For most of the younger generation born in the 80s and later Chennai is a large commercial and industrial centre, and is known for its messy and chaotic traffic, crowded streets along with cultural heritage like the music and dance seasons in December, shopping areas of T Nagar, the big malls, latest gadgets like mobile phones, computers etc. Good schools and colleges giving out the very best of education in Engineering, technology, Media or any field of education you want to pursue, It is the automobile capital of India, also referred as the Detroit of South Asia. It is a major manufacturing centre. Chennai is also a major centre for outsourced IT and financial services from the Western world. It boasts of several world class hotels and restaurants and a fast paced life for its citizens.


The city of madras has nostalgic and fresh memories of my childhood. I have tried to capture how our good old madras was in the 60s and 70s that I remember.


During those days of the 60s and 70s, people were always simple and had lot of time for everything.. Simple living was the order of the day and people were proud of their culture. Joint family was the norm and nuclear families were literally unheard of. Men wore dhotis to office and preferred to remain bare bodied at home especially to sleep in the night as Air Conditioners were never there except in the houses of the super rich. Walking bare foot was common. At puberty, girls switched from their frocks to pavadai-dhavani. . Salwar-kameez was not there but some girls especially the North Indians wore what used to be called as Pyjama Jubba . Nightie for women was never there and housewives wore only sarees. Oil bath was a must for women on Fridays and for men on Saturdays. Some people had head bath only on these days. Mallipoo and kumkuma pottu as well as saanthu pottu in either red or black colour was a tradition that every women followed that also added to the beauty of women. There were no stickers or stylish bindis as of now. Women used to make home and men used to be outside home earning. Roles were demarcated and there was contentment. People were not desperate to earn more money and life was peaceful
Eating was unlimited and the word Cholesterol was unheard of by even Doctors of those days. There was no master health check or routine health checks. The only time one visited a Doctor was when he fell sick and the doctor usually gave the patient his own medicine which was usually a red liquid called mixure in a bottle along with some powdered tablets. While Tiffin varied from idly, dosai, appam to uppma, pongal, etc. Ghee and Dalda was used extensively during cooking, it was always a three course meal – cone-shaped heaped rice with sambar, rasam and butter-milk, porial, kootu and pickles , not to forget crunchy appalams. Vadai-payasam was served on festivals. Bread was reserved for the sick and for picnics as well as bun butter jam which used to be a delicacy used only on special occasions like picnics or school excursions. Chapatti was considered as food for North Indians only. Chinese food was a luxury available only in 1 or 2 restaurants in the city. Fruits were to be eaten, not drunk. The only fruits that were commonly available were bananas, grapes and saathukkudi. Grand parents usually always stayed with there children in their house and there were no such term as old age homes. Grandmothers generally had the final say in almost any matters of the house was highly respected by all including young children, They used to make all the children (most houses had atleast 3 children or more) sit in circle and give food, usually rice mixed with sambar or rasam etc, made them into a small ball and gave them each in hand telling stories. It used to be an interesting aspect and we looked forward to gather.
To quench thirst, one could buy sherbets sold by pushcart vendors and a glass of it cost usually 10 paisa and with some melon inside an additional 5 paisa more. Ice was crushed inside a rubber sheet which was usually an old used and unusable truck tyre and beaten on the road. There was no mineral water and water from the roadside tap was used for making these sherbets and nobody usually fell sick drinking them. Soda was only Goli soda and cola was only Kali mark or a colorful liquid which was called COLOUR and cost usually 10 paisa. When important guests came home somebody ran to get a color from the roadside shop to be served to guests. If the guest left behind some color the children of the house normally finished them .
Brahmin hotels meant only vegetarian and military hotels served predominantly non-vegetarian. Arya Bhavan in Georgetown and Dasaprakash in Poonamalle high road were patronized by food connoisseurs as was the Buhari hotel in mount road for non-vegetarians whose specialty was mutton samosa and biriyani. Most people went to bed by 9pm and anything beyond were considered very late night. Nights started at sunsets, especially when the lights came on at homes. People touched their chin when lights were switched on at dusk.


Madras had narrow lanes. Flats were unknown and it was either single houses or rectangular shaped houses with narrow walk-through with just two floors. Lavatory and bathrooms were separate rooms and not together as it is now. Attached bath rooms were in houses of the rich and famous only and shower bath was an extreme rarity. Almost every house had its front entrance door and the rear exit door in a straight line. Only the rich had cars and there were only two types of cars the fiat and the ambassador apart from the old English cars like Morris minor, Austin , vanguard, Vauxhall and standard herald, super 10 and standard penant that were made by standard motors at Vandaloor in Chennai. AC in cars were unheard of those days The slightly well off middle class had bikes like the Enfield, jawa, rajdoot, or the only two scooters available lambretta and vespa. To get a vespa one usually had to book and wait for about 10 years to get delivery. Cars could be parked anywhere and there was no such thing as “difficult to find a parking slot” as there were hardly any cars on the road. State transport buses were the main mode of transport with an occasional auto and the black and yellow taxis that were generally used to go and come from the Railway station.


