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Tamil signage for Greenway’s Road

There were three silent films on the same subject as Chinthamani (Miscellany, March 3), writes reader V.A.K. Ranga Rao. They were: Bilwamangal aka Bhakta Surdas (1919), by Madan Theatres, Calcutta, Chinthamani (1922), by Lotus Films, Hyderabad, and Bilwamangal aka Bhakta Surda (1929) by Kohinoor Films, Bombay. Around a dozen were made in the talkie era, before and after MKT Bhagavathar’s classic — in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, among other Indian languages. The singing stars in these films included Jahanara Kajjan, Master Nisar, Khursheed, K.L. Saigal, P. Bhanumathi, Suraiya, C.H. Atma, Honappa Bhagavathar and, “in an aborted venture”, Anup Jalota. Madan Theatres’ Bilwamangal made in 1932 is believed to be the first colour film made in India. Rao also expresses his surprise over the claim that Benares was the singer’s birthplace. Writes Rao, “By consensus, Siri, a small village near Delhi, is his birthplace, but Thiruvananthapuram also stakes a claim in its sthalapurana.”

* Dr. Suresh Chandvankar of the Society of Indian Record Collectors, Mumbai, caught up with my mention of a Gauhar Jan recording (Miscellany, January 28), and says “that is incorrect information”. He goes on to add, “I was closely associated with Michael when he retrieved those recordings. What he found were mint copies of her records in the EMI London archives and not wax masters. Wax masters play only for 3-4 minutes, so this 18 minutes and 36 minutes recordings are all stories.”

* Reader K.R.A. Narasiah writes that there was an HMHS Madras that was built before the Great War (1914) and used during it as a hospital ship. But, he wonders, does anyone know of an HMS Madras that was a man-o’-war in Nelson’s fleet which was later used as a hospital ship?

* Sundaram Road (Miscellany, February 25) takes its name from the Sai Baba Temple that is called ‘Sundaram’, writes K. Narayanan, the Readers’ Editor of this paper. ‘Sundaram’, in this context, should be taken to mean ‘that which is beautiful’, I presume.

* A picture reader Sriram V sends me shows yet another intriguing bit of Tamil signage for a city road. Greenway’s Road has, instead of being transliterated, been translated — no doubt keeping in mind the civic authority’s new concern with giving us a greener environment. Transliteration would, however, have given us the opportunity to keep remembering Edward Croft Greenway, who became a Civilian in 1797 and a Puisne Judge of the Sudder Court in 1811. In 1822, he owned Serle’s Garden (Miscellany, February 11) on this road; no doubt that being the reason the road was named after him. He died in Mangalore in 1828.

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