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Come August, Chennai is ready to celebrate. August 22 and the week in which it falls is respectively celebrated as Madras Day and Madras Week.

The chronicler who gave us the date is no more with us this year. In his magnum opus, Madras Rediscovered, published eight editions in his lifetime, he told us the story on how a deed that was signed between John and Company and Raja of Chandragiri set in motion the birth of Madras out of ‘no man’s sand’. It was he who said, ‘Before the British came there was no Madras’.

S. Muthiah can be singularly credited with rediscovering the city. From 1981 when he published a slim volume on Madras, Madras Discovered (which went on to complete eight editions as Madras Rediscovered), he has been recording the city’s past with unremitting devotion. His breath escaped before he completed his life’s work. Do Gods and diseases know how the worth of this man on a mission? They could only snatch him from us in the middle of his work. So it feels. Because I saw what ‘creative fitness’ meant on seeing him. Despite what bothered him, he didn’t stop writing – writing what he loved. He loved working. That was what he said. He didn’t work as an antidote to life’s difficulties. Even when his dear wife passed away quite abruptly, he kept writing. He simply enjoyed his work.

Madras consumed him intensely that he kept gazing into the city’s past with a boyish delight, coming up with stories after stories that filled 921 columns of ‘Madras Miscellany’ for The Hindu unfailing every Monday. Apart from the two dozen books that he wrote centred on Madras, its people and its businesses, probably no work of his escaped mention of Madras. His own count is some 42 books that he authored in all, and he took to writing books after his retirement from TT Maps as its Managing Director.

For those whose narrow vision looked at Madras Day celebrations as felicitating colonial rule, he gave a forthright answer. To a group of students at Asian College of Journalism, he bristled, “You have to ask me why the hell are we celebrating Madras Week”. The audience could only keep silence. He was at his combative best when he said, “We celebrate to make the city better”. The British made Madras, no doubt. And singing their glory was not the purpose of Madras Day celebrations. He was clear. But year after year, sadly only the narrative of linking colonial to Madras Day is repeatedly played out. It is absurdity at its best, and people’s opaque, myopic views cannot be altered.

We need to commemorate the city every year. And August 22 merely serves as a basis for it. To those who say Madras existed long before, the answer is yes, it did, but not as Madras. The entity of Madras as a city formed the basis of British occupation of the city and its expansionist agenda. History, how much ever forbidding and unpleasant, cannot be erased. British excesses and slavery are recorded without refrain.

Celebrating the city is not for celebrating a legacy. Definitely not colonial legacy. But the overall objective is to look back and see how the city has been shaped and the people and institutions who made a difference. It’s also to create awareness about keeping its past alive and preserve its structures and institutions.

Muthiah had sagacious foresight when he launched Madras Musings in 1991. A total disregard for the past was patently visible that he embarked on preserving the environment and heritage of the city, in whatever form it was left behind. He took pains to explain the Indian contribution and Indian elements in the colonial structures. Preserving heritage structures meant preventing environmental degradation. This vision was completely blinded by those who described the efforts as glorifying the British. The British created aesthetic buildings and institutionalised infrastructure that we enjoy even today. But to those dismissing it by saying the British merely created them to hold their reins over us, we could only pity their narrow worldview. The British merely didn’t leave behind relics, but much of how we live today has been shaped in one way or the other by the colonial rule and the legal structures that were initiated then are still used. When we have the right to stick on to them, why not preserve what they built?

It was Muthiah who created an army of enthusiasts who took a great interest in the city’s past. A few have made the city’s heritage their passion, the important among them the present editor of Madras Musings, V Sriram. But for Muthiah, this city would have remained swept down in a heap of convenient narratives that suited the sayer. His deep research and discovery that Madras is the first modern city of India has made us proud to be its citizens. And his books speak of the city’s glory in many ways. In a meeting arranged during a Madras Day in Amir Mahal, the Prince of Arcot said, “Muthiah gave us our history.” To extrapolate it, Muthiah gave Madras its history. And we became aware of it.

My stature is too small to comment on Muthiah and his contributions. I have been witness to his phenomenal work ethic and uninhabited writing. But for him I wouldn’t have known Madras, but only Chennai, its poor progenitor, tumbling in development unable to establish the glory that Madras did. But for him I wouldn’t have met Mr Sriram to take my city’s knowledge a bit deeper. But for him asking me to write for Madras Musings, I wouldn’t have improved my writing.

