The Indian Express

Newspaper Review by: padhukr

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THE PRESENT CHENNAI:
Princely abodeSIXTEEN YEARS AGO, the three km stretch that begins with The Park Hotel

was renamed as ‘Uttamar Gandhi Salai’ (meaning Mahatma Gandhi Road) by the DMK government. If you look hard, you’ll even spot a sign that says so. However, quizzing passerby about MG Road draws a blank. They prefer to go with the earlier name: Nungambakkam High Road.That fits the arterial road’s character, they say, one of Chennai’s busiest. Dotted with malls, plush hotels, some of the city’s most popular bars and clubs, and stores selling everything from three-piece suits suits to ayurvedic rubs, it’s commercial all the way. Quite a departure, you’d think, from what the strip was originally: a residential area, primarily occupied by Andhra zamindars. Imagine a quite tree-lined road with roomy mansions, mostly in the art-deco style, in one- to five-acre plots. “One was large Field, demolished about a year ago. Social worker Mary Clubwala Jadhav a factor Gemini Ganesan used to live on that road. There was also Wanaparthy Palace and the homes of the Rani of Vijayanagaram and the Raja of Chellapalli, “says TT Srinivasamurti, 75, writer R K Narayanan’s brother, whose family house was nearby. “As a student, when walking back from flim shows at Gemini Studios, my friend and I were afraid that ghosts would attack us on the badly-lit Nungambakkam High Road, “he recalls. “So we used to sing and talk loudly to scare the ghosts. “Maneck Patel, Director, Operations, Oriental Hotels, agrees. Now based in Mumbai, he was with the Taj when they opened the Coromandel in ’74. “I remember how the lady staff were so scared to wait at the bus-stop at 7 pm that we used to send security guards to accompany them!” he laughs. Rosella Stephen

Published: January 29, 2007

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