A restored past of the Nizams - The chowmahalla palace

After effortlessly driving through a galli  around Charminar, we reached a place which was just a stone’s throw from the celebrated  signature monument  of Hyderabad.

We found  a place  easily to park our car  in the small parking space (a luxury to find parking these days), we bought the ticket  at the enclosure close to the huge wooden door  only to enter  into the splendor of a bygone era, we were at  The Chowmahalla palace. The palace which now is a museum giving a glimpse of the  opulent nizami lifestyle with courtyards, fountains, gardens and a yard of wagons, coaches, palanquins, custom built gold ford cars, rolls Royce, Harley bikes etc., 

Chowmahalla palace or chowmahallat is Persian ( Arabic?) meaning 4 palaces. Chahar means four and Mahalat is the plural of Mahal meaning palace hence the name. This  palace was the  first official residence  of the Nizams of the Hyderabad state who were then the richest in the world  and was the seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty.  Modelled on the Shah of Iran's palace in Tehran, chowmahalla was also celebrated by historians as "palace of  Arabian nights". 

Three out of the 4 palaces are single storied.  The double storied  Khilwat Mahal displays the arts, artefacts and artillery of the nizams. Thought the nizams lived a simple life, they entertained the visiting royal dignitaries in a lavish style which was unparalled.The palace is designed in Mughal and European style of architecture.

 Owing to bitter family squabbles ,  This palace was abandoned by the present Prince Mukkaram jah when he moved to Australia in 1973. When he returned back around 2000, the 54 acre estate shrunk into 12 acre as courtyard after courtyard,ballrooms and a mile long banqueting hall were all acquired by real estate developers who demolished the 18^th century building to make modern day structures. Infact, it is an eyesore to see the small structures so close to the palace compound. Not just that, the palace was in a dilapidated state, a state of neglect for nearly 30 years with crumbling roofs, damaged walls due to dampness and leakage, dusty treasures like photos, crockery, the royal robes, art works, furniture etc.,

After a long ordeal, the first wife of the present Nizam Mukkaram Jah- The Turkish born princess Esra restored the once royal residence. She took it upon herself in 2002(?)to preserve what remained of the Nizam’s Legacy and restored much of it to some semblance of the past glory and the work is nothing short of incredible.

 As  I went around the palace thrown open to public since 2005, I only went WOW!, OMG! and awed with wonder at the amazing restoration work and its maintenance.  The palace is tightly secured,  the security guards are not intrusive to the tourists and are very polite and well mannered.

Though a stone's throw from Charminar, this is not on the list of things to see for many tourists and not known to many even in Hyderabad, but it’s worth visiting  and spending some time here, if you care and love Indian History and heritage.  Ambling  around the palace corridors and looking at the various nizami treasure is like a travel through a time machine to the days of the Nizam. Worth the 40 bucks we paid  per head( 50 for camera) for international  visitors it is 150. Why this disparity?

This is not just one of India's biggest heritage restoration and conservation project but a well maintained one too. It has received the prestigious UNESCO asia pacific merit award for cultural heritage conservation in 2010 and two times INTACH heritage award.

BTW, just in case anybody sees the name of Azmet jah on the scroll of Hollywood movies, he is the son of Princess Esra and Nizam who has worked with Steven Speilberg and Richard Attenborough and wielded the camera for Basic Instinct and Indiana jones and the last crusade. He hopes to settle in the palace now.


Now for some pics, there are not professional pics and may lack focus and clarity( click on it to feel the place)

As you enter through the main door you walk through a corridor housing a series of rooms and reach this place called Khilwat Mahal.  This  durbar hall is two tiered and  has grand pillars with a huge marble throne called Takht-e-nishan meaning the royal seat. The nizams held their durbar and other religious ceremonies. This hall is covered with bamboo blinds as you can see in the picture. The curtains open up to 19 beautiful belgium chandeliers which have been installed during the renovation project. 

The rooms behind this window displays the history of nizams through the various photographs which have been restored from the dust. Don't miss the stuccos around the window. 

The photographic lineage of the nizams and paigahs is displayed like these in nearly 3 rooms. One of the rooms has a 100 year old clock which was made in GB, it was specially designed for the nizams, It has a caliph smoking a hooka and a servant fanning him in a royal court. the whole court is intricately crafted and an interesting event takes place every 15 minutes. Photography was not allowed in that room. 