Only the rich had telephones and there were no direct dialing or the STD as it is called. One had to book trunk calls which were in 3 categories the normal, urgent and lightening. Urgent was 3 times the cost of normal and lightening was 9 times the cost of normal. PCO to make International calls was available only in GPO at Parry’s or in Mount Road Post office, so also was telex. Local calls were charged at Rs1 per call and it had no time limit per call. International calls were charged at Rs. 60 per minute. If you wanted to own a telephone you had to book and wait for a minimum of 5 years or more and the arrival of the new phone finally was such a joyous occasion similar to the arrival of a new child in the family.
The main areas of the city were Mylapore, Triplicane, Georgetown, Royapuram, Perambur, Pursawalkam and T.Nagar. Perambur and Royapuram were famous for Anglo Indians. The 14-storey LIC Building was a landmark being the tallest building in South India at the time and was must see in the tourism agenda of anybody visiting Madras. KJ Hospital was famous for the malayalis who visited Madras as this was where the most famous Malayalam film actor of those days Sathyan died. Marina beach was a paradise and people did not litter the place and was not as crowded as now. Children were fond of collecting shells and collected as many as possible during every visit. There were not more than a dozen cars at any time even on weekends in the beach. Sundal which used to be called Thenga maanga Pataani sundal and murukku and the traditional Molaga Bajji made in the beach hot were the only things sold on the beach. Spencer's was a colonial landmark and the most expensive shop of Madras that catered to the rich and famous of the city those days. The shop was so expensive that the phrase “spencer rate” to denote anything expensive was derived from it and was used till about the 90s commonly. Many of the older people still use this term to denote anything expensive.
If one had to buy books the only book store that was known to anybody and everybody was Higginbothams on Mount Road and it was a store frequented by school and college students to get their text books as well as Cards like Birthday cards Christmas and New Year cards etc.
P. Orr & Sons was one of the only shop that sold watches and was the most trusted for people to buy their HMT or Favorleuba watches.
Whitefield in Puraswalakam was one of the well known bakeries of the city
Binny & co was the only company that produced quality fabrics and were well known for their uniform fabrics. Readymades were unheard of and everybody had to stitch their clothes be it pants or shirts. Uniform and most clothes were usually stitched in cotton and for special occasions terycotton and terylene fabrics which were expensive was used. Buying new clothes or footwear was so rare and used to bring so much joy especially to the children.
Simpson, EID Parry, Gordon Woodroffe, Best & Co, Hoe & Co were well known companies.
Moore Market that was located where the current Southern Railway ticket booking building exists and was a sprawling shopping centre which was a circular Red building built by the British where you could buy anything and was one of the most popular shopping centre as well as tourist attraction of the city
New Eliphinstone theatre in Mount road showed exclusively Malayalam movies.
Blue Diamond Theatre in the Safire theatre complex had continuous shows from 8 AM to 11 PM and was a theatre were one could go inside in the morning and stay back till night without anybody asking any questions. This was a place where young lovers secretly met.

