My Musings

This (10 Dec 2008) morning, when I was travelling from our house to Arun's, when I saw the river Adyar in full flow after the recent inletting of the rain water, my thoughts started wandering - I thought, "if only this was a sweet-water river ! if only it was a clean river !!", "if only .. ... ..." And when I reached Arun's house, I read in the TOI that dredging and cleaning work of the waterway has been sanctioned by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and the waterway would be made navigable. A good news that should hearten every Chennaiwasi. But, Buckingham Canal of which Adyar river is but a part, was not always like this "stinking stretch of stagnant water". The canal opened in 1806 as Cochrane canal excavated by Basil Cochrane. It was over 400 km long, from Kakinada in AP. In 1875, the canal was renamed as the Buckingham Canal after the then Governor of Madras 0 the Duke of Buckingham. A worst famine struck South India and Madras t...

* Thannithurai Market Buckingham Canal is a salt water navigation canal, running parallel to the Eastern coast, for over 420 km. It starts at Peddakanjam town on Krishna river (Krishna dist in AP) and after running in Chennai city, runs south and ends at Marakkanam of Villupuram dist. It was constructed in 1806, by the British for ferrying goods and sometimes people also. The canal runs for nearly 31 km in Chennai city, and in pre-1950s its waters were clean and there was boat-transport. Where this canal flows near Luz Corner, in Mylapore, there is a vegetable market, called THANNI THURAI MARKET. ("Thurai" means where boats come and anchor). Mr Bhashyam Iyengar, a Judge in Madras High Court owned this land, and he constructed this vegetable market, perhaps in 1901. Boats carrying freshest vegetables from south Andhra would anchor at the Thurai and vegetables sold in the market. Since the boats arrived only in the mornings, the Thanni thurai market will be the busiest in the m...