The durbal hall

Lovely Belgium chandeliers hang from the ceiling,WOW! (clicked from the trellised balcony of the first floor.) 

The pure marble throne

The chandeliers hang from such beautifull niches, all part of restoration work.

This is the stuccoed ceiling of the "Hall of heritage arts and aretefacts" which has paintings and other art works. WOW again!

The hall of heritage crockery displays a huge hall full of crockery from all over the world. Many branded crockery from Belgium, France, China and other countries displays the opulent lifestyle of the nizams. One dinner set is supposed to have had 2300 piece. OMG!   The royal kitchen cooked rich cuisine which they say was cooked with fursaat( slow cooking called Dum cooking) and with lot of mohabbat(love) . 

The hall of artillery displays two full rooms of armours,swords and guns, OMG!

The back of the khilwat mahal, the gardens lead to Afzal mahal which is the drawing room of the nizams

The view from Afzal mahal which has a lavish drawing room with lovely sofas, armchairs, valenced doorways 

                                                     The flooring in front of Afzal mahal

The clock you see in the top of the dome is called khilwat clock. It has been ticking away for over hundred years. The people of the locality time their clock/watch according to the chimes of the clock. That speaks for the accuracy of the old clock. This door opens to the lane out.

                                    The harleys, fords, rolls royce, various vintage cars, chariots OMG! This area is called Buggy khana and is housed at the back of the palace.

This is the shishe -e-alat meaning mirror image of the long corridor of rooms on the east side ( administrative wing which now has a canteen and handicraft store) . This is the west side.  The shishe -e-alat has a photo studio where tourists dress in the royal robes and get clicked as nizams and begums.

The long corridor which connects the doors of the above rooms

Those are the huge lemons in the royal gardens. Actually the gardens are not very impressive though they are well maintained. 

The palace closes by 5 for visitors but the evening is open to concerts,kavi sammelans,fashion shows,  mushairas, conferences and weddings thus turning this into a cultural house with glorius lighting in the evenings.(pic:google)

My home of 10 years...

When I landed in this city 1O years back (jan 18,2002), never did I realize that I would stay or stick to this place so long. There was nothing that I liked about this city, the  hyderabadi cuisine, the odour, the colors,  the language(dakhni hindi), the design,  the Hyderabadi traits like laid back attitude, laziness, unpunctuality, the hard water,  the dry weather, My rented home(though it was a brand new home), the shops, streets, hotels, the little kiosks with kebabs dangling…….. nothing I liked …. Nothing… at all.

Today 1O years later,   subtly and without realizing it consciously the city has made me fall in love with it.

After all this city is known as the city of love and was born out of love.

Hyderabad the 400 year old city is  my home for the past 10 years. A city which is a historians delight and its air,  redolent with history. Built for the love for Bhagmati , the fifth king of Golkonda Mohammad Quli Qutub shah founded and designed  the city and named it after her as Bhagyanagar in 1589.  He had decreed that the new city should be "unparalled in the world and  a replica of heaven itself”  and his words were taken literally  and planned as per the definition of the holy verse of Quran’s paradise. When his  lady love joined the royal palace as his queen she was renamed “Hyder Mahal” and Bhagyanagar was renamed as Hyderabad, now the capital of Andhra Pradesh.

 A city of oriental glory, the old city still is  reminiscent of the great days of the Indo-Muslim culture and the new city- a perfect blend of north and south.

Today, like all other Tier I cities, this city too has emerged as a global IT (Cyberabad)and bio-tech(genome valley) major along with retaining its royal cultural identity(old city hyderabad) and  colonial cantonment identity(Secunderabad, though named after Sikandar Jah was originally called Lashkar meaning army camp).

Now 1O years later, the scent, sight, flavor, sound, language and everything about Hyderabad/Cyberabad/secunderabad has sunk into me and influenced me  so much that, I’ve turned into a true blue Hyderabadi.

This post is not a travel guide but a list of things that I have done/seen or observed in Hyderabad.(my experiences and may differ from person to person)

• ·         The first thing that would perhaps strike about this city is the language. The dakhni language which reflects their laid backness in its usage. You will find them combining the words  aa raha hai to aara , dekh raha hai to dekra,  kar raha hai to karra   like in kya karra bhai tu?( kya kar rahe ho bhai tu?or the use of ‘ re’ like in kya re? This even spills into English like in what re? Why re?

