The battle of Adyar River

Answer 1

The Adyar River rises in the Chembarabakkam Tank and runs for 20 kilometres before entering the city limits. It then runs for about five kilometres through the city before its estuary opens out into the sea. The Brodle Castle... ONCE IT was the southern boundary of Madras and it's that marker till 1946, the Adyar River, and it's northern bank that I propose to travel past today. The Adyar River rises in the Chembarabakkam Tank and runs 20 kilometres before entering city limits. It then runs about five kilometres in the city before its estuary opens out to the sea. Once, this estuary stretched from close to what is now Foreshore Estate to the southern bank abutting the Theosophical Society's gardens. In what was essentially a salty lagoon, there were several islands, at least four in a map of 1798, the largest of them called Quibble Island. When and how these islands merged with the north bank I've not discovered, but it certainly happened before the late 19th Century. It was some time shortly after that, that the Quibble Island Cemetery came into existence, today, in a nice display of ecumenalism, shared by both Roman Catholics and Protestants of all denominations. The change from island to peninsula also created the backwaters that lie north of Quibble Island — as the area is still known. It is these backwaters that are called Adyar Creek, distinct from the Adyar River and its broad estuary with narrow mouth perpetually silted due to the sand bank created by the currents ever since the Harbour's groynes were built. The Adyar Estuary, with its remaining islands and mangrove stands on the southern bank, is an area that offers river, marsh, woods, backwaters, islets, sea and open ground which have at times hosted over 150 species of birds as well as small wildlife, including jackals, foxes, wild cats, snakes and other reptiles. Few places in a city anywhere offered better bird watching for the enthusiast. Over seventy migratory species from the far north of Asia used to turn up annually from August onwards and during the summer, it has been a nesting ground for at least 50 Indian breeding species. No wonder, there was once a huge sign with a map on it, at the northern end of the bridges that crossed the river, proclaiming the Forest Department's intention to have the area declared a sanctuary. For one reason or another, the sign suddenly disappeared one day, around six or seven years ago, and another sign at the Adyar Creek end was content to proclaim the area a Reserve Forest. Much public interest litigation has gone on for the last five years, over the status of the area and the development taking place in it, but it would seem the conservationists have lost the battle and it is only a matter of time before the fauna in the estuary will vanish forever and the flora stifled. But while they still remain, even in diminished numbers, the wild life brigade hopes that an official commitment by authority, to declare what is left as a sanctuary, will be kept. The conservationists also hope that bird watching can be given a fillip by re-developing the old Elphinstone Bridge of 1840. That bridge, now blocked at both ends by a jungle of hoarding supports and its main stretch overgrown with wild vegetation nourished by the public latrine it is used as, is what the optimists hope can be developed into a beautiful promenade with small parks at both ends, seating arrangements and facilities for bird watching. Dreaming is still free, isn't it? May be, if we ever get the promenade, there might even be a plaque in one of the parks recalling a historic battle that in many ways was the prelude to Empire. The `Battle of the Adyar River' fought in October 1746 in the shallows of Quibble Island, between a few hundred French-led Indian s(i)pahis with cannon and thousands of indisciplined forces of the Nawab of Arcot rallying to the support of the British ousted from Fort St. George, ended in the rout of the latter. It also demonstrated what the disciplined firepower of a few could do against unorganised thousands. It was a lesson the British were to learn well and led to their formation of the regiments that were to prove the nucleus of the Indian Army. The area on the north bank of today where the Nawab's forces milled around aimlessly, between San Thome Fort and the river, was where several garden houses of the British were to be built between the 1790s and the 1890s. It is in the acres of garden that each of these houses had, that there has come up the unplanned development of today. The oldest house in this `hinterland' was Moubray's Gardens, now home of the Madras Club. Next, there rose Brodie Castle, now Thenral, the college of Carnatic Music. These were the western and eastern ends. What was built as the San Thome Redoubt for the Mylapore Garrison by the British in 1751, two years after taking possession of Mylapore-San Thome, was in time redeveloped at the northern end as Leith Castle after it had survived as Parry Castle till 1837. Thomas Parry, who had founded Parry & Co, today the second oldest surviving business house in India, established here in 1805 the first industrial factory on record in the city. It manufactured and even exported boots and leather equipment for the armies of several countries! Later homes by the eastern sea were Somerford, now part of the Chettinad Palace campus, and neighbouring Underwood Gardens, where the Regional Manager of the State Bank of India lives. At the western end, near Moubray's Gardens, were Pugh's Gardens, where the Sathya Sai Baba Shrine has come up, and The Grange, now called Kanchi and from where the Government's management training institute functions. Between houses by the sea and the garden houses in the west was developed Bishop's Gardens, renamed Vasantha Vihar and now the headquarters of the Krishnamurthy Foundation, and several others, like Yerlyte, Bridge House, Riverside, Hovingham, Greenways, Cherwell and Ardmayle Gardens, all razed in post-Independence years and their space used for ministers, judges and officials. All this north bank development since then has left only the Estuary and Creek area comparatively open space. Now even that is fast vanishing. And so the spaciousness of a city dies. Who will weep?