Aug 29 2014 : The Times of India (Chennai) DOWN BRICK LANE - REWIND TO PERAMBUR PARTIES Kamini Mathai Down Brick Lane is a weekly column to highlight the need for a legal framework to protect Chennais heritage buildings, which not only contain stories of the city but also stand testimony to local skill The Railway Institute at Perambur was once a popular dance hall for the Anglo-Indian community. It is now a multi-faith marriage hall The outer walls of the Railway Institute in Perambur are just the preface, no more than a perfunctory introduc tion to a building, built in 1900. It is when you step inside, and on to the creaky old wooden floors, and stare up at the incredibly high ceiling that the story begins. Of a community whose heritage is interlinked to the history of the Institute and the railways in several ways. The institute, once called `Marlboro House and now known as New Hall in Perambur, was primarily a popular dance hall for the Anglo-Indian community in the area. Today though -owing to the dwindling Anglo-Indian population -it is used as a multi-faith marriage hall, with a rather gaudy stage erected at one end. While the outer halls have been cemented and tiled, some features of the building seem to have been retained -the wooden floors of the inner hall and the Mangalore tile roofing, for instance. The building, say members of the AngloIndian community, like most of those built by the railways, was more of a functional structure than an architectural masterpiece. “When the hall was built, more than a century ago, you had to have some sort of railway connection to hire it out. That was for the Anglo-Indian community because almost every member of every family was connected to the services in some way,“ says Harry MacLure, editor and publisher of `Anglos In the Wind, an international publication, and co-author of `The Anglo-Indians: A 500year History. According to the book, the first European settlement in Madras was established in the early 16th Century by the Portuguese, and soon, a mixed race, the Luso-Indians, emerged. After the founding of Fort St George in 1639, the Luso-Indians were invited to settle there by the British. “The Anglo-Indian community pre-dates the founding of Madras by almost a hundred years. Around 3,000 Portuguese (mainly Luso-Indians) had taken up residence in Madras and by 1675 outnumbered the 300-odd English inhabitants,“ says Maclure. “After the Revolt of 1857, the British came to rely more upon Anglo-Indians in the military and police service. But the community also became the bedrock of the railways from 1854. The Locomotive and Carriage Workshops of the Madras Railway at Perambur became a training school for AngloIndian boys over many decades. The station superintendent of Madras Central and the Goods Agent of Salt Coutaurs were invariably Anglo-Indian,“ says Maclure. Anglo-Indian men were usually the “running staff “ (drivers and guards) while the women taught in the railway schools, he adds. “All the Railway Institute halls across the state used to have beautiful panelled wooden floors because in the old days no Anglo-Indian would dance on any other kind of floor,“ says Stafford Mantel, a member of the Anglo-Indian community who grew up in Perambur and whose father was in the Railways. “Even when they danced outdoors, the grass would be covered with a wooden floor,“ adds Maclure. In many of the Railway Institute halls, says Mantel, the wooden floors have been ripped out and cemented for easy maintenance. With the Anglo-Indian community scattered around the city and overseas, the Christmas dances and gala nights have stopped. “The last time the community used it was two years ago for a singing competition,“ says Maclure. A FULLER LIFE IN THE RAILWAYS For several years now, the Fullers have been trying to get their family tree on track. And thats how they realized it has quite literally been on the track. For five generations -from great great grand daddy John Edward Fuller to present day Noel Edward Fuller who lives in Tambaram -this Anglo-Indian clan has been associated with the railways. “The link with the railways started with great great grandfather John Edward Fuller, who was born in 1838. He joined the railways in the year the first train chugged from Royapuram station, in 1856,“ says Noel, who joined the railways in 1980 and is a senior technician at an EMU workshop. Johns son Albert James Fuller, born in 1866, worked in the railways in Madurai as a fireman (what the steam engine drivers were called) and died in service in 1906 in West Bengal. His son John Burtun Fuller returned to Madurai at the age of 15 to work as a fireman.“His son Patrick Beresford Fuller, who is my father, was an electric train driver and retired in 1988,“ says Noel.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:45:36 +0000
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