, where the apostle himself is said to have been martyred. Fifteen years ago, the Mount was well outside the city. Now, Madras has almost reached it. Yet the panorama on either side of this road, the city's main artery, does not shout of futuristic longings. Rather, it is quite middle class in appearance.

None of this means that Madras has remained stuck in the past, of course. The city can probably claim to have the first multiplex in the country, having constructed the Sathyam complex during the 1970s, decades before the word multiplex became fashionable in Southasia. Madras also had one of the country's first malls, when the century-old Spencer's Building was replaced by Spencer's Plaza during the 1990s. Yet the city never gave in to a frenzy for either. In Tamil films of the 1970s, the village yokel's awe of Madras was easily depicted merely by having him stand outside the Life Insurance Corporation building on Mount Road, slowly raising his gaze to the top while his jaw dropped. Until recently this was still, at 13 storeys, the tallest in the city.

Flyovers, too, have not sprung up all over Madras as they have in other Indian cities vainly struggling to cope with demand. While there are newer flyovers on wider roads that go around the city, to the denizens of Madras the term flyover still denotes the Gemini flyover in the city's centre, which was built some three decades ago. Of course, traffic is a problem on the metropolitan roads, and it is certainly not what someone from, say, Singapore would call 'disciplined'. Nonetheless, Madras traffic does seem to be more orderly than any other comparative urban area in India, save perhaps south Bombay. During the mid-1990s, there were persistent rumours that the city's traffic police were bankrupt, and that constables were being encouraged to repair the department's finances by levying fines on the merest pretext of wrongdoing. Whatever the truth of the matter, driving in Madras today remains a more laid-back affair than in many other places in the Subcontinent; perhaps the same could be said of other activities, as well.

Steadfastly Dravidian
The Tamils are a profoundly traditional people, and the ancient Dravidians were worshipping their own gods well before the Brahmins arrived. While they did have a caste system of their own, the notion of caste-based 'pollution' did not exist. Nowadays, however, despite the fact that social equality is in theory officially ensured, caste tensions are rampant. Occasionally, these erupt into violence – over land, government sops for a particular community, or even the breaking of caste taboos.

Madras is quintessentially Tamil. It is cosmopolitan only among the minority rich and the student community. A century or two ago, Armenians controlled much of its trade, and there is still an Armenian Street and an Armenian Church. The now-dwindling Anglo-Indian population once provided a significant pool from which the British could draw their non-commissioned officers and railway staff. The Brahmins, meanwhile, easily learned English and provided the Madras Presidency with clerks and, later, lawyers and administrators. But the Dravidian movement began around 1930, and as part of its self-respect programme steadfastly promoted the Tamil language. Of the two national languages, English was seen as a rational window on to the world, while Hindi was rejected as the language of the oppressor. Part of the campaign was to depict the northern Aryans as invaders and violators of Tamil culture. There is some truth in this, of course – until recently, nearly everything in the four southern states of India was contemptuously dismissed by even educated North Indians as 'Madrasi'.

Madras is Tamil, but it speaks a good deal of English. To this writer, it also speaks of a great deal of common sense. A separatist movement never took strong root here. Besides, it is apparently impossible for the local popular culture anywhere in India – indeed, anywhere in Southasia – to resist Bombay cinema. At the same time, unique to Tamil Nadu has been the significant impact that Madras-produced films have had on politics. For the past 40 years, the state has been governed out of Madras by two political parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), both of which arose from the Dravidian movement, and both of which came to power on the strength of cinema. The present chief minister, M Karunanidhi, was originally a scriptwriter who created powerful social messages, which were then brought to life on screen by M G Ramachandran, who broke away from the mother party and became chief minister during the 1970s. His protégée, Jayalalithaa, was a well-known actress who also went on to become chief minister several times over, and is now leader of the opposition.

The notably early roots of the Dravidian movement are unique. Except for a few Indian states with a history of communist governance, substantial 'subaltern' movements generally date back only a decade or two. Yet while the cause of both the DMK and the AIADMK was for dignity and social justice, in recent years social messages have largely ceased to grip Tamil politics with their earlier strength. Political parties nowadays tend to rely on unabashed populist agendas to win votes, and half a dozen male film stars have developed large and powerful fan followings – who vote on and, occasionally, physically enforce their idol's word.

