Cities And Towns In Tamil Nadu

"[Damarla] Venkatapathy sought access to British trade partners, and so granted to the company’s representatives a fishing village, Madraspatnam and surrounding territory. The Fort, built south of Madraspatnam, came to be known to Indians as Chennapatnam, after Venkatapathy’s father, either in deference to the wishes of Damarla Venkatapathy or the site originally bore that name. Chennai Corporation accounts for the use of the name “Madras” over the prior 350 years as the product of “confusion” asserting that the original place names were inexplicably reversed, with Chennai taken to refer to the fishing village and Madras to the fort and environs and that, as a result, historians drew the erroneous conclusion that Madras was the more accurate name."

"Partisan of both “Madras” and “Chennai” used those names to assert that the city was, from its inception, a volatile borderland, a point of contact, mixing, hybridity. For its part “Chennai” suggests the frontier of pre-modern empire, whereas “Madras” is a frontier of modern imperial expansion. Both names, however, assert that the city is a “glocality” – a global entrepot in which diverse population, exchange media, languages, and ideas were brought into intimate and enduring relationships, and, more recently, a product of and staging ground for globalizing capitalism."

"”Chennai” or variants also appear in descriptive essays and literary works as names for the city that the English know as Madras. The Vishvagunadrasa Campu (composed between 1650 and 1700) and Anandarangavijaya Campu, composed in 1752 refer to the settlement as Chenna Kesava Pura and to “Chenna Patna”, and the Sarva-deva-vilasa uses the term “Cennapuri” or “Cennapuram” as the place name."

"Critics of the name change favoured the retention of “Madras” and took the incoherence of its spatial form and built environment as their point of departure. Instead of treating these qualities as sins of lack, however, they celebrated them as artifacts of the city’s origins as a colonial port and its status as the ground zero of Indian modernity."

"There is little doubt that [all of India’s major cities], owe much to the beginnings of modern progress that Madras gave the rest of the subcontinent... Madras, till the 1760s, lay the foundation on which modern India has grown."

"What emerged [over the eighteenth century]... was not merely a collection of separate quarters, but two or even three distinct societies with their own characteristic ways of organizing space ...the outstanding feature of Madras was that these cultural units – colonial European, indigenous urban and rural societies – in many cases shared the same territory without actually merging together or losing their distinctive characteristic."

"A fortuitous collection of villages, separated from the surrounding country by an arbitrary boundary line rather than a town in the usual sense of the word."

"“Mylapore, which is a part of Madras city, is an ancient town. Sri Tiruvalluvar, the author of the famous Kural known as Tamil Vedham, who lived in the first century AD, lived his entire life at Mylapore. Saints Sambandar and Appar have composed songs mentioning the God of Mylapore as Shri Kapaleeswara. It was a prosperous town when the English built the Fort St. George in 1593. But the present temple does not contain any feature of the Dravidian style of architecture. The carvings in the pillars are poor specimens compared with those in some of the ancient temples. When there was an erosion of the sea about the close of the last century, there was a landslip on the San Thome beach. It revealed carved stone pillars and broken stones of mandapam found only in Hindu temples. It is a historical fact that the Portuguese, who visited India in the 16th century, had one of their earliest settlements at San Thome, Mylapore. In those days they were very cruel and had iconoclastic tendencies. They razed some Hindu temples to the ground. It is probable that the other Mylapore temple referred to in the Thevaram hymns was built on the seashore and that it was destroyed by the Portuguese about the beginning of the 16th century.”"

"Ptolemy the Greek geographer has referred to Mylapore in his books as 'Maillarpha', a well known seaport town with a flourishing trade. Saint Thiruvalluvar, the celebrated author of Thirukkural, the world famous ethical treatise, lived in Mylapore nearly 2000 years ago. The Shaivite saints of the 7th century, Saint Sambandar and Saint Appar, have sung about this shrine in their hymns. St. Thomas, one of the apostles of Jesus, is reported to have visited Mylapore in the 2nd century (sic) AD. Mylapore fell into the hands of the Portuguese in 1566, when the temple suffered demolition. The present temple was rebuilt about 300 years ago. There are some fragmentary inscriptions from the old temple, still found in the present shrine and in St. Thomas Cathedral."

