From Homo erectus to IT Expressway: A Short Biography of Madras
by Nivedita Louis
Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow,
Wonderful kisses, so that I became
Crowned above Queens — a withered beldame now,
Brooding on ancient fame.– Rudyard Kipling on Madras
(Song of the Cities)
Have you ever asked the city this question, “How old are you?” Most of us would think 370 odd years, as the city celebrates ‘Madras month’ every August with much fanfare. Some will say Mylapore has been mentioned in Sangam literature dating back to 2000 years. What if I say the city is 1.5 million years old? Yes, that is the truth. In 1863, British geologist and archaeologist, Robert Bruce Foote, discovered a quartzite stone axe belonging to the human species Homo erectus that roamed Pallavaram, 1.5 million years ago. The discovery proved that this city has seen civilization even before the first man of the species Homo sapiens was born.
Around 300 BC, the Iron Age man built burial monuments in the form of dolmens and stone circles of megaliths near Tiruporur. A renowned archaeologist, Dr. Gift Siromoney, records such dolmens 100 meters east of GST road near Guduvancheri railway station. Little would have Guduvancheri Govindaswamy realized of the archaeological importance of his suburb. Down the line in history, we find temples of Kundrathur, Poonamallee, Saidapet, Tirumayilai, Tiruvanmiyur, and Tiruvottiyur mentioned in inscriptions and literature. The temples of Mahabalipuram offer clues to the rule of Pallava Kings, a glorious period of ‘Thondai Naadu’. In fact, the area was named ‘Thondai Naadu’ after the ‘Aathondai’ or ‘Thondai’ creepers, the pink and white flowers of which adorned the garlands of Pallava Kings. The Pallavaram cave temple excavated by Mahendravarman I (600-630 CE), is said to be the earliest cave temple in proximity to the city, which is now a place of Muslim worship.
Thirugnana Sambandar’s ‘Thevaram’ of 7th century records the death and revival of the life of ‘Poompavai’ of Mylapore. The travel account of Marco Polo of 12th century clearly proves the existence of ‘Nestorians’ – a clan of St. Thomas Christians at the ‘Mount of St. Thomas’ on the Coromandel Coast. The legend of St. Thomas, his arrival in Madras and his killing is believed till date, by a majority of Christians of the country. All this is said to have happened in 2nd century CE. The Fort of San Thome, built by the Portuguese remained a seat of power even before the British arrived in the 17th Century. We also see the region being ruled by a line of kings – Pallavas, Cholas, Cheras, Pandiyas and the Vijayanagara dynasty. Then came the Golconda Sultanate and Nawabs of Arcot. The city has been changing hands frequently from ruler to ruler and has thrived.
The best character of Madras has been its inclusivity; the adage ‘Vantharai vazhavaikkum Thamizhagam’ can easily be substituted to the State capital. In 1639, when Francis Day and Andrew Cogan set foot on ‘Narimedu’, little did they know that they would be sowing the seeds of a city of mammoth proportions. Damarla Venkatadri Nayak and his brother Ayyappa Nayak were the ones who wooed the British to the city. The British wanted a trading post and the proximity to sea was a huge draw for them. The area granted to the British was a river island between Cooum and Elumbore rivers, where they set up their first settlement. As they say, the rest is history.
The first structure the British constructed in the city is the Fort St. George, aptly named, as parts of the structure were completed just before St. George’s Day, in 1640. The whole fort took 14 years to complete, with buildings lining the northern and southern side of it, called the ‘White Town’. As the fort was constructed, the British lured labour from everywhere. They had boatmen from Masulipatnam, carpenters, potters, weavers and fishermen from all over the Coromandel Coast – all these tradespeople settled to the other side of White Town – ‘the Black Town’. The first settlers who came from India might have been the weavers and construction labourers that we never know. ‘Chinnatharipettai’ was set up as a prime weaving centre, as the British eyed their prized export cotton. The ‘Madras Checks’ evolved in the looms of Madras. ‘Kosapet’ was the settlement of potters and there was even a ‘Tinnevelly Settlement’ to the North of Black Town, where people from that part settled down.
The city of Madras shaped up slowly, the First Line Beach was a prime property then. Mount Road didn’t even exist then, indigo and wheat were cultivated on parts of Mount Road near Saidapet, where the British set up the Agriculture College. We owe a lot to the infrastructure built by the British, the major waterway of the city Buckingham Canal, the arterial roads, the administrative buildings including the Ripon Building, High Court and the Secretariat at Fort St. George where the Government functions even today.
