What was Madras before Madras? Before the Fort, the colonial city, the familiar maps and neighbourhood names that we now refer to collecively as Chennai — what did this landscape look like, and how did its people live?
As the city continues to expand and change, another question follows: what will Madras look like in the future, and who gets to imagine it?
These questions formed the premise of Madras Reimagined, a Madras Day event that brought together Global Shapers Community Chennai Hub, Heritage Inspired, and Art Kin Centre. Through sessions that travelled from the city’s past to its present, and finally towards conversations on future lines of belonging, stewardship, and urban planning, the event attempted to look at Madras not as a finished chapter, but as one that continues to be written every day.
The event, on Saturday, moved through several definitions of Madras: as a landscape that existed before colonial maps, as a collection of neighbourhoods; as ecology and restoration; as folk movement, music, comedy, and art; and Madras as a future that cannot be imagined without the stewards who inhabit here.
Chitra Venkateswaran, a representative from Heritage Inspired, explained the idea behind the collaboration and why Madras Day needed to move beyond celebration alone. Referring to Chennai as Madras, because that’s what is close to her heart, Chitra said, “First of all, why Madras Day? Because Madras Day, we feel, is very important. We are celebrating our city in many different ways. It could be art, architecture, culture, and travelling, everything together. Poetry, music, everything together makes up Madras what it is today.”
But celebration, she added, “We cannot simply keep on celebrating without doing something for the city, without giving back to it.” Hence, brought forward by the Global Shapers Community, the event focused on what is most important, “not only the history, but also the policy decisions which are going to be made for the future of the city.”
The event began with a talk, ‘Madras before Madras’, moderated by Inara, with Parvathy Peter as the resource person. The discussion looked at the geography of the region even before Madras was Madras. It touched upon community living, the idea of neighbours and neighbourhoods, the landscape stretching from the Fort and its surroundings, and the geographical markers that shaped the city.
Abhinaya Ravee Shankar, curator of the World Economic Forum’s initiative, Global Shapers Community (Chennai Hub), said, “From the past, the conversation moved into the present through ‘Who are we to Madras?’ by Neeraj Bharadwaaj which encouraged people to think about their own neighbourhoods. The final conversation for the day between Shalini Ravikumar, head of Strategy & Operations, Heritage Inspired, and Inara, ‘Heritage beyond conservation,’ focused on how living heritage can become a framework for shaping contemporary cities.”
This idea, Abhinaya added, led into the finale panel, ‘From Belonging to Blueprint: Neighbourhoods Shaping Chennai’. The panel addressed three broad themes — place branding and neighbourhood identity; measuring belonging and building stewardship; and codifying the decentralised process. The discussion also brought in questions of usability, inclusivity, and ecological stewardship. The panel consisted of Pavithra Sriram (co-founder of Project Thiruvanmiyur Mada Street), TD Babu (member of Chennai District Green Committee), Smrithi Prasad (manager at Urban Planning - India at C40 cities), and Farhath Begum (chief administrative officer of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority).
Explaining the panel’s bottom-to-top approach to urban planning, Shweta Venkateswaran, vice curator of Global Shapers Community (Chennai Hub), said, “When we look at the topic of Madras Reimagined and urban futures, specifically, we are looking at what we can derive from the past, looking through the lens of the present, and how can we build for the future? We want to use all the knowledge systems and see what and how we can do for the future as a youth community. We do have limited power, but we have a lot of ideas, energy to do that, and voice to do that.”
Abhinaya spoke about the larger vision, “As a curator, this whole event is a collaboration where it is not just about organisations; it’s about the people. When we see the whole group that has come, it’s of all age groups. Every age group is being represented here… this is a kick-start for us to get on the ground, be represented, and be a change maker.”
Art, meanwhile, entered the conversation not merely as entertainment but as another expression of heritage and belonging. Anahata Sundaramurthy, founder of Art Kin Centre, placed art within a wider understanding of heritage. “Heritage is not a singular thing. It comes from all of what humanity does. And art is a very deep part of humanity, as humanity needs to express,” she said. “The art of the day reflects the mind of the day. It reflects the mind of society at each period of time. So, the motivation for Art Kin Centre to do a Madras Day event is because what we do as an organisation touches directly on heritage and existing traditions of art.”
Speaking about creating a space where urban audiences could encounter traditions they may have grown distant from, Shruthe Raammohan, co-founder of Art Kin Centre, said that the ideology flowed towards the evening programmes featuring an Oyilattam and Tappattam workshop. The evening also acknowledged another evolving aspect of Chennai’s cultural identity through improv comedy.
“For me, Madras is all of this: we’ve heard rap, gaana, kuthu, and everything. This is also taken up as a point of documentation and archiving because a lot of these families, the next generation, they’re not taking up these folk art forms because of the obvious reasons, like financial constraints,” Shruthe said. While reflecting on what the collaboration meant to Art Kin Centre, she said, “This is our version of Madras.”
Celebrating their centenary year, Hemant Srivatsa, partner of Murrays and Co. — one of the sponsors of the event — said that the entity has been an integral part of Madras, and art is very close to them. When asked about their collaboration with the event, he added, “If we as citizens and residents of this lovely city can contribute to improve or support the city to cherish and treasure the lovely, brilliant, wonderful parts of Madras that we are all used to; how we can improve it and make it more livable, more pleasurable for everybody, we are ready to support them.”