Madras Musings
The Alladi Diary
On a balmy winter’s day in 1954, Paul Dirac a Nobel Laureate in physics gave a general lecture at the Senate House in the University of Madras. The hall was packed. Outside, people sat in their cars, as if they were at a drive-in cinema,...
Read MoreS.Muthiah (1930-2019)
(Courtesy: Mylapore Times. Photograph by Ganesh Natarajan.) Sitting at my desk in Boston, in MIT where I edited strands of DNA for the Human Genome Project, I’d read S. Muthiah’s Madras Miscellany during breaks. I loved this column in The Hindu because it dealt with every aspect...
Read MoreThe Best Little Bird Sanctuary in India
If you went to school in Chennai, chances are you have visited the Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary, some fifty miles south of the city. As an eighth grader, I went there on a school excursion. Oblivious to the birds in the distance, my friends and I...
Read MoreOn Self-Driving in Madras…
A memorable scene in the 1963 Tamil movie, Paar Magale Paar, features Cho Ramaswamy who makes his screen debut as “Mechanical” Madasamy. As a teen, this character had run away to the Tamil capital, where besides freedom, he also tasted special buns from McRennett bakery...
Read MoreVirtual Walk Through Sowcarpet
Sowcarpet is often described as Chennai’s “Little North India,” in tourist book style. Bustling and bazaar-like, this old neighborhood is not too far from the city’s iconic Central Station. This area has the city’s first Jain temples, shops, and eateries offering north Indian goods and...
Read MoreThe Way We Use English in India
Had fun doing a review of this book. The “issueless” couple – who might they be? If you are thinking it is partners with no marital woes, a couple on some kind of permanent honeymoon, you’d be wrong. In the Indian context, at least, the...
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