Spaces Around Mylapore Tank

As I exit the Tirumalai station, the noise and bustle around me escalate to an almost deafening din. Traffic roars past in a never-ending stream, and hawkers yell out the prices of their wares, hoping to entice passers-by. Attempting to cross the road, I narrowly avoid being run over by one of the MTC buses of Chennai, provoking an angry stream of Tamil from the bus driver as he speeds past. Another couple of metres, dodging so as to avoid plaintive beggars with alms-bowls extended and the odd cyclist or two, and I am at Mylapore junction.

Mylapore is the cultural hub of Chennai- I have been told this quite emphatically by several Chennai-ites- and perhaps the oldest part of Chennai too. In fact, Mylapore is much older than Madras (now Chennai) itself. It is a neighbourhood located to the south of Chennai- situated in between Triplicane and Teynampet and extending for roughly 4 kms from north to south, and 2 kms from east to west. The word 'Mylapore' originates from the Tamil word for peacock - 'Mayil'; in olden times, there used to be a lot of peacocks and peahens

around the Mylapore temple. It is an abbreviation of the Tamil phrase- “Mayil Aadum Puram”- which means- 'Land of the Peacock Dance'.

In his book “The City”, Max Weber narrates how city-like settlements often attach themselves to temple-districts as temple-districts of famous gods offered sacred protection to inter-ethnic elements. These areas also provided locations for politically unprotected commerce. It is a commonly noticed phenomenon that most cities, especially old ones, are centred around places of worship.

It seems only natural that merchants or sales men would take advantage of this aspect and converge in such places, leading to the eventual formation of a market-place. The same happening can be said to have taken place around the Kapaleeshwarar temple. This temple is one of the most revered temples in Chennai, and six worship-services are offered here daily. The Karpakambal shrine of the temple attracts huge crowds on Fridays and on all special occasions. As Arjun Appadurai notes in his introduction to his work on the Sri Partasarati Svami Temple, the rhythms of activity in and around the temple are complex. They vary according to the days of the week, months of the year, and even times of the day. Space cannot be understood in isolation, as being only a container of people or things. Rather it should be grasped (as said by Lefebvre), “in its genesis and its form, with its own specific time or times, and its particular centres and polycentrism”. So too should the area around Mylapore Tank.

In recent years Mylapore has become one of the most bustling parts of Chennai- with the streets adjacent to the tank serving as a major commercial area- proof of Weber’s observation. It is interesting to note how the temple contributed to this agglomeration of commercial establishments- most of the shops and stalls on Mylapore street sell products that are linked to the temple and/or have religious significance. For example, the most popular stalls are those selling flower garlands, idols, and pictures of the Hindu gods and goddesses. Small shops and makeshift stalls coexist peacefully with larger retail chains. Shopkeepers with especial business acumen managed to pick up on the tourist industry as well, and the emergence of shops selling postcards and keychains depicting the Mylapore tank and its temple has even led to the area becoming a sort of tourist attraction- one of the must-visits of Chennai; perhaps it is all the rage among tourists to attach their car keys to a fancy Mylapore keychain! It is also extremely interesting to discern the ways in which some shops are able to extend their business to other services as well. For example, on entering the temple premises it is mandatory to remove one's shoes. However, leaving shoes unattended outside the gates is a risky business for the owners- their shoes might well have disappeared by the time they returned. Some enterprising women who run flower stalls managed to pick up on this predicament and now in addition to selling flowers, also offer to keep the shoes of the visitors to the temple safe, for a nominal fee. As Kalavati,

one of the many ladies selling garlands next to the tank, said while I was interviewing her- “Selling flowers alone was not enough to provide for me and my family. That is why we came up with the shoe safe-keeping plan. Most of the other flower sellers around here also do this. It doesn’t bring in a lot of money, but at least it brings in some. I live close by, so I don’t have to travel much to get here. And because of the temple, selling flowers here brings in more money than it would if I sold them elsewhere. People who go to the temple buy flowers, to offer to the god, or to wear in their hair. That is why I prefer to sell here.” The temple in fact seems to have influenced and molded much of the life in its environs. Many of the houses in the neighbouring areas of the temple are still the accustomed Brahmin houses of yore, with the traditional agraharam, and with their entrances facing the street so that when processions take place, the inhabitants can stand in front of the house to pay their respects to the deity.

Walking through the organized commotion of Mylapore street, puts one in mind of American architect Lawrence Halprin’s narrative of places of commemoration and worship. As one walks past the shops, stalls and tiny shrines thronging the street, one experiences each structure over time and space by moving through a sequence of interrelated spaces (all linked to the main temple) around the Mylapore tank, which culminates in a final spatial event- or the gopuram (tower) of the Kapaleeshwarar temple. This final space seems to possess a quality that causes one to linger, to absorb the ‘magic’ of the place and to want to return again.

The very narrow inner streets are much quieter than the main Mylapore street, and one notices the blending of normal everyday phenomena with those specific to the location of the street- the sound of temple bells mingles with music playing from one of the many tiny stalls along the side of the road. C.P Koil Street is one of these many narrow dingy streets leading off from the road

directly adjacent to the tank. This street is characterized by its many traditional gold shops- they seem quite tiny but apparently enjoy a lot of patronage. Even though there are large jewellery chains such as NAC in the vicinity, these little shops are able to do business, as a lot of the inhabitants of Mylapore prefer these shops to the newer establishments. A lot of shops that seem to sell the same types and patterns of jewellery extend throughout the length of this street- yet they all seem to exist side by side without much trouble, and a shopkeeper from one store might well recommend that a customer go visit the neighbouring store in case he is unable to meet their requirements. In turn, the neighbouring shopkeeper does the same thing when he finds himself unable to meet customer requirements. Thus the shopkeepers live in a mutually beneficial manner- helping each other's businesses and maintaining friendly relations with their neighbours.

Mylapore Tank, as has already been elaborated, is the commercial pivot of Chennai city. The Mylapore bus stop is nearly always a riot of commuters, with three to four buses lined up at any given time. The Tank was previously a nucleus of urban elements, with the Mylapore district growing around it. However, with time, Mylapore has transcended the boundaries created by the tank and its environs, and has expanded to form new nuclei. One such nucleus would be the City Centre mall- with the stores and houses around it constituting the posher, more up-market part of Mylapore.

The Mylapore tank area is an especially interesting locality due to its very nature as an urban space which, as Reena Tiwari of the Department of Urban & Regional Planning and Architecture at Curtin University of Technology Perth says, “has the capacity to gather rhythms of everyday and the extra-everyday”. At a micro level, I have attempted to investigate one of the religious spaces in the city of Chennai, and its relation to and effect on the private and public domains around it. The Kapaleeshwarar temple and the Mylapore Tank have both affected the spaces around them, and the nature of the structures and the interactions between people occupying these spaces. Attempting to trace the temple over an extended period of time and linking its historical past with the ethnographic present is a more difficult effort than it would seem. In its entirety, this is a space barely perceptible (or liminal) in its own nature- it can only be properly understood and structured by someone living it.

For some reason, I am unable to upload my video here, so I uploaded it on Youtube. Here is the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhtpsHSMCJk

And yes I am emulating a BBC reporter. :|