Madras that is Chennai celebrates its birthday on August 22, possibly on presumption, going by what S. Muthiah, the city’s finest chronicler who left a treasure of information on the city, records in Madras Rediscovered, which has run eight editions starting from 1981. A deed was signed on behalf of John Company by Francis Day and Andrew Cogan with the local Nayak rulers in Wandiwash and Poonamalle, Venkatappa and his brother Aiyappa, and that deed is dated as July 22, 1639.

That grant is dated July 22, 1639, but since Day reached Madraspatam – the name mentioned in the grant – only on July 27th, the chances are that ‘July’ is an error and August 22, 1639, is more likely the date the East India Company acquired the land to found their settlement.

The British men were given a small strip of land (which Muthiah terms “no man’s sand”) on lease on which they established a “trading post that was in effect a warehouse-cum-residence with some fortification,” to quote Muthiah.

And the land was chosen in Madras hyped up on a lie by Francis Day that cotton cheap in Madras as Day claimed in his recommendation to his superior, Andrew Cogan. And the city—which did have a notorious scale of gossip and scandals later on due to colourful men decorating the East India Company’s services or their agents, friends, or just men from England—was ostensibly founded on a famous gossip:

Day’s own explanation for choosing this barren, sandy site was that its hinterland offered “excellent long Cloath and better cheape by 20 per cent than anywhere else”! A noted gossip of the time, however, had it that the choice was determined by Day having a mistress in Portuguese San Thomé; the nearby settlement-to-be would ensure “their Interviews might be the more frequent and uninterrupted”! Whether this was indeed the case is a matter for conjecture, but that there was a mistress appears to have been gossip with some substance; a friend and successor to the charge of Madras, Henry Greenhill, is reported as having succeeded to the willing gentlewoman!

Madras Rediscovered is not a boring collection of facts and details to construct the past of Madras but a charming text to be read to understand how a small trading post evolved to become the metropolis of modern times, told in a very conversational, yet sophisticated and flowing language.

Where you actually give yourself to giggles, laughs, disbelief, and even tears are the anecdotes that punctuate the 20 chapters, which Muthiah chooses to name Once Upon a City. The first one begins thus:

I had promised to show him Robert Clive’s watering-holes in and around Madras. Little did I realise he’d turn up at my house in the best Clive manner, complete with coach and escort. His outrider that morning roared up on an iron steed, quickly dismounted at my gate and threw a smart salute. Moments later the carriage chugged up behind the police inspector and ensconced in the auto-rickshaw was a short, tubby, safari-suited Stanley Clives peering owlishly through heavy glasses to make sure he’d got right an address no Clive had ever known. Once sure, he broke into a broad, most unClive-like grin and proceeded to explain the comedy of errors that had earned him a police escort and which had raised in his esteem more than a notch the Madras police force whose sense of duty encompassed helping harassed strangers.

So a Clive (he also tells how the Clive became Clives) descendent arrived to meet Muthiah in an autorickshaw escorted by a police vehicle. What a setting! That engaging style, with wit and humour, is what you could expect to be treated to in these anecdotes. The main narrative about Madras is full of flourishing text that draws you in, arrests your senses, and piles up your curiosity.

You better read up on how the Survey of India had its roots in Madras. There are stories on mysterious murder, heads over heels love that would make would make “true love an eternal bestseller”, and the forgotten merchantmen (among whom my favourite is Coja Petrus Uscan, the Armenian merchant who enabled the connect between Mambalam and St. Thomas Mount through the Marmalong Bridge [now Maraimalai Adigal Palam]).

Muthiah delves into the Cooum (which once was a bather’s delight, now a polluted nightmare), the French dalliance with Madras that fell through only because of a poorly designed treaty, and life of Annie Besant and how printing came to Madras in the following anecdotes.

The stories of Parry & Company and Crompton & Company, two of the affluent British firms of Madras in their heyday, the founding of Indian Bank, Indo-Saracenic architecture, Edward Winter who was Day’s contemporary, film making in Madras and the city’s metamorphosis are captured in other anecdotes.

I have my favourites though in those Once Upon a City anecdotes—about The Hindu, on my lifeline poet Bharathi and on mathematical genius S. Ramanujan, and the Chepauk cricket ground.

The bewitching write on Chepauk first:

To me – and to most enthusiasts of the game as played in another, more leisurely, perhaps, even more gracious, age – cricket in Madras will for ever be associated with Chepauk’s lovely sward of lush springy turf tended with infinite patience and care to billiard table smoothness by Munuswamy of old, the entire emerald oval surrounded by towering cassias and acacias, some a century old, shedding their cool shade over low, tin-roofed stands. From these stands, which did nothing to mar the English county cricket ground atmosphere of Chepauk, you could watch in stretch-legged comfort Johnstone and Ward and Nailer, Gopalan and Ram Singh and Rangachari do epic battle against each other in the annual Pongal Week ‘Tests’, the Presidency Match that pitted European versus Indian in many a famous contest, then team up together to do yeoman duty for Madras against the rest of India in the Ranji Trophy matches of the 1930s and 1940s. [my emphasis]

Once Muthiah bowls you over, you go on to finish the story in double quick time and keep going back to it for inspiration, again and again. Talking of Pongal tests, which at one time the Chepauk was famous for, and we, the young then, often termed Indian sloppiness on the field as buttery fingers (after a generous scoop of Sakkarai Pongal with hands)!

