Chennai is easily the most boring metropolis on earth. Nothing much happens here. Except for movies, more movies, and more and more movies.In such a unidimensional universe, we must really celebrate even the smallest of things that spice up our bland unfilmy existence.
Indulge, the home to a menagerie of the most interesting oddballs in our city, has been making our lives less boring for five lovely years now.
As a little tribute, I thought I’ll weave an acrostic (a key word whose letters make up the first letters of other key words) around INDULGE to shed some light on the seven names that gave good old Madras its good old charm: Indian Express: Back in 1931, the chattering classes had really nothing to look forward to—not even power cuts! All of this changed when a gentleman named Perumal Varadarajulu Naidu came along.
An Ayurvedic doctor by profession, Naidu scripted a prescription for curing colle-ctive boredom.
He just called it Indian Express.
Nageswara Rao Park:The fouracre asylum for harried and henpecked husbands in and around Mylapore, wa s name d after Nageswara Rao Panthulu, the founder of Amrutanjan.
It is said that Panthulu played a lead role in converting a mosquito-infested water pond into the famous park we all know.
Dasaprakash: Before Grand Chola, Madras had only one Dasaprakash (servant of the light of God).
Founded by K Seetharama Rao in 1921, the hotel was christened after his saint-dad, Bhakta Govinda Dasa.
Usman Road: The jewellery road of Chennai owes its sheen and moniker to Mohammad Usman, the first Indian governor of Madras.
LG Perungayam: Lakhs of Tamil families got their first whiff of a spice from Laljee Godhoo, the original LG before Lucky Goldstar.
Gokul Santol: Women of Madras started smelling different when Thitai Srinivasa Rajagopala Iyengar launched Gokul (named after the birthplace of Krishna) in 1958! Enfield: Founded in 1955 to assemble 800 Bullet motorcycles ( 350 cc) , Enf iel d stands for everything Indulge is about: the road not taken!
Got any more historical Madras nuggets? Mail them to anantha@albertdali.com