From Pettai to Nagar
Courtesy of R E B E L
A. R. Venkatachalapathy
76 The City and South Asia
The distance between Vannarapettai (Washermanpet) and Kalaignar Karunanidhi Nagar (K. K. Nagar), Google Maps tells me, is barely ten miles. But the metaphor that comes readily to mind is chalk and cheese. In early 1974, when I was about six, my family moved from the early colonial neighborhood to the newly developing suburb—a geographical shift accompanied by a complete historical, sociological, and cultural reorientation. Our tenement house in Vannarapettai was on the first floor: a lone Orient fan suspended from a long rod whirring from the slanted and tiled roof made little impact on the stifling heat. Three families shared a single toilet. (My present home boasts three!) One stepped on to the narrow Tiruvottiyur High Road, a busy road bustling with traffic and out-of-bounds for a boy. Outings meant Sunday visits to Pandian, Maharani, and Agastya talkies. I have no memory of seeing the sky or even a bird. The auguries were good the day we moved to K. K. Nagar. Coincidentally it was Thaipusam day, an auspicious day for the Tamil god Murugan. Barely two hundred meters from our new home a film shooting was in progress: the veteran actor Sivaji Ganesan, with a healthy paunch and dressed in a lavish coat, was acting the role of a street-side acrobat. The reigning actress Vanisri fit the stereotype of snooty actress to a T. Heavy rose powder, the kind some Tamil politicians still daub liberally, passed for makeup. Later I gathered the film shoot was for the blockbuster Vani Rani. With the airport a few miles away as the crow flies we gawked at aircraft as they rumbled overhead. With well-laid roads and parks and squares, mid-1970s K. K. Nagar was the antithesis of what passes for real-estate development these days. Besides it was the ideal location for shooting films. The land was flat, with nary a tree in sight. Famous film studios, out of which Tamil films would be liberated soon, were Harvard South Asia Institute 77