Looking Back at Lloyds Road’,

Participants at the walk. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

‘Looking Back at Lloyds Road’, a part of Madras Week celebrations, revealed lesser-known facts of personalities who houses once dotted the street

The story of Lloyds Road is a potent mix of the famous and the notorious from Chennai’s film and legal worlds. It is this heady cocktail that actor Mohan V. Raman and historian V. Sriram served us at the ‘Looking Back at Lloyds Road’ walk on a recent early morning as part of Madras Week. “A map of Lloyds Road in the 1930s is just about 50 houses, each spread over huge grounds,” says Sriram. But the illustrious and colourful lives of the inhabitants thereof make for many historical anecdotes and much amusement.

We begin just ahead of where Lloyds meets Thiru Vi Ka High Road and Masilamani Road. Beyond lie the Jewish and Chinese cemeteries, but before us is land that belonged to a colony of lawyers, from Justice V. Balasubramaniam, advocate-general K. Rajah Iyer who bought the property from High Court judge Venkatarama Krishnaswamy Iyer, and many others. The one exception among these was a house with three entrances sprawled across 32-grounds that once belonged to K.P. Viswanatha Iyer, right hand of Kasturi Srinivasan, best remembered for his first-hand reports in The Hindu of Gandhi’s Dandi March. One of the largest landowners in that time was R. Balaji Rao, after whom Balaji Nagar is named, who is said to have walked in his youth from Kumbakonam to Madras looking for work and education, for he could ill-afford transport. Aided by a hay-cart driver and later a padiriyar, Balaji went on to teach at an orphan home and earn a law degree from Presidency College in the 1860s. He rose to be the Mylapore representative of the then Municipality, retired with huge wealth, and bought the lands of Balaji Nagar. “It’s amazing just how identical to Dick Whittington's life story Balaji’s was,” observes Sriram.

Further down, at Lloyds Corner, stands the stately ‘Raman and Associates’ home of the former Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu V.P. Raman, Mohan’s father. With Raman deeply involved with a young DMK party, the house was often host to numerous cultural luminaries such as poet Kannadasan, actress Saroja Devi and, most frequently, to MGR, who lived just two doors away at ‘160 Lloyds Road’. Mohan vividly remembers the day MGR was shot, and the sole witness producer K.K. Vasu landed home blood-soaked, with the weapon in hand. Raman went on to be witness at this case. Mohan also recalls mornings at MGR’s home, which faced V.N. Janaki’s residence. “You’d see him practisingsilambu at 6 a.m, and then freewheeling with a belt, trying to wake his nephews up!”

Lloyds Road’s film connections deepen with the homes of villupattu artist and writer Kothamangalam Subbu, and the man he shadowed, S.S. Vasan’s home in front of his. Mohan recalls the story behind the making of Thillaanaa Mohanambal, a story that Subbu wrote, the rights of which Vasan owned. When director A.P. Nagarajan bought the rights, he paid Vasan a sizeable Rs. 25,000, but also went to visit Subbu, then in hospital, with an additional Rs. 10,000. At his bedside though, he found that Subbu declined the gift, for Vasan had already forwarded him the entire Rs. 25,000. “This was the golden era of integrity and honesty in the Tamil film industry,” says Mohan. In the narrow Shanmughamudali Street right beside, stands the former home of Sivaji Ganesan. “Every time the lights on his terrace went on, the entire colony knew he’d brought home a 16 mm print of his latest film to screen for his mother.” MGR’s make-up man, famous for his recreations of deities, M. Peethambaram, too once lived on Lloyds. “Daily, he walked to MGR’s home for that day’s shoot make-up; everyone else, from Sivaji, to Gemini Ganesan and Savithri, all came to his home for make up. The only time Peethambaram went to the set for Sivaji, was the one occasion that Sivaji played Lord Vishnu.”

Lloyds also figures in the beginnings of two newspapers, the Swadesamitran whose manager and later editor, C.R. Srinivasan lived here, and the first office of MGR’s paper Anna, which today is the AIADMK headquarters. It was also home to the Lakshmipuram Young Men’s Association, which was then an intellectual hub, graced annually by the Governor’s lecture every January. Lloyds’ biggest claim to fame, though, probably lies in the unassuming house of TKS Kalaivanan, son of dramatist Avvai T.K. Shanmugam, who still lives here and tells us anecdotes from his father’s life. Incidentally, Sriram notes, that Lloyds Road ends by the beach, right at the statue of Avvai, much before the road was renamed Avvai Shanmugam Salai.

H 19 Aug 14