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August 13, 2023 01:48 pm | Updated 03:33 pm IST
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Rajah Venugopala Bahadur’s Hospital for Animals on the premises of SPCA
Last week, storyteller Sudha Umashanker did one more recce of Periamet for a walk around the locality scheduled for August 20 at 7 a.m.
Two recces of place are essential before launching into a heritage walk about it. Three would place the curator on comfortable ground. Last week’s visit helped Sudha tie loose ends.
“I have already given participants directions to the place. The meeting point would be the entrance to Narayana Street, opposite Everest Café. However, in the past, I have noticed this would not suffice. People would still ring me up at the last minute with doubts about the location. This time, I have given them additional landmarks. A hotel next to Everest Café called Grand Residency and other buildings on the road,” says Sudha, founder of Story Corner at Bookmine.
The walk would cover Prasanna Venkateswara Perumal temple, the head office of Greater Chennai Corporation, Periamet mosque, the many leather outlets, Veterinary College, SPCA and Maddox Street.
Research done around a year ago for a print article came in handy for Sudha, who has in the past done walks covering Marshalls Road and Harrington Road where she lives.
“When I was doing research on lakes of Chennai, I had visited the Sundara Raja Perumal temple in Avadi and the priest told me about another Vishnu temple in Periamet that is about 1000 years old,” says Sudha.
Sudha Umashanker
As the temple did not have any records, getting the accurate information took some doing. “The temple authorities finally helped me access some written information,” she says.
To collect authentic information about other landmarks on the walk meant researching in many ways including accessing blogs, history books and talking to people.
“Books written by temple historians are a good source,” she says.
Participants have to tread carefully as the pavements are not friendly, also why Sunday morning has been chosen for the walk as the traffic would be thin.
To register for this free walk, Whatsapp 9840247624 with name and participant details.
How does one shortlist a place for a heritage walk? What are the considerations that should go into the writing of a script for the walk? What is the best way to start a walk? Author Niveditha Louis was subconsciously asking herself these questions as she went about curating a heritage walk at Washermenpet for the last two months, and also guiding three interns — G Sasikala, a PhD scholar from Ulaga Thamizharaichi Niruvanam; G Sathyapriya, an MPhil scholar from Presidency College; and V Dhanashree, a post graduate student of History at Loyola College — on how to organise heritage walks.
The group during the walk on August 9
Niveditha has done many walks in the past, but every time, she approaches a heritage walk it is as if she were organising one for the first time.
“This is the first time that I am guiding a walk where the aim is to encourage more youngsters to explore the city, especially less-known places,” says Niveditha, a feminist historian.
She is organising this walk under a project of Goethe-Institut Chennai. In the last six months, the team has done at least seven recces of Washermanpet, besides attending meetings at Goethe-Institut.
Ramanujar Moulana and Tirupurasundari Sevvel are two other walk leaders under the project and they have been hand-holding other youngsters to lead walks at George Town and Aminjikarai respectively.
“One rule of thumb I have asked my team to follow is: At every stop on the walk launch into a story about the place,” says Niveditha.
One of the stops is Vavilla Press, established in 1856. “For the walk conducted on August 9, the brothers owning the press interacted with the group and that made it more fascinating,” says Niveditha.
She shares another highlight.
“A female priest manages the Man Mari Amman temple and participants will get to interact with her,” she says.
Websites like archive.org and Google Books threw up information for this team, but, as they found out, nothing can replace an interview with local residents.
“Through one of my Muslim friends, I got to know about the Bavuta beedi and it got more thrilling as we could locate the company and a person was able to feed us with many stories about this enterprise,” says Niveditha.
The historian notes they also located the house that had filed the first nuisance case.
While heritage walks are preferred in the morning, the tour of Washermanpet happens in the evening as that is when one can soak in the sights and sounds of the area. A stop at a spot selling boli, malai rose milk (a speciality of the locality) and a visit to the quaint old china market promises to add flavour to this trail.
Photographer Hari Anant from Adyar was part of the recent walk and he took pictures pro bono.
Write to library-chennai@goethe.de to register for the the upcoming walks. For details, visit themadrasday.in
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monument and heritage site / Madras Week / history / Chennai
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