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The `Minors' of MINOR BUNGALOW
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Minor Bungalow is where the South's only `Princes' College' functioned...
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SOUTH PAST Gemini Studios was Blacker's Garden that in time became the Congress Grounds and site of Kamaraj Hall. Across it, hidden by trees is Minor Bungalow. Who was Minor or why it was so named, I have no idea, but in later years this century old house appeared most appropriately named for it was a home away from home for the `Minors' of the Madras Presidency. `Minors' is a bit of pre-Independence South Indian English - though the term is still heard in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu - and was how the scions of princely and zamindari families were generally called. It was also a term used to describe a wealthy young man, particularly one who put on airs. It undoubtedly derived from a bit of British officialese, `Minor Zaminadars', which I was never very clear about; did the description apply to lesser zamindars or to the sons or brothers of zamindars.
Be that as it may, Minor Bungalow is where the South's only `Princes' College' functioned. It was called Newington College and had moved into these tree-shaded premises in the early 20th Century after moving from the building that is now the home of the Presidency Club. Here the `Minors' - of whom there seemed to be a large number - were taught not only the three Rs, but also how to live up to their status and develop as superior brown sahibs. Their first principal, Morrison, and his Vice Principal, C. de la Hey (spelt by some as the more conventional `Hay'), were the typical public school cricketing types and the culture of the playing fields of Eton was something they only too gladly tried to instil in their wards.
During one of my researches I discovered that in 1913 that cricket-loving Governor, Lord Pentland, and Lady Pentland were `At Home' to the "Newington Wards" at Chepauk in a match he had organised to promote cricket amongst the Indians in Madras. It was reported that the Newington College Club XI (comprising the Wards and a couple of Masters) "tried conclusions with a Government House eleven on the M.C.C. pitch which had been kindly lent for the occasion". A report of the match says the College set a target of 160 runs to make in 1 ½ hours and achieved it for the loss of only four wickets due to the efforts of the Minor Zamindar of Jarada, the Zamindar of Telrapole and the Muppil Nair of Kavalapara. Other Minor Zamindars in the team included those of Wuryur, Nandigam, Tiruvur and South Walur. For the life of me, I have no idea where all those domains were nor what's happened to them.
Though this match got quite a bit of space in The Madras Mail, Morrison from as early as 1907 had been organising College XXIIs against the MCC. On occasions when the Newington College team was short of both students and masters, the Buchi Babu boys and their friends were invited to make up the numbers. On such occasions, the `invitees' tended to overshadow the Newington Wards in cricketing prowess.
Minor Bungalow, however, did not hit the headlines for such sporting activities, even though de la Hey played a rather prominent role in that 1909 match, Presidency Europeans versus Presidency Hindus, which was the first `official' cricket encounter between the rulers and the ruled and led to annual Presidency Match, the biggest match of the year in the early day of Indian cricket in Madras. The headlines Minor Bungalow got was when it became a cause celebre in 1919 because de lay Hey, who lived on the top floor, was killed on the premises!
de la Hey was the brother of the legendary Miss de la Hey who in July 1914 founded the Madras College for Women, now Queen Mary's College. Unlike his sister, who played a significant role in the emancipation of the South Indian woman, de la Hey was considered a racist, whose language towards his wards was anything but parliamentary. But de la Hey was also a man with a problem on his hands. He had a much younger wife who was as flirtatious as she was attractive. And she thought nothing of entertaining a long line of `minors', themselves brought up on a diet of pliant women.
One October night in 1919, she woke up with a start on hearing the sound of a blast and found her husband with his head shattered and his blood drenching their sheets. She later gave a brief statement to the police saying she saw two students in the room, one of them holding a shotgun. The college encouraged, apart from cricket, the princely sport of hunting, so there were shotguns kept with the sports equipment. She also identified one of the young men, a kin of a senior Rajah.
After her statement, she dropped out of sight. And, curiously, was never heard of again. The Raj had packed off to Britain the only eyewitness to the crime! The young man who was arrested, for his part soon turned a Crown witness and named a fellow student who was only a Minor Zamindar. The sensation the case caused in Madras led to the case being transferred to the Bombay High Court. And there the Chief Justice of the Court insisted on trying what, as the 1920s dawned, became the country's most reported case. After a lengthy, argument-filled trial, and despite the approver's evidence and that of fellow students who appeared to have been influenced by the senior rajah who took a great deal of interest in the proceedings, the Minor Zamindar was acquitted by the jury. And as the headlines faded and the gossip died down, Newington College, which that senior rajah had wanted declared a Rajkumars' College like the institutions in the North, closed down and Minor Bungalow was put to other use.
In more recent times, dilapidated though it has long been, Minor Bungalow was used by the Office of the Director of Medical Services.
But after its portico came tumbling down a few years ago, it was abandoned by the Directorate and when I last wandered through it a couple of years ago it was a derelict crying for restoration. Of de lay Hey's ghost, there was no sign in the building that would have been an ideal `haunted house' set for a film.
S. MUTHIAH
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