Indebted

The address of this institution locates it at 1, Prakasam Salai, which was earlier - much earlier - called Popham's Broadway. But it also has had a hand in bestowing a name to one of the roads nearby, just around the corner, so to say. The 8-acre campus of the Bharathi Women's College is flanked by the Old Jail Road on its northern side. 

Not meeting debt obligations seems to have been a very high crime in late 17th century Madras. It seems to have been bad enough for the British to establish a civil Debtors' Prison in Fort St George. Much later, this Debtors' Prison moved out of the Fort, ending up in these buildings on Broadway. By the 1800s, the prison had gone beyond being just for debtors into a larger scale. It served as the main jail of Madras until the Central Jail was built across the road from the Central Station. That being the new jail, the Debtors' Prison came to be referred to as the 'Old Jail'. 

Sometime after Independence, probably in the 1950s, the Central Jail became the only jail in the city. The inmates of this building were also moved there and these premises were used for housing various educational institutions, culminating in the Bharathi Women's College in 1964. It is somehow very odd that former prisons have given way to supporting education for women.  Apart from this one, the 'new' jail gave way to the Women's Hostel of the Madras Medical College!

There still?

I have in my archives, several photographs of buildings or other things that I mean to gather more information about. And then when I look at them, I realize that far too many years have gone by; is that building standing even now? Such a one is this picture of a building on Broadway, taken in 2010. If you click on the picture to open it in a new tab, and blow it up, you will see that it says "1930 Sarafaly Mansion". For the last 13 years, I have been trying to find out more but I don't think I will have any further details than I already have, so here goes. 

The partnership firm Mohamedaly Sarafaly and Company has been in existence for nearly two centuries. The founding partner, Mohamed Ali Shaikh Sarafaly was originally from Sidhpur in Gujarat (which, by the way, seems to be a fascinating town in itself), and had ventured far and wide to establish his trading business. He appears to have spent a considerable length of time in Ethiopia, being awarded the 'Star of Ethiopia, II Order' by emperor Haile Selassie I, in addition to the award of an MBE (Member of the British Empire). 

I am absolutely speculating here: the firm of Mohamedaly Sarafaly carried out a lot of business from Madras as well. Like many of those who found success here, they must have set up more permanent indicators of their benevolence and societal awareness. This Sarafaly Mansion must have been one such. A search on Google throws up references to a lot of litigation involving Mohamedaly Sarafaly and Company, mostly against the Income Tax Department. It is quite likely that all of these assets are in the current state of limbo thanks to those cases, going back to the 1960s. I also discover that find that Abdullabhoy M Bhagat, Partner of Mohmaedaly Sarafaly, is yet to claim dividend for 2019-20 from Sicagen, according to their report from August 2022. Does anyone have more - and correct - details to offer? 

 

Morning paper

Early morning, on Broadway, the newspaper bundles have arrived. The bundles need to be unpacked and re-packaged into smaller units for distribution locally. 

There were about 20 such individuals carrying out the task - that's quite a distribution challenge!

Pedal power

The big reason for taking this picture was the white-on-blue enamel board. I was hoping to find the word "Madras" under the name of the business; though this one does not have that, it still made for a nice picture of old times. Though I did not realize it when I took the photo, my first cycle, a very nice Raleigh, was bought from this shop 30 years ago. And when that cycle was bought, the shop was being managed by the grandson of the founder. 

Bhogilal Davey had come to Madras from Nadiad in the early years of the 20th century, looking to make a fortune in some way. Among the many businesses he forayed into were food (he ran a restaurant), ghee sales and perfumery before he settled on bicycles. This business was started off in Bunder Street, and moved to this location on Broadway in 1936; obviously, Bhogilal-bhai had hit on to a good thing, importing Raleigh, Humber and Philips bicycles from the UK for sale here. But in 1939, within 7 years of setting up this business, he handed it over to his son. It was the son who gave it the name it still carries. He, after 40 years in the business, handed it over to Suresh Davey, who runs it currently.

Despite it being a holiday, the cycle shop still generates business. Not behind the closed doors, of course, but for the man in front of it, sitting with an old tyre and a bicycle pump!

Buzzin' around

The Beehive Foundry was named very appropriately, by all accounts. It supposedly employed between 500 and 600 workmen even during the lean season and the "activity which prevails in a hive of bees is not excelled by the industry which is manifested by the large staff of employees of this company". Contractors to shipping companies, the railways and large builders among others, the Beehive Foundry was set up in this building, which housed Oakes & Co., arguably Madras' first department store. The Beehive Foundry was Oakes' foray into engineering and it grew to be quite successful, with the works going completely electric (from the original steam power) in 1914, subsequent upon their being awarded the contract to outfit the hospital ship Madras that year. 

