TALES of
OLD AND NEW
MADRAS
THE DALLIANCE OF MISS MANSELL
and 37 other stories of 375 years
TALES of
OLD AND NEW
MADRAS
THE DALLIANCE OF MISS MANSELL
and 37 other stories of 375 years
S. MUTHIAH
East West Press
61, 2nd Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095
93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002
First published by Affiliated East West Press 1989
This revised edition published by East West Press 2014
First ebook edition: 2015
Copyright S. Muthiah, 1989
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-93-85724-79-4
Typeset by: PrePSol Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.
Disclaimer
Due care and diligence has been taken while editing and printing the book, neither the Author, Publisher nor the Printer of the book hold any responsibility for any mistake that may have crept in inadvertently. Westland Ltd, the Publisher and the printers will be free from any liability for damages and losses of any nature arising from or related to the content. All disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of competent courts in Chennai.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.
Contents
2014
PREFACE
T his book was first published in 1989. It had a collection of 35 tales, one for every decade in number but not one for every chronological decade. This was a personal tribute to Madras 350 years old that year. This edition is a collection of 38 tales, one for every decade of Madras that is now Chennai and which is 375 years old this year. They are, as they were then, the choice of an author whose enthusiasm is unbounded for a city to which India owes so much and which he wishes to share with those with a similar affection for an untenanted sandy spit that grew into one of the great metropolises of the world. The vignettes I present here are the most entertaining stories or narratives of the most significant happenings of a three hundred year and more history.
Whether the date of the deed granting that sliver of sand to the English East India Company is July 22, 1639, or, as mentioned in one record, on August 22, 1639, is not reason enough to doubt its authenticity. For those seeking proof of the year of that deed, there are enough archival records in Madras and London to substantiate a genesis that is more than an article of faith. As well authenticated is the completion of the work on the initial factory and the christening of it on St. Georges Day April 23, 1640 as Fort St. George. And that factor Francis Day, his dubash Beri Timmappa, and their superior, the East India Companys Agent for the Coromandel Coast, Andrew Cogan, were the negotiators and founders is equally well recorded. That none of them is remembered in the city they founded is as sad as the lack of recognition of many of the events that have occurred in the years since they founded the city. Perhaps these tales will help stir a few memories and prick a few consciences.
These 38 tales are not new. Many of them are twice-told. Certainly most of them have appeared in print somewhere or the other, at some time or another. *Many of them first appeared in Aside , that first of all Indian city magazines, another Madras first. Others saw the light of day in hotel and airline magazines in India and in newspapers and journals abroad. One appeared in my book Parrys 200 . And several of them appeared as abridged tales of Once Upon a City in the enlarged second edition of my Madras Discovered , published by Affiliated East-West. A few have not appeared anywhere else.
But published as a collection, they have something more to offer than mere reading entertainment. I hope these tales of Old and New Madras will help create both a portrait and a depiction of the character of a city which has, over the years, deserved better. In that process, if these tales help all those who can do something about it to get the significance of historic Madras recognised in the Indian context today, this volume would not have been in vain. If, on the other hand, Madras continues to go unrecognised, then I hope the reader would at least have enjoyed the tales the following pages tell.
S. MUTHIAH
Chennai, July 2014
* A note to the reader : All the stories that first appeared in print are published exactly as they were except for factual corrections necessitated by later findings. Much water has flowed under the bridge since then and changes in Madras that is Chennai may have occurred. But I have not made changes to keep up with those changes; by leaving the tales as they were, they retain a flavour of Madras at the time they were written between the 1970s and 2014 and provide, as well, a glimpse of my mind at the time. The dates heading the stories are when the seminal event of each tale occurred.
1639
FORGOTTEN FOUNDERS
T here is little doubt that Madras was the idea of Francis Day, a hard-drinking, enthusiastic gambler and lusty womaniser, who was the factor of John Companys dilapidated shop at Armagon (Durgarayapatnam), some way to the north of the site chosen for the new factory. It was his idea, his choice this surf-lashed, exposed spit of land whose only protection was the river that rounded it on two sides and the sea on the third, making it in effect a narrow peninsula. It was also Day who negotiated terms with the local powers and got the grant. And to Days slightly more correct boss at Masulipatnam, Andrew Cogan, goes the credit for encouraging the boisterous Day, making the first official landing, building the first fort, and colonising the place. The irony is that neither Day nor Cogan nor their Indian aides, Beri Timmappa, the dubash who became Chief Merchant, and Nagabattan, the gun-powder-maker of the Company both of whom were on the first official voyage are remembered in the City!
Days own explanation for choosing the unprotected site was that its hinterland provided excellent long Cloath and better Cheape by 20 per cent than anywhere else! A noted gossip of the times, however, had it that the choice was determined by Day having a mistress at Portuguese San Thom so that their interviews might be the more frequent and uninterrupted. Whether this was indeed the case is a matter for conjecture, but that there was a mistress involved is fact: a friend and successor to the charge of Madras, Harry Greenhill, also succeeded to the willing gentlewoman!
Whatever his reasons, Day needed someone to negotiate on his behalf the initial grant. Beri Timmappa was that intermediary and to him we owe the most intriguing answer to Why Madras, the name?
The site granted to Day for the factory was a strip of land about five km long and about two km wide, on which were a couple of fishing villages, where lived a few migrant fisher families. As legend would have it, Day did not have much luck with the rather independent headman of the two villages, a Catholic named Madarasen, whose plantain garden was the site chosen for the fort. Which is where Timmappa stepped in and promised to get the factory called Madarasenpatnam, if the headman would only agree to his thope being taken over.
