‘CAR’ODU THAAN NAAN PESUVEN!

MADRAS DAY – 18TH AUGUST 2009

Just before the lecture began, somebody asked C V Karthik Narayan whether he was raring to go like a horse. Karthik’s repartee at the top of his speech was, “Yes, you decide at the end whether I neigh or bray.” That really set the tone for a historical walk down memory lane, oops, that should be a drive down memory lane—it isn’t for anything that Chennai is the new-age Detroit!

He turned the ignition key on with maps of Chennai on the screen, and I was surprised that I did not realize till then, that with the possible exception of the OMR and the ECR, all roads radiating out of Chennai have a strong presence in either Automobile or ancillary manufacturing. The fact that Chennai has sustained what has been arguably the most auto-industry friendly metropolitan agglomeration speaks volumes about the foresight of the visionaries who ruled the roads—rather, ruled the machines that ruled the roads.

The long and rewarding journey actually started in 1840, when the Simpsons group set up shop in India, apparently to manufacture harnesses and the like. They then went on to make coaches, palanquins and the Howdah for Buckingham, the architect of the Buckingham Canal. Being a railfan myself, I was rather ashamed that I did not know that Simpsons manufactured the coaches for the first ever rail run from Royapuram to Arcot! Simpsons’ long VIP list got longer when they made coaches for the Nawab of Rampur—complete with leaf spring shock absorbers for a smooth ride!

Simpsons, in 1900, experimented with a kerosene—water car, according to Karthik. In 1904, the first car, was registered in the name of Alexander Spring of the Madras Port Trust, and the number was M.C. 1, and the first Indian to own a car was Namberumal Chetty, when he got the number M.C. 3. Karthik’s grandfather had a car registered in 1910, with the number M.C. 226. That means only 226 cars were registered in the period 1904–1910. The number swelled to 9,000 by 1920. Eight years for 9,000 cars—today we do as much in a month?

The journey got another boost in 1940, when Buick jumped in with a gas-plant fitted car, and they had people go right up to Peshawar to sell these! That was a period when giants like Visveswarayya thought about cars, Lalchand Hirachand talked cars. In the 1940s, Raghunandan Saran came down all the way from Delhi to set up Ashok Motors, the precursor to Ashok Leyland that we know today. The first Austin A40 was assembled in Ashok Motors. After the war, the auto industry got its big push with Hirachand at Bombay, Hidustan Motors at Calcutta and the TELCO at Jamshedpur looking to make it happen.

In between, Addison tied up to assemble the Morris Minor, but the then government regulations meant that Madras was getting crowded. Yes, there could not be more than three manufacturers at one port city, and Madras already had three.

The story of Ashok Motors, particularly after their collaboration with Leyland is one of spectacular rise. AL were the leaders in every sense of the word. They were the pioneers of multi-axle vehicles, owned a test track and probably had the best R & D in India! No wonder, the Indian Army relies heavily on AL!

Standard Motors started operations in a shed in Chromepet and assembled tractors that were manufactured by Massey Fergusson. When Massey Fergusson bought over the Standard Motors at Coventry, the factory in Madras moved to Perungalathur, and started manufacture of the Standard Vanguard. Standard also developed the Herald, the iconic car, from scratch and probably was way to ahead of its times with two doors, advanced suspension and what not.

Government regulations did not help at all—the prices were fixed by the Government, with the Herald costing all of 14,320 INR. Prices could not be hiked easily in the absence of an escalation clause. The fight went till the Supreme Court. It was no surprise then, that the volumes were low, at least till 1985, when the curbs were eased a bit. Earlier in 1982, Standard came up with the Standard 20, a van as advanced as you could get then. Fully tested for crashworthiness and for aerodynamics at the IIT, Madras, it was a winner, ferrying athletes at the Asiad in Delhi.

Some non Standard stuff now. In 1957, Sundaram Iyer collaborated with Enfield to start Royal Enfield, and brought out India’s first four-stroke 350 cc motorbike. What a rhythmic beat the Bullet has! Even today, it will put any pretender to shame.

The biggest advantage, according to Karthik, has been the strong presence of the ancillary industry. The TVS group, the Rane group, UCAL and many more have never had second thoughts of collaborations, investments and taking risks.

