| |
Chennai
Travelogue
--
Tiberman Sajiwan Ramyead
Chennai
International Airport, the third busiest in India, at three
o’clock in the morning presents a depressing atmosphere to
the arriving passenger, particularly to the first-time
visitor. The dimly lit labyrinths that you slowly make out
to be the arrival lounge, drab connecting corridors and
immigration counters are typical of voluminous, sprawling
airports that might have known better days or have been
poorly designed by overenthusiastic architects and
engineers. The Chennai Airport authorities do not seem to
believe in the magic that a few simple coats of paint,
flower pots and colourful posters can bring about. Indeed
one feels that anti-tourism impacts are the order of the
day. After the usual court martial by the immigration
officers you manage to reach the hectic luggage belt area
where your greatest joy is to have found your luggage at
all; by which time you are sufficiently depressed, till you
emerge our of the airport building. The heat, din, incessant
honking, pleasant and unpleasant tropical aromas, and the
hustle and bustle of dear old Chennai hit you in the face!
Somehow
some elation and a sense of the adventure mood drift back. I
always make it a point to start a conversation with the cab
driver, going down to his level. In a few minutes, and if
your probe is genuine enough, you see a piece of life;
perhaps that of a stoical man slaving for twenty hours a
day. His long years of perseverance and the tiny hopes he
clings to make the ‘educated and civilised’ visitor feel
small and guilty.
By
the second day one key word stood out in my notes and it
would keep cropping up for the next two weeks – the dignity
of Chennai’s people, a feature that goes easily unnoticed
by visitors who gravitate towards shopping and silk sarees.
I asked the Mauritians I met, and they were from all walks
of life, of their impressions of Chennai and her people.
“Li
correct, capave visiter”
“So
shopping pas mal”
“Ena
banne zoli saree silk dans T-Nagar”
“Spencer
Plaza vaut lapeine enne visite. Mari ça. Li air conditioned
net.”
“Ena
ban tailleurs dans Fountain Plaza. Zot coudre choli,
chouridar, sherwani ek palto mari extra!”
“Ena
enne deux zoli magasins pour bijoux l’or”
If
England was a nation of shopkeepers, Mauritians are eternal
shoppers. I dared not broach on the subject of traditions,
culture or history with them, let alone books, museums and
archives. I admired their innocent insouciance for
Chennai’s glorious past. These Mauritians were
happy-go-lucky shoppers, and their main business in life
stopped at that. The Mauritian ladies informed my spouse of
the temples worth going to, but that was more in the context
of “promesse” and the personal satisfaction that prayer
brings about; they were, in good faith, not in the least
concerned with the remarkable structures and history of
those temples. My spouse insisted, in fact to my delight, in
going to the Sri Kapaleeshwarar temple in Mylapore for a
second time. This temple, built in the seventh century by
the Pallava kings, soars to a height dwarfing all our
temples in Mauritius, and its amazing gates, columns and
sculptured deities, all consistently and intricately carved
out of stone, seem to impress a few visiting tourists only.
Those absorbed in offerings and prayers have ceased to
marvel at them, if they ever did at some time.
During
this second visit I took a walk outside the temple, whilst
my spouse prayed inside. I shared mango juice with my old
auto-rickshaw driver. He had started as a driver several
decades ago and will never be the owner of his own vehicle.
Not after paying the ‘malik’s’ due every day.
But he had dignity on his face. A dignity undiluted by any
form of ostentation. Every single inhabitant of Chennai,
young and old, carries this dignity. An innocent, pure
dignity, but along with this respectability, one notices the
absence of a ready-to-fight spirit in the eyes of
Chennai’s youth. Now and then I could not help fantasizing
that Chennai somehow seemed to be virgin ground again for a
second Portuguese or French or British Raj! The city
that did away with its Portuguese sounding name (Madras)
hardly ten years ago now boasts itself as the automobile
capital of India. Small, economy models with engines
probably not surpassing 1000 ccs are definitely the favoured
types.
Like
many of her nostalgic historical spots, gone is the old
magic of Mylapore; a magic that survives only in books and
in the minds of those who read them. The side streets are
lined with dilapidated buildings, many with crumbling
British colonial facades, reminiscent of Madras and the
British Raj. The temple’s tank, lying outside its present
enclosures, was recently converted to a sewage disposal
basin. Ah, but the commerce throngs in the midst of the heat
and dust. The bookshops always abound with the latest
instant-success publications and I was forever on the
lookout for my rare books.
So
just a few metres outside this highly historical Sri
Kapaleeshwarar temple, one walks past an incredible variety
of shops. You’ll find just about anything -- unbelievable
spare parts and even more unbelievable repairs, gas stoves,
opticians, groceries, electronics, silk sarees of course,
retail shops “la boutique Chinois” style,
Ayurvedic miracles, and so many other miracles, all crammed
up tightly and yet cohabiting peacefully; an impossible
cohabitation by Mauritian standards. You wonder when these
shops ever close, but they sing and work for fifteen hours a
day. The seven million Chennaiites, that’s how an
inhabitant of Chennai is called but the word seems to be
rarely used, do not require a National Productivity and
Competitiveness Council! Outright working, singing
and praying is in their blood, instilled down through
several centuries of jealously maintained culture,
traditions and commerce, constantly reminding the fact that
Madras was the thronging centre of international trade.
