A song, the theater and a friend who says goodbye to family

I wrote the April 30 Japanese column about this song o bak bak bak bakum bakum mada pura From the 1962 movie Annaguessed that the Madras bungalow was shot. I drove in that bar towards Uma Bhavanam, a bungalow in A. Nagappa Chettiar, on Spur Tank Road. But even then, I have questions because the buildings in this song are obviously colonial and the house of Nagappa Chettiar is Art Deco. I wonder if the house has been remodeled since this song, but I’ve gotten a correction now.

But, without a doubt, someone who might reassure me C. Venkatachalam passed away last week, so this column also pays tribute to him.

Mudalianandan’s house

But first, about this song. I was surprised to receive an email from Chandrika Badrinath, London, and pointed out that the house on which the song was filmed was the residence of C. Mudalianandan Chetty on Poonamallee High Road. She said the RBI dormitory in the song was not visible from Spur Tank Road. She would know that considering all her childhood was spent in Ajmer, the residence of father TK Singaram and grandfather TS Kachapikesan on Poonamallee High Road. And, what helped her most was that she recalled the shooting of the song because it caused a lot of sensation, especially with the help of the house. I realized that what I saw in this song was Ajmer.

The house Chandrika refers to is called Manohar, located behind the EGA/Anuega Theater on Poonamallee High Road, Vasu (Naidu) Street separates it from where Ajmer stands. C. Mudalianandan Chetty’s is one of the historic Arya Vysya family in Madras, whose destiny is made of condiments. The business started in 1884 by E(GA) Venkatakistnamah Chetty, and by 1917, when Somerset Playne wrote his landmarks Southern Indiarun by the founder’s grandson Candalagadda Manavala Chetty. Mudalianandan Chetty is the latter’s son. The family then branched into other activities.

New Year Party

Manohar was a residence that I knew very well at one time, as Mudalianandan Chetty’s son C. Venkatachalam was a friend of his family. He had a New Year party on his front lawn for years, and the space was then swallowed by high rises. It was also Venkatachalam who built EGA/ANU EGA in the 1980s in a corner of the family plot. Here, especially the Jubilee Year celebrated by many Hindi movies. Regardless of the rush of booking, “Uncle Venkat” just calls and takes you into a box. Srirangam’s Darshan is the same. The EGA family runs a hotel there and a bonus is that the caretaker sells some great kimchi and Masala Papads. Venkatachalam among many Arya Vysya charities, there is Sri Kanyaka Parameswari Devasthanam. He is one of the visionaries who retrieved property from the Kotwal Chavadi market and transformed it into a female university.

Uncle Venkat looked at my writing career and although he always told N. Krishnan, my father-in-law and his Bosom Pal, I spent too much money on books. He stared at any mistakes in Arya Vysya written by me or S. Muthiah and called us right away.

As he ages, we are missing, and last week I talked with his son Parankusan and asked if I could be in Anna song. He would be happy to respond, but then Uncle Venkat went on Friday. I hope he keeps smiling until the end.

((V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)