The Hindu is an icon of Madras, always holding a place in the city’s ethos with an unparalleled history, a rare case of a newspaper intertwined with a city’s culture. Muthiah wrote Madras Miscellany for years in this newspaper without a break! Except once when his home was flooded in 2015 and when he finally had to give up due to his uncooperating health. Those stories were served on Monday morning with unfailing regularity, with this chronicler’s gaze often deep and amusing. But let’s get back to The Hindu itself, in Muthiah’s words:

“You might like The Hindu or you may not,” starts this chronicler, who should have collected copious paper cuttings of this newspaper in to his journals. And goes on to say, albeit grounded in the very tradition of the land:

… the paper has always reminded me of a one-time neighbour abroad. A middle-aged wisp of a woman in a nine-yard saree, chattering away in impeccable but strongly accented English, she organised the neighbourhood’s best coffee parties and bridge sessions in the mornings, drove herself through snarled traffic for sareed tennis in the afternoons, and with supreme aplomb threw boisterously successful cocktail parties or staid sit-down dinners, replete with her best silver and traditional vegetarian cuisine, in the evenings. Yet she remained true to Olde Madras in all those years, in dress and makeup, in habits and customs, above all in the practice of rituals of faith and worship. She was, bless her daunting soul, the finest example I knew of that rather overpowering but slowly vanishing personality, the Modern Orthodox Madras Conservative. And The Hindu has tended to be that over the years.

Only he could style The Hindu as “A middle-aged wisp of a woman in a nine-yard saree.” And what follows about the newspaper’s history is nothing short of fabulous. And he told me once that he was so inspired by the coverage of Lakshmikanthan murder case in the newspaper.

The mathematical genius of Ramanujan is not what Muthiah dwells upon but his life struggle and his work. Not so much with linguistic flourish though. On occasion, your eyes moisten while reading it because of the way the story is told. Combined in this anecdote is also the story about S. Chandrasekhar, the astrophysicist who won the Nobel in physics, long after it was due though. Maybe the future generations would get some inkling of this outstanding scientist from Muthiah’s account. I for one didn’t know much about this tall figure in such detail before reading it here.

Bharathiar is a universal poet. And there would be a few who wouldn’t have heard about him in the Tamil land. And to immerse yourself into his works gives not only inspiration but also a charge that would light up your life, for ever. Muthiah writes:

During the two years that he was a subeditor with the Swadesamitran, Bharati not only was trained as a journalist by Subramania Aiyer but also acquired his fire. The bouquet of heady wine made Bharati want to burst into patriotic verbal extravagance.

Not much about Bharathi’s fiery poetry finds mention but more of his journalistic career and life forms Muthiah’s focus. He says:

Bharati, in exile and deprived of a journalistic career, undoubtedly turned softer. The same thing had happened to VOC, who had come out of jail a crushed man, and, earlier, Subramania Aiyer, who had been shattered by the very threat of imprisonment. Aurobindo Ghosh, a fellow exile in Pondicherry, turned to spiritualism and V V S Aiyar, another fiery revolutionary in exile, turned to the world of letters, writing the first Tamil short story in 1917, Kulathangarai Arasamaram, after an initial spell of training gunmen. In this atmosphere of broken dreams and literary timewhiling, Bharati attempted to retain his interest in politics by writing sedate letters to the editors of Madras journals. As his prose became less fiery, his verse became more lyrical. He became the supreme poet. He also gave up his rural indifference to appearance and opted for a buttoned-up frock coat, loose turban to hide his baldness, and a pampered moustache to go with his clean shave.

Muthiah weaves into Bharathiar’s life as a careful observer, picking up the story in its magnificent simplicity, and this was so thrilling to read, of his meeting with C.R. Srinivasan, manager of Swadesamitran, when Bharathi rejoined the newspaper:

They introduced themselves. Srinivasan later recalled: “The Bharati I saw that day is indelibly imprinted on my mind’s eye. Middling height. Thin build. Shining, light brown complexion. Layer after layer of a turban wound round the head. A broad forehead. A dot of kum kum of a quarter anna size in its middle. Thick brows that stood guard over the roving eyes. The upturned nose highlighting the sunken cheeks. Though an aggressive moustache hid the upper lip, the lower lip revealed a listless life. A shirt without buttons to cover the body and an alpaca black coat over it. That too torn while jumping from the cart. He sat on the chair. Tongue-tied, the eyes rolled around, sizing everything. They alighted on me also, moving up and down. Rebellious eyes; sorrowful eyes; eyes that exuded peace; eyes that captivated. They stole my heart.”