             From the beginning, I would advise my children not to use ‘re’ in their speech and today they tell me ‘Amma, you told us not to use ‘re’ and now you are using it. Such is the influence.

          Arrey, yes re bhai, this is hyderabadi language. Hum aisaich hain.( we are like that only)( any body interested in this language,  watch rib-tickling movies like Angrez or Aadab Hyderabad and you would know what I am talking about)

• ·         If you are a person who is in a hurry to finish things first like me, this city would slow you down. Their attitude towards any thing in life is ‘lite le le’.(Take it lightly)

• ·         The first time I came into the city, we brought our car by road and as soon as we entered the city near Shamshabad, I found we were the only ones who stopped for signal. The rest never bothered. All lights in the traffic signal are green for Hyderabadis. Similarly, we can overtake from any side. Even if, somebody hits you or you hit somebody. It is ‘ lite le le bhai’( take it light, bro) . While driving, you can simply put the left indicator and turn right.

( since jan1,2012, the laws have become strict though and even cars parked in ‘no parking’ are challaned and the tyres are locked to the road)

• ·       You walk into a shop in a commercial district and ask the shopkeeper who is sipping chai to show you something and he would say. ‘Ruko madam ji, dikhta nahin kya… chai pee raha hoon’. His chai is his priority not his customer. After all they are in Nizam’s land, you see.

• ·         If you are an early riser and have woken at 6 and your afternoon is somewhere around 12 and you Walk into any shop at 11 in the morning and ask for your need, and the shopkeeper would simply dismiss you  and  say ‘Abhi kula hoon madam, thoda waqt rukna padega’ . After all his subah is only at 11’O clock.

Yes, you will find the city dead before  11 a.m

•          Ask for directions to any place and the director would say ‘ idharich hai (here only), Seedha jaana, chow raasta aata, left mudna’. And you will find that seedha raasta  is a   5 kms stretch and chowraasta is much after that.
•      If the party invite says that it starts at 6.30p.m Even by mistake, don’t land at 7.30p.m. Reach there only at 8.30. That is the time sense we follow and yes, now I too follow the same time zone.  What to do, I follow - When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Jokes aside, but seriously these are some of my above experiences in this royal city.

Otherwise this is like any one of those global  cities where you find anything to everything in the branded malls,  Global cuisine in almost all hotels but still if you want to experience the hyderabadi culture, then

Drive around the Signature monument Charminar, you will find Sarojini Naidu’s Poem Bazaars of Hyderabad come alive. The beautiful lanes selling bangles, colorful traditional dresses, the mojris, jhootis, attars, pearls,kundan sets, the ari, zardozi embroidered sets. Especially during Ramzan, the colors that the bazaars display would be beyond the pallete of any artist.  This place retains the essence of  the real Hyderabad, the rest of the city has slowly morphed with times.

I  write about Hyderabad and can cuisine be far behind? Being a vegetarian, I find it difficult to eat at many traditional eateries the city is famous for. For non-vegetarians though, this place is a heaven. Hyderabadi cuisine is cooked with  ‘fursat’(slowly)  and with Mohabbat(love) with rich ingredients befitting a king. The speciality lies in its slow cooking called ‘Dum’ cooking. The signature dish of course is Haleem which is unique to Hyderabad, seconded by the Dum Pukht biryani and its combo Mirch ka salan. Other than these are Irani chai, Irani samosa, Osmania biscuit, Dil Pasand, Dil kush, Fruit biscuits  and the signature desserts Qubani ka meeta( apricot pudding), Double ka meeta( Bread pudding), Dil –e-Firdaus(kaddu kheer) and much more. For vegetarians, try veg biryani at Taj Belsons or Taj tristar(udupi hotels).

 During the month of Ramadan, community kitchens  define the city streets where people gather to cook on huge handis on either side of the roads and haleems are sold in little cups to break their fast. These sights do warm up your heart.( Being a vegetarian, I hate the aroma)

 For a book lover, Abids and King koti are the place to be. It is a haven for second hand books at dirt cheap rates. Books on all topics under the sun from gardening, cooking, sewing to robotics, management and automation, you name it and they have it.

Beach? Our version of Beach is the banks of Hussain sagar  The centre of which adorns a little Island with a huge Budhha . Especially in the evenings with the beautifully lit statue,  the floating hotel Bhagmati, sitting on the necklace road  with the illuminated park hotel behind and feeling the breeze is a costless luxury.(of course, the dampener are the mosquitoes).

