There are about half a dozen of these certificates and fragments from official letters.
These papers define a very narrow period of time in this Man's life, the years just before and after 1947. I think.
He and his wife - my aunt, my father's half sister - were part of the "joint family" that lived in the house that stood at Old Number 141, New Number 64, Coral Merchant Street.
I was born and grew up in that house and this man was a very colorful part of my first 7 or so years. He was already comfortably retired by then.
Here is (just) one document that surfaced today.
VoilĂ , then......a little memory of my uncle, the late Mr. T.T. Nambi, retired Subedar Major of The Indian Army...
Bandicoot Republic
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Friday, January 8, 2016
2016 - Week 01's Detritus
In the bar at the Madras Hotel Ashoka, you are usually in a bit of a time warp .
The waiters look like a throwback to the Madras of the Sedate Seventies and the Easy Eighties but their attitude is all about contemporary, artificial empowerment.
The crowd is a discordant mix of off duty police officers (because of the proximity to one of the Police hubs); loud, middled aged, hindi speaking businessmen; loud, hindi and english speaking younger businessmen and other riff raff like me.
But one thing is common to all the clients.
You don't get a "bill" like in other bars. You get a scribbled "Permit Room Requistion Form" with a huge space for the "Signature Of The Permit Holder" at the bottom.
I have several memories of the permit regime including one of a beautiful "Wine Shop" called Govindarujulu and Sons (or something like that) on the corner of Nungambakam High Road and Valluvarkottam High Road in the space that eventually became Naga's Restaurant and is now Sangeetha's.
My grandfather had a liquor permit and I remember a rust colored, Golden Eagle whisky bottle in the shape of a roosting eagle with a detachable head that covered the neck of the bottle and the cap.
I remember many other other things about the era of permits, mainly because my grandfather was a permit holding whisky drinker.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Footloose in Europe In The Summer of 1986
In July 1986 I travelled to Europe to participate in an International Youth Meet organized by the Lions Club Of France. I was 24 years old (the cut off age for the program participants was 25) and the others participants
Friday, November 20, 2015
Valtteri’s Diary - 01
My name is Valtteri
Kovalainen. I am from Finland and I live in Chennai. This is my diary where I
write some of my experiences of living in this very complex city.
It’s not easy being a
Finn in Chennai, I can promise you. The heat is, you know, kind of special. Also,
the traffic makes me afraid; sometimes, very afraid.
I have many good
things too, certainly. My motorcycle, for example - a Royal Enfield Bullet! She
is a beauty. There is also my house on the beach…to live in a house like that
in my country; I would have to be a millionaire.
My happiest hobby is
taking my motorcycle and going for long rides in the early mornings, on the
East Coast Road. Sometimes I go all the way to Pondicherry and have breakfast
there.
But today I want to share
a special adventure I had last week.
On some days, very
late in the night, like 3 o’clock, I used to be disturbed by the sound of some
people whispering urgently for a few minutes outside my garden wall. These whisperers
seemed to come together outside my house and disappear like a cloud. I wondered
if maybe they were robbers planning to burgle my house or another house in my neighborhood.
About two weeks ago, I
asked my watchman about these people. After much shaking of the head and acting
like he knows nothing, he told me that these were some local people who meet
and go for a drink.
I can tell you that I
was very surprised.
I know all the good
bars in this city. They close by maximum 1 AM. And the police are everywhere to
catch you and fine you if you are drunk and driving. So, some people meeting at
3 o clock in the morning to go for a drink was, what I can say, very interesting.
After a few days, I again
asked my watchman who exactly these people were. After some hesitation he told
me that it was the old gardener who was the main man. This gardener was a shadowy
fellow. I rarely see him but he is supposed to be my gardener. I told the
watchman that I wanted to talk to this man. Two days later, he came with the
watchman and stood silently in front of me.