Wikipedia
informs you that English is widely spoken in this fourth
largest city of India, but this is not quite so. Whilst it
is the de facto second language among the white collar
professions, the visitor with no Hindi as reserve
experiences difficulty communicating with the men and women
on the streets. The imposition of Hindi during the 1960s,
coupled with ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka, led to important
agitations in Chennai. The present generation of Chennaiites
however, does not nurse any animosity towards the Hindi
speaking visitor. At least that was my experience.
What
would Chennai do without her auto-rickshaws! Powered
by motorcycle engines (typical model: 125cc Bajaj engine)
these three wheelers perform impressive acrobatics, short of
triple somersaults in midair. Those with heart problems are
not advised to travel by this cheap and popular transport
mode. These autos stay clear of the swarming vehicles around
them by a few centimetres, and very often the gap is
definitely in millimetres. And like most drivers in India,
they are accomplished traffic artists; enough to make
Michael Schumacher blush. Impossible zigzags are just their
basic tasks, and when the situation demands it you find
yourself proceeding in the opposite direction. They u-turn
during those few seconds when you shut your eyes tight, and
you begin to see your whole life flashing by. One of my
drivers was a young lady. I managed to get my notebook out.
Suffice that we go through the words I jotted down: “No
complex, rather dark but beautiful eyes and pleasant
Tamilian features, twenties, usual dignity, other drivers do
not give her a second look, never, jasmine flowers on hair
braid, good driver, no acrobatics so far, reasonable fare.”
I enjoyed my auto rides and eventually attained an advanced
stage – I managed to stop closing my eyes.
The
hand, forearm and arm muscles of the drivers in Chennai are
presently undergoing important mutations that would be of
great interest to medical science by the next generation --
namely the unusual developments of these muscles brought
about by a sacred daily exercise – excessive use of the
horns! They honk out of sheer second nature, a second
nature at par with their daily prayers. They sound their
horns on all occasions, literally, and surpass Mauritius by
far. Unnecessary use of the horns is solemnly practiced by
one and all, including the police. It will take Chennai at
least one generation to minimize the problem by a mere half.
But then unnecessary excitement, noise and confusion are
rituals that have been upheld and handed down as examples to
its people by the Lok Sabha itself. India’s innocuous
cacophony is an integral part of her greatness.
I
learnt of Ustad Bismillah Khan’s death on my very first
day in Chennai (August 22). The Chennai edition of THE HINDU
newspaper (and all the other dailies of the city) paid full
tribute to this man for several days. Here is an extract
from Ramachandra Guha’s article in its Sunday 27 August
magazine supplement:
“In
a delicious paradox that can only be Indian, the man who
best embodied the spirit of the holy Hindu city of Varanasi
was a Muslim. Although he was born in Bihar (in 1916, in the
then princely state of Dumraon), Bismillah Khan moved to
Varanasi as a young man, and lived there until he died,
spending some seven decades in an old, crumbling haveli,
surrounded by his shehnais, a large extended family, and an
even larger circle of hangers-on… he was a worshipper of
both Allah and Saraswati… Not that the orthodox Muslims
had much time for Bismillah either… Bismillah explains how
for some mullahs, music is the work of the devil, haram…
Then there was the little earring Bismillah wore, this in
violation of some versions of Islam yet a mark of the
Catholicism of his own…”
Upon
the artist’s death the government of his home state, Uttar
Pradesh, announced the setting up of an Academy to honour
his memory. Typical of topsy-turvy Bihar where Bismillah
Khan arrived in this world, I did not read of any
forthcoming tribute from this state. The Mauritian group I
met again later seemed to be totally unaware of Bismillah
Khan’s demise, or at least it never came up in the
conversations.
My
most wonderful hours were also spent at Chennai’s unique
British Council Library, three bookshops -- Higginsbotham,
Bookpoint and the Landmark (in Spencer Plaza) – the
Government Museum, and of course the historical sites along
the Marina, India’s longest and the world’s second
longest beach. The hottest too, but you do put with the
discomfort when history hails to you from several centuries
away. My old auto-rickshaw driver did not raise an eyebrow
when I asked him to take me to the cemetery in Pallavan
Salai.
I
take my hat off to Ananda Chandra Mishra of the Bookpoint
for turning me into the happiest schoolboy. He searched for
my books, from God knows where in Chennai, and found a
number of them! And Ms Bhuvaneswari, Head, Library
and Information Services of Chennai’s British Council
emailed me yesterday with regard to suggestions I had made.
She will be reading Mauritius Times on the internet.
From
Chennai’s beach, I stared lengthily at the Bay of Bengal.
The route of an immigrant ship in 1859, the Earl of Derby,
lay not far off across the horizon. At least one soul in
that city shared my feelings – my faithful rickshaw
driver.
Of
course the memorial stones in the museum, many dating back
to the first century, exhibits that attract very few
visitors, took me back to the ancient Tamil tombs in
Souillac cemetery.
On
my last day in Chennai I met Swami Pranavanandaji
Saraswati of our Chinmaya Mission. I asked Swamiji about the
unwavering dignity I had noticed in the people of Chennai.
‘Of
course there is dignity,’ was his spontaneous reply, ‘they
are not afraid of work and they are happy at it.’
Upon
my return home I chanced to look up ‘Madras’ in the 1960
edition of Larousse dictionary. After some cursory twenty or
so words on its geographical location and economy, this
dictionary basks in a eulogy: ‘Assiégée en
1746 par La Bourdonnais.’ What it failed to say
was that this demigod of Mauritian history literally
plundered the town and its surrounding villages.
T.S.
Ramyead
tramyead@yahoo.com
|
