Why is there this North-South divide almost everywhere in the world, including Madras that is Chennai? I was once again struck by the thought the Sunday before yesterday when I read the story of the widening ‘North–South Chasm in Britain’. Vidya Ram was not talking about the Scottish-English divide; she was referring to an advertisement for a senior official to head a project in Northeast England. S/he was being promised a London base and only “occasional trips to Tees Valley”!
That’s what it might have been like in Madras once and is still so in Chennai. The city grew with commercial development in George Town and spread industrially Northwest. But the senior-most executives of Binny’s, which ran the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, lived in Poe’s Garden or the Boat Club area. The senior-most officers of the Railways, whose giant workshops and factories were also in Perambur, lived in Nungambakkam. Where did many a proprietor of a well-known George Town business live? Certainly not in George Town. I could go on and on so, but let’s also look at it differently.
Despite the City’s initial direction of growth, Madras Week celebrations remain focussed on South and Central Madras and are just moving into West Madras. During Madras Week a few years ago, busloads of children from a couple of North Madras schools spent time in Mylapore and Adyar and children from South Madras schools went to George Town and Royapuram. Their universal comment was “We didn’t know that such a Madras existed. Everything is so different.” I had even earlier urged a class from a South Madras school to spend time in Kilpauk and Vepery. I had heard similar comments then too.
Indeed, what’s with this North-South divide? The story I started with quotes an old ministerial promise in Parliament to close the “decades-old economic gap between North and South in England”. The story’s no different in the US; the South has long pointed out, the lack of attention paid to it compared to the North. It’s been the same in Sri Lanka, not to mention our State, indeed, our country. I’ve never been able to get a satisfactory answer to my initial question.
*****
Where is Devicotta?
Last Monday’s reference to a map exhibition had G Somasundaram regretting the dampening of his interest in the “beautiful map published” by illegible text. “Your explanation was also too complicated,” he adds. I compensate with a map today which might serve as a key to last week’s. He also asks, “Where is Devicotta? I can’t find it on any map.” Neither could I in my collection of atlases. Searching thereafterwards for information, I came across much that offered possible identification.
Devicotta was a Maratha fort on an island in the mouth of the Coleroon River. There were once two versions for its name: Theevu-Kottai (island fort) and Devi-kottai (fort of the goddess). It was 37 miles South of Pondicherry and a part of the Tanjore kingdom. The Rajah of Tanjore offered it to the British c.1747, then later reneged on his promise. Stringer Lawrence, commanding the East India Company’s army, then in Cuddalore, ordered the Fort be taken. Robert Clive, a Lieutenant at the time, is said to have “particularly distinguished” himself at its storming in June 1749. In 1750, Capt. Charles Hopkins, retired from the Navy, took charge of Devicotta as the Company’s first Factor. Comte de Lally then seized it from the British in 1758. Only for Eyre Coote to retrieve it in 1761.
John Apperley, a marine engineer with Adm. Boscawen, was ordered in 1750 to map Madras, Fort St David and Devicotta after the French had pulled back to Pondicherry. These maps were later requested by Fort St George for copying. Apperley may well have been the cartographer for last week’s map – which, like all early maps, was reprinted from the original at a later date.
But to get back to Devicotta, neither Devikottai nor Theevukottai were to be found in my atlases, but S Anwar, familiar as he is with the area, suggested Kottaimedu, now in Nagapattinam District but once in Tanjore District, as a possibility. It’s a hamlet on a large island in the Coleroon estuary. Accepting that as today’s name for Devicotta may not be unreasonable.
Searching for Devicotta also led me to a fascinating story about which there are several books; James Gray enlisted in the British Marines in October 1747. His unit sailed to India in August 1748 to lend support to the British holed up in Fort St David, Cuddalore. The unit was a part of the force that attacked Devicotta, then held by units of Tanjore’s army and a host of civilians, an estimated 5,000 in all. The attacking forces were 800 British soldiers and Marines, besides 1,500 British-led sepoys. The fort fell after fierce fighting. Among the heavy casualties was a severely injured James Gray. Doctors treating his 11 wounds were stunned to discover that ‘he’ was a she. Hannah Snell uniquely received a military pension some time later, no woman before her having got one. The real James Gray was her sister’s husband and it was his clothes Hannah wore when seeking recruitment.
The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes, from today