Roads that remember memorable women

To encourage young writers to contribute to Madras Musings on heritage, environment etc., we are publishing this series on roads of Madras named after women by ARCHANA VENKATESH, who wrote while working on a project as a Summer Intern with the NGO Prajuya. She introduces the project:

Rukmani Road,Besant Nagar

Doing the roads project with Kanchana Venkatesh, another intern, was like going on a sort of Discovery of Madras tour. Initially we planned to do 31 roads, but this was before we took a closer look at not only how many roads are named after women, but also how much information is available about these women.

Getting information about some of these women was impossible. For example, the only thing I was able to ascertain about Jayammal (of Jayammal Road, Teynampet) was that she was the mother of dancer Balasaraswati. Other women who have roads named after them didn’t even figure in books and web searches (Kamalabai Street, T Nagar; Muktharunissa Street, Triplicane; and Nava-neethammal Street – to name a few). Even a public figure like Rani Annadurai was mentioned only a couple of times in any biography of C N Annadurai.

Rukmani Road,Besant Nagar

Who were these women and, if they were deemed important enough to have roads named after them, then why isn’t any information about them available? Which brings us to another issue: if these women weren’t public figures, do they merit having roads named after them? For example, if Rani Annadurai was not an activist, why is there a road named after her? Annai Nagammai, Peri-yar’s wife, certainly played a large role in the freedom movement, and his second wife Maniammai was part of the Dravidian movement. On the other side of the coin, though, it can be argued that Annadurai was able to rise in public life only because of the support he received at home from his wife and family. We must acknow-ledge the role of these largely invisible women in the lives of public men.

Rukmani Road,Besant Nagar

Another question that came up was that when we’d stated in the introductory post that we were not planning to include roads named after religious, no mythical and legendary figure like Kannagi. Avvaiyyar and St. Mary.

No project is perfect, but I also feel that Avvaiyyar is still relevant in today’s education system. Kannagi has been used as a symbol in the Dravidian movement in the days, since Periyar originally disowned her as an ideal woman, saying that chastity is a sexist concept and should not be applied only to women. Since then, attitudes towards Kannagi have changed. No discussion of the Dravidian movement is complete without a mention of her significance. With regard to St Mary, while the miracles around her may or may not be true, the fact that Jesus (an important historical figure) was her son makes her a “real” person.

But let’s not quit; let’s just follow the roads.

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