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The college in Brodie Castle

(Front row center) R. Sitaram and R. Rajaram (in shorts) in a picture that goes back to the early days of the Royal Indian Air Force

Recently celebrating its Golden Jubilee was the Tamil Nadu College of Music. And searching for more information about its beginnings, I made a surprising discovery. Its Golden Jubilee should have been celebrated seven years ago!

Predating the college is the University of Madras' Department of Indian Music, the first to be set up in a university in India. The department was inaugurated in May 1932. But even before that, Queen Mary's College had started a B.A. Music course. The University's Music Department offered courses in vocal, veena and violin and was headed by the redoubtable `Tiger' Varadachariar. He was succeeded in 1937 by P. Sambamoorthy, one of the founders, who over the next 25 years made the department a renowned one.

It was Prof. Sambamoorthy who was appointed Special Officer in 1945 to set up the college, with an emphasis on Tamizh Isai. The college opened in 1949 in Rahamath Bagh, on San Thomé High Road, its name at the time being the Government College of Carnatic Music. The college moved in 1951 to Bridge House, to the west of the Elphinstone Bridge, just behind the Andhra Mahila Sabha. Its best-known alumni were of this early period and include T. R. Subramaniam, S. R. Janakiraman, T. K. Govinda Rao and Sirkazhi Govindarajan. Its first principal was Musiri Subramaniam Iyer and he held office till 1965. The college offered a two-year Sangita Vidwan course that in time became a three-year one.

In 1956, it moved to its present home, Brodie Castle, now called Thenral, on Greenway's Road. The Golden Jubilee celebrates that move to Brodie Castle and the birth of Thenral. Brodie Castle, the home of the tragic James Brodie, was built by him in 1797 — the first garden house on the south bank of the Adyar River. Brodie's tragic story has been related in this column before. But a story I haven't heard before about the `castle' and the Adyar River in which he drowned was recently sent to me by reader K. R. A. Narasiah.

After Brodie's death in 1801, the house passed into the hands of the ill-fated Arbuthnots and then was bought by Government, which rented it out to senior members of the Establishment. In 1866, it was occupied by John McIver, the Manager of the Bank Of Madras (later to become part of the Imperial Bank that is today's State Bank of India).

One day, just before Christmas, McIver's two daughters escorted by a Captain Temple, the then Superintendent of Stamps and president of the Board of Municipal Commissioners, the ADC to Governor Lord Napier, a Captain Hope and a Harry Scudamore Bostock, decided to go out boating. The same treacherous current that capsized Brodie's boat did the same to them. All of them drowned, except Bostock. Having been rescued in a state of shock from which he did not recover, it was decided to send Bostock back to England. He never made it, dying during the passage. McIver too was in such a state of shock that he had to retire from the Bank; he however survived the journey back.

I wonder how many other victims the currents of the Adyar River have claimed. Certainly in the somnolent state in which it is today, it is hard to believe it could be a killer.

S. MUTHIAH

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