Madras Miscellany

Sunny South beckons

ONCE AGAIN the Governments of the Southern States and the Union Territories of Pondicherry and Andaman & Nicobar came together to discuss the marketing of the South as "a seamless tourism destination". The only difference this time was that the conference and exhibition at Kochi was organised by the FICCI. Everything else said at the meet...

The diversity of South India, the need for aggressive marketing and promotion by a private-public sector partnership, the improving of air connectivity... have all been heard before.

Certainly, I heard it all in 1974/75 when the first meeting of a Joint Committee of the Directors of Tourism of the Southern States was held in Madras. All the meeting resulted in was the printing of several thousand copies of a brochure, 'India-The Sunny South Beckons', a detailed tourist road map of South India and a couple of folders.

The Joint Committee met desultorily over the years that followed, but during much of that period, I could still see copies of these publications piled up in the Tourism offices of the States concerned. I don't think they ever found a place abroad - not even in Indian Missions! It's no wonder that I'm tempted to say, on hearing all about the Kochi meet, "where have I heard all this before"!

Hark to the introduction in that February 1975 brochure: "Off the beaten tourist track is India's sunny South. Warm and hospitable, traditional and tranquil, ever fascinating... The south is India's surprise gift to the international traveller... Here a traveller can have the time of his life, here in this sun- drenched land of sand and sea, of silks and spices, of simple friendly folk and complex ancient philosophies, of great art and greater culture, of tradition and the tranquillity of an all- pervading peace... India is more than the moonlight enchantment of the Taj, the majestic grandeur of the Himalayas and the glories of Ajanta and Ellora. It is also the supreme sublimity of the South - and every traveller will be the richer for the experience. Welcome to tradition and tranquillity, welcome to the ageless South."

Nothing has changed. The South is still as welcoming and as diverse as that picture. And officialdom is STILL CONTINUING TO TALK ABOUT IT. When are we getting around to selling it? Another 25 years later?

* * *

A thief in the night

HE SWIRLED into the darkened hall, hatted, masked and caped, in a mix of Batman, Zorro and the Hunchback's crouch, and when, after the moment of unmasking, Dr. Viswas Gaitonde released A Thief in the Night, it was to as much applause for his dramatic entry as for his book.

Later in the evening, I discovered from a one-time neighbour of his, a well-known writer, that the boy Viswas did not think that writing held for anyone much of a future. So, Viswas went to Medical College, then to the U.K. to qualify as a pathologist, but wound up catching up in New York with his former neighbour and informing him that he saw a future in writing. And that's what Viswas has been doing since, writing literature for pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions and making his contribution to healthcare writing. A Thief in the Night is his first book and its subject, 'Understanding AIDS', has undoubtedly been inspired by his aunt, Dr. Suniti Solomon's pioneering work in AIDS in India.

Judging from what Dr. B. Chandramohan of the Corporation of Chennai said on the occasion, a Tamil edition of this book aimed at a lay audience - as well as editions in other Indian languages - is more than necessary. Tamil Nadu, sad to say, has one of the largest number of AIDS patients in the country, around 9,500 of them, and the number is only rising. In Chennai itself there are over 2,500 AIDS patients. The Corporation, I was glad to hear, was doing its bit to stop this thief in the night, with 74 of its dispensaries and 93 of its healthcare posts now offering counselling and advice on sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

* * *

When the postman knocked

NOT ONLY has the postman been knocking loudly but the telephone has also been ringing as readers contribute their supplementary mite to this column. How the Salems of the U.S. (Miscellany, April 16) got their name has particularly interested many.

A caller, who was in Oregon recently, promised to send me a photograph of a road sign there, pointing west to Madras and east to Salem, but I'm still waiting. Eapen Abraham suggested I scour the Books of Genesis (14:17) and Hebrews (7.1), as well as the Psalms (76.2) and I'd be sure to find in them a king of Salem, Melchisedec, who, incidentally, gave Abraham bread and wine! But what I was most delighted to receive was a letter from E. R. Vedamuthu from as far away as Rochester, Minnesota, stating that he is a regular reader of this column and offering it several memories apart from the bouquet or two.

Vedamuthu, a student at the Oregon State University in the 1960s and a teacher there in the 1970s, knew several students from Madras, Oregon, all of whom pronounced their hometown 'Maadras'. Madras in eastern Oregon is, he says, a small town in "a rugged desert land" where a number of Basques from Spain have settled and raise sheep.

As for Salem, Oregon, the capital of the State, he thinks it may have for some years now been a sister city of Salem, Tamil Nadu. He recalls a fellow student at OSU, a Miss Vedanayagam from Christopher Training College, Madras, who, being from Salem, Tamil Nadu, was invited by the Mayor of Salem, Oregon, for a function to mark the visit of the Mayor of her hometown to the new Salem.

The people of Salem, he adds, believe their town derives its name from an abbreviation of Jerusalem, the 'salem' itself deriving from the Hebrew greeting 'shalom', meaning 'peace'. That being the case, where does our Salem get its name from?

Also bringing back memories to reader Vedamuthu was the M.Ct.M. Chidambaram piece in the same column. He mentions his father, D. R. Vedamuthu, as "being instrumental" in opening the Southeast Asian branches of the Indian Overseas Bank, and later, heading its Officers' Training School. He recalls how when his father came to Madras in 1945 to join the Bank, it was the middle of the school year and Vedamuthu fils could not get a place in any school - till Chidambaram arranged for the M. Ct. Muthiah Chettiar High School to admit him. And he remembers his brother, J. Vedamuthu, leaving the MES to join Travancore Rayons as one of its first engineers. One of the first persons on site during the construction of the factory and installation of its "state-of-the-art" machinery, "my brother and his new bride lived in the staff quarters and had to brave heavy rainfall, constant slush and mud, and the snakes".

The M.Ct.M. Chidambaram piece also brought a clarification from his son, Muthiah, who says it was he who tossed for the purchase of the land. As for the interior decor of the building, he points out it was B. Prabha's paintings and murals that contributed to the elegance.

As for Banganapalle (Miscellany, April 9), it was indeed a princely State, according to Dr. D. E. James, who spent some years of his childhood there. Apparently, it was a Nawabocracy called Banaganapalle and James writes that he would be glad to hear about any book providing information "on this old Muslim State".

Apart from remembering the several many-chandeliered buildings that were the Nawab's in the small, moat-girt fort, James recalls the legend of the Banganapalle mangoes. A former Nawab, it is related, brought from the Mughals in Delhi the grafts that produced what later became known as Banganapalle.

The Nawabs for decades had a monopoly over the fruit, but in later years they relinquished their rights and "its cultivation spread to Panyam and other places".

S. Muthiah

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