With the watchman as
interpreter, I asked the gardener about the 3 A.M. drinking. He just stood
there and looked at me blankly. I waited a moment and came to the point. I told
him I wanted to go with him and his friends to have a drink at 3 o clock in the
morning.
After the watchman
interpreted my request, an animated discussion broke out in Tamil between the two.
I made out some words like “cycle” and “Reddykuppanh” and “local” from the
gardener. My interpreter, the watchman,
kept repeating "bike” and “Bullet” to the gardener. I understood the
problem and interrupted them. I told them that the gardener and I could go to
the “place” on my motorcycle.
The old walnut was not
convinced at first but with a little encouragement from the watchman he finally
agreed, reluctantly. A date and time was agreed upon and before saying goodbye the
watchman formally introduced him to me as Velu….
And so it came about
that two days later, at 3 o clock in the morning, I was waiting with my bike outside
my house for Velu and his gang.
They appeared from
different directions - 6 men on 3 cycles, loudly whispering greetings at each
other. I started my bike, Velu got on and we were off. As we turned into ECR
towards Mamallapuram, Velu shouted “Reddykuppanh” into my ears and I nodded my
head. After several kilometers Velu tapped me on my shoulder and waved his hand
signaling me to slow down and turn.
I had done some
checking with my friends at the office and they had explained to me that this early
morning drinking place on the beach might be a joint for selling “rice beer”.
They told me that this was a fisherman’s specialty and that the local name for
the drink was “sunda-kanji”. Strictly
speaking it was an illegal item. The fishermen drank this before they set out
to sea before dawn. This perhaps explained the odd timing for these parties.
We turned left into
one of the many lanes that lead from the ECR to the beach and at the very end
of the street we stopped. Velu’s friends soon arrived and we all trooped in a single
file with Velu leading.
At the edge of the
village, on the very sands of the beach, there were some abandoned houses. Detritus from the Tsunami.
We entered
one of these buildings. We were in a small, dark hall with no lights. Velu
pointed with a jerk of his head and we shuffled towards a corner.
As my eyes adjusted to
the darkness, I saw that there were already about two dozen people in the room.
There was an edgy expectancy in the air. The gathering was silent but a small
buzz rose and died when they noticed me, the newcomer. I could smell beedies
and cigarettes. With my gang, I too sat down on my haunches on the bare
concrete floor and lit a cigarette.
A woman and two men
suddenly walked in through a door in the far
corner of the hall. They each had three sturdy plastic jugs clasped in each
hand and quietly moved back and forth and distributed the jugs – one per customer.
The jugs were filled ¾ with some liquid. I could not make out the color in the
darkness but the smell reminded me of sake.
After the jugs were distributed
the three people brought out some trays. The aroma of spices and seafood filled
the room. When the woman came to our group and lowered the tray I saw piles of
anchovy like fish and small crabs.
Velu mumbled something
and the woman heaped several portions on a banana leaf and handed it over. Velu
placed it on the floor and everyone reached to take a piece. We now finally started
to drink, straight from the mugs.
The drink not only
smelt but also tasted a little like sake. We quietly sat sipping from our jugs
and feasting on the anchovies and curried crabs. There was very little
conversation.
After about 30 minutes we all finished our drinks and stood up. I
had a pleasant buzz going. Velu looked at me with a smile. I smiled right back
and gave him a 500 rupee note. And suddenly everybody in the gang was smiling.
When we paid the woman
and stepped out of the building, dawn was just breaking and the birds in the
trees were waking the rest of the world up.
A LITTLE MUD TRACK – The story of the East Coast Road
Celebrities in sleek cars,
hiding behind illegally darkened windows; wobbling cyclists; suicidal
motorcyclists; erratic pedestrians constantly oozing onto the carriageway; homicidal
“share autos” convulsing to the beat of a beastly drummer that only their
drivers can hear; behemoth buses bullying for non-existent space...
