For some years now, Indian cities and towns (and maybe even villages) have been engaged in a frenzy of name-changing - of roads, neighborhoods, and city names themselves. Bombay has become Mumbai, Calcutta is now Kolkata and my beloved Madras has morphed into Chennai. This post can run to several pages just listing the changes, but do not be alarmed, I will spare you that. The reasons are as varied as the politicians who are behind the changes: claiming pride in our heritage, demonstrating excessive enthusiasm to "Indianize" India to the greatest extent possible, erasing all traces of our colonial oppressors, obliterating references to caste, propitiating numerology, reviving the names and memories of Indian heroes of yore, however obscure, synchophantic flattering of those who wield power - my imagination has run dry at this point, but I am sure there are many more, some as unfathomable and mysterious as some of the names themselves.
Some time back a friend remarked that I never referred to Madras by its official name, Chennai, that I continued to call it Madras. He wanted to know why, whether I had a reason beyond stubborn nostalgia. And just a couple of days back, I read an article by Victor Mallet in the Financial Times, Pride, Patriotism and the Baffling Politics of Indian Place Names, and I remembered my friend's question.
Here is my answer. To that dwindling band of loyal readers of this blog and those long-suffering relatives who, for reasons of familial ties are obliged to read my rambling and lengthy posts, here is something to brighten your day: this will be a short piece, possibly the shortest this blog has seen. Sprinkled through the narrative are photographs taken in and around George Town, one of Madras's oldest neighborhoods. There are some real treasures there, some sadly neglected, some lovingly maintained.
I continue to call Madras Madras, because that is the name that evokes the city I love, the Madras of my childhood which was a gracious, charming, gentle place that moved at a leisurely pace, a city of old-world appeal and mellow warmth. Chennai, on the other hand, conjures up images of the place in its current incarnation - more brash, more ugly, more rude, more impersonal. Of course, this could all be just my imagination as I'm getting older and nostalgic for the "good old days".
However, I call it Madras not just from a personal point of view. I feel - as do many others - that the government has been misguided in its reasons for changing the name, chief among which is its desire to erase all traces of British rule. Like it or not, (and I don't), the British rule was part of our history and changing names does not make that history go away. Also, the name Madras is every bit as original as the name Chennai.
The city is less than 400 years old and had its beginnings as a fort built by the British on the beach. Before that, the area was a collection of villages, of which one, that lay next to the fort, was called Madraspatnam. One of the stories behind the Madraspatnam name was that the fisher-folk who lived in this village were parishioners of the Portuguese Madre de Deus Church which gave its name to the village. To add further twists to the story, it is believed that the headman of the village (at the time the British came seeking land for their fort and factory) was called Madarasan. It was his banana grove that was the place of choice for the fort and the intermediary conducting the negotiations promised the headman that the new settlement would be named Madarasanpatnam in his honor. At the same time, the local Nayaks (rulers) whose signature would make the deed legal, wanted the new place named after their father, Chennappa. The poor intermediary had his work cut out for him, appeasing everybody! So, it is quite likely that when the British put down roots in the area, there was a village called Madraspatnam; a fort called Madarasanpatnam; and a settlement called Chennapatnam.
There is yet another story (there is never just one story for anything in India!). Down the beach there was a Muslim educational institution, a Madrasa, and a thriving Muslim settlement that had been around for several centuries. Some scholars believe that that area was called Makhraskuppam, a village of seafaring Muslims.
In time the fort and the villages and settlements surrounding it merged and grew into the city of Madras - and or Chennai. While I was growing up the city was referred to as Madras in both English and Tamil, and as Chennai in Tamil (primarily by the Tamil purists). I suppose it's those purists who, without any real knowledge of how and why the names came to be, decided that Chennai was an authentic Tamil name, the one and only name by which it would be called henceforth.
That was probably more than what you bargained for! But now you know: I am entirely justified in doggedly continuing to call Madras Madras!