If you are a first time visitor heading to Hyderabad for some sightseeing experience, AP tourism covers most of the places but still someplaces have been overlooked like the

unique experience at Lumbini park. Here you can catch,  The history of Hyderabad at the Laserium. The story of Hyderabad to Cyberabad is screened with laser beams on a Water curtain which springs from a fountain. Don’t miss this experience in an open air amphi. The laser beams look lovely under the ink blue sky.

The sound and light show at the emporium of diamonds, Golkonda. You will travel back to the times when Koh-i-noor and Hope were mined. An experience you should’nt miss with the baritone voice of Amitabh Bacchan. (narrator)

Sudha car museum where you will find cars in unique designs (working models) like Double decker, tweety, brinjal, Phallus(lingam), Computer  and many more all designed by a single man called Sudhakar.


Yogi Bear Putt putt park, all play things like swings, see saw are designed with tyres and it has a small golf link for kids to play. Beautifully designed by homemaker Yogita, inspired by a children park in sweden.


and  much, much more define Hyderabad for me today, though 10 years back Brand Hyderabad was IT hit, today it is T-hit( got the drift?).  

Now I am a True Blue Hyderabadi from a hard core Bangalorean, Infact, now my home town Bangalore where I lived all my life looks new to me.

                                  Falaknuma palace reminds of the glory of old Hyderabad

                             The park hotel on the banks of Hussain sagar, A glimpse of  New Hyderabad 

Image courtesy: google

Dhanushkodi - A port town under the sea

In my childhood,  one of the stories  I heard from my family elders was that of Dhanushkodi, a town  on the east coast of India, which  submerged  when a cyclone of wind velocity 270km/hour crashed into it on the night of 22-23 December 1964. The killer wind  and the accompanying tidal wave blew away all structures and the storm marooned the land,  wiping almost the whole town.  Infact the Government of Madras declared it as a ghost town and unfit for living.

But a few survived to  tell the tale and one of the surviving family was my mom’s maternal uncle who worked there as DS of Customs and Central excise and lived there with his family.

Though I  have heard the story many times when I was young,  I recently asked my mom’s mama ( he is now 84 and lives in Madras) to tell it me again during our telecon a few weeks back.

And he said “ Even now, The thought gives me shivers”.(ippo ninaichalum nadungaradu)

On Dec 22, 1964, My mom’s mama, his wife and two sons aged 4 and 2 were  having their noon day siesta.  They were surprised when the water gushed into their house and in no time it slowly raised to the level of bed.  Worried about their sleeping sons and the rising water levels, they immediately placed two tall wooden stools over the bed and stood over the stool holding their 4 and 2 year old and tied them with a rope to the ceiling. The 20 metre  tidal wave flooded the home  and by evening the water came up to their neck level and it was getting difficult for them to hold  the children up there and balance themselves. Thankfully the rising water stopped just there.  With great difficulty they sustained all throughout the night with the wailing children. The water subsided only in the morning around 10 and then they were evacuated to a  temple,  where they were given food and shelter  for 3 days and finally rescued to mandapam relief camp  along with other survivors in  a ship (INS Sarada).Needless to say that they lost all their belongings.

Dhanushkodi ( also known as Sethukkarai)  was a town at the southern tip of Rameshwaram Island(in southern Tamilnadu) on the East coast of India, and the nearest Indian town close to SriLanka (just 18kms to Talaimannar,Srilanka). It was a quiet town till then (1964) except for low tidal waves, It had a post office, a Customs office,  a railway station, temples and a church. All the needs of the town like groceries, vegetables  were met by the railway people who after getting the people’s list would  bring their needs through Indo-ceylon express( also called Boat mail) which connected Madras to Colombo and the ferries from talaimannar brought them textiles and other luxury goods like jewels etc.,  Before 1964,   a train was connected to Srilanka from Chennai. It came up till a pier in Dhanush kodi and from there,  passengers used a ferry service to cross the 18km(13km?)  Adam’s bridge( a series of coral reefs) to reach Talaimannar in Srilanka. (This Adam’s bridge is also called ‘Ramsetu’ the one built by Lord Hanuman to help Lord Rama cross to Srilanka)

It had no colleges or schools so all students travelled to Rameshwaram by a train for their education. On that fateful night, This train which was approaching Dhanushkodi was washed away by the high tidal wave. The train carried  the students  who were travelling back after school and college.

