Heritage walks help Chennaiites know their city better

Come August, and Madras gets into action mode. For, it’s the season to know your city better. With Madras Week celebrations kickstarting soon, it’s that time of the year to walk around localities to understand its history.
While heritage walks at Fort St George and Adyar, among other places, hope to give people a peek into things about places they’ve always known, tours at new localities have also been included in this year’s itinerary.
Historian V Sriram, who will be leading a walk titled Roaming around Royapuram, says, “Many people have never been to this area and so, it’ll be a new experience to everybody. This area is as old as George Town. Interestingly, people from five different religions have lived in perfect harmony here. In that way, it brings to fore the secular nature of Chennai. Royapuram was also the birthplace of the Dravidian movement. All these will be highlighted in the walk.”
Another place many Chennaiites might not have been to is Pulicat and that will be covered in one of the walks during the celebrations. Pazhaverkadu village, popularly called as Pulicat, is located on the north of Chennai along the coast, and is known for the second largest brackish water lagoon in Asia, measuring 720 sqkm. This attracts more than 20000 migratory birds “This place is known for its layers of history, starting from 10th century Chola period, to the establishment of Europeans in 16th century along the Coromandel Coast,” says Xavier Benedict of the AARDE Foundation that’s organizing the tour.
For nature lovers, the ‘tree walks’ at the various city parks, a musical tree walk at Kalakshetra and one at Pallikaranai marsh will be one to watch out for. The point of a tree walk, says Dr TD Babu of Nizhal, which organizes these walks, is to reach out to the general public about the role of trees. “Every tree gives shade, but all of them have distinct features. We are fascinated by exotic trees but ignorant about the role of the indigenous varieties,” he says. According to him, the highlight of the tree walks this year will be the musical tree walk at Kalakshetra.
Anand, a user experience consultant and a regular at Madras Day events, says that the walk at College of Engineering Guindy, Anna Universtity, will be one to look out for. “There’s a 200-year old reason why engineering is such a craze in Madras – that’s because the first ever engineering college was founded here by the Britishers at Fort St George. It later moved to the recently-damaged Kalas Mahal then to its present location at Guindy,” he says, “The walk will trace the 200-plus year history, right from the very beginnings to the present.”