The greatness of Bharathiar told in succulent text, captivating to read. Who says Muthiah has left us? His text speaks to us and the city’s now popular historian, Sriram V, has kept alive his memoirs of the city by covering many of the sites, especially favouring North Madras, described in the book in his heritage walks.

Words fail, mouth dries up, and a storm of emotions overtake me as I sit to write this. When you lose someone who has made some impact on your life, you are lost for words.

I am one of those legions of people whom he has touched and taught. I feel like a nobody against his legendary status. S. Muthiah, whom I always called Sir, is no longer with us. It feels devastating. Those are my first thoughts.

I came in touch with Sir in 2009, a bit far away from Chennai, when Kiruba Shankar arranged for a brainstorming with a select group of people under an initiative called Cerebrate. He was there on two days. I had been following his column Madras Miscellany for some time. He was happy to hear me say that and I had no hint that this relationship transform into something impactful.

He invited me to a celebration of 20 years of Madras Musings at the Madras Cricket Club the following week. I was a naïve young man, not knowing a thing about heritage. But he asked me to meet Sriram V, with whom I have struck a working relationship now, who in turn asked to write about sports for Musings. I shied away because I found Musings articles to be intense and well-researched. But it so happened that he spotted me in a Madras Day celebration when Ramanathan Krishnan, the accomplished tennis player from India, was in conversation with the veteran sports journalist Nirmal Shekar. He then asked me to write about that for Musings. That was my first report and he called me to discuss how I should write better.

The initial conversations were around a young man taking lessons from an expert in journalism. I wrote quite adjectivally for YourStory at that time. It was after I started writing for Musings that I trimmed my writing.

I was sometimes surprised that he would discuss a few things with me. He would tell me about how they met S. Raghavanandam, a former Minister in the MGR cabinet, to save Moore Market after it was burnt down in a fire. The same would appear in his Miscellany column the following week.

The conversations were just lessons. Once I wrote about my first interaction with him on my blog and showed it to him. He told me, “Don’t credit anyone with more than what they deserve.” I was effusive in praise about him! He had told me so many of his personal stories – his time as a journalist in Sri Lanka, his first house in Pallavaram, his tryst with floods in Kotturpuram, his buying the property in T. Nagar where he resides now.

Sometimes there would be silence. He has also admonished me for turning up his pieces late. He didn’t tolerate that.

There were occasions he would tell me that he found something to be appealing and some not so appealing. He found some writing not so great.

I too had the privilege of attending a journalism course over eight weeks he taught at the Press Institute of India. Some of the lessons I learned from it I carry with me till today. I saw him as a model journalist with a wide span of interests.

I kept collecting his books and he would generously point me to someone from whom i can take a copy. I still think some of the books he wrote are not in my collection. The fascination with Madras Rediscovered is something to be treasured for me, and I was immersed in the way he weaved the story around Madras. He was no doubt a master storyteller.

What strikes anyone coming to know about Sir is his work ethic. A discipline that he has forged over the years. He would simply work for long hours in a day, turning in so much of writing putting young people like me to shame. That is something you would wish to emulate and keep for life.

The other quality that I noticed in him was his spirited attitude and not giving up. Once he sets sights on something, he would do it. He never flinched under pressure or not seeing positive results. I presume he never abandoned anything. His Musings effort as its Editor, like clockwork every 15 days, stands testimony to his work ethic among many other stuff he created in his lifetime. His work clock worked perfectly well.

He was intensely curious to know. He has said many times in his columns that he learns something new every day. But that intensity in curiosity kept him going for ever without a stop.

The greatest learning from Sir has been how to carry yourself. I used to suggest a lot to him, which he would largely shrug off. I told him once that he should put up a website about his achievements. He emphatically said no and said, “I went to High Court today and three people recognized me.” He didn’t think that what he did had to have a public relations angle. But he has made sure that generations to come owe it to him for discovering Madras and telling us that it’s the first modern city of India.

He was someone who knew how to treat people well. But when it comes to work, he was different.

I learned in some ways how to treat others with dignity from him. It’s difficult to say so much in words. But I will quote one example. One writer, a regular for Musings, was not a man of great mental strength. During one interaction when discussing about Sir, Mr. Sriram told me, “Mr. Muthiah told me treat him in a gentle way.”

Sir’s generosity of spirit was tremendous. He was only there to give, and it all depended upon how much you can take. The more you took from him, the more you went up. I have heard several people say how he encouraged them to pursue some interest in heritage and helped them along the way. I would say there a number of them who benefitted from his generosity of spirit.

It feels like vacuum for me that I would never get to meet him again. The gentle reception at his home when I met him with him asking me what would I have – sukku coffee or coffee – is all memories now.

He intensely valued people’s friendships and their relationships. And he has many followers who thank him for making a difference.