One way to enter

Some of the street names in the city sound downright ridiculous. Why would there be a Lake View Road in West Mambalam, or a Tank Bund Road in Nungambakkam, when there is no sight of any waterbody from either of these streets? Ah, you will say, but there was one, once. And you are correct. The Long Tank was filled in during the early years of the 20th century. In fact, some remnants of it existed until the 1960s (if not into the 1970s), so that is somewhat recent memory. 

But what about taxes on walls or gates for elephants? The story of the wall is quite easily told. Madras - which in the latter half of the 18th century meant the expanse to the north and a bit to the west of Fort St George - was coveted by forces who actively hassled the British, chief of who were the French, and Tipu Sultan of Mysore. To provide a measure of protection to the city, the British decided to build a wall around the city. The northern sector went off well enough, but the Company's plan to levy a tax on the citizens to pay for the western stretch ran into opposition and so the wall remained unfinished on that side. 

It is all very well to build a wall to try and keep people out, but there will always be a need to get in, too. Madras had such needs at seven places; one such, along the western wall, was called Elephant Gate. It is tempting to assume that this was a grand entrance through which caparisoned pachyderms lumbered in procession into the city, walking down the Elephant Gate Road; and that was what I had done. But Love's "Vestiges of Old Madras" indicates that this gate led to an Elephant Garden - now, what could that have been for?

A different world

Even a rudimentary knowledge of Indian iconography will be enough to know this is representation of Mahavishnu in his form as Padmanabhaswamy - the one with a lotus growing out of his navel - resting on Anantasesha, the divine serpent. Also in the picture are Hanuman, Lakshmi, Siva, Brahma and Narada. This entire tableau is placed above an entrance on Wall Tax Road. 

With so many deities, you might believe that the entrance is to a place of religious significance. In some senses, that might be true, given our penchant for elevating our heroes to god-like levels; but the reality is that once you go past this, you would be entering the fantasy world of the movies. At least, that is how it was until a few years ago. Last year, the posters announced the advent of a multi-storey residential complex, confirming that the Padmanabha has indeed played out its last show, about 5 years ago.

Padmanabha Theatre began life as the Regal; does this tableau go back to those days, when it was placed to bring good luck, or did it come up after (possibly) a change of ownership and name, with the new owner trying to ensure that the re-branding sticks, with this visual representation? If the latter, it couldn't have been too successful - even today, the MTC bus routes indicate this stage as 'Regal'!

Enclosed shrine

How many times have you seen a shrine within a building? Especially when that building, from the outside, does not appear to have much to do with religion?

Paramananda Doss and Chotta Doss began their silk trade in Mint Street in 1888, becoming one of the first in south India to source cloth from Benares. They had printed catalogues detailing their products - embroidered cashmere shawls, Calcutta linen, China white silk, khilat and kincob pieces - all of which would have been quite exotic to the good people of Madras. Their prices were reasonable enough and the brothers were fastidious about quality to the extent that their patrons were comfortable in sending "their orders by post". In fact, their displays won "gold medals and first-class certificates" at the Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition three years in a row - in 1903, '04 and '05. 

With business being good, the brothers put aside some money to charity, constructing a dharmasala just north of today's Chennai Central station. It had the traditional central courtyard, open to the sky, around which were arranged rooms for travellers. Whether it was to cater to the spiritual needs of the travellers or to prevent them from getting too high-spirited, I am uncertain; but this shrine in the central courtyard came up a little after the building itself. The pujas and rituals continue here to this day. Sadly, succeeding generations of the Dosses seem to have got themselves mired in litigation and, as far as I can make out, the firm does not exist in its original form today.

Empty theatre

There are no shows in Padmanabha Theatre these days. Apparently it is being used as a parking lot and I daresay it brings in more revenue than screening movies did. Padmanabha  came up when north Madras was the hub of social and entertainment events. So, the main gate had a tableau of Mahavishnu resting on Anantha; pass it on your way in and you know that you have left behind the real world.

In a few weeks, this building will also disappear. Real estate on Wall Tax Road is at a premium and this space can be put to much better use than to just being a parking lot!

An old chapel

In the early days of its occupation of Madras, the British East India Company was nervous about admitting British missionaries into their possessions. This was because they were worried about having to deal with maverick British traders entering the region pretending to be missionaries, but with the goal of breaking the Company's monopoly over the India-Britain trades. Believing they would have a free hand to punish imposters of other nationalities, they allowed French (Roman Catholic) and German (Protestant) missionaries to go about preaching to the natives.

