WE CARE FOR MADRAS THAT IS CHENNAI

MUSINGSVol. XXI No. 18 January 1-15, 2012

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INSIDE

• Short ‘N’ Snappy

• Needed: State Capital Region

• The artist supreme

• From Tamil into English

• Crores due to temple

(By The Editor)

(Continued on page 6 )

Aiyo, aiyo, why is he singing withso much kolaveri !!

Veri too muchNo, not easy being a P-I-P (Per-

son in Charge) these days.Flying shoes, slaps... citizens are

on the ready, expressing disen-chantment with word andgesture.

And now ... smash hits that singof ‘Veri’.

Dangerous word – ‘Veri’.Could give people ideas – always a

possibility when creative typesfire the imagination of themany-headed.

Dangerous thing – Imagination.Starts people thinking ...Then who knows where that will

lead?Given that there’s so much to be

‘veri-ed’ about, perhaps they’llgo: Why only, why only, whyonly ONE veri, di?

(You’ll now have to do the beatin your heads, guys.)

Garbage pile-o-pile,Potholes very danger,Water everywhere, but not in

tap-u,Encroachments ignored-u,But nice buildings threatened-u,Traffic rules-uNon-existent-uPrices risingSimply no limit-uHonest peoples no have moneyBut whom we trustedSimply galtha-fy-ing-uSo very, very, very much to be veri-

ed about, di ...Hmmm ... word on the street is

that authority figures arenervous, while crowned headsapparently sleep uneasy thesedays.

Well, that’s what happens whenpromises aren’t kept.

Will this New Year at least bringenlightenment?

The realisation that ‘GoodLeader’ is a title to be earned ...not merely won like a prize in acontest?

Hopefully...Then, life will be very good, and

veri-less, no?

Ranjitha Ashok

A tragedy that couldhave been

averted

Let’s make Music Seasona city festival

(By A Special Correspondent)

(Continued on page 7)

What happened on Christmas Day bringing tears to the eyesof many when news filtered through of the death by drown-

ing of 22 people in what was to have been a joy ride at Pulicat Lakecould well have been averted if only successive Governments hadpaid heed to suggestions, proposals and project reports by severalorganisations to make Pulicat a major tourist destination. But hav-ing paid no attention to these recommendations, all it can now dois to make the usual excuses – safety standards ignored, absence oflife-jackets, etc. The Government has gone on to make predictablemoves – announcement of solatiums, rushing of ministers and top-ranking officials to the site, and promises of action. But will all thisresult in any change as far as ground reality is concerned? CanPulicat become a tourist destination of international standards?Rather ironically, the disaster has come just weeks after the StateGovernment announced a package to boost tourism in TamilNadu.

Pulicat Lake is one of theoldest waterbodies in this re-gion. Some put its age as over amillion years. Its historicity ismore recent, beginning whenthe Dutch made it their chiefBay of Bengal base around 500years ago. It has, therefore, ru-ins and archaeological finds inaddition to natural beauty. Italso happens to support a frag-ile eco-system with locals prac-tising agriculture and fishing.There is a bird sanctuary in the

Andhra Pradesh side of Pulicatand the lake supports aquaticvegetation of various kinds. Italso hosts flamingos in theirthousands during the seasons.There is a beach and sanddunes. Thrown in historictemples, mosques and churches,you have an ideal mix for tour-ism. Yet, very little has beendone to exploit it, though fornearly twenty years there has

The December festival today does not begin from December15th and end on January 1st as it did a couple of decades ago.

It now spans the period mid-November to the middle of January,even dragging on after that. With the weather being tolerable atthis time of the year in our city, it has become a season fortourists and NRIs as well. All this makes it an ideal festivalpackage to market all-India as well as internationally. Yet noth-ing has been done about it.

Last heard, it was in 2006 that the Government mulled oversuch an idea and even announced that it would work with theMusic Academy in bringing out a paper on the subject. Whathappened to that project is not known. An earlier attemptpromoted by the Confederation of Indian Industry did not gobeyond a few tea sessions, largely because there was little at-tempt at getting the event a broader base and wider public andtrade participation. Writing about this in February 2002, theEditor of this journal had urged that the group needs to “stoptalking and get down to look at some of the suggestions madefor such a festival.” Some of the suggestions then given included:●●●●● An art, heritage and theatre festival on Pantheon Road. The

Museum Complex, with the Art Gallery and the MuseumTheatre, would be a perfect venue for this. Shopping andeating out will be added attractions here.

●●●●● Nungambakkam High Road, Cathedral Road-Dr. Radha-krishnan Salai as a stretch for a food and music festival. Thestretch has some of the best and most frequented hotels, res-taurants and food stores in town. The Music Academy couldserve as the venue for music concerts and visitors could moveabout the long stretch to savour the food of their choice.

●●●●● A beach music festival on Kamarajar Salai with the Marina asthe backdrop.All these suggestions hold good even today and no doubt,

can be implemented fairly easily if only some thought is given tothe methodology.

What the Government ought not to do would be to start offone more music festival and join the bandwagon of sabha-sdishing out awards and concert opportunities. What it needs todo is to facilitate the conduct of the cultural season by providing

Pulicat Lake.

2 MADRAS MUSINGS January 1-15, 2012

TN needsState CapitalRegion

� by K.R. Thooyavan

Metropolitan cities are generally found to grow fast and, as aresult, influence the adjoining areas, causing rapid change in

land use patterns, demand for infrastructure, and rapid in-migration. This leads to changes of municipal corporation limits soas to improve the life of the people.

Chennai is no exception to this. Its municipal coporation limithas been extended several times. Recently, more areas have beenadded to the city.

The Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) has been delimited toan extent of 1180 sq.km prior to the First Master Plan and hasbeen unchanged for planning during the Second Master Planperiod.

Whatever be the planning, the CMA is not able to cope withthe demand, and the gap between the requirements and what isbeing provided is widening. Hence, there is need to look for a betterapproach and base for planning and development.

A new approach has been found in the case of Delhi, with aNational Capital Region (NCR) created in September 2005. TheNCR conurbation, comprising the National Capital Territory ofDelhi, a Haryana sub-region, a Rajasthan sub-region, and an UttarPradesh sub-region was planned with a total area of about33,578 sq.km.

A similar scheme has been contemplated for some time for theChennai Metropolitan Planning Area. Steps were taken by theGovernment of Tamil Nadu to constitute a Metropolitan PlanningCommittee for Chennai under the 74th Constitutional amendmentto prepare an investment plan for the CMA. But the committeethat would provide budget allocation and co-ordination between

The Music Season is at itspeak even as The Man

from Madras Musings is put-ting finger to keyboard (bywhich he means the keyboardof his computer and not themusical variety). At everysabha, even as MMM poundsaway on the keys like a percus-sion artiste trying his best toimpress everyone at a concert,someone is even now singing.And more importantly, atmany sabhas, there are chefssupreme producing their bestfare at the canteens.

MMM is aware of somesabhas that do not offer culi-nary delights but he prefersnot to have any contact withthem. For, come December,MMM and good lady (alsoknown as She Who Must BeObeyed), shut kitchen anddining room and prefer to eatout and also entertain at thesecanteens.

