The city celebrates without its chronicler extraordinaire
Come August, Chennai is ready to celebrate. August 22 and the week in which it falls is respectively celebrated as Madras Day and Madras Week.
The chronicler who gave us the date is no more with us this year. In his magnum opus, Madras Rediscovered, published eight editions in his lifetime, he told us the story on how a deed that was signed between John and Company and Raja of Chandragiri set in motion the birth of Madras out of âno manâs sandâ. It was he who said, âBefore the British came there was no Madrasâ.
S. Muthiah can be singularly credited with rediscovering the city. From 1981 when he published a slim volume on Madras, Madras Discovered (which went on to complete eight editions as Madras Rediscovered), he has been recording the cityâs past with unremitting devotion. His breath escaped before he completed his lifeâs work. Do Gods and diseases know how the worth of this man on a mission? They could only snatch him from us in the middle of his work. So it feels. Because I saw what âcreative fitnessâ meant on seeing him. Despite what bothered him, he didnât stop writing â writing what he loved. He loved working. That was what he said. He didnât work as an antidote to lifeâs difficulties. Even when his dear wife passed away quite abruptly, he kept writing. He simply enjoyed his work.
Madras consumed him intensely that he kept gazing into the cityâs past with a boyish delight, coming up with stories after stories that filled 921 columns of âMadras Miscellanyâ for The Hindu unfailing every Monday. Apart from the two dozen books that he wrote centred on Madras, its people and its businesses, probably no work of his escaped mention of Madras. His own count is some 42 books that he authored in all, and he took to writing books after his retirement from TT Maps as its Managing Director.
For those whose narrow vision looked at Madras Day celebrations as felicitating colonial rule, he gave a forthright answer. To a group of students at Asian College of Journalism, he bristled, âYou have to ask me why the hell are we celebrating Madras Weekâ. The audience could only keep silence. He was at his combative best when he said, âWe celebrate to make the city betterâ. The British made Madras, no doubt. And singing their glory was not the purpose of Madras Day celebrations. He was clear. But year after year, sadly only the narrative of linking colonial to Madras Day is repeatedly played out. It is absurdity at its best, and peopleâs opaque, myopic views cannot be altered.
We need to commemorate the city every year. And August 22 merely serves as a basis for it. To those who say Madras existed long before, the answer is yes, it did, but not as Madras. The entity of Madras as a city formed the basis of British occupation of the city and its expansionist agenda. History, how much ever forbidding and unpleasant, cannot be erased. British excesses and slavery are recorded without refrain.
Celebrating the city is not for celebrating a legacy. Definitely not colonial legacy. But the overall objective is to look back and see how the city has been shaped and the people and institutions who made a difference. Itâs also to create awareness about keeping its past alive and preserve its structures and institutions.
Muthiah had sagacious foresight when he launched Madras Musings in 1991. A total disregard for the past was patently visible that he embarked on preserving the environment and heritage of the city, in whatever form it was left behind. He took pains to explain the Indian contribution and Indian elements in the colonial structures. Preserving heritage structures meant preventing environmental degradation. This vision was completely blinded by those who described the efforts as glorifying the British. The British created aesthetic buildings and institutionalised infrastructure that we enjoy even today. But to those dismissing it by saying the British merely created them to hold their reins over us, we could only pity their narrow worldview. The British merely didnât leave behind relics, but much of how we live today has been shaped in one way or the other by the colonial rule and the legal structures that were initiated then are still used. When we have the right to stick on to them, why not preserve what they built?
It was Muthiah who created an army of enthusiasts who took a great interest in the cityâs past. A few have made the cityâs heritage their passion, the important among them the present editor of Madras Musings, V Sriram. But for Muthiah, this city would have remained swept down in a heap of convenient narratives that suited the sayer. His deep research and discovery that Madras is the first modern city of India has made us proud to be its citizens. And his books speak of the cityâs glory in many ways. In a meeting arranged during a Madras Day in Amir Mahal, the Prince of Arcot said, âMuthiah gave us our history.â To extrapolate it, Muthiah gave Madras its history. And we became aware of it.
My stature is too small to comment on Muthiah and his contributions. I have been witness to his phenomenal work ethic and uninhabited writing. But for him I wouldnât have known Madras, but only Chennai, its poor progenitor, tumbling in development unable to establish the glory that Madras did. But for him I wouldnât have met Mr Sriram to take my cityâs knowledge a bit deeper. But for him asking me to write for Madras Musings, I wouldnât have improved my writing.
But for him no one would have known the city as we know it today. As the Madras Week starts, he is missed not only by me but by many whose lives he touched, small or big.
