Like people celebrate their birthday, a city is also deserves to celebrate its birthday. So, Madras day is that celebration where the city does not celebrate its birthday, the celebration lasts for a week.
Madras day focuses on the city, the history, past and present. Chennai, then Madras was founded on August 22, 1639. It commemorates the founding of the city by establishing Fort St. George in 1639 by the British East India on a small piece of land acquired from the last King of Chandragiri. Madras later became Chennai in 1996, which is the capital city of Tamilnadu with more than 4 million populations.
The Madras day is an idea or thought arised from a group of people who are the true lovers of Madras who got together few years ago to celebrate the city, its tradition, history and culture. The group consist three people – the city’s famed historian S. Muthiah, journalist Sashi Nair and publisher Vincent D’Souza and later other three had also joined in the group. The unique celebration was established in the year 2004. Today, Chennai stands very tall for various ranges of reasons such as education, health care, IT, history, tourism, auto industries, movies etc.
A day celebrates the city! The celebration of Madras is paramount. To enlarge maximum participation from people the Madras day celebration lasts for a week i.e. a seven day celebration thus, to create Madras week. The Madras week will be celebrated from August 19 to 26 in 2018 and the Madras is always on august 22.
The Madras day celebration highlights are exhibitions, lectures, film screenings and quizzes. The major reason behind the birthday celebration is to focus on the city’s past and present. The Madras week is celebrated with more than 100 events. There is a song which commemorates the occasion called the “Madras Song” and also a website was launched by The Hindu named ‘friendsofchennai.com’ for residents of the city to create online petitions voicing their civic grievances. Also there is an app titled Chennai Past Forward for users to keep in track with the heritage of the city.
The first city of modern India Chennai celebrated the birth of the city by a variety of events. The heritage walk, the Arcot Nawabs’ Trail begins at the Chepauk palace and takes you through the various monuments in and around Triplicane associated with the Walajahi Nawabs providing insight into Tamil- Islamic culture.
There will be screened the documentary film on the theme at Dakshina chitra until August 31 and also exhibits the rare vintage photographs of life in the city at 19th century named Old Madras: People culture of the 1800s. a food trail with variety of street foods on the walk through sow carpet and learn more about the many communities who are responsible for Chennai’s diverse cuisine.
The celebration will also feature musical performance to the talk on city’s textiles, military and museums. Also conducts contests like T-shirt designing, documentary film contest, multimedia presentation for schools and quiz competitions.
The city of celebration will turned into a celebration of city by dedicating a week in the name of glorious history, tradition and culture. Wishing Madras a happy anniversary once again!
Finny Raphael
Indiain News Service