Now those of you who havenever been to such placesshould not imagine that whatthey have to offer is cordonbleu or something out of someguide to fine dining. And as forimbibing any libations, forgetit, the best you can hope for iscoffee, and that of the finest

another aspect of the canteen.Food here is ever-fresh forsuch is the daily turnout of pa-trons (no matter that the sabhamay be near-empty inside)that there is no question of anyleftovers. What more can youask for?

Plenty really. Some betterhygiene for one. Most of theseplaces have no provision fordisposal of food waste. And so,as the Season progresses,MMM finds that all the refuseis collected in plastic bags andkept to one side. This is in thecleanliness-minded sabhas.The garbage trucks come inonce every few days and clearit all up. But the sight of thebags piling up is not anappetising one. In the lesserplaces, waste is simply tippedinto the closest drain, whichsoon clogs up. You then havethe familiar sight of the drain-cleaning machine in action, ofwhich MMM has written ingraphic detail several monthsago. The end result is a smallmound of sewage, which hasbeen removed from the drain.This smells to the high heav-ens, where if you recollectShakespeare, music is alsopresent.

in which flotsam and jetsamare clearly visible.

That said, there is norecord of anyone falling illafter eating in a sabha canteen.There must be a musical godin charge of small things.

The name game

This never-ending sport ofthe Government is on in

full swing once again, or soThe Man from Madras Musingslearns from his moles that areclose to the action. There istalk in the air of renamingroads and areas. Presumably,with health-care having takencare of the more visible memo-rials of the previous regime,focus has shifted to the intan-gibles.

In this context MMM won-ders as to what purpose all thisserves. He would also like topoint out that existing streetnames are badly mangled andwould not a better service bedone if these are restored totheir former glory so to speak?The other day someone askedMMM who MK of MKAmman Koil Street was. Strik-ing clear of any political un-

The canteen cutcheri-s

The cloth with which thewaiters wipe the tables afterpatrons have left (and SouthIndian food is messy) mayhave begun life spotless white(and MMM has his doubts)but as time wears on it trans-forms itself to a brown andthen a grey, rather like a skin-whitening cream working inthe reverse. It also acquires anodour of its own which be-comes all permeating. You cansmell it on the dishes, the steeltumblers and also on the tablesurfaces. But perhaps that toois part of the joy of eating incanteens.

The ‘hand wash’, as MMMbelieves the expression is, isanother area that leaves muchto be desired. Given our hab-its, most patrons believe this tobe a place where they canclean every possible orifice inthe body that is above thewaist (thankfully), with a lot ofaccompanying noise. And thedrain spots at these placescould be a lot better to put itmildly. At one place, MMMwas surprised to find a largishvessel being filled with waterfrom one of the taps in the‘hand wash’. MMM asked withsome trepidation as to whetherthis was the drinking waterthat was served. “Oh no,”came the answer. “We use itto make ice!” MMM fled.Close to the ‘hand wash’ is alsothe space where the vessels arewashed. This becomes a kindof inland lake, a Sargasso sea,

SHORT ’N’ SNAPPY

variety. As for the other, andmost inferior, namely tea, it isnot to be had at these places.You are probably better offhaving it at one of those wayside joints where the concoc-tion is perpetually on the boiland is often filtered throughthe same rag that is used towipe the table and if you ob-ject to that, then probably anold sock.

But to get back to the can-teen, this is where you getSouth Indian vegetarian foodat its best. That is food ofwhich you do not know whatthe ingredients were or are,how they were sourced (inor-ganic, organic or geneticallymodified) and how they wereprepared (cholestrol-free oiland some saturated fat), butwhich tastes good to the palateand that is all that matters. Al-most everything here is deep-fried but, as all that is good inlife is either sinful or fattening,there is very little you can doabout it.

And as for the prices, rockbottom would not be a suffi-ciently indicative expression.MMM is not exaggeratingwhen he says that five peoplebreakfasting at a canteenwould probably be paying asmuch as one person in an up-market restaurant for foodthat was probably re-heatedand served from the previousday.

And that brings MMM to

dertones, MMM had to clarifythat MK stood for Mundaga-kanni, a Goddess for whom afairly old temple stands on thesame thoroughfare. She, saidMMM, was clearly abovepolitics. Similarly, try askingany auto or taxi to take you toRajah Annamalai Puram. Youdraw a blank. It is only whenyou say RA Puram that theyrealise what you are talkingabout. Similarly there is asignboard that states CVRama Road. If such per-sonalities are being forgotten,what price any fresh namechanges.

New hopes

Time is fast running outfor 2011 and The Man

from Madras Musings is jollyglad that he is seeing the lastof it. For all that MMM waxeseloquent on nostalgia, he isquite glad to see time march-ing on. At heart he is an opti-mist and on every 1st Januaryhe puts on rose-tinted spec-tacles and looks with newhopes. And heaven knows weneed a number of new hopesfor the coming (or, by the timeyou read it, the current) year.And so, keep smiling at every-one. It may not change any-thing, but it keeps you goingand, above all, improves yourface value.

– MMM

the various agencies, which obviously involves implementation ofplans and programmes in the CMA, is yet to take off.

According to the latest census, Kancheepuram Districtwitnessed a population growth rate of 39 per cent compared to 19per cent in the previous census. For Thiruvallur, it has been 35 percent versus 23 per cent. These are much higher than 13 per centfor Chennai. Given this fact, these two districts may have to beincluded in the region being considered.

The question now is how to evolve a region that will lead to anintegrated approach for an entity comprising the city municipalcorporation and metropolitan planning area, along with portionsof two districts. A critical issue may be the decision on rural areaslike Oothukottai and Madhuranthagam, whether to include orexclude them from the mega region while planning conurbation.

The aim of the plan for a mega region, viz. the State CapitalRegion for Tamil Nadu (SCRT), should be promotion of growthand balanced development of the whole region, providing aneconomic base for urban and rural settlements, efficient transportnetwork, development of physical infrastructure, rational land usepattern, and an improved environment and quality of life. All therequirements could be taken care of by good capital budgeting forintegrated development, which is possible by a single Authority tobe formed for the SCRT – (Courtesy: Our Building andConstruction).

MADRAS MUSINGS

ON THE WEB

To reach out to as many readers as possible who share ourkeen interest in Madras that is Chennai, and in response torequests from many well-wishers – especially from outsideChennai and abroad who receive their postal copies very late– for an online edition. Madras Musings is now on the web atwww.madras musings.com

THE EDITOR

January 1-15, 2012 MADRAS MUSINGS 3

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The Mylapore Festival

The Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival opens on January 5th.The four-day festival of the arts and heritage will be held in

the Sri Kapali Temple precincts as usual.

A new production titled Vanna Mayil will be premiered duringthe Festival. Vanna Mayil has dance and creative choreography byGuru Revathi Ramachandran and centres on the less known com-munities who have enriched the life of the Mylapore region. Usingdance, narration, visuals and music, the production will featureneighbourhood artistes and will be staged on all four evenings ofthe Festival at the main stage in Sannidhi Square. The annualKolam Contest will be held on North Mada Street during week-end. For registration call Sharadha at 94457 64499 (10 a.m. to1 p.m. only).