If you know the author, Indu Balachandran, who is a bundle of energy (the secret to it may be the mad mad ad world in which she worked), her style of narration is not surprising. The text is bubbly, funny and full of outpouring of thoughts and emotions. Humour is so obvious that it can send you into peels of laughter at times (where does ‘do you squeeze the toothpaste tube at the top or bottom’ figure in the compatibility check, for heaven’s sake). Human quirks and girly things are espoused quite handsomely. The first instinct after a few pages is you will reach for Norah Ephron, if you haven’t already or may revisit at least. It’s peppered with lines from romantic novels and films. And there is a certain dope in which you are put in, which releases as the story ends. (It’s only dreamy to think of some possibilities, say romancing a star.)

To put it simply, Runaway Writers fits a one-line story – three girls want to turn authors and fly to Greece to find their calling. And those three girls are high achievers in their lives and fairly successful in their professions. Amby as a banker, Bobby as an ad exec and Mini as a children’s writer. But the author bug bites them and all of them end up in Greece for a writer’s workshop.

Amby is a cosmopolitan flip of the divine-sounding Ambujakshi to give it a modern slant, perhaps in a throwback to the Ambassador car, stylishly called Ambi, in the 1970s. She is a Tam Brahm girl, who first slices her well-bred long plaited hair, nourished and farmed through oil baths on Fridays, on leaving for America for higher studies and confounds her family by swiftly changing her profession once she comes back. She has that brain for numbers. But she gives up a lucrative Citibank job and becomes the “tweet composer” for a Tamil film star, KayKay, which immediately sends her family into making fervent appeals to Gods, Goddesses and good spirits. But no God comes to the rescue, in fact never ever, as Amby courses along until she sees a pop-up for a writer’s workshop. A quiet applause goes to the author for giving wheatish complexion, brown/dark skin good respectability. The way she describes the evolution of skin tone is amusing. To hell with Fair and Lovely.

Bobby is an award-winning executive director at an ad agency. The craziness of the ad business sends her swirling into boredom. The often required adrenalin rush plus the impossible customer demands puts her down. She for sure wants to become a travel writer at one fleeting moment. And there she also sees the pop-up for the writer’s workshop.

Mini is emerging as a successful children’s writer and lives with her father in Bangalore. She does her job well and turns out a few best-sellers immediately walloped by readers. In a surging of feelings and emotions moment, she wants to write erotica and considers the name Minerva more suitable for writing that genre. The pop-up for the writer’s workshop gives her the push.

All the three land in Greece and instantly develop deep affections that the threesome is all in it together, be it sightseeing, exercises or sharing rooms in off-sites. And there the story skids through several moments of discovery, surprise and enjoyment. Particularly, this portion is important because it gives several tips for writers inside the story itself, if you are careful enough to jot down. Maybe the exercises are worth a try if you are an aspiring writer. Also it also morphs into a travel guide for visiting Greece, if you keep the tab on the places, their history and significance. It becomes a sort of an explorative trip that the places are described in some depth. You may want to go to Greece but, well, you take a call on the workshop.

Photo courtesy: The Hindu.

Would it be appropriate to perch him alongside legends of publishing in India? A legend need not have attracted a lot of attention from the press. Two quality remembrances by stalwarts of the stature of Mr. S. Muthiah and Mr. T.J.S. George suffice. Mr. George’s words best describe him: “Outside the rarefied world of books, K.S. Padmanabhan was in all likelihood an unknown quantity. He was never flamboyant, he never projected himself, he claimed nothing. He was, as the poet said, in his simplicity sublime. But his vision made him, unheralded, a part of contemporary India's cultural history. He belonged to the class of P. Lal of Writer's Workshop and Shanbaug of Strand Bookstall -- men of imagination who made a difference to their generation.”

Mr. K.S. Padmanabhan was mild mannered, and his calm, smiling face reflected serenity that cannot be said in words. Little was I aware of his inner world of books and reading that Mr. Muthiah describes: “Shortly after he retired to the wilds of OMR, where he could peacefully do what he loved best, read all the time. Whether it was a pedestrian manuscript from an unknown author or it was the latest he could download on Kindle, he read it all with equal pleasure.” Biswanath Ghosh had profiled this publisher two years ago, as he took a bow at 75 from Westland, which was acquired by Tatas. That was my first and perhaps detailed understanding of this publishing veteran, tucked away from public memory and brought out in an interesting article. Bishwanath had called him Book Man of Madras. At 77, just in two years, he is no more with us.

