In Madras the streets were named after their designated uses, as in Godown Street which was full of "godowns" or warehouses. Its proximity to the Madras port encourages the conjecture that the cargoes unloaded from merchant ships were stored in these godowns before being "shipped" off to "mofussil" towns. There was an entire street named for Coral Merchants and another was simply known as flower bazaar.
Some were named for the communities which populated them, as in Armenian street or Beri Chetty street which were homes to merchants hailing from Armenia or the Beri Chetty community. And then there was the time honoured tradition of naming streets after prominent citizens. Theagaraya and Nair roads were named after two stalwarts of the Justice Party (a pro-colonial and anti-Brahmin movement) which went on to morph into the Dravidian social movement and thence into Dravidian political parties.
Pantheon of Hindu or Christian deities and saints also lent their names to streets, avenues and boulevards. They even named a street after the first person to build a house on it (Chinnaiah street). Then there are the mandatory "mada" streets which are streets forming rectangles around temples and /or the temple tanks. I would be remiss if I omitted to mention that streets were also named for popular celluloid heroes of questionable looks and even less talent, names resplendent with the obligatory honorary doctorate and French honours which no one seems to think much of.
Certain Telugu-speaking community of traders was very prominent in the 19th and early 20th century Madras society. They were also very public-spirited and shared their good fortune with the less fortunate of the city. They established and supported charitable hospitals, schools, colleges, and soup kitchens, not to mention temples. Some of their descendants, whose own contributions to the city or its citizenry could be counted on the fingers of a limbless person, claimed the city - unsuccessfully, I might add - for their fledgling state on the basis of this munificence of their forefathers.
These gentlemen - the temple-builders and soup kitchen supporters, not their descendants - also gave their names to the city streets. Their names were sometimes used with the honorific suffix "lu" (pronounced "loo") appended to them; like Govinda Rajulu, Sri Ramulu, and so on. Why some one would think it an honour to attach a "loo" to their name beats me, but vanity has that effect on people.
Some went so far as to prefix their names with a title suggesting great wealth. For example, one street name read Gopathy Narayanaswamy Chetty Road which was quite a mouthful even for us, who are used to bombast and to long names. By the time a person from the North could finish saying the name we could traverse its entire length by foot. The name signifies that the said gentleman was the owner of many cows which in 19th and early 20th century India counted for much. Some mischievously suggest that the prefix portrayed his wife as a cow (go = cow; pathy = husband), but there is no firm basis to this bovine theory which is asinine at best.
Then Madras became Chennai in an act of political hoodwinking - the fact that Chennai is an abbreviation for "Chenna Pattanam" meaning "the good city" and is of Telugu origin, is lost on the great unwashed who constitute the principal vote bank of the Tamil chauvinists. The government also abolished castes. The abolishment consisted of banning the use of prefixes, suffixes and honorifics that hinted at caste affiliations. Chettys were dropped from names as were Reddys, Ayyars and Ayyengars. Rangachary Road is now emasculated to Ranga Road as is Pulla Reddy Avenue to Pulla Avenue. But erstwhile Nair Road remained Nair Road presumably as a homage to the origins of the Dravidian movement.
The self-proclaimed atheist government went so far as as to remove the "swamy" from the aforementioned Gopathy Narayanaswamy Chetty Road which now simply reads Gopathy Narayana Road. It is further shortened to GNC Road by the technology-obsessed younger lot. It does not have the same ring to it any more. Roads with female names remain unmolested (something I cannot say for the city's females, though). However there were not many to begin with: in time honoured Tamil tradition, men are deemed more worthy of honour than women.
In an act of political correctness the suffixed "loo" was also dropped from street names. But loos live on in the streets of Chennai.
In fact the streets are the loos.
Some were named for the communities which populated them, as in Armenian street or Beri Chetty street which were homes to merchants hailing from Armenia or the Beri Chetty community. And then there was the time honoured tradition of naming streets after prominent citizens. Theagaraya and Nair roads were named after two stalwarts of the Justice Party (a pro-colonial and anti-Brahmin movement) which went on to morph into the Dravidian social movement and thence into Dravidian political parties.
Pantheon of Hindu or Christian deities and saints also lent their names to streets, avenues and boulevards. They even named a street after the first person to build a house on it (Chinnaiah street). Then there are the mandatory "mada" streets which are streets forming rectangles around temples and /or the temple tanks. I would be remiss if I omitted to mention that streets were also named for popular celluloid heroes of questionable looks and even less talent, names resplendent with the obligatory honorary doctorate and French honours which no one seems to think much of.
Certain Telugu-speaking community of traders was very prominent in the 19th and early 20th century Madras society. They were also very public-spirited and shared their good fortune with the less fortunate of the city. They established and supported charitable hospitals, schools, colleges, and soup kitchens, not to mention temples. Some of their descendants, whose own contributions to the city or its citizenry could be counted on the fingers of a limbless person, claimed the city - unsuccessfully, I might add - for their fledgling state on the basis of this munificence of their forefathers.
These gentlemen - the temple-builders and soup kitchen supporters, not their descendants - also gave their names to the city streets. Their names were sometimes used with the honorific suffix "lu" (pronounced "loo") appended to them; like Govinda Rajulu, Sri Ramulu, and so on. Why some one would think it an honour to attach a "loo" to their name beats me, but vanity has that effect on people.
Some went so far as to prefix their names with a title suggesting great wealth. For example, one street name read Gopathy Narayanaswamy Chetty Road which was quite a mouthful even for us, who are used to bombast and to long names. By the time a person from the North could finish saying the name we could traverse its entire length by foot. The name signifies that the said gentleman was the owner of many cows which in 19th and early 20th century India counted for much. Some mischievously suggest that the prefix portrayed his wife as a cow (go = cow; pathy = husband), but there is no firm basis to this bovine theory which is asinine at best.
Then Madras became Chennai in an act of political hoodwinking - the fact that Chennai is an abbreviation for "Chenna Pattanam" meaning "the good city" and is of Telugu origin, is lost on the great unwashed who constitute the principal vote bank of the Tamil chauvinists. The government also abolished castes. The abolishment consisted of banning the use of prefixes, suffixes and honorifics that hinted at caste affiliations. Chettys were dropped from names as were Reddys, Ayyars and Ayyengars. Rangachary Road is now emasculated to Ranga Road as is Pulla Reddy Avenue to Pulla Avenue. But erstwhile Nair Road remained Nair Road presumably as a homage to the origins of the Dravidian movement.
The self-proclaimed atheist government went so far as as to remove the "swamy" from the aforementioned Gopathy Narayanaswamy Chetty Road which now simply reads Gopathy Narayana Road. It is further shortened to GNC Road by the technology-obsessed younger lot. It does not have the same ring to it any more. Roads with female names remain unmolested (something I cannot say for the city's females, though). However there were not many to begin with: in time honoured Tamil tradition, men are deemed more worthy of honour than women.
In an act of political correctness the suffixed "loo" was also dropped from street names. But loos live on in the streets of Chennai.
In fact the streets are the loos.
It is a very nice piece. A hilarious one with full of knowledge for an uninitiated like me.
ReplyDeleteI laughed and laughed. A lot of laughter after many days.
Hari Pant - Himalayan Farmer