Category: Madras Musings

The Alladi Diary

On a balmy winter’s day in 1954, Paul Dirac a Nobel Laureate in physics gave a general lecture at the Senate House in the University of Madras. The hall was packed. Outside, people sat in

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S.Muthiah (1930-2019)

Sitting at my desk in Boston, in MIT where I edited strands of DNA for the Human Genome Project, I’d read S. Muthiah’s Madras Miscellany during breaks. I loved this column in The Hindu because it dealt

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On Self-Driving in Madras…

A memorable scene in the 1963 Tamil movie, Paar Magale Paar, features Cho Ramaswamy who makes his screen debut as “Mechanical” Madasamy. As a teen, this character had run away to the Tamil capital, where

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Virtual Walk Through Sowcarpet

Sowcarpet is often described as Chennai’s “Little North India,” in tourist book style. Bustling and bazaar-like, this old neighborhood is not too far from the city’s iconic Central Station. This area has the city’s first

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