Cinema was the main source of entertainment. Older people enjoyed classical music and stage plays which were common. There were several sabhas that staged dramas with season tickets for its members. People visited houses of friends and relatives often and no prior appointment or call to check their availability was required. People who visited homes were always welcomed warmly. You left work at 6pm and nothing from the office like files or emails or mobile calls followed you. After office hours and Weekends were all yours when you did gardening or listened to the radio or visited some friends and slept during the afternoon after a heavy lunch.
Going to school was the least of stress and children enjoyed going to schools especially because of the games played during the lunch hour and the ice cream that could be eaten during the lunch hour. Ice cream consisted of frozen coloured ice on a wooden twig. Variations like orange and cola depended on the colour used and for more variations there was semiya ice which was frozen vermicelli at the bottom for a higher cost. The usual cost of these ice creams were 5 paise and for the upmarket ice creams there was pal ice which was ice cream with milk flavour and white in colour. One of the popular brands that sold on these push carts was known as RITA icecream. Most children went to neighbourhood schools and hence walking was the most common mode of transport as well as cycle. A child coming to school dropped in car was an absolute rarity. Most children stayed back after school hours in the school to play and some of them had probably maximum one tuition to attend especially for Maths even in Class 11 which was called as SSLC. Class12 was not there and after passing 11th std one went to college to do the next year known as PUC before branching off to degree. Degree courses were few. The best and brilliant got into Medicine or Engineering depending on if they took 2nd group or 1 st group in PUC. There were only 5 or 6 engineering colleges in the whole of tamilnadu and admission was strictly based on merit only. The others got into B.Sc Physic, Maths, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology in science group or into B.com or BA Economics, history and literature. Anybody doing literature or history were the ones who did not get admission into anything better and who scored the lowest marks in PUC generally. Of course influence was useful and required to get into the better colleges like Loyola, Vivekananda, Vaishnav, MCC etc. Teachers usually charged between Rs.10 to 30 per month for tuitions and was either taken in the school or in the teacher’s house.
The only co educational college in the city was MCC and there were no co educational schools in the city. Boys and girls speaking to each other was considered a taboo and generally not accepted
Children or for that matter nobody had ever heard about computers and hence children spent a lot of time playing outdoors. The common games where goli, bambaram, gilli and Kathadi. Cycle tyre racing on the roads among kids was a common sport and even rich kids did that and parents never objected to their kids playing with the poorer kids. Each game had a season to it. The kathadi season used to start from the quarterly exam holidays and ends on the day of Deepavali. It was every kids dream to put manja for his thread during the holidays. Cricket was a late entrant and was normally played with wooden planks and rubber balls. If a rubber ball was lost a ball was made using thin rubber bands made from cycle tube and rolled on to a paper to make it a good ball. The kids of more prosperous fathers managed to get cork ball which cost 35 paisa. Cricket ball cost Re 1 and went up to Rs 4 for the finest quality and was considered a big luxury to own one of them. The kid who owned a bat had always the right to bat first and the kid who owned the ball had the right to bowl first or he would go home without giving the bat or ball.
For the youngsters it was movies and films songs over ‘Radio Ceylon’ and vividh bharathi. TV started in the 70s with black and white transmission only and with the advent of Asian games in Delhi in 1980 it was converted to colour and owning a colour TV was a staus symbol. TV had only one channel which used to start at 6.30PM and end at 9 PM. There were no advertisements on TV and Saturday and Sunday had movies. Most neighbors used to go the house that had a TV to watch movies. The most popular TV program was called Oliyum oliyum which was nothing but film songs from Tamil movies and chitra haar from Hindi films. There was another prog called vayalum vazhvum everyday that every city dweller hated. When VCP (Video cassette player) was introduced for the first time it cost around Rs.50,000 at a time when a salary of Rs 1000 was considered very high. If someone bought a VCP his house used to be raided by Income Tax officials.


Water shortage is not new to Chennai and Madras was used to acute drinking water shortage even during the 60s and 70s and wells were common in most houses and water in wells were usually good and in plenty
Cricket and Football matches were held at the Corporation stadium and later at the then built MA Chidambaram Stadium and hockey at the Egmore stadium. Rs 10 to 25/- tickets had to be purchased to watch Ranji trophy cricket . Lowest tickets for Test matches were priced at Rs.25 for all 5 days. Test matches were played in 6 days with a rest day after the 3rd day. People used to stand in line from 5 AM onwards to enter the stadium to watch a test match that used to commence at 10.20 AM. There was less traffic but a lot of policemen who had a uniform of crisp starched oversized shorts and red conical shaped hat. Cars were a rarity . Cycles, horse drawn jetkas and hand pulled rickshaws which were banned by MGR and converted to cycle rickshaws were the main form of conveyance. The Railways had only steam engines running all trains. . The Grand Trunk Express and the Brindavan Express were the most prestigious trains. Steel trunks, longish Tiffin carriers, a hold-all which was brown coloured folded bed which when spread could be used to sleep on the wooden sleepers found in 3rd class coaches of trains and a plastic mug formed part of the luggage. The 2nd class coach had sleepers slightly padded with cotton and stitched on top with rexine, and 1st class was the same as of now. The postal system with its RMS, QMS had three times a day delivery. Postmen were very popular and people eagerly looked forward to them and most of them were known personally to households and some even offered water or buttermilk to them during summer. Paying baksheesh to postman during deepavali and pongal were common and this was mainly due to the fear that they would not deliver the mail otherwise.


Madras has become Chennai from 1996. The city has expanded leaps and bounds . Independent bungalows have given way to Flats. Traffic has become chaotic and parking has become a nightmare. People have become less considerate and all the empty spaces that were used for playing by children have been used to build concrete buildings. Children do not have space to play and hence sit at home playing games on the computer or watch TV or surf the net. But there is space for everyone – visiting Saravana Bhavan and umpteen other stylish restaurants in every neighborhood often, Pazhamudir or Reliance Fresh or Food world to buy vegetables and fruits and groceries, strolling at Spencer’s, Citi centre and other malls and a movie at Sathyam theatres or Inox occasionally, or just stay at home call to order anything you want be it water, Pizza, any type of food or anything under the sun that is available on a call. 24-hour multipleTV channels are there for the couch potato. But nevertheless, Madras aka Chennai is a good city to live in and that’s what makes it loved by all