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A miraculous find
 Each year, while planning out the George Town walk, a visit to the place (in fact several) is a must. George Town is one of the most dynamic areas one can think of, though most heritage lovers and conservationists say that it is a stagnating and decaying district.
The dynamism comes from a here-today-gone-tomorrow attitude that everyone, from Chennai Corporation to the residents of the area have to their surroundings. Thus, what is a road today may be a gaping chasm tomorrow (yes, within 24 hours) and what is a heritage house or building, may vanish overnight to make way for a garish, multi-coloured, three-storied structure.
So on Sunday, November 9, I set out with my good friend Pradeep Chakravarty (he who is the padam javali fiend) early in the morning to George Town. The good news is that all the sites we usually cover during the walk are intact, though we did not have time to go up to Thiruvannamalai Matam Hall. Hopefully, it should still be standing.
Thiruvottiyur Tyagaier’s house is still miraculously standing, but the compound wall has caved in. Dhanammal’s house is unchanged, but as Dickens would have written, neighbouring renovations are “bulging on to the street” and, as a result, the street is narrower than ever. If Bangalore Nagarathnammal (B N R Ammal) were to now take in to her head to pay a visit to Dhanammal’s house, it could well nigh be impossible.
While we were standing outside Dhanammal’s house, the conversation drifted to Nagarathnammal and I expressed the hope that one day I would be able to locate her house too. Sankaran, in his article on her in 1962, tantalisingly mentions the street but not the door number.
 Not that it would have any relevance today for numbers have since changed thrice. Pradeep said if we were to find it, there was no better time than the present and so off we went to Srinivasaiyer Street, which is a couple of streets and a few right turns away from Ramakrishna Chetty Street where Dhanammal lived.
Srinivasaiyer Street is relatively broader than Ramakrishna Chetty Street. There are quite a few old mansions still in existence on this lane and it is obvious that the “seth” and “Jain” influence is yet to set in. Having walked up and down this short stretch we decided that we would get nowhere without asking someone, preferably an octogenarian. We asked some youths standing by mending a cycle and a man standing in front of his house. All of them had never heard of B N R Ammal. Then the miracle happened.
An old emaciated hunchback, who lives all by herself in an 8ft by 4 ft windowless room overlooking the street, emerged. The man and the youngsters suggested we ask her. She was 80-odd, they explained, and would known of this BNR character, they said. Having ascertained that she was hard of hearing, Pradeep, who is blessed with a stentorian voice, roared into her ear that we wanted to know about
BNR.
A smile broke though the wrinkles and the old woman flashed plenty of pink gums. No, she said, B N R Ammal does not live here any longer. “That we know. We are looking for her house,” Pradeep screamed. “Ah, her house,” asked the oldest resident of the place. “Yes, it is just four houses down the same side.”
The others who had crowded around suggested that “paatti” come and help us identify the house. When I offered the “paatti” my support, it was met with a hoot of laughter by the assembled crowd. “She has enough strength to safely escort you,” said someone. And so it proved.
After some hesitation, the old woman, having removed some vessel off her stove, came down and set off at a brisk trot. On the way we met another senior citizen whom the old woman asked if she remembered Nagarathnammal. Sure, said the other, and obligingly came with us and soon we were at the great Vidya Sundari Tyagaraja Seva Saktha’s doorstep.
The original paatti (not the second one) went in and brought a young woman out. She did not know anything of BNR and was in fact quite apprehensive about talking to us. I am quite sure she thought we were some political thugs who were out to evict legal occupants and then convert the place into a party office complete with flag and portraits of the leader. Pradeep can be quite intimidating, particularly early in the morning.
Anyway, BNR’s house, from what we could make out from the outside, appears to be quite spacious. The front door is a work of art. The outer pyol has been enclosed by later residents and this has changed the facade. Inside, one could make out plenty of old wooden pillars.
Was this where the parrot cage hung? According to Vinjamuri Varadaraja Iyengar, the parrot played the role of a doorbell and whenever anyone came to the doorstep would announce “Evaro Vaccinaru” (Someone has come) and Ammal would come out asking “Evaru?” Satisfyingly, the house is called Saraswathi
Illam.
Our paatti, whose name we learnt was Nagamma, said she could well remember the huge figure of BNR. She would sit on an enormous wooden manai and worship an idol of Tyagaraja. Bhajans were conducted on Fridays and BNR would distribute pongal and sundal among other things to everyone in the
neighbourhood.
Nagamma was also a beneficiary. Nagamma, whose family was in the milk business, remembers supplying milk to BNR’s household. (Was it milk supplied by Nagamma’s family that was poisoned by BNR’s adopted daughter? An evil thought.) Nagamma herself owned property on this road, but her sons abandoned her and left her destitute and today she lives in the one-room tenement, but leads a life of dignity not seeking the help of anyone. A woman in the BNR mould all right.
Sadly, in all this excitements, I did not note the door number. I also did not have a camera to photograph the house. But I shall soon pay another visit. As we took leave of Nagamma, she refused our assistance to walk her back to her house, I remarked to Pradeep that I felt that we had witnessed a miracle. “Yes,” said the pragmatic one. “What if we had come 10 years later?”
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