Archive of Vol. XVI No. 23, March 16-31, 2007
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Registered with the Reg. No. TN/PMG (CCR) /814/06-08 Registrar of Newspapers Licence to post without prepayment for India under R.N.I. 53640/91 Licence No. WPP 506/06-08 Rs. 5 per copy (Annual Subscription: Rs. 100/-) WE CARE FOR MADRAS THAT IS CHENNAI INSIDE Short ‘N’ Snappy Clean, not fancy, beach MADRAS Sangamam something special Season’s pluses & minuses The Suligiri Maneater Vol. XVI No. 23 MUSINGS March 16-31, 2007 Rebuilding Foreshores fishing The Editors Viewpoint Some plain-speaking hamlets on City festivals (By Sriram V.) efore the British there was no Madras. There was no Excuse? Traffic of course! Thats BChennai either. And that is a historical fact which needs to the fashionable excuse nowadays! he fishing hamlets that dot collaboration with a Malaysian be recognised by everyone interested in truth and not fancy. Tthe Marina are probably firm. Rehabilitation of the Yes, there was Tamizhagam, but that had little to do with Ma- Whats your excuse? the oldest and the most con- displaced fisherfolk was not to dras or Chennai till nearly 150 years after 1639. Which is why we at Madras Musings have not only kept Madras and Chennais chronic latecomers tinuously inhabited parts of the be anywhere near the place city of Madras that is Chennai. where they needed to be Tamizhagam separate but have also always embraced both iden- never had it so good. tities of the city as one and have kept referring to it as Madras Why are you late? snaps the Today, the various clusters have namely the sea. A volley of pro- that is Chennai. irate spouse/parent/teacher/ more or less merged into one, tests followed and then with the From earliest times, it was Madras in English and Chennai in boss/host... whatever. though the constituent areas tsunami of 2004, these plans Tamil, even in official publications; so, there was never a dual- And pat comes the single-word are called by various names were quietly dropped. During ity about it. But of late there has been a regrettable tendency on answer: Traffic. such as Srinivasapuram, that natural calamity, the area the part of a few to paint Madras as a city of Western-oriented That vast word hides many Doomingkuppam and Nochi- bore the brunt of the seas fury elitists and Chennai as the voice of the people, even if those truths about the causes of de- voices are in such Western-developed media as films and TV, lay, which run the gamut kuppam as you travel down San with many lives lost. Thomé High Road to the Despite this, and with an im- loudspeakers and posters. from forgetting to set your A recent summing-up of Chennai Sangamam, that success- alarm, having unrealistic Beach. A feeder road that runs portant road passing through it, parallel to San Thomé High the area has been greatly ne- ful city festival, is a classic example of this. This review, a splen- views on how much time you did example of that Western discipline called sociology, has vi- have, completely underesti- Road, and acts as a bypass dur- glected. Fires are frequent in the tiated with its divisive language what was viewed as a city festi- mating how long it takes ing peak hours, separates the tenements and the huts that val for one and all, the citys elite and the urban multitude. some of us to merely get al- houses from the beach and in surround them and even basic The review contends that the Sangamam was cosmopolitan in ready, or just being incapable the early mornings and eve- amenities such as toilets, clean its sweep and that the public spaces of the city reverberated to of placing any value on any- nings a thriving fish market op- water and electricity are denied folk forms. Agreed and the city has emerged much the better one elses time. erates on the side of this road. to the residents. Matters may for it. But can we also look at the venues that were used for And you can do nothing. You These villages have seen sev- now change and things may such events parks, beachfronts and city malls? Now what are know youre looking at the these locations if not elitist? Are they not the creations of an millenniums most bare-faced eral changes with the passage of look up with the Government time. The first was in the 1970s taking up the project of rebuild- urban upper middle class, a bourgeois ordering of space? And liar, yet you cannot challenge let us not forget that if the events were not happening in these these excuses. when the then newly set up ing 7320 tenements between parks and city malls, they were taking place in the forecourts of The problem is, youve been Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Nochikuppam and Srinivasa- five-star hotels. Yet another example of people-frequented there yourself, so you know Board built multi-storeyed ten- puram. There are at present venues? what its like... ements along the beachfront for 2862 tenements in four-sto- And as for Town, which perhaps qualified as cosmopolitan Traffic has also created an un- the benefit of those living there. reyed buildings, all of them in long before the term became fashionable, and the oldest part of healthy sort of oneupman- However, it was really in 2003 terrible condition for which the the city, the North, where the urban multitude is at its most ship in a society already over- congested, they remained completely left out, neglected as they riddled with competition. when the first threat to the very saline air is largely being existence of these hamlets came blamed. The cost of rebuilding have been for decades. The reason? Town and its earliest hinter- I got stuck the other day for an land do not have parks, malls and open spaces, the kind of struc- entire hour, you boast. when, what with rapid urbani- is estimated to be Rs. 138.10 sation, a plan came up to beau- crore. Part of the funding is ex- tures that are needed to support a peoples festival. Above all, Big deal one hour, your they also cannot accommodate cars, the kind in which the citys companion scoffs. I got tify the Marina and also de- pected to come from tsunami elite travel to witness peoples festivals. stuck for 31/ hours, that too velop housing for multination- relief funds as well and many of 2 The essay, which sounded like a Western-educated behind a smoke-belching ve- als along the beachfront on the those affected by the disaster academicians social critique, claimed that the Sangamam hicle, and missed my flight. lines of Shanghai, in (Continued on page 2) brought Carnatic music and dance to the public parks and out Factor in time taken is the from claustrophobic sabhas. Has this reviewer forgotten that new basis for planning any- till not so very long ago Carnatic music did belong to the streets thing that involves road when nagaswaram artistes performed in temple processions and usage, with some roads arbi- musicians sang in temporary pandals outside temples? Was it trarily rewriting the old rules not then interpreted as crass religious humbug and therefore about peak-hour traffic. banished from the streets? And as for dance, let us not forget Both weather and water prob- that had it not been for a mid-Victorian morality that brought lems are now depressed, as in legislation in the 1920s, dance would still be performed in they have been completely streets and temple precincts and not in claustrophobic sabhas. replaced by Traffic as The Paean for Sangamam has also conveniently forgotten conversation pieces. other truths. That Mylapore Festival was really the first of its Having become such a rare kind in the city in recent times, involving the public-at-large phenomenon, maybe we with its open air events, concerts in parks (yes, but then should present annual awards Mylapore is bourgeois and perhaps its attempts do not count), to those who display punctu- and folk art performances and demonstrations. It was an attempt ality even occasionally. (Continued on page 5) Ranjitha Ashok Fishers tenements awaiting rebuilding. CMYK 2 MADRAS MUSINGS March 16-31, 2007 The mother of all excuses he Chennai Metropolitan to the fact that it is a historic Bus Day passenger seat maintaining clients. But what do you call it TDevelopment Authority location and that it needs pro- a continuous monologue when the recipient also gets has offered what can be consid- tection, restoration and re-use t was only recently that The through a megaphone which is mailers en masse? MMM was in ered the mother of all lame as a cultural centre. IMan from Madras Musings for the benefit of all those precisely this situation when a excuses when it comes to had written about Valentines standing in the vicinity and in- multinational finance company explaining its tardiness in Waste & Energy Day. Now MMM finds our city cludes fruit-mongers, loiterers, of repute sent him 12 mailers demolishing illegal construc- also has a Bus Day. No, it is not those who park cars, others of the same scheme on the tions that have been so ost organisations and a day spent in the worship of who think they do, etc. same day. And all by courier declared by the High Court. It Mcorporate bodies of buses. On the other hand, it is and each to be signed for sepa- has claimed that it is unable to Madras that is Chennai claim some kind of merrymaking by One such recipient of this rately.