It is extraordinary how things come together. August is here, and when that happens, my thoughts turn towards Madras Week. It feels like yesterday when S. Muthiah, along with Vincent DeSouza and Sashi Nair, came up with this idea, and yet 19 years have gone by. It will make Chief, as I always referred to Muthiah, very happy. He always believed that any initiative needed time to develop, and in this, he included the heritage movement. Time and again I would lament about some buildings being demolished, and he never lost hope — the time would come, he would say.
Sure enough, it seems that what he said has come true. All over the city, I see government-owned heritage buildings being restored. There are questions being raised over whether these are being done scientifically and whether the restoration is being documented. While these are valid concerns, what is heartening is that these edifices are not being ground to dust. Rajaji Hall, the VP Hall, the Veterinary College building, the Mint, and Chepauk Palace are all in various stages of restoration. I can see Muthiah smiling and saying, “I told you so.”
The growth of interest in heritage is also extraordinary. The media coverage is extensive, including social media. Newspapers now devote space to heritage buildings. And there again, in my view, Muthiah had an enormous role to play. Through Madras Musings, now happily in its 33rd year, and his columns in The Hindu, he kept his interest in Chennai’s heritage alive and made sure that more and more people got attracted by it. In this regard, I consider his Madras Miscellany column, which he wrote for almost two decades for The Hindu, to be particularly significant. He just did not keep it restricted to his writing; he made it a participatory exercise, and that accounted for its huge success.
A glorious run
There was the Postman’s Knock, which was the subhead under which he acknowledged contributors to the column. He gave credit where it was due and was generous in praising anyone who gave him new information. And he was gracious when some people sent in corrections. What more did a column need for its success? It had a glorious run. And it must be added here that he never missed a single week. The articles were planned before he needed to travel. A column appeared even the week after his wife passed away. The first 10 years of Miscellany were compiled into a book, and the rest, I am sure, would find a ready readership if they were ever brought out as a volume.
What is there to be written after his immense corpus of work? He himself indicated the answer once in a discussion — plenty, he said. The city is always growing, and so it creates history all the time. And as he also astutely observed, much of what is documented remains stuck in the colonial era. There is a lot more to be done, and then there are always subaltern studies, which can be endless. He went on to add that while awareness about heritage is growing, it is still superficial. A lot more needs to be done so that it becomes part of our collective consciousness.
So it is with these objectives in mind that I take up writing this column. I dedicate every word that is written here to Madras which is Chennai and to Muthiah, the man who defined what the heritage of the city meant for me.
More to follow in the coming weeks.
