Madras Meetings

ON 21st July 2012 I had this opportunity to meet mr. pra...chak.. ! Very down to earth and helping that he was, i was totally thrilled on entering his grnadfathers ancestral home in a quaint street in T Nagar. The house smelled of redoxide and antique statues, stones and paintings from the ancient era. No wonder he is passionate about history!

The talk initially surrounded around my background and how i came to be doing findings in old madras. He saw my writeup on thiruvotriyur but may be was not too impressed for i had majorly written only the sthala puranam of the area. He eventually told me how the devadasis in thiruvotriyur were the first to go on strike ever.. for their uplift in social status. I asked him if the inscriptions from the temples gives him these informations, and he nods in acknowledgement. Do I have to be professional in reading inscriptions? No! cmon! im not a professional or something. He goes inside and brings 2 big thick books, an example of how these inscriptions of a particular area have to be fetched! He shows me an example of how to read the inscriptions seeing the index and locating it in the 20 odd volumes of the inscriptions published over 50,000 inscriptions from all over india, since 1865.

This gave me a bit of an idea. I asked him if he has ever heard of Adambakkam or Pazhandi amman koil. He says he doesnt know much about it and also discards the idea that any adani cholan ever ruled this place. Nor does he accept with the fact that parangi malai got its name from Brungi muni who once did penance on the hillock.

His suggestions were to read a book by Mr KVRaman and Mr Nilakanta shastri on cholas which will give me lot of information about their history and lifestyle. And then probably looking into the inscriptions volumes will be helpful. He even said if you have time, please try to organise the inscriptions according to subject, because right now its all mixed up and if a historian/an interested person ever wants to know what women were like in the past, they will have to browse 50,000 odd inscriptions!

"We are now losing a lot of readymade historical accounts present right among us - the poeple who are 70+" ..He suggested me to catch hold of every man/woman above 70 and record their talk on their childhood. This will give a solid account of how india was few generations ago and will help to draw a sketch on that..for we are quickly losing lot of information on that.

Overall it was a happy meeting.