Walks, exhibits capture 383 years of Chennai’s heritage

CHENNAI: The Madras Day celebrations are back, and how. With renewed fervour, especially with the pandemic situation having improved, the people of Chennai are gearing up to celebrate the 383rd birthday of Madras in innovative ways.

While some are reminiscing the glorious past of old Madras and revisiting places through heritage walks; others are capturing the city’s vibrancy through photographs.

The Madras Week celebrations that began on August 21 will go on till August 28 with several events lined up.

The Madras Local History Group is curating, ‘Serving the Raj – Hired Help in Colonial Madras’, an exhibition of vintage images and postcards by city historian Venkatesh Ramakrishnan. The exhibition will also have a collection of fifteen postcards named ‘Reflections – Madras/Chennai’. It will be held at Madras Literary Society from 11 am to 3.30 pm and will be on display from August 22 till September 3.

Another event happening at Madras Literary Society (MLS) is ‘Maps of Madras’ by Vikram Raghavan. The talk aims to explore the city’s evolution in map-making, while also going through rare maps that survived the test of time.

The talk will also honour late historian and mapmaker, S Muthiah and also DH Rao, philatelist and maritime historian.

Attendees are required to pay an entry fee of Rs 100 if they are not a member of MLS. The talk will be held at the venue on Monday from 4 pm to 5.30 pm.

“We wanted to make the Madras Day celebrations more inclusive, hence we will display 15 artworks, both photos and paintings, of various artists and photographers with disabilities in the city,” says Srivatsan Sankaran of Madras Photo Bloggers, who has curated a photo and art exhibition at the Museum of Possibilities. The exhibition is on till August 24 from 11 am to 6.30 pm. Cycling Yogis is organising ‘Street Names and Charity Trail’ on August 28 from 5 am to 8 pm.

Speaking to DT Next, Ramanujar Moulana of Cycling Yogis said, “Madras has unique street names from Kolaikaran Pettai to Brewery Road. We will discuss the history behind these names while also cycling through the city’s oldest charities.”

In collaboration with Madras Inherited, The Equals Project is organising a constitutional walk on August 28 to explore the people, places and events from Madras that influenced or had an impact on the Constitution. The Madras Week celebrations can be tracked on the Instagram handles of TTDC and Madras Inherited.