I don’t know when I had met him first. I had become member of the Madras Book Club three years ago. Rare were instances when Mr. Padmanabhan was not there at the meetings, usually accompanied by his wife Mrs. Chandra (herself an author of bestseller Dakshin, a cookbook). When you gently asked for any information, he would say, “Ask Muthu [Mr. Muthiah].” His presence is best described by Mr. Muthiah in his tribute: “Though every meeting and speaker was a result of his efforts, he’d never take a front seat, standing somewhere at the back at almost every meeting with that even present gentle smile on his face, enjoying the interest shown by the audience.”  He would occasionally take charge of the proceedings, when Mr. Muthiah was absent. Of late, Mr. V. Sriram has begun to don the role of an MC (when Mr. Muthiah isn’t available) and Mr. Padmanabhan used to take a quiet seat “somewhere.” I never failed to say a hello to him at the Book Club meetings, to which a prompt smiling hello would be the response from him. He was reticent by nature, I would think, and would wonder how such a successful publisher keeps a low profile. Moreover, his manner belied his failing health.

I wanted to write about the Madras Book Club. When I asked Mr. Padmanabhan, he pointed me to Mr. Muthiah. I had met Mr. Muthiah, who told me the initial days of the Club are not known to him and the only surviving founder of the Club is “Paddhu.” So he said, “You speak to him first.” Twice, I requested for an interview. On the first occasion, he said, “I stay very far away in OMR. Hiranandhani.” I said that’s not a problem. The meeting hadn’t happened. The second request perhaps would remain in my memory for ever and this was at the launch of a book on Sarvepalli Gopal. I explained to him what Mr. Muthiah told me and asked him for a meeting. Going by the usual descriptions of the early days of the Club I put the question, “Was it at publisher’s canteens the meetings were held?” His reply was, “That’s not how it started. I will tell you about it,” with a twinkle in his eyes. That gave me a sense of how much he enjoyed the Madras Book Club. Before the meeting could take place after the date he specified, Mr. Padmanabhan had taken ill, was in the hospital fighting his illness, and had left the world, all quietly as was his wont. The Hindu, through which I found his profile and preserved it, was the one that gave the news of his passing away as well. It’s now difficult to think the meeting wouldn’t happen at all. I have missed a treasure trove of information that he would have given me on the Madras Book Club and on other matters. I thought I could gain a few pearls from his wisdom, which was not to be.

I think the glory of Mr. Padmanabhan will be better understood by authors who have worked with him. Vinuthaa Mallya, a friend and publishing consultant, wrote on Facebook how she was received warmly every time she went to meet Mr. Padmanabhan and how she is still preserving copies of Indian Review of Books Mr. Padmanabhan had gifted her. Mr. Muthiah was its editor, till financial constraints put it out of circulation. “A revival of Indian Review of Books would be the best remembrance of Paddhu,” writes Mr. Muthiah in his tribute.

Mr. George reflects the same sentiments when he writes: “Unpretentious, informal and genuine as he was, Padmanabhan would be happy to be quietly forgotten. But his associates have a duty, the kind of duty that J.R.D. Tata performed when Mulk Raj Anand returned home to Bombay after his prolonged stay in England. The novelist was fired by the ambition to start a magazine that would be a ‘loose encyclopaedia of the arts of India and related civilisations’. It was an expensive concept, but it became a reality because J.R.D. gave him a start-up fund along with ‘seven advertisements [per issue] and two rooms’ in the historic Army & Navy Building. Thus was born the quarterly Marg. Tata’s successors would honour the spirit of J.R.D. if they were to help revive their business partner K.S. Padmanabhan’s labour of love, the Indian Review of Books. Seven advertisements and two rooms can work magic even today.”

For a generation that has lost the pleasure of Indian Review of Books, its revival could bring back the vision it had, which is succinctly explained by Mr. Muthiah in his tribute: “He was very clear about what he wanted from the journal. The reviews should be in simple, lucid language that the average reader could understand and learn something about the book – making him want to read it and keep wanting to read more books.” 

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