This year, Andhra Pradesh-based traditional puppeteers led byGuru Ramanna will perform stories from the Ramayana on twoevenings. This has been made possible by DakshinaChitra.Another well-known puppeteer, Guru Selvaraj, will present BhaktaPrahlada on two other evenings in Sannidhi Square. At the samevenue, the Anusham Dance Group led by Narendra and Anushawill present Shakthi, a dance ballet on Saturday evening (January7th).

Another new dance drama that will be staged at the Fest isMargazhi Neerada Magizhnthelor Empavai by students of VaneeKalalaya, Chennai, with Guru Vanee Gayathri Bala in the lead.This one-hour-long show will be staged on Sunday, January 8evening, at Sannidhi Square.

This year, the hugely popular Art Street will be in the streetalong the tank of Sri Kapali Temple, with entry from South MadaStreet. Students from Stella Maris and NIFT will set up stalls toshowcase their creative works and sell products. Closeby, membersof Self Help Groups funded by the Government of Tamil Nadu willsell products they produce or source.

New at the Food Street will be the Kerala specials with cooksfrom Palghat present. Celebrated artisans who create handicraftsin wood, stone and metal have been invited through the TamilNadu Handicrafts Corporation to present demos during weekend.This will take place alongside the theradi.

A series of workshops and contests for children has been linedup too. The hugely popular contests in pallankuzhi and dayakattamare also scheduled. There are also four Walks – all on Sunday,January 8.

The Festival will be curated by Vincent D’Souza; the FestDirector R. Revathi is the Fest Coordinator.

For further information, www.mylaporefestival.com ore-mail at mylaporefestival@yahoo.com

The most intriguing invitation Madras Musings has received in a long time has been for

An exhibition on children’s literature is organised by the Arts Management Students of Madras CraftFoundation. The exhibtion will trace the path of children’s literature in India from the past to the present day.It will also explain how Indian traditional art forms have been used in books as illustrations.The exhibition ison till January 31, 2012 at DakshinaChitra (for details: 2747 2603/2747 2783). Till January 31: A retrospective of

P. Perumal’s paintings and draw-ings. Perumal is an impromptupainter who emerged from theMadras College of Arts andCrafts in the 1960s, havingtrained under KCS Paniker, RoyChowdury, Dhanapal and others(at DakshinaChitra).

Till February 2: The Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan,Chennai, Habitat Forum Berlin,School of Architecture and Plan-ning, Anna University, and CityConnect, Chennai, are organi-sing an architecture contesttitled Human Space – CulturalSpace.

This is an idea competitionfor an MRTS Station in Chennaiand is open for participationbetween November 29, 2011 andFebruary 2, 2012. Open to stu-dents or recent graduates fromschools of architecture in TamilNadu, the University of Tech-nology, Berlin, and its Indianpartners. Application forms to:

hscs 2012@gmail.com. For moreinformation log on to website:http://cms.goethe.de/ins/in/che/kue/en8508383v.htm

* * *

Nizhal Marghazhi tree walks

These are family walks, andNizhal would like every adult tobring at least one child below 15!

Each walk will last about an hour.

Note: Guindy Children’s Parkand Semmozhi Poonga charge anentrance fee, and participantsmust buy their own tickets. Thewalks are otherwise free.

For further details and for regis-tration, please contact 9003011372 or 98400 16872 between10 am and 5 pm.

Semmozhi Poonga – RK Salai

January 7, Saturday 10.30 am

Children’s Park – Guindy

January 8, Sunday 4 pm

* * *

The illustrations above were one side of the invitation. On the other side was the information given below.

January 1-15, 2012 MADRAS MUSINGS 54 MADRAS MUSINGS January 1-15, 2012

Balasaraswati– The artist supreme

Extremes in etiquette

Photographer turned Swamiji

Her abhinaya transcendedall language

Bharata Natyam today is anart form well understood the

world over. And yet, less than100 years ago, the dance wasconsidered contemptible, prac-tised by women who wereequated with prostitutes, andfeaturing songs that were said tobe morally corrupting. Ironically,the dance had for several centu-ries been considered worthy ofthe Gods!

It had originated with theDevadasi tradition, a temple-ori-ented practice and, as timeschanged, it had moved to secularspaces. The last century wit-nessed the separation of dancefrom the Devadasi, who was pre-vented by law from practising hertraditional art. As the art grew tointernational stature, theDevadasi became a term of igno-miny. And with time, all thatfaded out. One woman alonestood firm, remained proud ofher past, practised her art, gotthe world to see its beauty, andgrew to gain fame all over theworld. T. Balasaraswati was thatgreat woman.

As the princely courts de-clined in stature, modern citiessuch as Madras gained promi-nence with several wealthy menresiding in them. The Devadasisand musicians naturally gravi-tated to these metros. One ofthem was Thanjavur Kamakshi,a woman who was known as adancer and singer of great repute.Kamakshi came from an ancientlineage; her ancestors haddanced in the Maratha court ofThanjavur. Kamakshi’s talentand repertoire passed on throughher daughter Sundaram to hergranddaughters Dhanam (1868-1938) and Rupavati. Thoughboth the girls were trained indance, they abandoned the artthanks to the virulence of theanti-Devadasi campaign, andtook to music, a migration thatmost of the community wereattempting, to escape public cen-sure.

Dhanam became a star, butentirely on her own terms. Shetook to the veena and became anexpert on it. Though she ac-quired a large repertoire of songs,she rarely performed in public,practising her art instead in herown narrow home in the con-gested George Town district ofMadras. Moody in temperamentand taciturn and sarcastic inspeech, Dhanam did not seek

adulation or popularity. Yet, itwas this Garbo-like attitude thatenhanced her fame, and to be ather Friday evening performanceswas to be seen as a connoisseurof the arts. Dhanam was neverwell-to-do but her musical worthwas beyond estimation.

Dhanam had four daughtersand the third was Jayammal(1890-1967). And Jayammal’sdaughter was Balasaraswati(b1918). In a music-drencheddomestic atmosphere, Balawanted to take to dance, despitebeing a gifted singer. But the cir-cumstances were hardly propi-tious, for hardly any Devadasifamily contemplated dance as acareer option at the time. Impe-rious Dhanam was dead againstit but such was the insistence ofthe child Bala that, soon, family

opposition was won over. Thetalented Kandappa Pillai wasroped in as guru and Bala’s dancetraining began in right earnest.The training process was tough,for the gurus of those days rarelyexpressed their appreciation andKandappa was tougher thanmost. By 1925, Bala was ready forher formal debut.

This took place in somewhata hush-hush manner at the tinyAmmanakshi Temple in Kan-cheepuram, for, by then, a dancedebut was equated with dedica-tion and could excite public pro-test. Two years later, the Gov-ernment acted. In 1927, Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy piloted aBill in the legislature, demandingthe abolition of the practice ofdedicating women to temples.The Bill became Act V of 1929.The equating of Devadasis withprostitutes hit the communityhard and from then on mostmembers began to move awayfrom the hereditary arts. Hugechunks of musical and dancerepertoire simply vanished. Itwas a massive loss to the world ofCarnatic music and classicaldance.