Suryanarayana Rao, the scion of a Vijayawada-based business family set up business for himself in 1907. His friend C.A.Chettiar joined him a few years later, and the two of them ventured into the steel foundry and fabrication business. It is quite likely that they took over the Beehive Foundry soon after and the group came to be known as the Beehive Kowtha Group.

The foundry has moved to Vijayawada. But the Group continues to have fabrication shops in Chennai, as well as Hyderabad and Vijayawada; and its corporate office stays on at this address: Beehive Buildings, 57, Broadway, Chennai 600108!

Stopped press

It looks like what it is. The signboard of a business that has seen vastly better times, but is now faded, rusting in its own history. "Appar Achchagam" it says, with the preceding words having faded completely away. It may not be much to look at, but it had its day about half-a-century ago.

Appar Achchagam, on Broadway, was the printing arm of the Saiva Siddhantha Works Publishing Society, which was run by Va. Thiruvarangam Pillai, who was a big fan of Maraimalai Adigalar. (Maybe the biggest fan - he married Neelambigai, the Adigalar's daughter). He had been instrumental in bringing Adigalar to Ceylon, and the SSWP Society had published every one of the Adigalar's books. Upon his death, Adigalar bequeathed is collection of over 4000 Tamizh books to the SSWP Society, which, in 1958, opened the Maraimalai Adigal Library on Linghi Chetty Street. Building on that initial corpus, the Library grew to over 35,000 rare books, journals and manuscripts over the next 50 years. Unable to house them, or to maintain the Library itself, the Society turned the entire collection over to the Connemara Library. 

Today, the Society seems to have gone under completely. A handwritten sheet, under this sign, calls on them to deliver vacant possession of the premises by order of the High Court. The heritage of the Adigalar, revered as the father of 'pure Tamizh', seems to have been completely institutionalized, now!

South-west sentinel

That is how this statue, at the south-west corner of the Madras High Court campus, was described by a Judge of the Madras High Court. Like its counterpart at the north-east corner (that of Rajaji), this statue too honours a barrister who gave up his practice to participate in the freedom struggle. The road this statute looks on to, known earlier as Broadway, was renamed in his honour as "Prakasam Salai".

It was not because Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu lived on Broadway. It was on that road, in 1928 that a black flag demonstration was being held against the visiting Simon Commission. A nervous police force watched the demonstration gathering strength as they marched south on Broadway; finally, when it reached the China Bazaar junction of the Esplanade (what is now NSC Bose Road), the police opened fire. The shots sent the crowd back - except Parthasarathy, one of the demonstrators, who had been killed by the bullets. His body lay at the junction. The police swore to shoot anyone who approached the body. Enraged by that attitude, it was Prakasam, who ripped open his shirt and, daring the policemen to target his chest, walked up to lift Parthasarathy's body and continue on the march. It was this courage which brought him the sobriquet "Andhra Kesari" (the Lion of Andhra). The courage was demonstrated again when, heedless of his personal safety, he visited the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1948 to convince him to join the Indian Union, at a time when the Razakars were out to get him.

The plaque on the statue also calls him 'Andhra Kesari'. That he was the Premier of the Madras Presidency (1946-47) is mentioned in much smaller letters. This sentinel can be better cared for, surely!

Dramatic building

Back to those white-on-blue enamel boards. This building has two of them, both indicating institutions that have had a glorious run on the Madras stage. One of those, I shall save for another post, but this one, sadly, seems to have been relegated to a 'bit-part' these days.

The Sukrutha Lakshmi Vilasa Sabha (SLVS) is one-hundred-and-eleven years old this year. It has been operating from this building for sixty-seven of those years. In the early days of its existence, the raison d'etre of this Sabha was to compete with the Suguna Vilasa Sabha (SVS) in staging dramatic performances. Over the years, both organizations have had to struggle for existence. The SVS has fared a little better on that count, having morphed into a social club, while the SLVS seems to have last opened its doors a few years ago.

Maybe it wants to continue its association with the performing arts - that could be the reason why it hasn't moved out of this building, which once housed Madras' first ever cinema!

Premiere show

Just over a year ago, I had written about Madras' second cinema theatre. The first, by all accounts remained untraceable. Now, it appears that the city's first cinema hall is standing, still. The Broadway of the early 20th century was as much a bustling business district as it is a hundred years later. It was on this road that a certain Mrs Klug decided to try her hand at running a movie hall; rather a permanent movie hall. In the early days of motion pictures in India, the pictures as well as their exhibition spaces were both mobile, so the establishment of a fixed venue was in itself a novelty.