The  mythological importance assigned to this town is that,  according to the hindu scriptures after the Lanka war, when Lord Rama  returned to India, Vibhisana pleaded that Lord Ram break the sethu(bridge) so that no other armies use it. Rama gave in to his request and broke the Indian side of the bridge with the end of his bow. This place came to be known as Dhanushkodi (Dhanush –bow and kodi is end). Thus this is a holy place for Hindus , further made holier by the confluence of two sea bodies, The bay of Bengal and Indian ocean.

Today , 46 years later, The structures that withstood the tidal wave still exist buried  under the sand and some partly weathered by the Sea adding a mysterious beauty to the place. A few fishermen have settled here in thatched huts and life goes on for them unaware of tomorrow.  Of late, I read in a magazine that the sea water is slowly receding and some parts of the submerged town are visible. 

 I have’nt visited Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, but it is on my ‘to do list’ to see  and experience how it feels, standing at the land mass which is at the tip of India.  Many tourists who travel to Rameshwaram are unaware of Dhanushkodi and the ones who visit sing praises about its  its beautiful coral reefs and rich marine life which is supposed to be very active  here since the ocean waters are very shallow.  

It  is also the birth place of our ex President and missile man APJ Kalam. and this  is  also the town  through which Swami Vivekananda entered India Via SriLanka after his famous Chicago conference.

A port, a holy town, nature lover's paradise   that was (is) Dhanushkodi. Mark it next time around Rameshwaram.

                                                The ruins in the ghost town

                
                                                           the remains of the church 

                                                         The shores of the bay today

Picture courtesy: Google images

To you Madras, Happy 372nd birthday - part -II

Madrasa pattinam - A sandy fishing village of the Bay of Bengal some 3 and half centuries back is today a eight million populated Chennai, this Coramandal queen celebrates its 372nd birthday today.

This southern metropolis on the Coromandel Coast combines the best of technology and the rich core of Indian tradition. With each succeeding generation, the port city has added more layers to its unique identity, building a promising future from a proud legacy.

The hallmark of a successful city lies in its ability to preserve the old (some call it conservative, i call it individuality) while constantly adapting itself to the new. Chennai’s success in commerce has allowed it to afford its citizens all the modern conveniences of a world class city. The modern glistening city is filled with malls, resorts, highways and high-tech offices that co-exist peacefully with the deep rooted cultural values of its people. With its two facets equally alive and vibrant, Chennai reigns as the queen of the Coromandel. This city has a lovely history as it changed various hands and now to the genesis of chennai.

History post Alert
Early settlers
Ancient Chennai lay in the province of Thondaimandalam, which stretched between Nellore and Cuddalore, with its capital at Kancheepuram. The region contained the ancient villages of Thiruvallikeni (Triplicane), Thirumayilai (Mylapore), Thiruvanmiyur and Thiruvotriyur, all integral parts of modern day Chennai. St.Thomas, the apostle, is said to have preached here atop a hillock, now called St.Thomas Mount, between the years 52 and 70 CE. The relics of the Saint, interred in the San Thome church near Mylapore, are believed to possess miraculous healing powers.

The earliest European settlers in the region were the Portuguese, who built a port and named it São Tomé (modern day Santhome) after St. Thomas. The port subsequently passed into the hands of the Dutch, who established themselves at Pulicat, north of the city, in 1612. The British East India Company arrived soon after and established a Calico Cloth factory in Armagon, a village 35 miles north of Pulicat, in 1626.

It was around this time that Francis Day, an agent-in-charge of the East India Company’s Calico Cloth shop in Armagon, set off on an exploratory mission down the coastline in search of a region that produced better cloth for trade. In 1637, he selected a three-mile sandy strip of land south of Armagon, to start his new factory. The area contained the fishing village of Madraspatnam, and in the words of Day, produced “excellent long Cloath and better cheape by 20 percent than anywhere else”. Local gossip at the time however, seemed to suggest that Day’s selection of Madraspatnam was influenced by the location of his mistress in the Portuguese settlement of São Tomé nearby, in order that “their interviews might be the more frequent and uninterrupted”! Irrespective of Day’s actual reasons, his decision was supported by Andrew Cogan, his superior officer and chief of the factory at Masulipatnam. And so, on August 22, 1639, Day secured the lease of the three mile strip of Madraspatnam from Darmarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, the local governor of the Vijayanagar Empire.

