Making music

A live orchestra at work, recording the background music for a feature film. This happened at a studio in Vadapalani. From the outside, it looks like any other building on the street, but the inside is very different - multiple spaces for recording music, voice, etc. Had a good time watching the music director and the sound engineer working together on getting the whole thing going. 

Can't say anything more about it for now!

First shot

Movie makers are by and large very superstitious and do not take many chances in the way of their movies being successful. Almost every film starts with a puja, which has become an event in itself these days. It is the done thing to can a shot at the puja. Sometimes that shot may not even make it to the final version of the movie, but it has to be done. 

The AVM Studios had a pillaiyar under a tree, which over the years became the default location for puja shot. Much later, another pillaiyar was also added on. That was in 2005, when AVM Productions split (for the third time in their 55-year history). And so this temple came up; apart from the pillaiyar as 'Selva Vinayagar', there is also a Durga and Murugan with his consorts.

When you enter the studio, this new shrine is the one that you get to see first. The split meant that it would be more convenient for each part of the studio to have a puja spot of its own!

Movement

There is a lot of it everywhere you turn to. Movement. A big city like Chennai is always on the move, even if it does not seem like it on most occasions. But even when you are stuck in traffic in Chennai, it is not a full stop. Traffic moves, even if slowly, on such occasions. There are several other places in the world, and even in the country, where traffic comes to a standstill on multiple occasions. 

Chennai is far better. Most of the pauses in your journey on the road happen at traffic intersections, where the red light stays on for longer than every motorist thinks is required. One such intersection is this one at the meeting point of Jawaharlal Nehru Salai (that's the NH 45 going inside the city) and Arcot Road. With the Chennai Metro construction also encroaching on the road space, everyone tries to get past this crossing as soon as they can.

And, if the car coming at you flashes lights at you, you had better stay out of the way - he is in too much of a hurry for you to attempt any movement into his path!

Theme Day at the CDP - and you had better get a move on there if you want to see the theme 'Movement' interpreted in cities around the world!

Old car

The first motor car was seen on Madras' roads in 1894 - so the story goes. But that is an unverified statement and the more verifiable date of a motor car being used in Madras is placed as 1901. That car was used by A.J. Yorke, who was a Director of Parry & Co. The motor car must have got him to work before anyone else, even though he lived in Adyar and his office was in 'Town'. By all accounts, Yorke's car was un-numbered, probably pre-dating the need for such registration of vehicles. 

The first registered car in Madras belonged to (later Sir) Francis Spring, who was then with the Madras Railway Board. It was registered with the very original MC-1 number. Of MC-2, there is little information to be found, but the first car registered by a 'native' came in as MC-3. That belonged to the master builder of Madras, Namberumal Chetty. 

This one - MSC 3738 - was seen at another Chettiar's property. This one parked inside AVM Studios and is probably taken out twice a year, during vintage car shows. It is a Vauxhall 14, dating back to 1938. The registration number, however, must have been made later; the MS series of numbers were in use in Madras even in the late '60s, before giving over to the TM series; and I can remember the schoolboy challenge - if the car 'TMS xxxx' sings, it is only because 'MSV xxxx' is making the music!

Reel life

The AVM Studios at Vadapalani has been around for a few decades. Having been founded in Karaikudi in 1946, the studios moved to Madras a couple of years later. Since then, they have been continuously in operation, making it one of the very few such across the world. The others - mainly Hollywood, I guess - have made the sets and the production facilities into money making ventures by themselves, but it is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible, to find any such 'immortalization' of a movie set in India.

Considering that AVM Productions itself has put out 170-odd films, the space in the studios would not have been sufficient to store bits and pieces of those sets, not to mention the ones created for films by other production houses. Also, Indian movies are not overly dependent on sets, preferring to use other, real-life, locales for large parts of the movie. No grand set remains here for star-struck visitors to ogle at. 

The ones that still stand around - like this corner shop - are allowed to be there because they may come in handy for the next film; unlike many other custom-made sets, props such as these can be re-used with a couple of changes and a coat of paint. But I guess some of them are still up there more because of sheer laziness of having to pull them down!

Metro matters

It has taken a little over four years and the Chennai Metro appears to be on track for taking on the first set of passengers early next year. Put together, the two corridors will have a tad over 45km of track, of which 24km would run underground. This is a picture of a section of Corridor 2 (Central to St Thomas Mount), between Arumbakkam and Vadapazhani. A map of the corridors can be seen here. 

How may stations does the Chennai Metro have? That was a question at the Madras Quiz, to which many teams knew the answer (no, we did not). Each of the corridors has 17 stations. Another question was to identify which is the only station common to both corridors - that's the Alandur station, near the airport (which we knew). But the correct answer to the first question was given as 32 - which doesn't add up.

One explanation is that the number would depend on how you count the stations. Going by their names, there are only 32. Apart from Alandur, the other common name is Central Metro; on the map, however, the corridors show distinct stations, so if we were to go by that count, there would really be 33 stations. 

And then, there would be some who might insist on adding up the stations and claiming that there are actually 34!

Bright outlook

Caught your eye, didn't it? That's probably one reason why a rash of bright colours has burst out all over Chennai over the past couple of years. It is not just marriage halls (like this one), but even houses and flats that have taken to covering themselves with such in-your-eye colours.

Time was when nuanced shades of white - with a hint of blue, grey or cream - were the standard colours; and then came 'colourwash', contrasting with the traditional whitewash - now you could have the lime mix suffused with green or blue and differentiate the living room from the bedroom without much effort. Over the past couple of decades, as paint technology improved, it has become easier to mix colours to get just that right shade you wanted - and economies of scale did not apply, most likely. So that one wall of the living room was painted in a contrasting colour, inviting attention to the framed prints.

Over the past couple of years, that contrast effect has come out to the streets. In doing so, it has created camps - some believe that turmeric, vermillion or green should be the only colours to be used in painting houses, since they represent auspicious colours. Others pooh-pooh that and go ahead with any bright or fluorescent colour which helps them stand out!

Film factory

As a boy working in his father's general store in Karaikudi, Meiyappan was fascinated by the gramophone records that were brought in from Madras. His fascination led him to start Saraswathi Stores, dedicated entirely to music records, many of which were pressed by the Store itself. Most of the music was from the movies; thinking about it, the native business acumen of the Nattukottai Chettiars came through and Meiyappan decided he could produce the whole feature film rather than buy songs from other producers. Sailing forth on this dream, he found his first three movies - Alli Arjuna (1935), Ratnavali (1936) and Nandakumar (1938) - bombing. Meiyappan's response was to go further upstream; partnering with a couple of his friends, he set up Pragathi Studios in Madras.


The movies from Pragathi, in Tamizh and Kannada, including the country's first dubbed film, Harischandra (made by replacing the original Kannada voices with Tamizh ones), were successful and Meiyappan came to be known by his initials - AVM, for Avichi Meiyappan. Needing more space for his ambitions, but hampered from expanding beyond an office of the AVM Studios in Madras because of the II World War, AVM went back to his native Karaikudi. There, on Devakottai Road, he set up a 60' X 120' shed as AVM Studio's first production floor, in 1945.


Today, the initials AVM can be seen on several properties and buildings around Chennai. Though AVM moved away from producing movies for a while, they have come back strong and along with the Studios, they are buzzing away at the forefront of Tamizh entertainment. The original 60' X 120' shed was dismantled after the war, brought to Madras and reassembled on the third floor of AVM Studios. Since then, the pujas for any AVM Production project are always held on this floor!