19th January, 2019

Well, Happy Birthday to me!! And to my brother, James! (and Sir Simon Rattle!). 64 and still here. The plan to live forever is still on track.

We had our usual tour today and so it was off in the car to view the sights of Chennai aka Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu. It was founded by the British East India Company in 1639, the site having been picked by Francis Day, the EIC agent partly because he had good relations the local governor, partly because it was protected on 3 sides by water (2 rivers – Cooum and Adyar – and the Bay of Bengal, cotton could be brought here 20% cheaper than elsewhere and apparently Day had a mistress in San Thome, a Portuguese settlement just down the coast.

The city expanded and the French got interested and captured and destroyed much of the city and Fort St George in 1746, during which Robert Clive (of Clive of India fame) was taken prisoner, an experience said to have inspired him to become a military leader. The city was recaptured by the British in 1749 and though still the city that controlled South India for the British, it lost out to Calcutta in national importance.

The city’s renaissance came after Independence in 1947, when it became the centre of the Tamil movie industry and a hotbed of Dravidian (south Indian) nationalism. It was ruled by ex-film star ministers such as Marudur Gopalamenon Ramachandran (known as MGR) for 11 years and ex-actress Jayalalitha and former screenwriter, Karunanidhi. Madras was renamed Chennai in 1997.

It is divided into north, central and south. The northern part is the site of the first fort, St George and the commercial district of George Town. The southern end boasts the ex-Portuguese area including San Thome (Thomas) Cathedral and Kapalishvara Temple. Sandwiched in between is the central district which is the modern, commercial heart of the city and includes the long, straight Marina, very popular with locals for a bit of paddling in the sea.

We drove about a bit with me trying to take photos of some of the older buildings, though there seemed to be a conspiracy by the embryonic Chennai Metro to obscure the view! It would have been nice to have been able to explore a bit more as there are some truly wonderful examples of the Indo-Saracenic style buildings.

We were then taken to Fort St George where you can wander about a bit amid the old government buildings, though many are still in use and off-limits.

We popped into the Government museum to take a last look at the Chola bronzes of which they have an excellent collection, though unfortunately displayed behind glass, which makes photography a little trickier. A small sample…

We then walked to St Mary’s Church, the oldest surviving Anglican church in Asia. I could have spent a couple of hours looking at all the plaques in there, but no time to lose!

Next on our whistle-stop tour was the San Thome Cathedral, named after Doubting Thomas, one of the apostles who is credited with bringing Christianity to India in the first century AD. The current building dates from 1896 and is built over St Thomas’s tomb (no photos allowed).

And of course, our tour of Chennai would not be complete without a temple, in this case the Kapalishvara Temple. Standard stuff (at least to us cognoscenti!), though they did have a nice herd of temple cows!

We just had time for a quick visit to St Andrew’s Kirk, consecrated in 1821 and a fine example of Georgian architecture and loosely modeled on St Martin’s-in-the-Fields in London. It is only one of three churches in India to have a circular seating plan. No time to climb the steeple (which you can do according to my guide book).

And so back to the lovely Leela Palace to enjoy the rest of my birthday with a swim and an excellent dinner – and a cake, that Val had arranged very sweetly.

It was up very early the next day to get to the airport for our flight to Thailand, but it had been a good day, once again.

General thoughts on south India in the next post, but for now, I hope you have enjoyed the tour as much as we have. Do let me know!