Though Standard Motors had to meet a sudden closure, with the powers that be not being really too helpful, the economic liberalization meant that the halcyon days of Madras at the forefront of the auto industry were never really in doubt, and how Madras has reclaimed it!

The speech itself was enlightening, aptly presented on a powerpoint presentation—though Karthik confessed to being rather frightened at the prospect of using a laptop. The photographs gelled excellently with Karthik’s speech, and the generous humour left everyone satisfied at the end of the day.

If there were any doubts about what Karthik ended up doing, he certainly neighed as well as any pedigree would have! It is about time that he changed his name to ‘Car’thick!

MELODY PAO….KHUD JAAN JAO

MADRAS DAY – 17TH AUGUST 2009

As I have already made clear, my knowledge of fine arts like Indian classical music, dances is not even worth two paise, and can be written on the back of a postage stamp! For me, though, any fine arts performance qualifies as a good one if, at the end of the day, I come back satisfied having spent a worthwhile time.

That was exactly the feeling, and much, much more when I exited THE PARK after a great speech—should we say performance, or should we say a lecdem—by Aruna Sairam, the famous Carnatic vocalist.

Aruna recalled her early days in Bombay, the never-ending visits by famous singers, her encounters with them and the quality time she spent listening to and learning Carnatic music. Her interactions with her guru, a rather hard taskmaster and another of those icons of Carnatic music, Brinda, were enjoyable. The standout among them was about the one time when another student had brought a notebook to take notes of the music class. Brinda apparently was fidgeting and shifty—not yet prepared to begin her classes. Finally, as the students gathered courage to ask her, Brinda, seeing the notebook, chided the girl: (Enna, kaadhu kondu varaliya?) “Have you forgotten your ears at home?”

The lecture was also more about what singing in Madras meant. She confessed rather candidly that the decision she took to move to Madras to further her singing career was late. She rued the day when there were hardly a handful to listen to her on her first two visits to Madras. She was well received in private functions, public performances abroad and elsewhere in India. However, according to her, “An artiste’s true worth is when the discerning Madras audience accepts a singer.” That she has given it her all and made it good is ample testimony to her grit.

Particularly, when you hear her say, “Once, I was singing with a Mani mama—my child on my laps and the sambar boiling in the kitchen. Swara after Swara after Swara, when Mani mama interrupted me and gave me sound advice—‘Do not go for a wide range that you cannot handle. Develop lateral thinking around a limited range’—those were golden words I cannot forget.” Or when she confesses about feeling rather lost in Madras, wondering what to do with her hard-earned knowledge, when a group of friends came up and gave her a piece of their mind—yes, a bit of advice about where she should improve to make it big, like changing her repertoire and other small adjustments. This was when she felt like, in her own frank words, the proverbial ‘Dhobi ka kutha, na ghar ka, na ghat ka’!

Another moving anecdote—it moved many in the audience too—was when a rather distraught woman walked in to the Green Room at a sabha. (Aruna says, “I was happy at least someone came into the Green Room—anyway there were not many in front of the stage,” rather candidly). The lady requested Aruna to sing a song that she had heard at one of her previous performances, and added that the consequences of not taking home the pay today—she would have got it five days later—would be rather serious, but she was determined to stay put to listen to the song. Aruna proved that she was human, after all, as it was obvious for all to see that she was wiping a tear off the corner of her eyes.

She had a very forthright answer when I asked her how much of an influence Hindustani music had on her. “In Madras, I have the reputation of singing Carnatic through Hindustani.” That was following her wonderful rendition of an Abhang!

She interspersed her wonderful speech with some songs, like gems standing out in a crown, only that most of us were not satisfied. We would rather have had it the other way round. At the end of the day, rather the evening, if a two-paise worth fine arts rasika like me felt wanting more, there can be no greater tribute to Aruna and her voice—whether speaking or singing.