An endless succession
of commercial establishments… by turns big and small, by turns pretentious or
unassuming. Swank followed by sordid followed by stinking followed by stylish.
Astronomical prices per
square foot of “Land”.
A few sleepy fishing
hamlets separated by vast stretches of casuarina groves and tenuously connected
to each other by back roads, have today coalesced like a humongous, toxic amoeba and transformed into one of the most sought
after parcels of real estate south of the Vindhyas - the Chennai section of
the East Coast Road.
This road is now The aspirational address
for every real estate shark, fixer, shop
keeper, star, starlet, retired civil servant, celebrity sportsperson, non-resident Indian, expatriate, CEO
and everybody else in between.
What is the story of this
stretch of road? When and how did it come to be?
This bustling 4 lane
highway was, till the 1960’s, just a little red mud track that wound lazily southwards
from Adyar, roughly following the contours of the coastline, till the
backwaters of Muttukadu. And that’s all it was.
There was nothing of “interest”
on this road, except for the people living in the few fishing villages that
dotted the coast.
By most accounts
gleaned from old timers who remember, the earliest establishment on this lonely
little track was Dr. Dhairyam’s “mental institution” in Vettuvankeni. Locals
used to then joke that this Dr. Dhairyam (Dr. Courage in Tamil) must have been
a “dhairyasaali”, a courageous man indeed to come and establish his clinic on
such a desolate stretch!
Then, in 1965, the
Cholamandal Artist’s Village started slowly taking shape with an initial
purchase of half an acre in Injambakkam. Around the same time (1967), VGP bought several acres just down the mud track,
in the same neighborhood.
The end of the line
for the little mud track, though, remained the backwaters of Muttukadu. If you
wanted to proceed further south on that mud track, to say Mahabalipuram or
beyond, you would have had to take a boat across the backwaters and then
proceed by whatever means of transport were available on the other side of the lagoon.
But what about the
people who wanted to come from the southern edge of Madras to Dr. Dhairyam’s
clinic or to Cholamandal or to VGP or to any of the villages along the coast up
until the backwaters?
Till 1965, there were
no buses on this route. Many villagers just walked. Or they hired a jutka
(covered horse drawn cart) from the jutka stand under a large banyan tree that
stood where the Adyar Standard Chartered Bank building stands today. Hiring an
entire jutka for the trip from Adyar to Injambakkam cost Rs.3 and 5 to 6 people
could travel in the jutka for that price.
People who used to
travel regularly on this stretch in those days say that if you missed having
your chai at Hotel Coronet (established in 1955) your only alternative was a tiny
teashop in Palavakkam.
Indira Nagar and
Besant Nagar did not exist as yet then. The layouts for these neighborhoods
were just being finalized by the government.
Although a foundation
stone for an Thiruvanmiyur - Muttukadu Road was laid as early as in 1957, the work proceeded in fits and
starts and was completed only around 1970.
However, the end of
the line for this little mud track still remained the backwaters of Muttukadu.
Then, finally in 1972, the Muttukadu Bridge was built, setting the stage for what
would eventually become an almost 700 KM highway stretching from Chennai to
Tuticorin.
The first bus service
on this road was introduced in 1966 – route 19C from Parry’s to Muttukadu. The
commuters were mainly fisher folk who used the bus service to transport their
catch to the city. There is at least one corroborated story of a young
Cholamandal artist’s crisp kurta suddenly getting drenched with foul smelling,
fishy water sloshing down from a basket tied to the roof of the bus.
Slowly, over the
years, certain establishments on this stretch became weekend destinations for
the city folk: Cholamandal Artists’ Village, Silver Sands Resort (est., 1968), VGP
Golden Beach (est., 1975), Taj Fisherman’s Cove
and the Crocodile Bank (both established in 1976).
