I should technically be celebrating the ShaShTiabdhapurthi of heritage walks. It was in December 1999, that thanks to friends like Sanjay Subrahmanyan, V Ramnarayan and L Ravichandran of Chennai Online that I did the first walk. The content came from S Rajam and the walk was on the Musical Heritage of Mylapore. Then in 2001, we did the first outstation heritage tour, on the musical heritage of Thanjavur. Since then it has become a way of life for me, my wife Sarada and good friend Karthik Bhatt. In the course of it, I have become one of the crazy coots of Chennai. I can never forget Bharadwaj Rangan’s spoof – he had morphed a picture of mine on to another of a group of Devadasis and titled it – Sriram leading his best friends on a heritage walk!

Last week, Outlook carried a story by GC Shekhar on how heritage walks in Chennai are the in thing. I am happy and proud to have done something for the city and State. May the numbers increase. At the same time I agree with V Ramnarayan’s caution at the end of the Outlook story.

You can read the Outlook Story here

You can see my tally of walks, done under the auspices of Past Forward, here