Very factually named, "Mrs. Klug's Biosocope" - "The Broadway Bioscope" or "The Bioscope" - opened for business sometime early in 1911. Although the permanency aspect was highlighted only much later, the crowds were eager to take in this new form of entertainment. The leading newspaper of those days - Madras Times - played a large role in establishing the 'permanency' of the exhibition hall, for that is essentially what it was. But was there ever a "Mrs. Klug"? Or was it some genius marketer, who used a nom de screen to convince folks that movies were something so respectable that a married woman could run it single-handedly? Considering that the Bioscope ran 'continuous shows' (something that Chennai has missed ever since Blue Diamond was razed) from 6pm to 11pm every day - last show starting at 9pm - it may well have been a way to assure potential moviegoers that they were getting into a respectable establishment! We may never know that, for Mrs. Klug's last show was sometime in October 1911 and there has been no news of her since.


Many of Chennai's history buffs have been unable to find the exact location of where Mrs. Klug had her Bioscope. A few months ago, Dr. Stephen Hughes, in an article in "The Hindu", points to enough evidence for it to have been operating from the first floor of this building, which is even today home to some long-standing institutions. Now, let us hope the structure does not crumble under the added weight of being the location of India's first ever permanent movie hall!

Loane fountain

Well, don't judge the park by the fountain. That the centerpiece of Sriramulu Poonga on Prakasam Road is dry is no reflection on the status of the park itself. Confused? Well, old timers of Madras would probably understand better if I'd used the earlier names - Loane Square Garden on Broadway.

That garden was commissioned by Samuel Joshua Loane, probably as a bulwark against the space becoming messy and unsanitary once again. 'Once again', because sometime around the mid-nineteenth century, Loane had just finished cleaning up Popham's Market on Broadway. Stephen Popham had reportedly envisaged the market - for meat, vegetables and condiments - being spic and span. After his death, it seems to have degenerated considerably, to the extent of a garden being named after its rescuer.

Fast forward to the end of the 20st century; Loane Square Garden is in pretty much the same state that Popham's Market was, a hundred and fifty years earlier. Being used as a parking lot for trucks carting produce to and from Kotwal Chavadi, the Garden was "a public lavatory masquerading as a park and a startling testimonial to the failure of Stephen Popham's most basic idea - sanitation - to take root". Now, it has once again been transformed into an oasis of greenery in what's otherwise a rather grey and dusty district. I'm not very sure about the connection between Potti Sriramulu and this park, which is now named after him, but as with many other places in the city, it continues to be better known by its old name!

Fantasy world

It was in 1896 that the Lumiere brothers visited India with their 'cinematographe'. Madras was not on their itinerary; it was Bombay that they favoured, making it the fourth city in their world tour, the other three being London, New York and Buenos Aires. It is said, however, that a firm named Madras Photographic Store advertised a show of 'animated photographs', which would make it the first 'motion picture' show in the city. I have not been able to find any reliable data to back the claim of the Madras Photographic Store, so we must turn elsewhere to find the city's first movie theatre.

Given the fickle nature of the movie industry, it is no surprise that the first cinema in the city is no longer in business. Neither is the second, the Electric Theatre, but at least it remained in business for a couple of years and is sometimes credited as being the first - it helps that the building still exists. The first theatre of Madras was the rather factually named Bioscope, which opened for business in 1911, but closed down within a few months. Not much is known about this theatre, save that it was on Broadway (or Popham's Broadway, as it was then called) and was owned by a Mrs. Klug.

Of Mrs. Klug, too, we hear little else; she is part of Chennai's history, but nobody seems to know who she was or where she went to after her pioneering attempt failed. The only cinema on Broadway - though it boggles the mind that Broadway can actually have a cinema - is the New Broadway Talkies, show in the photograph. That there was an older Broadway Talkies at this site is known - but it is still unknown if that one came up where the Bioscope used to be. That would be a truly filmy ending!

The Hub

Any Chennaiite wondering about the relevance of George Town in these modern times must spend an hour or so at the Broadway bus terminus. That it is a crowded, bustling bus depot goes without saying. That you can hear some fifteen different languages being spoken should also not come as a surprise. But the sheer number of Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses coming through is overwhelming. In the 15 minutes or so that I spent there on a Sunday afternoon, I counted 18 buses going out; considering that it was a non-business day and non-peak hour, it is not far-fetched to estimate that at least 1,500 buses would pass through this terminus every day.

That makes Broadway the largest of MTC's hubs; and remember, this is after the wholesale vegetable market having been shifted away from the George Town area and after the inter-state bus terminus also having been moved away to the other corner of the city. Despite those moves, George Town continues to be a hub for commercial activity; also, its proximity to the Madras High Court, the District Collectorate, the Port of Chennai and several other government and private institutions ensures that every resident of Chennai will have to pass through it one day or the other.

If only those changes hadn't been made, Broadway would have been absolutely unmanageable today. So, if you think you're in the most happening place in the city, come here, stay a while and think again!