"Sir Josiah Child, one of the directors of the East India Company was responsible for the formation of the Corporation of Chennai, on the model of Dutch Government in the East Indies. On 29th September 1688, the corporation was inaugurated with power to decide petty cases, levy rates upon the inhabitants for building of schools, a town hall and a jail. Nathaniel Higginson was nominated as First mayor with 12 aldermen and 60 burgesses."

"The Lord of Kapaleeswaram sat watching the people of Mylapore – a place full of flowering coconut palms – taking ceremonial bath in the sea on the full moon day of the month of Masai."

"“On their festival days the Hindus would bring their images [to Mylapore beach] accompanied by large crowds and great rejoicing and would, as they approached the door of the church, lower them three times to the ground as a mark of reverence to it, a practice which had been followed from time immemorial.”"

"O Lord of Mylapore temple, situated on the shores of the sea with raging waves...."

"Globalised Chennai is no longer the hamlet-tish Madras of slow days and early nights, quiet avenues and conservative lifestyles. And yet, beneath the gloss lies the old sheen of kapi-tipan [Coffee and Snacks] and Carnatic music."

"The Corporation of Chennai (previously Madras) is the Oldest Municipal Institution in India established on the 29th September 1688. A charter was issued on the 30 December 1607 by East Indian Company constituting the "Town of Fort St. George" and all the territories thereunto belonging, not exceeding the distance of ten miles from the Fort, into a Corporation."

"Economic development and foreign investment has helped five major Indian cities -- Chennai, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata -- move up on their global rankings in terms of living standards, a latest study shows."

"The economic base of Chennai City had shifted from trade and commerce to administration and services by the early part of the 20th Century. In the post-Independence period, manufacturing became an important sector and Commissionerate of Municipal Administration (CMA) continues to be the most important industrial area in the State. Recent trend shows that the economic structure of the City is tertiarised with growing contribution by Information Technology/Information Technology Enabling Service/Business Process Outsourcing Industries."

"Appreciation in the value of the Rupee against the US dollar, interrupted power supply, increased bank rate and labour issues are the reasons cited for the (manufacturing group’s) setback. Becoming a ‘Detroit’ has taken so many years, but staying there seems equally challenging for the State."

"It (Chennai-Sriperumbudur-Oragadam) is already an automobile hub with so many companies. Its location and access to a sea port is a big plus."

"Today, Tamil Nadu has become the largest manufacturing hub, both for electronic hardware, consumer durables and automobiles."

"Over the years, the City has developed in trade, commerce and industry. Chennai City is the biggest industrial and commercial centre of South India. There are about 15,000 industries and factories licensed in the Chennai City."

"The first architectural expansion of the temple took place during the reign of the Pallavas (Tondaiyar Kon) as vividly described by Tirumangai Azhwar. Reminiscent of this is the inscription of the Pallava King Dantivarman (796-847 A.D.), which is preserved in the temple."

"One OF the oldest parts of Chennai is Tiru-alli-keni, anglicised as Triplicane, which means the sacred lily tank. The place is named after the large, beautiful tank in front of the temple of Lord Parthasarathy. The beauty of the place, its thick groves, tall mansions and the architecture of the temple have been extolled by Tirumangai Azhwar in a string of 10 verses (padikam). The temple is unique in many ways. It has two main shrines built back-to-back — one facing East (for Lord Parthasarathy) and the other facing West (for Lord Narasimha)."

"A careful study of the monuments and lithic records in Madras reveals a great destruction caused by the Portuguese to Hindu temples in the sixteenth century A.D. The most important temple of Kapaleeswara lost its ancient building during the Portuguese devastation and was originally located near the Santhome cathedral… A few Chola records found in the Santhome cathedral and bishop’s house refer to Kapaleeswara temple and Poompavai. A Chola record in fragment found on the east wall of the Santhome cathedral refers to the image of Lord Nataraja of the Kapaleeswara temple. The temple was moved to the present location in the sixteenth century and was probably built by one Mallappa… A fragmentary inscription, twelfth century Chola record, in the Santhome church region refers to a Jain temple dedicated to Neminathaswami."