On April 23, 1640, with the assistance of his interpreter (dubash) Beri Thimmappa Chetti, Day began the construction of Fort St. George, the first British fortress in India, and the nucleus around which modern day Chennai grew. The Fort still stands today, and houses the Legislative Assembly of the state of Tamil Nadu. The Fort, together with the houses built for British officers constituted ‘White Town’, while labourers, dyers and weavers settled into ‘Black Town’ nearby. By 1750, the neighbouring villages of Narimendu, Triplicane, Kottivakkam, Nungambakkam, Egmore, Mylapore and several others were annexed by Francis Day’s successors through grants approved by the Nayaks of Chandragiri.

The Origin of Madraspatnam
The origin of the name of the little fishing village of Madraspatnam remains a mystery to this day. Though the name sounds alien to the Indian ear, it was not coined by the British. Legend has it that the village was named after Madarasan, the chieftain of the village, whose banana grove was chosen as the location of the fort. Many historians however attribute the name of the village to the church of Madre de Deus, located in the Portuguese settlement of San Thomé, nearby. Another theory is that the village was named after a Muslim madrasa or religious school that was said to have existed in the region.

While the original tract of land allocated to Francis Day did contain the village of Madraspatnam, another village called Chennapatnam lay to the south of it, named after Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, the father of Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu. Based on land records of the time, it is probable that Fort St. George was built in Chennapatnam, though the two villages rapidly merged together soon after. The English continued to call the united villages Madraspatnam, while the locals chose to call them Chennapatnam. In 1746, Fort St. George and Madras were captured by the French under General La Bourdonnais, but was returned to British power three years later, through the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Now in full control of the city of Chennapatnam, as it was known by the locals then, the British established a naval base and built a harbour. With Madras as their administrative centre, they fought several wars, notably with the French at Wandiwash, with the Danes at Tranquebar and with the Kingdom of Mysore, led by Hyder Ali and his son Tipu. By 1780, the British had gained dominance over vast portions of Southern India and established the Madras Presidency with its capital at Madras.

Colonial Centre
The city became a major centre for trade between India and Europe by the end of the 18th century. Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University is named, was the British Governor of Madras for five years and established Yale University using the fortunes that he amassed while in colonial government service here. Thomas Parry set up one of the country’s oldest and most respected mercantile companies here in 1788. John Binny established the famous textile house Binny & Co in 1814. Spencer and Co, Asia’s largest departmental store at the time, was established in 1864. Several other notable British companies joined suit, leading to the formation of the Madras Chamber of Commerce, the Madras Trade Association and finally, the Madras Stock Exchange in 1920.

Madras remained the administrative centre of the Madras Presidency even after independence. State reorganisation followed, and it continued as the capital of Tamil Nadu. Attracted by its booming commerce, many trading communities migrated to the city from all over the country. Artisans, musicians, dancers and craftsmen from the corners of India flocked here as well in the early part of the 20th century, and the city is now regarded as a major centre for the arts in the South. Madras was renamed Chennai in August 1996, after the village of Chennapatnam, in deference to local sentiment. Today apart from the various IT companies,  it is home to many Global and Indian auto majors like BMW, Ford, Hyundai,Mitsubishi, Nissan Ashok leyland, TVS for which reason it is nicknamed 'Detroit of Asia'.

Now for a visual tour,

An illustration of Fort.St.George in the early days(courtesy: dinamalar)

                                    Built in 1504, the Santhome Church rests on the tomb of the Apostle St. Thomas

                     Named after the Governor General of India, Lord Rippon, the Rippon building was built in 1913. 
                                                        It houses the offices of the Chennai Corporation

The Madras High Court was one of the three High Courts in India established by Queen Victoria in 1862, and is the         highest judicial body in Tamil Nadu.

                                                           Today's neon drenched chennai

                                             the beautifully lit Napier bridge( courtesy: The hindu)

 The majestic 150 year old chettinad  palace on the adyar estuary, many film shootings take place here, at present the home of  Raja muthiah's family.( photo courtesy: wikipedia)

My wish list for chennai is to see the beautifully lighted napier bridge, the full moon lit mahabalipuram shores, the chettinad palace (from close quarters) and the heritage site Dakshinachitra, the last one despite my many attempts evades me. Don't go there on a   tuesday which is a weekly off.

Happy Birthday Madras/Chennai. May you celebrate many more 372's without losing your identity.

                                          Do be a part of Madras day by being here or here.



history and remaining photos courtesy: the best of chennai.