MADRAS WEEK – DAY 1 – 16TH AUGUST 2009 – PART 2

A friend, Sivakumar, my wife and I reached the Park Sheraton at around 1520 hrs, well in time for the first of the Madras Musings Lecture series scheduled for 1600 hrs. The venue was Dublin, the discotheque of the hotel. A very apt venue indeed, for a speech titled ‘Some scandals of Madras.’ The speaker needs no introduction—Randor Guy, the evergreen legal eagle, historian, film buff and what not.

Not having stepped into Dublin earlier, we took a rather long time finding where it was. We had to ask at least three people to get there, only to be welcomed by a “Sorry, Sir, the disco opens at six.” We explained we were there for a lecture—I am sure the guy at the entrance couldn’t figure out how on earth could we spend time on a dance floor—a paunchy 43-year old, another white-bearded 43 year old and DVT affected lady! Thank God we were there early—the seats were full at about 1545. Additional seating was arranged, and we were invited to some wonderful cookies, fruit juices and a great filter kaapi.

The setting was perfect, dim and diffused lighting, just like they say the time when scandals happen. The anecdotes came thick and fast from Randor; he did not name any person as he espied that there were some descendants attending the speech. The scandals he touched upon were the one involving a Maharajah (who was a zamindar and liked to call himself a Maharajah!) and his wife and children; the English wife of an English principal of an ‘unapproved’ college who it seems loved to move the students from their class desks to her bed; the one involving a rather poor but in Randor’s words ‘curvaceous, bosomy Sita’; and one that probably smelt all the way to a vice-president!

There was a tinge of disappointment, though. Randor must have held back deliberately—the punches were a tad lesser than in the previous years. But whatever was there was lapped up in glee and loud laughs by the audience, which had by now swelled to people sitting on the stairs. When it all ended, many must have felt that the dinner was over with the appetiser! We were all waiting for more, if not in terms of more scandals, just for the sake of hearing a no-holds-barred Randor. There is always a next time, and I only hope that the Randor Guy will speak on ‘Some more scandals of Madras,’ or at least ‘The cabaret dances of Madras,’ and the venue is Dublin again. Would it help to have a performance as well, if the topic is the latter? No harm done, more than half of us there were beyond the sell-by age!

AN ENTHRALLING BEGINNING

MADRAS WEEK – DAY 1 – 16TH AUGUST 2009

It was exactly the kind of a start that I had expected—explosive, enthralling and educating. It was also exactly the kind of a start that I had foreseen—bleak, dreary and a sense of a missing something. To deal with the latter first, Rajaram was not here to celebrate. I am sure his heart would have been in Madras, but the physical part of him was in far away Muscat. I would have preferred to have him seated right beside me—but it was not to be. The wait is long; he will be here on the 20th, hopefully in time to catch Mohan Raman and his talk on Nagesh, the evergreen comedian.

Let us now deal with the former. Well, the day dawned with a faux pas. A lazy week meant that I had not registered for the Dubash walk, and there was no Rajaram to chauffeur us on a two-wheeler; yes, the response was overwhelming and all three or four vehicles that had to be booked for the walk were full.

I was determined to catch the next event called ‘People’s Park Vazhi Nadai Chindu,’ an enactment on the walk in 1915 of a couple, all the way from Mulla Saheb Street in Sowcarpet to the Arupathumoovar Festival at the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore. It was all the more interesting to know that the walk was set to a song in 1915 called the Vazhi Nadai Chindu—in a genre that is called the Gujili.

Well, the Gujili is a genre that was famous in the days of almost no newspapers, no television and no real way of disseminating news. The Gujili was the answer to all these negatives—the news was packaged into neat little sound bytes camouflaging as verses, or was it the reverse? Sung on the streets or in parks, these songs spread news of all kinds; serious headline stuff like Bhagat Singh’s hanging to the typical page 3 stuff like who was ‘dating’ whom! The fact that the lyrics were printed on cheap paper and priced at a quarter of an anna did not make it a newspaper—it was called a ‘kaalanna’ pathirikkai. That the walk took the form of a Gujili song and was printed did not make it Page 3 stuff, or did it?