Bala was then a much-in-de-mand dancer and her skills werepraised by the cognoscenti. Butthose who continued practisingdance were criticised sharply inthe Press by Dr. Reddy, who be-lieved that dance being the mostvisible element of the professionit was as evil as everything else in

it. A reaction to this was inevi-table and came from people likeE. Krishna Iyer, a successful law-yer who had trained in dance andwas a champion of the arts. EK,as he was popularly known, be-gan a campaign for saving dancefrom extinction. In 1931, theMusic Academy, largely at EK’sinsistence, organised the firstpublic performance of classicaldance. It continued to stage sev-eral more performances in thesucceeding years and the com-mon public had an opportunityto witness what had till thenbeen seen only in the homes ofthe rich and at temple festivals.Several people appreciated thebeauties of the art and some up-per caste women wanted to trainin it. The biggest breakthroughcame when Rukmini Devi

Arundale began learning dance.She was to stage her first publicperformance at the Society in1935.

But those who championeddance were not for its Devadasibackground. The art had, there-fore, to be recast. What had allalong been referred to as Sadirwas now rechristened BharataNatyam, with its origins beingtraced from a 2nd Century work,the Natya Sastra. With RukminiDevi as the newfound arbiter ofaesthetics, several hand move-ments, gestures and songs thatwere found ‘unsuitable’ were ex-cised. On the positive side, im-provements were made to stagedécor, the positioning of musi-cians, and the artiste’s costumes.Those from Devadasi back-grounds then found a new oppor-tunity, albeit briefly, as teachersof the art. With time, even thisslowly faded away and severalpractitioners vanished into thedarkness of poverty and want. Asthe number of upper caste per-formers increased, engagementopportunities for hereditarydancers reduced and almoststopped.

This was Bala’s darkest hour.To compound the situation, shehad health problems that madeher gain weight. With severalnubile young women prancingabout on the Bharata Natyamstage, Bala, her background al-ready working against her, lostout further. A bigger blow came

when her tutor and conductor ofher performances, KandappaPillai, left for Almora to joinUday Shankar’s troupe. Ironi-cally, Uday Shankar had been agreat admirer of her dancing.

It was at this time that Balachose to make a shift to whatwould make her stand out –abhinaya, or the mimetic inter-pretation of pada-s, the love-soaked musical pieces that wereher family’s treasures, songs thathad been garnered painstakinglyby grandmother Veena Dhanam.Bala’s mother Jayammal, like hersisters, had a seemingly inex-haustible repertoire of padam-sand with her singing for Bala’sdances, the performances ac-quired an ethereal quality. Balahad an inherent talent for mime,and benefiting greatly from thetutelage of Vedantam Lakshmi-narayana Sastry, a Teluguscholar, she became an expert atit. At a time when speed, danc-ing to conventional kriti-s and auniformity in presentation hadset in as far as the other dancerswere concerned, Bala’s perfor-mances were different. Here yougot to see a different dance and aselect few continued to remainardent champions of her style.

In 1947, the Madras Legisla-tive Council passed its DevadasiAct which banned the perfor-mance of dance by any womaninside a temple, at a religious in-stitution or in a procession of aHindu deity. It brought back tothe fore memories of the 1920sand that meant a further setbackfor Bala, a woman who had al-ways taken pride in her back-ground. It meant a further cut inperformance engagements andshe did not dance through 1946to 1948. Then in 1949, there wasone solitary dance performance.From then on invitations gradu-ally increased, coming in fromBombay, Delhi and Madras. At

this time, Dr. V. Raghavan, oneof India’s foremost Sanskritscholars and an admirer of Bala’s,began encouraging her. He was aSecretary of the Music Academyand in this capacity he encour-aged Bala to set up a danceschool under the auspices of theinstitution which began in 1953.Bala could now disseminate whatshe stood for. Another supporterwas the Tamil Isai Sangam,where Sir R.K. ShanmukhamChetty, businessman, public fig-ure and independent India’s firstFinance Minister, was an impor-tant functionary. He was alsoBala’s consort, the two havingcome together in 1936. Theirdaughter was Lakshmi Shan-mukham Knight, who wouldlater emerge as the torchbearerof the Bala style. Sir Shan-mukham passed away in 1953.

National recognition was slowin coming, though it did happenin fits and starts. In 1955, Balareceived the Sangeet NatakAkademi award instituted in1952 by the Government of In-dia. The Padma Bhushan camein 1957. It was internationalrecognition, however, thatwould turn the tide in Bala’sfavour. That began from 1956when, thanks to the U.S. Consu-late-General, Bala performed forMartha Graham’s troupe whenthey visited Madras. Graham wasto become a lifelong admirer.Even then, a proposed visit as arepresentative of Indian art wasscuttled thanks to babus in dis-tant Delhi objecting to her back-ground. It was left to the formi-dable Kapila Vatsyayan to fightfor Bala.

Beginning from 1960, Balabegan travelling frequentlyabroad. In 1961 it was to Tokyowhere she was received raptur-ously. In 1962 she was at theprestigious Jacob’s Pillow in Mas-sachusetts. And in 1963 she was

performing at the Edinburgh Fes-tival. Between 1962 and 1981she was to teach during twelveresidencies at the Wesleyan Uni-versity. Western audiences couldunderstand all that she conveyedthanks to her abhinaya, whichtranscended all languages. In aflash she was Krishna, Radha,the Gopis and many more. Hervast knowledge of Indian legendsenabled her to mime impromptuand there were no set move-ments for her performance. Inshort, no two dance presenta-tions by Bala were the same.

Back home there was to begreat acclaim too. In 1973, shebecame the only dancer to re-ceive the most prestigious awardin Carnatic Music – the SangitaKalanidhi of the Music Acad-emy. Bala was a talented musi-cian too and her dance had theadded attraction of her singingfor her own abhinaya. In 1978,she received the Desikottamaaward from Shantiniketan.Tagore had once admired herdance and this was but a fittingexpression of that. Audienceswere, however, always limited,but, as Bala herself would havebeen the first to admit, the clas-sical arts were not meant for ev-eryone.

Sadly, hardly anything ofBala’s dance was captured onfilm, barring a fairly mediocredocumentary by Satyajit Ray. Hecould not be entirely faulted, forBala and he did not see eye-to-eye on several issues.

From the late 1970s, Bala’shealth became indifferent. Butthough she had to give up per-forming, she continued teaching,her last disciple perhaps beingAniruddha, her grandson, whotook his first steps under herguidance. He was all of three!The end came for Bala in Febru-ary 1984. Among the first to payrespects was the Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi, who sent awreath by way of tribute. Frombeing ostracised, Bala’s art andall that it stood for had gainedrecognition.

It had been a life of struggle.But well worth it. She had stoodfirm by her ideas of the tenetsand aesthetics of her art andshown that there was a different,older and more traditional formof presentation. And the criticshad been gradually silenced.

Balasaraswati, Her Art and Lifeis a recent biography of the leg-end, written by her son-in-lawand scholar, Douglas M. KnightJr, and published by Westland.An extremely well-written ac-count, it makes for easy reading,with even the most esoteric as-pects of Bharata Natyam ex-plained well and also the strugglethat Bala went through. Thebook does suffer from a few er-rors in a larger historical context,but that does not in any way de-tract from the intensity of thecore story – the life and times ofBalasaraswati.

