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Some welcome restoration
Wellesley House in Fort St. George
EVER SINCE work started on restoring Senate House a couple of years ago with the intention of having it ready to celebrate the University of Madras' 150th year commemoration, work has got underway to restore several other heritage landmarks in the city as well. While on the flip side, a few police stations which would have been on any heritage list have been pulled down, restoration work has been completed in the San Thome Basilica and the Museum Theatre, nearly completed in Clive Building (correctly speaking, Admiralty House) in the Fort and Raj Bhavan, and begun on the Connemara Library, Rajaji Hall (once known as Banqueting Hall), and the Fort Museum.
Even if some of this restoration is not on classical lines, it nevertheless is welcome news, for at last there is some consciousness of doing something about our heritage buildings being demonstrated. That is also being revealed in discussions about restoring some other buildings. These include: General Post Office, the main block of what was once Guindy Engineering College, the National Art Gallery, the Royapuram Railway Station (the first in South India), Ripon Building (municipal headquarters), the State Bank of India's Main Branch which was built as the headquarters of the Bank of Madras, and Gokhale Hall of the Young Men's Indian Association that Annie Besant had founded. I hope that when the talking stops and work gets underway, it will be on more classical lines than the initial efforts.
Meanwhile, the Marina is getting a facelift, planning is going on to make the Adyar backwaters an eco-park, and several of the parks in the city appear to be getting a new lease of life. There seems to be a more conscious effort to make the city `Singara' or `Ezhilmigu' Chennai. But there is still a long way to go. And along that way are several buildings, parks and waterways that deserve some attention paid to them. Among these are the Bharat Insurance Building, built as Kardyl Building, by W.E. Smith & Co. (pharmacists) and now owned by the cash-rich Life Insurance Corporation which stubbornly refuses to restore it and seems bent on pulling it down before long. Fortunately, not threatened in similar fashion, but which is plagued by Corporation vs. Trust issues that are holding up plans for restoration as the splendid theatrical space it once was, is Victoria Public (Town) Hall. And there are over a score of other public and private spaces that I can list that all warrant immediate action, but let me confine myself to just half a dozen which are particularly significant.
Top of the list would be Fort St. George, a place deserving to be on the World Heritage List. Wellesley House, the present area headquarters which was where the Corporation — the oldest outside Europe — first met, the Grand Arsenal and King's Barracks are just a few of the buildings needing immediate attention here.
Next would be Chepauk Palace, where Indo-Saracenic began in India.
Then there's Presidency College, where higher education began in South India, and Brodie Castle, the College of Carnatic Music, perhaps one of the few, and possibly the most striking of the garden houses left.
And going beyond buildings are My Ladye's Garden, once one of the loveliest parks in the South, and the waterways, on which desultory work is being done but with no real commitment to making the Cooum, Adyar and the Buckingham Canal enrich the city's beauty.
I welcome the beginning that's been made in giving the old a facelift in Madras, but there are miles to go. I hope that at least the commitment that has been shown during these first steps will be shown during the rest of the journey. Think of the beauty of heritage that the city will then be able to offer all those wanting to sink roots in Boomtown Madras!
S.Muthiah
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