It was on August 10, ten children from class six of the Abacus Montessori School, Perungudi along with their parents participated in a Heritage walk around the Mylapore area.
The walk was organised by Mr. Vincent D’ 
Souza of Mylapore Times, a newspaper for the Mylapore neighbourhood.
A team of twenty four consisting of parents and children met at the Luz church at 6.30 am.
After listening to how the Portuguese built the church for Mother Mary and that Luz -pronounced “loose” in Portuguese (not to be confused with the Chennai version of the word!) stands for light the group went around the church and had a look at the special architecture there.
The group then proceeded to the Luz police station with Vincent Uncle (as the kids called him affectionately) explaining en route about the lawyers of Mylapore who used the trams to get to work in the High Court. The need to have a recreation centre for the lawyers and the development of the Mylapore club in the process, said Vincent.
The ‘Amrutanjan’ family and their contribution to the area in the form of the land for the Nagaeswara Rao part were other highlights. Children were very interested to see the Kamadhenu theatre – certainly different from the multiplexes of today! During the brisk walk towards the Luz police station, the bridge on the Kutchery Road was the next stop over.
Kids seriously listened to Vincent Uncle explaining how the Buckingham Canal was built during the famine.
The police station built early during the last century at Luz brought about lot of interest for both parents and children. The tour then took the group through the interesting by lanes towards the Kapaleeswarar temple.
On way the kids and parents stopped by at one of the children’s great grandfather’s house which has been carefully preserved. Anchit’s mother took the group around her grandfather’s house which is beautifully renovated and preserved.
Vincent showed the group his friends’s house which is another traditional house in the area. The family showed us around very graciously.
The walk ended around the temple with the children fighting to feed the cat fish in the temple tank.
The Children bid good bye to their Vincent Uncle here. The group then did a brief prayer at the temple followed by a sumptuous breakfast at Hotel Saravana Bhavan! All in all a wonderful morning!
So how did the Children feel?
Vinay : It was very informative and a lot of fun. My favorite part was feeding the fish.
Vishal: It was good. I had lots of fun feeding the fish.
Varun: It was fun! I liked going to Anchit’s great grandfather’s house.
Varshini: It was very informative. We started from a Church and ended in a temple. We had our breakfast at Saravana Bhavan. Everything was nice!
Shrishti: It was very nice and we saw lots of cool informative stuff. Our guide Vincent uncle was very good.
Sanjana V: We had a fun time peeking into old houses and learning about them too. We also saw the Luz Church. Altogether it was a great trip!
Sanjana R: I had lots of fun feeding the cat fish and I enjoyed the trip. I had a fun time.
Karan: It was very good and informative. I too had fun feeding the fish.
Anchit: It was cool . I had a lot of fun feeding the fish. The best part was eating at Saravana Bhavan.
>>>The contributor of this article is Meera Sundararajan, mother of Shrishti, one of the kids participated in the heritage walk. To know more about the heritage walks in the city contact the organiser at madraswalks@gmail.com >>>