Alex Ross some time ago wrote a revealing essay on concert eti-quette. We learn that over two centuries ago, the Paris audi-

ence was no better, if not worse, than today’s Chennai rasika-s! Sothere is hope, maybe in 200 years.

When I went to England (Leeds) for the first time in 1947, Iattended a concert (Bach) soon after arrival. Everyone was in place,there was total silence, stillness in the air, not even nodding of heads.I even wondered whether the music went over the audience’s heads;probably they were there only to pass off as highbrow. Used to theunstoppable chatter, visible appreciation and the general fish-mar-ket scenario at Rasika Ranjani Sabha kutcheri-s, it was a novel expe-rience for me. A few days later when I met the Music Professor atthe University refectory, I told him of my experience. He firstlaughed and said that he had visited India and was familiar with therestive audience, who seemed to do everything except conduct busi-ness in the hall. Only at the Bombay Madrigal Society (where MehliMehta, father of Zubin, was the Director) was there a serious con-cert atmosphere. He also said that in the West things were overdonea bit. As for himself, when he conducted, his concentration was socomplete that even a tornado raging at the back of the auditoriumwould not disturb him or his orchestra. But movement of peopleinside the hall was another matter.

In our society, the interaction between audience and artiste isthe other extreme. Our own artistes seem to relish the interruptions– they stop singing to greet a VIP, tolerate loud talam-keeping (ex-cept the tappu-talam) in the front seat; they appreciator doing abhi-naya, and even loud requests for ‘Eppo varuvaro’, ‘Jagajjanani’ andthe famous ‘Chintai arindu vaadi’.

It was Balamurali, I think, who once requested a ‘bad-timer’ tomove to a back seat. Another time, to my embarrassment, I was atthe receiving end. We knew Veena Balachandar well – he had beenour guest in Bangkok and Montreal. During one of his visits toMontreal, we were in India. As it happened, we returned on theafternoon of his performance. I decided to attend the concert in theevening, anyway, and occupied a seat in a corner. Perhaps surprisedto see me, he stopped playing and asked, “Sundaram, eppo vandel?

Bhavani vallaya?” After my monosyllabic response, he resumed theconcert. It is amazing how our vidwan-s just turn off and on againwithout losing a beat, as it were. Maharajapuram Santhanam, atalmost the end of a concert, started Ranganathude, and interruptedhimself to say, “Starting another kutcheri,” and continued where heleft off.

In contrast, Western culture, as Ross says, is “sheer routine andfunereal boredom”. There is a charm in our kind of madness. I don’tthink we would ever want to change the way our artistes and theiraudience (mis)behave. We must of course deal strictly with late-comers who march in and out in the middle of a concert. The sabhaorganisers should lay down the law, with no exception being madefor anyone, in enforcing the rule that no one be allowed into theauditorium in the middle of a song. Likewise, those who are in butwant out should not be allowed to walk out during the rendering ofa song. To that end, the gates should be closed. Latecomers shouldonly be allowed to sit in the back rows.

Lincoln Center (New York) has been presenting the “MostlyMozart Festival” continuously since 1966. It was only this year thatI was able to attend a performance – that too on the opening night!As the title suggested, and was elaborated in the pre-concert lectureand programme sheets, the programmes in the series were not allMozart, but judiciously mixed with the works of other composers ina meaningful way, with connectivity and continuity. The entire fes-tival was designed “to view through the lens of Mozart”, and cel-ebrate his ‘heirs’, Haydn and Mendelssohn, on the 200th anniver-sary of the death of the former and the birth the same day of thelatter.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening, but I had my anxious mo-ments. The programme sheet warned that coughing and rustling ofpapers would disturb the performers as well as the audience. I hadthis persistent dry cough but somehow managed to suppress it withcough drops and sips of water, managing to cough a bit only at thepauses between movements and the interval. God be thanked, Ididn’t have to leave the hall. – (Courtesy: Sruti)

S.P. Sundaram

� Tribute

An obituary notice in TheHindu in October 2011 said

Sreelasree Nachiappa Swamigalof the Koviloor Math had passedaway. It was the end of a mostunusual life – a successfulprofessional in a number of disci-plines connected with thatpremier art institution, Kalak-shetra, to turn a religious head inhis seventies. His years as asanyasi were no less eventful thanhis earlier life, as he began sev-eral activities to promote and ex-pand the religious order heheaded, including running Vedicschools, opening several new pil-grim centres around the world,and bringing out several publica-tions regularly.

Coming from Chettinad,Nachi arrived in Kalakshetra asa youngster and came under theinfluence of Rukmini DeviArundale. He soon became anunderstudy of Conrad Woldring,a well-known Dutch photogra-pher, and in time became a pho-tographer of repute himself. Healso trained in printing, his ex-pertise in letterpress printingtechnology making him a muchsought-after printer in the Westafter offset printing swept theworld, and the old method be-

came almost extinct there. In the1990s, international celebritiesin the arts like Alan Ginsberg,Francesco Clemente andRaymond Foye sought him out tobring out the exotic series ofHanuman Books.

Earlier, Nachiappan offeredthe first microfilming facility inChennai and many organi-sations, including newspaperslike The Hindu, utilised his ser-vices for quite a few years. HisKalakshetra Press was also re-nowned for its reproductions ofcolour photography. He intro-duced to Madras the klischo-graph, an electronic engravingmachine that produced letter-

press printing plates directly froman original without the use of anyintermediate stages.

As a child, Nachiappan hadthe good fortune of learning fromMaria Montessori while she wasin Madras during World War II.He remained devoted toMontessori education all his life,not only running a Montessorischool and teacher training cen-tre, but also publishing a wholeset of books on the great educa-tionist and her work.

A much travelled man,Nachiappan was always keen tointroduce to Kalakshetra andMadras the latest technology hehad learnt abroad.

Sreelasree Nachiappa Swamigal

He used his knowledge ofstage lighting to advantage inKalakshetra’s dance-drama pro-ductions. He will probably be re-membered best for his excellentwork in photography as displayedin his exhibitions and books onKalakshetra and Rukmini Devi.

No feature on him can becomplete without reference tothe controversies that sometimessurrounded him, the court caseshe was involved in, includingsome against close associates atKalakshetra and the Theosophi-cal Society. Nachiappan was 88when he passed away. – (Cour-tesy: Sruti)

V. Ramnarayan

T. Balasaraswati.

READABILITY PLEASEDear Readers,As letters from readers increase, we are receiving more and more handwritten letters, many of them in a hand so small and illegible or largeand scrawled as to be unreadable. Often this leads to our discarding aletter, particularly if some part of it is unreadable.If you wish us to consider your letter for publication, please type it withenough space between lines or write it using a medium hand, clearlydotting the ‘i-s’ and crossing the ‘t-s’.Many readers also try to fill every square centimetre of a postcardspace, making reading or editing impossible.Please help us to consider your letters more favourably by making themmore legible for us.

– THE EDITOR

� by Sriram V.

6 MADRAS MUSINGS January 1-15, 2012

(Current Affairs questions arefrom the period December 1stto 15th. Questions 11 to 20 per-tain to Chennai and TamilNadu.)1. Name the legendary Indian ac-tor-producer-director, called the‘eternal romantic’, who passedaway in London recently.

