Have you walked down Mundagakanni Amman Street in Mylapore? The road that runs north off Kutchery Road?
If you want to get a feel of Mylapore's villages this is one zone you must walk into! There are parts here that live in the early 20th century.
On Sunday, I was taken into 5th Street ( or was it a lane?!!) and lo! had walked into an agraharam -styled colony that was built in the 1940s - a settlement where people had lived in huts in the late 1800s.
This is a colony that one of the most famous and busiest silversmiths of the city raised for his large family, many of whom live here in their own small, quiet world.
Natarajan was my guide - we stopped at the colony's temple. I was told the image here was found when the laborers excavated the earth in the 1940s. "In the 1940s, some women would sit on the porches and sell snacks and when darkness fell a civic worker would yank a rod attached to each lamp on Kutchery Road to light the lamps,' Natarajan's 92-year-old amma told me.
I need a full day's tour some time later to explore this zone with Natarajan.
But during the Fest, writer-historian V. Sriram is taking people on his Villages of Mylapore Tour. Sunday 6 am. Free. Don't miss it. More info at the festival site - www.mylaporefestival.com
If you want to get a feel of Mylapore's villages this is one zone you must walk into! There are parts here that live in the early 20th century.
On Sunday, I was taken into 5th Street ( or was it a lane?!!) and lo! had walked into an agraharam -styled colony that was built in the 1940s - a settlement where people had lived in huts in the late 1800s.
This is a colony that one of the most famous and busiest silversmiths of the city raised for his large family, many of whom live here in their own small, quiet world.
Natarajan was my guide - we stopped at the colony's temple. I was told the image here was found when the laborers excavated the earth in the 1940s. "In the 1940s, some women would sit on the porches and sell snacks and when darkness fell a civic worker would yank a rod attached to each lamp on Kutchery Road to light the lamps,' Natarajan's 92-year-old amma told me.
I need a full day's tour some time later to explore this zone with Natarajan.
But during the Fest, writer-historian V. Sriram is taking people on his Villages of Mylapore Tour. Sunday 6 am. Free. Don't miss it. More info at the festival site - www.mylaporefestival.com
No comments:
Post a Comment