History :The Landing in Madras

Disembarkation

As the 375th anniversary of the founding of Madras that is Chennai draws near, an oft-asked question keeps cropping up again and again. 

With no safe landing place anywhere on the three-mile long stretch of coast that was the eastern boundary of the sandy spit Venkatadri Nayak granted Francis Day in 1639, why did he accept the grant on behalf of the East India Company, realising full well what the ship-to-shore problems would be, given the rough surf and dangerous swell every landing had to contend with?

 I’ve in years of searching for an answer never been able to find a satisfactory one, but I keep finding descriptions time and again of that ship-to-shore passage. 

The latest I’ve found was a narration by a Maria Graham who travelled in India from 1809 to 1811 and had her recollections of that sojourn published in Edinburgh in 1831 under the titleJournal of a Residence in India.

 Recording her words here is a reminder of how far we have come from the early days of the city.

Stating that a friend who had seen her ship enter Madras Roads had sent out a boat — presumably what was called a masula boat — to bring her ashore (about a mile from where the ship had anchored), she continues, “While I was observing its structure and its rowers, they suddenly set up a song, as they called it but I do not know that I ever heard so wild and plaintive a cry. 

We were getting into the surf: the cockswain now stood up, and with his voice and his foot kept time vehemently, while the men worked their oars backwards, till a violent surf came, struck the boat, and carried it along with a frightful violence; then every oar was plied to prevent the wave from taking us back as it receded, and this was repeated five or six times, the song of the boatmen rising and falling with the waves, till we were dashed high and dry on the beach.

“The boats used for crossing the surf are large and light, made of very thin planks sewed together, with straw in the seams, for caulking would make them too stiff; and the great object is, that they should be flexible, and give to the water like leather, otherwise they would be dashed to pieces.

 Across the very edge of the boat are the bars on which the rowers sit; and two or more men are employed in the bottom of the boat to bail out the water… At one end of the boat is a bench with cushions and a curtain, for passengers, so that they are kept dry while the surf is breaking round the boat.

“We were hardly ashore when we were surrounded by above a hundred Dubashis and servants of all kinds, pushing for employment. The Dubashis undertake to interpret, to buy all you want, to change money, to provide you with servants, tradesmen, and palankeens, and, in short, to do everything that a stranger finds it irksome to do for himself…”

Later during her stay in Madras, Graham visits Mahabalipuram and makes two perceptive observations. She points out that the “head-dress on the gods and principal persons represented in the sculpture rocks at this place, have not the smallest likeness to any used in this part of India, but they extremely resemble those of the countries bordering upon Tartary, and those represented in the cave of Elephanta. The figures of the Brahmins and pilgrims are (on the other hand) precisely as seen every day at present…..”

 Her contention would appear to be that the sculptors came from somewhere in northern India. She then goes on to state something that fellow conservationists like your columnist are saying 200 years later: “I am sorry to observe, that the Madras government has let the rocks of Mahvellipoor by way of stone quarries, and they are digging the stone so near some of the best executed caves, as to threaten them with destruction…” Nothing, it would seem has changed; the biggest threat to heritage would appear to be governments!

S Muthiah  Metro plus 4 Aug 2014