2. Which team regained theDavis Cup by beating Argentinaat home?

3. The 70th anniversary of whichinfamous attack, which led to theUS entering World War II, wascommemorated on December7th?

4. Which country signed an ac-cession treaty to the EuropeanUnion on December 9th, to be-come the 28th member state onJuly 1, 2013?

5. In which African city was the2011 United Nations ClimateChange Conference held re-cently?

6. Which game recently becamethe fastest selling entertainmentproduct of all time by passing$1billion in sales in just 16 days?

7. Time magazine’s ‘Person of theYear’ is…?

8. Why was December 15th im-portant in the chronicles of theIraq War?

9. Cambridge University has putonline the notebooks of whichcelebrated scientist on whichmuch classical science is based?

10. Which co-founder of a cyber-giant is to build the largest planeever that is capable of launchingrockets?

* * *

11. The first exclusive universityfor women in the country is inTamil Nadu. After whom is itnamed?

12. Whose large statue is at theWhannel’s Road junction nearthe Egmore Station?

13. Who is the current Chief Jus-tice of the Madras High Court?

14. Name the two districts in theState whose names start with the16th letter of the English alpha-bet.

15. Which sabha came about af-ter a ‘censure’ of Mysore T.Chowdiah?

16. Who was the Governor ofMadras when India got its Inde-pendence?

17. In whose honour was ‘Poochi’Srinivasa Iyengar’s Satatatmubrovumayya chakravartini com-posed?

18. Name the first missionary ofthe Church of Scotland afterwhom a 156-year-old place ofworship in Chennai is named.

19. Who, along with DorothyJinarajadasa and Margaret Cous-ins, founded the Women’s IndianAssociation in 1917?

20. In which street near theChenna Kesavaperumal templecan you buy kungumam, manja-podi and similar items in bulk?

(Answers on page 7)

(Continued from page 1)

A PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY

From Tamil into English

� ‘Pages from History’

by DR. A. RAMAN,Charles Sturt University,

Orange, New South Wales, Australia.

The Madras Literary Society& Auxiliary of the Royal

Asiatic Society (MLS-ARAS)appointed a sub-committeecomprising Walter Elliot, W.H.Bayley, and M. Norman to ex-plore ways of writing Indianwords in Roman characters inearly 1858. The Elliot Commit-tee submitted a report (#. 32)to MLS-ARAS, which was pub-lished for the public. The coverpage of the report indicates thatthis was printed by H. Smith atthe Fort Saint George GazettePress in 1859. The report wasalso formally presented at ameeting of the Philological So-ciety (of London?) chaired by F.Pulszky on February 9, 1860.

At the start of the report, anote explains that Bayley andNorman had to leave India be-cause of ill-health before itspublication but goes on to statethat, before their departure, theElliot Committee had come toa unanimous conclusion. None-theless, the bulk of the text re-fers to ‘I’ (first person, singular),and, therefore, I felt the majorcontribution to the report wasby Walter Elliot’s.

The objective of the Com-mittee was to lay down ascheme of orthography, whichwould provide the exact repre-sentation of every word occur-ring in Indian languages. Thedriving purpose was that MLS-ARAS had recognised thatGovernment reports referred toIndian names and other at-tributes badly; this report indi-cates – as an example – that theMurshadabad Survey Registercited Ibrahimpur as eitherBerahimpoor or Biharipoor.

Transliteration asseen by Walter Elliottin Madras in 1859

To achieve the best out-comes, the Elliot Committeeself-prescribed the followingdictates (p. 3): “(i) That a dis-tinct Roman character as far aspracticable be employed to ex-press each established orientalletter; (ii) that the same char-acter should always representthe same letter and shouldnever be employed without

some distinguishing sign to des-ignate a second; (iii) that two ormore letters should never beemployed where a single char-acter could be made to suffice;(iv) that diacritical marksshould only be resorted to in thelast necessity, and should be ofsimplest description; (v) thatvarieties of type, as capitals, ital-ics, black letters, should be con-sidered inadmissible; and (vi)that the scheme should befounded on the system of Sir W.Jones.”

The report starts with exten-sive remarks on transliteratingDévanagari script, but consider-ing the focus of Madras Musings,I shall restrict my notes and an-notations to sections in the re-

port that pertain to Tamilwords being transliterated intoRoman characters.

The section on The Dravi-dian Alphabets (pages 10-13)includes the following: “All theSouthern races have adaptedthe Arian (sic Aryan) phoneticsystem except the Tamil people,and they while retaining theirown peculiar system of letters,

have formed a second alphabet,founded on the Arian, forSanscrit literature, which hasbeen extensively cultivatedamong them. This is called theGranïham character.” From anangle of comparative linguistics,this section includes fascinatingremarks on the letters specificto Dravidian languages, some ofwhich have fallen out of useover time. The report refers tothe letter zha – the vexata literaof the Dravidian – which hasbeen retained in Tamil andMalayalam only.

Referring to Tamil (pages20-27), the report particularlyrefers to –s–,–w–, –d– , and o.It says that –s–, also commonin other southern Indian lan-

guages, is originally a Sanscritsound. It is a hard –l–, whichthe report suggests be markedby a point below, –l–. For – w–,the report suggests use of –t’t’–.Referring to –d–, the report saysthis letter is a genius of theTamil language and can be rep-resented as –n–. The letter –o–represents a sound peculiar toDravidian languages. It is acombination of j, l, and r. Torepresent –o–, Ziegenbalg(1714) used either rl or rhl,Beschi (1728)–lj; Ellis (1816)–zh; Wilson (1855)–l (Tamizh),r (Malayalam); –o– representsa sound altogether sui generis;and according to Wilson “theenunciation is singularly ob-scure, and cannot be preciselyrepresented by any writtencharacters.”

The sound ‘–o–’ creates is byno means unique to Dravidianlanguages, says Elliot; it occursin the aboriginal Indo-Chinesetongues of the Himãlaya andTibet, it has an equivalent in jas used in French (e.g., jeu).Page 25 lists randomly chosen15 Tamil words that include zhand compares how these wordshave changed in Malayalam,Kannada, and Telugu. One ex-ample is: ézhu (seven) (Tamil),ézha (Malayalam), édu(Telugu), élu (Kannada). Insubsequent sections, Elliot goeson to discuss the movement ofthe letter that sounds zh into la(e.g., uzhundu —> ulundu).For the ‘–o–‘, ‘–s–‘ transposi-tions Elliot draws an affirmationfrom Sabda Manjari (the Tamilversion of Pãnini’s phoneticgrammar).

The following occurs in page21: “… to provide for differen-ces of sound of the same letter,under different circumstances,as in the cases of ‘–f– ’, ‘–r–’,‘–j–’, ‘–l–’, and ‘–g–’, whichmay be read respectively as kand g and ch–t and d–t and d–pand b–r and t. But several ofthese depend on the position ofthe particular letter in relationto others, which every Tamilscholar learns by practice.”

The end of this monographincludes a memorandum signedin Bangalore by M. Norman(dated March 21, 1859) thatwas to accompany the proposedscheme of representation of na-tive words in English charac-ters. Pages 57-64 include an ex-tensive list of alphabets (vowelsand consonants) in Sanskrit,Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam,Tamil, and Persian followed bythe proposed Roman equiva-lents, with supplementary re-marks.