I have also never been a ‘rasika’ of the fine arts in the sense of blurting out ‘sabaash’es and ‘bale’s at the drop of a hat. I cannot identify a Kaapi from a Todi, but can sure appreciate a good sounding raga rendered well. Same with the dances too. I had doubts as to how Bharathanatyam would deal with a typical Page 3 subject like the Gujili song of a couple on a daylong date, even if for devotional reasons. Believe me, I was happy to be proved wrong, happier to be there for the performance, and happiest to know that I could finally comprehend not only what went with the dance, but the dance itself.

Gayatri Balagurunathan and P.T. Narendran did a wonderful job of enacting the People’s Park Vazhi Nadai Chindu. The emoting and the movements were tailor-made, rather choreographed to perfection by Natyarangam of the Narada Gana Sabha. As S. Janaki gave out the details of how this was made workable, it really sunk in what it takes to enact such an informal song using a format as classical as the Bharathanatyam. The dancers gave it their all, enthralling the three hundred odd invitees at the TAG Center. The places the ‘dating’ couple saw on the way like the temples as they set out from on the Mulla Saheb Street, the then Madras Zoo, the Victoria Public Hall, the temples on the way down to the sweet stall where they dropped by for snacks were all depicted with panache that I had at least till now not seen in my rather limited viewing of classical arts. The temporary deviation notwithstanding, the couple finally reach the temple and have a very satisfying darshan of the Arupathumoovar at the Kapaleeswarar temple. Whether it was Sriram’s selection of photographs to go with the performance, or it was the performance that embellished the photographs I would never know, but what I know for certain was the perfect jugalbandi complementing each other. The standing ovation that the performance received was a testimony of the sheer power of Gayatri and Narendran’s showing.

Sriram later held centre stage. His presentation, the selection of photographs and his humorous narrative equalled, if not excelled the dance show earlier in the morning. I have known speakers use humour to camouflage their lack of mastery in the subject, but Sriram uses humour to embellish his expertise on the subject. The audience was in rapt attention one moment, in splits the next; going quiet rapidly lest they miss something of note. These cycles of silence and laughter were aplenty, and the end of the day, the fact that Sriram was mobbed is adequate proof of this man’s ease of language and mastery of subjects, more so if they are related to periods earlier than his birthday!

But before all this unfolded, I entered TAG centre a rather hungry man, not finding a place to eat some decent breakfast. Imagine my surprise when I was guided to the dining hall to a rather sumptuous breakfast of Pongal, Vadai and Carrot Halwa. How can I eat idlies when Pongal is served? Washed down with a wonderful filter kaapi, I could have easily been lulled into sleep. But Gayatri, Narendran and later Sriram ensured that not one person in the audience let out even as much a yawn —if this is not a perfect start to the Madras Day, then nothing ever is.

A LANDMARK LANDMARK

Yes, the Landmark Quiz at Chennai on Independence Day is THE biggest Open quiz ever in India.

Yes, Landmark has been on since 1989, and Rajaram has been there every year, at least until 2008.

Yes, Landmark has been on since 1989, and I have been there with Rajaram every minute he was there.

Yes, till 2008 we were probably two of the very very few people who had marked attendance at every Landmark.

Yes, we have never made it to the stage at Landmark.

Yes, we have never probably crossed 25 in the prelims.

Yes, in spite of all that, there has never been a quiz more enjoyable.

Yes, we have cheered every team that has made it to the final, more so QED.

Yes, it has now become more of an ‘intellectual’ picnic for us—packing snacks and what not.

Yes, every year we diligently write down events and topics to read more about, but we end up where we started—always off stage.

Yes, who will change my correct answer to a wrong one?

Yes, who will change Rajaram’s correct answer to a wrong one?

Yes, what will Sundar do with his seating superstitions?

Yes, will Rajaram wear the Malaysia T-shirt at home on Independence Day?

Yes, Landmark goes all India this year.

Yes, we have registered for Landmark this year.

Yes, so sad that Rajaram will not make it this year.

Yes, I am feeling a lump in my throat to be there without Rajaram.

Yes, but I will be there—for Rajaram’s sake.

Yes, this will be my first there without Rajaram.

Yes, this will be his first not being there with me.

Yes, every single point we get will be dedicated to Rajaram.

Yes, every single miss will also be blamed on Rajaram.

Yes, without Rajaram, it is indeed a Landmark Landmark!