I have been a Chennaite for 14 years now and hence decided to share some unknown facts about Chennai. I have lived in UP, Harayana and have very good memories. But the culture and the beauty of Chennai is very unique and it’s very hard to find the same else where. It’s always a special feeling to be a part of tamil culture and to realise that I follow a culture which might be some 20000 years old always makes me feel thrilled.
Chennai, originally known as Madras Patnam was located in the province of Tondaimandalam. The capital province was kanchipuram which is some 20 to 30 kms away from Chennai. It was ruled by Cholas in 2 AD. Chennai is a city grown by merging numerous ancient villages like Mylapore, Thiruvanmiyur, Thiruvotriyur, Thirvallikeni(Triplicane) each of which have temples that have existed for more than 1000 years. After the cholas, the Pallavas, then the Pandavas ruled the Chennai. It was then ruled by French and the English people. But my area of search about Chennai was why it was named Madras initially. This is something which even I don’t know and some how wanted to google it. I did get some interesting information and here are they
Origin of the Name Madras : The origin of the name Madraspatnam has long been a puzzle. The name Madras occurs in many forms like Maddaraspatnam, Madras Patnam, Madraspatnam, Madrapatnam, Madrazpatnam, etc. According to one version there was a village of fishermen on the site, the headman of which was a Christian named Madaresan who persuaded Day to call the settlement after his own name. But we know that the name was in use even before the English came on the scene. Otherwise writers have derived the name from the term Madrassa ( a college) and think that there might have been an old Muhammadan College at the place; or there might have been a Church of St.Mary (Madre de Deus) at Madras prior to 1640, probably founded by the Portuguese of San Thome which had been in existence from the previous century and the church might have given name to the village; or there was an Indian rules, Maddarazu, who might have been some local chief in the region in the past after whom the village might have been named Maddarazpatnam. The Very Revd. Mgr. Teixeira, Bishop of Mylapore, has decently put forward a suggestion based on his discovery of some tombstone inscriptions that the name might well have been after Madras, a Portuguese family of the village and that the family gave their name to the place. Still another view is that Madras was so called because it produced a kind of calico cloth of the name. None of these seems to be very convincing, while the derivation of Madras from the Persian word Madrassa is somewhat fanciful. There is a curious resemblance between the names of the English Town of Madraspatnam, the southern Dutch Factory of Sadraspatnam at the mouth of the Palar river and the northern settlement of Durgarazpatnam (Armagaon).
It is also believed that apostle St. Thomas came to Chennai for preaching Christianity in 52 AD. Later he was believed to be assassinated at 70 AD in a mountain in south west part of Chennai. This mountain is now named after him and called as St Thomas Mount. There was a church built in this mount supposingly by the Portuguese which was destroyed by Hyder Ali(Father of Tipu Sultan). Then the britishers rebuilt the whole church. This church also holds the significance that Pope John Paul visited this church in the Year 1989.
Another really interesting place in Chennai is Mylapore. Mylapore, a village adjacent to San Thome to its west, has always gone hand in hand with the latter and was included in its jurisdiction. It is a place of ancient importance and has long been famous as a Siva Shrine. It is closely associated with Thiruvalluvar, the great author of the Kural, and also with the activities of the Saiva Nayanar, the great Gnanasambandar. The temple of Sri Kapaleesvarar contains a sculpture depicting one of the miracles wrought by Gnanasambandar. There are bronze statues within the temple of the 63 Saiva Nayanmars, in whose honour a grand festival is conducted annually. Mylapore is also associated with one of the Vaishnavite Alvars
Now let’s talk about some of the really interesting personalities who lived and perished in Chennai. As mentioned earlier Tiruvalluvar was one of the greats who had lived in Chennai and most of the CBSE students must tune in their memories as CBSE does covers Tiruvalluvar’s life history. Also a famous mathematician by name Ramanujam was born in Chennai. He was an employee of Chennai Port Trust.
Tamilnadu can boast of a galaxy of politicians, past and present. There was C.Rajagopalachari, known as Rajaji, because he was born in Rajaji Nagar in Bangalore. He was born so long ago that some people claim that he was a contemporary of Valmiki, with whom he co-authored the Ramayana. Half-way through this venture, Valmiki ditched Rajaji and joined Walt Disney Foundation, where he is credited with the creation of Val-mickey Mouse . So the next time you see a Mickey Mouse cartoon the thing first thing which should strike you is that an Indian is the who actually played an major part in creating it.
E.V.Ramasamy Naicker who belonged to the same era used to be a professor of physics in Erode. While tinkering with some toys, he made the stunning derivation that the product of the efficiency (E) of such simple machines and the velocity ratio (vr) was equal to its mechanical advantage (MA), giving rise to the elegant equation
EVR= MA
Then came another stalwart into picture by name Kamaraj Nadar. He was the eldest among five brothers, the other four being Ralph Nader, the consumer activist, Shiv Nadar who promoted HCL, Sulph Nadar who promoted H2S04 and Raphael Nadel, the tennis star. All associated with Chennai some or the other way.
So many illustrious leaders. Such glorious traditions. What a history! No wonder, in random surveys, Chennai comes out on top. In a recent survey, for instance, people of Chennai were asked which city they would like to live in, if given a choice. 87% of the people named a city other than Chennai. 4% of the people said that they would rather move to the capital city, but their belly buttons have since been removed and transplanted with Delhi buttons. So, even though Delhi is not a coastal city, it has a navel force now.
A flash point was reached, when lakhs of Tamilians descended on Chennai city and congregated at the Island Grounds, demanding that the ‘History of Chennai’ series should not be concluded without a chapter on the great politicians of the state. It seems politicians were covered in 1/3rd of it which the public didn’t like. The program was originally scheduled to be held in the morning, but Manmohan Singh insisted that it should be held only after 12 noon, as he was PM. Anyway, he and Sonia Gandhi, tried to pacify the crowd by pointing out that a trilogy, by definition, could contain only three parts, but this had no effect on the irate mob.
Just then, the famous poet Vairamuthu was passing by and on hearing the problem, had a flash of inspiration . He burst into this song, in a mix of Tamil and Kannada
“ Alli Nodi, Desiya Kodi
Kunguma Poo, pachai Chedi, , Vellai Dhaadi
Vulle Neela chakra irukku
Solpa adjust maadi, you kirukku”
Here is the transalation
“Behold the National Flag,
Though referred to as tricolour,
Does it not contain four colours?
For, amidst the saffron, the green and the white,
Forget not the navy blue
of the Chakra in the middle.”
What he meant to convey in that veiled manner and symbolisms typical of poets was that
the tricolour flag actually had four colours, Similarly a trilogy could consist of four parts,
each part representing ¾. This indirectly asked the politicians to include another ¾ which really represented chennai’s history.
Hope your journey to Chennai and its culture was eventful and interesting. I would also like to thank MFC for giving me this opportunity and help me to know things about Chennai which I never knew. I hope every one reading this would have realised the greatness of the city.
