Last week, I was asked by Chennai Super Kings to conduct a tour on the cricketing history of Chepauk for some of their super fans. It was great fun, with some of them being better at the game’s statistics than I was. But having written the 175th year book of the Madras Cricket Club in 2021, I could fill them in on some of the past.
The ornamental pillars of Chepauk
One of our early stops was the main entrance to the stadium, flanked by two ornamental pillars in the Indo-Saracenic style. A third stands at the corner where the wall along Wallajah Road intersects with Bells Road/Babu Jagjivan Ram Salai. They are fine pieces of work in themselves, done in granite, with sandstone and porcelain inlay. The one at the corner has some plaques depicting Vishnu’s ten incarnations. Not all of them, though.
Unlike the two pillars flanking the entrance, this third pillar has no round-the-clock security. It is therefore subject to all kinds of misuse, including what in old Madras parlance was known as “public nuisance.”
That these pillars have survived at all over so many years is something of a miracle. The boundary wall has been subject to repeated construction over the years. When work on the present wall was ongoing, actor Mohan Raman alerted S Muthiah and me about the possibility of the pillars being knocked off. We immediately dashed off a letter to Mr. N Srinivasan, then President of the TNCA, and received an assurance that they would be protected. Which is how they have lived to tell the tale.
How many pillars were there?
As to how many pillars there originally were is something of a mystery. The earliest reference that I can find dates to A Guide to the City of Madras and its Suburbs, published by Higginbothams in 1896. The passage is worthy of quoting, if only to illustrate the colonial attitudes prevalent then: “On the death of the last occupant of the musnud, the property escheated to the Government, who has immensely approved the appearance of the place.”
Escheated would be better replaced by cheated, for the British got the palace only by chicanery. And as for improvement, all changes that were wrought were driven by the view that anything oriental needed occidental elements to refine it. The book goes on to tell us what was done.
The Changing Face of the Palace
The entrance, by the Wallajah Road is through an ornamental gateway, with representations in porcelain of the various incarnations of Vishnu, one below the other with a floral border. These were executed at the School of Arts with great success. The old palace, which was originally a mixing of the Saracene, Ionic and Doric orders, is now the Civil Engineering College; and the Kalsamal which was a heavy, unsightly building, has had an upper story added to it, with a record tower on one side and the other additions chiefly on the east face. The whole is now in the Moorish style of architecture and has a very imposing appearance. This building is occupied by the offices of the Board of Revenue.
The work of RF Chisholm?
The article stops short of saying that all this was the handiwork of RF Chisholm. But it may very well be, as he was then executing other commissions at the same place, namely the PWD Building, the Presidency College and the Senate House, apart from the first pavilion of the Madras Cricket Club. He was besides then the Principal of the School of Arts, where the pillars were executed. It is today known as the Government College of Fine Arts, Egmore.
The Kalsamal referred to in the article is the Kalas Mahal, one of the two wings of the Chepauk Palace, the other being the Humayun Mahal.
And so, these pillars were part of some sort of entrance gateway to the palace, executed after the British took it over. This cannot have been the original triple-arched gateway to the complex that stood on Wallajah Road and was later demolished. That was part of the design for the palace itself, though we have no visuals of it.
When Chepauk was divided
In terms of present-day topography, the fact that these pillars were part of a gateway to the palace is difficult to comprehend. That is because the Buckingham Canal now divides what was once Chepauk Park, comprising 117 acres of land.
When, towards the end of the 19th century, the canal was dug, the space on which the stadium now stands was separated from the palace proper on the eastern side. Other structures, such as Victoria Hostel, the warden’s lodge and the Victoria Caste and Gosha (now Kasturba Gandhi Memorial) Hospital, were separated as well.
Which is why the pillars lost their original purpose. I still wonder as to how many more there were, and what became of them.
This article appeared in The Hindu-https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-boundary-pillars-of-chepauk/article71442159.ece#google_vignette
My book, Chennai, A Biography can be ordered–http://My book, Chennai, A Biography can be ordered-https://sriramv.com/2021/12/27/how-to-buy-autographed-copies-of-chennai-a-biography-from-outstation/20.ece