That's how Benjamin Schultze, a German Lutheran, became the first Protestant missionary in Madras. Though he had come to Tranquebar (Tharangambady) in 1719, it was only in July 1726 that he arrived at Madras and began work in the 'Black Town' area outside Fort St George. Needing more space, he requested his employer, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) to buy up a garden house, where the Chennai Central Station stands today. That garden house was, in 1719, the subject of a petition by Antonio de Carvalho da Silva who claimed that it was bequeathed to her by her grandfather, Joao Pereira de Faria (John Pereira). The whole area around it was called John Pereira's Gardens, so there seemed to be some merit to her claim. Fort St George however, took a stand that their agent, Mr. Foxcroft, had in 1671 let the area to John Pereira to farm for 31 years and it belonged to them, even if they hadn't repossessed the place. Finally, the Council directed that John Pereira's Gardens be leased out for 11 years. Though the gardens had within them a tiled house and a sort of chapel near it, the property did not find too many takers, as it had fallen into disuse and had become a refuge for gamblers, who used the space for cock-fighting.

Probably the SPCK got it cheap at the end of that 11-year lease period. But they too did not take any interest in developing the property, most likely because it was outside the walls of the Fort and directly in the line of Hyder Ali's maurading armies. Even the building of a wall did not make the Garden any more desirable; the SPCK too seemed to have forgotten that they owned this property. It was only in 1826 that Rev. J.Ridsdale began to take an interest in this space and began work to construct a chapel - the older "...small Tyl'd house with a sort of Chappell..." having been destroyed during one of the many skirmishes of the previous century. The Trinity Chapel opened its doors to the public in 1831 - Rev. Ridsdale seems to have died soon after. Somewhere in all the furore, it is said, the chapel was never formally consecrated. No matter; for after all these years, it doesn't really need to be consecrated, does it?!

Brand value

Even without the 'de', this lodging place would have attraced the crowd it normally does. But just to make sure that any French tourist coming by feels completely at home, the name has been expanded as "Hotel de Kerala".

If you look closely, you'll also see the "Kerala Hairdresser" in the picture. Granted that the neighbouring state is one of the top must-visit tourist destinations, that still doesn't explain why the brand is flogged so much!

Dues paid, partly

What you see in the photograph is not just any old wall, but The Old Wall. The British realized that Madras was very vulnerable to attacks from the west - a realization strengthened on account of repeated attacks by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Work on building protective walls around the city's northern and western boundaries was begun in 1764, but speeded up only after the Mysore mauraders' attacks in 1767 and 1769. The western wall was intended to run (probably) north from the Island Grounds before curving around to become the northern wall, ending where the Royapuram flyover starts today (where Clive Battery was, much earlier).

With their experience against de Lally's French troops in 1758, the British wanted a clear field - an Esplanade - to ensure a field of fire that would make any invading force stop to think. Besides that, they also wanted a 50-foot wide passage just inside the wall, to make sure that in the event of an attack runners could carry messages all around; and armaments could be moved without any hindrance. Of course, no structures could be built on the wall, apart from the bastions themselves. This grand wall was to be part-funded by a tax on the good citizens of Madras; but those good citizens refused to part with their pagodas in a hurry and the wall was never completed. The road just inside this part of the wall was named after the poorly-implemented tax proposal. Even after it has been renamed, people continue to refer to VOC Road as Wall Tax Road!

Ye olde shopfronte!

If this shop had been open for business, I'd probably have passed it by, with just a stray thought about how sturdy and long-lasting those old enamel-on-blue boards (that's how I always think of them, even if they are just painted, like this one is) are. I am sure this board is also of quite an age, not just because of the font; the spelling, too, reflects an era where it was common to write the name as 'Singaraveloo' rather than the 'Singaravelu' spelling that has been in more common use for the past 60 years or so.

The closed shop, however, had another very interesting point-of-purchase material on its door. Yes, I'm talking about that black-brown-white sheet of metal nailed to the door. WJ Bush & Co. was a firm founded by William John Bush in 1851 and is supposed to be England's first large scale manufacturer of flavours and essences. Given the spread of the British empire, WJ Bush & Co had a large distribution network and was also acting as an agent for similar products, most likely with a view to offer a complete range of flavours, essences, brewing chemicals, essential oils, food colouring, perfumes and the like, all centered around food processing. Given that WJ Bush & Co merged with two other companies to create Bush Boake Allen in 1966 (the company was sold to International Flavors and Fragrances in 2000), that metal sheet is over 40 years old.

It is fascinating to imagine this shopfront being much the same for the last 40 years and more, oblivious to the changes around it as it continues to supply 'aerated water requisites' and other items needed to make soda water!