Care-Walk
- 2013
As regular readers of my blog
know, I often walk the streets of Chennai as part of a photo walk group – which
has these regular walks scheduled once a month- to document the changes of our
rapidly evolving city and to preserve the memories of what was once there and
will be no more. This month’s walk was special as it coincided with the
celebration of Madras Day and hence the walk was associated with the local British
council for a charitable purpose - cancer relief and called as Carewalk-2013.
The walk was flagged off from the
premises of the British Council Library at Mount Road (Anna Salai) which is
right behind the Madras District Library – the Devaneya Paavanar Library- the
place where a thousand civil servants were made in those pre-coaching center
days for a lot of civil service aspirants used the library as a study point for
preparing the civil service exams.
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The British Council Library on Mount Road |
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The British Deputy High Commissioner Flagging off the walk |
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The Assembled group of photographers |
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The library’s second floor had a
fantastic collection of old medical books- which was my attraction point- and I
had spent many pleasant hours in the past- going through the old textbooks and
reading up the changes in medical treatment with every new edition. Many times
I was reminded by my friends that it was totally pointless towards scoring good
marks in our exams- to learn about historical medical treatments now out of
fashion- but I have always been fascinated by history and I couldn’t think of a
better way to spend a lazy summer afternoon- especially as the reading section
of the library was fully air-conditioned- a luxury in our hot summers. And if I
got bored of reading medical stuff, then there was always the British Council
Library right next door with a fantastic collection of general books- and an
especially good travelogue section- my favorite kind of lazy read. Anyway,
that’s more than enough about books and libraries; let’s get back to the walk.
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The Devaneya Pavanar Madras Public Library |
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As I said the walk was flagged off
by the British Deputy Commisioner from the lawn of the library. We had a
slightly latish start at around 8:30AM compared to our usual 6:30AM start but
on the plus side we had a police escort throughout the walk which meant that
not once was our organizer Ramasamy N. (of Chennai Daily Photos fame) had to
stop and explain to random cops why we were walking around with cameras so
early in the morning. As I have mentioned in my previous posts - the early morning
patrol cops are the “Alert Arumugam” types- and they have never failed to stop
the photo walk group at least a couple of times on every single walk to enquire
and check our ID’s- as if Al Queda terrorists openly walk about in groups
photographing street signs and shop name boards. Don’t they now do it direct on
Google street view? Anyway Ram Anna as he is fondly called by the photo walkers
has the unenviable task of dealing with the zealous cops every time. And so it
was a pleasant surprise to see that for this walk the British High Commissioner
had arranged a police escort for us on the entire route- making Rams’ work easy
and allowing him to concentrate on the thing he loves- capturing images.
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The Erstwhile Anand Theatre under the Metro Rail construction debris |
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The 30 year supplier of Cd's to Chennai |
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Sonna Puriyudha? |
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Did you know that a Xerox gives a "DITTO" copy? |
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The 3-way split of Anna Salai |
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The walk started off from Mount
Road and passing by the now defunct Anand Theatre- a once prominent landmark
for the city’s film buffs- and skirting around the dug up roads for the
upcoming Metro rail project, we turned into Greams Road. As one of the history
buffs in the group- Chandra Choodan or CC as he is called explained- the road
started off being called Greame’s Road in honor of an erstwhile prominent
resident Mr.Greame, of Irish origin. With time the “e” was lost and an “s” was
added to the name by the local corporation officers- and hence Greams Road. But
this contraction of the late Mr. Greame’s name doesn’t seem to be the end of
the story – as I saw quite a few shop name boards with creative spelling of the
original street name – Indian ingenuity at its best.
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Is it Greams Road? |
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Or Grimes Road? |
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After passing the mid way point of
the walk at the designated – TAFE workshop- a place where almost all Chennai
car owners would have service their cars at one time or another, we turned back
into the opposite side to pass the MRF showroom with its distinctive “Man
bearing Tire” display in imitation of the mighty Atlas of Greek Myths. From
there we crossed over to the other side of Mount Road into Peter’s Road and the
Thousand Lights Mosque- which gives its name to the Thousand Lights Area behind
it. As we were there on a Sunday and a non-prayer time we could enter the
mosque and enjoy its beauties without inhibitions- a first time for me and a
few others too. After photographing the minarets and domes of the Thousand
Lights mosque – the walk was officially ended and we broke up to go home for
breakfast and a long lazy Sunday.
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The Chinese Triads are here ? |
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A prayer for every ill -on specific days |
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Atlas Reborn- Tyre man of MRF |
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Welcome to India- where guests are God |
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I have my "EYE" on you | |
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The immortal Tramp - Charlie Chaplin- evergreen humor man |
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R.I.P.- A grave headstone |
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The Thousand Lights Mosque |
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The Minarets of the Thousand Lights Mosque |
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Interior of Mosque |
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A stained glass window |
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View through a window |
P.S. the second walk for this
madras month celebrations is scheduled for next Sunday and would cover the
Nandambakkam area starting from MIOT hospital. Do join us if you are free that
today.
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Our Leader - Ramasamy N - of Chennai Daily Photos |
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A new walker - rings the bell |
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