Last year, an economic columnist in an Indian journal wrote about how foolish local politicians had been to change the names of some of India's greatest cities. Re-naming Bombay 'Mumbai', Madras 'Chennai' and Calcutta 'Kolkata' was not only a denial of three centuries of history, but it also meant giving up powerful brand names recognised the world over. Who would relish Mumbai duck or wear bleeding Chennai?
As a British settlement, it might surprise outsiders to learn that 'Madraspatam' is the oldest of the three cities mentioned above. All three reek of history, of course. But while in downtown Bombay and Calcutta it is their European heritage that frowns down most imposingly on you in many-muscled stone, Madras almost never looks like anything but an Indian city. This has nothing to do with the name change, effected as recently as 1996. Bombay's cosmopolitan air and sense of discipline are noticeably diminishing in Bombay. Calcutta is undergoing much cleansing, beginning with its acclaimed Metro. In contrast, Madras seems hardly to be changing at all.
This could be due to the fact that the original settlements around which Madras grew up are far older than the nuclei of any other of India's great cities, except Delhi. The most ancient of the many temples in Madras are more than 1000 years old, and testify to a millennium of daily worship. At Madras's heart still lie the old neighbourhoods of Mylapore (City of the Peacock) and Triplicane (Holy Flower Lake), with temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu. In places like these, sometimes, the centuries seem not to have passed at all.
Unlike in much of India, the urban landscape in Madras is not a swarming kaleidoscope of buildings being pulled down and others being put up. Mount Road, renamed Anna Salai in the 1970s, runs in one long sweep from near the government buildings of Fort St George in the north to St Thomas Mount some 20 km south, where the apostle himself is said to have been martyred. Fifteen years ago, the Mount was well outside the city. Now, Madras has almost reached it. Yet the panorama on either side of this road, the city's main artery, does not shout of futuristic longings. Rather, it is quite middle class in appearance.