Our Readers write

Wishing MM well – I

Little did I realize that Madras Musings is in its 25th year. Great news.

I warmly greet the journal and its dedicated readers and congratulate the Editors on this occasion.

MM has remained committed to honesty and frankness on the one hand and to the past and present (and future?) of Madras, a city and an ex-State [the ‘Presidency’, I say so because the State is Tamil Nadu at present] of chequered, but fascinating, history.

While subscribing to modesty, MM has encouraged and supported many enthusiastic young women and men of Madras to think about their city and, thus, has served the community as an avenue for them to vocalise their thoughts.
In this process, MM has not only enabled several to greatly improve their communication skills, but also has prevailed as a liberated voice of the region.

I could be listing more of this, since I am proud that I am one of the readers of MM from Day One, and am continuing to enjoy reading it.

I wish the Editors all the best in the future and wish the journal many happy returns of the day.

I also wish that it will continue to serve the people of Madras (the city and the presidency) with the same gutsy passion and forthrightness that prevails today.

Dr. Anantanarayanan Raman
Charles Sturt University
Orange, NSW 2800
Australia

II

Heartiest congratulations on Madras Musings completing 25 exciting years. It has always been a refreshing read after weathering the (unavoidable) bulk of pedestrian stuff that is dumped on us by the daily publications!
May Silver Turn to Gold!

V.Kalidas
vkalidas@gmail.com

III

The 25th anniversary of Musings! What an achievement – getting an apathetic city to care about itself!

Vijaysree Venkatraman
Boston

IV

From Twitter

@kbalakumar: Congrats and best wishes to all those part of this warm and wonderful venture. #Chennai

@arianrams: Wonderful. Wishing many more years…

@tweets_cs: Congratulations. Wishing many many more years of Madras Musings.

@R_Ajay_: Heartiest congratulations!! Absolutely love your work. Got to know so much about Madras here.

@Venkav4: Congratulations Madras Musings! Appealing to every generation, you are a wonderful publication.

@fabwrite: Congrats!! That’s one fortnightly I look forward to!!

@rangamav: Greetings from a dedicated reader of long standing

@Eramurukan: Many Happy returns. Madras Musings is a movement now. You are in for the longest haul

@ramprackash: Congrats sir. Learn so much about the city we love from you.

@DilliChat: Congratulations on the milestone to the founders and the team of #MadrasMusings.

@catchhema: A fornightly tabloid that everyone reads at home eagerly. 25 yrs & going strong. Kudos MM team.

@kayvenkatesh: Happy Birthday, Madras Musings! Dad used to work in Rane Madras (supporter) & he used to bring home always.

@BrianStoddart: Fantastic stuff for all fans of Madras, including me

@Ammu_Maanu: Congrats, Sir, keep it up for many more years…. Best wishes for that

@brahmmajoshi: My favourite mag. My fav writer. Congrats! Keep the Madras flag high.

@Glasgowlee: Congratulations! Wishing MM many more years of Madras news and views.

@bharathnat: Pat-a-pat- a-pat on our shoulders.. you are the leaders .

@sarojsridhar: Congratulations. Look forward to the next 25.

@nancygandhi: Hard to believe! I hope there will be many more.

From Facebook

Stuart B Campbell: I still keep in touch with Madras that is Chennai from afar. Congrats and here’s to another 25 years!

Shivakumar Raman: Your contributions are amazing. Congratulations! Wishing you 50 more years of Madras Musings!

Chandra Padmanabhan: Congrats to Muthiah and Sriram! In the earlier days I also had a column!
Sachin Anand: All the best. I used to wait for Madras Musings when it was launched and in fact am preserving those copies and am still continuing.

From sriramv.wordpress.com

Arvind Ram Kumar: Thanks to Madras Musings aficionados for their tremendous effort in keeping Madras Musings alive all these years…. Happy silver jubilee.

kaushik55: Yes, it is truly a joyous anniversary that warms the heart of the Chennai-vaasi. Let us say Jai Hind to that!

Fred Fisher (Perth, Western Australia): Congratulations on your Silver Anniversary! Well done! I have enjoyed reading (most of) your musings that have kept me in touch with my former home. Keep up your good work in hustling the authorities for a better Chennai (Madras).

M.G. Swaminathan: Congrats on the landmark achieved!

Mallikarjunan C: All the best to team Madras Musings. May the Almighty bless you with long life. stay young and live.

prismprblog: Congrats. Fabulous achievement.

The Centre last year had announced that it wanted to change the name of the Madras High Court to Chennai High Court, and it is learnt that the Government may introduce legislation in Parliament soon to achieve this objective. The reason most widely proffered (as was done when changing the name of the city from Madras to Chennai in 1996) is that the names have to be de-anglicised. But by changing the name to Chennai we may not be doing that at all.

The Centre, therefore, before placing the bill in Parliament would do well to refer to certain key issues to a select committee and examine the following aspects. Beginning with the historical reference to the region, there is enough prima facie records to establish that the area where Francis Day and Andrew Cogan landed was called “Medraspattam”. The renaming was done at the insistence of the native chieftain Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak, who sold the British a strip of land owned. Nayak is believed to have extracted a promise that the British town should be named after his father Damal Chennappa Nayak. Hence the settlement that grew around Fort St George came to be called Chennaipattinam.

This theory gains greater acceptance when we peruse the “firman” (a written permission granted by an appropriate authority) granted by Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak to Francis Day where Medraspatam is clearly mentioned as the land where the British were allowed to settle. The grant was mentioned in the book called The English Factories in India (1618-1699). Three original and the copies of the grant are also preserved in the India Office at London and are referred to by C S Srinivasachari, Professor at Annamalai University in his book History of City of Madras published in 1939.

In another recent discovery, epigraphists S Rajvelu and Y Subbarayalu, while editing a book on the Vijayanagar inscriptions published by ICHR, observed that Medraspatnam was a small port that existed north of latter day Fort St George before the 19th Century. Evidence to support this assertion lies in an inscription found in Penneswaramadam on the banks of the Pennar to the south of Kaveripattinam.

Therefore in changing Madras to Chennai we do not appear to be paying homage to any aspect of our cultural legacy.

N.L. Rajah
(Advocate, Madras High Court)

A memorable description

l The way the West Indies won the World T20 title left everyone watching the game gasping. The wordsmiths went ga-ga over it. But none more so than a writer in The Guardian, London, according to S.R. Madhu who sent us the whole report. It’s too long to carry here, but the first paragraphs, published below, will give you a taste of things to come.

– Editor

“Swinging for the hills, reaching the stars Wonderfully devastating, hideously marvellous, beautifully grotesque, savagely delightful, the final moments of the Twenty20 World Cup were ludicrously, inconceivably, awesomely dramatic. The final’s finale was undeniably vicious but also, for all that, gorgeous, like standing in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night when it suddenly develops arms and fists and clobbers your helpless self about the head, leaving you dazed and bewildered, dribbling senselessly on the floor, wracked simultaneously by pain and – weirdly, unfathomably – exhilaration.

Beyond boggling at the cool-headed brutality of Carlos Brathwaite’s batting and its possible effect on the psyche of Ben Stokes, this more than anything was an opportunity to genuflect before the glory of sport. It would have been a memorable, dramatic match even if, as had seemed likely when Stokes and Eoin Morgan stood in deep discussion near the bowler’s mark following Chris Jordan’s excellent penultimate over, West Indies had batted out the final deliveries and fallen just short of their moderate target. But this match was not destined just to be admired. There was another twist to come, the twist of a serrated knife.”