Page 563 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

SOUTH INDIA  561

CHENNAI

Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the state capital
of Tamil Nadu and the gateway to the rich and varied
culture of the South Indian peninsula. Originally a cluster
of fishing hamlets along the Coromandel Coast, the city
developed its cohesive shape under the British. Today,
it is South India’s commercial and cultural capital, and
the fourth-largest metropolis in India.

A modern capital, with the appearance its Kapaleeshwarar Temple, along with
of a gracious garden city, Chennai was the Parthasarathi Temple at Triplicane,
once a group of villages set amidst palm- bear testimony to the city’s antiquity.
fringed paddy fields, until two English Colonial rule marked the beginning
East India Company merchants, Francis of the city’s growth as a major commercial
Day and Andrew Cogan, established a centre. Today, most of the large business
factory-cum-trading post here. Completed houses have their offices in George
on St George’s Day, 23 April 1640, this Town, while Fort St George is the
fortified settlement came to be known power centre of the Tamil Nadu state
as Fort St George. Outside its walls was government. Extending across 174 sq km
George Town, the so-called “native town”, (67 sq miles), Chennai today is a dynamic
whose crowded lanes, each devoted to mix of the old and the new, its stately
a particular trade, serviced the British colonial structures juxtaposed with
colonists. Colonial rule linked the various modern high-rises. Its rich cultural
villages, including the settlement founded heritage of Tamil literature, music and
in the 16th century by the Portuguese at dance is perpetuated in universities
San Thomé, the sacred site associated with and performing arts centres. It is also
St Thomas the Apostle. Several centuries a highly political city, as can be seen
before the Europeans arrived, the great from the many grandiose memorials
7th-century Pallava port was at Mylapore; to politicians that line Marina Beach.

A busy street scene in front of an ancient Hindu temple
The distinctive towering steeple of St Andrew’s Kirk

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