Alwarpet: a historic place with a story to tell!
Alwarpet is a home with stunning history and a story to tell.
The heroes of our stories are politicians, lawyers, reformers,
and famous actors. Alwarpet is in the "posh" part of Chennai and is,
as such, the place to be for big names.
Gandhi’s blessings & ashes
Born in 1898, Ambujammal became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi ever since she met him in
Madras in the 1920s.
Ambujammal actively participated in the
Non-Cooperation Movement and boycotted foreign goods and clothes.
Ambujammal was the daughter of Srinivasa Iyengar, another famous advocate of
Madras. She took Gandhi ji to be her foster father. She authored many books
and even participated in many ways during the freedom struggle.She was awarded the
Padma Shri in 1964
Ambujammal set up the Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam in 1948 at Teynampet,
where Gandhi ji's ashes are buried.
In an inspired moment, this street in Alwarpet was named after two stalwarts of the
legal field and the freedom movement, K. Bhashyam Iyengar and Basheer Ahmed Sayeed.
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who greatly admired Basheer Ahmed’s legal acumen and
learning, laid the foundation stone of the SIET College, the first of the
many
SIET institutions. Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed died in 1984.
K. Bhashyam lived in Champaka Vilas, at the intersection of Luz Church Road
and
Mowbrays (now TTK) Road. That property is a rabbit’s warren of flats now.
The first civil court in South India was in Alwarpet.
Sadr Gardens, located off Kasturi Ranga Road, Alwarpet was the first court built
in South India in 1843.Who would believe that Alwarpet was
once home to a vast court complex? And yet this is where the highest
institution of the law functioned from, for almost 60 years. What is even
more puzzling is that hardly any descriptions survive of the buildings that
once housed these courts of justice. What is sadder is that at least two of
the principal structures survived for long, one till late in the 20th Century
and the other till two years ago, and yet photographs of them are rare.
Alwarpet was all about the early days of Tamil Cinema. It was home to Whales
studio, where M.G.R.’s first film ‘Sathileelavathi’ (1936), directed by Ellis R.
Duncan came to life.
Sir C.V. Raman was a renowned Indian physicist
who was obsessed with the phenomenon of light scattering.
Educated entirely in India, his reputation in the study
of optics reached far and wide. In 1921, during his first
trip to London, C.V. Raman was warmly received by
the English physicists J. J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford.
Raman's ground-breaking work was explaining the
blue color observed in the ice of Alpine glaciers.
His group in Calcutta has worked extensively in a series
of measurements of light scattered primarily by liquids,
as well as some solids.
An indian physicist
who won the nobel prize.
Kamal Haasan
is an Indian actor, dancer,
film director, screenwriter, producer, playback singer,
lyricist, and politician who works primarily in Tamil cinema.
Hassan has also worked in Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi,
Kannada, and Bengali films.
M. K. Stalin
(Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin) is an Indian politician
from Tamil Nadu and the opposition leader in the Tamil
Nadu Legislative Assembly since 25 May 2016. He is the
son of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu,
M. Karunanidhi.
Jayalalithaa
Jayaram Jayalalithaa
(24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016)
was an Indian politician and film actress
who served six times as the Chief Minister
of Tamil Nadu for over fourteen years
between 1991 and 2016.
Rajinikanth
Shivaji Rao Gaekwad (born 12 December 1950),
known professionally as Rajinikanth,
is an Indian actor who works primarily
in Tamil cinema. In addition to acting,
he has also worked as a producer
and screenwriter.
Other famous personalities
have made Alwarpet
their home.
Reach out to us
and we will make it
worth your time.
ADDRESS
3, CENOTAPH RD, TEYNAMPET CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU, 600018
