Saturday, February 16, 2013

Madras Heritage Tour and Goverment Museum

On Feb 13th we got an early start to meet with Rtn.V.Sriram for a guided heritage tour. His passion for Madras culture and heritage is evident if only listening to him talk for a few moments. He has written a number of books and since April 2012 has a weekly column titled Hidden Histories on page 2 of The Hindu.  Additionally he contributes regularly to his blog, Madras Heritage and Carnatic Music.

He graciously took the all the GSE team members to the old part of Chennai (Madras) and tied together the history of the city with its interesting historical links to USA and Germany. One of Germany's early ties to Madras helped influence the printing of the Tamil language and one of America's early ties was to bring the Ice Trade to Chennai.

Below are some photos from our walk.

Madras High Court


Remnant of walled city


Chepauk Palace - home for Nawabs of Arcot


YMCA


In the afternoon we headed to the Tamil Nadu Government Museum. The museum consists of a number of buildings which house varied collections such as contemporary art, archeological remains, etc.
Although closed, the Victoria Memorial hall is an architecturally stunning building with plans for restoration. Below are some images of it. It is quite a beauty and I can only imagine how stunning it was when it was built.






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