Imagine how beautiful the cityscape might have looked then – trains snaking into Central railway station; 120 feet long boats sailing straight opposite to it in the Buckingham Canal, bringing in tobacco from Coastal Andhra and carrying rice and betel leaves from Madras to Nellore; trams sneaking at snail’s pace on the bridge above it and jhutkas clambering along the roads. The red Indo-Saracenic buildings were the gifts of Henry Irwin and Robert Chisholm to the city. And who can forget the gardens of the city? The 112 acres People’s Park behind the Central station, the 22 acres Agri-Horticulture gardens of Madras on either side of Cathedral road, ‘The Saidapet Nopalry’, Anderson’s gardens and the several other numerous gardens provided green cover to the city which is now unfortunately reduced to tiny specks of green in a concrete jungle.
The Black Town by itself was a potpourri of culture; there were Armenians, Jews, local settlers, boatmen, Chinese, Mestizos, Portuguese, French and what not. The Armenian communities were wealthy businessmen who owed their allegiance to the British; they were even positioned as aldermen in the Corporation of Madras. Khoja Petrus Woskan, an Armenian, built the stone steps of St. Thomas Mount and repaired the Marmalong Bridge that connected Saidapet with the Mount. The quaint Armenian church on Armenian street and its 300 odd graves speak of their presence in the city, even centuries later. Even today we find Chinese dentists occupying Black Town’s narrow alleys. The General Hospital was a boon to the city, founded by the British in 1664 to treat its soldiers. 350 years old GH was the first medical institution in the country. The Madras Harbour was constructed by the British almost two centuries after they arrived. Probably the need for a harbour was not felt till then, as the boatmen plied the ‘masula’ boats commuting in men and material from the ships anchored a mile or two away from the coast.
The St. Mary’s Church was the first among the many beautiful churches built by the British. However, the oldest church of the Coromandel – Nossa Senhora da Luz, simply the ‘Luz Church’, was built in 1516, by the Portuguese. Incidentally, this is one of the oldest European monuments in India. The British set up a proper mail system, laid roads, introduced automobiles, railways, airplanes, and hell, even ice-creams to the city! Any invention in England reached the shores of Madras within a year or so. The first rails of the country were laid in Madras in 1836-1837. The Redhills Railroad railway was constructed to ferry huge boulders from Red Hills to Cochrane’s Canal. The first railway station of South India was constructed in Royapuram in 1856 and the first train was operated from there. The terminus was very busy till the construction of the Central and Egmore stations much later.
Ice was something this party of the country had never seen until Tudor Ice Factory set up their warehouse – the Ice House. Huge blocks of ice arrived by ship from Boston, US, enduring the months’ long journey. Only then did we see the city’s first ice-creams – ‘Jafar’s Icecream’ on Mount Road was one of the pioneers. The theatres, the parade grounds, island ground where the city’s first flight was tested by Corsican Hotelier D’Angelis, the race course that teemed with people of all races and kinds – the city was a cosmopolitan hotbed of culture back then. Festivals of Madras right from ‘Uriyadi’ of ‘Kaladipet Kalyana Varadaraja Perumal’ Temple to St. Thome Feast, almost all religious festivals were celebrated with vigour, 200 years ago. We did have Triplicane’s famed Muharram processions too, all meticulously recorded by the Europeans.
The education system in place today, is again one of the best gifts of Europeans. The missionaries of various Christian rites were keen in establishing schools and colleges all over the city, to provide education, and conversions, of course, were an added advantage to them. Dorothy De La Hey, founded the city’s first women’s college – Queen Mary’s. Presidency College, Madras University, Women’s Christian College – all sprang up one after the other. Banks and financial institutions lined up along the First Line Beach. The native communities slowly learnt the ropes and entered the education and banking sector.
The city was a bone of contention when the states were formed on linguistic basis. The ‘ThaniThamizh Iyakkam’ and Dravidian forces fought full steam to retain the city or it would have been lost to Andhra Pradesh. For well over a decade, the fight raged on until it was finally settled in 1953, by Nehru. We came this close to losing the city!
The city has encouraged change always and today’s IT parks, malls, and apartment complexes replace the old structures faster. So is the influx of labour from every part of the world into the city- be it a blue-collar job or a white-collar one. We find Oragadam, Sriperumbudur, and Siruseri – all teeming with foreign nationals who have made the city home. We find labourers from the North and the North East of India, who have amalgamated into the mainstream and blended so well, all over the city. People have changed. The city has not. As always, it welcomes anyone with open hands, with the same warmth with which it welcomed Homo erectus into its soil. To keep the city alive, all we need to do is, be a little sensitive in maintaining the heritage structures and caring for the water bodies. The city has supported man for 1.5 million years and it sure will, for million more years.
Nivedita Louis is a prominent historian of ‘Madras’ who lives in Chennai.
The Madras Magazine 