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A South Indian classic

One of my favourite books on Madras is one which in effect looks at the Presidency. Called Southern India: Its History, People, Commerce and Industrial Resources, this 90-year-old publication is now available as an Asian Educational Services reprint. It's expensive, but it's a classic every library _ public and college _ should have. There are few publications with a greater wealth of information on the Presidency in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Compiled by Somerset Playne, who had done similar publications _ virtually who's who-cumdirectories _ on East Africa, the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and New Zealand, the manuscripts and photographs were ready to be sent from Madras to England for publication in the last quarter of 1914, but the marauding Emdenand the fear of the other naval raiders made Playne hold the material back. Eventually, when the threat to the sea lanes lessened, the material was sent to England and published in 1916.

Playne, who came out to Madras in September 1913 leading a team of writers and photographers, said of their peregrinations: "A tour of over 7,000 miles was done in a motor car. Many a bad spill, resulting in a long walk, has occurred. Many a tyre had to be repaired in pelting rain or excessive heat and it will be admitted that motoring on unknown and frequently bad roads at night, when flocks of sheep or herds of cattle are lying about, must occasionally be attended by disaster. To suddenly round a corner and your headlights show a wild elephant evidently contemplating whether to take your car as a personal insult or to retire into the jungle, is far from being a pleasant experience and yet this happened on more than one occasion; luckily the jungle was in each case favoured. But, after all, these misfortunes though distressing at the time, are usually a source of amusement subsequently."

Whether that's a romanticised version of a traveller's tales or not, the fact remains that the book he produced is an invaluable compendium of information on the heritage of places, people and institutions in the Madras Presidency that would have taken tremendous effort in compiling.

S. MUTHIAH

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