Tour the forts around Madras

Every summer hol, I am coaxed to take a group of holiday makers on a tour.  A summer of 40 degrees plus is certainly not the best time of the year to go on picnic tours.

But then the outdoors always beckon you when it is holiday time for young people.

This May my offer was a tour of the neighbourhood forts. And though history is not everybody’s favourite subject, my theme seemed to delight the group.

There are a string of forts one can explore from a  base in our city if you set aside a weekend for this tour.

Start in the north, with a tour of Pulicat or Palaverkkadu to explore the remnants of Dutch history, with traces of Portuguese presence here.

A cemetery, churches, old houses and a huge waterbody by the sea are must-see places in Pulicat.

Fort St. George in north Madras is Stop No. 2. To me this is a fascinating place waiting to be explored many times over and is best done on a Sunday. This was the seat of the East India Co. and the fort of the British.

San Thome is Stop No. 3. In the 16th century, it was the hub of the trading Portuguese and the foreigners built their own little fort looking out on to the sea. Nothing remains since the British flattened the place to end all headaches of challengers. But if you sneak on the sea side of the Leith Castle area you may be lucky to see fragile remnants of what must have been the walls of a fort.

The campus of Taj Vivanta Fisherman’s Cove in Covelong, off the ECR preserves a slice of a wall of what was once a little fort.

Further south, Stop No.4 has to be Sadras, a fort-hold of the Dutch and another trading post. Located on the seaside, it lies in the village at the end of a road that branches off from the ECR in the Kalpakkam Atomic Power Plant region. Chambers, tombstones, tablets and the ramparts must be explored here.

And if you still have the energy, then your final stop can be Fort Alambarai, some 40 minutes from the Kalpakkam point on the ECR. Muck, tourist waste and massive fortified walls greet you. The fort, built in the 17th century and in the Mughal era was gifted to the French for services rendered by it to the local Nawab but was demolished by the British after they defeated the French.

It offers spectacular views of the sea that washes into a lagoon and the local kuppam.

There are lots of places to explore in our city and on its fringe. Basic info and how-to-do guides and rough-guide tips on the Web is required for the wanna-be city traveller.

Tamil Nadu Tourism has a fun job to undertake!

Let's record local histories

Narasingapuram is a small colony off Mount Road, now called Anna Salai.

Its more famous landmark is Ritchie Street. Once the biggest radio market, it is now a buzzing hub of the electronics, computers and peripherals trade.

Prof. Paul Montgomery from the UK is keen to know lots more about Narasingapuram because he has an Anglo-Indian ancestry and this will be part of his book on his family.

One thread in his genealogical spread leads to this little colony which has been over-run by the computers market.

Prof. Montgomery assumes that the lady who married a Scots soldier, the male progenitor must have been born in 'Nursingpooram' and that her dad got pensions from the FINS (Friend in Need Society), located on the busy Poonamallee High Road.

FINS is yet another vintage institution of our city. Started in 1822 by the merchants and community leaders of the city for the less abled, it has provided shelter to mostly Anglo Indians.

FINS and the Anglo Indians who once resided in Narasingapuram may provide leads for the professor's research.

And since I had written about Narasingapuram in an earlier column, the World Wide Web made the connection and I have been relooking at a colony that was once my backyard.

Revisiting the past in small neighbourhoods can be a fascinating exercise.

To help the UK professor, I will also make a trip to Christ Church and try to delve into the wedding registration records here.

This church, which has for its neighbours the Devi Cinemas complex (it celebrated its 42nd anniversary in May) and Cosmopolitan Club also has a unique history.

It was built in the 1850s on land which housed the stables of Englishman Waller when the Eurasians (later called Anglo Indians) sought a church for the growing community of Protestants in the Mount Road area.

Christ Church also shared space for an Anglo Indian School which survives today. For youngsters who lived in this area the 'must do' thing at this school in the 60s and 70s was to attend the annual Shakespeare play put up by its senior students.

Will any of these past students provide a link that the UK professor will be glad to have?

For me though, revisiting these places and jotting down fascinating threads of people is engaging.

Would it not be a worthwhile effort if a small group in each locality record local histories?

Local journalism also has its dangers

Can Facebook or Twitter help us do better stories and widen our sources and inputs?

I guess so.

We are game to move into the space that has been inhabited by millions. And will do, soon.

But minus the new tech tools, we have been trying to explore ways in which we can get people of the neighbourhood, readers and longtime associates to contribute to news stories and features.

So when we decided to plan a light feature on how people who have fruit trees in their backyard harvest the fruits in a day and time when the traditional men who knocked off the coconuts in minutes with a skill that is ancient, we managed to make a few new contacts.

In Adyar, against increasing complaints of encroachments of public spaces like streets, pavements and playgrounds, our newspaper has not only reported on this issue but invited readers to be on-the-spot content providers.

A few people quickly dashed off short notes on such violations.

But we would like more. For, a weekly short list of long standing violations may push the violators to draw back or nudge our civic officers to get a tad severe against them.

Citizen-based journalism is not easy when it comes to reporting serious, sensitive issues.

A few months ago a civic activist from Besant Nagar had this story to share.

On her morning walks, she made mental notes of civic issues that dotted her neighbourhood. Topping them was the encroachments made by a big-time trader of construction materials - sand, bricks, blue metal and cement.

His men had taken over three spaces around his store. So when she asked the local police to take action, a police-woman officer landed at the complainant's door the next day, Behind her was the trader.

The woman went numb for a minute. She had not expected the police to share the complainant's address with the man who was accused of violating public space.

That night, the obvious happened. A couple of stones were flung at the windshield of the woman's car and the damage done.

A warning had been issued by the violator. This happened last year.

The trader continues to violate key spaces in Besant Nagar. And Chennai Corporation and Sastri Nagar police officials look the other way. Or they may have fined him a few hundreds every other new moon.

How can simple technologies address such issues?