CHENNAI: A popular meme has been doing the rounds on social media: ‘Chennai is a city, Madras is an emotion and Anna Nagar is a separate country’. While it did make sense to the residents of the locality west of the city who did not have to go beyond the Anna Arch for anything, not many know that this area is a fine example of post-independence development of Madras. As part of Madras Week celebrations, the Nam Veedu, Nam Oor, Nam Kadhai team led by Thirupurasundari Sevvel is organising a walk around Anna Nagar and Shenoy Nagar sharing details on how the area became one of the most popular and posh localities in Chennai.
West Madras comprised the Aminjikarai Panchayat under which there were three prominent villages: Aminjikarai, Naduvakkarai and Periya Kudal. “Part of Aminijikarai became Shenoy Nagar in the late 1940s and part of Naduvakkarai became Anna Nagar in the 1950s. It was initially called West Madras Neighbourhood Plan, before being given specific names,” says Thirupurasundari, an architect, who started the Nam group with her sister and grandmother in 2014.
Anna Nagar was mainly developed by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in the 1960s. In 1968, the India International Trade and Industries Fair brought Anna Nagar under the limelight. “Until then, it was a quaint, silent village and was not well-known. Around 60 international stalls were set up and almost all countries participated. In fact, the shuttle vehicle that was used during the fair, found a mention in many international automotive magazines,” she explains.
The Naduvakkarai-Anna Nagar walk will begin at Anna Nagar Tower Park and take the participants through Z Block, Kandaswamy College and Roundtana. “We will also see that a wall mural painting that was made for the fair is still intact near the college. We will also visit a few houses near Roundtana. For the Shenoy Nagar walk, we will start from the Shenoy Nagar metro station, erstwhile Shenoy Nagar park, and look at how the site planning was made. The area looks like a pizza pie,” she says.
The main agenda of the walk is to understand the town planning by the Government. “Though the fair changed the area, there were other catalysts like the Government subsidies. This was the first area to get exhaust fans from the government,” says Thirupurasundari. That’s how the first supermarket, Chinatamani, was set up, and the first school and college in this area —Valliammal School and Kandaswamy College — were built.
Thirupurasundari and team met around 300 families who were early settlers of Anna Nagar. “We felt that oral history should be recorded. We verified most of the facts using maps. Many early settlers called to meet with us, one of them was late Mohana Krishnan, who shared some maps with us.”
An area that is considered ‘for the rich’ in fact housed many government staff. “Many engineers we met said that they could afford to buy a house in the area. They were not rich it is just that they grew eventually.”
The Naduvakkarai-Anna Nagar walk will be held on August 19 and the Shenoy Nagar walk will be held on August 26. For details, visit their Facebook page Nam Veedu, Nam Oor, Nam Kadahi-The Anna Nagar-Social History group.
Know your Anna Nagar