S. Muthiah used to get irritated when he was called a historian. “I am a chronicler of facts,” he used to say. This passion for precision is what made people see him as a historian. For him, Chennai was always Madras, although he compromised later by saying “Madras that is also Chennai”.
Muthiah passed away on April 20 at the age of 89. He is going to be remembered and celebrated as the person who made the city discover itself and develop a sense of pride.
He was born in Chettinad and grew up in Sri Lanka. He had a privileged upbringing in Colombo, where his father was a mayor. Although Muthiah went to the UK to study engineering and then to the US to study international relations, he returned to Colombo to become a journalist. He rose up to be the number two in the Times of Ceylon, heading its Sunday paper. He had to be a Lankan citizen in order to become the editor, and with the regime change it became impossible to get citizenship. So he decided to leave the island. “I saw no future for myself there,” he said then.
He came to Madras to stay with his parents and started applying for a job in some of the best-known newspapers across the country. He was waiting for a reply when the Chennai-based TTK Group, in collaboration with a German firm, was launching TTK Maps in Madras and was looking for a person to head the division. Muthiah took the job; he and the young T.T. Jagannathan, the grandson of the founder, had to turn the company around and make it profitable.
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They did so and Muthiah stayed there till his retirement. One of his first assignments in TTK Maps was to produce a booklet on Madras, called ‘Madras Discovered’. That was the beginning. It was meant as a tourist guide, became a bestseller and took on a life of its own over the years. Muthiah added more facts to it and expanded its scope.
He told Bishwanath Ghosh, the journalist and author:
The discoveries are not original; they cannot be original. There is always somebody who already knows – it’s just that he does not know the value. For example, when I went looking for the Jewish cemetery after reading about it in the records, I found that it is being looked after by a family from Madras. Obviously, the family did not think that this was something that should be publicised or known. And right next to the Jewish cemetery I found a Chinese cemetery, whose existence wasn’t even known.
The book was re-launched as Madras Rediscovered and has had 18 editions, the most recent of which came out late last year. He started writing the ‘Madras Miscellany’ column for The Hindu‘s MetroPlus supplement on November 15, 1999. It was a column devoted to heritage and contemporary events. He was soon to become a legend at The Hindu, never missing a deadline and always sending a typewritten copy. He refused to use the computer till a few years ago. His daughter in the US finally persuaded him to get used to the system. The mobile phone remained anathema to him till the end. A book was published in 2011 when he completed 500 columns without a break.
In 1991, he launched ‘Madras Musings’, a subscription-based fortnightly dedicated to history, culture and heritage of the city, along with the Lokvani Hallmark Press. Muthiah had contemporary events covered as well. If one mentioned an interesting lecture or a discussion one had attended, his eyes would light up. “You give me 1,000 words about it,” he would say.
When Lokvani found the musings to be unviable in 1996, N. Sankar, the chairman of the Sanmar Group, came to the rescue and brought in several other corporate sponsors. Muthiah remained totally committed to bringing it out on time and with good content.
The ‘Madras Day’ celebrations began in August 2014 with two other enthusiasts of the city, Shashi Nair and Vincent D’Souza. A day-long celebration became a week-long, then a fortnight-long and then a month-long. Today, Chennai seems to be celebrating itself every day. Not a day goes by without some event or other. Muthiah had insisted that the celebrations were to be voluntary, and Chennai has taken to Madras Day with enthusiasm.
Muthiah had many other interests as well. He knew the corporate sector in the state very well. Coming from the business community himself, he understood the way family-run businesses operated. He could be very objective even when he wrote corporate profiles and histories.
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Events in Sri Lanka pained him (as they would have today). A corner of his heart always belonged to that country. He was a keen follower of Sri Lankan politics and had firm opinions on the ethnic strife and subsequent relations between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, when Tamil Nadu fishermen were being constantly arrested by the Sri Lankan navy. He also had a keen interest in sports and has written books on Tamil Nadu sports associations.
He was a generous and giving person, particularly encouraging young writers and helped them discover themselves. He felt there was a book in everybody and that they should be encouraged to write their stories.
His wife Valli passed away in 2013, which was a big blow to him. She was his companion and partner in every sense of the term. Nonetheless, he soldiered on with his activities and writing. His health was also failing him, but he would still not miss deadlines and still organise and attend events, although he had to miss his his fortnightly column in The Hindu for a few weeks. “I am unable to climb up and find my reference books,” he said.
He started feeling better shortly after and resumed his ‘Madras Miscellany’ column, and the city heaved a sigh of collective relief. He had completed 970 columns. The last one was published only a few days ago. His wish was to complete a thousand, but that was not to be.
Our own Mr Madras has left a permanent gap in our lives.
Sushila Ravindranath is now a consulting editor for Financial Express.