Category Archives: Madras

Belated Birthday Wishes, My Madras!

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Dear Madras,

Yes I did want to wish you on your birthday itself. But you don’t know just how much I miss you these days that I just didn’t want to write yet another post here expressing my longing for you. I read posts all around celebrating you, your culture, heritage and everything that is Madras.

Hey Madras, every time I see a sign board giving details of a heritage place, road or a tree (Yes heritage tree!) in Singapore, I think about how we all have taken your culture and heritage for granted and, forget about taking care of it and promoting it, how much we are neglecting it. Forget about heritage, even your roads are not how they used to be. It is now filled with potholes and bumpy patches in many places. The new Metro and MRTS continue to run with not much patronage. Here’s wishing that you get your infrastructure back in excellent shape and your heritage gets preserved!

As it rained leaves from the raintree….

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On a sunny Sunday afternoon, there I was, sitting on a bench, watching my kids running around in the play area. As a slight breeze started blowing, bringing with it not just a welcome respite from the sweltering heat, but also a ‘rain’ of drying leaves from the raintree near us, my kids and I rejoiced together. The drying leaves in varied shades of yellow to green to brown continued to fall down in colourful bursts for a minute or two. As I lost myself in these dull colours of nature, my kids ran around laughing and catching as many falling tiny leaves as they could.

It is always with a touch of nostalgia that I look at a raintree / thoongumoonji maram. When I was a small kid, my father used to bring back thoongumoonji poo during his morning walks for me to play with. I remember how, back then, I used to watch the leaves of this tree closing down to fall asleep at the onset of evening.

In our apartment in Madras, we had a huge raintree growing more than three floors high. Every time I went to the terrace, I used to watch the beautiful combination made by the pink flowers and green leaves of this tree. Before we put mosquito nets, our balcony used to always have lots of dried leaves of this tree fallen inside. Huge branches of this tree fell during last year’s cyclone and the entire tree had to then be cut off.

Today, I have huge rain trees outside my window and did I tell you that there are always a few dried leaves to be swept away in my living room?

Miss you, Adi Sale

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Stuck in Singapore, one thing that I miss now is the Adi sale. Driving in the chaotic T. Nagar traffic and braving the crowds of Usman Road and coming back with bags loaded with all the new clothes is an experience by itself indeed. The ‘Great Singapore Sale’ which is going on here from May 30th to July 27th is no match to that to a hardcore Chennaiite like me.

I love Madras!

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The weekend before last saw me realizing yet again how, to me, there is no place like our home – Madras. I read this article in The Hindu’s Sunday magazine about how comforting it feels when consulting your family doctor and even as I read ‘thanking my stars I live in Chennai’, I felt like joining in saying ‘me too’.

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Lesser Known Temples of Chennai – Some More

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“Lesser Known Temples of Chennai – Some More” – A lecture by Dr. Chithra Madhavan on 23rd August, 2011 at Gallery Sri Parvati held as part of Madras Day celebrations.

It was a nostalgic-me who attended this lecture since it was during the Madras Day celebrations in 2008 that I first attended Dr. Chithra Madhavan’s lecture little knowing that after that lecture, my visits to old temples would never be the same anymore and that I would go on to attend many more lectures of hers in the coming years. The topic of that lecture was ‘Lesser Known Temples of Chennai’ and this year’s too was again ‘Lesser Known Temples of Chennai – Some More’.

As usual, this lecture too was filled with a wealth of information. The photos of almost all the sculptures, vimanams and gopurams that were mentioned about were shown.
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Mylapore Temples Walk

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This walk was by Dr. Chithra Madhavan and it was organized by ‘Namma Mylapore’ on 7th March, 2010. Srinivasa Perumal, Kesava Perumal, Kapaleeswarar, Mundagakanni Amman, Madhava Perumal, Karaneeswarar and Virupaksheeswarar temples were the temples that were covered in this walk. History, architecture, sculptures and inscriptions were the focus of this walk. So, we didn’t see the main deities in most of the temples.
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Arupatthumoovar at Kapaleeswarar Temple

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After seeing the grand Arupatthumoovar at Kapaleeswarar temple, I had to ‘unblock’ the blogger’s block somehow and write this post. This is a very long post! Read it when you find time.

Despite living very near Mylapore for almost 15 years now, I had never been to Arupatthumoovar even once! When I was studying in school, festival time at Kapaleeswarar temple always meant getting a holiday or two and that was all. This year’s Arupatthumoovar was on last Saturday (27th March) &, initially, I wasn’t planning on going for it. My mom having gone for Arupatthumoovar for the first time last year, tempted me to go and, here I am now, all set to relive the grandeur of the fest which left me awe-struck.
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And thus ends the countdown! :)

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I am now at the Koothambalam auditorium in Kalakshetra all set to attend the first December Season concert of T.M.Krishna! The concert will start after some DVD launch programme (I really don’t remember the details of the DVD now!) at 6:30 pm. I hope the speeches get over soon.

Coming straight from office, it took me a good 20-min walk to reach here from the signal near Marundeeshwarar temple. Thanks to the intermittent heavy rain all through the day, the roads were bad and it was difficult walking on the slushy road. But the moment I entered Kalakshetra, I loved the peaceful atmosphere that welcomed me. 🙂 The road which the security directed me to take wasn’t the one used by vehicles. So there was absolute silence except for the sounds of the insects and the sounds of vehicles which was so low that it seemed to come from a far-away place. The pleasant weather, the water droplets falling from the trees, the serene atmosphere, everything in complete contrast to the bad roads, the maddening traffic and the noise in ECR, made me forget everything and set the mood to enjoy the music that is soon going to follow. The programme is about to begin! Cya later!

Happy Madras Day!

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To the city which has given me so many hobbies and passions and has made me so very busy that I do not have time to even think of getting bored! Here’s wishing you a very happy birthday, Madras!