A fascinating, but a forgot-ten (ignored–?) monograph, itincludes valuable remarks onthe comparative linguistics ofIndian language, besides thetransliteration effort it has at-tempted to provide.

been talk of developing it as atourism destination and a heri-tage town.

In 2008-09, the UnionMinistry for Tourism sanc-tioned Rs 2.6 crore for thedevelopment of Pulicat. TheState Government sanctionedRs.70 lakh for the purpose,which included the building ofa children’s park, carparking fa-cilities and a restaurant. Noneof these came to fruition owingto bureaucratic delays. If all thishad happened and Pulicat hadbecome a government-moni-tored tourist destination, therecent tragedy may not havehappened. As it is, Pulicat is anunregulated tourist destination.Tourism of a kind flourishes inthe area. While there are noeateries of any standard worth

mentioning in the place, sea-food as cooked by the locals is aspeciality. And so is boating inflat-bottomed craft. It is a com-mon sight to see locals flaggingcars even on the highway andasking Pulicat-bound tourists ifthey want to enjoy a boat-ride.But these excursions are sansany safety gear, which has re-sulted in the present tragedy.

The focus now has to shift towhat can be done with Pulicat.Interestingly, the old Danishsettlement of Tranquebar canshow the way. That was also acompletely forgotten spot tillthe tsunami of 2004. Then awhole host of developmentmeasures, with Danish help,was put in place and now thetown is well on its way to be-come a major tourist attraction.There is no reason why Pulicatcannot develop along the samelines – with Dutch help.

But if the Government getsround to it, it would do well tokeep the local requirements inmind. Going back to the earlierplan, a carparking facility oughtto probably be the last on thelist. Good, clean accommoda-tion and dining facilities, publictoilets, and non-intrusive shop-ping areas ought to top the list.Boating if introduced, ought tobe of the non-motorised varietyto ensure minimum disturbanceto the local habitat of birds andfishes. Cleanliness of thebeaches and sand dunes mustbe ensured. And, above all, thelocal populace needs to betrained and given employmentin support these efforts. Thatway, the project will be adoptedby them as one of their own andwill be an assured success.

The ball is now clearly in theGovernment’s court. We needsome action quite soon.

January 1-15, 2012 MADRAS MUSINGS 7

Croresdue toKapaliTempleThe Kapaleeswarar Temple officials have

managed to recover one of its properties inR.A. Puram, located near the Sai Baba Temple inGreenway’s Road. This was rented to a filmcompany in 1958. The company has, in turn, beenrenting the place for film shootings but failed topay the rent, according to A.T. Paranjothi, Ex-ecutive Officer of the Temple and Asst. Commis-sioner. The property, five grounds in extent andwith a building on it, is worth Rs. 25 crore.

The authorities moved the court when the resi-dents failed to pay the rent.

After several attempts to execute the order, theauthorities recently managed to take over the

(By A Special Correspondent)

property.The Cholas, Pandyas, Palla-

vas and Nayak kings donatedmany pieces of land for templeuse. These were primary agri-cultural land and later became

residential and commercialproperty.

There are nearly 500 tenantsresiding in the temple’s prop-erty. About 60 per cent of them,residential and commercial, are

defaulters. “The Governmenthas urged us to track these de-faulters and recover the prop-erty. Some of them have notpaid a single rupee from thetime they occupied it,” saysParanjothi.

Certain pieces of land havebeen encroached on and we aretrying to evict the squatters, headded.

About 25 grounds oppositeKamadhenu Theatre, i.e. fromthe Mylapore Club compoundto the Pallakkumanyam Street,“have been illegally encro-ached.” This place belongs tothe temple and was given on a99-year lease to ParthasarthiIyengar in 1901. The lease

ended in 2000, but the propertyhas been encroached on.Commerical establishmentshave been built and they pay norent. “We have approached thecourts and will soon evictthem,” say officials.

Similarly, about 76 groundswere rented to the P.S.H.School in 1928. The contractwas renewed in 1979 and fromthen on the temple has been re-ceiving only Rs. 1250 per an-num as rent payment.

Dues from 32 defaulters onrent and lease agreements rangefrom Rs. 6.5 crore to Rs. 2.5lakh each. The total dues areover Rs. 15 crore. – (Courtesy:Mylapore Times)

Kapaleeswarar Temple

Answers

to Quiz1. Dev Anand; 2. Spain; 3.

Pearl Harbour; 4. Croatia; 5.Durban; 6. ‘Call of Duty: ModernWarfare 3’; 7. The Protestor; 8.The US flag was lowered to markthe end of US military operationsin the country after nearly nineyears; 9. Sir Isaac Newton; 10.Paul Allen of Microsoft.

* * *

11. Mother Teresa; 12.Veeran Azhagu Muthu Kone; 13.M.Y. Eqbal; 14. Perambalur andPudukkottai; 15. Indian FineArts Society; 16. Sir ArchibaldEdward Nye; 17. King George V;18. Rev. John Anderson of theAnderson Church fame; 19.Annie Besant; 20. Devaraja(Mudali) Street.

infrastructure and that would mean some of the followingthings:1. A common inauguration of the festival on the beach which

will cut the clutter of so many individual inaugurations withthe same trite speeches, largely played out to empty seats.

2. Better transport arrangements which will enable the public tomove from sabha to sabha and thereby savour more music.

3. Becoming tourist friendly by improving the city’s public man-ners, getting its signage to be more user-friendly, and alsohanding out detailed brochures and maps.

4. Advertise the music season abroad and in travel and hotelmagazines. Get this campaign into operation at least sixmonths before the Season so that everyone has ample time toplan.

5. Induce the trade to participate by asking hotels, restaurantsand traditional shopping areas (like Panagal Park) offer spe-cial discounts. The New Woodlands Hotel and several ser-vice apartments benefit immensely from the Season. Whycan’t the others also cash in?

6. Broadbase the event by getting other organisers, such as thoseof the Other Festival and Mylapore Festival, to be a part of it.That way, there would be something on offer for just abouteveryone.

7. Integrate Pongal celebrations with it.There is a lot more that can be done from December 15th to

January 16th if there is a will to do it. Is anyone listening?

(Continued from page 1)

Let’s make Seasona Festival

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SUBSCRIPTIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS

This is a question that popsup in the minds of some

daily walkers at Nageswara RaoPark nowadays.

‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ is theold adage, but not everyonewho comes across the pack ofdogs that has recently made itshome in what is Mylapore’s big-gest (and favourite) park wantsto nod in agreement.

“If people stop feeding thedogs they will move out incourse of time,” say some.

Others say, “A park is a placenot only for people to go for awalk or for children to play. It isa place where we can associateourselves with nature.

“A park is complete onlywith its components of plants,trees, chirping birds, little in-sects and a few loyal friends(dogs) here and there. So, stepsneed not be taken to send thedogs out of the park, as we ashuman beings have a moralduty to provide protection andshelter to dogs.”

There are those who say thedogs are friendly and do notharm anybody.