Through the 1980’s,
the ECR was still a narrow, mostly sleepy road. There were vast casuarina
groves abutting the road and rolling up to the sands of the beach. The people
who moved from the city into these hamlets in those years were somehow
“different”…people who had chosen a “different” lifestyle. This corner of the
map was still more or less the back of nowhere.
All that changed with
India’s big leap in the 90’s into the brave new world of open economics. Development
on this once sleepy little red mud track suddenly became ceaseless, frenetic and unplanned. But
the resulting permanent state of chaos has not stopped the masses from clamoring evermore for a piece of this prime real estate.
After a massive
upgrade and conversion into a toll road in 2002, efforts are again on to widen
the highway. How this project will eventually pan out remains to be seen.
Whatever shape the expanded
highway might take, one thing is for sure: Today, the ECR is as much a part of
the Chennai narrative as a Boat Club Road or a T. Nagar or a Parry’s Corner.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
A Few More Contemporary Indian Matchboxes
These have been lying around for some time waiting to get scanned and uploaded but some may be repeats from earlier posts.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Who's For Dinner? An Outlier From The Bookshelf...;-)
Flesh & Blood - A History of the Cannibal Complex
....!?!
I have no idea when I bought this book but I remember that it was at one of the Madras Book Fairs back when it used to be at the Qaid-E-Millat College Grounds opposite The (then) Connemara.
I must admit that it is a very informative book. AND, has some very rare illustrations that we might never come across, otherwise.
Enjoy.
....!?!
I have no idea when I bought this book but I remember that it was at one of the Madras Book Fairs back when it used to be at the Qaid-E-Millat College Grounds opposite The (then) Connemara.
I must admit that it is a very informative book. AND, has some very rare illustrations that we might never come across, otherwise.
Enjoy.
The Crown Jewel In My Collection Of Soviet Children's Books
This is the absolute gem amongst all those beautiful books from the USSR.
A 1975 book, with cut-out, pop-up illustrations.
Real 3-D!
The complete title given on the back cover is "A TALE ABOUT A WAR SECRET, ABOUT THE BOY NIPPER-PIPPER, AND HIS WORD OF HONOUR".
It has 4 pages of text and 6 fabulous double-spread cut-out, pop-up illustrations. The design is so exquisite that in the first 2 illustrations there are common elements from the other page.
Not sure if that makes sense....hmm..
as in, the soldiers in the 1st picture, in the street outside, seen through the windows, become the main element of the 2nd illustration while we see the inside of the house through the window from the street....?
Check it out. Enjoy!
A 1975 book, with cut-out, pop-up illustrations.
Real 3-D!
The complete title given on the back cover is "A TALE ABOUT A WAR SECRET, ABOUT THE BOY NIPPER-PIPPER, AND HIS WORD OF HONOUR".
It has 4 pages of text and 6 fabulous double-spread cut-out, pop-up illustrations. The design is so exquisite that in the first 2 illustrations there are common elements from the other page.
Not sure if that makes sense....hmm..
as in, the soldiers in the 1st picture, in the street outside, seen through the windows, become the main element of the 2nd illustration while we see the inside of the house through the window from the street....?
Check it out. Enjoy!
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Some Children's Books From The USSR
I bought this bunch of vintage soviet children's books quite recently - 2005/2006, if I remember right - on the MG Road pavement, Bangalore.
They were/are all in near mint condition. When I checked with the same guy a few months later, there were none left. :-(
They are from the 1970's and 80's. They are all English translations, published and printed in the USSR.
Most of them have exquisite artwork.
I'll share the remaining ones from this bunch later.
Enjoy! (I think the images are clickable, as in you get full screen images if you double-click on them.) Cheers.
They were/are all in near mint condition. When I checked with the same guy a few months later, there were none left. :-(
They are from the 1970's and 80's. They are all English translations, published and printed in the USSR.
Most of them have exquisite artwork.
I'll share the remaining ones from this bunch later.
Enjoy! (I think the images are clickable, as in you get full screen images if you double-click on them.) Cheers.
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