Madras, a place where women found home, and freedom, says Kalpana Karunakaran
Kalpana Karunakaran is the author of A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras
Madras, formerly known as Chennai, holds immense significance in the lives of generations of women within the author's family. For the author's grandmother, who was born in 1911, Madras represented the opportunity to receive six years of schooling at the prestigious Lady Willingdon School, situated along the picturesque Marina Beach.
Her great-grandmother, born in 1897, found solace in Madras, where she managed to live apart from her husband for six years. This period allowed her to experience the relative freedom that the city offered, as well as immerse herself in the vibrant atmosphere of the Indian Freedom Movement during those years.
The author herself, born in 1939, grew up in Madras and found the city to be her lifelong home. Some of the cherished memories she holds dear include cycling through the neighborhood of Chetpet with her friends, navigating the bustling rush hour crowds while carrying a heavy school bag on crowded PTC/MTC buses, and singing the popular ode to the city, 'Namadu Nagaram Azhagu Nagaram Chennai Managaram,' composed by renowned music director M.B.
Srinivasan, along with hundreds of fellow students during a typical 1984-85 morning on a busy road. Madras has been a source of home, freedom, and a deep connection for the author and her family throughout the decades.
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