And one Luz resident says,“Two of those dogs literally actas watch dogs during nighthours in the lonely Raga Sudhastretch of Luz Avenue. On twooccasions those dogs thwartedchain-snatching attempts andhelped patrol-police to appre-hend the culprits.”

The dogs at the park cer-tainly seem to be on the mindsof many walkers but not allagree to the view to get rid ofthem from the park. – (Cour-tesy: Mylapore Times).

Leavethe dogsalone

8 MADRAS MUSINGS January 1-15, 2012

Published by S. Muthiah for ‘Chennai Heritage’, 260-A, TTK Road, Chennai 600 018 and printed by T J George at Lokavani-Hallmark Press Pvt. Ltd., 122, Greams Road, Chennai 600 006. Edited by S. MUTHIAH.

Since 1856,patently leaders

— A WELLWISHER

Madras Musings is supported as a public service by the following organisations

Published by S. Muthiah for ‘Chennai Heritage’, No. 5, Bhattad Tower, 30, Westcott Road, Royapettah, Chennai 600 014, printed by T J George at Lokavani Southern Printers Pvt. Ltd., 122, Greams Road, Chennai 600 006, and edited by S. Muthiah.

F.L. Smidth Limited

UCAL AUTOPRIVATE LIMITEDTVS MOTOR COMPANY

Bata India Limited

The HinduGroup of Publications

MIDS &

Malcolm

Dr. Malcolm Adiseshaiahwas a colourful, multi-

faceted personality. An aca-demic, who started life at theMadras Christian College, hebecame an international civilservant who rose to the positionof Deputy Director General,UNESCO, and was instru-mental in expanding the areasof education in Asia, Africa andLatin America. When he wasVice-Chancellor of MadrasUniversity, he brought aboutseveral structural reforms inuniversity education. He was aRajya Sabha MP and presentedmid-year reviews of theeconomy. As a philanthropist,he liberally donated for estab-lishing the Madras Institute ofDevelopment Studies (MIDS).

Dr. Adiseshaiah focussed alot on applied economics, a sub-ject that did not receive muchfocus earlier in Tamil Nadu incontrast to the several illustri-ous institutes focussing on thisin Delhi!

MIDS and the Malcolm andElizabeth Adiseshaiah Trustpresent awards in the name ofMalcolm Adiseshaiah for distin-guished contributions in socialsciences. This year it was pre-sented to Prof. RajeevBhargava, Director, Centre forthe Study of Developing Soci-eties.

I have interacted closely

with Malcolm (I had done afour-hour interview with himfor the All India Radio ar-chives) and have been coveringMIDS right from its inception. Iused to admire the regular lec-tures, seminars and discussionsas well as its sound focus oneconomics and development.Past directors like Dr. C.T.

Kurien, S. Guhan and Dr. A.Vaidyanathan directed MIDSto focus on emerging develop-ment issues.

I notice with disappointmentthe focus being given in recentyears on social issues with muchless stress on development is-sues. Last year, the award wason the impact of caste. This

year, the topic was how Indiansecularism was radically differ-ent from the Western/Europeanmodel. Even the monthlyprogrammes appear to deal withsocial issues and not so much onhard core, current economic is-sues.

There are plenty of issuescrying for attention, such as ur-

ban transportation, inflation,stagnation in agriculture, slow-down of investment, the denialof a fair share of natural gas tothe State, etc. Discussion onthese issues will bring MIDScloser again to what it wasestablished as, an institute dedi-cated to development (Cour-tesy: Industrial Economist).

Alladi Ramakrishnan, about whom a book has recently beenreleased, belonged to a small but eminent group of Indian

mathematical physicists who worked closely with ChandrasekaraV. Raman, Homi J. Bhabha, and Prasanta C. Mahalanobis andcontributed significantly to theoretical physics, in Madras.

Ramakrishnan, born in 1923 in Madras, was the son of JusticeAlladi Krishnaswami, the eminent Madras jurist. Ramakrishnan’sillustrious career in mathematical physics began in 1947; duringhis lifetime, he wrote more than 150 scientific papers in leadingjournals on topics ranging over Stochastic Process, ElementaryParticle Physics, Matrix Algebra, and the Special Theory of Rela-tivity. He also regularly and lectured as a visitor at leading scien-tific institutions in the United States, Europe and Japan.

In 1947, he joined what was then the fledgling Tata Instituteof Fundamental Research, whose Director was Homi J. Bhabha.Bhabha introduced the young Ramakrishnan to Cascade Theoryand the Fluctuation Problem of Cosmic Radiation, which led toRamakrishnan inventing the correlation densities, which hecalled Product Densities, a terminology current even today. In1949, he went to England to do his PhD with M.S. Bartlett at theUniversity of Manchester. On his return to India, he joined theUniversity of Madras.

When Ramakrishnan was on the academic staff of the Uni-versity, he was transferred to the extension centre in Madurai in1959. He frequently travelled to Madras from there on his ownaccount and held a series of theoretical physics seminars at hisfamily home, Ekamra Nivas, in Mylapore, which persons of glo-bal eminence, such as Niels Bohr, Mohammed Abdus Salam,Murray Gell-Mann and Vladimir Jurko Glaser, addressed stimu-lating the minds of the young and the old interested in theoreticalphysics, in Madras.

In 1960, the physicist Niels Bohr, NL*, visited India as theguest of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. When Nehru askedhim what his impressions about science in India were, Bohr

A profoundmathematician-physicist

pointed to two significant contributions: (1) Bhabha’s dreaminstitute – the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research inBombay, and (2) the small group of students under the tute-lage of Alladi Ramakrishnan in Madras.

Impressed with his scholarliness, Nehru supportedRamakrishnan’s plan to create an institute solely dedicated tothe study of mathematical sciences on the lines of the Institutefor Advanced Study in Princeton. The lateC. Subramaniam, Education Minister in the Kamaraj Ministry,played a key role in the establishment of the Institute (popu-larly known as the Matscience Institute), which was born in1962. Subramanian Chandrasekhar, NL*, inaugurated it in thePresidency College in Madras.

A profound mathematician-physicist, Ramakrishnan wasavidly interested in attracting young minds. By speaking on thefoundations of theoretical physics in schools and colleges,Ramakrishnan fulfilled his desire. During the Einstein cente-nary celebrations in Madras, I had the pleasure of listening toRamakrsihnan, who spoke on the theories of relativity withextraordinary mastery, presenting the complex ideas in simpleEnglish, intelligible even to a person such as me. He revelledin, until his end, finding new ways of understanding and pre-senting principles of complex subjects such as relativity.Ramakrishnan died in Florida in 2008.

Ramakrishnan’s article on probability and stochastic pro-cesses in Handbuch der Physik (Springer Verlag, Germany,1958) is an insightful treatment, which triggered applicationsin diverse fields of physical, biological and other sciences. Hewrote Elementary Particles and Cosmic Rays (Pergamon Press,UK, 1962), L-Matrix Theory or the Grammar of Dirac Matrices(Tata McGraw Hill, India, 1972) and Special Theory of Relativ-ity (EastWest Books, India).

* NL = Nobel Laureate

Masters of 20th Century Madras science– An occasional article in a series by Dr. A. RAMAN

Business notes by

S. VISWANATHANEditor

Industrial Economist