Traditional contemporary
Above all else, of course, Madras is a city by the sea. There are many institutions in Madras that celebrate and nurture tradition: yoga, classical dance, classical music (both Indian and European), theosophy, philosophy. For me, however, the broadest teaching of all lies spread to the city's east, extending its whole length and beyond, stretching away to the horizon. Every day while driving to work and returning, whatever the traffic conditions, I would opt for the Beach Road (though officially called something else), just so that I could steal glances at the sea. Every day it was amazing to see that it was a different colour. I had five or six kilometres of the Beach Road to savour – from the stadium in Chepauk, which is the headquarters of the 160-year-old Madras Cricket Club, down to the lighthouse near the fishermen's huts.

Extending its entire length and beyond, and stretching away to the horizon, lies the Bay of Bengal. Marina Beach is the second longest in the world, after Miami's, and it is among the city's proudest possessions. Madras would be unliveable were it not for the sea and the sea breeze. Every 50 metres or so, the seafront road is lined with modern statues of Tamil cultural and political icons – from the legendary Kannaki, who burned Madurai to avenge her innocent husband's death, to K Kamaraj, the last chief minister of Madras not from a Dravidian party. The beach also occasionally hosts massive political rallies and Christian evangelical assemblies. On most days you can still find a comfortable spot to watch the waves rolling in and the fishermen's catamarans dancing among them. These boats are still made of seasoned logs lashed together, despite efforts over the past fifteen years to get the fishermen to adopt fibreglass models. By dusk, the catamarans have returned home, and the horizon takes on a single sweeping curve, broken only by the twinkling lights of ships waiting to dock at one of the world's great artificial harbours.

Madras can boast of not just one but two lovely beaches. Elliot's Beach in the south is much smaller, made for courting couples, and the sand receives your ankles even more deliciously than does the Marina. Elliot's Beach practically belongs to the middle-class colony of Besant Nagar – named for Annie Besant, who founded the Theosophical Society, headquartered nearby, which brought up Jiddu Krishnamurti – but recently the state government began to build a permanent residence on the beachfront for its titular head, the governor. Both residents and environmental groups are complaining, and construction has been halted for the time being.

In recent years, it has become almost a cliché to talk about how quickly India's cities are changing, but they are: becoming increasingly plastic, impersonal and out of control. Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore are no longer fit for even the middle class; their very architecture speaks of wealth and power, and the social dynamics on their streets are meant to intimidate the outsider who has neither. Madras, on the other hand, intimidates with neither power nor money. Many millionaires still dress in cotton or handloom silk, and eat off stainless steel. This is simply the way they were brought up, and remains the way in which they prefer to live. Somehow, so far, the city has resisted the Page 3 culture. This is in large part due to the almost Brahminical yet very secular influence of The Hindu, India's oldest truly national newspaper. Mocked and lauded for often the same reasons, this Madras institution – once called the 'Mount Road Mahavishnu' by a politician – has influenced the city's mores and ethics with its austere code for the past 130 years.

There is a story I like to recall, which was printed in another newspaper a few years back. According to the writer, at a party in Madras where a number of young people were dancing to popular Western music, an elderly gentleman berated them for renouncing their own culture. He asked what there was in Western music to make them forget their glorious tradition of classical Carnatic music. A girl among the dancers answered him: "You want Carnatic? All right." She went to the sound system, switched it off, seated herself and launched into an aalaapanam in Ragam Hamsadhwani.

Certainly you can find, in each of India's cities, young people who seamlessly unite tradition and modernity. But in Delhi and Bombay, at least, they are becoming harder to meet. They are part of a set to which you need an entrée. In Madras, the traditional exists so you can see it and find it without having to try too hard. All you have to do is wander into the lanes of Mylapore, or visit the city in December when it lights up in a festival of classical music and dance.

Most metropolises in Asia and Africa are a world away from the hinterland off which they feed. In India, most of Karnataka is poverty-stricken outside the Bangalore-Mangalore belt, and the Maharashtra beyond the Bombay-Poona corridor lags decades behind in development. In Tamil Nadu, however, with Madras as its focal point, a casual observer does not generally get such a feeling. Madras is also unique in the fact that city officials have not moved to 'cleanse' the city by driving out slum-dwellers and razing their homes to free office space.

It has become fashionable for media commentators today to laud the 'forward-looking' nature of cities like Bombay and Bangalore, while at times ridiculing Madras's perceived backwardness and traditionalism. But in fact, this knowledge of and respect for the past offers strength and understanding in a fast-changing world. This is due in part to the Dravidian parties, which continue to acknowledge their roots. Roots are necessary when strong winds blow. 'Social justice' has a resonance in the minds of politicians as well as voters. Of course, as in any evolving modern situation, it remains to be seen for how long.

~ Vijay Nambisan is a poet and journalist whose book of journalism, Bihar in the Eye of the Beholder, was reissued this year by Penguin India.

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