After years abroad – punctuated by occasional visits to a Madras remembered as a leisurely but gracious town of conservative people and large houses with larger ‘gardens’ – S Muthiah came ‘home’ to a metropolis in 1968-69, but found it essentially unchanged.
True, the town he had known had grown bigger, become more populous and acquired an industrial base. But at heart it had remained the charming overgrown village of the 30s and 40s and 50s; a leisurely, gracious town with quaint old-world values, that had spread itself out comfortably in its quest to retain the spaciousness of the past. His first assignment on his return was to prepare ‘copy’ to accompany a street guide to Madras. A brief history of an old British company followed. And out of those quests for information was born an interest in the history of Madras and a need to do his bit to conserve its relics.
Madras, Rediscovered, therefore, is as much a historical guide for those who wish to look around Madras, or wish to find out more about their city, as it is a plea to conserve not only its spacious environment but also its cultural and historic relics, be they Indian or European.
