...are back!Sharp, concentrated but thankfully very brief, these showers are a by-product of the South West monsoon. They bring down the temperature, hold up everyone on the streets; if you're wise you will not leave the strorefront you're holed up in. Chennai residents will know these showers last only a few minutes so it is worth waiting it out rather than get drenched and look foolish for the rest of the day.There're still a couple of months to go before Chennai's monsoon sets in, but any Chennai resident will be glad to have showers of this kind every day - the heat is still ruling at fairly high levels!
Once upon a time, there were just a few houses along Mowbray's Road, with each of them having large grounds around them. The extent of the 'largeness' is not easy to comprehend, but going into the gates of 'The Grove' will give you some sense of it. The Grove is the also name of a school run by the CP Ramaswamy Iyer Foundation. It is a very apt name, for there are several trees protecting you from the sun in almost all parts of the grounds. The school is not the only building that you see; there are a couple of others, too. Your eyes, however, will be drawn towards this magnificent building; a building that has been around for almost 125 years. Inside, the rooms are a mix of the spacious and the cramped, the latter probably serving as guest rooms or something, for those single male visitors staying over. As you look around this building, you will also learn that sometime in the early 1900s, it was only a part of the property purchased by Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer's father, a part that was most likely set aside for the son. Sir CP added the first floor of this building and made sure that used some very high quality materials - teak from Burma, marble from Venice, ceiling tiles from Belgium - as he renovated The Grove to his liking. Today, this builidng houses the officers of the Foundation and an art gallery. As you walk out, you will reflect on the fact that the larger property was called The Baobab; the memory of that one tree is only in The Grove of today!
Footpaths on Chennai roads, if they exist, are often taken up by shops selling all kinds of things. For the most part, nobody really wants to move them away. They are useful mainly because they are everywhere, one can always manoeuvre around them - that slight inconvenience is set off by the economy of shopping at these footpath outlets. Come summer, the number of such outlets seems to multiply rapidly. Many of them are of course seasonal, dedicated to the variety of fruits that summer brings with it. This shop on CP Ramaswamy Road is usually a small affair, just under the tree, with maybe 3 or 4 kinds of fruit. But now, it has spread itself out and has spilled onto the road. Of course the shop needs space; forget the 3 or 4 kinds - there are now some 6 kinds of mangoes alone. And then sweet lime, oranges, grapes, apples, pomegranates, sapota, bananas, musk melon.... I'm sure I've missed out on a few that fell outside the photo frame. Colourful - and tempting!
Sometimes, you don't give credit to a good idea just because it has been in-your-face for a while. I had long assumed that this bakery on CP Ramaswamy Road was just one more of those many 'cake shops' over Chennai. It was only recently when they re-did their signage that I noticed the 3-way partnership that has created this enterprise; the Corporation of Chennai, Chennai Culinary Institute and the Rotary Club (Madras East).
Is there any other outlet of this bakery in the city? Would hate to think that it is just a one-shop initiative - so if you have seen any 'Winners' other than this one, do let me know where!
