A bright Sunday morning filled with warm sunshine, cool breeze and honking of vehicles was nothing new to the people residing in Georgetown. But the sounds of the clicking of cameras by a bunch of kids was indeed surprising to them. Yes, that’s right! Passers-by witnessed a group of excited children eagerly clutching their cameras on August 25, 2019.
The children assembled there to take part in the Madras photowalk which was a part of the Madras week celebrations. The walk was led by Mr. N. Ramaswamy of Chennai Daily Photo Blog and was organised by YOCee.
Starting from the famous Dare House at 6.30 am, the gathering walked through the First Line Beach Road – now known as Rajaji Salai. All through the walk, they captured the pictures of historical monuments and also learnt the history behind these buildings.
They began their quest for knowing the history of Madras by first gaining knowledge on the boundary marker which was very near to the Dare House. As its name suggests, the boundary marker was built by the British to mark the boundary of the white and black town. The English lived in the white town while the Indian workers lived in the black town. There were six boundary markers initially, but only one has survived till today.
The children passed through the Bank of Madras, Magistrate Court, GPO, HSBC, and several other buildings in the First Line Beach Road, before entering the Second Line Beach Road. In this road, they were taken inside a Postal and Telegraphic building where they saw a very rare statue of Mahatma Gandhi without his walking stick and with a pocket watch which was unveiled on August 15, 1948. After visiting a lot of other ancient structures like the Madras Stock Exchange Building, they finally ended their walk back at the Dare House.
“Heritage must be used rather than being preserved. That way, they would not get destroyed” said Mr. Ramaswamy.
Sanjitha, 16, loves to read novels, write, paint, sing, dance and play the guitar. She is an animal lover and admirer of nature and music.