The ‘1st colonial city of the Empire’ turns 372

Happy Birthday Madras!  Yes, my hometown Chennai celebrates its 372nd birthday today.  And I have lived and breathed her benevolent air for close to 10% of the time!
:-)

Kolkata that was Calcutta might boast that it was once the capital of the British India and Mumbai that was Bombay might claim to be the economical capital of contemporary India, but there is no denying the fact that my hometown was the first colonial city of the British Empire.

Yeah, yeah, Jamestown and Pilgrim might bristle, but the fact is both of them were ‘settlements’ or ‘occupied’ or ‘taken-over’ territories.  Chennai or Madarasapatnam as it was known then, OTOH, was actually ‘bought’ by the British via a sale deed in 1639.

• Madras is the place where the 1st Baron Clive, better known as ‘Clive of India’ had his first look at India.
• Madras is also the only Indian city to have been attacked by the Germans (yeah, Germans) in either World Wars.  During WW-I, on the night of 22 Sep 1914, the Imperial German Navy’s light cruiser SMS Emden  bombarded Madras with 125 shells.
• Here is the still standing plaque in the compound wall of the Madras High Court.

• No wonder a daring, street-smart guy is still referred to as an ‘empton’ or ‘emmtan’ (mutilations of ‘Emden’) in Tamil.  There even was a recent Tamil movie titled ‘son of Empton’ (எம் மகன்)
• BTW the Wikipedia page which holds the plaque image refers to it (both the image and the URL as ‘plague’)

8-P

In case you think that Chennai has only Anglo roots, think again. 

• St. Thomas (Doubting Thomas) is believed to have been killed at St. Thomas Mount and interred at San-Thome cathedral
• The Tamil sage Thiruvalluvar is believed to a native of Mylapore at the heart of Chennai
• Ptolemy is supposed to have visited the thriving port
• Marco Polo definitely has visited the port city
• Huen-Tsang is sure to have passed through on his visit to Kanchi
• The Portuguese had a settlement from early 16th century 'São Tomé de Meliapore'
• The Dutch had a settlement just north of Madras at Pulicat from early 17th century
• For 3 years between 1746 and 1749, Madras was occupied by the French!!
• The city even has a connection of Yale University - Elihu Yale, the benefactor after whom the institution is named, was the ‘President of Madras’ - the office which gave him an opportunity to amass his wealth to bequeath
• Another strange fact is that ‘Le Regent’ - the Regent Diamond or the ‘Pitt Diamond’ - made its way to the French Crown Jewels from Madras. 

[Whenever the Indian jingoists wake up and clamour for return of Koh-i-noor every few years, they never talk of Le Regent.  I have always wondered whether it was due to ignorance - you see, both Koh-i-Noor and Le Regent were mined from the same Kollur mine, in AP near Madras - as were

• the Hope Diamond - at Smithsonian, Washington
• the Orloff Diamond - at the Kremlin
• the Darya-i-Noor - Iranian Crown Jewels
• the Golconda - at Melbourne, Australia

- this paragraph has been added later in the day -]

I doubt whether any other city in India could boast of such varied ancestry.
I also doubt how many Chennai born actually know of (a small part) of this history!

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