Not just the mall!

Even an occasional visitor to Chennai can easily identify this as the Spencer's junction. Once upon a long time ago, this was the site of a handsome, redbrick building with a sweeping driveway. Spencer & Co., the original department store of Madras gave way to the current buildings after it was destroyed by a fire. A replica of the original facade can be seen at Phase III of Spencer Plaza, the largest of the buildings in this cluster.

The most visible part of the cluster is the shopping mall. It is quite likely that a large majority of the visitors to the mall do not even register the fact that there is much more to these buildings - in fact, the office space here is more than the area covered by the mall, because, while there are only three floors of the mall, offices are spread out over seven; and then there is the third building in the cluster.

It was only over the past couple of years that I've come to recognize that building as 'Dewa Towers'. And the style of writing those words (you can see it when you click on the photo) seems rather similar to that of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority - that's another Dewa!